Ramas had previously been famed throughout the city as a Don Juan. He was said to have had numerous affairs with actresses, salonistes, widows, female patrons, and even servants. But he hadn’t married any of them. When the news that he had wed an underage girl from the provinces spread throughout Tbilisi, it became the number one topic at salons and dinner tables all over the city. People gained access to his house on the most absurd pretexts to admire his young wife. And, although everyone had to admit that Ramas had excelled himself in his choice of bride, they were all still of the opinion that this marriage would not last long, and that, in a year at most, Ramas would be back to chasing every pretty skirt in the city.
But Ramas never left the house without his wife, except when he went to work. He took her on business trips, went to premieres and exhibition openings with her, and held great dinners and parties at his house in her honour.
They were an unusual couple. He: huge, powerful, a colossus with a balding head, a wide mouth, and sincere, permanently moist, eyes. And she: a delicate, dainty creature, a work of art, carved from ivory. She too was tall, though she barely reached his shoulder — and yet he seemed small, almost unremarkable, in her presence.
The expected scandal in the Iosebidzes’ magnificent house did not materialise. On the contrary, the couple seemed happy. Of course, people thought the girl had only married Ramas for his position and his money, but whenever she appeared with him in public she seemed almost fixated on him; she was never seen gazing at other, young, good-looking men, or seeming bored at her husband’s side, and finally, the city was left with no choice but to trust in their happiness.
During her visit, Stasia, who had also greeted her sister’s family idyll with mistrust, was forced to acknowledge that Christine really had found her place in the world. While Stasia strolled through the streets (she had vehemently declined the offer of a chauffeur, despite Christine’s repeated attempts to convince her of the advantages of the motorcar) and visited the various markets, parks, and cafés, the younger woman prepared for her New Year’s ball, which was to be the event of the year.
On 31 December — it must have been the last day of the year 1927 — both sisters were to make acquaintances that would change their lives forever. The carpet of our story, Brilka, would continue to be knotted, and the patterns that emerged would be ostentatious, colourful, carnivalesque, but also dark and sinister.
Perhaps that was the night when Fate became aware of us all for the first time. Perhaps, without it, the carpet would have been kept beautifully simple, in pastel shades, with no more powerful colours knotted into it. Or perhaps it was pure chance that brought these people together in the same place, or a whim of nature — an unstoppable, swift, cruel whim.
But, as yet, none of the actors knew what play they were performing. It was still just a lovely, festive New Year’s Eve.
Christine had mobilised a whole horde of cooks and servants, and a band, and had decorated the entire house with flowers. Stasia couldn’t help admiring her: with what ease, what panache, she played the lady of the house, so naturally and at such a young age. She was like a grande dame, a salonnière, doing everything she could to give her guests a unique experience as soon as they entered her house.
Stasia wondered how it could be that, having grown up in the same house, with the same upbringing, the same father, they could be so different; as if Christine, in all her perfection, had been raised to enchant people and have them pay court to her. Stasia also had to admit that her sister looked wonderful amid all this hustle and bustle, remaining cheerful, relaxed, easy, charming, and attractive in her own distinctive way. Attractive in a languorous, offhand way, her manner bordering on arrogance.
Later, when Christine appeared after barricading herself in her bedroom to put on her costume, Stasia even let out a little gasp of astonishment, so nearly perfect did her sister look that evening.
Her original choice of costumes for herself and her husband had been the Sun King and Marie Antoinette, but Ramas had deemed them too decadent (they could be misinterpreted, seen as a provocation) and asked his wife to come up with something simpler. Christine had retorted: would ancient Rome be simple enough for him? Ramas liked that suggestion even less: he didn’t want his wife’s incredible body paraded half-naked before other men’s eyes (and he couldn’t imagine himself in a Spartacus costume, either). Finally, they agreed on a simple, sophisticated option: they would wear elegant Venetian masks. You couldn’t go wrong with those, Ramas reasoned. They would give rise to no misunderstandings.
Christine was swathed in a dream of turquoise silk, truly simple, no doubt about that. The dress was fitted, but not too tight; it was modestly cut, and, although the choice of colour was perhaps a little unusual, it didn’t even have a plunging neckline — quite the opposite, it was high-necked, and her only jewellery was a long chain of black pearls, a gift from her husband when he was courting her.
But, as Christine went by, Stasia had to suppress a burst of laughter. The dress was cut low at the back. A little collar around her neck held the material together, but nothing more. It was cut so low that it exposed the two little dimples above her buttocks.
‘What?’ said Christine, looking at her sister with a mischievous smile.
‘And what are you supposed to be dressed as?’
‘If anybody asks me, I can say I’m a courtesan who’s been fortunate in her admirers. She has regular customers, all of them noblemen or from merchant families. And if nobody asks, then I’m just me, in a divine dress,’ she replied, before sweeping into the next room to make herself up. ‘Hurry up!’ she called over her shoulder.
At around nine o’clock, the house began to fill with voices. Twice Christine sent the housemaid up to her sister.
And then Stasia did a peculiar thing: she started covering up all the polished mirrors in Christine’s dressing room. She draped them with sheets, coverlets, and robes. Perhaps to preserve her dream as a dream, and not experience it as a failed reality. But perhaps also to give her the courage to put on her costume.
She tied her hair back, took off her wedding ring, which didn’t really go with the image of the dying swan, and, before leaving the room, closed her eyes once more. She imagined herself in the large, chilly hall in Thekla’s villa, heard the music from the gramophone and Peter Vasilyev’s remarks, saw herself floating over the parquet floor, and danced a few steps before gliding down the stairs to join the illustrious ball.
Witches and queens, pirates and musketeers, thieves and contortionists, and, above all, peasants and soldiers were laughing and drinking champagne. On this mild New Year’s Eve at the start of 1928, the band played something light, something pretty — at least, that’s how I imagine it. Perhaps even a little swing from the land of the capitalist enemy? Why not …
And there she was, our Stasia, a swan woman, a white phantasm, floating down the stairs. She wasn’t as elegant as Christine, to whom all eyes were drawn, but she was enchanting: because what she was wearing was a dream, a thought, an idea, a possibility perhaps … Even if her legs were a little bowed from all the rides across the steppe, and a touch too thin; even if her face betrayed a little hesitance and uncertainty; even if her hands trembled slightly, and the end of her nose was a little red; Stasia was still happy. That evening, she was happy; happy that people were looking and smiling at her, that she was briefly able to believe it could be true, that the dream might, if only for a moment, be real.
Perhaps it was that night’s happiness, surrounding her, that drove her into Sopio’s arms. In a literal sense.
Whenever I asked Stasia about this encounter, dragging more and more details out of her against her will, she always replied, in her dry, terse manner: ‘I came down the stairs, and she was standing at the foot of the staircase; she looked at me, I looked at her. At that moment I stumbled, and she had to support me. It was that simple.’
So, the swan
came down the stairs — wobbly, hesitant, but proud — and stumbled, and there she was: a tall woman in a man’s suit, wearing a bowler hat and carrying a walking stick (which may have been the most scandalous costume of the evening; this wasn’t the Golden Twenties in Berlin, and Sopio wasn’t Marlene Dietrich).
Green-eyed and proud, with an unforgettable nose — à la géorgienne — and an inner glow. A strand of blonde hair had broken free from the prison of the hat and made its way down her high forehead. Her tall stature and powerful build suited her costume. They met: Sopio Eristavi as a man, and Stasia Jashi as an unlived dream.
*
‘And then — what happened then, tell me, tell me, Stasia, come on!’ I would press her, and she would explain, as usual, in just a few words:
‘Yes, it was how it is when two people find each other. We introduced ourselves; we liked each other. More than that, we were delighted with each other, and we knew we were going to be friends. We fetched our coats and went out into the garden, which was empty and cold. But we didn’t care. We drank champagne, smoked, and told each other our life stories.’
In my imagination, I could smell the delicious food in the house, I could hear the swing music, see the coloured lights that decorated the house, and the gigantic Christmas tree topped with a red star (we had one like it, all through our childhood!). I could see two women, giggling, cackling, smiling beside one another in their basket chairs, the tips of their cigarettes aglow.
*
On the very first night of their acquaintance, Stasia learned that Sopio came from an aristocratic family; she was born an Eristavi, the head of the people. She had spent her childhood in Borjomi, the tsar’s resort by the healing springs, and later at a girls’ boarding school in Lausanne. There, she came into contact with some interesting women who organised regular meetings to promote women’s rights, and held numerous demonstrations. Stasia also learned that, even more than campaigning for women’s rights, Sopio loved to write poetry, and was a fervent devotee of symbolism. She named several poets who Stasia had never heard of, and recited a few verses that meant nothing to Stasia.
Stasia learned that the Eristavi family’s property had been expropriated, and they now lived in exile in Switzerland. Sopio herself, however, had stayed with her husband, a cultured Georgian who had reminded her of her dead father, and who apparently sang no worse than Chaliapin himself.
They had a son, but, as her husband started being unfaithful to her while she was still pregnant, drinking away his inheritance, and swiftly forgetting his vows in other ways as well, she decided to file for divorce and give her son her own name, which at the time was as good as officially baptising the child Bastard.
‘The whole of Tbilisi dragged my name through the mud over the divorce; I don’t know anyone else who would have gone through with it. But I don’t regret it. My Andro and I get by very well. We learned to survive early enough. It’s character forming,’ said Sopio, smiling at Stasia. And this smile made Stasia believe in her dreams again, all night long.
But, at that moment, alongside the happiness that pattered down on Stasia like golden confetti, a little door opened. It was a door beyond time and beyond fate, beyond all laws. The world of ghosts awoke for a moment, the moon took on a greenish pallor, the snow and the icicles in the garden glowed, and little particles exploded in the champagne. Confusion broke out; for a fraction of a second, the world hiccupped. Everything churned and groaned, though all were oblivious to it. It was just the wrong door, thrown open for a barely perceptible moment and slammed shut again — but that was time enough for something black to crawl out. Or perhaps it wasn’t black at all; perhaps it was colourless and imperceptibly slight — but it was cruel and icy, and what it craved was ruin. This was the moment when betrayal was born.
And something nameless was begun, set free, released into the world to bring madness upon everyone, to afflict the brain and numb the soul: to snatch away life, huge and insatiable.
The door was thrown open, and somebody came in.
Shortly before midnight, shortly before the champagne corks started popping, shortly before the fireworks were lit, and while the two new friends were still sitting in their basket chairs by the fountain telling each other their life stories, a great murmur of amazement ran through the villa. There was a rustling as people whispered in each other’s ears and stepped aside: the Little Big Man had been announced. Head of the Chekists, the most powerful man in the country, the host’s superior and his personal friend. And he was joining the select gathering to celebrate the start of the year 1928 with them. What an honour!
Christine hurried into the kitchen and put all the servants on high alert: everything the household had to offer must be brought out. He came with his entourage, with his pince-nez and his polished, bald head, in his usual uniform — which in the midst of all the costumed guests looked almost like a costume itself — surrounded by similarly uniformed men, who walked silently beside him. He entered the drawing room with a smile, and immediately asked for a Georgian wine. Since the Kremlin had started placing orders for Khvanchkara, the new leader’s favourite wine, this was the wine the Little Big Man favoured as well. He was handed a glass, and drank to the Party and everyone there, in particular the host.
When they asked him what music he would like to hear, he requested a Rachmaninov prelude, a wish that was instantly fulfilled. He politely declined the food, saying he had already eaten, and, as he listened to the piano piece, he closed his eyes reverently. The only guests who missed this spectacle, who had not even noticed his arrival, were Sopio and Stasia.
At the start of the fireworks, which Ramas had ordered specially from Moscow, everyone hurried out into the garden and onto the street. People clinked glasses, embraced each other, and even the Little Big Man sent his guard off to one side and was unusually merry and open-hearted.
Every time I asked her to tell the story, Stasia stressed that the little man had immediately become fixated on Christine, whom he must have noticed straight away. Unlike her husband, Christine had kept her Venetian mask on, even when standing with the important guest and entertaining him in person. Nonetheless, after his first glass he had started heaping compliments on her, praising her costume, her qualities as a hostess, and her beauty, and he was not ashamed to keep telling her what an indispensable colleague and true friend Ramas had been to him. Soon after the last firework had gone out, he asked the lady of the house to show him around. It may even have been the mask that spurred him on to look at Christine more closely. Perhaps it sparked his curiosity.
Christine led him around the house, they chatted about the garden, and he asked her to advise him on plants, saying he wanted to plant a large garden at his villa in Machabeli Street: perhaps she could help him. Standing on the balcony of the upper floor, they raised their crystal glasses and drank to the Leader, to the Party, to her husband, to love. Ramas, who was unquestioningly loyal to his commander, kept his distance that evening and left his enchanting wife to his superior. He was familiar with the magic that Christine worked on men, but, more importantly, he was also familiar with Christine’s indifference to her admirers, which sometimes bordered on rudeness. Even in the knowledge of his superior’s cruel voraciousness, he trusted that Christine would be able to extract herself from the affair with ease and tact.
Perhaps that was the greatest mistake of his life.
For, after the toast to the great Socialist Revolution, the Little Big Man asked her almost in passing to take off her mask: it bothered him a little, he said, even if the mask itself was, without a doubt, a work of excellent craftsmanship.
But Christine refused, saying she had decided to maintain her mystery that evening, and not to show her face: she was sorry. At which the Little Big Man nodded, as if he accepted her reply, and then called her husband upstairs. In his presence, he repeated his request.
There was an icy, fractured pause.
> Everyone involved, particularly husband and wife, was aware of how delicate the situation was. After a moment of hesitation, Ramas turned to his wife with a laugh and carefully removed her mask; the Little Big Man stared unwaveringly at Christine, smiling, self-assured, and satisfied. Apparently, he then cleared his throat and apologised for his curiosity. Christine was quivering with rage, but she didn’t let it show, and cheerfully raised another glass to the leader in Moscow.
In the morning, when the couple got into bed, tipsy and over-tired, with swollen feet and skin smelling of smoke, the wife turned to her husband, regarded him contemptuously, coldly, full of obstinate aggression, and said, ‘You shouldn’t have done that.’
Brothers, unite your hands,
Brothers, Death laughs!
An end to slavery forever,
Holy the final battle!
SOCIALIST SONG
Stasia had dusted off her dream once again and given herself to love. She pumped Sopio for information about Paris; she talked constantly with her free and free-thinking friend; she never wanted to leave Sopio’s little flat on the hunchbacked hills of Avlabari, with the colourful wooden balconies, the noisy taverns and the old fortress, the simple, jovial people, and the Armenian music. She accompanied Sopio to the women’s meetings she organised on a regular basis, in weaving mills, laundries, and dye-works, to tell women about their rights — an initiative that was supported, oddly enough, by the Party.
Stasia fell in love with this city, which had so much freedom to offer. Above all, it was Sopio’s city: she saw it now through Sopio’s eyes, and it was a very different city from her sister’s. A city full of street-sweepers, washerwomen, cobblers, fortune-tellers, seamstresses, fruit-sellers, and showmen. A friendly, roaring community that dwelt on the hills, sang songs with dubious lyrics far into the night, played accordion and cards. Little dilapidated apartment buildings, constructed in the previous century and never renovated, with communal showers and outdoor privies in the rear courtyards.
The Eighth Life Page 13