Trafford Publishing: Valley of Roses

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Valley of Roses

by Ben Stoltzfus

148 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #03-0012; ISBN 1-55395-649-4; US$18.50, C$22.95, EUR15.00, £10.40

Attar of Roses is distilled from the petals, art is distilled from life and love is distilled from the heart. German forces occupy the Balkans during World War II and the loves, lives and friendships of Americans and Bulgarians are altered irrevocably.

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About the Book

Valley of Roses is a four-part novel and fictional memoir based on the narrator's flashbacks to a quasi-mythical country -- a garden of innocence and plenty that has been or will be ravaged by war. Aaron, an American, reflects on the happiness of earlier, idyllic times, and he relives his love for Zhivka, his friendship with Dimcho, separation, and the subsequent Communist takeover of Bulgaria.
This is a novel about faith, politics, art and survival and it is composed of events and reminiscences that paint an ongoing picture of joy, loss and retrieval. Bulgaria is famous for its attar of roses that is distilled from the petals. The art of this fiction is distilled from life, and its love story is distilled from the heart when German forces occupied the Balkans during WWII and the loves, lives and friendships of Americans and Bulgarians were altered irrevocably.

About the Author

Ben Stoltzfus is a novelist, translator, retired professor and literary critic. Valley of Roses is his fourth novel. He lives with his artist wife, Judith Palmer, in Riverside, California.
Other Books by Ben Stoltzfus:
Novels:
The Eye of the Needle
Black Lazarus
Red White and Blue
Translations
La Belle Captive
Monographs
Gide's Eagles
Alain Robbe-Grillet
Lacan and Literature

Excerpts

     This rose is at the apex, solitary. The other buds at the ends of the flower-stalks are also preparing to open. there are seven on this particular bush - each shoot provided with alternate leaves, small, hooked prickles, and grandular hairs.
     The five, flesh-colored petals with the dark, pink veins radiating toward the edges curl outward and down. The flower-stalk is urn-shaped, but its cavity does not yet enclose the fruits. The first row of petals has in fact barely opened. The stamen and pistil are not visible and it is obvious that the flower has not been fertilized. The ovary is hidden somewhere inside, surrounded by the petals and the five, green, slender elongations of each sepal.
     In the garden the roses are all a pale, whitish pink. The rows of petals open at the end of slender stalks that bend as the flowers grow. In the morning, before sunrise, droplets of dew adhere to each bloom - beads of moisture that will evaporate in the hot rays of daylight.
     A girl with auburn hair, fern-green eyes, and rose-colored cheeks is walking through the garden. She plucks the dew-covered flowers with a twist of her wrist and fingers and drops each one into a round, wicker basket slung under her left arm. The basket is now half full. A barefoot girl moves through the waist-high bushes humming a tune. Two or three words cant at times be heard - words like shareno and zaitze - part of the song no doubt - a song that stops and starts, stops again and then, seemingly interiorized, pauses, only to pursue its inaudible course until it bursts forth: a full-blown, ringing sentence. The song then stops once more as abruptly as it began, meanders unheard and unsung as the roses fall into the gradually filling basket, then surfaces finally as a melodious, guttural trill that is picked up by one of the other girls. The two maidens are now singing about a mother bird that has laid a speckled egg. The voices harmonize and quicken the pace of the pickers as the song is passed on to the row of young girls, perhaps twelve in all, now moving though the garden. When the baskets are full, rivers of pink are poured into gunny sacks that are then lifted and tied to the backs of small, gray donkeys.
     The other garden is now enclosed by a high, chain-link fence. The wire mesh of th fence has been weathered by the summer's hot sunlight and the freezing hoarfrost of winter, so that the once shiny, gun-metal surface is now corroded to an almost powdery white. As you run an index finger along a segment of wire that outlines a two-inch aperture - one of thousands of identical holes that give the eight-foot fence its symmetrical pattern - then examine the whorls of you fingertip, you can see minute, grayish-white particles. They form no particular pattern and adhere at random to the skin.
     Thick galvanized poles support the wire mesh which is topped by three strands of barbed wire. The fence curves around a field, into a gully, and then over a hill. Sections of fence are supported by galvanized poles becoming smaller and smaller as they recede into the distance. Since there is no gate along this part of the enclosure, it would be possible to climb the fence, grab a tree branch, swing over the barbed wire, move a short distance hand over hand, like marines, Tarzans, or even as children do on a jungle gym, and then drop to the ground. Once inside it would be possible to proceed undetected, but not for long. The Secret Police would never believe that spying on it was designed not to endanger the security of the state but to satisfy the needs of an inner self. Buildings which were once plainly visible are now hidden by tall trees and only an occasional red brick wall contrasts with the green foliage.
     The oak at the base of the meadow is a tall tree with broadly spreading branches. It is over one hundred feet high - a striking tree with dark, green leaves and a rough bark that is almost black. It would take a number of men holding hands to embrace the trunk. The tree's branches curve upward, out, and down. Some people say the tree is almost a thousand years old, one of the few that survived the Turkish yoke and the woodsman's axe. Careful inspections reveals corroded, iron marbles, shot from old guns, firmly embedded in the bark's cracks and perforations.
     The fingers of Aaron's right hand press the shiny tip of a pen-knife into the bark. The blade's cutting edge angels the diagonal line of the Z revealing the lighter coloring of the wood beneath the outer, black layer. Aaron turns to look at Zhivka who is patiently waiting for him to finish, as though such brash romanticism were beneath a girl's dignity. She arches one o f her dark eyebrows, purses her lip, and looks at him mirthfully with her fern-green eyes. The initials AK-ZR are not enclosed withing a heart.

     ******

     For one year now, in spite of the German occupation, Americans at the College have been teaching English. Vexed, the Germans are once again clamoring for their departure. Bowing to pressure, the Ministry of Education appoints a Bulgarian president. Americans are forbidden to teach and the aliens are place under house arrest. Three weeks of delicate negotiations with the Swiss Embassy procure the necessary exit visas, tickets are bought, and a departure date is set. All Americans will leave the country.
     The newsreels are full of German victories. Stukas and Junkers with black crosses on their bodies and wings rain bombs over London. Columns of black smoke rise toward the sky. Tanks withe cannon protruding from the turrets, and with black crosses outlined in white advance across flat, bleak Russian landscapes. Long columns of Russian prisoners with their hands behind their heads are marched down the road, mud oozing over their battle-worn boots. Kicha goes to the Eastern Front as a nurse's aid.
     Every moment now intensifies the anguish of Aaron's and Zhivka's separation. The hardly speak, yet their thoughts are one - flowing from the pressure of a finger tip or the flicker of an eyelash. Aaron's and Zhivka's solace is in each other. Their love is the only constant in a world they believe has gone mad.
     "Listen to this." Aaron leafes through a poetry review, to a page marked with a torn newspaper clipping, folds it back, and reads:

     Time present and time past
     Are both perhaps present in time future
     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
     What might have been and what has been
     Point to one end, which is always present.
     Footfalls echo in the memory
     Down the passage which we did not take
     Towards the door we never opened
     Into the rose garden.

     "What does it mean?" Zhivka looks inquisitively at Aaron.
     "I'm not sure." Aaron knits his brows and rereads some of the lines. "It's more a feeling I get. About us. How can I explain it?" Aaron looks up. "I can't read the Greek and I don't know what Burnt Norton is, but that stuff about time and the rose garden, that's really about us."
     "Where did you find it?"
     "At home."
     "Read it again."
     Aaron reads the lines once more, puts the review down, and runs his fingers through Zhivka's hair. She looks into his eyes. Aaron embraces her. Her body and her warmth feel like a soft, protective membrane. She looks at him again and shakes her head. Aaron grabs her around the waist, lifts her, and twirls her around. The lie down in the grass, and through intermittent kisses, speak of their reunion after the war. But there is uncertainty in their voices and doubts in their expectations. Fear coils at the base of their assurance.
     "Will you always love me?" Zhivka sits up, smooths her green skirt, and tucks it under her thighs.
     "You know I will." Aaron studies his profile, the slope of her nose, the pout of her lips.
     "I hope the war doesn't last too long." Zhivka looks through the fence toward the river.
     "I hope not." With his left hand Aaron picks up bits of dried grass from the back of Zhivka's sweater.
     "What do you think will happen?" Zhivka turns her head and looks at Aaron.
     "Maybe you could come to America."
     "My father would never let me."
     "No, I guess he wouldn't. Still when you're old enough, he couldn't stop you." Aaron runs his hand under Zhivkas sweater, feels the smoothness of her blouse, and the ridge of her backbone.
     "Is there any chance of your coming back?" Zhivka places the palm of her hand over Aarons forehead and strokes his hair.
     "That may depend on who wins the war. If the Germans win, I don't imagine they would let us return. But you never know." Aaron pulls his top right eyelid down over the lower half to remove an irritation and blinks.
     "My father says Russia will win and Bulgaria will be a communist state." Zhivka looks off into the distance.
     "That might be worse than the Germans. If people like your father start running the country, Americans will be out for good." Once again Aaron pulls the eyelid down over the lower half and blinks several times.
     "What are we going to do?" Zhivka lies down next to Aaron and puts her head on his shoulder. Aaron encircles her neck with his left arm.
     "Win the war."
     "But what if something happens to you?"
     "I love you and I want to come back." Aaron kisses her hair.
     "Aaron, I'm afraid."
     "You mustn't be afraid. My father says that God always works for the good." Aaron puts his other arm around Zhivka and holds her. Her body feels tense.
     "Maybe he does, but I'm still afraid - afraid the something will happen to us and that we won't ever see each other again. Besides, my father says that man, not God, is responsible for changing the world." Zhivka clenches both fists under her chin and puts her arms in front of her, defensively.
     "If that's true, then all that remains is to will our future reunion." Aaron's words sounded flippant, but he feels powerless to change the inflextion of his voice.
     "But my father will want it otherwise."
     "There are two of us."
     "And millions like him."
     "Maybe there are millions like us." Aaron tries to make his voice sound reassuring.
     "I doubt it." Aaron feels anger at Zhivka's bluntness. Thoughts which he repressed, organize themselves, press forward, become images.
     "Zhivka." Aaron hesitates, uncertain, wondering whether to speak the words that he knows will hurt her. Her directness has aroused unspoken desire. "I don't know how to say this." He hesitates. "Would you, that is, make love to me?"
     "Aaron, how could you." Zhivka is incredulous. "Our love is so pure."
     "Pure or not, I will be leaving and I want to make love to you. I love you." The words are not quite what he intended, but they are out and he makes no attempt to retract them.
     "But it's a sin to make love before we're married." Zhivka has regained her composure and she resumes stroking Aaron's hair.
     "Perhaps."
     "But what if I get pregnant?"
     "What if the war separates us forever?" Between Europe and North America, Aaron imagines the blue expanse of the Atlantic ocean.
     "Aaron, please. You mustn't say that." Aaron feels a chill go through Zhivka's body. He presses forward.
     "I mean it. What if we never meet again!" Aaron pictures a column of German motorcyclists on a dusty highway.
     "Aaron, please, I don't want to think about it." Zhivka's voice sounds firm, but her body feels limp.
     "That's funny. You were thinking about it just a moment ago." The Germans soldiers fan out across the field.
     "Well, I don't want to think about it now." There is the sound of machine gun fire and the soldiers duck down behind some bushes.
     "Don't you want to make love to me?" The soldiers advance once more, their guns blazing.
     "That's not what I mean." Several soldiers fall, immobilized.
     "Well, don't you?" The soldiers advance.
     "You know I do." The soldiers run forward weaving intricate patterns in the air with their bayonets.
     "Why not then?"
     "I have already told you."
     "But I don't agree with your answer." The soldiers, savoring victory, smile at each other, shout, and leap forward over dead logs.
     "Yes you do. Deep down inside of you, you know I'm right." The German soldiers are suddenly outnumbered. Surrounded, they stop, drop their weapons, and raise their arms.

Catalogue Information