PETER MARCHEV

Peter Marchev /44/ lives in Kazanlak, Bulgaria. Profession: a journalist. His first book, named "Gypsy's novel" /a collection of short stories/, get the National prize for debut in 1994. The novel "The Land of ? little white Negro?s" /2000/ is his second book.

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QUEEN VICTORIA FROM THE BEACH

Blue and enticing, the sea was billowing and falling in folds just like a girl's blouse and its rhythmical movements suggested to all holiday-makers that love was only of two kinds - requited and most of all - carnal. The beach, like some emir's kingdom, was situated on the unstable bed of the coastal sands. And yet, while it was worth living in Abbu Dabbi because of the oil, the prosperity of this small seasonal country on the beach depended on the gushing practically on every step geysers of d e s i r e. The basic law that all subjects of this kingdom strictly observed was written in poster paint on the awning of the central life-guard post. It read: "I © you". But what stood above everything and above everyone was the local Scripture. The name of the Scripture was KAMASUTHRA. "Religious rites" were officiated at all times and on all kinds of places - in the curtained and cool hotel rooms, in the warm and salty like soup water of the sea. And mainly on the night's beach. In the early morning hours whitish light, coming from no particular source, flowed gently and filled the love traces left on the sand. If examined from five foots height, they looked like enormous calligraphic hieroglyphs. From these hieroglyphs those who were initiated into the Scriptures could read many of the events that made the history of the beach kingdom.
A few minutes before the sun would swim out of the sea, in gray overalls there would came the old women. They had long ago been deprived from their citizenship here and as labourers, they were linked to the beach just by the need to make a living. They had completely forgotten the symbolic nature of the colours and in red buckets, instead in mournful black ones, they gathered the mortal remains of love - condoms, panties and handkerchiefs. The cracked bare feet of the women erased the marks on the sand. Until the following night…
Just as once in Greek antiquity, in the half-naked holiday-maker's tribe there ruled the cult of the well-developed body. For that reason the most respected people here were the brawny life-guards, headed by the body-builder Al. It was to them that the beauties - envoys from all nearly European countries - with enthusiastic willingness presented their credentials and gifts. Puny little men - brain-workers, tiptoed with veneration past the life-guards while they trained their muscles with series of drills. Yet even the life-guards were nothing more than ordinary pages in the hierarchy of that country. The throne itself belonged to the Queen of the beach - Victoria. It was already the fourth summer since her graduation from the English language school that she worked at the hotel reception next to the beach. That information is of little importance, however, as it does not explain why Vicky was such a highly-ranked person. It would be more appropriate to say that she was the woman-dream of any "Playboy" art photographer. That is to say - she was six feet high, her bosom had ceased to grow just before it got indecently large, her haunch was tight and perfect, her limbs were graceful and well-proportioned, her hair curly and black like raven's feathers, her face was beautiful yet not mawkish. But what would make rich any photographer from an elite erotic magazine was the rare combination of bounteous sex-appeal and the innocent, almost child-like expression on her face. It was exactly that combination which could drive any man from the teenager to the pensioner out of his mind. She used to blush under men's glances when she was in the lower grades of the secondary school. Her discomfort not only stayed through the years; he even increased her doubts that THIS BEAUTIFUL AND TEMPTING BODY DID NOT BELONG TO HER. However, at the time when she was about twenty, Victoria got used to the thought that still it was better to look like that than to be bandy-legged or to have little moustaches. Nevertheless she avoited to take the advantages that stood opened before her because of her perfect flesh.
Although she never managed to feel comfortable in that body, Vicky was not that strict about it. Sometimes, in good mood after the second vodka, she would let some male come near her. But she felt affection to no one as she was convinced that all men saw in her nothing else except her body. So she continued to be object of desires like an unscalable mountain peak equally for those who had possessed her body and for all other men on the beach.
When she finished work at the reception desk that day, Victoria threw away the black uniform, put on her shorts, pulled over her naked body an overtight T-shirt and started for the beach. Her appearance made all women feel uglier and more shapeless than they really were and aroused the loud admiration of a group of Scandinavians who were supposed to be accustomed to such views. When she reached the central life-guard post, she carefully selected where to rest - at a decent distance, not to be mistaken for a lifeguard's girl and yet close enough not to be taken for just anyone. When the lifeguards noticed her, they almost ceremonially came to pay their tributes to her. The beach queen took off her T-shirt with a queenly gesture and the beach, within a male look distance, held breath. Then she ensconced herself in the chaise-longue that was kindly offered to her and half-closed her eyes, giving sign to the pages that they were not needed at the moment.
Someone's touch woke her up; a man was touching her forehead with the back of his hand. Although he was not in squatting position it was evident that he was of small size. But Victoria did not even notice his size as she was attracted by his eyes - they were kind and large behind the lens of the glasses. These eyes were looking at her in a peculiar, almost forgotten by her way.
"Come on, get dressed quickly, or…" - the man handed her the T-shirt. It was the beginning of the season and it was for the first time that she exposed her body to the sun for a longer time; her pear-like skin had started getting red. Victoria and the man exchanged some trivial phrases and their eyes met again. Suddenly Victoria knew that this was the first man who did not take her flesh seriously. And what was more important - she was almost convinced that he saw in her what she knew she really was - a frail, delicate and virtuous woman. After that they went together to her hotel where he was also staying. And in the evening they walked by the sea, had some drinks at the coastal pubs and talked. They talked about Kurt Vonnegut, Paris, extra-terrestrials, constantly interrupting each other, saying "O, sure! That's exactly what I thought!"
Then they appeared on the dancing floor in a discotheque where they danced some dance a la Ginger and Fred. They danced a passionate blues with his head buried in her breasts, rousing the laugh of approbation of the whole discotheque. And when Angel /because that was the man's name/ went for a minute to the lavatory, he was intercepted by the lifeguards. They considered it sheer blasphemy that some bag of bones and physical misunderstanding should stick about Victoria. For that reason they hung him up a parasol and left him there. He didn't care, however, and when Victoria found him, he was humming a tune. She helped him come down and gazed into his eyes; she gazed on and through the shell of his imperfect body she managed to see in him what he really was - a kind and noble-minded man.
When Angel's rest finished, the Queen of the beach also disappeared. She vanished without even informing the manager of the hotel in which she worked. He called the district police. The only traces were the evidences given by an old fisherman who insisted that one night he saw a white car fall into the sea, not far from the pound net. And then - two people, a man and a woman had emerged on the beach. They had walked away, embracing each other. He was tall and broad-shouldered and she was small and frail… During the following interrogations the old man rejected his evidence.