Excerpt from Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I crawled back to my corner. On her bench, the girl was eating an apple. Her man was asleep, his arms wrapped around a wicker demijohn, the cigarette in his mouth still burning. I allowed myself to stare more boldly until at last the girl caught me. She bit hard into the apple, smiled, and began chewing, her lips aglow with sweet juice. Something slammed the side of the station, a deafening shatter.

"There, there," I heard Red Mustache saying. He'd returned to his wife, who now rocked back and forth in her seat, in fear.

"Vah, vah," she answered. Like a soft song, "Vah, vah."

And out of nowhere, she gave out a shrill cry.

"Welcome, welcome, Saint Kosta." Her rocking sped up and she crossed herself time and again with zeal. One by one the few women beside her stood up and hurried to the other side of the station. One by one they crouched on the floor and covered their faces with their motley headscarves. The girl in the corner perked up, threw away the apple, and wiped her palms in her shalwars.

"Don't be afraid, my dears," the woman in black told them. "It's just Saint Kosta arriving. And his good mother coming behind him." Her husband kept speaking, but again she wouldn't listen. In vain she tried to reach her rubber galoshes, in vain to unhook them. Her undone scarf flapped like the wings of a black bird. Her cheeks had turned to red apples, and when she looked at me, though just for a moment, she appeared as youthful as the girl in the corner.

"Don't be afraid," she told me kindly. She wiped her tears with the scarf and tied it.

Red Mustache lowered himself on the ground before her, unhooked her galoshes, and began to massage her feet, swollen and pinkish.

"There, there," he told her.

"Vah, vah," she whispered, and the tears rolled on.

It grew dark around us. The storm had swallowed the station. Fists of wind slammed it and tiles flew off the roof with a terrible clatter. Endless grains hammered the windows, and I thought any minute the glass would shatter. And through all this, I could see the sun blazing, red in the red mist—simoom, from the Saharan desert.

"That's right, my sweet dove," croaked the old woman. "Fear nothing. It's only Saint Kosta." But it wasn't to me she was speaking.

The girl had gone to the window. Fearless, reckless, she'd glued her palms to the glass as if she meant to pass through it. Her body shivered and I could see her face reflected, her wet lips twisting in a thin smile. The storm that had made me crouch on the ground in fear beckoned her to come closer.

An underground thump shook the station. The glass rippled like water and then burst into pieces.

I managed to shut my eyes before the sand lashed me. My lungs filled up with fire and I felt as if I were drowning. Wind thrashed; the women were crying and more glass was breaking around us. Next, somebody's hand was pulling me deeper into the station.

"Grab a bench," someone shouted. "Turn it over." We were pulling benches from the tall pile, me and the peasants, building a shelter and crouching behind it.

"I told you, my dears," the old woman kept croaking. "No need to fear."

I'm not sure how long we sat this way, our bodies pressed one against the other, like soldiers in a trench before battle. Sand whirlpooled around us and I had to keep my eyes shut tightly, but after a while I could breathe better and the wind no longer howled with the same force.

When someone splashed my face I jumped, startled. Red wine, warm and stinging.

"Wash the sand off," said the man with the leather jacket. He carried his demijohn along the line and poured wine on people's faces. His girl was sitting beside me, her hair spilling free over her shoulders, her face black with the streaming wine and the sand, which had turned muddy. Mud and wine trickled on the floor and the sour smell of grapes mixed with the dust of the sandstorm.

Excerpted from Stork Mountain by Miroslav Penkov. Copyright © 2016 by Miroslav Penkov. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.