Stork Mountain Read Online Free

that, bared two rows of perfect yellow teeth, and let his milky eyes fidget in their sockets. “So you’ve remembered you have a father, eh?” he said to Grandpa, whose palms were melting holes in my shoulders.
    When he had finished signing whatever papers Grandpa had brought for him to sign, the old man called me over to his bed. I still remember the stench of naphthalene that rose up not just from the wool of his clothes but from his ancient flesh.
    â€œYou’ll never live to be as old as me,” he said. “Whatever you think of doing, I’ve already done it. Wherever you think of going, I’ve already been and returned. And it was nothing special.”
    He raked my hair, then groped my face—my forehead, nose, and chin—his hand as cold as the belly of a catfish I’d once poked. I watched Grandpa in terror, but did not dare move even when the ancient man stuck his salty fingers in my mouth. He traced the gaps where teeth were missing and pushed against the ones that rocked. Then, as unexpected as lightning in the winter, he pinched a rocking tooth, yanked it out, and ate it.
    The blood never washed out completely from my shirt.
    That afternoon, Grandpa took me outside the village, to see the fertile fields.
    â€œDon’t begrudge the old fool,” he said. “The old are jealous of the young. The living are frightened of the dying. But sooner or later they all converge.”
    Stalks of plentiful wheat splashed with the wind around us. We had waded in a sea of gold. Grandpa broke off an ear and munched on the grains. His eyes watered, but he gave no sign he was ashamed.
    â€œThis land was ours once,” he said. “A hundred acres.”
    I didn’t have to ask him who owned the land now. Even at six, I knew.
    But then, two years later, the Communist Party collapsed. And a few years after that, when I was a sophomore in high school, a package arrived from Bulgaria—a short letter and a box for matches. Inside the matchbox lay a pinch of soil. Our land had been returned.
    It was this land, or at least my share of twenty acres, that now I had returned to sell.

 
    FIVE
    THE ENDLESS THRACIAN FIELD had ended. Its flatness had been replaced by oaks in youthful foliage—tall, venerable trees keeping watch, like sentries to the mountain. There was no more sand in the air. Rusty patches were scattered across the road, which snaked gently upward through the hills of the Strandja and grew narrower the higher we climbed. The holes turned to fissures, the fissures to crevasses, and soon we crossed entire stretches where the pavement had been eroded and washed away by rain. Each time the bus sank in a fissure, my teeth buzzed. The dentures of the old men and women chattered like the bills of giant birds, and for an instant I remembered how, many years ago, all passengers, my parents and I included, had clapped when the pilot landed the Boeing safely on the Ontario runway. A moment was repeating itself. And with the chatter of teeth and dentures we entered Klisura.
    I was last to step out at the small square. The sun, though past its peak, was still high above the hills. A strong gust threw the smell of smoke in my face. Even from here I could hear the wind whistling in the treetops. Up the road, Red Mustache limped toward his home, holding his cap so the gusts wouldn’t steal it. Falling behind, ten, fifteen, twenty feet, the woman in black carried not just her basket but also his tarpaulin sack on her back. Two veiled, shalwared women who’d ridden the bus with us were making their way in the opposite direction, across a rusted bridge over a river whose waters I heard but couldn’t see.
    â€œI bet you are that boy,” someone said behind me. The old man was smoking on the curb and with each gust the tip of his cigarette glowed brighter. The chicken flapped under his armpit and he stroked its feathers. “The one who never calls.”
    The bus