I was on my way back home from Istanbul in Turkey aboard the famous 'Orient Express.' (which sadly is not half as romantic as Agatha Christie portrayed it.)
As the train laboured onward across the Thracian plain on a sweltering August night, my companion and I were very tired and uncomfortable. Not long after the train had crossed into The Bulgarian Socialist People's Republic, and the slow, suspicious Bulgarian border guards had completed their passport checks, the train pulled in to a small rural station. Soon our carriage was full of drunken field-workers of mixed Turkish/Bulgarian blood complete with two small goats which they had smuggled aboard the train under their voluminous black trousers - trousers so big and baggy that they would have provided old Omar Khayyam's tent-maker father with sufficient material to make a marquee!
Gasping for breath and gagging into our handkerchiefs we pulled down the sliding window, which had rapidly steamed up, and was streaming with the condensed respiratory vapours of the peasant throng, combined with that of our own - and of course the goats'! The steam train chuffed forward through a lazy curve in a darkened forest. Through the wet glass of the dirty window, I could see the long strung-out arc of brightly-lit carriages with their warm compartments of sanctuary amidst the cold desolation of the night. Soon there appeared the twinkling lights of human habitation.
We were approaching a town. As we drew closer, we could make out the silhouettes of three large hills looming up behind the darkened buildings of a large community. Eventually the train pulled into the dimly lit platform of a seedy station. A peeling board in the Cyrillic alphabet proclaimed the name of our Bulgarian haven - it was 'Plovdiv' when translated into our alphabetic system. This was the second largest city in Bulgaria. We looked at each other in desperation - it was impossible to continue, for the smell from the goats together with their human companions had become too much to bear. Frantically we dragged our luggage from the racks and threw it out of the open window onto the platform below, and then we too scrambled out of the portal and dropped to freedom on the dusty ground, gratefully filling our lungs with cool fresh air.
We stood watching as the wheezing snuffling steel monster jolted forward, and with a last minute slamming of doors steamed away into the blackness. Soon all we could see was the disappearing red taillight as the gloom closed around the train. Then it was gone. It was too late for regrets, the deed was done. This was for real! It had been me who had made the final decision to get off the train. It was my judgement against the weak protestations of my companion (una querido venusto!) I was reminded of Juvenal's "Hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas.". (I will it. I insist on it. Let my will stand instead of reason.") The night grew cold as we huddled together for warmth on an uncomfortable wooden seat, for the temperature drops rapidly on those wide Bulgarian flatlands. When dawn broke, we hailed a pony-drawn 'drosky' and clip-clopped our way into the city centre in the early morning light. We booked in at the largest Hotel in the town - The Trimontium, which we discovered later meant Three Mountains in Latin, and was in fact the ancient Roman name for the city. The earlier Greek name we discovered as being Philliopolis after Alexander the Great's father Philip of Macedonia. All turned out well in the end, and we met some good friends in Plovdiv, and had an interesting and enjoyable time.
The whole point of this piece is to tell you about the flower-seller who had a small stall just outside the hotel entrance. She used to rush forward when she saw us emerge from the doorway and present us with a rose. We managed to converse in fractured German. Her name was Tatiana Popova, and she became my friend for life.
I have been back to Bulgaria twice since that first visit. Strangely enough on both occasions, I was on honeymoon. The first time was in with my wife Sue, who tragically died of cancer. The second time with Clare in 1995. We have always exchanged Christmas cards, although Bulgarians tend to celebrate Easter rather than Christmas. Of course, Bulgaria at the time of my first visit was perhaps the most hard-line Communist country in the world after Albania, but we kept the flame of friendship alive in spite of all the difficulties that we both encountered over the years. Tatiana was widowed in 1972. She has one married son.
She is 74 years old now and not in the best of health. She lives alone with only her cat Koshka for company, in a grim apartment block. Mafia gangs proliferate in Bulgaria now that the strict police state has collapsed, and the surrounding buildings and flats are continually vandalised. Her mail is stolen. Her pension is barely enough to live on, so from time to time I send her small gifts of money to help eke out her poverty-stricken existence. While Clare and I were in our hotel at Slunshev Briag (Sunny Beach) there were mafia shoot-outs going on in the middle of the night with machine-guns! Rival gangs were fighting for the control of the tourist complex apparently. Sadly, not many of the letters reach her. I send her gifts from time to time.
Recently I gave her money to have her teeth fixed. During our visit to Plovdiv, Clare and I gave her a large amount of clothing that we had taken with us on the aeroplane. She entertained us in her barricaded fourth floor flat and we enjoyed her company greatly. She cannot speak English, so we fumble along with what little Bulgarian and Russian I know. Mostly we converse in German. Her mother, who I met in the old days, had had an adventurous life. She had married a Frenchman in the First World War and went to live in Paris for a while. When she returned to Bulgaria she lost both her legs when a German bomb blew over a tramcar in a city street of Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. She couldn't afford proper crutches, so 'Maminka' (little mummy) used to trundle round the city streets with her stumps in a kind of little tray on wheels with two padded gloves to push herself along the pavements. My oldest friend Nicky a writer and retired Doctor of Quebecoise Literature, recently circumnavigated the Mediterranean on a pedal-bike (at 59) and he called in on Tatiana on his way through Bulgaria. Poor Tatiana didn't even have enough money for food! Incidently remind me to tell you Nicky's story because it is very inspirational for older people. |
