“Baba Yanka shrugged at this. ‘The song means nothing. It is just an unlucky old song. My great-grandmother told me that some people believed it came from a monastery. But that is not possible, because monks do not sing such songs-they sing the praises of God. We sing it on Saint George’s Day because it invites Sveti Georgi to kill the dragon and end his torture of the people.’
“‘What monastery?’ I cried. ‘Ask her if she knows of a monastery called Sveti Georgi, one that disappeared a long time ago.’
“But Baba Yanka only nodded-no-and clicked her tongue. ‘There is no monastery here. The monastery is at Bachkovo. We have only the church, where I will sing with my sister this afternoon.’
“I groaned and made Ranov try one more time. This time he clicked his tongue too. ‘She says she knows of no monastery. There has never been a monastery here.’
“‘When is Saint George’s Day?’ I asked.
“‘On May sixth.’ Ranov stared me down. ‘You have missed it by several weeks.’
“I was silent, but in the meantime Baba Yanka had cheered up again. She shook our hands and kissed Helen and made us promise to hear her singing that afternoon-‘It is much better with my sister. She sings the second voice.’
“We told her we would be there. She insisted on giving us some lunch, which she had been preparing when we came in; it was potatoes and a kind of gruel, and more of the sheep’s milk, which I thought I might be able to get used to if I stayed a few months. We ate as gratefully as we could, praising her cooking, until Ranov told us we should go back to the church if we wanted to see the beginning of the service. Baba Yanka parted from us reluctantly, squeezing our hands and arms and patting Helen’s cheeks.
“The fire next to the church had almost burned down now, although a few logs still flamed on top of the coals, pale in the bright afternoon sun. The villagers were already beginning to gather near the church, even before its bells began to ring. The bells rang and rang in the small stone tower at its peak, and then the young priest came to the door. He was dressed in red and gold now, with a long embroidered cape over his robes and a black shawl draped over his hat. He carried a smoking censer on a gold chain, which he swung in three directions outside the church door.
“The people gathered there-women dressed like Baba Yanka in stripes and flowers or in black from head to toe, and men in rough brown woolen vests and trousers, with white shirts tied or buttoned at their necks-fell back as the priest emerged. He came out among them, blessing them with the sign of the cross, and some of them bowed their heads or bent over in front of him. Behind him came an older man, dressed like a monk in plain black, whom I took to be his assistant. This man held an icon in his arms, which was draped with purple silk. I got a quick glimpse of it-a stiff, pale, dark-eyed visage. This must be Sveti Petko, I thought. The villagers followed the icon silently around the edge of the church in a streaming mass, many of them walking with canes or leaning on the arms of the younger ones. Baba Yanka found us and took my arm proudly, as if to show her neighbors what good connections she had. Everyone stared at us; it occurred to me that we were getting at least as much attention as the icon.
“The two priests led us in silence around the back of the church and along the other side, where we could see the fire ring at a short distance and smell the smoke that rose from it. The flames were dying down, unattended, the last great logs and branches already a deep orange, all of it settling into a mass of coals. We made this procession three times around the church, and then the priest halted again at the church porch and began to chant. Sometimes his elderly assistant answered him, and sometimes the congregation murmured a response, crossing themselves or bowing. Baba Yanka had let go of my arm, but she stayed close to us. Helen was watching everything with a keen interest, I saw, and so was Ranov.
“At the end of this outdoor ceremony, we followed the congregation into the church, which was dark as a tomb after the brilliance of the fields and groves. It was a small church, but the interior had a kind of exquisite scale the bigger churches we’d seen couldn’t boast. The young priest had put the icon of Sveti Petko in a place of honor near the front, propped on a carved podium. I noticed Brother Ivan bowing before the altar. As usual, there were no pews; the people stood or knelt on the cold stone floor, and a few old women prostrated themselves in the center of the church. The side walls contained niches that were frescoed or housed icons, and in one of them yawned a dark opening that I thought must go down to the crypt. It was easy to imagine centuries of peasant worship here and in the older church that had stood here before this one.
“After what seemed like an eternity, the chanting ceased. The people bowed once more and began to drift out of the church, some of them stopping here and there to kiss icons or to light candles, which they placed in the iron candelabra near the entrance. The church bells began to ring and we followed the villagers outdoors again, where the sun and breeze and brilliant fields smote us without warning. A long table had been set out under some trees, and women were already uncovering dishes there and pouring something from ceramic pitchers. Then I saw there was a second fire pit on this side of the church, a small one, where a spitted lamb hung. Two men were cranking it around and around over the coals and the smell brought a primitive watering to my mouth. Baba Yanka filled our plates for us herself and took us to a blanket away from the crowd. There we met her sister, who looked just like her except taller and thinner, and we all gorged on the good food. Even Ranov, folding his legs in their city suit carefully on the woven blanket, seemed almost content. Other villagers stopped by to greet us and to ask Baba Yanka and her sister when they would be singing, an attention they waved away with the dignity of opera stars.
“When the lamb had been completely devoured and the women were scraping the dishes over a wooden bucket, I noticed that three men had brought out musical instruments and were preparing to play. One of them had the oddest instrument I had ever seen up close-a bag made of cleaned white animal skin with wooden pipes sticking out of it. It was clearly a kind of bagpipe, and Ranov told us that it was an ancient instrument in Bulgaria, thegaida, made of the skin of a goat. The old man who cradled it in his arms gradually blew it up like a great balloon; this process took a good ten minutes and he was bright red before he’d finished. He nestled it under his arm and puffed into one of the pipes and everyone cheered and applauded. It had the sound of an animal, too, a loud bleat, a shriek or squawk, and Helen laughed. ‘You know,’ she told me, ‘there is a bagpipe in every herding culture in the world.’
“Then the old man began to play, and after a moment his friends joined him, one on a long wooden flute, whose voice swirled around us in a fluid ribbon, and the other beating a soft skin drum with a padded stick. Some of the women jumped up and formed a line, and a man with a white handkerchief, as we’d seen at Stoichev’s, led them around the meadow. The people too old and infirm to dance sat smiling with their terrible teeth and empty gums, or patted the ground beside them, or tapped their canes.
“Baba Yanka and her sister stayed quietly where they were, as if their moment had not come. They waited until the flute player began to call for them, gesturing and smiling, and then until their audience joined the call, and then they feigned some reluctance, and finally they got up and went, hand in hand, to stand next to the musicians. Everyone fell quiet, and thegaida played a little introduction. The two old women began to sing, their arms twined around each other’s waists now, and the sound they made-a stomach-churning harmony, harsh and beautiful-seemed to come from one body. The sound of thegaida grew up around it, and then the three voices, the voices of the two women and the goat, rose together and spread over us like the groaning of the earth itself. Helen’s eyes were suddenly suffused with tears, which was so unlike her that I put my arm around her in front of everyone.