Valley of Thracians by Ellis Shuman

because her husband never spoke about it. But the two of
them, Boris and Scott, would go out together late at night, disappear for hours
and return home only after Ralitsa was asleep. This went on even after Scott
continued with the next stage of his Peace Corps program. And then, everything
changed, Ralitsa said, because Scott disappeared. That’s what she said.”
    Before Simon had a chance to respond,
Ralitsa re-entered the living room, accompanied by her husband. To Simon’s
surprise, the man, in his early forties, rolled into the room on a wheelchair.
Even though he was sitting in the chair, Simon could see that Boris was a
powerful man, with arm muscles that bulged out of a sleeveless green T-shirt.
His expression was angry, and he shoved his wife aside as he rolled himself
across the wood floor toward the visitors.
    Boris shouted at them in heated
Bulgarian. Even though Simon couldn’t understand a word of it, he could tell
that curses were very much a part of the man’s verbal attack. Simon stood up
and started easing backward towards the entrance corridor, shocked at the
intense anger in the man’s voice. He looked to Sophia for guidance, but she seemed
as startled as he was over the outburst. Ralitsa stood to one side, not making
a move to quiet her husband. When it appeared that nothing could be done to
calm the man down, Sophia and Simon walked out of the living room and quickly
left the house.
    As they hurried down the ramp and toward
the front gate, Ralitsa shouted something at them. There was no anger in her
voice, only embarrassment. Simon assumed she was apologizing for her husband,
but he wasn’t sure what had just transpired in the family’s living room.
    “Come on, let’s go,” Sophia said, urging
him toward the car.
    It was only later, as they left Montana
and headed south, driving alongside the stunning mountain range and the wide
expanses of agriculture, that Sophia finally worked up the nerve to tell Simon
what Boris had shouted at them.
    “He said that Scott had betrayed him,”
Sophia said, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. Her face was ashen
as she stared ahead at the narrow country road. It took her a few minutes more
before she built up the strength to report one additional thing. “He said that
when he sees Scott again, he will kill him.”

 
 

Chapter
19

 
 
    “Do you know the story of Bulgaria’s
Jews?”
    The bearded man asking the question,
wearing a dark suit jacket and sporting a small black yarmulke on his head,
stood in the doorway of the Sofia synagogue, eager to welcome the American
professor to the central edifice of Judaism in Bulgaria.
      “No, I really don’t know anything,” Simon
said.
    “Please, come inside, and I will tell
you our story,” the rabbi said, beckoning Simon to enter the building.
    Simon checked his watch and saw that he
was early for the unplanned appointment. The strange, unsigned message that had
been waiting for him upon his return to the hotel the previous night had not
identified the person he was to meet, nor had it provided details about what
was to transpire. All that the short message said was: “Meet me at the Sofia
synagogue tomorrow morning at 11 for important information regarding your
grandson.”
    The rabbi reached out and guided Simon
into the building. “During World War II, Bulgaria sided with Nazi Germany. Tsar
Boris III and the Bulgarian parliament enacted the Law for the Protection of
the Nation, which introduced numerous legal restrictions on Jews in the country,”
he said. “But unlike the other European countries that fell under Nazi
occupation, Bulgaria was able to save its Jewish population, numbering nearly
fifty thousand. That cannot be credited to Tsar Boris III but rather to the
Bulgarian Church and the ordinary citizens who rose up against any attempt to
deport their Jewish neighbors. In the years after the war, most Bulgarian Jews emigrated to the newly established state of Israel.