Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Time of Sucession
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147
trans. Venina Kalistratova
When I saw the walled up cave and I realised that the people inside were dead, I
revisited the site of the holocaust, my head started spinning in that same way in which the heartwoods of the forest were distorted by the smoke. And the world was spinning in front of my eyes, my sight was cloaked by tears. I travelled to the people of Prevala. It was not but later that we learnt that the Turks had found the cave, which is now called
Cheleveshtniza. A woman, driven mad by hunger, went through the forest with her two
year old son looking for mushrooms and was caught by the gang. They beat her so she would reveal the whereabouts of the cave, yet all she did was wailing. Then they stripped
her child naked and threatened him with knives. She did not snitch yet cried for help even more hysterically. When those in the cave heard her shouting,recognised her voice
and feared she had encountered some wild beast in her wanderings then they ran to her
rescue. The Turkish hoard scouted the location of the cave, surrounded it and called the
refugees to surrender. Three wounded shepherds who still had a handful of powder, took a shot from within and wiped out the Turk standing foremost in the gang. The hosts piled
up fir branches and set them on fire, and even though the smoke was gathering inside, only screams were heard, nobody came out. The Turkish soldiers made a pyre at the entrance of the cave and threw the hysterical mother and her two year old, for she was
eager to join the others inside. Screams cold no longer be heard as the fire reached the firmament. Whether the host driven mad by the fire set ablaze the forest, in a bid to scorch
all the roods on the trees, or the holocaust of the cave leapt from one tree to another, was ever a mystery, but they themselves barely escaped from the flaming woods. So perished in the cave of Cheleveshtniza one– hundred innocent souls.
When the people of Prevala saw me, thought they were seeing a ghost, for they
reckoned me amongst those inside the cave. Their eyes were red from crying, as if they
had been smoked by the fire. They had been watching the fire from Prevala. Grasping me with joy they would ask:
–Is that you, father? Where have you been? And I would answer: –I was in the deep of the forest, then I had an epiphany. God himself spoke to me
and said: “ Go, give yourselves to the Turks and receive their faith. For it is all the same whether you shall call me Allah or Jesus, as long as you have a god.”
An upheaval broke out, some tried to kill me, others warded them off. Then Momchil,
lying under a tree, strove to rise yet he stumbled on account of his broken leg, shouting