Eime

It’s all about Eime. It really is. And it will always be about her, or at least until she dies. More on point, it’s all about her long henna dyed hair, pink nail polish, long legs that look like they could embrace even the largest of men, but also her big black eyes and plump lips (it’s the olive oil and the chapped skin because of all the kissing and sucking). Whatever is going on with her, it definitely has people jumping through hoops to protect and cherish.

That wasn’t always the case. Things were different before her father put a tank top on her and placed her on the roof of their beat-up Rumanian car for everyone to view. It was a scorching sunny day and she fell on her back, her thighs burning and her feet reaching up towards the skies to get as far away from the flaming hot metal as possible. It was like a wave of discovery washed over the run-down Romani neighbourhood and every male person, from the old toothless ones to the young boys, went “Ahhh”.

It’s that “ahhh” that still echoes through the area behind the large pre-Perestrojka building complex, so thoughtfully named Sheker Mahala, like the sweet drink that Turkish royalty would sip in the cool shade of a vine in all her imaginary fairytale books. It will probably echo for a while. Or until she dies. As said.

Her left leg had been itching all day. Loose skirt or tight skirt, it didn’t matter. The involuntary movements of hands dying to scratch until it bleeds will eventually pull the skirt down, relieving the last remaining piece of elastic in her white cotton underwear from the responsibility of doing its job. And, of course, when that happens, her clothes will fall to the ground and there will be another “ahhh” echoing through Sheker Mahala, not unlike the one that pulled her kicking and screaming into womanhood... or whatever it was that claimed one little girl after another in the Romani neighbourhoods.

By the time the sun set, Eime had had enough of this leg of hers and whatever was making it itch so damn much. She reached underneath her legs, scooped up a fistful of cool soil and rubbed it on the irritated skin. It felt good.

The military camp that enveloped the only dusty but somehow blooming forest in the vicinity of Sheker Mahala, had closed its fences for the day. Eime was happy to see the enormous complex shut down for the evening. She squinted and counted the windows lighting up, one after the other, on the upper floors of the main building trying to figure out if the camp was getting ready to sleep or just taking a break before some awful new military exercise was unleashed upon the land just in case someone out there was happy or resting.

Not a single day in the last three of her almost fourteen years had gone by without her counting those shuttered windows. If enough of them were lit for at least thirty minutes or so that meant the camp was indeed closed for the day. If not, then… who knows. Before he drank himself to death, Old Man Mirko used to say that she should hide for at least an hour or so in the evening, adding “When boys are hunting Manhood, there is no telling what they’d do.” Maybe those were somehow wise words coming from an otherwise imbecilic man, but Eime never listened to anyone, especially Old Man Mirko.

She got up, shook the soil off her itchy leg and looked upon her kingdom. The clotheslines on the hill above the pile of random cardboard and wood, that many of her subjects foolishly called home, were hanging heavy with linens so old that they could never be washed properly. Apart from a couple of small kids crawling in the dust in their days old diapers, there was no one around.

That kingdom of hers was an odd place. It was the kind of place that welcomed no one. Once in a while, someone from the outside - Bulgarian, foreign, or a touristing journalist perhaps - would cross the motorway and wander into the courtyard marking the entrance to Sheker Mahala just to find themselves being violently spat back onto the motorway, with their heads spinning and their eyes popping out in disbelief. Some people lived for this kind of thing. There was much pleasure to be found in rejecting intruders whose entitlement and curiosity grew awfully quickly in the presence of Romani people.

Eime felt nothing for Sheker Mahala. When the old Rumanian car carried her drunk father into the pit where the new hotel was supposed to be, she lost her last nerve with this godforsaken wasteland. It had been her home since she first cried out from between her mother’s widespread bare legs, but there was nothing left there for her but a kingdom of fools that no one will ever know or remember. They could all die in a violent fire and she wouldn’t care one bit.

Both her legs were itching now. It must be fleas, she thought, and started dancing around shaking her body frantically. She was an exceptional dancer. If only they could see her now, that “ahhh” would be louder and echoing even beyond the grave. With a little bit of luck, she’d go while she was still young so that the devils had someone beautiful to bed in the afterlife.

Somewhere in the darkness an old TV broke down and a collective “Fuck you, Taruk, and your shitty telly, you piece of shit!” erupted accompanied by what sounded like physical violence upon fragile old furniture.

Deep in the shadows, the cardboard was settling after a long day in the sun, making squeaking and popping sounds like it was giving birth to something ominous, like a local pimp or a child salesmen. Printed pieces of fabric from numerous billboards stolen from party headquarters during the latest election covered the improvised roofs with distorted faces and lots and lots of shiny white Bulgarian teeth, creating landscapes that were too unimaginable for any other mind but the Romani.

She didn’t mind the billboards. They were absurd, and frankly, quite funny with their former glory being spat and shut on day in and day out. There was that little kid that would pull his willy out and aim for the eyes and mouths of fading faces, laughing his little head off and enjoying the waterworks. “Pijel galbeno (drink yellow)”, he would shout and laugh until he ran out of pee or until Eime hit him over the head with an old newspaper or her makeup box.

It was her thirteenth birthday last September. There was another one coming soon. It didn’t matter though. The Stara Zagora Market was a milestone bigger than any birthday and that was coming soon too. A kind older man had asked her about it the day before. He had spent the night talking to her and caressing her breasts but nothing else. It was unfortunate that he had to go and mention the market just when she was starting to forget about it. The bride market was supposed to be “a girl’s way out” of Sheker Mahala, but with her father in the pit, and her kingdom soon to be swollen by that hotel, the prospect of being trusted into the hands of a distant uncle and sold to someone else’s distant uncle just didn’t sound very appealing to her. Godforsaken or not, her kingdom was like no other.

The man kept asking about the market. He was planning to go there, she assumed. Eime told him what she knew, but it wasn’t much. It was big and crowded and there were many uncles and many many girls. None of them was as beautiful as Eime was and absolutely none of them was a better dancer. She stood up on the bed and danced for him bending her arms and legs in all sorts of unexpected ways pretending that she was an apple tree with birds picking at her fruit.

The man had a pleasant laugh, but he was too old and very foreign. She didn’t want to look at him so she just danced until the man grew tired of watching her.

They talked, slept a little and then talked some more. The man wanted to leave her something “to remember him by”, he said. Breathing heavily, he pulled his trousers up and took a small black book out of his pocket. It was brand new with the label still on it. Eime didn’t recognize the money doodle next to the number. The surface felt strangely warm and soft to the touch so she held it for a while. “Can I have it back for a second?”, the man asked. She made a sad face and sucked on her lip refusing to let go of the book. The man thought that she was playing and wrestled her down, laughing. She wasn’t playing. “Romani don’t play”, she said and hit him with her fist. He seemed to like it and wrestled her down again. This time she aimed for his throat.

Throughout her long life, Eime had been told that her strength was no match for her tiny body. She knew that, which is why she aimed so well. A punch well aimed is like a ton of bricks.

There was a sound of something breaking. It was the sound a hen’s body makes when you twist the head to make it stop twitching. The man kicked back, holding his head with his two hands. Eime closed her eyes and sang a song about pigeons.

After two pigeon shit related verses, the twitching stopped. There wasn’t much to do other than leave. She put her clothes on, tucked the small black book in her only pocket and opened the door. It was still dark outside the caravan. Eime hesitated. She turned and looked around the narrow space. By the small kitchenette, next to a wooden chair, there was a satchel made of brown leather. She stood staring at it for a while, scratching her head, then thought: "He doesn't need it anymore" and carefully unbuttoned the shiny buckle on the top. There was a piece of paper in it with many foreign money doodles that she didn’t recognize and twice as many numbers. Underneath the paper she saw piles of colourful bills with photos of girls neatly taped to paper ribbons.

Eime left the caravan, walked all the way across the motorway and hid in the shallow ditch behind the clotheslines where she stayed quietly until the sun set. People always asked how she could stay still for so long. It was a special skill she had, no doubt about that. The trick was to have a routine and keep at it. Like counting lit military camp windows, predicting the future, making songs about the patterns pigeons leave in the dust, and above all, thinking about nothing.

Somewhere beyond the motorway there was a train that didn’t go anywhere near Stara Zagora and a hat with her name on it that would cover all of her hair until the henna faded and her Romani face transformed into something recognizable to those who didn’t shout “Pijel galbeno” covering printed teeth with pee.

Eime reached above her head and untied a ribbon. A sea of hair covered her body in copper and silk. She stood on the top of the hill for a long time clutching the satchel and waiting for Sheker Mahala to die down.