The Wondrous Wolf

By Stoyan Valev

One February evening, when the pub was full of men and outside the wind was fiercely hauling, the door slowly opened.

It opened, but nobody came in.

They fell silent and waited.

For, when a door is being opened, somebody should have opened it.  

And since it is opened by someone, that someone would like to come in.

The tip of his snout showed first.

Next all of his body sneaked in.

A wolf came into the pub.

“Lord!” the bartender exclaimed.

He had never had such a customer, though he had been doing this business for thirty years.

Ivan slowly rose from a table and stepped towards the wolf.

So far, so good: the wolf, however, snarled and bared his teeth.

“Where, Ivan?” old Stoimen cried while Ivan was looking right into the wolf’s eyes.

“I’m going to fix him!” Ivan rolled up his sleeves and again made a step towards the animal.

Old Stoimen reached out to stop him, but it was too late.

A human being and a wolf grappled into a deadly combat.

Ivan was trying to grip the wolf’s neck but kept failing.

The wolf was growling and his teeth were clattering but it was obvious he only defended himself; he did not attack, he only protected himself, pushing his adversary away.

When Ivan at last managed to nab the wolf’s neck with both hands and his fingers started tightening, the animal gave such a growl that everyone’s hair stood on end.

Unexpectedly, Ivan loosened his fingers and got up from the floor.

The wolf also got up on his four feet, shook himself and made for the bar.

“My, that bloody cur!” the bartender whimpered and deftly leaped onto the bar, despite his hundred kilograms.

The wolf stopped in front of the bar and stared at him with his wide-opened, wondrous, sad eyes.

Nobody dared move.

A couple of minutes lasted the wolf’s survey and an eternity it seemed to the people. Then slowly he rose on his hind legs, pointed his snout at the ceiling and started howling.

It was not a howl, but a cry devilish and ominous. The same way the women would howl on funerals.

Dumbfounded, a score of men in the village pub were listening.

So the wolf kept howling and they kept standing silent.

It was understood, then, that a grief was upon that wolf; a grief heavy and dark as the night outside, if it was a wolf at all.

And as unexpectedly as it had began, the howling ceased.

The wolf lay on the floor, placed his head between his front legs and moved no more.

He was lying.

And the men were standing still, watching the wolf.

Then old Stoimen got up and went to him.

Someone bit their lips, but not a voice was heard to prevent him doing that.

The wolf would probably jump on him and bite his throat! It would be easy, how much was the old man’s strength . . .

But the wolf kept lying still.

Old Stoimen squatted, with a low moan, rested one knee on the floor and bowed over the wolf. He reached out both hands, took the wolf’s head, stared at his eyes.

It was as if the wolf was confiding something to him, but old Stoimen did not wanted to admit it.

After a long moment he laid the animal¡¯s head between its paws again and took off his greasy hat.

So stood the old man, on his knees as if before a dead man dear to his heart.

The men perceived the wolf had given away his spirit – to God, to the Devil, or to some Deity of his own kind? . . .

They drew closer, watching him with scrutinizing eyes – they saw a most wonderful wolf!

Then old Stoimen stood up slowly and said:

“Now, get the hoes and shovels and let’s bury him!”

“But you . . . have you lost your mind?” the bartender snapped at him, getting down from the bar.

“Shut up!” the old man ordered and at the authority of his voice everyone felt he was right.

The men quickly fetched hoes and shovels.

“Where?” they asked old Stoimen.

“What do you mean where?” the old man snapped “in front of the pub!”

They filed out of the pub.

It was a bitter cold. A blizzard, quite a blizzard. The earth: ice-bound. But the men set off digging.

They were warming up with one gulp of rakia at a time and at last they dug up the grave.

Old Stoimen laid the wolf into the grave and bowed to the ground.

“Take a bow, you!” the old man ordered and score of men bowed to a dead wolf.  

But what kind of wolf? . . . A wondrous wolf! . . .

They filled up the grave and got back to the pub.

It was then when the mayor burst in.

“Eh, what have you been doing again?” he was mad, it was obvious.

“You shut up!” old Stoimen said reprovingly and poured out a drop of his glass on the floor.

“Bury a wolf! In the center of the village! Tell me, aren’t you savage?” raged the mayor, sipping at his glass of rakia and already starting to relax with each sip.

He poured out a drop on the floor, too.

“Let the powers that watch over us, condone the sins of that wolf!”

So goes the world.

If a door is being opened, someone is surely to come in. Wolf or a man.

And was it a wolf?

They kept asking old Stoimen, who was renowned for his wisdom, but he only smiled and waved his hand at them:

“What, a wolf? Are you out of your mind? If it was a wolf, would I have you buried it in the centre of the village, you fools!”

“Well, then! What was it?”

Did it matter, after all?

It came, it was gone, it was buried, and the rest is for everyone to decide.

Isn’t that right?!

Translated from Bulgarian by: Nevena Pascaleva

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