Our relationship has faced a lot of outside pressure and a lot of raised eyebrows. We were even interviewed about it on national radio in 2022, but that is a story for another day. Outsiders believe that Pepi, who lived in the so-called “Gypsy ghetto” did in fact “marry up” by joining his life with Martina in a white middle-class neighborhood. But before we fell in love, Martina spent almost every day in the ghetto and hated coming home. Today we’re sharing an article published by Martina Petkova in June 2021, a few months before she and Pepi got together. This was her attempt to unpack why her “native” culture was so cold, neurotic, and alienating, and Roma culture felt like family.
“You turn into a different person the moment we walk out the door,” my ex-boyfriend told me once, soon after he arrived in my native country.
“How so?”
“You’re on edge. You harden up. As if you’re expecting something bad to happen.”
Hearing this was one of those eye-opening moments: like I was a fish and I was just told I’d been swimming in water. It’s been all around me, all my life, and I could only now tell it apart.
I’m not talking about the run-of-the-mill aggressions you experience in all big cities: the catcalling, the slurs, the verbal threats, the successful and unsuccessful physical assault attempts.
I’m talking about something deeper.
Neighbors meeting your eyes only in search of something to gossip about. Store clerks glaring at you the moment you step into their shop. Fellow passengers in the public transport and pedestrians on the street pressing their elbows or shoulders into you, almost fishing for a fight, their alienation so deep that only aggression can bridge the divide.
If I walk down a street and I try to pass by a fellow pedestrian, nine times out of ten they’ll start walking faster. Very often they’ll even step right in front of me, completely blocking my way. It’s like a blind, dumb instinct to (I assume) “win.”
Sometimes, car drivers get annoyed when I slow them down by crossing the street. So, apart from the honking and cursing, they also do this little tip of the steering wheel towards me. Just a short, quick aim at me with their vehicle, charging at me for a fraction of a second before they whoosh by. A little “I could run you over if I wanted” warning. Of course, they don’t intend to run me over. They intend to scare me. They intend to put me in my place.
But actually, I’m talking about something even deeper.
“Everybody hates you.”
I was raised to accept this. I was raised by a mother who wouldn’t let me step outside if the collar of my jacket was slightly off, if my shoes and bag didn’t match, if my thighs or just the entirety of me looked “too fat in this dress.” Her fingers would dig into my clothes, my hair, my skin, straightening everything up, the disdain dripping straight into my soul.
I would always tell her, “Nobody cares!” Nobody cares if my hair is messy that day, or if my clothes are too bright or don’t exactly match, or if my nails don’t look perfect.
And she would always give me the same answer. “Everybody cares. I’m just the only one who’s saying it to your face.”
It was “for my good.” In her mind, she was putting armor on me, shielding me from the hostility that she herself had been boiled in.
But all it did was teach me that whenever someone eyes me up and down, then something is wrong with me. That they are right to judge me. They are right to criticize me. If someone’s eyes linger on me just a little, I start worrying about my hair, my clothes, my nails. Even if they look at me because they think I’m beautiful, or even if they tell me I’m beautiful, I don’t feel it and I don’t believe it — because, to me, beauty has become a long list of check-boxes that can never be completed.
For a long time, I felt the answer was to just leave. This is just how my city is, and how my culture is. I live in the capital of Bulgaria: Sofia, a place that has turned into a cauldron of Balkan volatility and Slavic coldness. Once, I was walking in London, and a random woman just smiled at me. I walked in a daze for the next 15 minutes, trying to process this lightning bolt of an experience. It had never happened to me. In Sofia, I’m used to women giving each other the death stare.
I’ve been wanting to leave for a long time. I’ve been wanting to go to a place, outside of Bulgaria, where I can look into the eyes of people and feel the presence of a human being.
Well, through chance and a bit of destiny, I found this place. Right here, in Bulgaria, in Sofia. In the ghetto.
“We’ll find you a room.”
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Sky and Earth Know to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.