SAINT WOLF, an excerpt from a novel

I. The Eternal City

The train was coming out of the darkness and rushing back into it, and this was happening so quickly that the darkness seemed endless, especially from behind the compartment window. But the traveler knew that there were always interruptions in the dark, and that when you were inside it, it was all yours, and everything else, even the tiniest light, appeared foreign and insignificant to you. It seemed to him that the train was moving too fast. Probably because he was in no hurry. He had been traveling for hours and would be traveling for hours still, and where he was going, there was no one waiting for him, so he didn’t care.

He was on his way to the sea. He hadn’t seen it in a long time, and he wanted to. Life was easier there. He wanted to get on a ship and leave. He had never been on a ship. It would be nice.

He was alone in the compartment, and probably in the whole car. He didn’t want to sleep. He didn’t want to do anything but travel in the darkness and observe it. He thought that when he died, the darkness inside him would merge with the darkness outside, and from this he would surely feel great relief, perhaps even joy. He was very tired. He was tired of carrying the darkness his whole life and keeping it from spilling out. He imagined it as ink. You could write with darkness as well as with ink. You could write letters and even whole books with it, but he had no one to write to, and this was probably the reason why it weighed so heavily on him.

He knew that when people got tired, they went to the sea, where all their ailments got better. So, just like them, he was on his way to the sea. He wanted the earth to end, so that he could stand at that exact place, and then get on a ship. He had no other plans for now.

Suddenly, creaking and screeching with its iron claws, the train stopped. The traveler lurched forward. Outside, nothing could be seen but the long, starless tunnel of autumn night. He lowered the window and stuck his head out. It was cold and quiet, but the cold was mild, and the quiet filled the ears like cotton, and it lightened the soul, because it was not a pervasive and strangled stillness, but the normal state of things.

He sat down and waited for the train to start, but it didn’t. The traveler didn’t care. He had almost no luggage. Everything he carried fit into his pockets. He couldn’t remember ever having had anything of his own, something to miss if he parted with it. He closed his eyes, as he always did when he wanted to disappear and no one to ever know such a person had existed. When he opened them again, the darkness inside him had spilled outside, so thick had it become. He was embarrassed. He could remember that he used to do something that kept the darkness where it was, and which reassured him, but he couldn’t remember what that thing was. He was overcome with worry: he had forgotten the most important thing. He bent down, hit his forehead on his knees and pressed his interlaced fingers against the back of his head. Then suddenly he remembered: he didn’t need to do anything, he was cured. That’s what they had told him: You are cured now, you can leave. And so, he had left.

It was a miracle. They didn’t let anyone out just like that. The others, in order to leave, first had to lie for a while on the basement bench under the stairs until the ambulance came from the city to take them away with a sheet on their face and with no siren. The siren cost money, that’s what they were told. That’s why they never turned it on for them – because they were poor and had no money to pay.

When the bench became vacant and the man who had been lying on it disappeared, another would take his place. The other was completely different, but that too was a delusion, because in fact they were all the same. Sometimes many years passed before the newcomer also lay on the bench. It was like a game. Everyone knew their turn would come, and they were in no rush. Nor did they suffer unnecessarily when it was someone else’s turn.

You don’t belong here, that’s what they told him.

Where do I belong?

Wherever your eyes lead you. Leave and live.

And he quite honestly did try to live for a while, but it didn’t work out. It turned out that living outside was harder than dying inside. So, he decided to go to the sea, to take a break from living. He would just lie on the seashore and wait for the ship to come.

He knew there was a God, but he didn’t have faith in him.

He had faith only in the Universe. He imagined her as a big, indifferent fish, spawning wherever she could. She was no mother, and God had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Before he was cured, while he was still doing the thing that kept the darkness inside him in place, preventing it from spilling out, he was convinced that everything depended on him. He did the thing every day, and whenever necessary, he did it overtime, so that everything could continue to exist. It was quite mechanical, all that was required of him was not to skip it, but this was also easy because doing the thing had soon become a habit. Sometimes the enormous power he possessed filled him with unbearable tension, and then he tried to get it out of him somehow, to pull it out of the inside of his body.

No, they would tell him, no. You are wrong. You are actually nobody, and there is nothing there.

And he would get quiet, seeing how deluded they were.

Otherwise, when he was just doing the thing he had to do, he was perfectly fine. He was even a little bored, because apart from protecting the world from the darkness, he had nothing else to do.

They told him he was cured, and this puzzled him because he had never felt sick. He tried to argue, to explain that what they called “cured” could have irreversible consequences for the world order.

They told him to stop beating about the bush, and to take his life into his own hands and to look for a job. And that if he ever needed them again, he would be welcome, but he’d better never come back.

He got a job as a night watchman in a parking lot. No one asked him who he was or where he was from. They paid little and in cash. He didn’t sleep during the day. He walked through the world he had forgotten and watched with all-seeing eyes. The world crumbled at the edges and trembled beneath his feet like a mortally wounded animal. He felt no pity, but no triumph either. He knew it would go on indefinitely when he himself was long gone. Others would come in his place, strangers. They wouldn’t do the thing. It would be hard for them. But they too would be children of the Universe. She would not love them because she was no mother. He would not love them either, because he had never loved and didn’t know how to.

By the time he had saved enough money for a train ticket, he had already gotten tired. He had no idea it was so tiring to hold your life into your own hands. It was like a snake caught by the tail. It kept twisting back and biting him. The bite didn’t cause him pain, but the poison pooled in his blood. The blood was turning thick and black. He had heard that sometimes when people slaughtered a pig, they made a thick, black soup from its blood, but he had never eaten it. He was thinking about the basement bench. One day, when he was tired to death, he would go back and lie down there. He had nowhere else to go.

The darkness inside him subsided and he opened his eyes.

The lights in the compartment were out. Heat was no longer coming from the radiator under the window. The traveler didn’t mind. He was used to the cold. If he gritted his teeth and listened, he could hear the sea. Now it too was darkness, splashing meekly in its self-hewn grave.

After a while there was a light outside. It was disappearing and timidly reappearing, moving in leaps and bounds. Then the door of the compartment slid open, and the light burst in on the traveler, uninvited and brazen as a dog.

“I thought I’d see how you were,” said the man, who carried the light, and, as if unintentionally, threw it right in the traveler’s face. Then, unwittingly, he lit himself up, as well. He was a conductor with a uniform and a lantern. His face was old from the night trains. His body – large and fleshless. There was sickness and death in him, but the man paid them no heed.

The traveler involuntarily raised his hand to shield himself from the light, and the conductor moved it away.

“An hour’s break,” said the conductor.

“Why?”

“It’s four o’clock, my man. The clocks fall back an hour, which means, it’s three now. There’s an order to stop for an hour until it’s four again. Otherwise, the schedule goes wrong, and an accident might just happen.”

“Why?” The traveler asked again, for he couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Why, why...If pigs could fly. Like I said, it’s an order. I don’t change the time, the management decides. Somehow, we’ll make it through one hour, it’s not an eternity. Where are you headed?”

“To the sea.”

Lora Mihova is an alumna of five universities. She has a B.Sc. in Psychology from Humboldt University of Berlin, a B.A. and an M.A. in North American Studies from Freie University Berlin, and an M.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Kent. She has also studied creative writing and translation at the University of Leeds and at the University of British Columbia. 

As is probably evident from the short biographical data, Lora likes to write, read, and translate. She also loves theater – not only to watch it, but also to be on stage. Currently, she works as a translator in the Bulgarian department of the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation in Brussels but would love to have more opportunities to translate fiction in the future.

In February 2024, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation launched an open call for English-speaking translators to join the inaugural edition of the Bulgarian to English Literary Translation Academy. The Academy was designed to connect experienced translators with emerging talents in literary translation, fostering the growth of a new generation skilled in bringing contemporary Bulgarian literature to English-speaking audiences. Over a six-month period, mentors Angela Rodel, Ekaterina Petrova, Izidora Angel, and Traci Speed guided three mentees each, working across genres including fiction, children’s literature, and poetry. By the program’s end, participants had developed substantial translated excerpts to present to publishers, authors, and partners, and to use in applying for translation grants, residencies, and other professional development opportunities. The Academy has also enabled contemporary Bulgarian authors to have significant portions of their work translated, which they can present to literary agents, international publishers, and in applications for global programs. You can find more information about the Academy participants here. The Academy is made possible through the support of the National Culture Fund under the Creation 2023 program and in partnership with Vagabond magazine.