“here’s our guy.”
it’s 7 am in front of block nine. I promised Stefka I would meet her for coffee, and now that she found work, cooking meals for the local kindergardens in Trakiya, we are up early.
“see him, he’s that one.”
I look up and see a wiry guy with a slight limp walking toward the coffee machine, his clothes are shabby, a 90’s wind suit sort of deal, but his sun glasses are the latest Ray Ban style, the ones all the hipsters are wearing…
“He better have some for me. He’s always been good to me.”
She has been on the hunt for tobacco for the last week. The baking pan in her kitchen usually full of shredded tobacco, with the filter and paper suits and her bright orange plastic roller all neatly sitting atop a piece of newspaper, is empty.
I can see her become anxious… she calls out to him “oh! bati Kiril!”
She starts tapping her coffee cup on the table.
“Usually Auntie Lencha has some for me too. But she hasn’t had any in weeks! Nobody has any. They raised the prices and the taxes. For a country that grows so much, and a town that used to have the largest factories, we have to resort to getting it all from Turkey!”
“Those damn Turks, they’ve got us by the balls!”
Wiry bati Kiril sits down next to us. Stefka relinquishes 50 stotinki and he slides 10 fresh made cigarettes wrapped in the latest telephone company ad across the table.
We get up to leave and she lights one…
“Phew… that was close!”