The Present

Bitter wind chilled the evening air outside the dull, gray building I called home as a child. My mother and I waited in the small living room of our first apartment. I sat on the couch as she propped herself on the huge electric heater. Mum questioned me on school matters, as she always did when she got home from work.

“Did you have a quiz today,” she inquired.

“No,” I answered briefly. The cartoon playing on TV occupied my mind.

“When’s your Math final,” Mum demanded again.

“End of January.” I sneaked a look at her occasionally. I could see she wasn’t paying much attention to what I said. Her intent gaze was fixed on the living room door, waiting for my father to open it.

I was eight and about to celebrate my first Christmas in less than a week. The Communist party had forbidden the honoring of religious holidays. We celebrated New Year’s instead of Christmas. However, the regime fell the previous year and a democratic state was established. So, in mid-November 1990, my parents proudly announced that it was high time our family began keeping with religious holidays.

“Now that the darn Communists are gone, we can honor Christ’s birth,” my father declared triumphantly. He never liked the Communist party and was one of the few “capitalists,” (as the regime labeled them) who had refused to convert to its principles.

“Are you sure, honey,” my mother cautiously demanded. “What if they come back to power again?”

“Never gonna happen. Not in this lifetime,” Dad couldn’t be more certain. His authority somewhat calmed us, so we went on with the idea.

The previous year, three months after the fall of the Communist rule, only a small number of people celebrated Christmas. This winter, though, the holiday absorbed the nation’s collective mind. Grandparents, who remembered the times before Communism, were called on for help. Television shows lectured audiences of all ages on Christmas traditions. Viewers watched instructions on how to decorate a Christmas tree. Curvy TV hostesses recommended getting rid of the shapeless object people used to put on the top of a “New Year’s tree” and replacing it with the Bethlehem star. Gap-toothed, big-eared children sang carols from the screen. Plump, peasant-looking women kneaded Christmas pogacha (home-made round bread) from the screen. Newspapers and magazines had at least a couple of spreads advising readers on how to prepare the food for “the greatest of Orthodox holidays.” Pictures borrowed from the Western press accompanied the articles. Goodies never seen before lured the eyes, making stomachs contract.

All the useful instructions aside, preparing for a decent Christmas dinner turned out to be a disaster. Economic crisis ruled Bulgaria. The Communist party had pillaged the country’s assets for 45 years and left it bankrupt. My father managed to save our family from financial adversity. He worked for a textile company that thrived under Communism and became even more prosperous after its fall, as it got access to Western markets. Being well off according to the post-Communist standards didn’t make it easier to prepare the Christmas dinner media suggested, though. Having the money to afford the luxury of buying whipped chocolate-flavored cream for your cake was useless. Stores simply didn’t sell it, at least those in our town, Vidin. They were almost empty, selling only goods of utmost necessity, such as matches and candles. The latter we needed badly, as we were undergoing what was called “an electricity austerity program.” Things got a trifle better when the government cancelled the coupon system. Several months ago, people used coupons instead of money to buy bread, cheese, and sunflower oil. Each family was given a limited number of coupons.

Still, after the coupon system’s termination, food was plain and poor-quality, sufficing merely to quench the body’s nutrition rather than gourmet, let alone aesthetic, needs. People froze as they waited in kilometer-long lines in front of supermarkets just to buy plain yellow cheese or ham. My mother and I froze too. We spent hours in the cold, dressed in the warmest clothes we possessed. The chill pierced through my mitten as I clutched her hand, breaking into my bones and leaving my fingers numb. Mum, well-mannered in general, would shout when someone tried to jump the queue, which often happened. Sometimes our turn would come and it would turn out that the cheese and ham were over.

Dad, however, often came home with an exotic present for us. His gifts varied from refined German butter to cream cheese with salami and olive bits. He even brought us coconuts one evening. Yet, my father’s sporadic spoils were insufficient to assure the Christmas dinner my mother and I dreamed of, drooling over the sophisticated cooking recipes in magazines. The two of us unanimously decided that our meal ought to look like an image in the Christmas edition of a fashion magazine. A finely embroidered tablecloth would cover the table. Food would be served in white porcelain dishes, rimmed with petite blue flowers. Tablecloths and chinaware we possessed. Food was the problem. My mother obstinately refused having the traditional pork accompanied by turshia (home-made preserves) and banitsa (cheese pie). My mouth filled with saliva while she named the delicacies she wished to put on our Christmas table. She wanted a variety of Western-like meals—a stuffed turkey accompanied by Caesar and Italian salad, brownies, and chocolate ice cake with almonds.

My heart jumped, as I heard the sound of the key opening the front door. The kick my father gave the living room door almost broke its glass. He cradled a huge cardboard box in his arms.

“Daddy, Daddy, what’s this? What are you carrying?” I shrieked with joy, leaping from the couch.

My mother was quicker. She rushed forward, blocking my way before I could reach him. She became a child once again. “Honeeey, honeeeyyy, what have you brought? Is that something for the house?” Household appliances were what she missed most after decent food.

“Nooope,” my father teasingly replied, as he slowly put the box on the floor.

I pushed my Mum aside and began ripping open the cardboard box. The view of its contents made me sit back on the carpet. The box was full of food, foreign-looking food, the kind I’d never seen before. My glance swept along the provisions, wrapped up in glossy, colorful cellophane. Bright, fine pictures adorned their covers. I dove my hands inside and started taking out countless sparkly cans of olives and mushrooms, packages of sliced meat, and appetizing candy bars.

“Where did you find these, honey,” my mother asked, full of delight.

My father’s face lost a touch of its happiness. “Well, you know,” he faltered, “the German clients arrived today and gave a box to each of us—Christmas presents, they said.” I paused to observe the dainty food covering the floor. A Christmas gift, I imagined, was like a New Year’s—a toy, a piece of clothing, or a book.

Mum looked at the box, then me, then my father. Then she threw herself in his arms, sobbing, “Is it that bad, honey, is it ever gonna get better?” Food was not a present—the Party’d made Bulgarians send provisions to the “starving Nicaraguan brother-revolutionaries” half a decade before.