Is your daughter home?

It was August, I think, nearly the end of the school break in Bulgaria and very hot. Especially if you lived in one of those apartment buildings that all day get all the heat from the sun and then when the sun is eventually you’d expect to get a bit cooler. Exactly the opposite. You could see the “heat” that was radiated from the buildings – just like an oven I’d say.

But I loved it.

I still do.

Cold weather and places are not my thing. The hotter the better for me. 

My mum was cooking dinner according to her, it was the late afternoon on an August day - the best part of the day for me back then.

All the kids could play outside freely for hours, even after it got dark. Everyone knew everyone in the neighbourhood back in the late 80’s. There were no computers (well, there were, but not accessible to us) back then and TVs were hard to get by so there were not a single kid staying home glued to a screen – we all played like crazy till we were called to get back home for a quick dinner then straight outside again.

It was safe.

There were rules, of course, staying close to the neighbourhood, but mainly for the purpose that you can hear your parents when shouting your name that it’s time to head home.

Truly miss those days.

And no matter how hard I try to explain or show my son that playing outside it’s so much more fun than playing on all the available gadgets now I got to a point that I understood that my childhood and his childhood are two completely different worlds. So I better start catching up with him as fast as I can as I don’t think the days I’m writing about will be back ever again. Well, I like to believe that I manage to keep a balance between those worlds, but I’m pretty sure I’m not doing a good job but, never mind, I’ll keep trying. 

So on one of those beautiful hot August days I was playing outside when the doorbell rang.

My mum, dealing with “mum stuff” checks from the balcony who is it and if no one was in front of the building than it was the front door of the apartment. Most of the times the doors were unlocked and neighbours just knocked, shouted that they are coming in and they simply did.

In front of our building was one of our neighbours, who lived a floor below us. Let’s call him “John” as his real name might give you a headache while trying to pronounce – it is a mouthful even for me.

If it’s John than he was looking for my father or that’s what my mum thought automatically.

“Hold on a second, I’ll get him for…”

“No”, said John “I’m actually looking for your daughter, is she home?”

“No, she’s playing somewhere nearby but she… Wait, hold on,” my mother was puzzled why he was looking for me and not my father.

What she wasn’t able to notice from the third floor was that John was soaked in sweat (although it was August and it was really hot he looked like he just took a quick shower with his clothes on…), shaking and quite a few shades paler than usual.

My mother, being my mother, was so polite to a point that could drive you nuts, so she didn’t ask him at first why he is looking for me. After all, she knows him extremely well, trusts him and she didn’t see anything wrong that he was asking about me. She would never, ever, ask you anything personal or in that matter share anything personal – everyone deserves his or her privacy.

And she is still the same, more or less, only I know now how to “crack” her in a matter of seconds if I’d want to.

“Do you want me to call her?”, which meant shouting my name and waiting for me to appear from somewhere.

“No”, he said. “I’ll wait”.

“Ok”, said my mum and the conversation was over.

She got back inside to finish whatever she was doing while her brain was putting two and two together and it didn’t take her more than a few minutes to figure out why I was a “person of interest”.

Now, a few things about John. He is massive. I mean really big and tall man. Extremely friendly, very nice person and although he looked like a boxer from the heavy league he would never harm a living thing in any way. A true “gentle giant” I’d say. He was a mechanic and was driving one of those ridiculously small and old cars called Trabant. He was always working on something for the car and kept it in immaculate condition.

And he used his basement as a workshop and spent quite a lot of time there perfecting every little detail about everything he was working on. His workshop was so organised that even my mum had to admit “it was very well organised” – as in our home back then everything had its place, its exact place, and if you dare to change it or just suggest to change it… Well, I’d just say you are on your own. Even I couldn’t save you…

So that being said, my mum was already pretty sure what might have happened.

Back then I had that “effect” on people, no matter if they knew me or not. If they knew me I had their full “respect” and politely kept their distance. If they didn’t – well, same as above but after some time or, let’s say being “exposed to my charm” …

She got back to the balcony and took a peek to check if John is still outside.

And he was.

Sitting on a bench, breathing heavily, dripping sweat.

“John, are you ok?”, asked my mum “testing” the situation.

Hi just nodded.

Now, this is what my mum told me afterwards and although I know it’s not funny what happened to him, I would give everything to see that moment. But he was so scared and shocked that talking was a bit difficult for him.    

This was the moment that my mum knew that I did something again, but this time someone else was “paying the price”.

Due to her searching technics it was very difficult for me the smuggle anything into our apartment, but it never crossed her mind that I’ll try and keep my “pets” somewhere close by. So she got outside, calmly and politely, and asked him the obvious question (which she should’ve have, but, ohh… manners!).

“Why are you looking for my daughter?”

John just shook his head quickly, trying to remove the experience he had a few minutes ago from his head but with no success.

My mum waited, now seeing how he looked like and knowing that whatever I did scared him to a point when not just talking was a difficult task for him, he didn’t want to talk about it at al. She told me later on it took him quite some time to calm down before saying a word.

So imagine this massive, big man, shivering in disgust and shock, not even able to explain what happened. My mum told me that for a second she thought it was something really serious, and in her world serious meant poisonous, but as this was happening in Bulgaria, there are really just a few things that you should be worry about.

Knowing the feeling, as she has been there most of my childhood, until boys became more interesting to me, she gave him all the time he needed to be able to speak again.

“I was working in the basement and reached out to the bottom shelf,” at this point he was trying to shake of the disgust as if something was crawling on his back, “and instead of the wrench I was looking for… I got a snake in my hand…”, he finished and tried to put himself together with no much success.

Then it took him another ten minutes to calm down after saying that.

Now I understand that some people really find snakes revolting and disgusting, I really do, but I was a kid and I couldn’t understand how is possible for such a big man to be that frighten. Now I know and respects people fears and phobias after all, we can’t be all the same, but it took me some time to understand that most people do not share my fascination.

By that point my mum was really mad at me and felt awfully ashamed of what I did to John. As there was no doubt there – if snakes, lizards, insects were involved – it was my doing.

“Did the snake bit you?”

He shook his head, which was a “No”.

“Do you know where is the snake now?”

“No idea… I just threw it.. and ran outside… it’s in the basement somewhere I presume…”    

“I’m so sorry, please, come upstairs to have some water and I’ll get her father to find her…

“No!”, he interrupted her standing up. My mum misread his reaction with anger, which I fully deserved by the way, but it wasn’t anger. “I’m not going in the building… until… I can’t…”

It was fear.

If you ask me he was ready to sleep outside if I didn’t “remove” the snake from the building, but he never admitted it, although we kept joking about this for years. And every time the joke finished with “If you ever do something like that I’ll, I’ll… I’ll do something! Don’t know what, but I’ll do something!”, which was supposed to be a threat.