Miroslav Penkov - East of the West

“Dear God, Missis, you have to help me.”

I blurt this out before I know it. And I just don’t know what to do with my hands, my hair, my nails. Missis sits me on a large oak table inside and I can see my own face distorted in the table, with the sun slipping across the wood. I recognize that face and run my hands over its cheeks as if to smooth them. With light steps, Missis floats to the countertop. “Cocktail?” she says.

To save us time, I tell her I’ve seen the hide buyer come in and out of her house and promise not to tell Mister if she would help me. She sobers up. Her lips pursed, she holds the shaker like it’s a neck to choke. She dumps the drink in two tall cups, then adds some extra olives to my drink. “You are a little nosy snake,” she says. “I like that in a girl.”

We down the drinks.

“Nothing a drink can’t solve,” says Missis as I fight to breathe the fire away. “So, Marche, what do you want?”

I tell her all there is to tell.

She ticks her tongue, runs a finger over the glass rim, and suddenly she is alive. Her drowsiness evaporated, cheeks rosy, sparkling eyes. “Tell me more. Who is the father? When and where? I want to know it all …”

“The father doesn’t matter, and I don’t know about the rest.”

Missis sticks her bottom lip out. “You are no fun. All day I listen to these walls and now, at last, some excitement. And you don’t know … you must find out …”

“I’d rather talk to Mister.”

“Now, wouldn’t you!” she says. She licks the glass. Then something strikes her. “You think the baby will be like her? You know … That will be very sad. We mustn’t let such sad things happen.”

“How can we not?”

For some time she plays with the pearls on her necklace and I can hear the click they make. “Get rid of it,” she says. “That ought to do the trick.”

She goes back to the counter. “I did it once or twice,” she says. “It helped me very much.” She gulps down the drink she’s fixed and brings another to the table. “I know a great doctor. Very handsome. And you don’t have to go to Sofia to see him. Just go to town. But it’ll cost you a thousand green.”

“We’ll never have a thousand green,” I say. But then a possibility reveals itself as clear as Magda’s laugh. “Unless we write to Pops.”

Missis considers something for a moment. She claps her hands. “Of course. A letter to your Pops.” And goes to get good, fancy paper so Pops would know we mean business. I take out the orange Bic.

“We’ll write this in English in case your Pops has forgotten our language.”

“And to the side in Bulgarian,” I say, “in case he is dumb enough to have never learned theirs.”

The letter goes like so: Missis translates it. She tells me to copy the writing myself, as would be proper form.

I can’t write English, though we studied it in school, but it’s not so hard to copy. At least on paper words are words. Pops, Magda is pregnant. They are kicking her out of the Home. We ask for your help. The abortion costs a lot of money. Send it in an envelope to Grandma. We wish you health. Maria and Magda .

After I’m finished, Missis inspects the writing. “Mistake,” she says, and shows me where I’ve butchered one letter. “Again.”

I copy it again and she says, “Mistake,” and brings more sheets and over and over again it’s mistake, mistake, mistake. Missis is drinking her fifth cocktail when she starts to cry. “Oh, my,” she says, and tries laughing instead.

Then she is quiet, but I can tell she wants to speak.

“Missis,” I go. She goes, “I knew this girl, very pretty. A neat student at the language school. She served cocktails to foreigners in the Balkan Tourist hotel for cash. Her father was a drunk who wasted all their money. One night, an old English bastard asked the girl to make him a Corpse Reviver. The girl had no idea what that was.”

She shakes her glass. “It’s not that bad. It’s just a simple operation really. You never feel a thing.” And then, like that, as if she’s slapped her own face, Missis is once more collected. “Go on, now, finish the letter.”

I copy a few more times and must be making little mistakes, which is strange, because I can’t really see how what I’ve written is wrong. But Missis says it’s wrong. Finally she says, “Give me the pen and stretch out your hand.” She smacks the pen on my fingers again and again. “This is how you learn your English. This is how you marry Mister and live rich. What? You don’t think I know you’ve been stealing my things? My shoes, my earrings, my necklaces. You are a little thieving bitch, aren’t you?”

It hurts. But I’ll be damned if I pull my fingers back. Let her hit. Let her hit me for once. Bring it on, Missis. It isn’t even a thing.

When she’s had her hitting, Missis calms down. She seems to think of something for a time. Her back stiff and straight, she leaves the room and then returns with a wad of money. “Forget the letter,” she says, and places the wad before her on the table. “Do one thing for me and this is yours.”

I don’t like now the way her eyes have blurred.

“Kiss me,” she says.

One thousand dollars for a single kiss. I say, “You got it,” and lean forward ready to get this done. Then Missis giggles and she, too, leans forward, eyes closed, whole body swaying slightly, her face streaked from the crying, her upper lip beaded with sweat. She smells of perfume and rakia . We touch lips, my eyes tightly shut, because I am afraid to look, when Missis squeals. “Oh, garlic. Gross!” and pushes me away. She bursts out laughing. “I can’t do this!” She shakes her hands like little wings. “Take it, it’s yours …” she manages at last, and keeps on laughing.

•

From there I run to the bus, as hard as I can, fighting to keep an empty head. “You want me to sit in your lap again, Uncle? You want to pinch me some more?”

“Mariyke,” he says, “I didn’t mean nothing by it. Please, my soul. Forgive.”

“I’ll forgive if you do me a favor,” I say, and he goes, “For you, always.”

He drives and I sob in the back. The wad is like mud in my hand. The more I squeeze it, the more it runs in dirty trickles down my sleeve.

In the orphanage Magda is sitting on her bed, rocking slightly. The bedsprings squeak beneath her like the village wailers at their last funeral for the day. Her hair is cut short and there are tiny hairs all over her forehead, cheeks and neck. She wears a blue dress, a soft fresh color. No doubt a dress they bought with Mister’s money.

“Well, Magdichka,” I say, “there are no dresses like this with Grandmoms.” I wrap all her clothes in a blanket: a pair of jeans, three blouses, six underpants, six bras, six pairs of socks that don’t really match. With the bundle in one hand, and holding Magda with the other, I walk out of the home.

I tell her it’s okay. “We’re going on a trip,” I say.

“All right,” she manages to say.

We sit back and Uncle drives. He wants to know exactly where in town.

“Just drop us at the station and wait,” I say. I count the money. A thousand green. Dr. Rangelov is the name. A yellow co-op, on the second floor. I’ll know it by the linden tree outside, struck by lightning, all charred. I’ll tell him Missis sends us and let him count the money. And then it’s a simple operation. And then we won’t feel a thing.