in association with
bulgarian National Film Center
bulgarian National Television
present
a Javor Gardev film
based on the novel "Zift"
by Vladislav Todorov
director of photography
Emil Christov b.a.c.
Production designer
Nikola Toromanov
Costume designer
Daniela Oleg Lyahova
Once there was a guy like you
who worked here.
A septic-truck driver, Kalcho.
He got sacked from the Waste
Management Department for misconduct.
The guy was married,
but his wife was a horny bitch.
He was green-eyed jealous.
One day she goes out to eat
white jam with friends.
Kalcho follows her secretly.
She doesn't go to see her friends,
but a pastry-cook, racy as
dark chocolate, you can bet...
She does the dirty with him -
he lives on the ground floor
of an apartment building.
Kalcho drives up the septic truck,
throws the hosepipe
through the window,
and pumps out
the entire load of the tanker.
Three tons of feces.
Kalcho drives off - shitless.
The police get on his stinking trail
and arrest him.
The investigation report shows
two and half tons of fecal matter
and half a ton more pulverized
over the walls and furniture.
A trial begins. They call in
the pastry-cook as a witness.
The prosecutor asks him:
""And so you're going home to get
some rest after work,
you open, and... shit!
Didn't you feel sickened,
didn't you throw up?. "
The prosecutor, you see, is trying
to establish the moral damages,
not only the material ones.
""No, I didn't.""
""How come?. ""
""Just like that, comrade prosecutor.
If it were a turd or two,
I would've thrown up.
but two and a half tons of shit
can't even make you queasy."'
The point is simple:
the bigger the shit,
the lesser the damage.
The moral damage,
that is, not the material one.
ZlF (from Arabic)1. Black natural resin. asphalt.
Used as filler for road surfaces
and as chewing gum. (urban slang) 2. Shit.
Six o'clock. Good morning.
Voltaire's
"Candide"
""Dictionary of Foreign Words"
Man - that sounds dignified.
Zachary Baharov
Tanya llieva
Vladimir Penev
Mihail Mutafov
Djoko Rossich
Snezhina Petrova
Anastassia Liutova
Hristo Petkov
lvan Barnev
Officer on Duty
boyka Velkova
Svetlana Yancheva
Yosif Shamly
Simeon Lyutakov
Antoniy Argirov
Yordan Slaveikov
Stoyan Radev
Tzvetan Aleksiev
Tsvetan Dimitrov
Dimo Aleksiev
Yordan Mutafov
Velislav Pavlov
Veselin Mezekliev
Vasil Ryahov
Antonia Ara Vladimirova
Mariana Makova
Ilia Raev
Gergana Arnaudova
Aleksander Kadiev
blagovest Blagoev
Pavlin Petrunov
Petrunka Dimitrova
Danail lvanov Obretenov
Hristo Peev
Krum Netzov
Orhan Tair
Ivo Krastev
Yavor Vesselinov
DJ Ayvan
Antonio Dimitrievsky
Stefan Stefanov
Rositsa Dicheva
Marin Nakov
Yordan Bikov
Ivaylo Dragiev
Alexander Dimitrov
Stefan Goranov
Aleksander lliev
No Work, No Food
Dimiter Dimitrov
Mircho Mirchev
Vladislav Todorov
Simeon Panov
On Your Feet, Toiling Hands.
Lily Abadjieva
Vasil Abadjiev
Milen Aleksiev
Sava Dragunchev
Nikola Toromanov
Yavor Dachkov
Rushi Vidinliev
Kalin Nikolov
Nikolina Yancheva
Lyubomir Kovachev
Yulian Petrov
borislav Mladenov
Vasil Yordanov
Daniel Velchev
Sound Mind in a Sound Body
Sixteen o'clock.
I'm leaving Sofia Penitentiary
with a plan in my head.
The plan, as the Soviet saying goes,
is a fantasy with a release date.
The release date has come.
The plan is simple:
hop a freight train to Varna,
then make off for the tropics
in a ship's belly.
I was jailed before
the Communists coup of '44.
They let me go long after it. I'm not
sure what exactly happened in '44,
except that The Bible was replaced
with ""The Dictionary of Foreign Words"'.
It was only with the Thaw of '56
that the prison took on a human face
and we began to fraternize freely.
before I split, I need to visit
my son Leonid's grave.
I never saw him.
He was born
and died while I was in jail.
I got the news
in a letter from his mother.
before they locked me up,
I lived in the seedy
Yuchbunar quarter.
I barely remember my parents.
I was very young when my father
enlisted in the Foreign Legion
and vanished somewhere in Africa.
I never found out
if he did it for money
or because he was fed up with us.
Around that time my mother died.
Of sleeping sickness.
I wasted my youth in the can
for a murder I didn't commit.
Moth, let's go.
They dubbed me Moth
when I was a kid.
I used to hide in closets
and suitcases to frighten people.
Once you get a nickname,
it sticks to you like a bur.
Sometime after '44,
I began to exercise vigorously
my body and mind:
I read through
the entire prison library
to get to the bottom of things
and brace myself for the moment
when I'd have to embrace
freedom objectively.
I'm the push-ups Tsar of the prison.
When I was young,
I'd go watch Dan Kolov
wrestle at Yunak Stadium.
Those who haven't seen Dan Kolov
fight know nothing about life.
The zift released its flavor
inside my cavities.
And that was how
l, citizen Lev Kaludov Zheliazkov,
walked out to my freedom.
I got paroled
for introducing communist
enlightenment into prison life.
I launched a propaganda campaign
on my own initiative
and thoughtful idea.
In the corner of the canteen
I stockpiled all sorts of
ideologically charged inventory,
including plowshares,
shafts, and flywheels.
The idea suddenly dawned on me,
and brought me
brand new civilian clothes, a pair of
patent-leather shoes, and freedom.
They said I was reformed,
and let me go before my term was up.
Unfortunately, on my way out,
I bumped into that shit-face
of a warden, Mole Cricket.
I couldn't let him pass without
ejaculating in his face a fat curse.
I unbuttoned my mouth
and relieved myself.
""The end starts at the beginning."
""The end starts at the beginning."
That thought I picked up
and memorized
so I can say it when
I step out of the can.
I wanted to give the moment its due.
You can't let such moments
pass like that -
one leg after the other
and you're out.
Crossing the threshold is
a special occasion,
Iike walking under the rainbow
and turning into a different person.
The car reeks, a funky mixture
of motor oil, gunk, and stale sweat.
The private behind the wheel
has a popped pimple on his nape.
Who?
- Private Smyadovsky.
Who?
- Private Smyadovsky.
Private!.
- Aye.
Step on it.
Where are we going?.
Where are we going?.
Who are you?
The public bath.
Seventeen o'clock.
Ladies
What do you want?.
I want you naked.
- How naked?
butt-naked.
During my first year in prison
I befriended this guy - Valentine.
He was soft and gentle on the inside,
femininely hideous on the out.
We always took our meals together.
Rumor had it we were a pair of fags.
One day, during meal-time,
the Mutant, an asshole and
a slimy freak of nature,
came up with his personal slave,
a rachitic creature,
and they stood behind our backs.
The rickets took out a sheet of paper
and started reciting at the top
of his illiterate voice
Valentine's love letter
to someone named ""O."
To my master,
brother and dear friend,
my man most of all,
my eternal companion,
the first and last one
to know my heart.
I can never be your bride,
but I love you with
unbearable intensity!.
Valentine.
It was then my former cellmate,
Van Wurst-the Eye,
advised me not to write any letters,
love letters especially,
because they were looking
for a chance
to pick up a fight with me
and kill me.
Van Wurst-the Eye had a glass eye,
which would often pop out,
especially during boxing matches.
Van Wurst, Van Wurst, Van Wurst...
Chew him up.
Kill him!
Yes!
After dinner, before the bedtime
bell, we would arm-wrestle.
At first, Van Wurst
regularly beat me,
but with time
he found it more difficult.
You look at the sky, and it looks
back at you with its barred eye.
You're one dangerous man. With all
these tattoos you have no weak spot.
being dangerous keeps you safe.
If you're not dangerous in the can,
you fall victim.
Is that why you poked your eye out?
No. That was an accident.
I lost it
during a heist in Barcelona.
The jewels were hidden in
an antique clock.
I fumbled with it,
trying to take them out.
but the clock struck midnight.
The spring leaped
out and struck me in the eye.
It ran out right there.
In Barcelona?
- Yes.
And they locked me up
in the Modelo Prison
a panopticon.
This eye here on the top
of the watchtower, I got it there.
Panopticon?.
That's right. A round prison.
There was this watchtower
in the center
And cells all around it. No doors.
You can't hide.
The wardens see everything.
Pan-opticon.
The eye that sees all.
The eye is the fastest thing, Moth.
Once you cast a glance,
it travels with the speed of light.
To hide from it,
you have to exceed that speed,
which is impossible by nature.
There I understood
the most important thing.
On the way out of the panopticon,
a sign meets you:
""Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."'
Ha. You get out of the can
to enter life's hell.
Yes, Moth. Hope is a bird
that flies only inside the cage.
If you let it free, it dies.
There's no hope outside.
There's no hope
if you don't have a plan.
You have one?.
- Yes.
What is it?
- To take off for the tropics.
When you take off for the tropics,
know that corals
are fragile creatures.
They die when the filthy
human hand touches them.
I need peace.
To find peace, Moth, you have to cut
off your ties with the world.
Especially with women.
Especially with the Woman.
Know that: man is a living coral,
until he's touched by the Woman.
When the Woman touches him,
hell touches him.
Hell has already touched me.
In Hell or Paradise,
the Woman is a rolling dice.
I fell in love with Ada
when I was 18.
A tight-fitting,
brilliantly black school-uniform,
the aroma of raw milk,
mesmerizing eyes,
pupils of jet,
and eyebrows of pure asphalt.
The crotch - invitingly loose,
her flesh seeking touch.
Her thighs parted shyly,
and I peeped in.
Her eyes lingered on me,
blazing bonfires.
Her voice was soft and silky
like plum jam,
she pulled a hidden trigger
inside me.
Did you come?
I unloaded,
as if releasing a jammed torpedo.
So began our romance.
Moth, have you heard of
the lie detector?.
When they wire you up
during interrogation?.
Yes.
They wire you to a dynamo.
If you lie,
you get an electric shock.
Lies turn the dynamo
and generate electricity.
The inventor of that wire
used to draw a comic series
about a female,
who enslaved men
by lassoing their secrets.
So, the comic-book guy
gave a scientific twist
to the idea of the female lasso
and came up with the lie detector.
Slug.
The diamond, Moth.
My dick, Slug.
Stand still!.
Where did you hide it, boy?.
You hid it.
Fucking asshole.
Sir, yes, sir.
You found it.
You found it, you piece of shit.
Yes. I shoved it up my ass.
Is that so?
Go ahead. Search me.
Stick it inside.
We'll fix your memory circuit.
I bought a praying mantis in a jar
from a woman at the flea market.
I wanted to buy a pair,
so they can keep each other company,
but the woman warned me that some day
one of them would devour the other.
So I dropped the idea.
On my strolls by the Canal,
I'd bring the mantis with me.
I'd take her out of the jar
and let her graze,
and regain her sense of freedom...
I gave the mantis to Ada
as a proof that I was crazy about her.
She fell in love with the insect.
Moth and Mantis - that's how we
came to be known
among the local gangs.
I was good at boxing and won
fame in the neighborhood.
Ada liked to watch me fight,
so we could make love
like animals afterwards.
Fighting turns women on.
For a while we fooled around in
alleyways,
among refuse and excrement.
We wanted to get married,
get our own place
and love each other forever,
but we needed money.
She wanted to be a singer,
but dropped out of school
and needed to find a job.
I dreamed about making it big
in boxing
and writing an autobiography,
in a foreign tongue.
We got tattooed by a barber, an old
anarchist and a former jailbird.
I asked for a large moth
on my shoulder,
she wanted a mantis
below her bellybutton.
After that Ada decided
to set the insect free.
I'm pregnant.
I ripened on the spot.
We decided to rent an apartment.
We needed cash, so I took a day job
in a factory.
but for Ada, we had to see the Slug,
a local con artist.
He found odd jobs.
He sent Ada off
to be a maid to a jeweler.
His name was
Vladivostok Dmitrievich Lolushkin,
a former white-guard.
They called him Vlad the Bijou.
He lived close
to the Doctor's Garden.
Slug had a plan.
Ada had to work for Bijou until
he fell victim to her feminine guile.
The safe is in the wall of the lobby.
The valuables are not in there
though, but on top of the cupboard.
How did you find that out?
I eavesdropped.
Spit it out.
- A diamond.
Where?.
- In the negro's penis.
An African statuette.
You kidding?.
- No.
Ever since he got the statuette,
bijou always keeps an eye on me
when I tidy up
and wouldn"t let me touch it.
How big is it?
- A bit over ten inches.
And the penis?
- A bit less than ten.
Is it heavy?.
- Quite.
How come the negro doesn't tip over?
- It does.
So there's something hidden
inside the penis.
That's what I was saying.
The other day I took it in my hands
to wipe it and found the dick twists.
bijou bristled up, told me
it was a very valuable object,
and I shouldn't get anywhere near it.
We'll lift it.
- How?
There's a way.
bijou goes
to the Russian club every Friday.
You have two days
to take an imprint of his key.
In two days, tell me how?
- I don't know.
Mount him.
You mount him.
bijou doesn't have a wiener.
- Girl, don't fuck with me.
I'm not. He told me so.
He told you?.
- Yes.
He was born in Odessa with a wiener.
His sister saw him naked
She asked about the thing
hanging between his legs.
They told her it's something
the doctors forgot to cut off.
The sister took a pair of scissors
and finished the job herself.
That's an old story. I've heard it
told about other people before.
You watch out they don't tell it
about you.
I'll be watching, Moth.
I'll be watching.
The day before the heist, Ada took
an imprint of the backstairs key.
On his way out,
Lolushkin had to take an urgent dump
and rushed to the toilet,
forgetting the keys in the door lock.
That same Friday
we waited for Ada to signal
that Bijou had gone out.
Aside from the statuette, we had
to turn the house upside down,
so it would look like a random
burglary
and Ada wouldn't be a suspect.
You sing and you live.
Or you float in the jar.
I don't know that song.
- You're lying, Moth.
The police found the negro's
penis rolling loose on the floor.
Empty. I didn't see a penis there.
You found it. There's nobody else.
There's just me and you.
There was no diamond.
- Don't fool with me, Moth.
I can make your life a living hell.
Don't push me. Don't.
There was no diamond, Slug.
Dinner.
You're hungry?
You finish it, insect.
I lost my appetite.
Why didn't you rat me out?
Generosity?
I don't give a shit about you, Slug.
I had to protect her and the child.
Where did you hide it, Moth?
You're finished.
You'll be out soon. What's the plan.
Simple.
- Tell me.
I don't want to.
So what's your goal?.
Not to leave this time.
What do you mean?
Don't ask, you won't get it.
Moth, I want to give you something.
He gave me a postcard
with a savage-looking female,
devouring a male.
Someone wrote on its back:
""Murder is the secret hope of women.
For them fornication is a travesty
of manslaughter."
You wrote that?.
- No.
I copied it down from an old book,
""The Witch Hammer".
You look at the sky and it looks
back at you with its barred eye.
Those were his last words.
He hanged himself on the bed-frame
the night before
he was to be released.
The same night, I was digging
the foundation pit of the mausoleum,
where the mummified leader and
teacher of the Bulgarian people,
Georgi Dimitrov,
had to be put on display.
I found the glass eye the next day.
Van Wurst had left it in my mattress
before he hanged himself.
I still remember his words:
""Moth, for the soul the eyes are
Iike peas under a princess's
mattress.
They don't let her rest.
Van Wurst-The Eye was and remains
my closest friend.
His real name was
lliya Alexandrov Kazandjiev.
After he took his life
in the summer of 1949,
there was no one left for me to leave
and no one left to go back to.
You drank enough poison
to finish you off by the morning.
You drank enough poison
to finish you off by the morning.
Slowly but surely.
So why did you have to poison me?.
Listen carefully, Moth.
This poison has an antidote.
And guess who has it?.
I do.
Did you think that up with your ass,
comrade major?.
Instead of thinking with your ass,
why don't you play
a partisan song with it?
Mockery of the people's anthems?.
Listen, Moth.
You tell me where you hid the stone,
and you leave this shithole alive.
Otherwise you stay
until you start cramping
and frothing.
Leonid, or Leo, as she called him
in her letters,
died of lockjaw.
Sounds terrible.
Moth?.
Raycho?
Raycho-The Skin - that's
what we called him in the hood.
We were great friends.
You're in deep shit, buddy,
very deep.
They told me to rub you sore
and throw you in that barrel
with vinegar.
His dream was to become
a Turkish bath masseur.
When he got Snow-White and the Seven
Dwarves tattooed on his back,
he won the respect of all the kids
in the hood.
One day Raycho disappeared.
He was banging a gypsy girl
under the bridges of the Canal
and rumor had it, her relatives
had kidnapped him to marry him off.
It turned out,
he did it on his own will.
I was his best man at the wedding.
Get out of here, man.
beat it before it gets real bad.
Where?.
- I don't know.
Run. Get lost.
Hit me with this bench,
so we can trick the guards.
Moth.
Enough.
Enjoy you bath, you filthy Moth!
The sergeant major's bosom
reeks of tallow soap.
Nineteen o'clock.
Well, comrades,
it's time for me to get off.
Welcome to the hood.
Whoops, the chewing gum.
Give me some pretzel, comrade.
I need to deliver milk
for this sucker, Tseko Tsekov.
Twenty o'clock.
Tobacco-stained female voices
drift out of the office.
Doctor's Office
A heady smell of cheap tobacco,
ammonia, and nail polish remover.
Comrade, are you drunk?
No.
I'm from the amateur theater group.
We're rehearsing "Under the Yoke""
at the community center.
I'm playing Ognyanov,
the revolutionary, and they wound me.
Ognyanov?.
I was just about to believe you.
Look, that's the approach.
Realistic.
Stop shitting me.
Jolly as an old tart.
I mean it. We were rehearsing
and they wounded me.
Now I feel nauseous.
Ognyanov...
Her gaze scratches
like manicured nails.
That's one lame story.
We'll need to test you for alcohol.
Nicotine phlegm
is ripping her throat.
Nurse, drain out Ognyanov.
Take his blood sample.
And urine sample.
Let's see
what's wrong with the star actor.
The nurse ogles me,
her sour whiff hits me in the nose.
Follow me into the manipulation room.
You got a medical record?.
- I don't think so.
You don't think?
I recently moved into this
neighborhood. I used to be a tinker
and now I work in the packaging
department of the chocolate factory.
""Malchika"?
- Yes, this is my first visit.
You've got a large vein, comrade.
We urinate in the glass.
I'll do my best.
You're lucky the lab guy will process
your samples tonight.
He's an awfully sweet person.
And frankly, it wouldn't hurt at all
if you buy him a box of chocolates.
Did you hear
what happened to Stomna Galabova?.
Who's that?
- Stomna.
The one with the big boobies?
Yes.
The one from the National Theater,
who plays
the agronomist in "The Natives".
In February she goes skiing.
She climbs the trail
sideways with her skis on,
but all of a sudden she needs to pee.
She slips into the bushes,
takes down her pants, and squats,
with the skis still on.
She loses her balance. The skis start
sliding down the slippery slope,
and Stomna goes flying down
the trail with her pants off.
She falls and breaks her ankle.
but manages to pull up her pants
before the arrival of the ski patrol,
and keeps her dignity. Otherwise -
imagine the disgrace.
A national actress
skiing with no pants on.
Yeah, right. As if I believed you.
A national actress
with no pants on. My ass.
The Grey Horse
""You are my mermaid,
I'm your drowning sailor.
You are my mermaid,
I'm your drowning sailor.
Weep, heart, oh weep,
weep for your alma
that nowhere else in the world
there are blue eyes
and blond hair like hers. "
Waiter, rum for the young fellow here.
Chug!
They smell of mastic and earwax.
Shit.
Who are you?
- And who are you?.
Grater
Listen up, buddy, I'll tell you
how he got his nickname.
There was this big time embarrassment
on his name day some years ago.
So, Grater stuffs himself full
of fried beans, pickled cabbage,
and beer. And goes home.
His little wife
has a surprise for him.
She grabs him at the door,
blindfolds him,
Ieads him into the dining room,
and sits him at the table.
There's a knock on the door.
She goes to answer it,
but she's held up.
Grater is full to bursting,
blindfolded,
waiting for the surprise,
while the gas is pushing out.
He shifts
from one butt cheek to the other,
comes off the chair,
and breaks a mighty wind.
To disperse it, he takes one side
of the tablecloth and starts fanning.
He feels relieved for a moment.
And again... grrr, grrr.
Just like a grater.
And so he keeps on grating,
until his wife comes back,
takes off his blindfold,
and... surprise.
All around the table sit the guests
she invited for the occasion.
Imagine the embarrassment.
Have a bite. Have one.
Chug!
Twenty-one o'clock.
Hey, man.
Never trust the radio when drunk.
A buddy of mine, Badjo,
buys a "balkan" motorbike.
He takes it for a test ride
in his backyard.
but the front wheel jams.
The bike makes a somersault,
badjo flies off, and crashes into
the cookhouse window.
He's slashed all over,
and... goes straight to the ER
to get stitched up.
Meanwhile, his wife soaks up
the gasoline
that has spilled on the floor
with newspapers,
and throws them into the outhouse.
badjo gets home all bandaged up.
He takes a shot of brandy,
and goes to take a shit.
He lights up a cigarette...
and straight back to the ER.
- Unbelievable.
Out of the dark bosom of Chaos.
What a thought!
I'll have it inscribed
on a wooden spoon
and give it to my wife
for the 8th of March.
Take it easy with the 8th of March,
so it doesn't happen like in Lom.
Lom?
- Damn right, Lom.
Hey, Emko, give them the scoop.
Last year on the 8th of March
in the town of Lom,
a black cat
starts crossing the street.
Down the street comes a truck
loaded with metal sheets.
The driver sees the cat,
steps on the gas to avoid it,
and enters the intersection
at full speed.
but at that moment, kindergarteners
are walking across it,
and he rams on the brake.
A metal sheet goes flying out,
breaks the window glass
of the hair salon across the street,
and chops off an entire row
of freshly bobbed heads.
The driver freezes in horror,
and drops dead inside the truck.
A group of shock-workers
from the textile factory,
having their hair done
for the 8th of March festivities.
Poor creatures.
Right on woman-mother's day.
Do you know what iridium is?.
Poison. Luminescent poison.
Get me the report.
The poison is in your blood.
Do you have an idea when and how
you swallowed that poison?.
Do you understand how serious this
is?. Don't look at me like an idiot!
There's no antidote for this poison.
Then someone else gave it to you?
You have been murdered!
Nurse, call the police.
Don't move.
I'll give you an lV.
Twenty-two o'clock.
The murdered one is still alive.
I'm done with.
I dash for
St. Nicholas of Sofia church.
I was baptized here.
Ada and I exchanged vows here
the day before the heist.
Father Todor became our witness,
for we had no one else.
She wanted me to pledge my love
to her before a holy man.
Man can't leave this place
without leaving something behind.
As the soul takes her due
from this world,
but leaves the body in return.
I was seized with shame.
Father, I didn't come here to take,
but the devil poked me
with his crooked finger
and my hand reached out.
No! Whatever's taken stays taken.
You've fallen, son,
as low as the worm.
You've perished.
Your wick has burned out.
What path did you take
to lose yourself, Levo?.
He recognized me.
You recognized me, father.
Of course, I recognized you.
It was this hand that baptized you.
Why did you come here?
To repent, father, for I am a goner.
We are all goners.
Where do you come from
and where are you going to?
I got my freedom today,
but freedom's gone.
I'm going to die.
You talk in riddles. Something's
eating you from the inside.
Confess and you'll feel better.
Speak out your sin.
I have one sin only, which I've been
paying for all these years.
That sin will finish me.
I accepted to pay for it,
but I swear I'm not a murderer.
The murderer is another
and I covered him up.
Why? Who tied your tongue?.
Nobody. It was for her.
She was pregnant. I needed to protect
her and my son Leo.
boy, you're delirious.
I have atoned
without having sinned, father.
The time for reckoning has come.
Tonight I'll draw the bottom line.
- Humble yourself.
You're feverish.
Humble yourself.
Please, father, tell me where she is.
Give it up, boy.
After the communist coup
she became a mistress
of a commissar.
Tell me, father, tell me.
With that slimy guy,
who disappeared for a while
and then came out of the underground,
put on a uniform
and became a big shot.
The truth, father, say it.
Ah. You can't get to the truth, son.
Your truth is not her truth.
Where can I find her?. Where?.
At the cocktail lounge
on Malko Tarnovo.
Malko Tarnovo?.
The steep alleyway behind the palace.
You'll find it.
God be with you, Levo.
Live!
Death and the people's government
were at my heels,
when suddenly I saw the city center
looming in front of me.
I said to myself:
It has all come true!
Up there, on top of the world,
the red star shines in the heavens
like a ruby meteor.
The words of the prison-cell radio
have come true:
Iight has conquered darkness.
I notice that I cast no shadow.
Am I dead,
or am I in the netherworld?
Or am I standing
before the gates of paradise?.
I feel elated, class conscious.
The mausoleum!
I fall prostrate
on the yellow cobblestones,
the gaps filled with
black zift.
""The Dictionary of Foreign Words""
helps me grasp the gist
of the moment:
mummy comes from the Arabic word
for black resin, zift.
The Leader's mummy
has leaked out into the square,
so that I can taste it
like a communion wafer,
receive it like a blessing,
share it like daily bread.
The mummy -
the corpse of incorporeal power.
What shall it be?
- Something strong.
White slave?. Just right
for the artistic intelligentsia.
Who's singing tonight?
Gilda. The girl in the photo.
She's got one more act
and then we're closing.
The bar looks dejected,
idle, and extramarital.
Cheers.
A bowtie on a bare neck?
A fashion statement or what?.
No. I lost a bet and now
I have to wear it until New Year's.
A bet?. What kind?
With a major from the military
counter-intelligence.
He comes here because of Gilda.
We discuss, how should I say,
general army matters.
""When the Kalirakra earthquake
happened,
I was still a young girl.
A great wave split the coast.
We're wicked, people say,
but I don't believe them.
The moon is to blame,
the full moon.
The moon carelessly plays
with us
by the notes of lunar jazz.
The moon is to blame.
The mad moon.
When they killed the boy in Varna
who was in love with me,
they told me
I was a hopeless bitch.
You're wicked, people point at me,
but I don't believe them.
The moon is to blame,
the full moon.
The moon carelessly plays with us
by the notes of lunarjazz.
The moon is to blame,
the mad moon."'
There's this book called ""Candide"".
It asks
what is the human thing to do:
to drift around the world
with no direction or goal
and be raped
by a bunch of vulgarian Bulgarians,
or to sit down on your warm butt
in life's flower-bed.
What is the human thing to do?
Hmm, you don't get to choose.
Man squats down in life's
flower-bed anyway,
but only after he's been raped
by a bunch of vulgarian Bulgarians.
Coming in?.
The criminal always returns
to the crime scene.
Who owns all of this?
- He does.
Slug?
He bought himself the crime scene?.
Yes, but he doesn't live here.
I live here alone.
Men don't live in parlors -
they go there to fornicate.
Did you sleep with him?.
- Yes, I did.
To cover your rent?.
He believes the stone is here.
That's why nothing gets touched.
Even the chalk.
White slave.
The praying mantis.
She seems to be praying, while
in fact she's stalking her prey.
When in heat, she takes on
a praying position
and remains exquisitely still until
a vagrant male specimen mounts her.
A little before the male ejaculates,
she bites off and swallows his head.
The beheaded male
doesn't die immediately;,
in fact, his potency is enhanced.
Copulation is the reverse
of self-preservation.
Suddenly,
Slug was born out of the night
with the smell
of a freshly printed book.
I"m losing my mind.
Tell me about Leo.
Leo's gone.
There's only the grave.
Let's run away from here.
We'll need money. I'll take some from
the cocktail-lounge cash register.
There's no need. I know.
- Know what?
Where the stone is.
- The stone?
The diamond.
Where?.
In Bijou's grave.
So there was a stone after all.
Yes.
Slug had already
ransacked the room.
There wasn't a trace
of the negro's penis.
A little before
they knocked down the door,
my eyes fell on Lolushikin's ass.
And it all came together.
The penis was in...
- Yes.
Slug had shot him in the chest.
He was in his death throes and
soiled himself in the agony.
The penis fell out.
Just before they stormed in,
a black diamond slipped into my hand.
They were already knocking off
the hinges
and Lolushkin was breathing his last.
His mouth opened.
I dropped the stone inside.
He swallowed it convulsively
and died.
And then?
I came to myself in the hospital.
A policeman was guarding me.
Didn't they ask about the stone?.
No one suspected there was a stone.
Or that I had accomplices.
That I had you.
Gravediggers. Living Quarters.
Gravediggers. Living Quarters.
""Death solves all problems -
no man, no problem."
Come on, come on.
Wait, wait.
Give me a good one.
Good evening. Who's in charge here?.
Peter Raychev. Deputy gravedigger.
The chief is out.
The stench of rubber boots,
rotten teeth, and burned flatulence.
Over there.
First we visit the grave of our son
Leonid, then bijou's.
The grave is fresh.
Leonid
Someone was
buried here recently.
The obituary says:
""The dark years
after the death of Leonid
were the death of his mother
Paraskeva. May she rest in peace!'"
I'm pregnant.
This is not my son's grave.
If this Leonid's mother
wasn"t buried recently here,
the fraud
might have never been exposed.
I've never had a son.
She was lying to me all along.
She brought me
to someone else's grave.
Moth.
I feel sick.
My head is about to burst,
as if death wants to remove me from
this world with a corkscrew,
and is now screwing it
into my brain.
Slug is standing next to Ada.
It doesn't matter anymore.
I'm looking at her,
the most volatile variable in life -
the female variable.
To bijou's grave, Moth.
Vladivostok Dmitrievich Lolushkin
Vengeance makes you feel good,
really good.
That was the last time I saw her.
The mantis is a special creature,
by which Nature prays
to the Creator
to forgive the fall of man.
It's butt-warm inside.
I overstuffed myself with shit,
deputy gravedigger.
It's time for me to go.
Don't worry, man.
The bigger the shit,
the lesser the damage.
The moral damage,
that is, not the material one.
You're a good man,
as earnest as Lenin.
I have one last wish.
Pass me the zift from the pocket,
so I can get a fresh taste
in my mouth before I depart.
The moth.
Picture him flying.
He doesn't fly,
but flutters chaotically.
If you try to map his flight,
you'll get an inscrutable drawing.
My life was something of the sort,
actually any life.
Moth, who lived by chance
and died thereby.
Six o'clock. Good morning.
""Where are you,
where are you, brown eyes,
where are you my homeland?
In front of us - Bulgaria,
behind us - the Danube.
In front of us - Bulgaria,
behind us - the Danube.
We've traveled many leagues
over water and land,
but our Soviet fatherland
we have not forgotten.
And under Balkan stars
we persistently recall
the Yaroslavl, Rezanski,
and Smolensky places.
We recall the brown eyes,
the quiet voices, the merry laughter.
Bulgaria is a nice country
but Russia is better than them all. '"