"Three Women in Sofia" - short story

 

I remember meeting Milena the day I rode on one of Sofia’s rusty orange trams for the first time. I remember boarding, searching for somewhere to validate my ticket. The ticket was a thin piece of paper, I recall, no bigger than the wrapper of a stick of gum. I turned it over, searching in vain for a barcode. Should I show it to the driver at the front of the carriage? Maybe it had been enough to purchase the ticket at the stand? Perhaps, but that didn’t make sense.

“There,” someone called out.

A middle-aged, slightly frumpy woman sitting near the door pointed to a small box on a metal pole. Confused, I approached the pole.

“You must to punch it,” she instructed me, making me grin at her broken English. “There to put!"

I inserted the ticket in a narrow slit, and applied pressure on the handle, looking at the woman for her approval. When I removed the ticket, I saw it was marked by a barely discernible indentation.

“Good,” the woman said.

How did she know to speak to me in English? Was it so obvious that I was a foreigner who didn’t speak her language? Was it my clothes? During those years I rarely changed out of faded jeans and a Spartans T-shirt. Was this the clue that gave me away?

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