The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  These people had always lived here, and they remembered the age of kings and tsars, and the rafts on the river with the Karachokhelis, whom you hired to win the heart of the woman you loved, drinking away. They were a people who learned long ago to live for today because no one knew for certain whether there would be a tomorrow. And when tomorrow did arrive, it was usually noisy, dusty, once again bringing too little money, only rough insults or loud laughter and obscene anecdotes.

  Sopio had little money and couldn’t make contact with her family, let alone accept any kind of support from them, without immediately being denounced as a spy, which was why she had come to live in this rather impoverished quarter — but she had quickly taken it to her heart, along with the cackling Kurdish woman who sat in the courtyard day in, day out, supposedly combing wool, but actually keeping an eye on the whole courtyard and what went on there. And Aunt Natasha, a sixty-year-old Russian who was crazy about children (and whom the Kurdish woman always described as a hussy), who offered to look after Sopio’s son any time she was late getting home. And the Georgian couple who sold fruit on the street in order to feed their six children, and yet were able to invite all the neighbours to hearty feasts on Sundays.

  Stasia fell in love with the feeling of being young and alive again.

  The two of them strolled through the streets or climbed aboard the crowded trams, drank beer, ate kosher food (which Sopio swore by) in the Jewish quarter, and visited the sulphur baths, where they were scrubbed down by fat, strong women’s arms as they giggled like schoolgirls. They visited the old town’s increasingly empty churches, and in the evenings they spent hours sitting in the lantern-lit park, watching as Andro used his little teeth to extract sunflower seeds from their shells before eating them greedily.

  The city that Sopio showed Stasia was a different city with different people, a labyrinth hidden behind the city wall of the old town, whose streets Sopio knew so well. Stasia felt a strong affection for little Andro, with his mother’s straw-blond curls and his blue saucer eyes: the child moved her in a special way, and when she was with him she abandoned the strictness with which she treated her own children. Perhaps it was because of the boy’s modesty, a kind of joy in simple things. Sopio could never afford enough clothes and toys for him, but so that little Andro would not feel the lack of material things, she cultivated a spellbinding imagination.

  She mixed egg yolk and sugar and presented it to him as the most delicious thing in the world, and he accepted it gratefully, and believed it. Spent hours telling him stories about the ants and the butterflies, the little cats and the hedgehogs, in place of beautiful children’s books. Invented bedtime fairy tales for him; knitted and sewed things for him out of material from her old clothes, which he wore proudly and showed to everyone. Stasia’s children weren’t exactly spoiled, but still she almost felt guilty when she looked at Sopio and Andro.

  Sopio had to work hard for everything she had, and Stasia admired that. She herself was too rich for the proletariat and too poor for the elite: she found herself in a strange in-between class, which to me explains her guilty conscience.

  *

  Those two weeks, in which Stasia hardly spent any time with her sister and brother-in-law, went by in a flash. Inspired by all the little exhibitions, cellar performances, and poetry evenings that Sopio had taken her to, and above all by Sopio herself, Stasia felt reluctance at the thought of having to go home to her dreary little town; it almost made her feel faint.

  ‘I need your help!’ Stasia said at breakfast the day before her departure. Her younger sister was just pouring herself some milk.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’ asked Christine in her usual bored tone.

  ‘I’d like to move in with you. I don’t want to go home. I’ll bring the children with me, find a job, and stay here.’

  ‘And what will Simon say about that?’

  ‘I’ll write him a letter. I’ve wasted so much time, always waiting for other people to give their blessing to what I wanted …’

  ‘You still don’t want to grow up, do you, Stasia?’

  ‘It’s only temporary, mainly because of the children, until I’ve found somewhere of my own. Or you could just take the children — I can stay with Sopio.’

  ‘You need to your get over your affinity with this person. She’s not exactly … well, socially acceptable. I have no idea how she got into our party: somebody must have smuggled her in. She may write lovely poems, but she’s a dubious woman.’

  ‘How can you be so young and so old at the same time, Christine?’

  ‘So old? I’m not old; if anything, I’m more mature than you, Anastasia. And I’m just thinking of the future.’

  ‘I never imagined that, by inviting me here, you would bring me so much happiness.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. And you really want to work?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Isn’t Simon sending you money any more?’

  ‘Yes, he is, but I want to earn my own money.’

  ‘Did Sopio Eristavi put that idea in your head?’

  ‘No, she just showed me that it was possible. She teaches foreign languages — she gives private lessons, and takes care of her son and herself.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it, but you’re not like her.’

  ‘I’ll leave tomorrow, and as soon as I’ve got everything ready for our departure, I’ll send you a telegram. In the meantime, maybe you can put us on the list for an apartment.’

  ‘I’ll be glad to have Kostya so close.’

  ‘Why haven’t you got any children yet, Christine? I didn’t think you wanted to wait so long.’

  ‘Some day we’ll have a wonderful son, just as pretty as Kostya. I promise you that. Now please excuse me, I have to go to the kitchen and give instructions for lunch.’ Christine gave a melodramatic groan.

  It would be a month before Stasia convinced her father that this was the right move for her and the children; before she packed all her belongings into crates and chests, reached her husband in some military barracks or other and informed him that he would have to visit her in Tbilisi from now on. Before she had convinced the anxious Lida that there was no impropriety in living in the capital without a husband. Before at last she packed Thekla’s gold watch, which she had been keeping in a glass box in her bedroom, and boarded the train with her children.

  *

  At the peak of compulsory agricultural collectivisation, Stasia arrived in Tbilisi with Kitty and Kostya.

  Sopio and Andro were waiting for the family at Christine’s house, and Christine ordered the cook to prepare a feast. Kostya, who reciprocated his aunt’s boundless love, threw his arms round her neck, and refused to let go until it was time for bed. Andro and Kitty, who were about the same age, hit it off straight away and started racing around the fountain. Everything seemed to be going well. The garden was a little paradise for the children, and Kostya started school without a hitch — he was to attend the best school in the city, on the recommendation of Christine’s husband. A Russian school, of course.

  While Christine devoted herself to the little ones, Stasia began to blossom at the side of her new, golden-haired friend. She spent whole nights watching Sopio sitting at the round wooden table, writing poems by the light of the paraffin lamp (in this part of the city, the electricity supply left a lot to be desired), leaping up now and again to light a cigarette or, if something had turned out well, to wrap her arms around her sleepy friend.

  ‘Sometimes I’m afraid. Really afraid,’ said Sopio pensively one windy night. She lowered her head and sat very still. Stasia, confused by her friend’s sudden change of mood, touched her hand gently. Outside, the wind whipped against the shutters.

  ‘Of what?’ she asked, and put water on the wood-burning stove to make herself and Sopio some of the strong tea that Sopio liked so much.

  ‘I’m afraid they’ll com
e for me.’

  ‘Who are they, Sopio? And why — who would want to do that? You haven’t done anything, have you? I know you’re not in the Party, but …’

  ‘Where are you living, Stasia? Can’t you see it, can’t you feel it, can’t you smell it? Today, at the gallery, I heard that soon you’ll have to apply for an exit visa if you want to cross the border, no matter where you’re going. And that you won’t get a visa for a country that isn’t one of the brother states.’

  ‘You’re seeing it all too gloomily.’

  ‘I suspect I don’t see it gloomily enough, Taso.’ (Sopio refused to shorten Anastasia to Stasia in the Slavic manner; instead, she used the Georgian diminutive and called her Taso.) ‘And then there’s this dream. In the dream, I’m walking along a street. An empty, deserted street somewhere here in this city, only I’ve never seen it before. But it’s here, somewhere just around the corner — in the dream, I know that. There’s a house, a great villa, simple and light, with round archways and winding staircases. It’s lovely there: I want to go there, though I don’t know what I’m looking for. I reach the gate, tired out from endless walking. A man is standing there, a handsome, well-groomed man, who invites me in. I’ve never seen him before, never heard his deep, soothing voice. I trust him. I follow him because he knows the way … The way — I don’t know where to. We walk through a garden that looks like a biblical place, like paradise. With roses, so red, so red, Taso, and a wonderful waterfall, like the botanical gardens, and cats and dogs stretched out in the sun, and exotic plants and trees; and the garden seems to go on forever — I can’t see the end of it. I walk and walk, and the man leads me around. And then he leads me to a well, on a hill so green it hurts. And then he says that we’ve arrived now and everything will be fine, that I’m home, and he asks me to climb into the well, and I obey him, I don’t want to escape or run away, I swing my leg over the edge and … There’s a good smell coming from the well, and it’s damp. I’m not afraid, even though the well is deep and I can’t see the bottom. And he waits and stares at me as I climb down, he even smiles at me, and then finally, partly out of fear that he might push me down, I do it, I jump and fall and don’t land anywhere. And as I’m falling and falling, I wake up.’

  The water was boiling, and Sopio covered her face with her hands and started sobbing. Stasia had rarely seen anybody cry with such racking sobs, such devastation, such hopelessness. She took her in her arms, not knowing what to say.

  Until little Andro appeared in the doorway in his white pyjamas, frightened, with tears in his eyes, asking what was wrong with mama. He said Maman, in French, something he did all his life. With the emphasis on the last syllable, the French pronunciation.

  Sopio wiped away her tears, laughed her loud, hearty laugh again, and replied: ‘I was just trying something out: I wondered what happens if someone cries for long enough — whether the tears dry up. Everything’s all right, my sunshine.’

  ‘And do they dry up?’ asked Andro, wiping the snot from his nose with his shirt-sleeve.

  ‘Yes, they dry up, my darling; tears run out, too, eventually.’

  *

  In the hot July of Stasia’s first summer in Tbilisi — Christine had gone to the coast with her husband, and Stasia had the house all to herself — the Red Lieutenant came to visit his wife.

  Stasia had given the housemaid, the cook, and the gardener time off, and was enjoying evenings with Sopio, immersing herself in playing all sorts of ball games with the children, and accompanying her friend to her women’s meetings. She had got to know Sopio’s friends, all of them penniless and fond of a drink, and was on the point of declaring herself almost happy.

  She took the tram to collect her husband from the station. After a year’s separation, they were distant and cool with each other. No kisses on the platform, just a brief hug. No accusations; to begin with, the head of the household was received, waited upon, and left alone with the children.

  But the following evening — after Sopio had retired with Andro — the Red Lieutenant and his wife had their first heated argument. And it must have been so loud that a neighbouring professor considered calling the police. All the stored-up, unsaid words were spoken; everything Stasia had suppressed over ten years of marriage, as her dreams slowly withered away, was screamed out loud.

  At dawn, when the argument finally fell silent, Simon Jashi said to his wife: ‘Life is more than just dreams, Anastasia. Let’s become a proper family. Because I’m tired. Really tired. I bend over backwards every day, and I still can’t live up to your expectations. You’re longing for something that’s already in the past. I’m almost afraid to see you again because I can’t bear these accusations, the disappointment in your face. It has to stop if we want to be good parents to our children. I miss them, and I miss you, too. You, before you started punishing me with every gesture. I need a family — my family, Stasia.’

  But then — then Stasia knew that her love had already broken off, like a dry branch.

  *

  Christine and her husband returned, and the children were overjoyed with the wonderful pralines they had ordered specially from Eliseevsky in Moscow.

  Shortly before Simon Jashi set off again, Stasia and her friend took a stroll in the park with the lanterns. It was a hot August night, and the city seemed jaded, thirsty, and worn out.

  ‘Why do you lie? Doesn’t it make you tired?’ Sopio asked her friend unexpectedly.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  Stasia could play fabulously obstinate and stupid, preferably both at once.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about. You want to be free? Then be free. You want to dance? Then dance! You want to be a wife — then be one. It’s no disgrace. But you can’t do everything at once. Having everything is like having nothing, Taso. You need to see that. You wanted to dance, but at the same time you wanted to be a good wife to your husband; you want to be friends with poets, and at the same time you want to dine at Party receptions; you want to live independently and work, but you’ve been here almost six months now and you’re still living with your sister. You want to have children, but they feel like a burden to you. What exactly do you want? Who are you pretending to?’

  Stasia said nothing; she watched the stray dogs roaming pack-like through the park.

  *

  The lieutenant departed without the couple having reached a decision. Everything was left as it had been before, since they had no better alternative, and they pulled themselves together for the sake of the children. Stasia made half-hearted enquiries to the accommodation commissariat about available accommodation in the city. They acknowledged that she was the wife of a Red lieutenant, but at the same time they had to point out that she was the sister-in-law of Ramas Iosebidze, and his house was luxurious and more than spacious enough.

  *

  Those were the years when the Little Man rose above himself and finally became the Little Big Man. And people were already starting to fear the name of the Cheka. Political resistance had practically disappeared; all enemies had been cleared aside, banished abroad, or sent to the work camps. Industrialisation demanded a great deal of strength and a great many human lives; unlimited productivity was expected from the new factories and the forced kolkhoz. The transformation and, above all, the renaming of cities was in full swing. Across the Soviet Union, countless cities were renamed, and the new names wiped out the past, as if there had been no life before the Revolution. The age of the tsars was declared an age of murderers and thieves, and the Party’s propaganda machine was working overtime.

  Whenever Sopio complained to Stasia about the lack of certain goods and produce in the shops, Stasia would search the pantries and cellars in Christine’s house and was pleased, even a little proud, that she was able to help her friend feel such deficiencies less acutely: at Christine’s, she always found the things that Sopio couldn’t get hold of in the city.<
br />
  Even when Sopio told Stasia how indignant she and her friends had been at a recent cinema screening of The White Eagle, when there had been an introductory lecture on how the film should be understood, Stasia refused to see any serious propaganda behind it, and shrugged it off as an artistic quirk of the director’s.

  And, as all freedom in this joyful, happy country disintegrated like an inexpertly woven spider’s web, the Ballets Russes in far-off, free Paris was also dissolved — and Sergei Diaghilev took a piece of Stasia’s dream with him to the grave.

  Stasia learned of this only by chance: someone had heard it from someone who knew someone in Paris, and this person told Sopio, and she — very quietly — told Stasia. Stasia went up to her room with the beautiful wallpaper in Christine’s villa, got into bed, and stayed there for many hours. She thought about Peter Vasilyev, and the ghosts of unlived dreams that are doomed always to pursue you. She saw herself one last time floating across the stage in the Théâtre du Châtelet, sought-after, loved, applauded; smiled, and buried it deep inside herself, her lost other life, full of freedom, unbridled passions, provocations, one of the chosen, exceptional few … until at last she forced herself out of bed because Kitty and Kostya were fighting and Christine couldn’t make them see sense.

  *

  One afternoon, when Stasia was once again visiting the tiny flat in Avlabari and saw her friend staring glumly into her hot tea, and heard her complaining that three of her pupils had cancelled their lessons, she suddenly leapt up, asked Sopio to wait a little while for her, and ran out into the street.

  She wanted to give Sopio a boost, wanted her to read out her poems to her again, or tell her about the miracle of psychoanalysis — this Viennese healer called Freud; wanted her to tell her about the Impressionists, and about the Symbolist plays of someone called Maeterlinck. She wanted her to recite Persian love poems and talk about the new movement in Georgian poetry that called itself ‘The Blue Horns’, whose poems Stasia thought so incredibly beautiful.