Nerv Erf

Zdravko woke at the sound of the car horn blaring. He got to his feet and brushed himself off. “Over here,” he called, then turned to the tree he’d been leaning on with its sawed-off log for a seat. He thought of Robert Gjoeb sitting there in the cool, not asleep but just thinking, the light angled above him and the smell of pine needles. Maybe not even thinking.
“Zdravko,” said Rusim squeezing through the shrubs.
“Rusim,” said Zdravko turning around.
“You’re the Shakespeare then, isn’t it? You find anything?”
“I found a seat in the forest.”
“Forensics are still fluffing around. But that cottage is a shell.”
“Power on?”
“No power. What seat?”
“We need to check when it was turned off. You sure there’s nothing?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then all we’ve got is a log.”
“What log?”
“This one.”
Rusim leant to one side to look at what was behind Zdravko. “I’ll check the power,” he said.
“Good.”
There was only so much you could learn from a log seat. It was built for someone short. Or maybe for someone who didn’t like to share. Most likely a man, if you could gauge from the wear. But a man who knew how to get his hands on a chainsaw. And a plum property in Mafiaville.
Zdravko and Rusim walked back to the cottage.
“He was a smoker,” said Rusim.
“I know,” said Zdravko.

Zdravko got in the passenger side of Rusim’s Opel. Robert Gjoeb’s address was only an hour out of town. According to the latest gossip, forensics were already there.
They took a heading south towards Bojana. For a while, both men kept their silence and soaked up God’s afternoon through open windows. But once in faster moving traffic, the windows got wound up.
“So which kind of assholes lived in that guy’s town?” Zdravko wanted to know.
“I don’t know. Hundreds of them.”
“He obviously didn’t have the dumb and self-righteous asshole. Or the I’ve-got-a-tiny-piece-of-my-head-missing kind of asshole. Least not all in one person.”
“This guy had plenty of assholes. He probably had those ones.”
“But not all in one person.”
“Flathead is unique,” said Rusim thoughtfully.
“He’s a world-first asshole.”
“I remember he did have the asshole unable to apologise for anything whatsoever.”
“That’s a good one,” laughed Zdravko. “What did he look like?”
“I forget. I think he was all skin and bones.”
“That place by the sea must have been beautiful,” said Zdravko looking out the window.
“And full of assholes.”
The Opel glid through the suburbs like they weren’t exactly the right ones, or the wrong ones either.
“Jesus, I’ve been having some funny dreams lately,” Zdravko said.
“Like what?”
“Like fighting. Like futuristic dreams of war.”
“Maybe that’s what happens when you stop drinking,” proposed Rusim.
“I don’t know. I don’t think dreams mean anything.”
“But you’re dreaming of war. Why not dream of girls with big tits then?”
“Well I couldn’t say all my dreams were like that. But the ones I remember are.”
“In that case there’s a double meaning. You dream of war and if you don’t, you forget it.”
“Right,” said Zdravko suspiciously.
“That’s not counting the the fact that your dreams are set in the future.”
Zdravko gave up.
“So what are the dreams then? I mean, give me an example,” continued Rusim.
“Well…” Zdravko cleared his throat. “Last night I had a dream that Petar Dunov was explaining to me that there are several classes of warrior. One class originated with this guy who discovered that, in battle, as soon as he gripped the hilt of his sword, the sun would shine.” Zdravko turned to see Rusim’s reaction, which wasn’t anything. “So next thing in the dream there’s four horsemen riding through town in their futuristic, stainless steel type armour, looking to hunt down and fight some evil birds.”
“Four horsemen? Do they find them, the birds? In the bad weather?”
“I don’t remember the bad weather, but yeah.”
“And they fight them?”
“Yeah.”
“Dunov, huh?”
They were passing the Rakovski Stadium with its new trimming. On the other side of Bulevard Bulgaria was the Medecine Academy.
Zdravko continued: “The other day I had one where there was only women in the world. Men don’t get past being boys. Some of the women are bad and some are good. The bad ones wanted to fight and the good ones not. Only thing is, they have to fight. But only on certain dates.”
“What were the women like?”
“Like women.”

Bojana turned up soon enough. Rusim cruised straight on through and wheeled up into the forested mountains.
“I bet you haven’t been up here in a while,” said Zdravko admiring the scenery.
“No.”
“You’d be just about a Plovdiv guy by now,” Zdravko persisted. “A real Maina.”
“Not anymore.”
“Fuck. Ten years. And now you’re trying to get along amongst the Shopi.
“My Dad’s getting old.”
“Old?”
“Actually, not too old. Just sick. Now, I kinda just be with him when I can.”

Just about where the last of Bojana’s plush mountain houses ran out, the road perched aside a ridge running in the same direction, Rusim slowed right up, took the right turn indicated by the GPS, and headed down a side road. The pine and fir trees loomed closer. Shards of light danced across the windscreen and escaped back into the shade. Bend followed bend.

“Hundred metres on your left,” advised Zdravko looking at the little orange marker on the GPS.
“I can see,” said Rusim.
Rusim eased the Opel into a driveway with no letterbox. The driveway lead up and through the forest, curving to the right. At the top it opened out onto a flattish knob of a hill with an old stone cottage looking out above the tree line. A police car and van were parked close to the cottage.
Rusim pulled the Opel to a stop. “Look at that,” he said. Bathed in a golden haze, the view stretched across the endless apartment buildings and suburbs as far as the TV tower back in central Sofia.
“Rustic place for a rich guy,” observed Zdravko.
“Yeah.”
“I’d own a place like this if I was rich,” said Zdravko.
“It’s not a mansion.”
“Just like this. Beautiful.”
Rusim began eyeing up the cottage. One of the forensics guys appeared and walked over to the van. Zdravko kept his eyes straight ahead.
“I suppose that guy in your dream is out of luck if the sun’s already shining,” said Rusim talking to the driver’s window.
“He probably stays home and waits it out.”
“He probably lives here.”
“Probably.”
“Except he’s on the run.”
“He’s on the run,” Zdravko agreed.
Rusim opened his door and was half way out when he said: “You coming?”
Zdravko’s head slowly wagged. “Let me know what you see.” Rusim got the rest of the way out of the car, wandered over to the cottage and disappeared inside. Zdravko got out and walked as far as the bush line where scattered hawthorn, raspberry, wild apple and briar were slowly recolonising the grassed area around the house.
“The one thing a police officer will never do?” the police instructor’s voice insisted, still the same self-satisfied look on his face, from a far distant past. Zdravko found an opening among the bushes and wandered through.

An hour later, Zdravko and Rusim re-emerged on ul. Shesti Septemvri. People were walking by in the sunshine. It was the kind of day you waited a whole year for. Where the light smelled of hunger, and the hunger smelt of newly printed notes.
“You want something to eat?” Zdravko asked. But Rusim was already walking across the street.

They sat down at a table at Paulo’s halfway along the wall. The wall was white gypsum plaster and the table marble and round with ornate iron legs. A waiter brought water and a menu and a wine list.
“Bring us two sangrias. Sorry. Change that. Just one,” said Rusim. “And what else?” He turned to Zdravko.
“Decaf.”
“Decaf?”
“Decaf.”
Rusim looked at the waiter. The waiter was looking at the water. “Decaf,” Rusim repeated. The waiter walked away. Rusim turned back to Zdravko and began pouring two glasses of water.
“How are your kids?” Zdravko asked.
“Running round. Running round.”
“Shit. Hungarians have the weirdest fucking names,” said Zdravko. “I mean how do they make up their names? It’s like: my name’s John but I’m gonna spell it backwards. Then I’m gonna stick in an extra G which is pronounced like a D.”
Rusim shrugged. “Gomenko hasn’t changed.”
“You’ve been away too long. He’s now got a picture of himself on his screen saver. Flathead’s the asshole he always was,” Zdravko said.
Rusim sipped on his water. “We’ve both been away. And so, mister non drinker. How long’s that been going on?”
“Two years about.”
“And how is it?”
“I feel pretty good. A lot better than what I did two years ago,” said Zdravko.
“What happened then?”
“I was depressed. I was a fictional character in someone else’s cesspit novel. Plus I was lying to my wife about my drinking, you know? And I couldn’t sleep. I needed help so I went and got some. One day my counsellor said to me ‘you know you’re gonna have to stop drinking?’ I thought: fuck, you know, why didn’t I think of that? Anyway, so I stopped drinking. I took three months off and went on sleeping pills and whatever else they gave me. After a while, I went back to work.”
Rusim was silent.
“They’ve roped you back in? I thought you were done for good,” said Zdravko.
“Lower Malina. Lower Malina,” Rusim looked up. “It’s like a song.”
“Yeah. I’ve got a splitting headache.”
For some reason, Rusim laughed, and for some reason that made Zdravko think of whales.
“I once met a guy who’d made a proper scientific study of assholes,” Rusim said in relation to nothing. “Lucky for this guy, his whole town was full of them. He had them all categorised, folderised, like a university thesis. Every asshole got to get his photograph taken. Some small town by the sea, whatever it was. He showed it to me. Very impressive. This guy Dimcho’s theory was that the isolation of the place, the abundance of stones, the clean rivers, the favourable climate, and an insufficient gene pool had combined to produce an entire town of fuckwits. It was either that, he said, or some asshole from outer space had come down and mated with the locals.”
Zdravko smiled. “Ten years is a long fucking time, Rusim. It’s good to see you.”
The decaf and sangria arrived. They waited for the waiter to leave.
“It’s good to see you too,” said Rusim. “Nazdrave,” he said, clinking the foot of his glass against the decaf sitting on the table. “So where are we?”
“We were talking about jail breaks. And a rich guy who steals horses,” said Zdravko raising his cup midair.
Rusim took a too big mouthful of sangria.
“And an alkie drinking decaf,” added Zdravko admiring his decaf. Rusim too looked at the cup. It was a normal looking white coffee cup if you happened to be a decaf guy.
“What we’ve got is not a lot,” said Rusim.
“What we’ve got is a yellow wind,” said Zdravko.

Zdravko followed in last to the briefing room which was known as The Theatre. The Theatre was care of the communists. The communists liked to watch their videos big. Once everyone sat down in the movie style chairs, the lights dimmed like magic. The video started with a shot of some Bulgarian folk dancing. Zdravko recognised the song. ‘Helena Girl.’
“Here’s our man clapping. The guy in the middle.” A quartet of men stood clapping to the side of the costumed dancers, who were in a circle.
“Which guy in the middle?” asked Zdravko.
“The left hand one, you idiot.”
They watched some more, Gomenko himself being the other guy in the middle.
“Do you know when you know what you want and can’t find it ever?” Gomenko said. “That’s the kind of thing my wife thinks about shoes.”
Rusim and Zdravko exchanged a glance in the communist dark.
The home-made video went on in the same vein for about three minutes, sometimes including footage of the four clappers, sometimes not. Then it finished.
“And?” was Rusim’s first question.
“You want baby photographs?”
“Where’s the rest?”
“There isn’t much.”
Silence.
“Where is it?” asked Rusim.
“Probably with my wife’s shoes,” said Gomenko as if he were somehow pleased.
“You’re telling me the court records, the police shots, identity card, his home holiday snaps are with your wife’s shoes?”
“Not exactly. Not everything is missing.”
“Where did this vid come from then?”
“From the wardrobe. That’s my own video. That’s my nephew dancing two years ago. I had the honour of being introduced to our Mr. Gjoeb. Chunky guy as you can see. Polite. Kind of neutral, but friendly enough. I remember his kind of smile. I remember his name and what he did for a living. I remember the accent, the kind of suit he wore. But of all things, I don’t know why he was there. I assumed his son or daughter was a dancer too but it turns out he hasn’t got any kids.”
“Maybe his nephew,” said Zdravko.
“Maybe.”
Rusim let out something halfway between a sigh and a whistle.
“There’s one thing more,” Gomenko went on.
“What?” asked Zdravko.
“This Gjoeb got nicked for stealing a horse.”
“Shit. Three years is a long time for stealing a horse.”
“The horse was worth two and a half million.”
“What happened to the horse?”
“Current thinking is it went to the meat works.”
Rusim did his whistle-sigh thing again. “So what is missing apart from one medium security prisoner?”
“Actually two,” said Gomenko. “Well, not really. The other guy is Petko Antonov, a guard at the prison. Take a look.” Several still shots of both men followed. Then footage of two prison guards exiting what looked to be Pazardjik prison, one emerging ten metres before the other and then turning back, appearing to say something, and then the second following. Grainy close-ups followed. Gjoeb was the straggler. The two men continued walking at normal pace across the compound and out the gate. Then there was a long range shot of a white sedan parked up in some street. Two men approached and got in either side. The car drove off at no great speed.
“Getting into that car is our last sighting,”
The Theatre lights dimmed on.
“What’s missing?” repeated Rusim.
“There’s two lines of enquiry here. Your man Gjoeb, and this Petko Antonov. Georgieva and Petrov will be looking into that particular gentleman’s current sleeping arrangements. May even be worth while keeping in touch with those two. What is missing is that this guy Gjoeb’s a nobody. A rich nobody. A recluse. He’s lived in the Sophia district at least for a good part of his time, but it’s sketchy. No police record. No parking ticket. Minimum record of travel. As I say, no wife, no kids. Everything we’ve got is in the file.”
“Shit,” said Rusim.
“Keep me up to date. I need a result here. You got that? I’ll see you same time Friday.”

Zdravko made his way through the third floor calmness of Sofia Central Police station and opened the door to Lieutenant Gomenko’s office. The clock above Gomenko said 10.48am. Rusim was standing by the wall to the left, next to a pinned-up picture of the Lieutenant himself on holiday somewhere in the islands with a cocktail in hand. Zdravko walked straight for Rusim.
“You’re not really late,” said Gomenko in his Russian kind of way. Zdravko ignored that.
“Vladimir told me you’ve been on leave,” said Rusim after they’d given up hugging. “Some place down in Africa. I heard you gave up drinking.”
Zdravko shrugged. “Non-stop from Mozambique. I’m shattered. Good to see you,” he said.
“Maybe we should get to it,” suggested Rusim. Rusim was usually right. Or used to be. Maybe now he was just some alcoholic quarter-gypsy with hardly any hair except for a greying beard who lived with his wife and stepkids in Lower Malina. Now he was probably making gravestones in his spare time, or whatever it was people did in Lower Malina. Zdravko looked at Gomenko. Vladimir Gomenko looked back, a couple of folders in his hand. Zdravko took the files and handed one across to Rusim, taking the chance to squeak another good look at his old friend.
“I thought it would be a good idea to put you two together. Organise a small reunion,” said Gomenko. “And here we are.” He looked at his sleeve. “So gentlemen. Middle aged man escapes from Pazardjik prison. Two years into three for theft. Robert Gjoeb. Hungarian national resident in Bulgaria. Walks straight through the pine trees. Disappears like a brilliant idea in America.” Gomenko placed both his hands on the desk and half stood up. “Come with me,” he said. Then he stood up properly.

I’ve decided to write a book myself, called The Thing Man. Obviously, it will be set in Bulgaria but maybe some of the characters will get to travel, who knows? It’ll start off like this:

Zdravko Nestorov frowned at the garage television his father had sitting on the shelf. It had some thing on about whales. He leant back on the work bench, with a vice situated between himself and his sixty four year old father. Together they stared at the Toyota HiAce.
“What kind of clueless gunk walks out of jail in full view of the guards, steps into a waiting car and disappears forever?” he quizzed in a soft growl.
Vasil didn’t answer.
“Without a shot being fired?”
“I did some work at Pazardjik once,” Vasil recalled.
“Oh yeah? They got me with Rusim. No one’s seen that guy in years.”
Vasil took a swig on his beer. “How are you doing with your drinking these days?”
“Good,” said Zdravko.
“That’s one thing about prisons…” A call came from Elka on the upstairs balcony. Dinner was ready. Vasil finished his beer and shut up the garage.
“What about prisons?” Zdravko wanted to know.
“Steel. A lot of steel.”
Zdravko and his father walked round the apartment block and up to the flat.
In the kitchen, Elka came over from the table and kissed her son.
“How’s your work?” she asked in a sing-song voice.
“Good.”
“How’s your father?” They walked back to the table and the steamy smell of garlic and herbs. Vasil took his chair by the window.
“You mean this one?”
Elka stopped. Together they looked at Vasil. “Cabbage with pork,” she smiled. The news was on.

It’s been a long time. I figure the spam guys & girls have finally gone to sleep & I can safely turn the comments function back on. My new name is Timmy Toenails. I’m living in Sofia on Hristo Maximov Street. I forget the number. I speak Bulgarian with a Toronto accent. Everything is dipty doodah. I’m working for the mafia in the library department. In my spare time I’m gonna archive the layout of this very site for future generations. That way I can relax & do nothing.

It’s raining. Springtime. Wrestlers wanting books.

The answer, when it finally came four months later wrapped in tin foil & smelling of thyme, was more in the manner of a correction. It even had a title.

VIVI’S SONG

The soul of a cat, the song of a bird
The strangest tune ever heard
Taps its feet all the same