A fifty-three-year-old man who could not bear the thought that the inheritance he had considered his for so long might have to be shared with a baby.
I took a breath.
“Everything began fifty-two years ago,” I said.
I was twenty-seven when I met Todor.
I worked as a librarian at a community center in Veliko Tarnovo. Every morning, I walked along the cobbled street toward Samovodska Charshiya, carrying a canvas bag filled with books and thinking that my life was completely predictable.
I was engaged to Georgi.
He was a good man.
Stable.
Respected.
He worked at an electrical-parts factory, and everyone said that with him I would have a secure life.
“Georgi is a family man,” my mother used to say.
“Not like that Todor, who is always dreaming and never knows where he’ll be next month.”
Todor was a geologist.
He traveled a lot. He worked on surveys in the Rhodopes, the Balkan Mountains, near Madan and Kardzhali. He would appear for a few weeks, then disappear again with a backpack, maps, and that look in his eyes that made a person believe the world was bigger than anything they knew.
I loved him.
Not quietly.
