Maria
Nina Mindova writer and translator
Her black almond eyes, golden-copper curls and high like  an apricot tree figure…it was difficult to forget them…Aquarel features, rounded lips and thin hands,
Were as if she was an ancient statue, a pearl grown in a village.
Green  jagged leaves of beech and wild apples and briers. Were close to her as
Her own face in a mirror. She likes rainy days, when small birds stay perch on a elm.
Pale yellow butterflies hide in dried up grass, but sun like a yolk of egg peers out of
A satin sky. She was grown and lives in the village. The town with its labyrinths,
Strange things and intrigues was almost unknown to her. She observes how a sun
Stopped above a yellow pear tree and red clouds blaze like in a sunset.
On roofs jump up and down titmice, jays and cock-sparrows, but some insidious
Harry on a cat follows them. Tomorrow still with first sun rays, she goes off work
Towards a town . She opens her street –stall at market, where were ordered bunch
Of bananas, grapes, grapefruits and coconuts. The persons of market watch her with wonderment
But her colleagues of envy call her girl from the village.
They talk piquant things between them and were moved from personal hate,
Because she was prettier than their own daughters and they whizzed against her.
She hasn’t much friends and well-known in the town.
Mild-tempered and shy by character she keeps silence and endures insults.
In evening she helps her father to finish milking his sheep. Her brother and sister don’t make light of attention her, as if she was not their blood. Afterwards she sits between adult women and clean beans from pods. Some of them throwing over yarn and knit slippers.
Other shoutsat to turkeys who graze.
--Maria, when you will marry?
They take to and look at her with curiosity.
-It’s still early –she says and reddish like a water- melon.
After some months she had met one boy from the town who was policeman.
But her thoughts are poked from other man. He was young, slender with hairs,
Jacket and elegant overcoat.
He was competent , talkative, and so kind he sends her to bus.
Often he carries her flowers and treats her in confectioner’s shop.
She had spoken him for a marriage but he didn’t like idea. He was a handsome,
A clever and smiles enigmatically.
He doesn’t want marriage. He gave her chocolate biscuits and lemon slices.
And always treats her with cocktails and glass of whisky. Her head made dizzy.
He was promoted as a chief. He speaks and smiles closer and closer.
The table became smaller and smaller…and a salver of waitress shines more silver and
Silver…
She feels man’s arm on her thigh, afterwards put out of lamp.
In the morning her white cupboard has a message, the curtains were pale green and wide dissolved, turned a brassiere dangles at hat and coat rack. After a month she realized
She’s pregnant.
He wrote a message that he would go in London for a month. When he realized she was pregnant he beat her. He pushed her and she aborted the child. She was sad and returned in the village.