One Summer, Sonya and I
Sonya ran out of the house with a yell, trotted down the wooden steps and jumped towards me. Her sudden arrival startled the whole world, dispersed the silence, and made the chickens nervous in the vegetable garden where they dug the soil for slugs and worms, casually destroying the neat lettuce rows in the process. The dog woke up, gave a confused bark, and fell asleep again almost immediately. I was suddenly aware how high the sun had climbed since I first sat cross-legged on the front yard stones with my toy figures faithfully grouped around me. Sonya landed just a centimetre away from the Couple in Love. I spread my hands over them to protect them, barely succeeding, but Sonya’s momentum had created a small wave that knocked down their future baby, flat on its plastic back. I heard it crying in my head, and turned up to Sonya, furious.
My cousin’s legs stood before me – those restless skinny legs – always covered in flea bites that she couldn’t resist scratching till they bled. I followed them upwards to her torso in a dirty blue dress, a head dominated by tangled brown hair, so far away up in the sky that if she wanted, Sonya could simply lift her arm and touch it, grabbing a handful of cotton candy cloud and eating it without offering me any. With the morning sun behind her, Sonya looked even more mischievous than usual, and my rage slowly melted away. I knew that she expected me to challenge her, to protest or even cry, an entertainment which she craved the whole year awaiting my summer visit, but I just got up, stretched my legs to shake off the tingling sensation, and looked around the yard. In the far corner, Grandma was bent over a large tub full of apricots. She cut them in two, removed the pit and lay the pieces of fruit into blue and green jars which she would later fill with water and sugar, then boil in a giant fire-heated barrel just outside the gate.
Sonya didn’t say anything. Lately she had adopted the habit of being silent, believing that it made her seem grown up. Instead, she pointed her bare foot to a tiny plastic shepherd holding a miniature stick and tipped it over with her big toe. I felt she had an idea, and that she knew I knew, and she was waiting for me to ask her what it was. We moved under the shade of the pear tree and leaned on its coarse trunk. There were things in the air, small flies, invisible pollen and dancing specks that caught the light with their transparent bodies and made the windless air seem alive.
“You want to go down to the river?” Sonya said.
“The water’s too muddy.” I mumbled.
“Then we could go into the workshop and make something…?”
“Make what?”
“A tent! We can make a tent out of wooden sticks.”
“I don’t want to.”
“But why?” Sonya cried
“Because! And besides, I already had a game.”
The only successful thing Sonya had made in the workshop was a big mess and I hated to upset my Granddad. He was huge, one eyed, and his arms were as thick as the wooden beams he worked, with rough hands that gripped the window frames and doors he made as easily as if they weighed nothing. A few of the tips of his fingers were missing, cut off by the belt-saw machine, but he could still hold the thinnest nail between them and show me how to hammer it into a board, precisely and gently. His clothes smelled of sap and spices, and his breath – of red wine. Granddad was taking a nap sitting at the kitchen table with his elbows spread around a bowl of soup, a salad plate and a loaf of bread, his rakia1 glass empty, and his head resting on his hands with crumbs and fine wood shavings in his white hair.
Sonya started to say something, hesitated, sighed, and then began to hum a Russian tune, clapping her hands for emphasis.
“А нам всьо равно, а нам всьо равно2 …And what about getting dressed up in my Mom’s clothes?”
“No…”
“Oh, come on!” She grinned and tried to tickle me.
“No, I said. NO!” I didn’t want to raise my voice,but Sonya wasn’t to be shaken easily. Grandma lifted her head from the apricots and scolded us: “You two stop foolin’ around and go be good girls now!”
Sonya’s grin widened. We looked at each other and shrugged simultaneously. Grandma’s orders always mystified us. They weren’t clear like our parents’ usual guidance – wash your hands, brush your teeth, don’t read at the dinner table, stop torturing that cat. Grandma gave puzzling instructions that didn’t make any sense at first but we soon discovered that we could interpret them any way we liked. Sonya understood “go be good girls now” as a command to snatch me from the shade of the pear tree and to drag me through the yard towards the back of the house. I went along ; resistance would lead to Sonya squeezing and pinching. As we settled near the wall, cool and moist despite the heat, Sonya finally spat her secret out in one fast breath:
“We’re going ghost hunting! And don’t you dare say no.”
Her eyes were big, with no trace of the dreamy mood she bore just seconds ago. My heart gave a mighty thump when she pronounced ghost and I tried to grasp what she would do if I refused to follow her in this hunting. Sonya was skillful and cunning. She could tickle me till I died, choked with laughter. Or she wouldn’t ever speak to me again. With the summer stretching at least a million years ahead, the prospect chilled my stomach and I felt a little bit like crying. I sniffled. Sonya lifted her eyebrows in response. She meant business.
I surrendered, “All right. But you’re going first.”
A rooster crowed from the hen-coop of a distant neighbour. As if that was a signal to begin the expedition, Sonya smuggled her thin frame through the backyard fence and disappeared into the sea of weeds and nettles. I took one last look back at the washing hanging in the sun, the log pile under the shed, and the fresh green paint of the outhouse, then closed my eyes and squirmed through the hole in the fence. Once on the other side, just a step away but really in another continent all together – autumn cool and much darker – I opened my eyes, suddenly curious. At first there was just the nettles and the silhouette of the old house beyond. Then Sonya’s face beamed happily before me: “If we’re lucky, we’ll get to meet the Queen of Spades!”
She swirled and skipped down an invisible path among the weeds, oblivious to their thorny caresses. I followed reluctantly. I could hear the buzz of August grasshoppers, the whizz of early mosquitoes, and the subtle, but audible, hum of millions unknown bugs lurking in the jungle around me. And from somewhere on the left came an insistent crunching sound I didn’t like at all. The tips of nettles swayed and shook and I hurried after Sonya, promising myself to never go to another expedition with her again.
Sonya had reached the old house and stood at its foot, still and small before the crooked pile of stone and time-blackened wood. I looked at her face and I saw it was pale, only two red patches burned on her dirty cheeks. I moved closer to her and took her hand. She shuddered, but gripped it tightly.
“You scared yet?” She meant to tease but her voice came out serious and muffled. The determined brilliance in her eyes was gone and I understood that she was scared too.
“Mhm. A little…”
“Shhht! Don’t say it out loud!” Sonya whispered. “The Queen of Spades will only catch you if you’re scared!”
“But…”
“Come on. I know she’s here!”
The front door was missing and the entrance of the house led straight onto a high, steep staircase. Up ahead was dark. Edges and corners swam in gloom but I could see a crisp bright patch pasted over the final few rungs. Dust danced in the light, making the sunbeams seem almost solid. Still holding my hand, Sonya tip-toed up the steps and pulled me after her. I found myself being lifted. At first my fear grew another notch, blood pumping in my temples and ears, then disappeared all together, replaced by a rush of pure thrill. A moment later we reached the landing and paused to look around, our legs twitchy with tension and ready to run the second the Queen of Spades appeared.
The whole house creaked and moaned, disturbed by our curiosity after years of solitude. On the floor, thinned and assimilated by the boards, lay the remains of a cherga.3 It looked dark and mossy in the shade and discoloured where the sun had beat down through the windows every day. The walls seemed curved, somehow wavy, and aside from one old-fashioned bed, the room was bare. And from the bed numerous pairs of eyes, green and yellow, some cunning slits of eyes, others wide and startled, stared at us, unblinking. Sonya took a step back and shrieked.
“Wait!” I tried to keep hold of her but she stormed down the stairs with piercing, short screams.
“AAAAAHAAAHAA!”
“Wait, Sonya! It’s just cats! Sonya!”
“Aaaahaaahaaaaaaaaaaa…” Her voice soon became distant and dwindled away. She was out of the house, running through the jungle now, back through the hole in the fence and into our yard. I hoped Grandma would smack her, screaming like that. The cats on the bed didn’t even stir during the commotion. I counted six of them, all black and skinny. As I watched, one stretched its rear paw in the air and began licking it lazily.
I left. The house didn’t seem ominous anymore, just old. I was vexed with Sonya for tricking me to believe that there were ghosts here, and disappointed with her for not finding any. The path among the nettles was more visible after Sonya’s exit, and I walked it carefully avoiding the stings. Over in our house, my Granddad’s machines had woken up and the steel saw cut into the wood with a high-pitched ringing. I knew that in an hour he would assign me the chore to pick up the wood shavings from under the machine in a big bag, and Grandma would call for me to “have some proper food, for the Love of God”, and then it would be evening and…
Crunch, crunch.
Suddenly I was scared again. There was something in the bushes. An icy-cold shiver ran down my back, my ears started to burn, and I felt the urge to pee.
Crunch, crunch, CRUNCH!
And from somewhere very far away, I heard Sonya laughing.
That did it. I was shaking with fear, but if I was to meet the Queen of Spades, I wouldn’t wet my pants like a baby so Sonya would laugh herself silly afterwards…if there was an afterwards. I raised my hands in fists and I plunged into the bushes: “I am not scared!!!”
Before me stood a goat. She was white. Her ears were cocked towards me, and the sun shone through them, making them look pink and soft. The goat’s eyes were staring at me, puzzled. Nettles hung from her mouth. A second later she resumed chewing – crunch, crunch. Her little white tail twitched.
“Oh!” I managed.
The goat grunted and kept on chewing. She was a big animal, but something in her posture made her look mellow. I came closer and touched her back. The hair felt coarse but smooth, and I stroked it for awhile, thinking how wonderful everything was. I was not eaten by the Queen of Spades, there weren’t ghosts in the old house, Grandma wasn’t calling my name just yet, it was summer, and here I was, petting a white goat! I squirmed happily and gave the goat an involuntary tickle. She shuffled and pulled away from me.
I turned around, found the path and ran home, where I made myself a big sandwich and ate it in ravenous gulps, standing by the kitchen counter.
1 Rakia – A traditional Bulgarian alcohol drink, similar to whiskey or brandy, made by grapes, plums or apricots.
2 “А нам всьо равно” – A Russian children song that was popular in Bulgaria in the past; translates loosely as “And we don’t care.”
3 Cherga – A Bulgarian traditional weaved carpet in bright colours, usually striped or decorated with animal/human shapes and motifs.
Bobby Pfeiffer is 29, and was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She now lives with her husband in London, UK, and just graduated with a Creative Writing degree from University of Westminster. Bobby is currently working on her first novel, Anthology of the Lost Time. She is passionate about rock music, the environment, and photography. She blogs at Big Rock Cat.
