Sofia I
Salle met me at the airport, his short salt and pepper beard made even more bristly by a broad grin.
He shouldered one of my bags and we walked out of the small airport into a cool and rainy night.
The evening was late. Roads wet with rain shone under yellow streetlight. A few cars were on the road, passing or being passed by us - bottling up at the stop lights and then pacing on again. Our fellow travelers plied the roads like ships pushed by the wind - straying from lane to lane without signals, their captains always precariously close to running them aground.
As we drove along, I could see a mix of smashed glass and tire-chewed garbage glittering in the gutters. The car rumbled and hummed on the cracks and potholes like a needle on an old record and all around us the falling streetlight showed signs of a decaying city.
Beyond the roads there are walls of crumbling concrete painted over with graffiti, decrepit bus shelters wallpapered with generations of posters, bent railings shedding paint and bleeding rust, and broken pavement stones pushed apart by weeds.
We wound our way through increasingly narrow streets, entering cobbled sideroads lined with parked cars who were borrowing the space from the morning's pedestrians.
We turned a corner into an unpaved parking lot. Salle swung the car into an open space. We traveled up crumbling sets of steps to the entrance hall of his apartment. In the main hall waited set of old elevators whose door's swung open like the door to an ordinary room.
Inside, set into a wall of chipping veneer, was a panel of buttons worn smooth by the push of many fingers. Salle pushed a button in the lower right column and we ascended to the 11th floor.
Passing security cages guarding locked doors and an outer entrance for Salle and his neighbors, past a locked door and into a welcome rush of the warm smells of baking.
Inside we were greeted by Salle's family - smiles from dark-eyed Rumi and quiet greetings from their son. The little one, who is only four, hid her face against Salle's shoulder only peeking out under the cover of her hair.
Moments later the table was set with a fabulous display of Bulgarian soul food. Chewy white bread and beer, dolmades, a cold yoghurt soup with dill and cucumber soup, shopska salad with wonderful ripe peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and tart ewe's milk cheese and a large pan of soft baked cheese pastry.
We ate and talked in the pleasant way that is brought about by good food and good company. The night wore on 'til I wore out and the conversation wore down.
The next morning showed a clear picture of what the streetlights had only partially shown - as I looked out of the back window I saw streets and buildings, parks and playgrounds struggling with nature. Rain gutters choked with moss. Rust overcoming paint. Tiles loosened in the tooth of the wind. Trees forcing their way through stone and pavement alike.
A feral dog played in the tall weeds filling a nearby soccer field, leaping for mice and chasing its own tail.
Tags: Security, travel, UncategorizedRelated posts
Posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2003 at 23:00
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