Back in 1982 a young man from a neighborhood community disappeared. None really cared because he had a reputation of getting into trouble, harassing and assaulting people. He also was known to assault police officers when arrested. So let's say when he disappeared not too many people in the area really cared. No one in his family even filed a missing persons report which was odd.
I wanted to go to college but my family didn't have the money. I got money to go to college in exchange for helping out someone who really wasn't college material but wanted to have the experience. Anelia Ivanov was the name of my room mate. Very nice, quiet, shy type of woman. I found out that most of the people in the dorm that I live in were from a neighboring country that had cut ties with Bulgaria back in the 1960's.. The name of the country was Varna which was a province of Bulgaria. The majority of people who lived there were Bulgarian and the main religion was Eastern Orthodox.
My father Andrey Petrov was from Varna, he came over in 1950, joined the US military, went to Korea for 3 years became a citizen. by 1954 he had gotten an honorable discharge, met my mom in Chicago. They married in 1955 and had 2 children. My sister was born in 1956 and I was born in 1962. In 1967 my father went out one day and never returned.
My mother who was a Swedish Lutheran converted to the Eastern Orthodox faith after marrying our father. The church we attended from time to time was the Varna Eastern Orthodox Church. Nearly all of the people who were members of the church were Bulgarian.
My sister looked like my blonde blued eye Swedish Lutheran mother and I looked like my dark haired brown eyed Bulgarian father. Part Swedish and part Bulgarian. My mother Christina named my sister Maud and I was named Svetlana. I was named after a much older sister of my father whom I've never met. She had died during World War II.
My mom made sure we had exposure to festival and events in both communities. We moved to Florida in 1969. As I said earlier we sometimes went to the Lutheran Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church. My sister and I were baptized Eastern Orthodox.
August 1980 Orlando area Varna Eastern Orthodox College
When I moved into the dorm, I met Prince Antoni and his younger brother Prince Anzhelo. Both were very good-looking men. Their father King Andrian was the ruler of Varna.
They knew that my father was from Varna. When I seemed surprised they told me because I was rooming with their sister, they did research on me. They told me they knew more about my family than I did and laughed about it like it was a joke. I didn't doubt this.
Prince Anzhelo was a freshman just like I was his. His older brother Prince Antoni would be graduating from college in May.
I thought it was odd that Anelia wasn't a princess but I soon found out why. She was their half-sister and her mother was their father's mistress. She and her mother actually lived in Daytona Beach, which was about 30 miles away. Her mother Louann Hawkel roots went deep in the South.
I was somewhat surprised that the brothers tolerated her as usually in a case like this, they might be angry about it. I couldn't imagine most royals attending a college that their half-sister who was the result of an extra-martial affair attended. This royal family seemed to march to the beat of a different drum.
It wasn't long before Prince Anzhelo and I started dating. Anelia had a boyfriend, a nerdy type guy. Her brother liked him. Daniel, the boyfriend was sort of scared of them. Of course they made it clear to him that they would have to deal with them if he hurt her or made her cry. Daniel was always helping Prince Anzhelo out as he liked to party more than he liked to study.
His older brother was so serious about everything. Of course he was heir to the throne, so he had to be. I must say that he was impressed with me because I could speak Bulgarian, well the Varna Bulgarian which Bulgarian didn't consider to be the proper Bulgarian language. Basically it was the same, but with different slang, different meanings, kind of like the Queen's English and American English. I had learned how to speak Bulgarian at some classes at the church in Orlando. My mom insisted that Maud and I attend these classes. Maud could speak enough to get by.
In May of 1982 Anelia was taking some pictures of the Varna Eastern Orthodox church when some guy parked in front of the church was involved in some type of criminal activity. He saw Anelia and started yelling at her. She got scared and ran. Got back to the dorm but forgot to lock the door. This guy got in the courtyard and started screaming. I called the police and they came and arrested the guy.
Anelia was sobbing. I remember the knock on the door. I opened the door and Prince Antoni. He was furious. A female officer was in the room talking with us. About ten minutes had passed.
"What happened?"
"I was in front of the Varna church taking pictures and I saw some guy trying to sell marijuana and he thought I was taking pictures of him. He started yelling that he was going to kill me. I didn't look where i was going and almost got him by a car. I managed to get away but forgot to lock the door. he got into the courtyard....
"Where is this piece of garbage? Is he still here?"
"He's been taken to the Orange County Jail, Prince Antoni."
This seemed to calm the Prince down. Anzhelo told me his older brother sometimes had a short fuse and had a bad temper. I could see this. Prince Anzhelo rarely got mad about anything.
This man bonded out of jail but came back to the apartment complex. Made good on his promise. This was a big mistake as Prince Antoni had his security people ready. He had done research on the guy. Someone at the jail had tipped him off when the guy would be getting out. Prior to the guy coming, they were in the courtyard talking in Bulgarian about what they were going to do. I pretended to be napping as before they started talking, Anzhelo came into my room and I pretended to be asleep. I heard him say that I was asleep. Anelia was in a fitness class.
They talked for over an hour. I peered out the window. I saw Prince Antoni give his brother some money and told him to take me out for the evening. He told him to take me out to dinner immediately. It was a little early about 5:00 pm. Prince Antoni waved as we left. Also coming with us was Anelia and Daniel.
We all went out to dinner, a movie and then I went back to Prince Anzhelo's place which was nice. The Prince told me that the guy had bonded out of jail and had threatened to harm Anelia.
"She doesn't have to worry about him. He will never bother anyone again."
I nodded. This made me uneasy as I knew they wouldn't be telling him nicely to leave Anelia alone. They wouldn't be paying him off or telling him to go away. They were going to settle the score with him. Most likely he would never been seen again.
Prince Antoni had joked about his father making people disappear. It really wasn't funny but in order to be in his favor, you had to laugh like it was a joke. I knew it was no joke. He was dead serious and told Anelia so. She thought it was a joke. She couldn't imagine him doing something terrible to someone but I could.
I really didn't want to know what they did to this guy. Prince Anzhelo was never involved with this although I'm sure he knew what happened. I played dumb and acted indifferent but it bothered me a little.
"Dont' worry about this guy, Svetlana. He isn't going to hurt anyone again. Do you really think police are going to look for a guy who has assaulted them, threatened them or who is a thorn in their side? "
"Probably not." I said.
The police never came around and questioned no one. I was later told that the case had been closed. This is the type of power the King had. Very powerful.
I found out that my father was alive and well living in Varna. There had been an uprising in 1967 and he had come back to Varna and had was loyal to the King who took power after taking over the Province. He broke away from Bulgaria and had access to nuclear weapons which caused the Russian to back off. Varna was recognized as a country in 1970.
My mother couldn't understand when my dad left why the US military didn't want to give her military benefits. They wouldn't tell her and she wondered if Dad had left to go fight in Varna. The uprising of 1967 was a major concern for NATO. Finally after nearly a year my mother got the benefits.
It was not surprising when Prince Antoni told me this shortly before he graduated. He knew everything and I mean everything about me, my family and everything else it seemed.
The Bulgarian royal family didn't recognize them as being royals. Other royals didn't either. This family was about 15 times removed but there were distantly related to the Eastern European Royal households. The US sort of recognized them but were leary of Varna.
I went to Varna in 1984 during spring break and I saw my father. Maud came with me. My mother chose not to but she knew about it. He was quite ill from smoking too much over the years. My mother was angry with him. We just wanted answers and he answered our questions. I must say that both Maud and I were surprised when he showed us pictures. Some from the church had filed him in with what we were doing all those years.
I guess the real shocker was when he told us that the King made sure my mother got those benefits. My father was one of his security people and had saved his life on more than one occasion. I hate to say it but the King was a feared dictator. Whenever you have a dictator he's usually extreme left or right wing but this guy seemed to take ideology of each. Mixing of both. A example of this would be he believed that women should be traditional but also educated at the same time. His economics were similar to those in the US that were conservative but he believed that government could do this best. Allowed religion to practice but only on his terms or what he believed.
The Russians and Bulgarians never admitted that they were afraid of him but they were a little. The US was leary of him (He wasn't a communism nor was he Hitler) but you didn't want to tick him off.
Anyway, enough of that. My father died a couple of hours before we were to leave. We left a couple of days later. My father was given a state type funeral. We knew that people were watching us. The King talked about how wonderful he was. Loyal servant to the state of Varna.
Shortly after graduation Prince Anzehelo and I went our separate paths. He had hinted this to me throughout our relationship. I never developed deep feelings towards him but was careful not to reveal this. I told him I wouldn't be his mistress and he understood. He would find someone.
He married a woman who his father had picked out for him. A woman who was educated and suitable for bearing children. A virgin of course. The virgin part was more or less understood not actually written in stone.
I was given a parting gift which was a new home in Orlando. Life went on. The man was never spoke of again.
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from Short Stories
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