I've always had male friends, and ever since I was little I've loved joining in on the men's conversations. According to most of my male friends, there is such a thing as the Female Bermuda Triangle. Its three corners are called Beautiful-Clever-Kind. It's a Bermuda Triangle because, according to the male population at large at least, not a single woman on this earth possesses all three qualities.
If she's beautiful and kind, then she'll be thick. If she's beautiful and clever, then she'll be a nasty bitch. If she's clever and kind, then it's obvious – she developed those qualities to compensate.
There are women who are beautiful, clever and kind. And I'm not saying that because Juliana Gani managed to convince me of it by smashing to smithereens the stereotype that "beautiful women aren't clever", as she imagined she was doing on some reality show on telly. If anything, she convinced me that "not-beautiful women aren't clever".
What convinced me that there are women who are beautiful, clever and kind all at once was an encounter during Emo's and my Journey to Dubai. Both the encounter and the journey took place a very long time ago, back in the distant year of 2014.
Back then, even though Emo and I had already been together for 8 years, we weren't the well-oiled family machine we are now.
Now we've learnt to accept each other's quirks, the ones we don't in principle approve of. We know by now that precisely those quirks one half of the couple finds unacceptable are an inseparable part of the other, and in some way that's baffling to the first, they make the other happy.
I've resigned myself to the fact that he grumbles, nags, hands out unsolicited advice and has no qualms about sharing with me, in a brotherly sort of way, when he finds another woman attractive. Or about explaining exactly what it is he finds attractive in her. Which is usually fake. For example, if he spots a young lady who has only just moved from Galabovo IN Sofia and is still sporting her scraggly Galabovo peroxide-blonde crimped "waffle" extensions, he invariably comments: "Look, Niyka, what beautiful NATURAL blonde hair!"
When I start protesting that this hair is not only unnatural in colour, but in substance too, Emo gives me the exact diagnosis:
"Female spite. All you women hate the truly beautiful ones. Just once I'd like to hear a woman say something nice about another woman without adding a 'but'. You always say 'well, her face is all right, but her body's a disaster'. Or 'she's pretty, but thick as two short planks'. The only woman you can pay a compliment to is one you don't feel threatened by – some frumpy auntie who by no male standard whatsoever is a 'proper fit bird'." ("Proper fit bird" is the top compliment in Emo's vocabulary.)
He, for his part, has also resigned himself to quite a lot. For starters, that according to him I can't pay a woman a compliment without slipping in a "but". On top of that – I'm useless as a housewife. Also, for almost 10 years now I've been driving the same car, which I don't get repaired because I've got no money (though I always have money for the dermatologist and for plane tickets). And most importantly – he's resigned himself to the fact that I love writing stories about our family relationships, thereby "showing him up".
It takes long years for two star signs as different as Cancer and Sagittarius to start tolerating each other, at least to some degree.
Cancers are heavy going creatures, clinging to the idea of domestic cosiness, who are happiest when you respond to their suggestion: "Let's cook something tonight." Once you start cooking together, they experience a spiritual orgasm, showering you with loving advice and friendly criticism: "that's not how you do it, give it here", "you didn't even know you had a mixer!?!", "you turn the banitsa over while it's baking", "my mum's cake is round, with a hole in the middle, yours is rectangular and it won't bake through because there's no hole", etc.
As for us Sagittarians, I'm lost for words. For starters, I really don't know that I have a mixer, the one my Cancer bought me for our wedding anniversary. But there's something worse. We're just permanently perched on the edge between normality and the loony bin. We're not mad enough for the state to cover the cost of specialist help. But we're not normal enough to accept the truth either – that we're ordinary people from the crowd, and not the glory-covered personalities we imagine ourselves to be.
It often happens that in some online group I come across an egocentric who, through passive-aggressive behaviour, tries to build a cult in the group around their own personality, humanity, kindness, ethics and professionalism. And when that doesn't work out, as it usually doesn't, the person in question makes a show of leaving the group. In such cases I always visit their profile. I do it for one single purpose – to check their date of birth. While the page is loading, I pray to the Lord… please, please, Lord, let it not be my star sign! But even as I'm praying, deep down I already know. I know that in 90% of cases, the individual in question, who is only walking free because Kurilo has no spare beds for the milder cases, will turn out to have been born between 23.11 and 22.12. In other words, my star sign.
So, the combination of these two specimens, apart from cooking together, loves travelling the world together. Correction – now loves travelling the world together. Otherwise, if it weren't for me dragging him out of the house, Emo's furthest journey would most likely have been the second finger of Halkidiki. But years of living with a Sagittarius unlocked the travel bug in him too.
There's not that much to tell you about Dubai itself. Singing fountains, shopping malls with ski slopes and aquariums inside them, cars with a single digit on their number plates, a marina, tall buildings, etc. I also remember that the taxis cost about 60 stotinki per kilometre.
In Abu Dhabi we visited the White Mosque, which was extraordinarily beautiful.
To go inside we had to cover our heads – me with a black headscarf, because the women had to be additionally punished in the heat – and Emo in a cool white sheikh's outfit.
Also in Abu Dhabi we visited some palace where the sequel to "Sex and the City" was filmed. There we drank the most expensive coffee in the world, or at least that's how they advertised it. When we converted the dirhams into leva, it turned out to be 30 leva. But the coffee was tasty, pretty and had gold dust in it.
In 2014 this seemed to me an extravagant, decadent purchase. But given the inflation we've been living through for the last year and a half, it seems to me that in six months' time this will be a normal price for a coffee in Sofia too. Only here it'll be served without the gold dust.
The most memorable adventure for me was when we went on a desert safari. For some reason I thought we'd simply get in a car and quietly, politely drive around the sand dunes for a bit. What awaited me was an adventure I intend to immortalise for future generations. If nothing else, then to leave written testimony that there are women who are beautiful and clever and kind, all at once. And on top of everything, I have only nice things to say about them. A breach in the system of stereotypes, so to speak.
The jeep the organisers had provided had 6 or 8 seats, I don't remember exactly. Almost all of us were there, we were just waiting for the last two.
The latecomers came running up to the jeep, scattering oohs, aahs, exclamations and apologies. They turned out to be female passengers. Two South Korean sisters. One was plump, wore glasses and had very bad skin – exactly the type of woman who, according to Emo, I'd start showering with patronising compliments, since I don't feel threatened by her. Next to her, though, shone the most beautiful girl in the world.
When I was little I loved reading "One Thousand and One Nights", and in it they were forever describing how some beauty from the harem had "a face that lit up everything around her with its beauty, as the full moon scatters the darkness".
Well, on that very day, the Moon in question got into the back seat of the jeep on one side of me, and on the other side her sister squeezed me in.
People, I had never seen purer, more perfect pinky-white skin. Undefiled by a single blemish or speck. The skin was stretched over the highest cheekbones in the world. Silky soft black hair cascaded in waves down to the girl's tiny waist. A doll-like (but real) nose, teeth and lips. Her eyes weren't dark like most Korean women's, but light brown, huge, slightly elongated without being slanted. Those East Asian chicks don't have eyelashes, but this creature somehow managed to produce eyelashes from somewhere. Add endless legs, a teeny waist and gorgeous breasts, and you more or less get an idea of what we're talking about.
Emo turns round greedily towards us from the front seat, on the verge of oozing off it from sheer delight. Suddenly he decides he wants to film me with the GoPro he's holding. I'm a little surprised at this interest in me, since the subjects of his documentaries from Dubai up to that point had been various spreads of food, doner kebabs, Dubai cars and views from hotels. All of them narrated by Emo: "Heyyyyyy, these guys know how to live…. tsk tsk tsk…. they're no fools, the Dubai lot."
On top of that, I realise what kind of creature I'm sitting next to. And in appearance I feel exactly like a fiend, a spawn of darkness, about to be scattered by the radiance of the beauty beside me. In that frame of mind, I don't feel in the mood to be filmed right next to the Korean princess.
But being the high-class artist/content creator that I am, I decide that in every situation I must rise to the occasion. I start entertaining the potential viewers of Emo's video with something. I decide I'll dazzle them with some original storytelling.
Mum always told me that men preferred "down-to-earth, cheerful women of average looks like me" to "wild beauties who are cold as ice". When she says this about the beauties, there's a hint of dislike in her voice. Even though I know this winged parental phrase has nothing to do with reality, it still gave me strength at that difficult moment. A person always needs something to cling on to so they can keep going.
I looked bravely into the GoPro's lens and started rattling on – where we are, where we're going, etc. I played my role of the down-to-earth, cheerful woman of average looks – Mum has always defined it as "the golden mean". I hoped the beauty next to me would have the decency to conform to her allotted archetype of the beautiful but repellently icy and therefore boring woman. For now she was living up to it by keeping quiet and looking out of the window.
The jeep has long since set off, it's left the city, and the driver informs us that we're about to enter the desert and the safari is about to begin.
"The safari begins," I too announce into the GoPro's camera, to the audience we'll be screening the video of our adventures to when we get back to Sofia.
And the safari began! Our jeep started drifting across the sand dunes in a way that turned your stomach upside down and your brain to jelly. My vestibular system went haywire, the car's rolls became so frequent and so fast that I didn't even manage to throw up. Meanwhile, the two Korean girls and I were being flung left and right on the back seat. With every lurch one of them would end up with her face plastered to the window on her side of the jeep. I was in the middle of the back seat, and every time the jeep skidded in the sand, however hard I tried not to touch either of the sisters, I'd collapse on top of one or the other. Sky, floor, roof, desert all blurred together before my unfocused eyes.
You'll say – that's how heroic women behave. The cheerful, warm, average-looking women that men like. However much I wanted to throw up, I behaved with dignity and didn't let out a peep. Emo, somehow or other, still managed to keep filming us.
I'd like to say that the beautiful Korean also conformed to the status I'd assigned her of "beautiful but icy cold and boring woman, without any emotions". I'd like to say that throughout all the bouncing and skidding in the desert sands she kept looking out of the window with a bored expression, without making a sound and without attracting unnecessary male attention to herself. But no such luck.
On the very first drift, when our car tipped onto its side and carried us 30-odd metres on its two right wheels alone, the sister started squealing in that affected way only Asian women can squeal. You know the one – something along the lines of "oyyyyyyyyyyyoyohooyoy", cried out in a sugary voice, through a pampered shriek. On the next bend the Moon joined in too – "oyaaaaaaaaaaaaa, oyaaaaaaaaaaaaa, ohohohohohohohoh", she shrieked playfully with flushed cheeks, dissolving in waves of innocent laughter.
Emo, who by now could barely stop his hands from trembling as he filmed, took on the role of narrator for his documentary footage of the safari. On the video you can clearly hear Emo's triumphant decibels: "These two Koreans are going to end up coming from all this tossing about on the dunes."
To what extent this impression of his corresponded to the truth, I don't know. But I do know that my hope that the beautiful Korean was a frozen mackerel who repelled men with her coldness went and died. The girl clearly had a sensual temperament.
The jeep stopped by some Bedouin settlement, where the entertainment programme was to continue. All our legs were shaking. Each of us for a different reason.
They unloaded us from the jeep. We were waiting our turn for tickets in the Bedouin settlement – the programme there was to ride a camel, watch a belly-dancing show, get a temporary henna tattoo and have dinner around the Bedouin fire.
While we were supposedly queuing for tickets, I suddenly saw my husband with his shirt off, in nothing but his jeans and his six-pack, doing a headstand in the desert sand.
Let mugs like me stand in the queue; meanwhile, Emcho gets on with it.
How many headstands he had already done you can count from the photo – the round imprints of his head in the sand around him are clearly visible.
The thing is, when men want to impress a woman, they never outgrow their behaviour of half fifth-former, half monkey. Emo just couldn't settle down. He alternated the headstands with showing off his triceps and dazzling smiles
The object of his monkey business, of course, was the Moon. I'll call her that, since I don't remember her name.
The Moon was ahead of us in the ticket queue and went into the fenced-off area of the Bedouin camp. Her disappearance from view calmed my husband's boiling insides a bit. He tucked his shirt back in, wiped the sweat from his forehead and came over to queue with me.
As a young bride I'd have sulked at him for a whole week. But married life has taught me by now that there's no point. Everyone likes to show off. And in this case – that girl really was otherworldly beautiful, which is why I didn't judge him too harshly. If I were a man, I'd probably be doing backflips in the sand. Which didn't mean I wasn't going to comment on his behaviour:
"Well, well, Emil, all that gymnastics, all those headstands, all that palaver, and the Korean girl just went into the camp and didn't even see you. All you did was fill your hair with sand for nothing."
"Come off it, Piponi, I was doing the headstands for you…. That Korean girl…. now that I've subjected her to a bit of analysis… she's a hundred per cent lesbian."
Have you noticed that when a man tries to impress you and you don't respond to his efforts, he immediately declares you either ugly, or stuck-up, or a prude, or thick? In the best case – frigid.
Emo isn't the type to insult anyone's personal qualities. It's perfectly clear to him that there is one and only one explanation if a woman doesn't pay him any attention. It's purely physiological – she was born "all twisted", as my grandma, God rest her soul, used to say.
You'll agree, friends, that there's no other logical explanation for how a woman with heterosexual inclinations and healthy levels of oestrogen and progesterone in her eggs could possibly resist this sight:
Case closed.
We go into the camp and each of us has fun in our own way. Personally, I got a temporary henna tattoo on my face. I wondered why everyone else got theirs on their palms, and only I asked for my mug to be painted. I wondered why the little old lady who was painting us asked me a hundred times in broken English whether I was sure I wanted her to paint my face. Course I'm sure, granny, get on with it!
Granny shrugged and painted me. Only when I got back to the hotel and tried to wash my face did I realise that the henna wasn't going to wash off for a while. As time went by, I established that things would stay that way for a whole week.
Emo was flitting about somewhere in the camp. I carried my tired, painted mug over to a tent and sat down there. Evening had already fallen and we were waiting for the jeep to come and take us back to Dubai.
Against the evening sky, from somewhere, the Moon rose. Not the heavenly body, but the Korean one. She headed towards me, scattering light, and asked if she could sit next to me.
Of course she could. The Moon politely sat down next to me and, after a few sentences in which we discussed the excursion, she told me she'd been meaning to tell me something all day. I'd caught her eye because I had some sort of "exotic beauty".
Oh. My. Goooood, where's Emil, where's my mum with her "average job" when it comes to her daughter's looks?
Where are you now, when I need you, to hear what the most beautiful woman in the world is telling me? I have "exotic beauty", did you get that?
As if on cue, Emo appeared from somewhere, nonchalantly munching on bits of lamb skewered on a spit the size and shape of a scimitar.
I immediately boasted to him about the compliment the Moon had paid me. He wasn't the least bit surprised. It merely convinced him once and for all of the certainty and incurability of the "lesbianism" diagnosis he'd slapped on her.
Emo and I jointly quizzed the girl about where she worked. The answer: "At Emirates."
"Ooh, it must be so interesting travelling the world as a flight attendant!" Emo and I respond in unison. It doesn't even cross our minds that the combination "beautiful woman" and "airline" could result in any job title other than "flight attendant".
The Moon didn't work as a flight attendant. She worked at the Seoul branch of "Emirates" as a ground operator who coordinates free runways and flights. She was in Dubai for some advanced training. The precision of her work is crucial to the daily preservation of the health and lives of thousands of people.
Well, as they say – touché!
There are, there are such women whom the female Bermuda Triangle cannot swallow up. They're beautiful, clever and kind. And modest, responsible and nice enough to pay you a compliment to make you feel better, to boot.
The world is big, and people like that lurk around every corner!
