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Tales from the Montains
Sofia Echo Com, Pavlina Michailova, 27.03.2006
I had been waiting for a couple of minutes. We had been climbing for an hour already. Sando was two steps behind me. As usual, the climb was just long enough to turn the weekly tears into drops of sweat and empty the stomach so that it started growling. My T-shirt was completely wet, and snow was all around me. “So, whoever didn’t go to the seaside this summer...” Sando keeps on yelling. So do I - I like to yell all sorts of nonsense, but it’s still early for me. It happens to me on the way down after we climb the peak and the boys have treated me to a sip of cognac or a glass of wine, at most. Then I’m ready, so to speak. I’m ready to yell and to talk nonsense. As an acquaintance puts it: “to empty myself”. Why I don’t go to nightclubs instead, I don’t know. I’d rather wait for Sando’s “and I could smell the sea...” This happens every weekend. The three of them and I. Fori usually climbs first. He plays for the President’s orchestra so he can walk uniformly - he doesn’t speed up when it’s flat and he doesn’t slow down on the slopes. He’s got a rhythm. Besides, he is used to playing in any weather so he doesn’t accept things like “What are we going to do? It looks like it’s going to rain!”. I am walking onwards, exhaling noisily and thinking to myself: “What would I do without the mountain?”. It’s an hour by bus to the alpine lift and 15 minutes by car from the city centre. However, most of my acquaintances don’t like to come by car, like every real mountaineer. You’re not free; you have to plan your return according to the place where you’ve left this piece of aluminium. Usually, after Fori comes Gancho. He is a fast walker, being 10 years younger than the rest of us. He was probably in the secret service once, but he doesn’t say it. Whatever the case, he wears an army raincoat. For a couple of years now he has been a construction manager and he spends all day in his car, an old Audi, because he’s managing about 10 sites at a time. On top of that he’s still a bachelor. Behind me usually is Sando. Sando drives a used Jeep that his sponsor got him. This benefactor is a large man, the philosopher type, about 55 years old. He has money and owns some sort of business, but it’s not clear what this business is. Sando walks the fastest and that’s why he gets to walk last. Otherwise, he’d run up the mountain like a sparrow. When he’s a little drunk he starts telling me how I could fall in love with an actor and how he and I could help each other reduce our stress. “No, no, you are married,” I block his attacks. So what if he hits on me? - I haven’t been run over by a steamroller. From Dragalevtsi to the summit is two-and-a-half hours, sometimes three. Let’s just say, from 9am to 11am. We are walking on a trail in the pinewood. Steam is rising off the bodies of the three men. I am secretly stuffing a piece of chocolate or a vitamin in my mouth. And Sando’s mouth opens for a song... When this happens with him, it means that he has been cleansed. One climber told me once that with every 1000 metres one feels as though one has drunk 50ml of hard liquor. That doesn’t apply to me because at 2000 metres I feel as though I’ve drunk 250ml. In other words, elevation takes hold of me very fast... It is 10.45 am, the worst part of the climb is over and now we are on Nude Peak. In front of us is the plateau - trees only here and there - and in the distance is the silhouette of the summit. Sofians are still sleeping. A million and something Sofians sleep on Sunday mornings - today only a hundred people at most are climbing. The weather is bad, it’s foggy, it could start precipitating any moment now and it’s not clear what it will be - rain or snow... wind? It’s safer in the city below. There are three or four swimming pools that are almost full to burst on Saturdays. Some go to fitness, others visit the saunas. The prices are low - three or four leva a session. But because the average Bulgarian lives on 200 leva a month, it could be said that besides more time, Sofians also need more money. On the less steaming summer days, you can see a couple of joggers and two dozen cyclists in Boris Gardens, formerly Liberty Park. Generally, people prefer to drink their coffee and to walk their dogs and babies. They get exhausted during the week, I suppose. Especially women. God knows, I can’t imagine a woman throwing aside her shopping bags and jumping on a bike in Boris Gardens. The stress alone is too much - maintaining some sort of standard of living on 600-700 leva a month for a household of four! Between 200 and 250 leva alone goes on bills. We must be fakirs, how else could we survive...? I continue up the summit, puffing along and thinking what a great fakir I am and how I shouldn’t be figuring out whether to fix my teeth this month or to buy black boots that would match a little bit all of my clothes. Two hours and 40 minutes. There are 33 poles to the summit. The distance between a pair of poles is 10 metres. Or so I think. Gancho is suddenly picking up speed and shoots up to the front. Sando has taken his jacket off and is only wearing a T-shirt despite it being -10 degrees Celsius. I am breathing slowly, puffing along. I don’t talk even when they ask me questions. The three of them talk a little. “When will this creek bed fill with snow?” “Well, this year there won’t be any snow...”. It doesn’t really matter to me. “And the ski resorts? They brought all these skiers from England and Europe? They’re gonna have to make artificial snow.” Fori is grumbling that he’s having a rough time climbing this week. I repeat: we are here, that’s what’s important - that we are here. I don’t know why, but the tearoom is full of people. Old tourists are getting sparse, young people have taken their place, well-equipped and self-confident, sometimes one can hear English or Macedonian. In the centre of the small room, which gets packed when the skiers come, there is a round wood stove. Most people prefer to bring their own sandwiches and just buy tea. It looks like it’s finally working out for Chavdar, who has been renting the tearoom from the Bulgarian Union of Tourism for a year. He has put down new linoleum and has bought new cups. Last year, everybody was talking about how cold it is here. Now they have stopped fussing over it. Some are even mentioning Granny Ganka, who after 35 years on the summit, finally descended four years ago, at 83 years old. She used to make tea. They used to say that she didn’t boil herbs for it, but her socks. Everyone is unpacking sandwiches and pouring something into their cups to warm up. The fleet-footed Bobby, Rumiana and Emily, a former journalist, are all drying off. Emily walked all winter in shorts because she doesn’t feel the cold. Why would I be cold when I turned off the heat at home because we have nothing to pay it with...? We took it in two hours and 40, no, two hours and 50 minutes. I find this discussion very pleasant-yes, the trick is not to climb the peak, but to achieve some sort of good speed. After an hour or so, I start the descent with Sando, while Gancho and Fori have decided to take the Jeleznitsa trail back. I am holding Sando’s hand and we are running downhill. Now he is singing “the big ship is passing by...”. Then he gets tired, or his knees start hurting and he lets go of my hand. He says that I suck out his energy. Ok, keep it for yourself, this energy of yours. I am running and laughing away everything. I don’t want to stop, I don’t want to look back-I am ready to spread my wings or to die. It’s the same as when I am riding a bike downhill. And it’s then when I think that if someone asks me: “Are you ready to die now?”, I will say, “Yes, ok”. As I’m running, I feel that Sando is nowhere around - of course, he said he wouldn’t run - and that I may run alone all I want. I’m not stopping to wait for him, first of all, because I don’t want to, something in me wants to keep on running, and second, Sando lives in Dragalevtsi and he’ll be home in two hours, while I have... that’s not important. It’s almost 3pm and I’d better catch the bus. A fog is descending, it’s raining calmly and I am floating through the forest like an alien. There is no one at the bus stop. There are no cars, the ski season has not started yet. Everyone ignores the no entry signs to the ski trails anyway. A man in a suit carrying a brief case is waiting in front of the hotel. He looks like a tax inspector. “Do you know when the bus is supposed to come?” I ask. He looks at me with bewilderment. And after a while says: “There is a schedule inside... And you are not afraid... alone on this mountain?” Now I am startled. I don’t know how to reply or how to explain it to him. I only mutter: “But I am not alone...!” This time he looks at me even more strangely. In an instant his face assumes a new expression: my answer has confirmed his suspicions and he decisively opens the door of the hotel. I remain outside waiting for the bus. Only after a while do I start laughing, out loud, all alone. It is so funny that I cannot stop. The poor man, should I pity him or should I laugh? I don’t know.
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