7en Nasso like in A Crime Film …
- Yora ATANASOVA
- Aug 21, 2022
- 7 min read
Updated: Sep 2, 2022
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While Nasso was looking for an alternative abode with electricity nearby his meadow, a fire investigation was under way. They could have accused him, had circumstances been a little less favorable. The only villa near Nasso's place, only about 100 meters away, was incinerated. It was an abandoned property on the other side of the dirt road, in the direction of The District. The villa was made of "sandwich panels'' several decades ago. The leaking roof over one half of it had soaked it, and rotting had begun. Through the open door with a broken lock to the little room, they could see the moldy furniture and bedding inside. The day before the fire, Nasso decided to cook something warm for himself and his dogs, in one of the last cold spells before spring. He cooked extremely rarely in winter, in a special place for a fire in the smaller meadow, in front of his shanty. He had cleared off last year's grass and surrounded it with stones. A tin sheet kept his outdoor hearth dry. On that day, in addition to the cold, there was a stormy wind, and periodically, it rained wet snow. The wind, as usual from the North-West, passed through his place and headed for the villa. If Nasso had lit a fire in some of the intervals between the falls, he would really have risked causing the grass in the meadow to catch fire, at least. That would also have made him not a witness, but a prime suspect in the arson, no matter who the real arsonist was. It meant aggravating Nasso's situation even further and increasing the "pressure", as they call harassment and terror today, by The Influential. After the arson, the abandoned villa owners appeared and, according to the rumour, wanted to be covered for the damage. Of course, Nasso had enough common sense and environmental awareness to abandon his intention; he would not cook on fire in a strong wind.
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Who and why could have set the villa on fire? Someone who was keeping warm in the cold: children, an adult with mental problems, a person in a difficult situation… Or someone tried to frame and discredit Nasso? It could have been because of Nasso's presence on the firewood haul route. From the outside, Nasso seemed to be friends with the forest rangers, because they always stopped to say hello and have a word with him, when they passed by in their jeeps. However, Nasso mostly suspected The Influential for the setting; they were behind his continuous series of misadventures and "bad luck" after Wonder Kuker. One small detail supported his suspicion. The stage manager must have known that on that day, Nasso was going to light a fire and cook in the small front meadow. Otherwise, he cooked extremely rarely in winter, with no schedule. Nasso had articulated his intention only to his two dogs, inside the shanty. Nobody could have heard him from outside, because the dogs would bark if anyone got that close.
For five years after giving up Wonder Kuker, the freedom-loving Nasso had been distancing himself from power and politics and resisting all the various attempts by The Influential to control him. His public activities were only on the Internet and amounted to what an average contemporary person would do: commenting and posting on social networks, sharing links on them and on his blogs. "Blogs" was strongly said, because Nasso rarely wrote, and it was about short comments on current topics and events. In his several blogs, each dedicated to one of his areas of interest, he mostly published links, for the convenience of having the materials at hand and organized, like a kind of personal online library. His areas of interest were self-study and learning; culture, cultural and historical heritage; ecology and eco life; his favorite sport; the surrounding world except "politics" and almost all "politicians'". The total amount of time he spent on the Internet, including his online lessons, was significant. A charge of arson could at least discredit Nasso. They called him "Who Lived in A Tent" in the District; the residents would probably add "and Who Set Fire to The Villa" to it… Ultimately, he could end up forced to leave his meadow and the area and again subjected to a grueling tossing between new settlements and accommodations.
A coincidence also helped Nasso; it provided him with an alibi. Nasso was elsewhere at the time of the fire, which was corroborated by two witnesses. Although he usually stayed in his shanty, on that day, he went to the villa whose owner had been doing him the favor of keeping Nasso's WiFi router inside and always on. It was on the bank of the creek, just a few feet from the fountain with the best water. On his meadow, with no electricity, Nasso used mobile internet from his phone for online lessons and brief checks. When he needed to surf the Internet and the weather allowed it, he would go to the meadow by the villa with his router, sit down by a fallen log, and work. The place was in the lee of the opposite folds of the mountain, and the cold was quite tolerable with proper clothing. Winters were milder in the Valley of Roses, compared to most of the country. That day, Nasso spent two hours there, preparing for the upcoming gathering of his Read in English group at the town library. The gathering was coming up the following day. He was also going to charge his two power banks at the library, which was enough for at least five phone charges. One of the batteries had a LED flashlight function convenient for lighting up the shanty.
The villa owner was there; they greeted each other and everyone went on with his work, Nasso on the Internet and the owner in the yard. This man was one of Nasso's witnesses. The second witness came from the District a little later, to visit the villa owner. The two began chatting in the yard; Nasso was not listening. Only once did he prick up his ears, when the guest called out about smoke and pointed in the direction of Nasso's meadow. He and the villa owner discussed it for a while, but Nasso had become engrossed in his work again. The guest had come along the dirt road that passed by the burned villa and Nasso's meadow and had not noticed anything wrong. He must have passed before the fire. Having finished up on the Internet, Nasso said goodbye to them and hurried up to his place to take his two dogs inside. He ate, crawled into the sleeping bag with Murka the cat, and fell asleep. He only got to know about the fire nearby and the two fire trucks putting it out, when two policemen knocked on his door to question him. The policemen had passed by his outdoor fire place on the meadow and had certainly checked it out.
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All that Nasso could say was that, on his way to the router, he had heard and seen the herd of Ahmed the shepherd going downhill towards the villa. The shepherd was shouting and cursing at the sheep, as usual. And later on, walking back to his meadow, Nasso had heard Ahmed's voice and curses again, but in the distance, apparently on their way to the Roma Mahala and the sheepfold. Nasso thought that Ahmed sounded particularly unhappy and angry that time, perhaps because of the bad weather for full-time outdoor work. The same Ahmed was declared the arsonist, as Nasso saw on a local internet portal later on. The shepherd was mentioned without a full citation of the name, but it was clear from the initials and mention of his occupation and birthplace.
Ahmed the shepherd was middle-aged, fair-faced, and light-eyed "Turk- boy", as he introduced himself to Nasso once. Nasso often saw him in the vicinity, and they said hello from afar. Sometimes, Nasso approached him to exchange words until the sheep ran off to the next meadow. The wind had brought Ahmed somewhere from Pleven Province, Northern Bulgaria. Nasso only knew about him that he tippled, as he would often see the little glass bottles thrown by Ahmed, alongside empty jars of lutenitsa, the traditional ketchup, all around the area. The shepherd lived somewhere near the fold and the sheep. Owners of the herd, respectively Ahmed's employers, were two brothers from The Mahala. They had assigned to shepherd a large number of flocks, maybe too large to be handled by a single man, and wanted to increase them. Several large dogs helped Ahmed, but it was not uncommon for some sheep to fall behind and die along the way, sick or lost. For each lost sheep, Ahmed was fined. His cursing annoyed Nasso at first, it felt like spoiling the peace and joy of the purity and greenness of nature. However, Nasso gradually got used to it and paid no attention. He had also heard Ahmed's gentle calling to sheep with a lot of "r" sounds while guiding the herd; it only happened in the mornings, when Ahmed was sober. The shepherd and his herd were always in the area, except in the great heat of summer, when they went even higher up in the mountain, to coolness and lush grass. It seemed as if Ahmed had no day off. The shepherd dogs and Nasso's ones knew each other, so did not bark while in proximity. The shepherds had already learned how close they could approach Nasso's territory and kept their distance.
Nasso doubted that Ahmed was the real perpetrator. The shepherd had been working in the area for at least several years; and suddenly, he happened to light a fire somewhere in the villa to warm himself, and went out, leaving the fire unextinguished... Nasso even called the investigator to share his both doubts and suspicion that someone might have staged the fire for him, Nasso, in connection with the firewood. He couldn't help but try to defend Ahmed, in case the evidence wasn't convincing enough. However, he was told that the suspect himself had confessed.
The incident was on the lips of the people of The District for a long time. Nasso sympathized with Ahmed; he felt uncomfortable hearing the condescending-judgmental gossip about him. At the same time, he was encouraged by the expectations expressed by some that there would be no consequences for Ahmed. "What can be taken from him…" they said.
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