Here I would like to make a brief detour and congratulate myself on successfully evading the Kantian pitfalls I have a tendency to slide effortlessly in. Kant’s infamous stylistic helplessness seems to have been based on an acute fear of the full stop as a punctuation mark. Consequently, his written work (which I have read only in translation) contains sentences often as long as half a page. Perhaps someone would interrupt me to point out that Kant was a philosopher and as such had no obligation to abide by language’s fancies. I agree. Moreover, his disinterest in linguistic décor is an evidence of a pure mind and open, devoid of manipulative impulses, nature. My expressed respect for such frankness is not to suggest however that I’d suddenly revert to a similar approach. No, I couldn’t guarantee manipulation is so removed from my eclectic nature. Besides, my methodological consistency is hardly a virtue to boast about. This is why the end result of the present literary adventure will most probably spring from that meta-physical incest which I like to call, in homage to the late Feyerabend, methodological anarchism.

     Malinka looked at the bill she just received from her reluctant audience and confidently tucked it under a neckline revealing telling amounts of her monumental bust, stretching like a portable table under her wide, good-natured, face. She grabbed the green violin case that had been sitting by her feet and headed toward Count Ignatieff Street with regal dignity.

     Having gotten rid of the encroaching presence of his girlfriend, Angel got out of his BMW, turned the car keys around his finger and walked away like a man of his own affairs. Occasionally, he would furtively scan the surroundings, but otherwise he carried himself proudly, as befitted an owner of a remote heating and other minor wonders of technology.
     Holding the violin case with a professional casualness, Malinka was also walking the small streets. Hers was the determination of an accomplished artist. As she had just realized the afternoon was advancing and people would have most probably snuck out of their offices, she quickly dropped her plans and embarked on an alternative programme without clearly defined outlines.
     Whenever he felt suspicious about a pedestrian, Angel would sharply turn a corner or change direction thus hopefully evading eventual pursuers. The bizarre twist was that no matter how quirky his maneuvers, Malinka would appear exactly where he had arrived through his profoundly complex navigations of urban space. But even more bizarre was the fact that despite her unequivocal visibility and his feverish watchfulness, he never really noticed her.
     Abruptly, Angel stopped in front of an old apartment building Angel, looked around and sank into the dark entrance. Malinka passed by, catching only a drift of the building’s cool mossy breath. Her steps left long echoes on the silent afternoon street.
     Carrying a mysteriously black guitar case, Angel passed by his beloved BMW and headed toward the café across the street. Engulfed by the precautious thought of his invisible persecutors, Angel failed to notice his blue scout aiming at the same establishment. Painful anger enflamed Malinka’s lungs as Angel’s Prada sole briefly pressed on her small fleshy foot squeezed into a pointed shoe. Furious, she stormed in after him.
     “Elephant! And no manners to top it off!”
     The withered woman behind the counter didn’t have time to process the information.
     “Would you, please, give me a tissue? You see, that monster there almost crushed my foot and didn't even blink for an apology.” Malinka glared in the general direction of the café’s main room. “Proletarians! One shouldn't expect much of them anyway!”
     The proletarian was making his way to a table by the open terrace door.
     “Haven't seen him around here.” The waitress handed Malinka a paper towel.      “Seems like a big shot though. Better make no fuss! This kind, they might not blink for an apology but they may well blink for trouble.”
     Angel was sitting so comfortably at the table as though he weren’t the only customer who was not consuming anything but the very owner of the modest café. Only a few sporadic looks at the door and occasional glances at his watch suggested that behind his content mask there hides some form of human condition. From time to time his key chain assumed a life of its own.
     The eyes of the waitress came back to Malinka and unwittingly stopped at her bust armed in a pointed bra. The generous palette of her make up did not seem to even try to refute the claims of time. Malinka also looked at the waitress and, in a little retarded response to her earlier statement, announced in precautious volume:
     “Oh, I'm shivering! Those new rich don't scare me the least. Simpletons! They're not even truly rich - small time crooks!”
     A telephone rang coming from the object of her frustration, interrupted her thought. Angel took out a small mobile phone. The two women exchanged a glance.
     A complacently neat man entered the café and advanced to Angel’s table. He took a seat. His name was Korelov, but his demeanour was shifty.
     “Here, forget about it!” The waitress gave Malinka a cup of coffee. “It’s on me!”
     Angel couldn’t possibly see through Korelov’s utter mediocrity resting gloriously on a few important contacts (courtesy of his family) which, coupled with his vague talents, ensured him a certain status in the morphing business world of a post-totalitarian pre-democratic society.
     Malinka took the coffee and finally smiled, somewhat appeased.
     “Oh, you're so kind! I'll make sure you get a tiny role in the film we're making with Omar Shariff.”
     White socks sparkling briefly under his trousers, Korelov strode to the exit, guitar case in hand. Shortly after, Angel got up too.
     Malinka grabbed her coffee and fled to the just liberated table. Overwhelmed with a sense of victorious calm, she watched Angel exiting the café from the very chair he had just occupied. His key chain was lying abandoned on the table. Intentionally indifferent to the fact that its owner was still within sight, Malinka took the unusual object, examining its perplexing buttons with random abandon. The remote was accidentally pointed at the BMW parked across the street.
     Angel reaches for his keys. Realizing he's forgotten them, he heads back to the café. A big explosion propels him forth. His car is up in flames.
     Back in the cafe panic has struck. Forgetting her newfound gadget, Malinka is joining the spectatorship. Overwhelmed with dust and distress, Angel pushes his way through. His keys are still on the table. He examines them with profound incomprehension.
     The office of Heritage Foundation was drenched with the smell of old wood and dusty paper.
     “This is the whole package.” Korelov opened the black suitcase. Mr. Doulov, a solid gentleman with an orange necktie, took a long inquisitive look.
     “At the delivery boy’s expense,” added Korelov self-consciously.
     “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust?” Mr. Doulov’s ambivalent intonation betrayed his hopes and fears.
     “Literally!” confirmed Korelov.
     When Korelov left the office Malinka, underdressed in playful albeit worn out lingerie, emerged from the adjacent room. Carrying her curiously folded flesh with playful dignity, she approached the relaxing Mr. Doulov.
     Heritage Foundation was located on the third floor of an old residential building of decomposing architectural elegance not unusual for downtown Sofia. Malinka’s apartment was conveniently located next to the offices of the prestigious foundation, mirroring a growing trend of business and residential confusion in a city plagued by real estate issues. As the night would advance, Mr. Doulov would invariably leave the building to join his nuclear family while Malinka would find solace in the arms of a young gypsy man who sporadically shared her apartment.
Accompanied by the distant sounds of the waking traffic, the first sunrays of the day illuminated the brass plate on Malinka’s apartment door. It read in proud Gothic:
     “MALINKA AND OMAR SHARIFF”
     Dusting the sleeve of his blue uniform, a city officer slowly climbed the stairs, stopped at Malinka’s door and, unperturbed by its claim to celebrity, rang the bell. He straightened his sloping posture as he heard steps approaching from the other side.
     “Who is it?” squeaked the morning voice of a hormonally advanced female.
     “For the heating…”
     The following pause was becoming unrealistically long when an affected child’s voice finally cut it: “None’s home.”
     Receding jumps of a humming little girl on the other side broke the man’s continuity. Quickly, as befitting a city executive, he came to his senses and resumed the bell-ringing harassment. None would ever open that door.
     The door squeaked ever so slightly when the last echo from the city officer’s presence had died out. The notice he had left at the doorknob fell on the floor. Malinka stretched her neck, looked around and picked it up. The cheer deserted her face as she read the content of the curt document.
     But the song of summer birds gushed in through the window. A few sun rays flirted with the pompous brass plate and chased each other up the hallway’s ceiling. It was only June. Malinka smiled and crumpled the notice.
A Lufthanza airplane landed swiftly on Sofia International Airport. It contained a single first class passenger.
     Cheerfully clad in a pair of pink trousers, Malinka walked out of the building into the glowing day. Katherina Evstahieva, a contrived flirt with jet black hair, beckoned her from the mezzanine window.
     “There’s no escape from my bills,” sighed Malinka who could occasionally afford the luxury of complaining when talking with Katherina – a proverbial gossip better kept at arm’s length as envy came effortlessly to her. “Now they are cutting my heating!” Malinka looked poignantly up at her bangs.
     “Oh, come on! Who needs heating in summer? Besides,” Katherina’s eyes betrayed a calculated cunning as she scanned Malinka’s enviable outfit, “at our age, we may not even survive the summer temperatures at all”.
Malinka squints:
     “Ha, if I can survive Doulov’s advances, my heart is as fit as a fiddle.”
Katherina shoots back:
     “Well, can’t Doulov help you out then?”
     “Doulov?! Ha! He’s good for nothing…”
     Relieved a little, Katherina lowers her voice and leans forth.
     “But I hear that Mr. Tonkov, the Swiss banker, the money behind Doulov’s business, is coming to Sofia today.”
     A telephone ring from one of the open upper floors’ windows accents their confidential exchange.
     “Mr. Tonkov?” exclaims Malinka.
     “Mr. Tonkov!” echoed Mr. Doulov as he picked up the phone. He was sitting by the window of his office, catching a distracted glimpse of Malinka who parted with Katherina, turned around and decisively headed back to the building.
     “Of course! I’m sending the car right away. Sheraton? Yes?” Doulov failed to detect the brief knock on the door as he was confirming the arrangement with Mr. Tonkov.
     “Mr. Tonkov?” Malinka startled Doulov who was just hanging up the phone. “Was this Mr. Tonkov on the phone?” She didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I knew my luck was here! You must let me go pick him up. Please, this is very important! He was a personal friend of my uncle…” She grabbed his hand.
     “I’m sure he was. But you’ll meet him another time,” coaxed her Doulov as he gently turned her grip against her and started leading her suggestively to the door.
     “Oh, no! He is on a short trip,” stopped Malinka in the middle of the room.      “What does it cost you anyway? I’ll only accompany the driver… You know I’m good at predisposing people!”
     She fixes Doulov with lustful persistence, her red nails skillfully sliding down the naked part of his tightened neck as she roars suggestively. Drops of perspiration glitter on Doulov’s forehead.
     “All right, all right! But, no tricks! Go, pick him up and come back right away!”
     “Of course! What else could I do?”

     A day later the press announced that “MR.TONKOV ARRIVED AT THE FORUM FOUNDATION”, supporting the claim with a picture of Doulov greeting Mr.Tonkov, Malinka by his side. Angel put down the newspaper and turned back to face Korelov who was casually leaning on the windowsill.
     “Right on time… Old jerks! We’ll see who’ll get whom!”
Then he slowly pivoted his chair three hundred and sixty degrees, breathing in the soothing reassurance of his expensively furnished office. Korelov’s eyes wandered nervously.

     During his short visit to Sofia, Mr. Tonkov found himself gently but relentlessly surrounded by the effervescent Malinka – an aroma of old lipstick and essential oils reminiscent of times that never were. He briefly wondered at a spontaneous surrender of his Geneva contact information that, his hunch correctly suggested, had been a mistake. Ridiculous as it might sound for a man of his considerable means, experience and age, Mr. Tonkov was gradually caught in the web of a retiree’s erotic fantasies.

     The street was quietly enchanting in the electrically challenged post-planned pre-marketing economy night. Even the hotel's entrance hall was dim as the slow breeze hustled around the dark silhouette of someone lying on a bench in the park across.
     Accompanied by Korelov and Doulov’s nuclear family, Mr. Tonkov was walking to the hotel that night. “Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced with old-fashioned eloquence, “your exquisite company made this a night I shall hardly forget.”
     “A lovely night indeed!” confirmed Doulov.
     “Oh, look! There's someone lying on the bench,” exclaimed his seemingly distracted female counterpart.
     They approached the bench collectively. The dark bundle moved a little. Mrs.Doulov leaned over. “Oh, it's a woman!”
     Waking slowly, the woman started to get up.
     “Good evening!” At the sound of Mr. Tonkov’s velvet politeness, the drowsy Malinka jumped up with youthful agility. Albeit wrinkled, her blue velvet was still as striking.
     “Oh, good evening, dear! How thoughtful of you to wake me up! I've been waiting for you all night. Oh, Mr. Doulov, madam, pleased to see you!”
Struck by her sudden familiarity, Mr.Tonkov took a step back. He quickly turned to his escorts:
     “Malina Zaharieva is the niece of Nickolai Zahariev. We only met once, the other day, at the Foundation, but we established a lot of common themes… from my past... You see, I left Bulgaria before she was even born.”
     “Oh, thank you! I am not that young. But, young at heart is what matters. Vassil here is a living example.” She grabbed him softly by the arm and started crossing the street as he complied with a stiffened pace. Bewildered, the rest just follow the awkward couple.
     “I need to talk to you!” Malinka almost whispered. “Let’s go upstairs?”
     Petrified, Mr.Tonkov tried to prevent this tête-à-tête by desperately inviting everyone up for an after-hour taste of “Napoleon”. The elderly couple was too exhausted to get the drift of his sudden insistence (and Doulov’s capacity to handle the situation with oblivious grace was far smaller than that of his own guilty secret), but the young and cunning Korelov caught the plea in his eyes.
     A glass of cognac later, Malinka lost interest in the political musings of her companions and went to search the radio waves which soon overpowered the room with their chaotic sounds. A station was playing an old city tango. Triumphantly, Malinka invited Mr.Tonkov to dance. Somewhat flattered, he declined excusing on account of his advanced age.
     “Don't say that! You're in perfect shape!” Exclaimed Malinka and tried to pull him forcibly up on his feet. He resisted vehemently until tango ended. But just as Malinka relaxed her grip, another tango started playing. She resumed her harassment.
     “Malina, stop this!” commanded a stupefied Mr. Tonkov. “Better invite Mr.Korelov, he is younger and more energetic.”
     Korelov jumped on his feet dutifully.
     Malinka was dancing hard, taking the lead toward ever more dramatic choreography. She was about thirty years her partner’s senior but desperately more energetic. Initially distracted, glancing seductively at Mr.Tonkov, she gradually gained confidence abandoning herself in the dance, sure that he=is gaze had nowhere to go.
     Glass of cognac in hand, Mr.Tonkov was stealing a nap. The voice of a radio anchor awoke him.
     “I'm sorry, I must have drifted away. At my age it's hard to stay up late.”
     Malinka looked at him unconcerned.
     “Well, it's late for me too. And I can't go home at this hour.”
     “I'll take you home. I’ll call a taxi,” suggested Korelov quickly.
     Malinka planted herself deeply in the sofa and grabbed her glass of cognac. “No, no, no! I'll just sleep here. You shouldn't worry about me.”
     Mr.Tonkov turned off the radio and remained by the window, his back to the room.
     “Really, I'm fine here,” went on Malinka, trying to suffocate her growing insecurity. “Besides, I dislike taxi drivers. You never know what they're up to these days.”
     Suddenly Mr.Tonkov turned around and smiled. “You know what, I already lost my sleep and I’ll hardly catch it back soon. So, why don't we all go for a nice little walk in night Sofia?”
     
     Malinka, Mr.Tonkov and Korelov are walking through one of the prolific downtown Sofia parks. The distant sounds of a tango floated around in a faintly distinguishable restaurant arrangement. Mr. Tonkov finally embraced the awkward cosmic message and felt instant harmony:
     “How peaceful is this park in the heart of the metropolis! Did you know it was designed by Dragomir Folenski, a distinguished Bulgarian architect and a personal friend of mine? Bulgaria mothered great minds in my days!”
Holding him happily by the arm, Malinka was stepping lightly, almost dancing to the distant tune. Her humming became increasingly audible.
     “Yes, indeed,” said Korelov with servile determination, “in those days Bulgaria knew greatness! Today all they know is cheap tricks and plagiary. There are no real artists in this country anymore!”
     Malinka waved Korelov’s words away with lighthearted displeasure.
     “Cheer up, young man! If you need art, make your life an artwork! Look at me. Even death can’t stop me.”
     She started openly singing and dancing around the two men. Mr.Tonkov smiled kindly, his mind drifting along her movements, the rustling of the trees, the vague distance. He was at the threshold of an epiphany.
     “In such moments of harmony, one can indeed suspend the idea of death.”
     As they were approaching the fountain, Malinka was gently taking off her clothes, layer by layer, and left them roaming until bush or a tree caught them timidly.
     “Malina, what are you doing?” Mr. Tonkov was parentally stern.
     “What do I look like doing? Enjoying life, my dear! Like an artist, albeit a plagiarist.”
     She winked and, now only in her obscure lingerie, stepped happily in the water.
     “Come! Take the bath of sweet life with me!” She beckoned laughingly.
     “Madam, get out of there, please! They'll come and arrest you.” Korelov almost panicked.
     “There's no one to arrest me. They're all drunk or making love at this hour.”
Mr.Tonkov observed the scene with curiosity and jolly consignment. He caught himself humming the song, but quickly censored his frivolous slip.
     “Sir, I'm afraid this could be a rather compromising situation for you… If the police comes…”
     Mr.Tonkov turned to the disconcerted Korelov with an ill-concealed smile.
     “Well, we can't run away and leave a lady alone in the night, can we?”
He paused for a while.
     “Relax, my dear boy! Enjoy the moment! In a strange way, it truly reminds me of that scene from "La Dolce Vita"...
     Malinka was not coming out of the water.

     A day later a Lufthanza airplane, carrying only one first class passenger, departed with an audible sight.

     The post-woman, a voluminous creature of unfriendly disposition was sorting papers with meditative abandon. Every now and then she would attempt to chase a fly, waving her hand lethargically across the empty space. This movement would briefly expose the wet spot of fabric covering her armpit that wouldn’t have escaped Malinka’s attention were she not engrossed in an amorous ploy.
     The high-pitch of an abrupt client shocked the post-woman out of her blissful indolence.
     “Good afternoon! I want to send a telegram, please!” The post-woman looked wearily at Malinka - a dreamy face beaming across the counter - and prepared to type the message.
     Annoyed at her client’s continuous silent grin, the post-woman glared up briefly, inadvertently cueing a verbal avalanche.
     “Dear pussycat,” Malinka pierced the hot air with her sharp sonic frequencies, “comma, our love is my air, comma, your words are my water, comma, your body is my bread, point. Don’t let me starve, exclamation.”
     The post-woman punched the last point and graced Malinka with the first sign of recognition - a long look of bewilderment.

     Malinka had to get ready for this afternoon’s cocktail party at the Swiss embassy. She opened her closet. The door hung freely on its upper hinge. Malinka looked proudly at the chaos of glaring materials pushing out. All these outfits were her original creations from conception to the last stitch. She glanced victoriously in the mirror on the inside of the closet door. Before the fall of the regime, of course! The prices of materials were low back then. For example, this sumptuous dress in ecru cost her only eight leva. Such Brussels' lace was worn only by the richest in the past, while the Communists were selling it for three fifty the meter at the curtains stand in the Central Universal Store! Good they were such simpletons, having no idea of fine things. Proletarians! What could one expect from them? And this velvet, she caresses the green mock velvet, was two leva the meter at the same stand. A ridiculous price for such a material! She bought a lot of the blue and of the green. For less than fifteen leva she made two exceptional outfits with matching wide-brimmed hats. The hats she also upholstered herself. She cast an affirmative look at the indifferent mirror. Wherever she’d go in those outfits, people would turn to look at her. Where have the common proletarians seen such clothes? She raised her eyebrows and shared her final decision out loud with the mirror:
     “Yes, I'll put the green velvet on. It's most appropriate for such an important occasion.”

     On her way to the Swiss embassy Malinka passed by her favourite book market on Slavejkov Square. Not that she was such an avid reader – she merely enjoyed the convergence of culture and commerce. Covers would flash here and there, but it was a stand of liberally exposed erotic literature that attracted the undivided attention of her love-lost gaze. The salesman, a bearded man of abandoned intellectual aspirations, watched her closely as she stopped and browsed deliberately through his rich stack of postcards. Choosing one, she looked him with a frankness that made him feel suddenly uneasy for being what now seemed unhealthily curious.
     “I’m taking it!” announced Malinka with a piercing voice.
     “Three leva!” The salesman grinned under his moustache.
     “Good God! It’s expensive!” exclaimed Malinka suggestively. The salesman grinned indifferently on. After a short hesitation, she gave him the money:
     “What wouldn’t one do for love?!”
     But, unable to leave the scene without extracting at least a miniature bonus, Malinka stuck around a little longer. Finally, she spotted the salesman’s pen sticking out of his pocket.
     “Would you lend me your pen? I must write down the line that just came to me.”
     The salesman gives her the pen. Once again she looks at the picture on the card. It represents two tomatoes that have mutated in unusual shapes, one reminiscent of a vagina and the other of a matching penis. Malinka writes on the back of the postcard:
     “I’m going to eat you up like the cute tomato on the right!
     Love passionately, Malinka.”
     She gives the pen back to its owner and walks away. The salesman looks in her direction long after she had disappeared in the crowd.

     Malinka wasn’t going to the Swiss embassy because of Mr. Tonkov. Her permanent presence at certain diplomatic gatherings was a matter of course, especially if the hosts did not habitually care to submit their distinguished guests to the humiliation of checking invitations. In addition to gorging her glutinous soul with worldly conversations in distinguished companies encapsulated in a somewhat elegant atmosphere, Malinka could enjoy a day’s meal of comparatively good quality absolutely free of charge.
     Today the embassy garden was sprinkled with miscellaneous luminaries of variable consequence. Angel, Albena and Korelov were standing idly by the cold buffet.
     “Don’t tell me Doulov and Tonkov will skip the party. I’ve just warmed up the guys!” Angel was scanning the crowd compulsively. Albena shook her worried face.
     “Please, don’t do anything foolish!”
     “You shut up!” Angel hissed through his thin smile.
     The apparition of a magnificent creature enveloped in green mock velvet acted as a magnet to the collective attention. Malinka was walking triumphantly the garden alley, matching green violin case in hand. Angel squinted:
     “Isn’t that the woman from the newspaper?” He immediately registered the musical instrument case in her hand and made a simple arithmetic connection.
Albena smiled knowingly, “I’d love to meet her!”
     Responding to Albena’s wish, Malinka targeted the buffet table and, as she began filling her plate, she graciously socialized with the nearby Korelov:
     “So many wonderful people gathered under the sun! I feel like a bird!”
Korelov mumbled arbitrary monosyllables. Albena interjected swiftly:
     “Wonderful indeed! Said sun will soon set in shame at all this glamour!” Angel looked at her almost gratefully:
     “Excuse my curiosity, but weren’t you somehow related to Mr. Tonkov?”
     Malinka laughed out playfully.
     “Vassil?” She raised her brows in mock amazement. “Let’s see - I’d say, very well.”
     Content with the look of her plate and the sound of the budding dialogue, she dedicated her full attention to the talkative young people, all the while honouring her body with lustful bites.
     “What a beautiful woman!” Malinka beamed at Albena, while she was still swallowing her first peace of egg and caviar. “Are you an actress?”
Charmed and amused, Albena shook her head laughingly. Angel took two glasses of champagne from the passing waiter. “Isn’t Mr. Tonkov coming today?” Malinka grinned, accepting the gallantly offered glass of champagne. “Oh, dear! He went back to Switzerland!” And she passed the glass to Albena. “Please, I can’t allow such a star to stand empty handed!” Malinka deftly wiped off another one from the platter of the idle waiter standing nearby and held it up.
     “What a happy man!” She took a deliberate sip and shook her crowned in violet head. “They don’t know the first thing about good casting, those filmmakers of ours!”
     They all laughed with relaxed abandon.
     “Don’t worry though! I’ll make sure you get a real part when Omar Shariff comes back.”
     Finally at her favourite topic, Malinka awarded herself with a voluminous piece of salmon.
     “Omar Shariff?”
     Although she would indulge the gregarious personality of Malinka, Albena doubted her own ears.
     Malinka’s momentary confusion betrayed a profound conviction in her own notoriety. But when she failed to receive a discernable acknowledgement from Angel or Korelov too, she ascribed their shared ignorance to the generation gap and quickly proceeded with an expose she would’ve given anyway.
     “For a few years now I’ve been trying to convince those bureaucrats at Boyana Films to invite him to shoot here. We can’t stay separated like that…”
     She took her last bite and chose to ignore the increasing confusion bouncing off the faces of her companions.
     “We’ve been separated for too many years…”
     The lonely sight of her plate revived her interest in the buffet and, glaring rapaciously at the deserts, she discreetly advanced to the cornucopia she had mindlessly lost touch with during her champagne maneuvers. Distractedly, Malinka fished a photograph out of her violin case with such a coordinated and well rehearsed gesture that it pushed Angel into even deeper anxiety about its contents, its carrier and mostly about its elusive addressee.
     “Here you go! This one was taken at the zenith of our relationship with Omar.”
     Albena remained pensive as Angel swiftly snatched the picture out of her hands.
     “But this is Mr. Doulov!” Exclaimed Angel, his eyes fixed on the curious image of Malinka posing in seductive lingerie before a loosened up Doulov. As soon as he uttered his surprise, the picture disappeared from his hands as instantaneously as it had disappeared from Albena’s. “Oh, pay no heed!” Malinka giggled as she stuffed it back into her purse. “Everyone has one or two compromising mementos.” Then, she took out another one with the same unmistaken dexterity, which alarmed Angel even more deeply. Could the violin case be full of pictures like that? Why?
     “Here! Now, this is truly worth seeing!” Malinka handed the next picture with care and only after giving it a long nostalgic look.
     Relieved, she could finally grab the last muffin from the buffet table.
     “But this is really Omar Shariff!” Cried out Angel staring at the photograph that showed Omar Shariff himself arm in loving arm with a young and not at all unattractive Malinka. He gave her a look of brief admiration. Mrs. Shariff gulped energetically another bite of contribution to her portliness and waved graciously:
     “You may keep it!”
     “No, no, I can’t… This is a huge personal memento.” Protested Angel vehemently, but then a thought lit up his face. “See, the other one is more up my alley.”
     Malinka gently insisted she shouldn’t cling to her past now that her wedding to Mr. Tonkov himself was only a matter of course. “As for the other picture,” she went on after a thoughtful pause, “we could perhaps negotiate.”
     Angel glanced at Korelov, nodded toward an obscure figure standing by the fence, bravely drank up his remaining champagne and beamed at her:
     “Let’s have a talk in my car then!”

     Malinka was annoyed rather than alarmed when Angel ushered her in a brand mew Volkswagen. She was still carrying the plate with her barely started muffin. But her excitement at the prospective deal coupled with the reassuring luxury of the car’s interior design, soothed her sudden alarm at being squeezed between the smiling Albena and her neurotic boyfriend. Casting furtive looks around, Malinka took a consoling bite. A few crumbs fell right onto her bust, whose shape and size thus proved quite useful. She kept chewing throughout the following conversation, all the while shedding crumbs, which Albena observed with growing alarm encouraged also by the fact that the obscure man who took the driver’s seat was a thoroughly unfamiliar face.
     “May I have another look at the compromising memento?”
     Sheepishly, Malinka handed the obscene relic to her pressing companion and tried to open the bargain with a diminutive intonation:
     “I won’t ask for much – five thousand dollars... Just to fix my situation…” Barely glancing at it, Angel tucked the picture in his wallet, Malinka’s voice etching unusual frequencies in his firing brain. “It’s not luxury I’m after,” she was sweeping the crumbs off her bust and onto the plate, “just want to stay…” Tenderly, Angel lifted her busy hand off her now considerably neater bust and, with a sudden twist, hand-cuffed her to Albena. Startled, Malinka could no longer hold onto the plate, crumbs spilling back all over her.
     “Five thousand – five thousand! We’ll call up your friends and see if they’ll make the donation ‘cause they owe me a few grants too. In the meantime, I’ll keep your luggage with me.” Angel extracted the violin case from her reluctant grip and got out. Before shutting the door, he turned to the flabbergasted Malinka and in a feat of perverse politeness, bent over to kiss her free hand, which he then quickly cuffed to the door’s handle. The door lock clicks automatically. “Drive to the bunker!” He commanded the unremarkable man in the front seat, then turned briefly to Albena: “And no tricks!”
     Sinking deeper in the back seat, Malinka was struck by a profoundly unwonted inner silence which rendered the engine so much more audible. Angels’s new black BMW drove in the opposite direction.
     The apologetic look in Albena’s eyes pulled Malinka’s daring self back together again. She stretched out her neck.
     “Don’t worry!” The compact acoustics of the car allowed her recovered voice to dingle with an unnerving poignancy as the driver tried to keep concentrated on the road. “Vassil will straighten things up. Your angelic friend doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”
     Puffy, well shaven, distinctly odorous, the driver’s cheek twitched. The road converged into a point on the horizon. Albena smiled incredulously. Encouraged by the momentum of her own gravity-defying thoughts, Malinka turned to the front seat, just a note up in her voice. “And you, what part of Bulgaria you come from?”
The driver kept his enigmatic disposition but could not contain a glance in the rear view mirror.
     “I bet you are form the Veliko Turnovo region”, she leaned back comfortably.
     “How did you figure it out?” His voice was husky, a note of grease betraying a man who’d had to bow his way to women and power. And who would redeem his proud self by oppressing others in turn, if only given the chance.
     Albena fixed Malinka with questioning admiration.
     “I am psychic. Besides, such attractive men are only made in the old capital city.” Malinka winked at Albena and leaned forth as much as possible thrusting her breasts into the man’s peripheral vision.
     “I can’t deny a known fact! But women too were something back there.”
     “Why “were”? What about now?” Albena joined in, revived. The man behind the steering wheel boomed with affected casualness:
     “Well, they are no longer there. Got married… in Sofia, abroad… And what about you?” He glanced audaciously at the barely identifiable slice of young female beauty captured in the rear view mirror. “Don’t tell me you also come from Turnovo!”
     “Let’s see if you can guess...”

     Angel comes out of his just parked black BMW and disappears in the street shadows. Korelov emerges hesitantly from behind a corner and goes straight to the driver’s door.

     Abandoned to the infinite emptiness of the rural road the driver was becoming increasingly talkative. “You know what I trust the most?” he glanced teasingly in the rear view mirror. “The sight of my eye and the touch of my hand! Mainly, the touch of my hand… The eye can deceive.”
     Albena’s mischievous glance would have inevitably escaped the inflating driver.
     “The touch of your hand, mmm… it’s not a bad idea.” The driver had to suddenly slow down as his clarity of vision became instantly impaired. He smiled proudly.      “It’s not bad, I guarantee. My hand… But then the boss might break it, ha, ha!”
     “And how would the boss know?”
     Malinka leaned over the front seat, her soft flesh overflowing the loose velvet of her dress. She could see the purple capillaries and the small dry pores on the reddening neck of the bulky man.
     “Ah, is this a walnut forest?” Albena exclaimed, an infantile allure in her twitching voice. “How pretty! If only we could stop pick some walnuts…”
The driver allowed for a hesitant silence:
     “I know it very well, this little forest… Great for strolls with gentlemen…” He smiled cunningly. “But there are no more gentlemen left…”
     “And what are you?”
     “Well, I am working… Besides, you’re two. Which one should I attend to? It’s impolite somehow…”
     The walnut forest was rushing past the car, in the opposite direction.
     “I see no problem.” Exclaimed Malinka gleefully. “Look at you! A man enough for ten!”
     Suddenly dignified, the tenfold man slowed down.
     “Let’s go then, since you want so much…”

     Gallantly liberated from the clutches of the door, Malinka glides toward the forest, dragging Albena with whom she is still intricately related by one wrist. The clumsy elegance of their gestures bemuses the lucky driver who puts the free hand-cuff in his pocket and, face gone purple, scurries behind them.
     Wriggling through the leafage, the afternoon light sprinkles Malinka’s cleavage with spots of blinding clarity. The cold stripes that run gently around his neck make him long to liberate Albena’s other hand as well. Her soft hair envelopes him with the faint aroma of young sweat and soap. Then she dissolves in the forest. Exhausted by his carnal desire and cardiologic deficiency, the happy man leans on a young tree, expectant, silent, confident, knowing they have nowhere to go.
     Slowly, tenderly they come to him, touching him. Ever so slightly four hands caress chaotically his back, his tights, approaching randomly his burning crotch. The sound of his gushing blood, a drop of saliva on his shirt, panting.

     Deftly, Malinka picked his pocket, retrieving the handcuff while Albena gently liberated him of his neck tie.

     Confused sounds of crickets, the soft ground gives in. He slides down, defeated, entranced. He reaches backward to grasp the playfully evasive duo.

     Fondling his hands the women hand-cuffed him to the tree giggling enticingly. A hysterical note perturbed briefly his continuous laughter and drowned in the relentless erotic avalanche that ensued.
     The aging man was indeed living his life-long fantasy when Malinka started to take off his pants, Albena blindfolding him with his silk tie. Deprived of visual faculties, he felt an awkward tickling on his forehead but had no way of knowing that the mischievous young woman was using it as a notepad. This curious sensation was entirely overshadowed by the promise of his now missing underwear and by a cloud that, he had no way of knowing that was passing right over his head.

     Key chain dangling merrily between his fingers, Angel was heading to his BMW.

     Choking with laughter, Malinka and Albena were running back to the car, trying clumsily to unlock the handcuff, moans of a deserted man describing the growing distance.
     Swish, blur, a thud. The tree across starts falling then stops midway. The yellow line of the road grows to an infinite smell of dry asphalt and a spit of blood.
     The driver accelerates on, resisting the urge to glance in the rear view mirror.

     Just before reaching his car, another BMW passes quickly, hits Angel and runs.

     Shocked and dazed Albena collapsed next to Malinka.
     But her active nature had no concept of motionless sorrow and, after an initial moment of suspense, the young woman embraced her lost companion. Still trembling with the terror of abrupt loneliness, Albena managed to drag Malinka’s limp body to the car.

     Curious, kind or jaded pedestrians approach Angel’s body - prostrated piously on the road. An explosion freezes the scene. Angel’s BMW is up in flames.

     The explosion resonates in Albena’s car as she starts the engine. Malinka’s body is stiffening in the passenger’s seat. The car starts bluntly. Malinka wakes up.

     “Malinka? Oh, my God!” Albena stopped the car, aghast. “Are you all right?”
     “You bet, why?”
     “Well, I guess you fainted. I thought you were dead.”

     Malinka waves away an imaginary fly.
     “Aaa, death is not my cup of tea!”

     Albena laughed wholeheartedly. Malinka knew her heating bill was finally as good as paid.
     Curious, kind and jaded villagers on their way back through the forest come across an unusual sight. Tied to a tree, alone and bare bottomed, the amorous driver is weeping silently. His forehead sports a large handwritten sentence reading “The Last Gentleman”.
     Twilight is setting in.

Montreal, January 2004

N.B. The Short Story of the Short Story

This story is part of a larger work I startde to write after a visit to Bulgaria in 1995. It sets the story in that period brimming with the paradoxes of a freshly dissolved society in transition. My original notes and chapters were in Bulgarian. In 1998 I came back to those notes and started writing the script Malinka and Other True Stories. The English version of the script was officially finished in 2001 but in 2002 I went back to Bulgaria to actualize it and translate it into its "original" language. In so doing, the script undrewent yet another set of metamorphoses to acheive what is now its final version. In 2003 I went back to the idea of a book and started crafting the work into literary prose, finishing a short story version, The Last Gentleman, in January 2004. It is the version published above.