This happened in 1962, during the “Cold War”. My big brother was in Year 6, and I was in Year 3.
Before falling asleep, the two of us would go over the day. I'd often complain to him about our parents, but he usually took their side – maybe because after one of my pranks they told him off more than me.
Sometimes he even wanted me to feel ashamed of myself, and he managed it better than Mum and Dad did. One evening, in a fit of remorse, I suggested we do something so worthy and important that our parents would start being proud of us. He agreed, but to my astonishment he fell asleep straight afterwards.
It made me furious – how could he fall asleep with such a magnificent idea in the air?
The next evening I let him know how outraged I was by his effrontery the night before – I'd just learnt the word and was hoping he didn't know it.
Not only did he know it, but he said he'd been thinking over my suggestion and already had a concrete idea. According to him, the fashionable topic in our newspapers was Western spies in our country. The imperialists were sending them to sniff out the weak spot in our defences so they could attack us afterwards.
“But how do spies ‘sniff out’ our weak spots?”
“They look around, ask questions, take notes and report to their bosses where we've got tanks, guns and planes, and how many.”
“There's nothing like that in our yard.”
“They're hardly interested in our yard.”
“Then why should we care?”
“Yes, but if they take over our country, they'll want all of us to live like them.”
“We're fine as we are. Why don't they just report to their bosses that we live really well here – peacefully, happily and quietly?”
“The aim of those people in the West is for only them to live well.”
I was outraged:
“And we just sit here with our arms folded?”
“No, we send our own intelligence agents to find out about their fiendish plans in time, so we can take the appropriate measures.”
“And what does a spy look like?”
“Like anyone else, but usually in a trench coat and a bowler hat.”
“And here at home, who makes sure those swine get caught?”
“The militia.”
“So why haven't they caught them all yet?”
“It can't be that easy.”
“This could go on forever. The solution's very simple – we throw out all the Westerners and that's that!”
“Some of the spies are Bulgarians who've sold themselves for money.”
“But if they're Bulgarians, shouldn't they be intelligence agents?”
“Oh, you're so thick! Everyone who works for the West is a spy.”
“All right, but if you and I unmask a spy to the militia, won't that be a great deed of ours, and won't Mum and Dad be proud of us?”
“At last you've got it. We need to find a suspicious person and prove he's a spy. There's bound to be an article in the ‘Rabotnichesko Delo’ newspaper dedicated to two worthy children – me a Pioneer and you a Chavdar cub. It'll start with ‘Hail to…’ and end with our two photos. Mum and Dad will be proud.”
“Brother, I might know about a spy. He's a neighbour of my classmate – Dudeto. He's told me their neighbour always wears a trench coat and a bowler hat. He lives on his own in a two-room house, and Dudeto's dad says he's a real oddball.”
“Hm, not many people here live on their own in two whole rooms!”
“And according to Dudeto, that man's light stays on till very late at night, so he obviously doesn't save on electricity like the rest of us do.”
The following afternoon we were outside my classmate's house. So as not to arouse suspicion, we strolled up and down the street. Dudeto joined us and confirmed what he'd said. He added that their neighbour hung about in his garden all day, but still hadn't dug it over, even though spring had come.
The next day my brother said that before going to Dudeto's, the facts from the day before had to be summarised. He'd recently read a book about the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes, according to whom every crime was solved through analysis and synthesis.
After the available facts had been thought through /analysis/, they were summarised /synthesis/, and then the trap snapped shut on the criminal, and he went on:
“Lots of people have a trench coat and a bowler hat. But what does raise suspicion is the fact that his windows don't face the street, and that he's alone in the house and undisturbed. He's lived there for ages – ideal conditions for any spy. They call that sort ‘deep cover’, and they're the hardest to uncover!”
That evening we tailed the suspect. He went to the shops and bought white bread and salami. At home we rarely bought salami because it was expensive, and white bread – never. The next evening he bought half a kilo of cheese – sheep's cheese, which was dearer than cow's. At the greengrocer's he spent ages looking over the produce and even brazenly squeezing it, but walked out without buying anything.
He didn't meet anyone, and nobody visited him. Once he hung about in the bakery for a very long time, and came out with an empty bag. The pages of our surveillance log started to look like identical twins. Except for one new circumstance: on his way back from the shops, the spy had started limping.
Once “the target” /according to my brother, that's what we had to call him/ had gone home, we left the surveillance in Dudeto's hands. The next day he'd report to us that the man had come out to the outside loo two or three times and coughed, and sometimes hummed a tune. Clearly, these spies were sly old foxes! Well, those tricks wouldn't work on us – “He who sings means no harm”, indeed!
That's what Dudeto and I thought, but according to my brother we still hadn't gathered irrefutable evidence. If it hadn't been for him, my classmate and I would have snitched on the target to the militia ages ago.
One evening I came up with the brilliant idea of asking the target the time on his way back from the shops. My brother said it was pretty stupid, but I was adamant:
“If he's a Westerner, his watch will be an hour or two behind!”
“Still stupid,” my brother snapped. “His watch will show the same time as ours!”
“No!” I answered. “If he transmits by radio at the same time every day, his watch will be set like theirs!” At that my brother thought for a moment and agreed.
When the target was coming out of the shop, I asked him what time it was.
“Twenty to seven.”
Which, to my regret, it was. After some hesitation I reported to my brother that he'd answered: “Twenty to six” – I didn't fancy getting it in the neck, and I sheepishly suggested that from now on only Dudeto and I would do the watching, and he would just analyse the information we passed him.
He agreed – even Sherlock the detective got distracted at the crime scene – footprints, hairs, blood and so on – and sent his assistant Watson there instead. Meanwhile he himself would shut himself away at home, stare at the ceiling, light a cigarette and think about how to connect the facts, i.e., make a Deduction.
The next day I told Dudeto his decision, but he was outraged at my brother.
According to his dad, who was a worker, it was always the workers who did the work, while the bosses just lived off their backs.
One evening I asked my brother:
“Listen, this Sherlock Holmes of yours – what nationality is he?”
“English.”
“So – a Westerner, a swine, an imperialist.”
“He died ages ago. There weren't any spies back then.”
“All right, all right, isn't there some more modern book, where one of our own or a Soviet intelligence agent explains how spies are uncovered?”
“I've got books like that lately too. In the evenings you fall asleep early, and I read them till late at night.”
The next day my brother called us round to our house and started excitedly explaining what else he was missing for a complete analysis:
“Spies usually have a ‘contact’. That's a sort of apprentice of theirs. So far our target has only spoken to the shopkeepers. Obviously one of them is his contact. Maybe they wrap a slip of paper with cipher codes in with his cheese, salami or lettuce.”
Dudeto and I gaped in bewilderment. We suggested keeping an eye on what they wrapped up for him. My brother stopped us – it was too risky, but he had a better idea:
“The target will only need codes if he has a radio set to transmit encrypted radiograms in Morse code. Every house has an attic. If he keeps a radio set anywhere, it'll be there! The objective is for the two of you to establish, today, whether there's a radio set in his attic!”
The target goes to the shops just before it gets dark, and our operation has to happen then.
At 19:30 the Spy set off for the shops. Dudeto and I climbed the tall ladder from his yard up into his attic and searched for the radio set. It was dark up there, and we tried to find it by feel.
We'd just felt something big and metal, which turned out to be a sewing machine, when my brother whistled from below, and the two of us started down the ladder. Halfway down we heard the voice of the Target:
“Now what's going on here?”
Like a snapped film reel, we all froze for a few endless seconds. My brother came running in from the street and immediately pleaded with him:
“Comrade, please, have mercy on these boys! It's all my fault!”
The man pulled himself together a bit and said, in a voice that brooked no argument:
“Come over here and sit down at this little table!”
He brought out some stools too. We sat down and fixed our eyes on the ground. The Target went into the house, and when he came back he brought each of us a piece of baklava on a little plate with a little fork, and said:
“For a while now I've been seeing you round here a lot.”
He looked at my brother. My brother couldn't lie and spilled the whole thing from start to finish.
After a short silence, the man seemed to read our minds:
“I didn't buy the baklava from the patisserie. I make it myself. I love sweet things, but according to the doctors I'm supposed to cut down. I've got clogged arteries and they retired me early on health grounds. I even limp now and I'm no good for physical work. If you eat it all up, I won't be tempted to have some and then have a guilty conscience about damaging my health.”
We gobbled it up quickly, before he could launch into some endless tirade. What we were most afraid of was that he'd start asking about our parents and school. The man /the first time I've called him that/ brought us napkins and added, quite cheerfully:
“I'd be glad if you came to visit me now and then! And take it from me – spies don't eat baklava!”
