But that wasn’t all. Stasia went on: ‘I don’t want a wedding party. I want to take the money for that, and for my dowry, and use it to finance my dance training. As far as I know, this marriage is in accordance with your wishes, Father, and now I simply expect you to say yes.’
Her father was still laughing, but now he put on a stern voice, and said there was no way that was going to happen (or some phrase of the time to that effect) and that he wasn’t going to make himself the laughing stock of the town just because his daughter had fanciful ideas in her head. Everything had to be done properly: the engagement, the period of waiting, and then a wedding befitting their status. She was, after all, the first of his daughters to marry — that called for a big celebration.
And then he would have to have a serious word with his future son-in-law: a respectable young man such as Simon couldn’t go letting his wayward wife call the tune.
Stasia listened to all of this calmly, even declining the delicious-smelling Turkish coffee her father offered her. Finally, she stood up and said that she would either get married in this way or not at all, and in any case Simon would soon be leaving for Petrograd. She must have uttered this sentence with an air of such determination that, although her father did not agree, he did nothing further to prevent his daughter from walking up the aisle the following morning, in a simple white dress that had been made for her elder sister Lida’s first ball.
The chocolate-maker must have wrestled with himself and his doubts for a long time before deciding to keep his promise and give Stasia his recipe in her dowry. Perhaps, in the years after his first wife’s death, he had decided to trust his business sense more than his superstition. After all, it was this recipe that had enabled him and his family to live a good life all these years, even if he hadn’t expanded into the big cities and still hadn’t put the hot chocolate on sale. But, in small doses, this mixture of ingredients didn’t seem to do any harm — on the contrary, it brought people joy and allowed them to forget their troubles for a while, without exacting a fatal price. He had surely done the right thing in keeping the hot chocolate under wraps, the chocolate-maker mused the night before Stasia’s wedding, although he now no longer knew whether his reasons for that were the same as they had been when he came back from Europe with the recipe in his pocket.
The decision not to sell the hot chocolate gave him a good, secure feeling, as if he had thereby warded off further calamity, which would have struck had he disobeyed his instincts. Of this he was quite sure. Even if he would never say so openly, especially not in front of his employees or his wife, even if he sometimes found his own speculations ridiculous, this black premonition had remained at the back of his mind ever since the deaths of Ketevan and Stasia’s twin sister. Against his expectations, it didn’t wane over the years; on the contrary, it grew all the stronger with time and solidified into a conviction.
But Stasia was not one of his employees, and she certainly wasn’t Lara Mikhailovna. Stasia was perhaps the only person to whom he could entrust his secret without fear of ridicule.
And so, the night before her wedding, he summoned all his courage and knocked on Stasia’s bedroom door (she was awake; she couldn’t sleep all night for excitement) and asked her to get dressed and follow him. Stasia put on her clothes, her father took her by the hand, and they walked over to the chocolate factory.
He unlocked the door, flicked on the electric light (still a rarity in the little town at that time), led her into the production room, and asked her to take a seat. Then he began to prepare the chocolate. She was to observe him very closely, he said, to take note of the ingredients in the spice mix and repeat them aloud as he mixed them. Stasia, astonished at her father’s secretive behaviour and the reverence he was displaying, suddenly forgot all restraint as the most magical aroma she had ever smelled began to spread through the room.
As the daughter of a confectioner famed throughout the land, she was used to all kinds of delicacies, but she had never smelled such a bewitching scent, let alone tasted it. As if hypnotised, she listed all the ingredients one after another, repeating the quantities with rapt attention as she felt her mouth starting to water. After that, her father instructed her to write down, with great precision, everything she had heard: the ingredients, the preparation time, and — very importantly — the exact dosage. A pencil and a piece of paper were set out for her on the table, and she noted down her father’s secret neatly, in her best handwriting. She had to concentrate hard because of the intoxicating aroma filling the room.
Then she was given a small, delicate cup, as light as a feather, filled with a heavy black liquid, which she began to devour with a silver spoon. Her gums: awakened to incredible joy; her head: intoxicated by the taste; her tongue: drugged. She savoured the chocolate, one spoonful at a time, and for a few minutes forgot the world around her.
‘What in God’s name was that?’ she asked, once she had licked the cup clean like a hungry cat and set it down carefully. ‘And why have you never shown it to us before?’
‘Because it’s a secret recipe. I mix a small dose of my secret into all our chocolate products, but the recipe was originally invented for this hot chocolate, which you have now been allowed to taste. But …’ He paused and gazed at his daughter steadily. ‘But it is dangerous.’ He hesitated again, as if searching for the words to describe something that could not be described in words.
‘What do you mean, dangerous?’ Stasia asked, still with the ecstatic feeling in her breast that the taste of the chocolate had left behind.
‘You have to believe me, Stasia, my girl. What I am about to tell you may seem strange, but you have to believe my words — promise me!’
‘But Father —’
‘Promise me!’
‘Yes, all right, I promise. Of course I promise.’
‘Too much of a good thing can bring about too many bad things. And I have never seen a person taste this chocolate without demanding more, and, yes, craving more. But the combination of craving and enjoyment can lead to dependency. Please remember that!’
‘Of course people want more — it’s so sinfully delicious!’
‘No, you don’t understand. This chocolate can only be enjoyed in small amounts. A very small quantity of the ingredients can make any chocolate product a true delight, but in its pure form, in this form, Stasia, it can bring about calamity.’
Stasia, who was not used to hearing such words from her father, let alone the reverent tone in which he pronounced them, tried not to let her consternation show and assumed the most serious expression she could manage.
‘You must promise me, by all that is holy to you, that you will keep this precious secret as the apple of your eye. This recipe must never be allowed to leave the family. Outsiders must never be allowed to use it. You must never use it lightly, or prepare it for some party or other. It should remain something rare and special. If I had sold this chocolate in the shop I could have made a considerable profit from it over the years, but I decided against it.’
‘But why me? Why are you giving me the recipe?’
‘Because when you were born I swore, in memory of your mother, that one day you would inherit the secret, and …’
‘And?’
‘Because you had survived the calamity and, as it seemed to me …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. Stasia didn’t entirely understand, but nor did she dare ask any more questions. There were other things occupying her head besides some calamity that her father imagined this heavenly chocolate had provoked.
‘But sometimes …’
‘Yes, sometimes. Just make sure that these times are rare and that the occasions are special.’
That night, Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastroph
es, and bring people happiness.
But she was wrong.
*
On the day of the wedding, the chocolate-maker’s second eldest daughter, Meri, was in the countryside with a sick aunt, and their stepmother feigned a migraine. It was just timid Lida and ten-year-old Christine — carrying large bunches of flowers, the only one to approach the day with enthusiasm — who accompanied their sister to the altar. The monk Seraphim, Lida’s confessor and a family friend, conducted the wedding in the little Church of St George.
Simon consoled his father-in-law with the prospect of a belated wedding party befitting their status. He promised to be there for his wife in good times and in bad, and to care for her. They spent the wedding night in a guesthouse not far from the cave city, and the next morning Stasia smiled the tenderest smile she was ready to show. She had not yet mastered the smile of a married lady, and the smile of the freedom-loving girl who rode astride had already faded.
Simon left the town barely two weeks after the wedding, taking first a carriage to the railway station and then the train north, and Stasia returned home a married woman.
All this happened at the start of the chaotic year of 1918, the same year that our countryman, who was then simply called Joseph, Koba, or, affectionately, Soso, was made commander of Trotsky’s Red Army.
The same year in which the Bolsheviks issued a decree with the title The Socialist Fatherland Is in Danger, paragraph eight of which read: ‘Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, and German spies are to be shot on the spot.’ The first year of the Cheka. The Cheka, which was later renamed the NKVD, and would finally be called the KGB.
The Russian masses have to be shown something very simple,
very accessible. Communism — is simple.
VLADIMIR LENIN
i wonder what my amazon is doing now — when will i be able to put my arms around her again or little dove do you miss me i have found us a very pretty place to stay not far from the neva you will like it — they know of a good ballet master here too, said Simon’s telegrams from Petrograd. Frivolities of this kind vexed the town’s postmen, and people cast outraged glances at Stasia — this sort of thing just wasn’t done.
Later, the lines changed, growing more worried: little dove there is unrest here we dont know what is to come take care of yourself or little dove bad things are happening in this country but i cant help… (the rest was missing).
Only after several requests did Stasia manage to discover exactly what her husband was doing: he had joined the RKKA, and was responsible for procuring bread.
Since January 1918, Russia had been in the grip of terrible hunger. The RKKA had the task of confiscating bread; farmers were unable to maintain the required rate of production, and were subject to looting and raids.
In May of that same year, the first Democratic Republic of Georgia was proclaimed. The chocolate-maker breathed a sigh of relief, and, in May, he met with the first minister for economic affairs in Tbilisi to talk about expansion plans for his business. A large patisserie in the capital — nothing now seemed to stand in the way of this proposal. Afterwards, the chocolate-maker held a celebratory dinner, and invited the provincial town’s high society to celebrate the future that seemed to be looking so bright for him.
Stasia and her husband had agreed that she would follow him in February. After months of waiting, she could stand it no longer, and, when summer arrived, she informed her father that she wanted to go to her husband and stand by him, come what may; her dance training could be put on hold for the time being. Her father, irritated at seeing his independent daughter so willing to sacrifice herself, tried to console her. Under different circumstances, he would have wished his daughter to be at her husband’s side, as befitted a wife. But, given the situation, my great-great-grandfather opposed her plans. The long battle over her departure that followed wore Stasia down so much that she would spend hours sitting in the garden on the old swing seat that had belonged to her mother, staring into space, in the hope that her tragic appearance would soften her father’s heart.
‘Men always want to be in charge of you. What kind of life is that? I may as well have been born a dog; even as a dog I would have more freedom,’ she complained to Lida, who just shook her head in horror and accused her younger sister of blasphemy.
When, in July, the telegrams stopped, concern for her husband finally brought Stasia’s free-thinking ideals crashing down, and she went to the Church of St George, sought out the priest, Seraphim, and asked him for help. Afterwards, she was said to have knelt in the little church and prayed aloud for two hours: ‘Please, God, please, please: if it is Your will, then I won’t dance, or only later, but bring Simon back to me, or make my stubborn father take pity on me and let me go to my husband. I believe I really do love him, really, and it’s so unfair, God, You can’t have made me, with all these thoughts and wishes, and then have willed that I must only ever obey; please make it so that I have the same free will that You do. Yes, I know I should say ten Our Fathers and bring red eggs to the dead every Easter Monday and pour wine on the graves. I have neglected my Christian duties. I will gladly make up for it all, but please be a little lenient with me. I mean, if You created everything, then You created dance, too, didn’t You?’
At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew open the church door, and Stasia leapt up in fright (at least, this is how I imagine it: in my imagination Stasia’s prayers were answered on the spot).
In the doorway stood Seraphim, in his black habit, with a slip of paper in his hand. He went to Stasia and whispered in her ear that a carpet-seller had agreed to take her as far as the station in his coach. He couldn’t get her past Military Road, but if she dared make the long train journey alone in these troubled times, then he would get her to the train. And, as love was the most divine thing of all and the bringing together of lovers who had married in the sight of God was the most wonderful duty of all, Seraphim would support her with his prayers.
Stasia threw her arms around Seraphim’s neck, forgetting that he was a priest, and then discussed the details of her escape plan with him in whispers.
Three days before her departure, everything was already prepared, and Stasia had packed her things. Most importantly, she had taken a few banknotes from Father’s trouser pockets, and a little jewellery she could count as part of her dowry, and had sewn them into her dress.
At dawn, she fled her home in a carpet-seller’s carriage. She left a letter for each of her sisters and for her father, begging their understanding for what she had done.
I know little about the long journey she made through the increasingly ravaged landscape. I only know that her father sent out some men to fetch Stasia back, and that Seraphim withdrew to the cave monastery, claiming to have taken a vow of silence during the fasting period. And I know that Stasia arrived in Russia. Three weeks later.
*
In the meantime, the Russian Empire, so recently so powerful, sank ever deeper into chaos: the expropriation and communisation of property, banks, and housing, and the downfall of the free-market economy, had catastrophic consequences. As did replacing the courts with so-called people’s tribunals.
The whole country was in the grip of unrest, as there were not enough professional organisers to implement these radical reforms. The Soviet Constitution, established in July, denied entire social classes in the country their rights. Only eight months after the revolution, a leadership profile had established itself that would lead inevitably to civil war: the concentration of power in the hands of a few leaders, the pursuit of economic and information monopolies, and discrimination against certain sections of the population.
And, by the time Stasia reached Petrograd, Nicholas II and his blue-blooded family were no longer alive. Their story had ended anonymously, with shots fired in a cellar in Ekaterinburg.
But, as yet, Stasia knew no
thing of this. Nor did she know where Simon Jashi was to be found. At his official address, which should have been their ‘lovely place not far from the Neva’, Stasia found only drunken Red Army soldiers. It was a headquarters, not an apartment, and Comrade Jashi was not among this rabble. She wandered the cold streets of Petrograd, asking for her husband in her accent-free Russian, which was spoken at the time by every sophisticated lady on her side of the endless Silk Road.
She was finally forced to send a telegram home asking her father for help, though having to do it made her die a thousand deaths.
Scarcely an hour later she received her father’s reply:
we nearly died with worry how could you but thank god you are well — go to thekla she is the cousin of my cousin david from kutaisi — she lives by the fontanka — say you are my daughter — i dont know the house number — its a big house and she is known in the city — ask around — write as soon as you are safe.
Stasia had never heard of a Thekla-who-is-known-in-the-city. Which didn’t mean much: Stasia didn’t really know half her relatives, and was always discovering them at the birthday parties, weddings, and funerals her father made her attend.
For three hours, Stasia wandered, confused and frightened, through a city that had gone mad, until she found a drunk Cossack who said he was prepared to take her and her meagre luggage with him as far as the Fontanka.
Stasia, whose worry and fear made her unreceptive to the beauty of the city, stared open-mouthed from the cart as they thundered through the streets.
Uniformed men were patrolling the countless bridges. Peasants pushed wheelbarrows laden with furniture; there were endless queues outside the shops, and people were running about with worried faces. Even the river, murky, angry, and loud, seemed to be in tune with this strange atmosphere.
Outside the imposing St Isaac’s Cathedral, a public assembly was taking place: a large crowd of people stood holding banners and constantly shouting noisy slogans.
The Eighth Life Page 7