Then I took her on, the dim-witted child. I named her Ana, a short name, very easy to remember. I didn’t know if she was short-witted or off her nut, how could I know what was happening in her little head? Ana took to closely following my steps, and I was a barren woman. How should I know why a harebrained child would drag like a tail after me? She looked quite scrawny and undernourished, her hands thinner than the cobwebs hanging from the ceiling in the toolshed, her legs reedy like pencils. If I trudged towards the kitchen on account of my growling stomach and extreme hunger, she staggered after me. If I went to pour myself a glass of wine, she crawled on her hands and knees behind my back. I loved red wine; it was my weakness so I could drink red wine for four consecutive weeks without interruption. Down in my cellar, I had five thousand bottles, and I could drink them all by myself. I usually sat on the floor in the living room. It was covered with a thick carpet bought by my chief expert Isabella. She knew everything there was to know about dresses and carpets, Italian recipes and dishes and guys, but she knew nothing of wine. In the beginning, I made her sit down by my side and drink together with me, but after downing the second glass, Isabella wore a big grin on her face, got blotto within seconds, collapsed on the carpet and went to sleep.
“Isabella, wake up. Come on, wake up. Let’s drink another one!”
“Ok, Miss Dana, just as you say. Give me another one,” she mouthed, however all she did was pour wine on her hair and drip onto the white carpet. “I love you so much, Miss Dana,” she added, dropping asleep right away.
I enjoyed sitting on the carpet by her side, and the wine couldn’t get the better of me for I was tall and it could hardly reach my head. I didn’t belong to the short, small folks in these parts; I was as big as the hut below Black Peak which jutted out like a crown above Radomir. So I slurped my wine and chewed dried donkey sirloin—I bred a special donkey breed: small and wiry. I personally brought them water, and I fed special feed to them, a mixture of wheat, barley and millet, so I obtained dried sirloin suited exactly to a big lady like me: the meat was both hard and its smell was delicious, warding off inebriation. So I chugged a few glasses slowly, serenely, imbibing my best red wine. I made it from my vineyard on the southern slope of a hill called Pounder—if you climbed to the top and your heart didn’t pound hard and loud like a smithy, then you’d live to be a hundred, and God wasn’t in a hurry to summon you beyond Black Peak. Therefore I made use of the opportunity since God didn’t care about dragging me beyond the peak, downed the red thunder and chewed my donkey sirloin—I had cut the beasts’ throats with my own hands, and I prepared the minced meat as well. Isabella slept like a top by my side. The red wine was too strong for her and she pissed in her pants. She made a puddle plump in the middle of my white carpet, but I was not that persnickety in this respect. On the following day she’d clean up her mess and the only thing I was mad at was that I had no company: I didn’t have anybody to get drunk with like a normal lady.
These days, as I drank serenely, the little harebrained girl sat by my side, staring at my face. At times, she grabbed at a piece of donkey sirloin and chewed on it. I was scared stiff she might choke on her own tongue; she was a little bit silly and could pronounce one single word, “Daddy.” She called Tano “Daddy” after I summoned him when I had the blues again in the scorching heat. The guy kept his promise, and he loved me like a lord free of charge all the time. The harebrained wee lassie called me “Daddy” too as she clutched at my trouser leg. The kiddie was often exhausted, heavy with hours of creeping like a beetle in my wake. Then she hung on my pant leg muttering “Kiss girl, kiss girl.” I kissed her cheek once, but her shirt smelled like rot and I could not endure it, so I said to Isabella, “Hey, Bella, give a bath to the half-witted lassie. She stinks like a rubbish bin.”
Isabella really botched up the bath. In my opinion, that woman wasn’t barren, not by a long shot, but she was no good at giving kids baths. She was expert at selecting guys for me, the only thing she did was glance at my mug, and she knew if I wanted a man as meek and tractable as a heap of sand in front of the Town Hall, or I needed Stoichko—the dude was as small as a hen, but on the other hand he was a high-spirited eagle, I gave him that. Therefore, Isabella gave the toddler one more bath, but she still smelled like a dustbin. Then I made Tano, the father of this unfortunate pumpkin, give her a bath. Tano took his time indeed, spending half a day bathing the kid in a kitchen sink and the little girl shone like the sun, but Tano put the same filthy shirt on the little one’s back, so the lassie stank worse than before. Isabella was tasked with buying some kiddie clothes and at long last the little girl stopped stinking of manure and dead swans.
“Look here, Dana,” Tano said. “Her mother used to wear dresses, and the kid held onto the hem. Why don’t you buy a dress, too?”
“Dana in a dress! Hey, Tano, have you ever seen Black Peak don gloves and dress?”
“I haven’t,” he admitted. “Look here, woman, it’s not important if it’s a mountain or a fish. What matters here is that the thing puts on a dress. Ok?”
I was as crazy as March hare, I took Tano’s advice and summoned my chief expert Isabella.
“Bella mia,” I ordered. “Go buy me a dress from the shop in Radomir.”
“Oh! Are you ok, Miss Dana?” she mouthed. “Do you want aspirin or some other medicine?”
Apart from cooking splendid Italian and Spanish pizzas, she cured me from different diseases and scratched my back when my skin was itchy.
“Buy me a dress right away or I’ll fire you here and now!” I threatened. “You know how many women are waiting outside? I have to wave my arms and you’re cooked.”
“You can’t wave your arms without me,” she pointed out and she was perfectly right.
So far so good. They didn’t have dresses for a sturdy woman like me. One way or another, Bella mia bought a gown and I tried hard to drive my torso into it, but the damned rag was too short. It stuck like glue to my tits and wouldn’t budge. Therefore, I made Isabella cut a curtain into pieces—gorgeous red merchandise from Italy it was, costing five hundred juicy euros, and lo and behold, Isabella sewed me the most magnificent attire!
“You have to treat me to a box of chocolates, Miss Dana!” Isabella said. “This is a lovely evening gown, and you can take my word for it. It will be very becoming on you. You’ll be a model, Miss Dana, I tell you.”
So I put on the dress, and Tano commented, “Get rid of this tent, woman. You look like a cow in it.”
Then the harebrained lassie saw me dolled up in my dress, stuck herself like a stamp onto the hem, gripped the skirt, shouting, “Mommy! Mommy!” I have never been so happy in my entire life although I was a very happy woman. If I went through all my pockets I found a bundle in each one of them. It was my dairy, my dressmaking and tailoring workshops, my forests and my flocks of sheep that provided peasants and townsfolk with jobs in these parts. Therefore I said to Isabella, “Look here, Bella mia, I’ll hold a delicious feast for a very good reason indeed: the loopy kid calls me ‘mommy’!”
Wasn’t that a nice cup of tea! Isabella broiled a young lamb for me. In the beginning, I drank some powerful plumb brandy with Isabella from cups as tiny as thimbles, then I made her drink red wine with me, but after the third glass she was dropping asleep like a sack of turnips. Therefore, I said to myself, if you, barren Dana, fall into a deep sleep and the slowwitted girl goes out of the room? She’ll get drowned in the fountain!” And a peculiar child she was: sat all day in her little chair, watching me like frozen in her tracks. I gave her bread to eat and she wouldn’t touch it. I threw a piece of meat at her as if she was a dog, and the little one snatched at the food and gobbled it down. I felt drowsy, so I lay down on my bed. The kid had her own little crib. It was Aggo the junkman that gave it to me for free because at that time I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep the kid in my house, or foist her on Isabella to bundle her away. After I crawled into bed, the silly thing came up to me, climbed into bed and snuggled close to my feet dressed in her tiny pajamas. She didn’t cover herself with the blanket, just hugged my knees and said once more, “Mommy!” Should I make Isabella bring Tano to me, I was wondering at that time, but the kid’s little voice changed everything in a flash.
“What is it, Ana?” I asked and the girl, on hearing my words, crept out then snaked her way under the bed.
“Why are you hiding from me, kiddie? Come here. Please!” I said as imploringly as I could. But Ana, being harebrained, didn’t budge, and the more I implored her, the deeper under the bed she edged.
Isabella lay prostrate, stone drunk, sleeping like a rusty rail, therefore I kicked her several times, shouting, “Sober up, you, and get the half-wit out from under the bed.”
Isabella seemed to sober up as she pushed her head under the bed to extract the kid, then she went to sleep on the spot. She’d got so bent out of shape that another yellow puddle appeared on my white carpet, but I was dreadfully worried: the girl kept mum under the bed. I couldn’t see or hear her, so I panicked: she might’ve choked to death, and she could be pushing up daisies! A one and only harebrained child called you “Mommy”, and what did you, barren Dana, do? Let the kid croak, you idiot! No. Over my dead body!
“Little halfwit sweetheart! Silly darling!” I shouted and pleaded with her, but the girl had vanished into thin air. I had sunk into my curtain dress like a bull in mud, so I tried hard to scramble to my feet, but stepped on the hem and reeled back dangerously against the wall. I was sure I wasn’t drunk because I’d received special training in this sphere. I’d drunk four bottles of wine all by myself and I made a bet with Stoichko that I could climb the cherry tree and pick cherries and shoot blackbirds. Yes, I’d poured a gallon of red thunder into my belly and sniped at blackbirds like a champion. On the following morning, Stoichko and I counted how many songsters I’d gunned down; he counted four, but maybe there were more, for I had three tomcats, therefore I reckoned that each of my beasts had breakfasted on a birdie or two. I wasn’t drunk, yes, I was only furious at the small nitwit for slinking off under my bed, and with Isabella for snoring, three sheets to the wind, under my bed, too.
“Tano! Tano!” I called out.
After I took the harebrained girl to live in my own room, her father Tano moved in with me, settling down in the backyard. I had a heart of gold but I had brains as well so I refused to let Tano set foot in my house. Every cobbler must stick to his last, I thought to myself, and right I was. Let him love you as much as you want, then send him packing. You’ve provided him with enough space in the storage shed for garden tools so let him stay with the spades, rakes and pickaxes, I said out loud. The shed was as good as any other building for him. It was just under my bedroom window, so I could watch him like a hawk to prevent him from running away. On the other hand if I wanted to have sex, all I had to do was rush to the shed. If it was scorching hot in July or if by chance it rained cats and dogs, I didn’t even bother to open the window. I roared, “Tano!” and if the man was not drunk, he ran like stink to me, strapping Tano, the only guy an inch taller than me in southern Bulgaria. In the garden shed, I left more food for him than all workers toiling and moiling on the highway Sofia—Athens had ever dreamed of. I gave him a pail of honey biscuits Isabella had baked especially for him. There was another pail full to the brim with chunks of meat, chicken, veal, pork, and the big wooden bucket was crammed full of fruits like apples, pears, bananas etc. Isabella bought bars of chocolates and stored them in a crate for Tano to eat. And I had only one condition: I wanted him sober whenever I summoned him, and I summoned him because I’d also eaten bars of chocolate, I’d gorged myself on a ton of chocolates and I could jump over the six-foot stone wall surrounding my house and backyard. Well, I guzzled red thunder wine when I felt like sending for Tano. In the morning, the man was a sack of turnips, unable to budge, incapable of waking up and speaking to me. Therefore I said to Isabella, “Throw him out of the room. I want to sleep, too.”
Isabella pushed him, kicked him, put a wet shirt on his forehead, but Tano neither stirred nor twitched a muscle. I made up my mind it was much more convenient to put an old mattress in the garden shed. Therefore, I told Aggo the junkman, “Take twenty levs, man, and give me a mattress. It can be a torn one for all I care.” Then I inquired after the two babies I had sent him.
“The babies are doing fine, God bless you, Miss Dana,” the junkman said. “Especially the plainer one, you remember her, the darker one. She’s like medicine to me. Yes, it is true, Miss Dana, this girl rescues me from death every day.”
“You see, Aggo, your mattress interests me much more than your death. Well, I wish you good health. Bring the thing here and leave it in front of the shed. Here, I give you ten levs more. Buy the babies a box of biscuits each.”
Therefore, I kept not only rakes, pickaxes and hoes in the shed; I had a mattress there as well, so instead of bawling for Tano, I ran to the building as fast as I could. We reached an agreement for the tall man not to get pickled on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. I had filled his crate with chocolates and his pails with superb food, so I descended to the mattress on Wednesday to check on him, and lo and behold, the gentleman had unwrapped seven chocolate bars, had bitten into seven apples, and two empty brandy bottles lay at his feet. After two bottles of my cheap brandy even an iron casket would get looped, and would stay drunk for a fortnight.
“You, lousy nit, I told you not to get blotto on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays!” I yelled while he lay stretched out face downwards, incapable of registering my presence. Well, he was not to blame in this case. Isabella was to blame. Isabella was the guilty party, Isabella, the total scumbag, had given him brandy and let him swill two bottles like an eel.
“Isabella! Guilty Isabella, you are guilty all over the place!” I hissed. “Pour a pail of water over this idiot’s head. Today is Wednesday, you clucking hen! Why did you give him brandy? Wake the moron up, spruce him up for me, or you’ll take his place on the mattress. Do I make myself clear?”
Isabella’s head however was a block of wood on account of the wine. She remained stuck under my bed. As for the harebrained little pumpkin, I could neither see her nor hear her breathing. So I waited as mad as an erupting volcano in my red curtain dress, Isabella’s yellow puddles gleaming at my feet, the tiny halfwit darling had vanished under my bed, and nobody called me “mommy, mommy” anymore. What should I do? Well, I had also quaffed half a gallon of the red thunderclap from the southern slope, gorgeous wine I sold only to Brits and Fritzes from Munich or Dusseldorf. I’d like to make a point here that I still hadn’t sold all the red thunder from the southern slope to Brits and Fritzes therefore some wine boiled and bubbled most radically in my head. I felt like flying as much as my red curtain dress would allow me, and parallel to that I was raging mad with that near seven-foot tall mule Tano that lay flat, drained and looped in the garden shed. Therefore I ran to the shed, collapsed on top of him, and got no response. Then I stepped on his back and walked along it: no response again.
“Hello there! Today is Wednesday, Wednesday, you filthy bull,” I shouted, but he couldn’t care less as he snored on the concrete floor.
What should I do? What?
“Isabella, dirty and guilty Isabella!” I bawled, hardly able to stir a finger in that abominable dress which had coiled itself up into a ball on my bellybutton: a venomous snake of a dress it was.
“Is today Wednesday, guilty Isabella?” I asked, but she didn’t know if today was Wednesday. She had thrust her chest under the bed and slept like a bump on a log.
I made efforts to open the front door, a huge iron affair embedded in the stone wall, surrounding my house. It was unbearably difficult for me to walk in this darned dress; now the hem hit my tits, now I stepped on it. Donning a dress was a proof my stupidity knew no bounds. I could not breathe, the thing closed in on all sides. Why did I put it on in the first place? I did it for the harebrained sweetheart. It could hold on to the skirt and then call me “Mommy!” Wasn’t I nuts?!
Stoichko’s house was just a stone’s throw from mine. I ran towards his front door, pounded, kicked and attacked it, all to no avail. The family slept like moles, but they didn’t know me. I grabbed a stone and hit the door with it. At a certain point, Stoichko’s wife, like a fat rat, trudged up to me. Then Stoichko, in his pajamas, slipped out of the house, a guy as short as a criminal. In my opinion, all short men should be imprisoned, however in this case I was lucky they had not put Stoichko in prison, for it was Wednesday, and I needed his assistance.
“Miss Dana, do you want me to give you aspirin or anti-diarrheal drug?” the wife asked. Her voice had difficulty creeping out of her cheap nightgown. “Miss Dana, do you want me to make camp bed for you? You can lie down on it while we wait for Doc Gospod. It’s well past midnight, and she’s probably sound asleep, the poor old Doc she is. Wait a sec, Miss Dana, just wait a sec.” and the woman bent forward and you could see she was about to kiss my hand.
“Stoichko!” I shouted at the top of my strong lungs. “Get up, man. We have to tug on a little child that got stuck under my bed.”
He set out for my backyard in only his pajamas bottoms, creased gray pajamas the cheapest I made in my dressmaking establishment on the top of the hill. It was at that moment that I felt the red assassin wine I sold to Fritzes and English dudes, the explosion I made from the vines on the southern slope, had sneaked into my brain and pulled me towards the dust on the path. Perhaps I had not eaten enough meat at dinner for I could walk no more. I must have tumbled to the ground plumb in the middle of Stoicho’s backyard, and the small man got lucky I didn’t collapse on him for the only trace he’d have left would be a yellow puddle like the ones Isabella produced on my white carpet. Although Stoichko was smaller than his wife, he was a tough guy. That particular Wednesday, Stoicho’s power was more enormous than the wine I sold to the Fritzes, greater than his gray cheap pajamas, and much bigger than the man. It turned out he’d dragged me from his backyard to my house, and put me to bed. I couldn’t tell you how long I’d slept. At noon, I woke up in my bed, feeling happy I wasn’t wet with the morning dew. Stoichko had vanished into thin air. Somebody had covered me with two thick blankets, and the harebrained toddler slept tucked up in her crib. Isabella must have sobered up earlier than me.