I was little, about four. I chattered nonstop. When Dad and Mum came back from work, I'd hurry to shower them with the events of the day and all kinds of questions. They'd tell me they were tired. That I should go out and play.
There were three rooms in our house – one for each family. Grandma and Grandpa had the middle one. Most of the time I was in there with my big brother – the silent type, with big blue eyes, who was very clever and had started reading when he was tiny. I couldn't work out why, when he read so much and knew so much, he talked so little. What a waste of all that reading.
One evening Grandpa wasn't feeling well. Grandma was fussing around him, and I was doing my best to cheer him up. At one point he sat up in bed, made me sit next to him and said:
“Listen to me carefully now: the way you're going, very soon your words will run out. Every person can say a word only a strictly fixed number of times in their life. Think about it well!”
That night I had a very hard time falling asleep. Grandpa must have been right. My brother was snoring next to me without a care in the world. He had every reason – he hadn't worn out his words. I was cross with him and with Mum and Dad for not telling me this. Good thing dear Grandpa had warned me. I promised myself to make up for all my blabbering so far. In the following days our yard seemed to go “deaf”. When asked something, I'd just shake my head to save my words. Every evening Mum would put a thermometer under my arm and wonder why I didn't have a temperature. She'd make me hold it in a bit longer. Grandma started spoiling me with all sorts of tasty things, which I gobbled up in silence. I sat next to my brother all the time and made him read something aloud to me.
I felt sorry for myself. I imagined how soon I'd be completely mute. One day my brother read from some book that Man lives 100 years, and the Tortoise – 300. I got worried. A new problem. When he died, who would read to me? At night he fell asleep without caring a bit that he'd die three years earlier. I pictured myself after his death. Only my younger cousin Moni would be left in our yard. For my 100th birthday he'd come to visit me. How sorry he'd feel for me! I burst out howling.
Mum came running to our bed and made me confess straight away what was wrong. I told her about my words running out. And that I was grieving for my brother, who'd die three years before me. But she went and burst out laughing, kissed me joyfully and said everything would be fine and I had to get to sleep quickly. I thought:
If she was laughing, then there was nothing all that terrible! I stopped howling and fell asleep with the feeling that the grown-ups would come up with something by tomorrow. Early in the morning Mum and Dad went to work, and Grandpa, who had got better, called me over. He explained that he'd been joking about my words running out. He was a big man with a huge moustache; it would have been silly not to believe him, especially now.
“Come on, Milen, say that poem, but wait till I call your grandma too.” I said it for them. I was happy. A weight had been lifted off my chest. My urge to talk had swelled up so much that they soon suggested I go and play with the other kids in the yard. My cousins and my brother were glad I was the life and soul of the party again and everything was just as before.
One evening Dad called me over and said:
“Sit down and just listen! Tomorrow your mother and I are having important guests. Comrade Ivanov – he's my boss, the chief accountant – and Comrade Ivanova. All I want from you is to behave properly and keep your tongue behind your teeth, is that clear? You'll only say: ‘Good evening’, ‘My name is Milen’, ‘Good night’ – otherwise I'll give you such a spanking you'll remember me for the rest of your life! You're not going to show me up in front of my boss and his lady comrade!” I had questions – what's a chief accountant, were they bringing their kids so we could play with them, and so on – but I kept my mouth shut.
The next evening my parents came home early. My mother laid out tasty things on the table and told us not to touch them. She changed our clothes, combed our hair and slicked it down. Everything about us sparkled with cleanliness. Dad went to buy rakia and when he came back he gave me a stern look and reminded me:
“And you – mind yourself! And your tongue – behind your teeth!”
At seven o'clock on the dot Comrade Ivanov and Comrade Ivanova arrived. This Ivanov, in my opinion, should have been taller, broader in the shoulders and with bigger muscles. I knew Dad was an accountant too. So why, even though he was shorter, was Ivanov the Chief? All the more so since Mum looked like Caterina Valente from that hit film, and Ivanova – like a dormouse. Besides, they had no children. If Dad hadn't scared me so badly, I'd probably have announced right away who was the real Chief Accountant here and who was the Chief Woman.
The grown-ups started something resembling conversation: “Where did you buy this tablecloth – it's very acceptable!”; “The weather's been frowning all day today”; “Have you put your cabbage up yet?”; “Can I pour you a drop more rakia, Comrade Ivanov?”
Nothing funny or even a little bit interesting. Nonsense on wheels.
At last Ivanov opened his chief mouth and said to Mum:
“Oh, your pickles are very good! How do you make them, Comrade Dimitrova?”
Grandma had made them, but Dad hurried to say:
“She, my lady comrade, is the queen of pickles, isn't that right, Violeta?”
That was a whopping great lie, but Mum confirmed it without even blushing.
I knew from experience that after a few rakias the grown-ups would loosen up and things would get more interesting, but no such luck. And I really hated it when a conversation wasn't going anywhere. Soon they'd start eating. Then their talk would get even more boring.
“Pass me the salt” – blah-blah – “Is there any black pepper?” – “And red?” – “May I have a slice?” – “Of course”, and so on. Horror! Someone had to steer the conversation in the right direction; so far it hadn't been up to scratch at all. I believed people only loosened up after a joke, and that was exactly “my department”. I imagined how the next day Dad and Ivanov would be laughing at work, remembering what great jokes I'd told and what a merry evening they'd had at our house. Their other colleagues would be jealous and click their tongues in admiration.
It was time to take matters into my own hands. I cleared my throat and said quickly:
“And Dad, this morning, while he was lighting the stove, bent over in front of it like that, there was this loud: Pfrrr-rrr-tttt!”
I expected a storm of laughter, till we cried.
For some reason, though, there was complete silence. Everyone started picking at their plates. I added something else I'd left out, hoping they'd finally laugh:
“His pyjamas even puffed out at the back, and I was the first to laugh.”
“Children! What can you do with them!” said Ivanova. Ivanov looked at me with interest, but nobody smiled, and my brother even elbowed me.
Dad had gone red. I couldn't understand why, after I'd hinted so clearly that he was stronger than Ivanov in this too, he hadn't at least given me a grateful look.
Mum was staring at her plate as if she'd just bought it.
In my opinion, the joke was a good one. I couldn't help concluding that grown-ups, among whom I now included my brother, had a pretty dumb sense of humour. If my audience had been children, it would have been a huge laugh.
Mum served dinner, which we all gobbled up without a word, not even about the salt cellar. Luckily, the Ivanovs left straight afterwards. They praised Mum, Dad and the dinner, and pinched my cheek as if I were their grandchild.
Dad sat my brother and me on two chairs and started telling us off, and soon gave us a good hiding. For me, that was to be expected. But he gave my brother one too, because, being older, he should have foreseen that I'd blurt out a load of nonsense in front of his bosses and should have stopped me in time. At first that rather tickled me, since he'd elbowed me, but then I thought how, up to now, he'd only ever got a beating because of me, and I felt sorry for him, and only then did I burst into tears – poor thing, he hadn't had much luck with a little brother.
When the two of us went to our children's room, I even caught myself hoping he'd smack me too, but my brother closed his big blue eyes and fell asleep, while I tossed and turned guiltily and began to feel, as Grandpa used to put it, guiltified. But not towards the Ivanovs. In my opinion it was precisely them who had messed everything up. If our guests had been the usual ones – Sali and Veseto, Gosheto with the accordion and Stefi, or Kolyo Pachata and Lili – I'd have been an unprecedented success. I made a note to tell that joke in front of them at the first opportunity.
And maybe Dad himself, who was very jolly in their company – they weren't his bosses, after all – once the guests had gone, instead of giving us a hiding, might even have kissed us. Up to then only Mum had ever kissed us, and Dad – never, because that was how children got spoilt.
Slightly annoyed, I thought:
“If that's what he thinks, why doesn't he go and kiss his boss Ivanov? He's spoilt enough as it is!”
After these thoughts I felt lighter and slept like a log.
