Lepirs: Between Shadow and Light

By Radoslav Gizgindzhiev

Provoked by his fear of death, Rafail, a student, engages in a complicated university research on vampires – the only demons that originate from humans. Sybilla is a popular writer who returns from Malta with the idea of writing her new book in her native home. In the deserted village she encounters a sorceress named Varvara who begins to teach Sybilla occult practices, convincing her that this is the only way for her to write the book of her life. Silena is a desperate widow. She cannot overcome her husband’s death and gets involved with a secret organization called ‘The Grey Ones’. They promise to bring Silena’s husband back. Together they start performing ancient magic rituals that aim to bring him back of the realm of the dead. Sokol has lost himself. In search of his own peace, he goes to his best friend’s remote house. Sokol’s most important journey begins there: a journey to his inner worlds.
The boundaries between sleep, memories, imagination, insanity, death and life begin to fade. Nothing is what it seems.

The book was inspired by Radoslav Gizgindzhiev’s research on “Vampires in Bulgarian Folk Songs: Between Shadow and Light”. This was Radoslav’s graduation project for the University of Veliko Tarnovo.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Radoslav Gizgindzhiev
• Release date: Jul 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9786197643039

Radoslav Gizgindzhiev

Radoslav Gizgindzhiev is 34 years old. He graduated in Film Directing from the ART Collage of Sofia, graduated in Bulgarian Philology from the University of Veliko Turnovo. Currently studies Psychology. He shot a series of provocative experimental films, including "Light Blue," "Wandering," "Minutes," and "Green Autumn." His debut as a director was with the film based on the famous story by Elin Pelin - "Lost Words". The leading was performed by the famous Bulgarian actress Koyna Ruseva.Radoslav Gizgindzhiev has been involved in numerous projects involving large-scale installations, working with some of the finest artists, photographers and actors. He has repeatedly participated as a jury in various literary competitions. His debut novel, “Heaven: Strangers”, has become one of the most commented and sold books in recent years and has been reprinted more than 10 times. His second book: “The Diaries" the notion of the book publishers as it was sold out rapidly. As a writer and director Radoslav Gizgindzhiev provoked himself and the audience with the project "Love" - 4 monospectacles, accompanied by 4 books, which appeared at the end of 2014.“Are you here?” “Love cannot just pass away” “Despite everything” and “My name”.In the spring and summer of 2015, the sequel of the novel "Heaven": "Heaven: The Doors” (Part II) and " Heaven: The Butterflies” (Part III) were published.In 2018, the novel "More than Love" is released, which is one of the most sought after books in the 2018 book distribution list. Quotations from the book are included in Bulgarian textbooks for grade 10 in 2019.In 2019, Radoslav Gizgindjiev published the project “Lepirs” that consists of 2 books: the novel “Lepirs: Between the Shadow and the Light”, and the documentary "The Vampire: In the Footsteps of the Shadow." In 2019, these two books aroused interest abroad: the project "Lepirs" was presented in the National Library in Valletta (Malta); they entered the official program of the festival "Bulgarian Soul on the Holy Land" in Israel and were also presented in Italy – in Rome, Pescara etc.

Book preview

LEPIRS:

BETWEEN SHADOW AND LIGHT

RADOSLAV

GIZGINDZHIEV

Copyright © by Radoslav Gizgindzhiev

www.radoslavgizgindzhiev.com

Copyright © Words on the water ltd

Translation © by Dessi Nikko

Proofreader: Benjamin Mark Watts

Original title: Лепири: Между Сянката и Светлината

Cover illustration © Daniela Stoyanova

All rights reserved.

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to

[e-mail]

ISBN 978-619-7643-03-9

Bulgaria, 2021

LEPIRS:

BETWEEN SHADOW AND LIGHT

RADOSLAV GIZGINDZHIEV

WORDS ON THE WATER LTD.

Bulgaria, 2021

This novel is dedicated to my dear friends

Maria Bakardzhieva and Dilyan Lukanov.

Wherever you are, you will stay deep in my heart forever!

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

PART 1. WELCOME HOME

PART 2. ALL THAT YOU SEE IS YOURSELF

PART 3. KNOCK ON THE MIRROR AND I WILL HEAR YOU

PART 4. THE TEARS OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

PART 5. COMING BACK

PART 6. THE RECURRING

NOTES

We never fall asleep.

We simply wake up Somewhere Else.

A Note from the Author

In different cultures, there are different words which relate to the nature of a ‘vampire’. In old Bulgarian folk songs, a vampire is referred to as a ‘lepir’.

While working on this novel for several years, it seemed to me that the easiest part would be to describe the reasons that brought me to it in the first place. And yet, here I am now, facing a blank sheet of paper, full of doubt if I can actually do this.

When did it all start and why?

Sometimes the boundaries between life and fiction are solid rock. But at other times, there are no boundaries at all.

I have numerous faces for the outside world. Many people still find it hard to believe that a person like me could possibly write, think of, or live through these kind of stories. The life of a writer is schizophrenic: he is immersed both in his inner and in his outer worlds, and they may be monstrously different from each other.

I think I should start with a few small stories, which will more clearly draw the face of one part of me – the part which sits in front of the keyboard. While writing, that part is living its own life. Or maybe it lives to write?

I was raised just outside the woods. The backyard of my childhood begins with a thick beech forest in the mountains. I've always perceived the grey trunks of the trees as living bodies, no less important than our own human bodies. Since I was a little child, I have never liked eating meat or mushrooms. I was the kid who cried over every dead animal I would come across. Whenever I found dead bugs or small animals, I would bury them in the forest, feeling sad about a creature having to lose its life. My parents were not vegetarians; they didn't read Tibetan parables to me. On the contrary, alcohol, smoke and mundanity have always sat around our kitchen table. I was not raised in a different way. I was born different and it took me more than 30 years to dare to say it out loud without feeling constrained.

As I grew up, the world kept increasingly putting more and more pressure on me, demanding that I become someone else. How could a kid (and a boy, too) cry because of the death of an insect or a bird? A kid like this is weird; of course it is!

I remember one spring, a big aquarium of crucian carps was brought to our town. People could buy living fish for their dinner. I, on the other hand, was convinced that the point was quite different. My point was to save them. I started spending my pocket money on crucian carps which I would set free in the river. That ritual made me feel euphoric: deep inside I wished that life would go on.

I've always believed that life should go on, no matter what. Despite death, even.

School was the first thing that tried to smother my soul. Many of the teachers did too. I was a top-grader, but I felt guilty for not being capable of understanding some of them: they were boring, spiteful; they hated their job. After my graduation in a major that gives me the privilege and the responsibility to be a teacher myself, I realised what absurd practices used to, and still do, occur in schools.

Meanwhile, my mother and other family members kept coming up with all kinds of inventive methods to make me eat meat. I was a skinny boy, constantly reproached for torturing everyone with my unwillingness to eat meat. I could always tell if my mother had put animal fat in her dishes. They smelled like death to me, they repulsed me. And people did too – I couldn't drink from a bottle, if anyone else’s lips had touched it before mine. I understand that they made me eat meat because they were concerned with my health. In '95 Bulgaria a healthy diet meant stuffing oneself with meat and bread.

That peculiarity of mine didn't survive: I started eating meat after all. My repulsion to sharing a bottle disappeared as well. Because that's how normal people behave, right?

I changed myself to become like the others, but it was not a complete shift. My attitude to the environment stayed the same. For me, the rock, the river, the tree and the grass are all living creatures. I don't cry at the sight of a dead bird in the street anymore, but I never kill the spiders that take shelter in my room. I gently take them outside. I do my best to make sure that every living creature that enters my home is alive when it leaves.

My grandmother gave me a lot through her manner in life. My best memories are with her, in her village. We used to often go (and still do) to the old house, carrying loads of food, climbing 4-5 kilometres up a dirt road in the mountain. There is never silence between us; we always talk, always analyse. She is one of the best storytellers I've ever known.

Her stories are full of melody, great dramaturgy, youthful sense of humour and artistry. Her words come from the depths of her great humanism – the ever-present background of her tales. My friends who have happened to meet her, fall in love with her on the spot. My grandmother is one of those people who have never had the chance to travel the country or the world, but their mindset is so vast and profound, as though they have been everywhere. She taught me to tolerate every single person, no matter how different they were from me. I don't say it just because she's my grandma. I've spent time with people who have lived incredible lives, with unstoppable travellers and popular faces, but no matter what they go through, they will never attain my grandmother’s wisdom. Comparing them helped me realise that it is not time and experience that build a person, but what they have carried in their soul even before they were born to this world.

The door of our house has always been wide open to everyone. So many life problems have been solved in our kitchen, where my mother used to smoke all the time as she talked with her friends. The walls of that kitchen have heard thousands of sighs, family troubles, retold events which turned to rumours. My mother is an extraordinarly sensitive woman, a great listener and advisor to all her friends.

I used to live with all those stories flying about me. When there was no story, time seemed to stop. The stories about space came from my grandmother and the stories about life – from my mother.

I spent my entire childhood with adults. I was not interested in kid’s stuff: I didn’t want to play football, nor any other typical game. I liked hunting for mushrooms with my grandmother or with some neighbour of ours. The first money I ever earned was from mushrooms. Porcini are really nice: they make the forest look even more magical; I've always loved their appearance. It was fairytailish. I've come to realise that some of the most powerful stories are often told in the woods. The vibration of the trees makes one a better person. There are sounds which help one hear their own soul.

Whenever I felt upset, I'd always take some path in the forest, not knowing where it was going to take me. I’d walk for hours and then my soul would be healed, because I had my way to talk to the trees.

When I was a child I knew that the water we drink was sacred and it was supposed to be clean; that we shouldn’t eat what we don't feel like eating; that stories reconstructed the world around us and words had the power of healing. I didn’t know what love was, and yet I loved the whole world. But people were not always good.

As I grew up, I lost that knowledge because of the society I had to adapt to. Writing was the first step back towards myself. I don't often go to restaurants, because I can feel the energy of the food they serve me: it may appear delicious, but in most cases, it somehow repulses me. If I eat it nevertheless, I more often feel like it takes energy from me instead of giving me some. I cook my own food and I have my special attitude to that process.

I realised that my repulsion towards some people was a signal telling me not to connect to their energy. After many misfortunes, I went back to what I had known as a child, only this time I am much more analytical. I don't share my food with random people and I rarely sit at random tables. Because people don‘t tell stories anymore. They don‘t tell them in a beautiful way. I think that time without stories is just some wasted time. And since I realised long ago that minutes are our most precious currency, I prefer to create or read some kind of experience.

‘What does it all have to do with the vampires?’, you might ask. When I was a child, I also knew that we never die. That the dead are still alive, but they inhabit a place which is called Somewhere Else. I am not religious, but I respect people's devotion to visiting their temples and praying in accordance with their religion's rules.

Once I saw an unimaginable fish which swam with its body turned sideways. Then I saw a jellyfish glowing in the water like a ghost. I asked myself, why was God supposed to be in our image and likeness? Maybe God looks like that fish? Or like that jellyfish? I am pretty sure that he is more similar to these animals than to us, humans.

I felt that all creatures were created in God's image and likeness: unbelievable, beautiful, monstrous or sweet-looking, poisonous, good, useful… and a whole bunch of other adjectives. That's what I believe in.

I guess I am expected to share some supernatural event which will prove my theories about Somewhere Else being true. But that's not what I am going to do, even though my childhood was brimming with such stories.

I am going to leave you with one single event, which occurred Here.

I studied Slavic philology at the University of Veliko Tarnovo. Of course, I had ‘no money to afford smiling‘ (my mother loves this expression), so I often roamed the streets of the suburbs where I used to live back then. On one particular day, the heat was strength-draining and not a soul could be seen. I was walking with a friend of mine, I was depressed and confused at the time. I found it hard to juggle between university and my working at bars. Basically, I had no idea what I was doing, like any young person raised by parents who were trapped in the transition between two contradictory philosophies about life: communism and democracy.

There were houses on both sides of the street. As I was walking, something touched my right shoulder – it was a distinct touch, more like a nudge. I stopped abruptly to look around. On my right, there was a house with a tall wire fence, covered with weeds, blackberries and ivy. In order to take a peek in the garden of the house, one had to climb on a railing and jump up. At that moment, I suddenly remembered what I had known as a child: I was aware that people’s souls can speak to each other, even from a distance, give signs or different clues to each other.

I knew that somebody needed my help. But what was I supposed to do? The only thing I could think of was to climb on the railing and look over the fence. I told my friend what I was about to do. He tried to stop me; he was worried that I’d get into some kind of trouble. Of course, I didn’t listen to him. I climbed on the railing, took hold of the wire fence and jumped up.

There was a man in the yard, lying on his back, his hands slightly shaking. He was as red as a crab because of the burning sun which was ruthlessly draining him of his strength. I can’t even remember climbing the fence. When I got back to my senses, the lush bushes, roses among them too, had already scratched my skin. I shouted at my friend to call an ambulance. I took hold of the man’s hand and told him that everything was going to be all right. I rushed into the house to get some water. The man was living on his own. He had served himself lunch and it was waiting for him on the table. I went back to him, sprinkled his face, his lips and his forehead.

My friend had already called for help, but there was another problem: the iron front door to the yard was locked and I could see no key around. There was no way for them to enter the yard and take the man out on a stretcher.

He was conscious, but he couldn’t speak, nor could he move. I had to find the key right away. I looked into the man’s eyes and he knew what I needed. He didn’t utter a word, nor did I hear any voice in my head, and yet I instantly knew where the key was. It was hanging on a small nail on the inside of his bedroom wardrobe’s door. I walked in, straight to the wardrobe. The key was right there.

I don’t think I can feel things better than other people. I don’t think I possess any supernatural abilities. I believe that we are all connected to Somewhere Else, in one way or another. My connection to those realms is my drive for writing. I’ve always liked to say that I believe in my characters, I treat them as if they were real. My ‘Heaven’ trilogy, which made my name known and recognisable throughout Bulgaria, was a step to the ‘Lepiri’ project. This current novel was inspired by my graduation thesis for the University of Veliko Tarnovo: ‘Vampires in Bulgarian folk songs’.

I am grateful to professor Todor Mollov – one of the greatest Bulgarian folklorists. He was my thesis supervisor. Thanks to him I was able to find some old, long-forgotten folk songs about the Otherworld, about vampires, death and sleep.

Many thanks to Ivelina Miteva as well. She supplied me with lots of rare books from her personal library and from the library of Nadezhda community centre – one of the oldest community centres in Bulgaria.

Towards the end of 2018, I rented an apartment on the Black Sea coast. That was where I wrote my novel. I didn’t want anyone to know my whereabouts, so I informed few people. My dear friend Maria was among them. I met her after one of the premieres of ‘Heaven’, my first novel, and our friendship grew with every year since then.

Maria used to live in the nearby town and whenever I felt like meeting someone, she would join me at the coastal apartment. We would talk, drink wine till morning, then drink coffee till noon. We would watch the sea from the spacious terrace, not shutting our mouths for a second. We spoke about life, about my book, about the Otherworld and the world around us. Maria and I were born on the same day: the 5th September. I told her that before I began writing my novel, I heard a voice whispering in my sleep: ‘We never fall asleep. We simply wake up Somewhere Else.’ In 2018 we celebrated our last birthday together. The present I chose for her was the tree which roots in itself: the double tree, which is Here and Somewhere Else at the same time.

Two months later, my phone started ringing. Common friends of ours told me that Maria had passed away in her sleep. Only a few days before that, we had planned to return to that same apartment to celebrate the release of the novel. I hung up. I was numb. I opened a bottle of bourbon and began to drink in large gulps. When I lit a cigarette, I noticed that Maria had bought that lighter for me. On that same night, the lighter ran out of gas.

I dedicate this project to the great friends whom I had to lose: Maria Bakardzhieva and Dilyan Lukanov. I believe we will meet again; we will have different names, but we will recognise each other, just as we did in this lifetime. Maria also believed in the same thing.

I dedicate this project to all people who are aware that our beloved ones never die.

Only the love in our hearts expands in its search for them.

That is why it hurts.

That is why it will hurt.

*

A black luxury car pulled over on a deserted road in the woods. The quiet weeping of a woman could be heard from behind the tinted windows. Grief, with its crooked, parched fingers, had dried out the blood-shot eyes of the bride. Silena’s chin was trembling uncontrollably. Her lips were dry, cracked, pale. The man who was sitting behind the wheel had a young handsome face with sharp features. He was wearing a grey suit. A tie in the same colour was hanging from the immaculate whiteness of his collar. His face seemed calm; his gaze was stone cold. There was no compassion for the woman’s grief in his eyes. ‘I don’t know if I can do this…’ Silena said in a hoarse voice, staring at the dead leaves of the forest. ‘You can!’ Stan replied. His white and even teeth shone behind his subtle, cold smile. ‘Only you can do this, no one else.’

Stan’s mobile rang. A message appeared on the display: ‘It’s time!’

‘You should go,’ he said, looking at her with his chilling, indifferent eyes.

Silena took a deep breath. Her shaking hands unbuckled the seat belt. The man kissed her cheek coldly. He lowered the white veil over her face, as if he was preparing her for the wedding altar. Then he pulled out a gun from the car’s glove compartment.

‘Remember: love is your greatest power! Only love can do what seems to be impossible.’

Silena took the gun and left the car with no further hesitation. Her long white veil dropped to the muddy ground.

1

My car was cutting through the blizzard. I was speeding across the white field, pressing the accelerator down. Hundreds of thoughts were flashing chaotically through my mind, just like the snowflakes that were scratching the icy air outside. My heart was trying to whisper a horrifying tale with no beginning, but I did not wish to hear it yet.

I was running away, trying to make sense of this weird, inexplicable world. I was running away to find what I had been seeing in my dreams, what I had been searching for all my life. I was longing to quench the thirst for my dream, turning my back to what was logical and comprehensible. I was running from myself, from the world, so I could find those that I loved even though I could not remember their faces.

That was how I ended up there, in that strange town.

I am aware that sometimes our fears and worries will lead us to the abyss. Occasionally they can take us to the right place, though. I could no longer tell where my fears were driving me to. Nevertheless, I could feel the importance of that trip. It was essential for my questions and for my answers.

I didn’t want to remember my past. It didn’t mean anything anymore. Even the moment when I had decided to leave, was already forgotten. Those dreams that brought me there were more important. The dreams about my vampire.

My body was burning in the midst of winter, although I was only wearing light blue summer jeans. Stains of sweat were popping up on my pink T-shirt.

It was time for me to meet Iskren, my best friend. I had to talk to him. I was driving frantically towards his house, racing through the blizzard. I had not taken any luggage with me, as if I was in a hurry to save someone’s life. My own life.

The day when we suddenly leave, without taking anything with us – on this day we realise that all our belongings are only ghosts that we put life into. Ghosts that devour up all the freedom around us.

My friend, Iskren, was quite different from me. Nevertheless, I could always find my refuge in him. I needed his presence. The world seemed to have tipped upside down, and I needed his words, his guidance, his eyes. I had always felt that he was my guardian angel.

Iskren was an eccentric aristocrat. He would come up with an enviable amount of knowledge on all kinds of matters. Whenever I was with him, I felt secure. If he was not there, I would close my eyes and think about him: the world would change then, becoming a better place.

Iskren worked for the Navy. The town he lived in seemed to be stuck between life and nothingness. All the sorrow in the world seemed to be contained there. The town was gently pushing rationality away, leaving only feelings behind. Space was in control around there, rather than time. A frozen territory, which was waiting for me and only me at that very moment.

Some territories ripen, then they bear fruit, and you can’t help but pick that fruit and taste it. I could feel the flavour in my mouth – a metallic flavour. I thought that, if light was supposed to taste like something, its flavour would be just as metallic and cold. It numbed my anxiety of having forgotten something utterly important.

A railroad crawled parallel to the car. I had no idea if any trains went on those rails. I had never paid attention to that. I had only used the railroad as a guide: keep following it and you will get to Iskren’s house.

Flat areas seem harmless, but you can easily get lost there. Keep that in mind. There is no hill to climb, no chance to look at things from above.

I couldn’t wait to get to my friend’s home. I didn’t understand why I was in such a hurry, nor why I felt so deeply confused. It seemed to me that my soul and my logic of thought were dissolving in the snowy fog around me. The only thing I knew was that I needed to talk to Iskren, then silently sit and stare at the ever-burning fireplace in his living room. I needed to find out what was happening with my soul, rest for a while at his place and then follow the railroad.

I’ve been traveling all my life! And every time, I come back here!

I turned into a rough road, which was covered in snow. The railroad went in the same direction. My car was slowly drifting across the field. Iskren’s house stood in the distance, and it seemed surreal. The whole scenery evoked the sense of some ancient loneliness, which appealed to me at that moment. The sky looked greyish, propped on the ground on its tired old hands. The house resembled a tombstone, which had grown in the middle of a frozen white swamp.

I parked the car in front of the large three-storey building with its spacious porch and marble staircases. A massive, well-preserved house, it looked like an old English mansion. It was whispering about how it would turn devastation into peace. All the chaos of the world would turn into cosiness.

Тhat home was giving me a warm welcome, as usual. Two marble columns stood on both sides of the staircase railing, supporting the second-floor terrace. As I looked up, I could feel snowflakes landing on my face. I was calm now. My feverish, sick thoughts were frozen.

*

I am home!

Sibylla was thinking while the winds were playing with her long red locks. Gentle strands of hair were flickering in front of her bright green eyes, touching her pale freckled face. Fluff from the surrounding woods was floating in the air. Sibylla’s white, green-flowered dress was fluttering in the warm mountain winds. All around was the scent of wildflowers and fresh grass.

Sibylla was standing in front of an old two-storey house. She had grown up there. That was the fairytale home that she would think about in her nostalgia when she was far from Bulgaria. A pointed construction with a large window was perched on the roof. The window was slightly ajar, and a blue lace curtain was dancing behind it. Up there was her favourite room.

The magic room!

Just below the room’s window, a huge walnut tree was stretching its arm-like branches. Its thick leaves were casting a cool shade on the garden.

Sibylla’s childhood memories of that place were more than alive. They seemed immortal. Now, at that very moment, she was not standing on the threshold of her cosy home. Instead, she was standing on the threshold of a whole world, and in this world, time bloomed like a flower. Its delicate scent created the magical ambrosial dimension where Sibylla would take fragrances from when trying to breathe life into her novels.

She looked up at the sky. Dazzling white clouds were gently stroking each other. Sibylla’s whole being shuddered. Her soul was absorbing the entire beauty of that small desolate village up in the mountain. The safest place in the world: the old woods, the meadows, the fertile flower garden and that house. Her house.

The rocks, the trees and the sky caress you. They sooth you in a whisper, saying that everything will be all right, that they will take care of you. The birds sing that exact song which can satiate the cravings of your soul, caused by city life.

‘I am home now!’ she said softly and walked impatiently to the entrance of the garden.

The stems of a blooming pale pink rose crawled up the white, metal gate. The garden was strewn with tall flowers: white irises; fine geranium blossoms that covered the ground, resembling a soft carpet; dark green ivy which embraced the trunks of the trees. A beautiful cherry tree grew among them, too. Its fruits had already fallen to the ground and had withered in the late spring. Wild strawberries flashed their red heads by the fence. Sibylla could feel their scent in the air. The entire outer wall on the left of the house was covered in large purple blackberries. Two apple trees stood by the side alley, their golden fruits so heavy that the branches could almost touch the ground.

The whole garden seemed crowded and a little too flamboyant, but Sibylla’s parents who lived there took good care of it. The house was empty now. They had left on a trip for a couple of months. Her mother had always dreamt of travelling Northwestern Europe and they could finally afford that. Sibylla had helped financially, too. It was the best time for her to go back home and start writing her new novel right there.

When writing, she wished to be alone. The people she loved distracted her, she couldn’t hear

my voices…

Ripe blueberry bushes grew on both sides of the house entrance. Their stems were also strewn with blood-red fruit.

‘That’s just what I need,’ Sibylla smiled, and two dimples appeared on her beaming face.

If one has to leave one’s home and can’t see it for a long time, it starts growing up in one’s mind: terraces become surprisingly spacious, walls rise higher, all memories of that place turn to perfection. Our old bed covers seem to have been warmer than anything else in the world. The windows get larger and cleaner. The doors of the rooms increase in number. Attics and basements start looking unearthly. Love seems more possible and all the mysteries of our childhood memories grow bigger.

In our mind, our parents never get old. Their faces remain young and beautiful. That is how home evolves in our hearts and we carry it wherever we go. Sometimes we fear returning because we may only find the cobwebbed wasteland of some indifferent past which has long gone.

Sibylla was lucky. Reality seemed even lovelier than what she had been seeing in her memories. Everything was even more charming than what she had imagined: brighter, tidier, full of life.

Brimming with affection, Sibylla was walking slowly in the garden, absorbing every inch of it. For an instant, she thought that she could hear something. She looked at the sky. The sound resembled the echoing noise of train wagons passing behind the distant hills of the village. She listened to the moans of the iron rails.

But there are no trains here! It must be the wind…

*

The wind was crawling on the black ground, ripping out the fragrance of soil with its invisible hands, tearing it into pieces. Time had stopped. Its heaviness was sinking deep into the cold bowels of the earth. Birds were not singing. Winter was not seeking for the spring, it seemed to have turned back to the last days of the old, toothless autumn. One could almost hear the seeds rotting in the soil, for they did not wish to give life. The clouds in the sky were embracing each other for the last time before they split up. The sound of deep sighs and heartbreaking howls was all around.

Dozens of mourners were holding burning candles with their fingers, blue from the cold. The empty eyes of all those people were staring down at the closed coffin. Two indifferent gravediggers were leaning on their shovels and checking their cheap watches every two minutes: the football match on the TV was about to start soon, this funeral was taking more time than usual.

A tall young man approached his mother and looked at her with his stony blue eyes. He was the deceased’s brother.

‘Mother, the priest is not coming, and she’s not coming either. I’m going to tell everyone that it’s time to say goodbye to him,’ Ognyan whispered quietly to the grieving woman.

The mother wiped her tears on the black scarf that hung around her neck. She didn’t reply. She couldn’t take her eyes off the coffin lid. She no longer cared if her son was going to have a proper funeral service. He was dead. He was not there anymore. Up in the skies clouds were getting darker. Among them, sky demons were trying to kindle their fire. A distant thunder echoed, as if some enraged writer struck through the sky in his anger, cracking it up with his blinding ink.

Ognyan pinned his cold blue stare on an old woman who was observing the funeral from a distance. The flash in her green eyes could be seen even from that far. She was standing across the railroad tracks which split the cemetery. The old woman was wearing a white headscarf. Her dark, snake-like hair was slithering under the shawl, down her shoulders. She was holding a large black bag in her left hand. Ognyan nodded at her, without being noticed. She nodded back. In a theatrical manner, he turned to the crowd of friends and relatives who were gazing at the coffin in a stupor.

‘It’s time for you to say goodbye!’ Ognyan said in a loud voice. He bent down and took a handful of soil between his beautiful, long fingers. A golden bracelet shone on his wrist: it resembled a large ring. He rose up again and his blank eyes looked into the black hole. ‘I’ll be waiting for you, brother!’ Ognyan whispered as he threw the soil over the coffin.

The lump of earth shattered on the clean polished wood. At the very same time, heavy drops of rain started falling from the sky. The mourners tried to shelter the flames of the candles with their freezing hands, but they died out in a second.

Ognyan’s behaviour made some of the people shudder: he seemed so apathetic to that last farewell. Again, his gaze searched for the mysterious old woman. She was slowly approaching the funeral. She had already crossed the railroad tracks.

The mother fell to the ground. The look in her eyes could break any heart. Her face twisted without uttering a moan. The sky gave out a cry instead, in a loud thunder. Heavy rain started dropping over the cemetery. No one was carrying an umbrella with them: only an hour before that the sky was clear. In a haste, all mourners took their turn to throw flowers and soil over the coffin. The rain had no mercy in transforming the soil into nasty mud and depriving the flowers of all their beauty.

The old green-eyed woman was getting closer to the crowd with every second. She was visibly struggling with the weight of the large black bag in her hand. No one was noticing the stranger. Everybody was hypnotised by their own suffering, their own loss. Ognyan was the only person who was following her with his gaze. Icy rain was falling down the mourners’ faces. It had no pity; it was trying to chase them away.

The gravediggers were glancing nervously at each other. They were waiting impatiently to bury just another customer whose death was supposed to refill their fridge for the day. Munching on his wet cigarette, one of them turned to the deceased’s brother.

‘Should we proceed?’

‘Not yet!’ Ognyan replied dryly. His eyes were tracing the arriving train. It had come to disturb the dead.

*

I stared at the deserted railroad tracks. They seemed too close to Iskren’s home. I moved my gaze back to the house. The staircases that led to the huge porch looked perfectly clean. There were no footsteps in the snow around.