Valley of Thracians (2 page)

Chapter
3

Dear
Grandpa,

Hi!
How are you? I bet you’re a bit surprised to hear from me so soon after my
visit last week. It was great staying with you and Grandma over Christmas
vacation. I bet you enjoyed beating me in gin rummy just as much as I enjoyed
teaching you how to use email and surf the World Wide Web. Grandpa, you’ve got
to catch up with the rest of the world; you need to learn all this Internet
stuff. I’m writing you now to make sure that you’re capable of opening your
incoming messages.

If
you received this email, write back and let me know. And if you didn’t receive
it, write back and let me know. Ha!

I
always like coming to visit you in the wintertime. In Chicago you see snow on
the ground, and it really feels like winter. Isn’t that how December and
January are supposed to be? Here in Los Angeles you can’t really call what we
have winter. The temperature drops a bit, and there’s some rain, but it’s not
the real thing. I wish I was growing up in a place where there was snowfall
every year. I really like the white stuff!

I
enjoyed hanging out with you and Grandma. You guys treat me well, don’t
pressure me too much,
let
me sleep late. That’s the
kind of vacation I prefer. I can do what I want, when I want.

At
home, Dad and Mom, well, especially Dad, pressure me all the time. Even on
school vacations they want me to get up early, do chores around the house, and
whatever else they can think of. I mean, come on! On a vacation you’re supposed
to have a bit of free time, wouldn’t you say?

They’re
putting a lot of pressure on me to do well in school, but can’t they see that
this is having the opposite effect? The more they say “devote more time to your
studies,” the less I want to hit the books. If they would just lay off me for a
while, things would be better for everyone.

School
is a bore. Come on, who needs to study the American Revolution? How’s that
going to help me in life? I know basic arithmetic, so what’s the point in
studying trig? My teachers are complete idiots, and there are times when I
can’t take them anymore. Sometimes I just skip classes. I’d rather smoke under
the football-field bleachers than sit half asleep in a classroom. I can’t take
that kind of pressure. That’s not me. I mean, why should I work so hard to pass
a test if what I’m studying has no real value? I’m sorry, but I think tests are
a bourgeois attempt to corrupt the minds of America’s youth!

Didn’t
I tell you these things when I visited? Why is it that I can share these
frustrations with you when my parents won’t even listen to me?

Hey,
something else. I wonder if you remember this. This is kind of strange, but
it’s one of my earliest memories.

I
recall one of my birthday parties held in our backyard here in LA. I must have
been something like five years old. The party had a costume theme with
balloons, streamers, and party favors. Mom and Dad went all out. Some of my
friends dressed up like cowboys and Indians. Others were policemen and
ballerinas. I was a pirate, I remember that clearly. I had a red bandanna
around my neck and a black patch over one of my eyes. Mom had penciled a beard
and moustache on my face, and my costume came complete with a plastic sword.

And
then an unexpected visitor showed up. It was a tall, thin clown, wearing baggy
pants, ridiculous floppy shoes, a huge orange nose, and a shocking display of
dreadlocked hair the same color.

The
clown laughed, declaring “Birthday greetings, young Scott!” He honked a rubber
horn, and all the kids gathered around, pulling at his clothing, kicking his
legs. But the clown kept talking directly to me.

I
was speechless. To tell the truth, I was scared out of my wits. Here was this
unfamiliar person—well, not exactly a person—overwhelming me with his orange
hair and makeup. I started crying hysterically, and nothing Mom or Dad said
could calm me down.

Do
you remember any of this? I distinctly recall how the clown took off his fake
nose and wiped some of the makeup from his face, and then I saw that it was
you, Grandpa. I was shocked! You and Grandma had flown out to LA, and I didn’t
know that you would be there, at my party. You showed up unannounced, well,
unannounced
to me anyway, and you came dressed as a clown. I
wish I had known in advance! Only when I recognized that it was truly you did I
stop bawling like a baby.

I
was so proud that you had come to my party, thinking you had flown all the way
from Chicago just to make me happy. What you did meant so much to me.

Hey,
why did I even remember this now? Kind of strange what the mind remembers, no?
So, did you get this email? Let me know!

I
guess that’s all for now. Love to Grandma.

Scott

Chapter
4

Simon sat on a tall stool at the bar off
the Hilton lobby, reminiscing about his grandson. Scott’s emails, which arrived
over the years at an irregular pace and appeared to be hastily written,
detailed difficulties in his studies and an inability to get along with classmates
and teachers, as well as the friction Scott felt at home. It was clear to Simon
that the boy had problems handling homework assignments and classroom
disciplinary requirements. Scott wrote openly of his plans to drop out of high
school, to leave LA and travel around the world. Scott desperately sought to
escape the sort of future his parents envisioned for him, one in which not only
would he pursue a college education, but he would follow that with a graduate
degree before settling into a high-paying career as either a lawyer or a
doctor. Simon’s responses, never critical or dictating about what his grandson
should do, expressed understanding and sympathy—alongside his constant, patient
request for Scott to reconsider, to stick it out and graduate from high school.

Somehow, Simon’s message had gotten
through—or at least he credited himself with contributing to Scott’s change of
heart. After instances of truancy and under threat of expulsion, his grandson
had reluctantly resumed his high school studies. Scott postponed his world
travels indefinitely and instead was determined to first graduate from high
school, a goal that he fulfilled with above-average grades, if not with
distinction.

Just before his graduation, Scott
confided something to his grandfather that neither of his parents yet knew.
Daniel and Susan, having raised their hands to acknowledge their parental
failures during Scott’s rebellious streak, had given up any hope of seeing
their son to apply to a prestigious university. Scott’s academic record and SAT
scores were far from stellar, making acceptance to Princeton, where Daniel had
studied, or at another Ivy League school, nothing more than a vain pipe dream.
But Scott had other plans. Unbeknownst to his parents, Scott had sent off an
application to a community college not far from where the family lived. He
informed Simon first, seeking his grandfather’s stamp of approval, and only
then let his parents know that he would be pursuing a liberal arts degree while
living at home.

Simon had been hopeful that Scott’s
problem years were at last behind him. That just goes to show what the boy was
capable of accomplishing when he set his mind to it, Simon thought. Scott’s
college years flew by without incident, as far as he knew. He wished that his
grandson’s emails would arrive at a more frequent pace so that he could fully
be part of what the boy was experiencing as he matured into an adult. Even so,
every time the two of them got together, their familial connection and
closeness were as strong as ever.

Simon beamed with pride at his good
rapport with Scott. It was this powerful bond between them that made Scott’s
disappearance just a year after his college graduation so much harder to bear.

He looked at the Artists’ Bar menu,
trying to decide what to order.

 
“Is this a Bulgarian wine?” he asked the
waitress, pointing to the line listing a 2008 Sakar Merlot and Pinot Noir.

When the waitress went to pour his
glass, he turned to look down the counter. A finely dressed woman with
copper-colored hair and dark brown eyes was sitting two stools away, gazing at
him with a questioning look.

“Do you know our Bulgarian wines?” she
asked, her words touched with local accent.

“Not really,” he replied. “Actually,
this will be my first taste.”

“Oh, but they are very good!” she said,
as if he had suggested otherwise. “Do you mind if I join you?”

He hesitated for a moment and then
indicated the empty seat between them.

“I hope you don’t think I’m too, what’s
the word, immodest? Someone just stood me up, and I’m a bit upset,” the woman
said. She set down her own glass of burgundy-colored wine on the counter in
front of the seat next to Simon. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t a date or
anything. I had a business meeting, an appointment with an associate actually,
and he just called to say that he won’t be coming. I think one of his children
has come down with something. Are you here on business?”

“Yes,” he replied, charmed by her
articulation of Bulgarian-flavored English. “Well, business of a personal
nature, actually,” he added quickly, and then he immediately regretted it. Were
all Bulgarian women as forward as this, approaching old, single men at bars?

 
“You’re new to our country, aren’t you?”

“How could you tell?”

“You look a little lost, if you don’t
mind my saying so,” she said coquettishly.

Did he look so foreign, so out of touch
with his surroundings? His meeting at the embassy had been brief, yet it had
drained him with its lack of results. Having dozed afterwards in his hotel
room, and still jet-lagged from the flights, he was sure he looked somewhat
disheveled. Unconsciously, he sat up straighter on the stool.

He glanced over at her momentarily,
afraid to stare for too long. She was a slim woman, wearing a fashionable black
dress clasped at the waist with a gold belt. She had more gold on her wrists
and in the rings on her fingers; her earrings, though, were simple studs. Her
shoulder-length hair framed a pleasing, thin face. Simon assumed she must be in
her fifties, but he really wasn’t much of a judge of women.

“Bulgaria has many fine wines,” she
said, backing away from the personal question that had left him feeling a bit
uncomfortable. “We have had a wine-making tradition since ancient days, since
the days of the Thracians.”

“The Thracians?
I don’t know much about them. Was that a culture here in Bulgaria during the
Roman era?” he asked.

She laughed, tapping her hand against
the bar counter a few times. “Actually, they came before the Romans! Thrace was
a country in this part of the world before the rise of the Greeks and the
Romans. Its territory included Bulgaria, parts of Greece, and parts of Turkey.
With our love for connecting to the past, we label many of our wines as
Thracian. Today, our Thracian wines are produced all over Bulgaria and marketed
throughout the world.”

“Maybe that’s what makes them taste so
good,” he said, raising his glass to hers.

“
Nazdrave
,” she said,
clinking
his glass.

“
Le’chaim
,” he responded, using
the Hebrew term, causing the woman to cast a curious glance in his direction.

The wine he was drinking was ruby in
color, its aroma somewhat heavy. He found the taste fairly conventional,
pleasing but with no outstanding qualities. But then, what did he know about
wines? He was not a connoisseur who could intelligently distinguish the subtle
differences between varieties. Drinking wine was a social necessity, something
he did not for the specific pleasures it released but rather to allow him to
fit in with the requirements of his professional standing at university
functions, faculty parties, and the conference cocktail parties that he
otherwise would have avoided. Even so, from his first sip at the Hilton bar, a
sense of relaxation engulfed him, making it easy to converse with the
attractive woman at his side.

“The Thracians were subjugated by Alexander
the Great and later were conquered by the Romans,” she continued, staring not
at him but at the bottles displayed behind the bar. “As a people, the Thracians
eventually became Hellenized and later yet, they were subjects of the Roman
Empire until finally their culture and language disappeared—a forgotten chapter
in history.

“But enough about that.
We haven’t been properly introduced,” she apologized. “My name is Sophia,
Sophia Ivanova.”

“Sophia?” he asked.
“Sophia
from Sofia, Bulgaria?”

“Yes, I know it’s a bit odd. My mother
was Italian, and she adored the name, probably because of her affection for
Sophia Loren’s films. My father was Bulgarian and insisted on giving me a true
Bulgarian name, so my official birth name is Svetlana. But Sophia was what my
mother called me as a child, and it just stuck.”

“Nice to meet you,
Sophia from Sofia.
I’m Simon Matthews from Chicago. I’m a
professor, well actually a retired professor, from the University of Chicago.”

“Really?
That’s interesting. What did you teach?”

“English literature, which I assume is
not the most popular of topics here in Bulgaria.”

“Oh, you never know!” she said,
laughing, her eyes focused on his. “I am also in academia. I teach at our local
St. Clement of Ohrid University.
In the history department,
specializing in Thracian culture.”

“So that’s why you know so much about
these Thracian wines?”

“Hardly!
I prefer beer, really,” she said, the twinkle in her eye dazzling him and
leaving him thirsty for further conversation.

After a few awkward moments during which
they both sipped at their wine, she asked him a new, ice-breaking question.
“Professor, tell me something. What is the perception of Bulgaria among average
Americans?”

“I’m not sure there is a perception of
Bulgaria among average Americans. I think there’s quite a substantial Bulgarian
community in Chicago, where I’m from. At least I’ve come across some former
Bulgarians in the city, and there were many Bulgarian students at the
university. But the average American, well, I don’t think they could even find
Bulgaria on the map.”

“Yet, you’ve come here. Surely you heard
something about Bulgaria before coming to Sofia on your business trip,” she
challenged.

“I know it’s a former communist country,
now part of the European Union, and you use the incomprehensible Cyrillic
language,” he said, realizing that this basically constituted his entire
knowledge of Bulgarian politics and culture. “Okay, I admit it, I really don’t
know anything. I checked ahead on the Internet for the weather conditions, and
I booked my stay here at the Hilton online, but I guess I didn’t do my homework
about anything else.”

“No need to apologize. I’m sure most of
the businessmen who come to Sofia are in the same boat. And that’s a shame
because my country is a very pretty place. You should see the country, the
mountains,
the
seashore. Will you be doing any
sightseeing while you’re here?”

“No, I doubt I’ll have the time. I’m
traveling to Varna for the weekend, and then I have some meetings back here in
Sofia.”

“Well, if you need a tour guide, just
let me know,” she said, placing her hand on his arm and then hurriedly removing
it as if it had been an accident.

The simple, momentarily touch of her
hand made him wonder if she was flirting with him. When was the last time he
had been touched, intimately or otherwise, by a woman? It was a strange yet
pleasant feeling, reigniting nerve endings that he feared had died long ago.

He quickly dismissed these unfamiliar
thoughts, assuming instead that Sophia was just trying to promote good-natured
international relations on behalf of the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry.

“Thank you,” he said politely. “But as I
said, I’m here on business, not pleasure. Who knows, maybe I will have a chance
to see some of the country while going back and forth to my meetings.”

“Let me give you my card,” she said
impulsively, reaching into her shiny black handbag. “Perhaps when you get back
to Sofia you will give me a call. It’s not every day that you can see Sofia
with Sophia.”

“Yes, perhaps I will,” he replied, smiling
at the offer.