archives

a day digging in the archives,

and the endless search for the architectural plans of trakiya.

I walk up to the granite steps as the rain begins to fall harder.
They are outside smoking.
I smile and say,
‘Good morning! I’m back!’.
The secretary of the archives comes up to my shoulders.
Her hair is the bright red color, the color of the dye that must just fly off the shelves here in Bulgaria.
She tells me to sign my name inside again like I did yesterday.

Only one person has been in since I was last here yesterday morning.
‘and you already know the way..’ she turns her back toward me to return to her cigarette outside.
I keep smiling.
‘yup’!

I go back into the dark hallway and push the button for the small elevator to come down to me. I climb inside and go up to the third floor. I am searching for architectural plans of the Trakiya neighborhood, or even just old pictures. Yesterday they turned me away saying I didn’t have a right.

I called Fulbright asking them to write me a pretty letter with a pretty stamp saying that yes, I am here for research. I told my Fulbright contact, Rada, that I was really under the impression all I had to do was smile and I they would show me what I was looking for. She laughed.

Later on that day Rada called back.
‘You’re actually right, all you should need is your smile. I talked to the national archives in Sofia and the one in Plovdiv. There is no such thing as you needing a letter. You have every right to the information just like any other citizen.’

I enter the door on the third floor again and cringe a bit when I see its the same lady working as yesterday. She just kept saying ‘Sorry’ to me in english and frowning. I widen my smile and say,
‘Good morning! I’m back!’

She frowns. ‘I haven’t seen any letter come in for you.’
I smile bigger, ‘Well I understood I don’t need a letter. My organization called your Sofia office and here and it was understood that there is no need for a letter.’

She frowns. ‘I will go upstairs and see if a letter came in for you.’

The room is small, big old reference books, some wood tables and two wood desks, one with a xerox machine on it. I see who the other name on the sign in book belongs to. He is sitting in the corner, a small old man, with bright white wispy hair, wearing a home-knit sweater, hunched over a bright blue canvas box. He’s pulling out folder after folder from the box and cursing to himself under his breath. ‘I know I saw it… where the hell did it go… It has to be here… where is the goddamn thing…’
He makes me smile.

I try to make out the titles of the books on the shelves. I hear the heels of the lady coming back down the hallway.
She opens the door.
I smile.
She frowns.

‘Sorry.’ she says in English. It sends chills up my spine like the squeaking of her heels on the floor as she drags them when she walks.

I smile.. ‘hmm, I guess thats not what I understood.’
The old man continues to curse quietly in the corner.
I pull out my phone…

‘Morning Rada! Happy tuesday!’
‘Morning Megan! What are you up today?’
‘Well, I am here at the archive.’
‘I see.. and you must be having problems. Hand somebody the phone.’

I go up to the lady and hand her my phone. She frowns.
It took some convincing but I finally got her to take it.
I know that Rada will take care of whatever can be taken care of, so I just stay out of the conversation.
Feeling like a child and leaving the adults to talk, I turn to the old man.

‘Good morning!, what are you looking for?’
He looks up at me with his bright blue eyes and smiles.
He goes on a small rant for a while about this thing he can’t find, but just saw, and he blames the kids for messing it up. I never quite understood what it was he was looking for.
I smile and I wish him luck.
‘Kusmet!’

The lady hands me the phone back and Rada says, ‘Alright, apparently because these are technical documents its more of a process, even Bulgarians need to submit a letter. We will see what we can do.’

‘Alright! Thanks Rada!’

I hang up the phone and smile at the lady, ‘Anything? Maybe some old pictures of the construction?’
A blank frown.

All of a sudden the man in the corner stands up and says a bunch of things that go over my head to the lady. She looks at me, frowns. ‘Alright I will go up and talk to my boss.’

She leaves the room.

The old man looks at me, smiles.
‘Trakiya, huh?’
‘yeah.’ I smile.

He walks over to a shelf and summons me over.
‘These books, by topic are a collection of all the magazine and newspaper articles in Bulgaria for the given year.’
He pulls 1979 off the shelf.
‘So, Trakiya started construction in 1973, it was dedicated in 1976, but a lot of the news about people living there was in the late 1970’s’
My eyes widen as I scan all the headlines for Trakiya
He shows me how to use the index and how to record the information for the library to use.

I start recording newspaper numbers and dates.
He tells me how to take everything I am writing down to the library down the street.
He writes a personal note to the security guard at the library in my notebook that says where to take me.
‘Show them this when you get there and they will help you find whatever you need.’

He says he has to get going.
‘This was so helpful! Thank you!’
He smiles and proceeds to make some phone calls as he paces about the room, I am still searching through the books for articles, stumbling over all the things name Trakiya (Thrace) in the region.

He comes up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder and tells me, ‘Well you see…. the oldest architect in Plovdiv, he lives right over there by the roman amphitheater.’ he points in a direction
‘but he is already so old, he won’t be of much use to you.’

But I talked to this architect that lives over by the chitalishte in a really nice home and that architect who lives over by the park.’ He points in various directions.
‘They were apart of the team that designed and built ‘Trakiya’
‘They are nice people. They will like talking with you. He puts a small chunk of paper with a name and a phone number on it in front of me . Call this number tomorrow morning. I told them that a nice girl with a nice smile was going to come visit them and ask about Trakiya.’

He smiles once more and as he turns to leave,
‘Kusmet!’

the next day at the interview with the architect, I ask them who the man that set this up was…
‘He was the director of the archives for 50 years. He’s been retired now for almost 10.’

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