artwork & poetry specially provided by NS
This deeply evocative story set in a Havana café is less a tale and more a quiet elegy for a fractured identity. Through sparse dialogue, poetic metaphor, and a haunting embedded folk ballad, it explores the spiritual cost of emigration, lost national memory, and the slow erosion of collective belonging. With echoes of Vazov, but without his heroic flourish, this is a modern Bulgarian lament — not of defeat, but of silent endurance. Its strength lies not in grand plot twists, but in how it makes you feel the ache of people who left home and never fully arrived elsewhere.
This isn’t just fiction — it’s a mirror.
ALONG ROADS STEEP AND HARD
They sat on the open terrace of a small café in Havana’s old quarter. The table was worn, the lamp flickered, and the rum was warm and sad, like a late memory.
Dr. Mihalev said:
— By mid-century, Bulgaria will be left with just five million people. No cataclysm, no war — just quietly, slowly, we’ve reached the most dreadful national disaster: the demographic collapse.
Stan sipped his drink and looked at a street musician playing something slow and hopeless.
— I’ve always believed — the doctor went on — that the worst collapse isn’t political or economic, but internal. When a person stops being a being of togetherness. When he no longer believes his existence reaches beyond personal survival.
— Yes, but the whole world’s like that now — said Stan. — Selfishness, noise, lost memory.
— Yes, everywhere. But in some places, wounds still bleed. Here, it’s all scar tissue. Our society is like rough skin, unable to feel. It doesn't hurt anymore. That is the tragedy.
They fell silent. The Cuban musician began to play “Dos Gardenias” on the saxophone. One of those songs you remember forever after hearing it once. And they stayed quiet, because they remembered.
— Look, Stanislav — said the doctor — Bulgarians have stopped dreaming of the common good. Of co-being. Of virtue. They realized no one needed honesty, so they gave it all up. Then they gave up their dignity. And finally — thier compassion.
— A self-defense reflex?
— More like spiritual self-amputation. The pain was so prolonged, one wished to cut away everything that caused it — including the very idea of community. He no longer believes anyone, anywhere, is his brother. He lives like a man in the last boat — no passengers, no shore, no flag.
Desita approached. She had been listening nearby. She picked up the glasses from the table, but remained close.
— I’m sorry to interrupt — she said — but what made the people like this? Did they become so themselves, or did someone do this to them?
The doctor smiled slowly — with that quiet irony of an old man telling a child that wolves are not to blame for being wolves.
— History, dear — he whispered. — When history is unjust, it leaves a generation on its knees. And when it is unjust repeatedly, it shapes a people who live with bowed spirits. A people who’ve learned not to believe — so it won’t hurt.
— But we survived, didn’t we? — she asked.
— Yes, but at a steep price. With a mask. With doubt instead of faith. With pragmatism instead of dreams. And with irony in place of dignity.
— How do you heal that? — she whispered.
Stan looked up at her, but said nothing. The doctor answered in his place:
— With memory. With truth. With a long, difficult return to the idea of human sanctity. Because once you forget that the other is your neighbor — the spiritual wasteland comes. And once that settles in for good — there is no people left. Only biological mass.
— But I’m listening — said Desita. — That means there’s still hope, doesn’t it?
The doctor chuckled — softly, almost fatherly.
— There is, dear. Every time someone asks not with the mouth, but with the heart — recovery begins. Slowly. Not as reform. But as awakening.
A car passed outside with its windows down. Someone sang off-key. The saxophonist fell silent. The world moved on.
And they stayed at the table — three people who, for a few moments, had once again become part of a “we.”
The sun tilted over the cobblestones of Old Havana, and the warmth entered their bones gently, like an old song you know by heart but haven’t heard in years. The café’s open windows let in a breeze scented with cane and coffee.
Stan, Dr. Mihalev, and Desita sat in silence. Every word from before remained between them — a quiet pact not to lie. They no longer spoke of politics or forecasts — only of what it feels like to be between two shores.
The door creaked and in walked Stella — in light clothing, her face unafraid to show it had been thinking long and hard.
— I found you — she said simply. — I have something I want you to hear, but someone else should read it. May I?
She sat down, pulled out a paper, unfolded it, and slid it to the center. Desita picked it up, reading silently first, then aloud — softly, slowly, like to a child still learning to feel the words:
Song: "Along Roads Steep and Hard"
(translated with rhyme and rhythm)
I was fair, oh hero brave,
Hair like July’s golden wave,
Eyes as green as Maytime meads,
Lips like wine and berry seeds.
My feet would dance, so light, so free,
My shape — a slender rowan tree,
My hands — of silk, as white as snow,
But off I went, where few dare go.
Through lands and lands, to foreign shore,
I left — and stayed forevermore.
Still fair am I, yet paled and wan,
My golden hair to silver gone,
My eyes — no longer springtime skies,
My lips — where tears and silence lie.
My back now bent, my hands grown thin,
My spirit bird — with sorrow in.
My parents, friends — all left behind,
This foreign land — not all can find.
Come home, oh maiden, come again,
I’ve gifts for you — gold, silk, and chain!
I cannot, hero — it’s too late,
I’ve built a nest, I’ve met my fate.
Beneath this roof I’ve found some grace,
And borne two children in this place.
Stan looked at the paper, but saw something else — a landscape, perhaps a memory.
Dr. Mihalev leaned back, fingers crossed over the cane he always kept nearby, though he didn’t need it in Havana.
— This is a drama — he said quietly — but not the kind that begs for pathos. The text carries deep symbolism and paints the portrait of a Bulgarian woman whose personal story is a metaphor for thousands who’ve left their homeland. It’s also a confession. Of someone who hasn’t cut the cord — but accepts they cannot return.
— And maybe no longer want to — added Stan. — Or not entirely.
— In fact, this is an almost archetypal image — said Mihalev, eyes fixed on the ceiling, as if the verses were now reflected there. — The woman here is the homeland. But not the mythic one in embroidery. The real one. Vulnerable. First promised — then distant. The rupture comes not only from departure, but from the fact that the one who left has found new meaning — and that makes the pain double.
Desita nodded.
— The first verse carries beauty, longing, and innocence. July wheat, May meadows, wild blackberries... the language of youth, of love, of what we try to preserve. But then comes the second verse — and time. Silver hair, faded lips, bent back... Youth remains in the land one left.
— It’s not just the body that changes — added Mihalev. — The soul here is a “mourning bird” — put so perfectly. It’s lost the language of its nest, but hasn’t quite learned the new one. That’s the tragedy of the émigré: not just being between two places — but belonging to neither.
— The “hero” she speaks to — the yunak — is also telling — said Stan. — He could be the homeland. The beloved. The youthful ideal.
— But the ending... — whispered Desita. — It’s not tragic. She’s built a home. Had children. Found shelter. That’s a victory, right?
— A victory laced with grief — said Stan. — But still, better to reach such truth than to live torn in half. Because carrying your homeland only as a badge — that’s a lie.
Mihalev nodded slowly toward Stella.
— What you’ve written is testimony. Not literary — human. And precisely for that reason, it must be spoken. Not sung like we sing of heroes or holidays. But spoken so it won’t go unheard.
Desita smiled.
— Stan, imagine it as a recital. Slowly, over music — not with rhythm, but with pulse. With a voice trembling between what was and what is. Like a confession in the night, when one is alone with their thoughts.
Stan nodded. His eyes were moist, but he didn’t wipe them.
— I’ll do it. But let it be black and white. No embellishment. Just voice and a faint hip-hop beat. Because this isn’t a song. It’s a quiet, but shattering poem about the split identity of the modern person — who’s left home, but still aches for it.
There’s no aggressive pathos here, no politics. Just an intimate confession in poetic, magical, pseudo-folkloric language. A testimony — for the two million who left Bulgaria but still carry her in their hearts.
This is a new Bulgarian elegy — not of heroism, but of preservation through pain and love.
Stella squeezed his hand — lightly, like silent agreement. A trumpet sounded from the street, and the sun cast one final beam across the rum glasses.
In Havana, everything goes on — and nothing is forgotten.
📎 Notes on Cultural References:
- Vazov – Ivan Vazov is Bulgaria’s national writer, often called "the Patriarch of Bulgarian literature"; he symbolizes the cultural identity and historical memory of Bulgaria.
- Andreshko – A character from a short story by Elin Pelin, representing the clever but morally ambiguous Bulgarian peasant who tricks authority — symbol of rebellion, but also cynicism.
- Eastern Rumelia – A former autonomous Ottoman province, mostly populated by Bulgarians, which united with the Principality of Bulgaria in 1885. Often used as a symbol of historic identity and national yearning.
THERE `S THE SONG USED IN THE STORY:
https://shemzee.bandcamp.com/track/--689
TO BE CONTINUED
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