"Part One The Calf" "So, Naso, you don't want wine?" "A glass of wine?" "No, no ... no" "It's better when we have water, huh Vase?" "So you say that in Sofia there isn't rain, huh?" "Cause here we have rain every evening." "Will it rain today?" "Of course!" "So, I'll be waiting you here at about 13:30." "Be welcome!" "Ok, in a while, just to prepare ourselves." "... because it is joyful and light, autumn." "The moment you get off the plane you feel peace of mind." "And people are smiling at you, they see you." "Suddenly you become somehow ... special somebody ... that people are interested in ..." "Since it is so joyful why did you come back?" "huh ... because I can't stand him." "I hate my husband being alive and healthy." "Is that cat yours?" "^%*$$#%@*% What?" "^%*$$#%@*%" "Oh, my God!" "I have the awful feeling that I have got in some tin!" "A ten-year-old tin." "and you are still saying the same nonsense backwards." "Just like ten years ago." "You have the same mug and you drink the same disgusting rakia at 10:00 o'clock in the morning, I'll go crazy!" "It's just that your hair has gone and your nose has become longer and crooked!" "Aren't you any curious about something new ..." "I don't know ... something ..." "Is everything dead for you?" "Is it everything like that ... ?" "Don't you want to ... stand on the bank of the river, to see on the other bank Manhattan at sunset or in midnight, covered with lights... to feel that you are a part of it, do you understand, to see something really beautiful, something real, enchanting?" "That's not stupid, sloppy poetry." "There are gathered the biggest minds of the world, the core of the world." "#)**(_)(%%$ (she's repeating her words backwards)" "I almost died of laughter." "In fact, you know ..." "It's really nice that you're here." "Just like before." "You came back because of Vasil, didn't you?" "We'll bring Naso, too, huh uncle Petjo?" "Okay.Yes, of course, yes." "I'll go shave myself." "I'll come to see you in a while!" "I'll come, too." "They don't look like sisters." "Are they sisters?" "They are." "No, no, they are not sisters." "They are, I'm telling you!" "They can't be sisters." "They are sisters." "Then why she hasn't come to their villa?" "She's for the first time here, isn't she?" "And yet, she's all the time after Vasil." "How did you invent this?" "I am not inventing anything." "You just don't see!" "One of them is a cousin of him, or aunt, I don't know exactly." "As for the other two, I don't know at all." "They came yesterday, you saw them." "Uncle Petar is a former cop." "He wandered abroad." "He adores telling stories of the sort ... blah-blah, blah-blah" "Why are those peole like that?" "Why do you keep asking me about them?" "What's wrong with them?" "Normal people." "He's a neighbour ... what ... should I kill him?" "Let's go back." "I most hate having walks." "Aren't you hungry?" "You've changed so much!" "You became old, gray, they don't love you, they don't take care of you, you don't take care of yourself." "What, what?" "Nothing!" "You know, a single day hasn't passed without me thinking about you?" "Not a single day." "Hey, hello there!" "You have mixed up!" "This was finished five years ago what else is there to think about?" "Tsetska is a cousin of Nena." "It is a great pleasure for me that we all gathered here around this table." "All close people." "This is a sign of respect." "It is a big honour for me." "It means care, respect ..." "It is a great wealth to have people around you." "Last year, was very hard for me. (His wife died) But I hope this year to be better" "Years ago I was invied on a dinner." "Birthday again, a special case, and the person was special." "A person of high standing." "Over thirty people were invited." "Everything was perfect, the table was great, whiskey, vodka, caviar, all kinds of stuff" "That was good." "Only five people came." "Five people out of thirty five." "The situation became a little awkward for the host, his wife and for us also." "It's not good to stay alone, is it?" "Not to respect you." "Cheers!" "You are kind, and you are sweet, and you are nice, Mrs. And I love you!" "Dear wife, are you drinking vodka?" "So ... as far as I understood you've just came from the US." "I was there for six months with my daughter." "It was okay." "I had good time." "They live in Boston." "They bought a house for 700 000 $." "They are okay." "But it's a very expensive city." "Very expensive." "Where were you in ..." "I lived in New York four years with my husband and my child." "How many?" "Four." "But we desided to come home for some time at least." "I mean, me, to come back for a while." "Yes." "Eh, since you didn't like it ..." "... It's not possible that Lidia is his cousin ..." "It's true, it's true, Lidia and Tsetska are both from Troyan and that's it." "They might not pretend and be cousins." "It's not true!" "Tsetska is a cousin of Gena ..." "When did you arrive in Sofia?" "In Sofia ... on 21th April 1956 ... from the station I went strightly to lunch." "How 1956?" "It was 1957." "In 1956 Geno Tumpalov was still in Troyan." "Who?" "Geno Tumpalov?" "Why are you always arguing?" "You claim to be always right!" "As though you are the only one that remembers everything." "Geno Tumpalov lived near the Ecclesiastical." "Now, a couple of words again." "I am extremely pleased with this gathering here around that table with close people." "For me this is a sign of respect." "This is a great honour for me." "Care." "It is a wealth to have people around you." "Come on, enough!" "Why is Vasil making a film?" "So that unclePetjo could send it to his daughter in Boston." "Cheers!" "The meat!" "What's up?" "What's up?" "A holiday!" "Yes, Naso!" "Yes, Naso!" "A holiday." "A holiday." "Take, take until it's warm and give Naso, too!" "I don't want meat." "I'll go pee because I don't want to be filmed." "Stay, stay!" "Hush, don't go now." "This meat is sweet." "How is this possible, it can't be sweet." "But it is!" "It isn't." "But, taste it an you'll see that it's sweet." "No." "It can't be sweet." "Did you put sugar instead of salt?" "I didn't put anything there it was already salted in the jar." "I don't know, it's sweet." "It's not sweet." "It appears to you that it's sweet but it isn't." "No, this is not true." "But if it was sweet it wouldn't be suitable for eating." "It isn't." "As far as I know ... would you sing something?" "I'll call you later." "Last winter the big bear fell here." "Yes." "With the small bear, both together." "You are the same." "Santimental and romantic." "Ah, yes, yes." "When I woke up this morning." "When I looked across, over the frozen lake.An enormous white bear was there." "She stays and stare at me, I don't say anything." "She continues staring at me." "Then, together with the little bears." "Ran away." "You said there were two bears." "Tell me, why are you saying this rubbish?" "You think to yourself that since this duck came back from the US, let's shock her completely!" "?" "Exactly!" "Yes." "Let's go back." "Why?" "Because you most hate having walks, don't you?" "Part Two The Wooden Angel" "So there's an hour or hour and a half left, that's right?" "Oh it stops everywhere, it might be even two or more hours." "And the forcemeat?" "Who's going to eat it?" "My granny, she doesn't care for bought goods.She only buys bread and vegetable oil, lemonade, averything else ... she mince forcemeat for herself.She puts pork end veal." "She never puts only pork." "When she makes meatballs it's as though she makes some sweets or something like cookies ..." "What about the salt and sugar?" "What?" "Sugar in the meatballs?" "No, did your granny bought salt and sugar?" "Presumably she bought." "Onions, she never put onions." "Just some of the soft part of the bread." "She wait the mixture to rise" "She make them big." "Before she fries them, she doesn't care for grill only frying, she rolls them in scrumbled yolk.Not the whole egg, only the yolk." "They become like fried in egg and bread-crumbs.Extremely tasty!" "Hey, how can I reach St. Alexander Nevski the church?" "The curch?" "Did you understand, young lady?" "Yes, I did!" "So, there isn't such a thing, a home in the church." "Young lady, how many times do I have to explain?" "This isn't England, XVIIIth century with its homes for elderly, orphanages, dormitories for homeless people and so on, is it?" "Yes." "Are you going to Varna?" "Last train is in 23:05 for Varna over Gorna Oryahovitsa." "Hm, okay." "Mezdra, Levski station, Gorna Oryahovitsa and Varna." "Okay." "Aren't you going to some of these stations?" "Ts, no!" "In the morning, the first train goes to Lakatnik at 04:24." "For Korilo, Rebrovo, Svoge, Bof and Lakatnik ... but it's on the station track." "Pay-check is in the subway, outside the area of the waiting-room we open the waiting-room at 05:30." "Hey, girl, are you alright?" "Stand up!" "We close the waiting-room in a while." "In ..." "If you ..." "What happened?" ""I'll choke you!" He says. "I'll choke you and I'll stay in prison for that!" And he curses." "He drinks, cries and curses." "Poor him!" ""Go in your mother's dead ass!" he says." "They both sit with my granny, face to face on the table." "And he starts his first glass." "Granny says: "No!" She doesn't cry, she even starts yelling at him when he curses. "Shut up!" she tell him." ""Shame on you!" but he continues giving his sentence: "You whore!" "Go to your mother's dead ass!"" "Why "dead ass"?" "My mother passed away ten years ago." "Otherwise, he's meek person, like cotton." "He's railwayman, he works at the train station." "He hugs me, he gives me sweets, ice-cream." "Poor him!" "Then he starts again: "You whore!" "You dragged may guts around the town."" "And so on." "I'll just throw some water over me here and then I'll clean everything." "Ah, okay, go on!" "Don't worry!" "Yesterday, while I was drowsing here in the afternoon, I imagined my wedding." "Me as a bride, all in white, and the wedding-guests in white and the groom in white, too." "I couldn't see clearly the groom." "There are three melodies." "A Gipsy one, brass music, one guitare tune, and a classical one with violins and everything." "They are played together at the same time." "We are striding under something like ark." "The guest made it, from white blooming flowers ... and we dance." "I like dancing.Do you go to discos?" "You are not that old." "What are you doing now?" "Oh, I just pushed this button, here." "I'm pregnant, fifth month." "I left school after the first term." "I live in Dve Mogili, a small town near Russe." "With my father and grandmother." "They don't want to hear about the baby." "I ran away from home and came here to see ... no ..." "I ran away from home and cam here to leave the baby somewhere here." "No, not exactly to leave him.To give birth and to stay ... not to stay ..." "I don't know why I ran away from home.I wanted to see something." "Something different." "That's it." "You, what?" "Do you think I'm crazy?" "Is it so much that I want?" "It's true that I don't know what I want." "My son to grow up in Dve Mogili?" "... no I don't whant that.It's not fair." "Or the orphanage in Veliko Tarnovo." "We went there with my grandmother and my father." "The manageress had moustaches." "Look, my father was tractor-driver, he used to tell me that he was like a bolt." "If the bolt is taken away from the tractor, the tractor doesn't work." "However, my father without this tractor is ... nothing." "One simple bolt." "I don't think you understood what I told you?" "In fact, what is your name?" "Marin." "Marin?" "I'm Rajna.But they call me Rasha." "Rasha?" "Super." "What are you going to do now?" "What could I do?" "Most probably I'll go home, we'll take care of him with my father an my granny ..." "They'll consent." "You may come and visit!" "That's fine." "This is from my granny." "It's a toy for a christmas tree." "It must be fifty years old." "I carry it with me all the time." "May I give it to you?" "RASHA!" "Are you leaving already, sunny?" "All the best!" "Arrive soon!" "My granny is 65, she's a teacher." "How old are you?" "71 Ah, 71, you look 55." "Where are you going?" "I'm going to visit a cousin in Samokov." "She's a far cousin of mine." "I haven't heard from her for a long time, I might not find her." "She might be on the seaside or who knows where." "We are going to the Rila lakes." "I'm starving!" "Eat much, eat a lot, eat and don't talk!" "Part Three Socrates" "But why did they sentence him to death?" "Because he taught, Blanche, that the trees should be cut down." "What did he teach?" "Trees." "I am a postman." "Postman, in the quarters of the Directorate General of Security." "There we are all university graduates.Because it's responsible work." "Why did they sentence him to death?" "How come they did it because of a tree?" "Blanche, forget about that tree." "Do you know what is the worst thing in military service?" "Why do you call me Blanche?" "Blanche, in French means white." "Your face is white." "You got it?" "I do." "So the bad part of the military service is that there is no holiday." "No holiday." "It's so dull, monotonous, senseless daily round." "And when I say holiday I don't mean fireworks or anything like that." "No." "Tell me about the trees!" "To be born, to live, to die." "This is holiday." "This is something extraordinary." "Something special." "This is not just blah-blah." "Here, in the barracks, they don't celebrate, they serve." "They eat, fart and serve." "I see." "The trees ..." "Blanche ..." "I am telling you here about the basis of the military service life." "Okay,do you remember his name?" "Socrates, hey don't be like that, I've heard of him, I'm not an idiot!" "Good!" "So, he thaught that the whole world is a tree upside-down." "Upside-down, with its roots up and its leaves down." "And this whole world is a reflection of the real one." "Just the way a tree reflects on the surface of a lake." "And in fact people are interested in rubbish, in reflections." "Not in the real things." "That's why they are unhappy." "They sentenced him to death because of this?" "This is why they sentenced him to death." "What a curious thing, when I was with the chains before, I felt pain." "Displeasure." "Now when they're gone I feel pleasure." "It seems these things always go one after the other." "Socrates, may I ask you something?" "Ask, Hermogen!" "You still may." "Some time ago, you spoke with Antioch and Fidey." "About the world and its creation." "Who's the link between cosmos, human and god?" "I don't know." "And what is the benefit from this knowledge when the moment of death arrives?" "Yes, now I'd better go and wash myself" "Then I'll drink the poison." "I don't want to bother the women to wash me when I'm dead." "Well, Socrates, how do you want us to bury you?" "Bury me?" "As you wish!" "If you catch me." "If I don't escape from you." "No, no, they cannot sentence him to death because of this." "Whatever he preached, whatever he taught." "Why not?" "He undermined the bases of the society." "How come?" "Like that!" "Society is based on three things." "Money, ethics and fun." "Everyone wants to have fun." "But you need money for this, right?" "On the other hand fun and ethics are connected, too." "You can't have fun just like that." "Socrates, taught that these three things don't matter at all if one doesn't care for his soul, for the truth." "If we don't see our lives as holidays." "You, for instance, why are you here?" "Huh, me, why me, drop me!" "I sneak out." "I sneak out a lot!" "And they catch me a lot!" "You sneak out?" "where do you go?" "At home." "Where else?" "What do you do there?" "What ..." "I listen to music, girls ..." "That's why you are not sentenced to death but only arrested." "Because you don't undermine anything." "You have fun at home." "I don't get it." "It doesn't matter." "What kind of music do you like?" "Socrates, I want to thank you." "You never blamed me for anything, you never got angry with me," "You never cursed me like all convicted do." "You were the most noble, meek and perfect person that has ever come here." "Goodbye, Socrates!" "You know what I have to tell you." "Goodbye!" "Goodbye to you, too!" "Great person, kind person, he used to visit me often, we talked, great person." "Let them bring the poison." "They must have prepared it already." "Well, Socrates, don't you want something to eat or drink?" "The sun hasn't set yet.Some people even want to make love before they die." "Since you are into these things tell me what to do." "You only have to drink it then just walk around until your feet feel heavy and then lie down." "Poison will have its effect in this way" "Give it to me!" "We put hemlock, clean herb, effective, helmock." "You chill and your blood thickens." "I see." "What's the matter with you?" "Strange people!" "That's why I sent off women and children?" "Be harder!" "It's a good idea to walk arownd, the poison will have its effect sooner." "Everything is mixed up." "Everything is mixed up because it's a reflection." "And since it is a reflection there must be the real thing." "If we put here a mirror we'll see each other." "Because we are real." "Because we exist." "When I say that the world is a reflection ... do you know what it reflects?" "No, what?" "It doesn't matter." "My legs grew heavier." "I can't ..." "I can't speak." "Don't you want us to bring you in?" "No." "Do you feel something?" "No." "When the chill reaches his heart then he'll pass away." "Part Four The Boat" "Part Five The Boar" "And she asks me what whine would we want." "How can I tell you what whine if you haven't told me what you have I said." "What whine do you have?" "She says that they have Hungarian white and Bulgarian red." "What?" "Hungarian white and Bulgarian red." "So they have white Hungarian and red Bulgarian." "I am not some dirty Hungarian to offer me Hungarian white." "I ask her: "Do I look like a dirty Hungarian?"" "No." "Since I don't, how can I drink white Hungarian?" "Brother, you know I don't drink whine." "No red, no white but why is she trying to give mi white Hungarian?" "As though I was some dirty Hungarian!" "I'll drink beer!" "They have German and from Tarnovo and any kind." "This boar won't work!" "He looks weak." "Ah, he got her!" "He got her!" "Yankov, hog needs care." "A lot of care." "Hog is like bee." "It needs to feed it, to clean it, to scrach it behind the ears ... and when it gets ill ..." "Your father knew everything about hogs." "Everything." "May he rest in peace, that's not for everybody." "It's done." "Yankov, you better sell this boar!" "This is not for you!" "Getsa, take your swine and fuck yourself, my brother!" "Yankov, smoke less!" "You don't smoke like a human, you throw them one after the other." "Go fuck yourslef!" "You're a big boar, but you'll meet your match too!" "Part Six The Drum" "Do you hear the drum, huh?" "They'll jump for a while like crazy and ..." "They do that from time to time." "I'm not against this at all." "But everything's just envy and dirt." "They would kill each other for one pumpkin." "Then they'll jump again." "Something's eating them, something's drumming inside them!" "I am from the village Piperkov Chiflik, I was born 64 years ago." "I've grown here, I studied in Klokochnitsa, and then specialized high school in Shumen for 5 years." "I graduated mechanical engineering." "Valentin Georgiev Vagalijski is my name."