An attempt at an autobiography

Zlatko Enev was born in Preslav, Bulgaria, at the beginning of the sixties or, to be more precise, on February 22, 1961. The small town, drowsing in its provincial bliss, was as boring and dull as any other small provincial town but at least at that time there were still frogs in the town river and butterflies on the meadows.

Young Zlatko had a relatively easy childhood, he grew up as a normal member of the local kids’ gang and he would surely have been completely happy except for one thing: the problem was he was a passionate reader of adventure books and, to his misfortune, the most interesting authors he knew of were no longer published in Bulgaria of that time. His only chance of finding books by Karl May or Emilio Salgari was to constantly search attics and old chests – thankfully, pre-war Bulgaria had had less prejudices in that respect. The boy made a passion out of it, a passion that didn’t leave him in peace until his teens. Little by little Old Shatterhand and Sandokan were replaced by other figures which were nearer to reality but the passion remained, and along with it, the clear feeling that there is nothing more depressing than dreaming about things you could never achieve.

Meanwhile he grew up, admonished by parents and teachers who did everything possible to show kids the right way. The first twenty years of his life passed in diligently following advice – he was an active member of all children’s and young people’s state organisations, an industrious pupil, a more or less manageable son … In short, the boy strictly obeyed a set of apparently self-evident rules (or so everyone said).

Things started changing, however, the moment he went to the capital to study philosophy. The young man started reading books written by men with names difficult to write and thoughts even more difficult to comprehend. He was seized by doubts, then those doubts were replaced by anger and bitterness. He gradually began to feel that there was something in the life he knew that was deeply false. Freedom, which he always had taken as a present given to him by bald men whose portraits could be seen everywhere, didn’t appear to be as evident as he had been given to believe.

On a day like any other a small book came into his hands. It had the strange name “Der Steppenwolf”. Zlatko devoured it in a single night and was shattered to the bottom of his soul. There was nothing didactic in this book, not a single answer, only questions – and still, for the first time in his life, he got the clear feeling he had found a solution. During that night freedom acquired a name of its own – and that name was Solitude.

The next few years passed by strictly following the new rules he had established for himself. If you permit me a metaphor which sounds suspiciously cliché-laden, the young man was industriously working on his own version of the Wall – a wall built not of concrete but of thick, heavy books.

Of course, during all this time he was living with the conviction that he came to this world with a mission, that the way he followed was quite clear, almost prescribed … Well, he hadn’t done a great deal to prove this but, on the other hand, wasn’t he still at the beginning of it? Time passed, Zlatko read books and tried, as well as he could, to make his own sense of the world around him. Doubts didn’t give him any peace, of course, but then he was a rather stubborn young man. The Way is intended to be followed, that’s it, full stop. If someone gives up in the middle, all the worse for him.

It was at about this time that he started writing. It was Nietzsche, I believe, who said that anyone with pretensions to becoming a writer should first spend ten years of his life learning the craft, in constant practise, if he or she really intends to go beyond mediocrity. Zlatko’s eight years didn’t leave anything which could be read by anybody as the thousands of pages of diaries and the half-starved “philosophical novel” have long since ceased to exist. Still, he is tempted to think that those years weren’t spent in vain. After all, Bulgarians do say that “work cannot hide behind a fence”, don’t they?

Meanwhile the world around took its own course and a man named Gorbachov had started to shake the foundations of all that had once seemed as firm as Mount Sinai. Zlatko cautiously began to stick his head out of its paper bunker and take a look around, blinking perplexedly. Was this serious? Hey, stop joking, that’s my life you’re playing with! No, it can’t be! Please, stop, it’s so tempting! Wait, I’m coming! I want it too!

He plunged into the new passion – the name was Activity – with all the energy he had hidden and suppressed for years. This lasted about a year and a half, until the day he found a grey sheet of paper in his letter box on which was written in big letters “Police Summons”.

The next day a young man in civilian clothes explained to him without much ado that, if he continued in that manner, he would very soon have to forget about university, his dissertation and all the rest of it. Not that the dissertation was so important to Zlatko – on the contrary, in the course of time it had slowly turned into quite a millstone. However, the thought of simply dropping everything he had worked for in the last few years made him feel terrible. He silently agreed to all the young officer’s demands, went home, briefly thought about it, and then said to himself: “I’ve had it up to here! I no longer want your praise or your rebuke! Farewell, Bulgaria!”

The next years passed in feverish escape attempts. America! America! The magic word intoxicated him like a drug. Fortunately, he wasn’t the type to try jumping over borders during the night, all his attempts were completely legal and – maybe exactly for that reason –, completely unsuccessful. He was slowly falling into despair; nothing remained of his “mission”. America! God damn it, how long do I still have to wait for you!

Getting to know the East German girl went rather inconspicuously, and was completely overshadowed by the mighty American Dream. At the beginning Doreen Westphal looked a bit funny to him, even helpless, with her big plastic rim glasses, baggy linen trousers and the strong belief that real socialism still had a future. At that time he didn’t know how stubborn that girl could be and tried hard to somehow convince her, to convert her, to conquer her … Love’s labour’s lost … Now, almost fifteen years later, they often laugh when they remember that time …

Another two years passed. His efforts didn’t bring him anywhere, he was suffocating with despair. In a moment of thoughtlessness he did something rather mean, he let somebody down – and was deservedly punished for it. He fell into a deep depression – so deep that, if there hadn’t been good people around, he probably would have suffered rather bad as a result. Fortunately, the good people were in the right place …

On a very pleasant day – it was late spring, a gorgeous Bulgarian spring full of light and sweet scents –, he packed the thick pile of notebooks, put a matchbox into his pocket and went to the meadow behind his apartment block. The procedure took him only several minutes and – to his own immense surprise – didn’t even hurt that much. He had expected a roaring pain from the inside, an auto da fe, a castration – and all that was left behind was a small pile of ashes and the feeling of enormous relief. That, and the trouble with the neighbours who were afraid of fire.

Still, without Doreen’s help he would scarcely have managed to have got out of this so easily. At the end, somehow without the participation of his conscious will (America!), he got to Berlin. The relative mess immediately following German unification was just the right time for him, his chaotic Balkan nature seemed perfectly to fit the peculiarity of that time, so untypical for Germany … He easily found a good job; a few years later, after having learned the new craft, he became a freelancer, which finally gave him the balance between time and money he had long sought. Meanwhile a child was born, then a second .. All seemed just perfect and Zlatko started forgetting about the dreams of his youth …

Until, somehow unnoticeably, a constant feeling of greyness started tormenting him. He was nearing forty, had started to get bald and heavy, in his head new thoughts about getting old, tired, boring started appearing… Damn! Where did my great plans, my wild dreams, go? Where did my life, where did I myself go?

And still, fortune didn’t abandon him. One ordinary day a cheeky little girl appeared in his mind’s eye – Red Anne was her name –, and, poking her tongue at him, she started insisting on having a life of her own. At the beginning he refused to take her seriously and tried to make a game out of it – for himself and for the children. Nothing came of that. Although rather angry – the attempt had cost him a lot of effort and, oh yes, a lot of money, too –, Zlatko was ready to accept that it was all over. Not so Red Anne! It seemed that the girl didn’t want to go! She continued poking her tongue out and every effort to send her away was in vain.

At that moment Zlatko started getting scared. „Listen, I burned you up ten years ago, how come you are still living? Go away, that door is locked forever! No, no, no! No games anymore, I am a serious person, I’ve got a family and children! Don’t tempt me, kid, don’t you understand how dangerous this is!”

Nothing helped. Anne remained where she stood, stubborn as a young bull, and refused to go away. Zlatko then tried cheating. Ok, then let’s make a comic book out of you. That’s more like it, isn’t it? And then you’ll leave me in peace, won’t you?”

Again nothing came out of it. Anne didn’t move. Shivering with fear, Zlatko finally gave up and started writing. And, of course, it didn’t come to anything at the beginning. „I told you this wasn’t going to get us anywhere, why didn’t you listen to me!” – he yelled at the little girl but she was only watching him with hazel eyes and continued tapping her foot.

Only then did Zlatko dispense with big thoughts about great literature, educational principles, etc. If she insists so much, then why not? They simply started playing together – two kids of different ages –, and they even started having fun! Different adventures came, each one more interesting than the last, the two of them wandered in the gloomy forest until they finally frolicked to their hearts’ content. And the result of it was “Ghost Forest”.

What will come of all this, neither of them can tell so far. In any event they are having a wonderful time together and, if they are lucky, maybe part of the magic of that friendship could be felt by others – the readers of the book, for example …

Let’s hope that friendship is real.

“Of the realest sort”, as Anne once said.

If that is the case, then everything is all right and you will surely like the story.

Let’s hope so. Anne and Zlatko certainly do.

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