The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  With the political situation and his social degradation, Stasia’s father’s health had suffered badly, and his character had changed. He had developed a fiery temper, and become more cantankerous and impatient. Lida was still trying to hold the family together, but was no longer having much success. Meri’s husband had lost his job, and Meri kept fleeing home from Kutaisi to sleep in Lida and Stasia’s former room.

  Only the youngest, Christine, seemed really to blossom during these hopeless times. She had reached her sixteenth year, and her beauty seemed to grow more supernatural from one day to the next, such that she was hardly allowed out of the house without a chaperone. Whether grammar school boys or married men, old men or young working-class Komsomol members, she stopped them all in their tracks. Some whistled at her or wrote her anonymous letters, which came fluttering through the window of her classroom, and which Christine laughed over with the girls in her class.

  *

  After almost a year of country life, Stasia’s gloom reached its zenith. Every plate she washed, each egg she had to fetch from the hen house seemed to her like an unjust punishment. She felt her resentment of Simon growing; his silence seemed to mock her, and his withdrawn manner was pure provocation. She often lay down in the hay in the cowshed and cried until she could cry no more. Some days, her aggression also spread to little Kostya, who refused to acknowledge the iciness between his parents and continued to demand unlimited love and attention from them both.

  ‘I can’t stand it any longer. I don’t know who you are any more. I want to leave, I’m suffocating here, you do nothing to help me, and if we don’t do something about it soon, I’m going to start hating you.’

  Stasia had, yet again, been lying awake in bed, and when Simon came home tipsy from playing cards with the neighbouring farmers, lay down beside her, smelling of schnapps, and was just about to turn his back, she said this in a calm, quiet, measured voice.

  ‘What exactly would you like to change?’ was his response. His voice, too, was calm, quiet and measured.

  ‘I’m not a peasant, I’m not built for this life. I never wanted to live like this. Never!’ she replied, speaking louder and more quickly this time.

  ‘I’ve killed a man,’ he said suddenly.

  ‘But you were at war.’

  ‘No, not in the war, it wasn’t defence.’

  ‘What exactly does that mean?’ Stasia asked, slowly taking in what this stranger, her husband, had just told her.

  ‘We were in Crimea. They’d sent us there, to a pretty little town not far from Taganrog. There was no end to the uprisings around there. So many, again and again. I mean, I understand it. They want to wipe out the kulaks, as a class. They want to completely nationalise agriculture. To them, the economic reform means that the farmers sell their wheat below the going rate, the Party buys it and sells it above that rate, and the profit flows into the arms industry and goes to build factories. But what they don’t consider is that a farmer has no interest in selling his produce at a loss. He’d rather harvest nothing: either way, he’s headed for poverty, and he’d prefer to be poor without having to toil for it. They’d sent plenty of army troops there before us, but the farmers wanted to keep their land for themselves and sell their wares at a decent price again. Why should they sell their produce to the state more cheaply just because it’s the state? So it was always a case of oppressing them, expropriating their land, resettling them. We’d been there two days when we were sent into this village, in the interior. A village collective was occupying the administrative building and stopping the commissars from doing their work. Their leader was a farmer who used to own the largest maize and wheat fields. Two of us went, in civilian clothes — we were supposed to assess the situation, and then the army would follow. A brigadier and me. The whole thing was supposed to go off without a lot of fuss; there was enough unrest in the area already. We tried speaking amicably with the man — a bear of a man, a colossus, a life of working the land ingrained in every pore. But he proved inflexible. I tried to persuade him, telling him it was pointless to be so intransigent: all his land had already been confiscated, and he wouldn’t be able to sell his produce elsewhere. He was just endangering the whole village with his resistance. But he just kept saying that he didn’t give a damn about the accursed communists and had no intention of handing all his years of work over to these swine.

  ‘The brigadier who’d accompanied me — he was one of the volunteers — quickly started to lose patience. We didn’t have rifles with us, otherwise we wouldn’t have got into the village; I’d introduced myself as a commissar, and there was no talk of the army, but the scoundrel whipped out a little pistol and suddenly we found ourselves in the middle of a battlefield. In no time at all people were picking up shovels and sickles, and blood would start to flow any second, I knew it; so I snatched the pistol from the brigadier’s hand — God knows where he’d got it from — and aimed it at him, demanding that he calm down. I thought we were out of danger, and I started negotiating again. But the brigadier was cursing and screaming and calling me a traitor, and when he came at me, I pulled the trigger. I don’t know why, I don’t know what for, he wasn’t armed; he came towards me and I pulled the trigger.

  ‘That same night, I went to Taganrog and reported everything to my commander. I was prepared for anything, but not for what he decided. The news seemed almost to delight him; he shook my hand and congratulated me. Imagine that, Stasia. He congratulated me. I only understood the following day. They marched into the village and slaughtered the lot of them because it was said the farmers had shot a Red Army soldier. So now they had the right to do that. Anyone who defended themselves and their families they shot dead, and those who remained were resettled. That’s why I was able to come back to you. That’s why I’ve been able to stay here so long: because I killed a man, Stasia.’

  She laid her arm around his waist and pressed her head against his shoulder, pressed herself tightly to him, and finally rolled onto his body. She felt pity for him, even if her store of pity had been substantially depleted over the last year. All this time she had been waiting for him to start speaking, as she had waited for her son’s first words, for his first Deda, but now that he was speaking, the main thing she felt was anger.

  No, no, I don’t want to hear all that, why are you telling me all that? What am I supposed to do with this story, where should I put it? It’s this goddamned war — you could have stayed here, with me, you could have avoided this war, you would have been able to find another position, you wouldn’t have had to condemn me to go after you and end up in that hell and witness the suicide of a person I had started to love. You were the one who wanted it. You didn’t have to put me in this position, coming here, and then not being able to speak to me all this time. I’m sorry for what happened to you, you and the farmers, and I’m sorry that the whole world has lost its mind, but what about me? I never thought it would be like this. I married a charming, quiet, self-assured young man, and now I have a silent, sad, empty, wounded old man, and I’m supposed to nurse him back to health, but I don’t know what to do, I simply can’t go on. You didn’t summon me to Moscow, nor did you come to me in Petrograd. And when you came back, you didn’t even ask me if it wasn’t too late!

  All this she wanted to say, but instead she kissed his temples, stroked his chest, and began to undress him. And he allowed her to comfort him. They hadn’t touched each other for months, and he was relieved that his words had broken down the physical barrier, at least.

  *

  Simon’s confession brought about a change in the couple’s relationship, and another pregnancy for Stasia. It softened the fronts slightly, and made the silence a little more permeable. But unfortunately it wasn’t able to turn the silent, sad, wounded soldier back into a witty, charming, quiet, and self-assured young man. And when their daughter, Kitty, came into the world in the year of Lenin’s death, the couple still didn’t know how
to help each other with their respective wounds, their disappointments, and their loneliness.

  In 1924, the year Kitty was born, there were twelve work camps and fifty-six other prisons in Moscow alone. Bukharin had proclaimed: ‘Yes, we will remodel the intelligentsia, like in a factory.’ And Leon Trotsky, the man seen as Lenin’s successor, was still too preoccupied with the ‘idea of permanent revolution’ to notice that the former bank-robber from our homeland had started to gather power around himself. In May 1924, our countryman, Joseph, Soso, or Koba, who two years previously had been named General Secretary of the Party — in spite of the warnings issued by an already seriously ill Lenin — prevailed against the Party’s internal opposition, led by Trotsky, and secured his supremacy at the 13th Party Conference.

  But Kitty, who bore the name of her mother’s dead twin sister, was granted life. She was greedy and loud, as if living for two people at once.

  Simon’s walks became shorter, and he started to throw his wife a few grateful glances in passing. And, just as Stasia started to believe recovery was in sight, first of all a couple of official letters arrived, and then, one winter’s evening, a commissar, who wanted to talk about Simon Jashi’s future. The gentleman in the brown wool suit, which was a little too tight for him, sat in the small living room drinking the wine that Stasia had offered him.

  ‘It’s almost a year since Comrade Lenin died. The father of us all and the brightest star in the Soviet sky. To Lenin!’ He raised his glass. The lieutenant had to clink glasses with him.

  ‘You have always done your duty. We have been informed about it. You can bank on a promotion, Comrade Jashi. You want to continue serving the Motherland, don’t you? Of course you do. I see it in your eyes.’

  The gentleman lit a cigarette.

  ‘Though I have to tell you, you will only learn the exact location of your posting once you’re in Moscow, where you are expected on the first of next month.’

  Stasia shut her eyes. She felt dizzy. In the few seconds that passed before her husband replied, she hoped. And then she heard Simon saying:

  ‘Yes, of course, yes.’

  ‘And what about us?’ Stasia couldn’t stop herself.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, he’s going to be sent God knows where again, and I’ll have to spend years waiting for him again, here, with two small children? In the hope that at some point my children will get to set eyes on their father again for a day or two?’

  Simon looked angrily at her, but she didn’t care.

  ‘Comrade, as the wife of a man who is serving his Motherland and the development of our socialist country so honourably, you should support him, instead of making things more difficult for him.’

  ‘It’s not his Motherland,’ Stasia let slip. She turned her face to the wall so she wouldn’t have to bear Simon’s gaze any longer.

  ‘You still seem rather flustered, Comrade. Understandable, in view of the difficult birth on the rainy night of the …’

  Stasia was winded. He knew everything; all this time they had supposed themselves alone, but they never had been. Simon would never escape, no matter where they went. Her husband had killed, and must continue to do so — Stasia suddenly realised this with ghastly clarity. Once — even if by unhappy chance — he had demonstrated his talent, and now this talent was what they were after. She glanced at Simon, who was sitting at the table, looking rather paler than usual. He didn’t defend himself, didn’t refuse, displayed no emotion.

  She blinked. Her head hurt. She tried to think of a solution. For her. For the children. She tried to picture her future — a future that from now on would be an extension of this present, this dreary everyday life, with love and affection reduced to a minimum; of this silence, this marital taking-for-granted and banality.

  She looked around and saw the shabby room with its old furniture. She saw the washing hanging outside in the yard, the white flags fluttering in the dark of the night, the darned tablecloth, her worn-out gloves, her son’s sad, scattered toys, and saw herself in ten years’ time, probably exactly where she was standing now, her slippers even more trodden down, a little more weight on her hips, and even more grey hairs in her chestnut-brown plait.

  Repressions are educational measures

  POSTER SLOGAN

  Stasia packed Simon’s things for him, with a kind of contrary satisfaction. She said, almost casually:

  ‘I won’t come to visit you in Moscow, or wherever else you’ll be. This time, you’ll have to visit us if you want to see me or the children. And I won’t stay here, either. The children and I will live at my father’s until they put me on the list for an apartment. I’ve heard that you can’t rent living space privately any more, but since you’re such an honourable comrade now, I may stand a better chance. I have to get out of here. I hate this farmyard, these cows, I hate my hands stinking of the cowshed, and this mud under my feet.’

  ‘Stasia, I had no choice. I fear there’s no other path for me now. The path others have taken leads to the Solovetsky Islands, from which no one has yet returned. I would have liked to have spared you all this, believe me — even if I’m no longer capable of proving it to you.’

  Four days later, the White-Red Lieutenant took the night train to the capital, and from there to the capital of socialism. He was posted to a training camp, where he was to teach the young, dedicated, honourable men of the Cheka — an association that was on its way to becoming the most powerful and feared organisation in the whole Soviet region — to ‘detect and combat counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs’.

  *

  Stasia and her two children moved into her father’s halved house. Christine’s room had become free. Just before Kitty’s birth, she had married a man named Ramas Iosebidze: twenty years her senior, with exquisite taste, known in society as one of the best Georgian toastmasters, or tamadas, an art lover, gourmet, and one of the richest and most powerful bachelors in the capital.

  Iosebidze was also a Chekist, and he was a subordinate and close confidant of a fellow Georgian with a striking pince-nez, who usually dressed in the typical Cheka uniform of jodhpurs and tunic coat. A short, bald man, who, over many years in the South Caucasus and in Russia, had done everything he could to make a name for himself in the Bolshevik Party, and who had now returned to Georgia; who, at that time, still occupied a modest flat in Griboyedov Street, only to have a splendid villa built shortly afterwards two streets away. Ramas, in stark contrast to his superior, was a majestic-looking man. He had a very imposing belly, a balding head, large, kind, dark brown eyes, huge hands, and he stood at the impressive height of one metre ninety-three. However, in addition to their political convictions and political ambitions, Ramas and his friend had another quality in common: they both appreciated beauty in women.

  Book II

  Christine

  We are, somewhere else, everything that we could have been down here.

  AUGUSTE BLANQUI

  Ramas had been visiting their little town on official business. A reception was held in his honour, and he was introduced to the town’s most presentable businesses. Finally, he and his delegation were invited to the chocolate factory for a piece of cake and a cup of Georgian tea (by this time, national production was taking priority). The chocolate-maker had been instructed to receive the delegation and entertain them personally, which he did, though with limited enthusiasm. The guests sang the praises of The Chocolaterie’s products, then fell upon them. Bellies full, they were preparing to set off — their train to Tbilisi was leaving late that evening — and a great shaking of hands was underway, when seventeen-year-old Christine came into her father’s shop.

  She wanted to go to the races, and had come to ask her father’s permission. She was wearing a yellow summer dress and a black beret, which she had placed on her head at an angle, in the French style. She always changed her clothes after schoo
l; the drab uniform was an insult to her beauty. Floating daintily across the floor, paying no attention to any of the guests, she headed straight for her father and gave him her most beguiling smile (she wasn’t usually allowed to go to the races). The guests turned their heads in unison, some with open mouths, conversations interrupted, others unwittingly letting out a gasp of laughter. It was a reaction the chocolate-maker knew only too well: Christine’s God-given beauty took people aback every time. Her father looked at his daughter and couldn’t suppress a smile: she really was confoundedly pretty, he thought for the thousandth time.

  She had delicate, flawless white skin, like porcelain (nobody in the family was that pale, the other girls were olive-skinned, like him), a bony, elegant figure, and supple limbs. Her features were almost perfectly symmetrical: a small, straight nose; high cheekbones; shapely, wine-red lips; a long swan neck; and, most notably, almond-shaped eyes, marsh-green and framed with thick lashes. Countless little devils seemed to have gathered in these eyes, and were kindling fires there.

  But my great-great-grandfather noticed one reaction in particular: that of the big man, the head of the delegation, whom everyone had been so eager to please. He seemed to be devouring her with his eyes; his coarse face had even reddened a little, and he looked as if he was about to say something, then suddenly shut his mouth again.

  Christine, who was accustomed to these reactions, ignored him, with her air of refined indifference, and linked arms with her father.

  ‘My daughter, Christine,’ said the chocolate-maker.

  ‘You’re not an actress, are you?’ one of the men whispered. She laughed, and shook her head.

  ‘She won’t even finish school for a few months yet,’ her father explained.

  There followed a few comments regarding her beauty; she received them as if they were entirely self-evident and waited for the party to leave The Chocolaterie.