TURBOT SEASON

A film was playing on the tiny screen above the driver – it was about a beautiful woman looking for the right husband and ultimately finding him. Or maybe it was about a handsome man looking for the right wife, but not before the final credits. To make it even more fun, the film was split into novellas which opened with colourful lettering and wedding music. All the actresses looked like Jennifer Lopez, or maybe she was in it herself, who knows? The question required the kind of focus that Galya was unable to spare.

She relaxed in the seat and rested her forehead against the cool glass. The view outside alternated between lush fields of newly sprouted wheat, freshly ploughed rectangles of brown earth and wild bushes with plastic bags fluttering from their branches. The wheat in the distance was so green it looked bluish under the drizzling rain. Van Gogh would’ve maybe seen it in cobalt or ultramarine. The nineteenth century – the age of first seeing the illogical colours of the world. The twenty-first century – the age of cartoon characters. Only nature found ways of renewing itself and creating the illusion that anyone could do the same.

I must be crazy to go.

At the spot where her forehead had rested, she noticed an oily mark. Other oily marks were visible next to it – rounded, partial, left at different times by people looking out of the window. Or maybe they had just wanted to cool their foreheads.

The bus was unexpectedly full for this time of year. But instead of the usual summer crowd in flip-flops, who stuff the luggage compartment to the brim with beach umbrellas and rolled up mats, now it carried ordinary people with ordinary faces, who rocked in their seats, carried away in their ordinary thoughts. The women were wrapped in their suit jackets against the mechanical jet of the air conditioner; the men were in coats, nodding off over their sports newspapers. The holiday season, which turns every office worker into an adventurer with a loud bead necklace overnight, had not yet started. The elderly man sitting next to her, who had been sleeping with his mouth open for a while, leant against Galya. She nudged him back to his seat without waking him up. His head kept rocking in synch with the turns.

"Where to?" Theodor had asked when she was leaving.

That was the question he asked whenever he saw her put on her shoes. Not "where are you going" nor "send my love to so-and-so" but "where to".

Jokingly, but not quite. More like seriously, but otherwise jokingly.

Over the past four years, Galya had come to understand that some of his comments were recurring while the rest were absolutely unpredictable. The recurring comments were worse. He used them as tools to steer the conversation.

"I told you yesterday, didn't I?"

"Um?"

His voice was now coming from the bathroom. That meant she had to go over to him so they could discuss it again. She was late. The bus would leave without her and the next one wouldn't get her there in time.

Theodor, handsome Theodor. When Galya was right next to him, he didn't even notice her. It always started whenever she put her shoes on. He had two main woes in life. The first was that a friend of his from university, now a neonatologist, was earning considerably more than him, but how much exactly wasn't clear because neither of them ever fully revealed the amount. The second one was that his job as a dermatologist at an elite private clinic required discretion, denying him the benefits of an exquisitely told piece of gossip. Among friends, Theodor sometimes dropped hints about the kind of rash one or other of his VIP patients had caught, even though he would later deny saying anything, while among strangers he gave himself gravitas with a pipe. He spoke quietly, in a confiding tone, diligently shaping the voiced and unvoiced consonants with his mouth. He didn’t spare the full stops, which his whole intonation rushed towards from mid-sentence. His manner of speaking was perfect for pronouncing diagnoses. Or jokes. He never usually raised his voice, even when he felt that Galya was late home from the souvenir shop where she worked. He had a sense of humour, that, as Galya gradually realised during their four years of living together, was pure spite.

They lived in his three-bedroom flat and split the bills equally.

"I told you I was going to a class reunion, didn't I?"

"I don't remember you saying that."

"Well, I did. But you never listen."

"I would've heard something like that."

"Looks like you didn’t."

"And why are you meeting all the way at the seaside?"

Galya hesitated. She had foreseen the interrogation but didn't want to wade any deeper into the lie.

She wasn't going to let Theodor sidetrack her though, she had foreseen that too. Not that she didn't love him – she loved him so much that once she even used to imagine them travelling together in a big white car with their children in the back seat, who are all small and beautiful and ask clever questions, and Galya, turning to face them, explains all sorts of things about the world, while Theodor chuckles at their pertinent remarks with his left hand on the steering wheel and his right hand, away from the curious looks of the children, resting on Galya's thigh. This wasn't exactly a dream but a moving image with which Galya would fall asleep for months. The car is travelling, they are happy, they are flying towards their wonderful destination and never stop. And never arrive. Gradually, the image detached itself from her dreams, went off on its own and faded away, while Galya started falling asleep with pills.

She had lost touch with her old friends because of Theodor's suspiciousness. Whenever she wanted to see an old friend, he would build a slow fire of sarcastic questions and half-spoken accusations over which he roasted her on a spit. Eventually Galya lost any desire to go out.

But this time there was a difference she wasn't prepared for. Up to this point, Theodor's suspicions had been insulting and unfounded. And now they had some foundation even though Galya herself wasn’t sure how solid. All she knew was that if she wanted to go to the meeting she couldn't tell him the truth.

"No idea," she said. "That's what they've decided."

"Who’s they?"

"The people organising the reunion."

Theodor was shaving with an electric trimmer adjusted to leave a three-day stubble, and making funny expressions while he moved it about his face. He made them seriously, engrossed in the details of his facial hair, with a menacing look in his eyes.

"Because they could have rented a small hotel around Sofia. It would’ve done the same job."

"You seem pretty well acquainted with those small hotels," said Galya.

She had suddenly remembered that she didn’t have to be the only one answering questions.

"I work with a lot of patients. If it weren't for those small hotels, we would've had to close down the clinic.” Now Theodor's grooming progressed to the next stage so he rubbed gel into his hair. "I didn’t mean it in a bad way, of course. But you don't keep in touch with any of your classmates. And now suddenly you’re having a reunion."

"That's exactly why."

Theodor cast a last appraising glance in the mirror to make sure every hair was in its place.

"A class reunion, then?"

"Yes, a class reunion."

"Who taught you to lie like that?"

Here, instead of replying "You", Galya said: "What do you mean, Teddy?" and cursed herself for being a coward. She was scared to say anything else because she was scared they would break up. She had invested a lot in this relationship and kept thinking that if she just invested a little bit more, it would start working. Part of Theodor's glamour, which had blinded her in the beginning, still remained about him and helped heal her wounds. She herself didn't know why she replied like that. She was afraid of him. Of the way he would cut her without even straining his voice. Of his look. Of what he could do even though he had never done it before. And yet deeper inside she was afraid that if they split up, he would collapse. The conceited, arrogant, competent Theodor with the pipe. He would collapse like a blown-up tower and bury her in his ruins. When did fear become the reason we stay together? Theodor, what an ambitious name. It means a gift from God. Believe it or not.

Bulgarian writer and poet Kristin Dimitrova was born in 1963 in Sofia. Graduated in English and American Studies from the Sofia University, she now works as an assistant professor at the Department of Foreign Languages. In the period 2004-2006 she was an editor of Art Trud, the weekly supplement for arts and culture of the Trud Daily. Between Sept. 2007 and Jan. 2008 she was a columnist for the Klasa Daily.

In 2008 she was awarded Hristo G. Danov, the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture and Municipality of Plovdiv Award (fiction category), for Sabazius. Kristin Dimitrova is a winner of five national awards for poetry, three for prose and one for the translation of John Donne's poetry into Bulgarian. Translations of Dimitrova's poems, short stories and essays have been published in anthologies and periodicals in 35 countries.

Petya Pavlova is a freelance translator from Bulgarian to English, born in Sofia, who lives and works in London. She holds a Diploma in Translation from the Chartered Institute of Linguists and is a Chartered Linguist, member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and a qualified member (translator) of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting in the UK. She was a participant in the 2023 BCLT Summer School and the inaugural issue of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation Translation Academy in 2024. Her translations have been published in Words Without Borders, Trafika Europe, 128 Lit., the PEN Club of Bulgaria 95th Anniversary Anthology and Virginia's Sisters - An anthology of women's writing.

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.