The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  Lida was sitting silently beside her father’s coffin, a sexless creature in a black cotton dress and black headscarf. Kitty and Andro were hovering at the bottom of the stairs. When they spotted Christine with her masked face they both started crying in unison, and pretended they were crying for their grandfather, who in his last few years had taken hardly any interest in their lives, or indeed in anybody’s, including his own.

  The mirrors were taken down and all available icons positioned around the coffin. Lida had even summoned a priest to the house, in civilian clothes, of course. Meri arrived from Kutaisi, with a discontented expression that seemed to be stuck on her face, as if she held her sisters personally responsible for her unhappiness. Chairs were set up around the coffin; the women sat, while the men stood in the corridor, elbowing one another, to receive the mourners. The lights remained on for three days and nights; all the doors were opened; food from the funeral feast was given to the poor, the deceased’s belongings given away.

  Kitty and Andro were constantly being sent off somewhere, to fetch bread or wine; no one had time to notice Kitty’s sparkling eyes, the restlessness in Andro’s knees, or how they seemed always to be casually touching.

  ‘Yes, all right. We’ll get married, then,’ Kitty had said to Andro, the day her brother aimed his gun at another man for the first time, the day her grandfather died. And as they kept vigil beside the body they whispered constantly about their future, because their love, unlike Kostya’s, couldn’t do without words.

  Christine, in her veil, kept calling the two of them over to her and patting them like little children.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, it’ll all be all right again,’ she kept saying. Yet it was she who was afraid. Afraid of the infinite loneliness that imprisoned her; of the darkness she had not yet found her way out of; of the moment when Stasia would return to her old life and would have to leave her behind, alone with her ghosts. Afraid of the war, but above all of not knowing how she was to go on living, with half a face and a heart that belonged to a suicide.

  *

  On 5 July, the chocolate-maker was buried between his Russian and Georgian wives, and the mourners sat down around the big wooden table to drink coffee and discuss the future of the Jashi family.

  ‘I have to go and get Kostya back,’ said Stasia suddenly, lighting a cigarette.

  ‘Calm down, Anastasia. God will look after him, he’s a brave boy,’ whispered Lida.

  ‘Shut up!’ cried Christine, helping herself to the schnapps that someone had left on the kitchen table.

  And before Lida could cross herself and ask God to forgive her sister’s insolence, Kitty said, ‘We’re getting married.’

  She looked proudly at Andro, who sat silently with his head bowed, staring at the floor.

  ‘Excuse me?’ laughed Christine.

  ‘We want to get married and then go away,’ Kitty repeated.

  Lida finally crossed herself, and Meri snorted contemptuously, as if this announcement were a personal affront.

  ‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ asked Stasia eventually, still quite composed.

  ‘I know I should have spoken to you, but when you were here there was never any time …’ Andro began slowly.

  ‘Holy Mary …’ whispered Lida.

  ‘My mother’s dead, isn’t she?’ asked Andro suddenly. He received no reply, only evasive looks. Lida crossed herself again.

  ‘There’s a war on. You don’t get married in wartime,’ said Stasia.

  ‘Or that’s exactly when you do,’ answered Andro.

  ‘I don’t know what to say to you both. It’s your life. Either way, this is the worst possible moment for such childish nonsense,’ said Stasia, and left the room.

  She didn’t come back until the following evening. Lida was all for sending out a search party, but Christine stopped her. She guessed that Stasia had borrowed a Kabardin and ridden out to the cave city. Probably astride.

  *

  As the Wehrmacht was crossing the Don, Lida left for a convent in Racha, where she was to stay for the rest of the war. The apartment was locked up, and Christine, Stasia, Kitty, and Andro took the train back to the capital together.

  After arriving in Tbilisi they all went to live at Christine’s villa, which felt shabby and empty behind its ostentatious façade, as everything rare and valuable had disappeared over the last few years or been sold on the black market. Telegrams were sent to Leningrad; no answer came. In Tbilisi there was panic; rumours were circulating that the fascists were planning a secret operation in the Caucasus. People said Hitler had declared the Caucasus, and Caspian oil in particular, his top priority.

  Daily life in the city became quieter, more cautious, more hesitant, more gloomy — but at least it went on. Food production companies and factories were working flat out. The kolkhozes had to double their production. September brought the first news of the Leningrad blockade. Shortly afterwards, Stasia received a letter from her husband (oh yes, Brilka, marriages can last much longer than love) in which he informed her that Kostya was well, had fought heroically in the raid on Constanta, and was now serving in the Baltic Fleet: the defence of Leningrad was at stake. She wasn’t to worry; they had corresponded, and Kostya had everything he needed. Simon himself was currently in Moscow, leading a division of the 2nd Rifle Corps and awaiting redeployment.

  *

  As Stasia paced about her room, appalled, puffing on her cigarettes, cursing, and trying to fight back tears of outrage, Andro walked with Kitty in the Botanical Garden. With her, he sought out secret, empty paths, and climbed up the steep crags. When it grew dark, they sat down right beside the waterfall, and when Kitty asked him if it weren’t time to go — the garden would be closing soon — he replied that they could stay there overnight. He had taken care of everything, and had told everyone at home something about a public meeting, so no one would expect them back. He spread out a blanket, took some bread and cheese from his bag, then a bottle of wine, and looked at her, eyes twinkling.

  I’m sure they listened to the little waterfall I used to love jumping under as a child, and I’m sure they marvelled at the size of the pale September moon. I’m sure they were intoxicated by their return to the big city, but intoxicated above all by each other and their physical attraction, which they now permitted themselves to acknowledge openly and experience for the first time. And I’m sure Kitty’s back must have hurt on the rocky ground beside the waterfall, but I’m sure she didn’t care because she was kissing her Andro as she had never kissed him before, and allowing herself to be undressed, touched, tasted, and smelled, allowing her body to be explored, forgetting her embarrassment, forgetting the war. Forgetting the army of wooden angels that was supposed to protect them both from something that was advancing upon them. And I’m sure that afterwards, exhausted and overwhelmed, they will have jumped under the waterfall. That’s what I would have done, Brilka, if that had been where I spent my first night of love.

  *

  Three days later, Stasia gathered the members of the Jashi family in the spacious reception room, which hadn’t been used since Ramas’ death and was impossible to heat in winter because it was too big. Puffing on her cigarette, she spoke: ‘I can’t stand it any longer. I can’t let my life be destroyed all over again by a bloody war. I have to find him. Kostya. I’m going to speak to Simon, make him pull some strings; maybe then he can get him a transfer. What’s a Georgian doing in the Baltic, anyway? They should send him back to us; it’s still calm here, and the Black Sea Fleet isn’t a war fleet. Kostya has to get away from there. I’ll tie him up and bring him back myself if I have to. I am not going to sacrifice my son as well. I’ve had enough. And you —’ she looked at Andro and Kitty, sitting subdued in the corner ‘— you are not getting married. This is the wrong time to marry. Andro, see that you make something of your life: these are hard times. And you, Kitty, what’s to become
of you? All this dancing and singing and prancing about? Do you suppose anyone can live from that? Be sure to listen to Christine. You’re old enough. I have no desire to treat you like little children just because that’s how you behave.’

  Then she gave each of them a tentative kiss on the cheek, took the old suitcase she had brought back from Petrograd, and drove to the station. All Christine’s pleas, all her threats, all her attempts to stop Stasia making the dangerous trip across Russia failed utterly. She didn’t want to hear a word about the futility of her plan.

  She travelled for days on end — by train, in freight cars, by bus, even in a donkey cart, so she told me — and finally reached Moscow at the end of September. It had been raining heavily and the city was drowning in mud. The mud washed Stasia into the city, and into the war. Just like the last time, almost seventeen years earlier, when she had taken the Military Road in the hope of finding her newly wedded husband, and had found herself in the midst of a civil war. Only this time it wasn’t a civil war, but a world war. This time she was looking not for her husband, but for her son. This time she intended to find him without having to wait two years; this time, even if the whole world came to an end, the outcome of her journey would be a good one.

  Stasia couldn’t know — the Sovinformburo had not divulged the information — that by this time there were already more than one million dead to be mourned on Soviet soil.

  The Soviet rocket was created to promote peace.

  POSTER SLOGAN

  Simon Jashi couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw his wife standing before him in the old barracks. He blinked, as if he needed to make sure it wasn’t Stasia’s ghost. She had changed. Her shoulders were stooped; she seemed smaller than before, as if her sister’s misfortune, the separation from her children, the absence of a married life had caused her to shrink. Her calves, once hard as steel, were less muscular; her back was no longer as strong and straight as before; there was no colour in her lips, and the lines around her mouth were very marked. He tried to hug her, but the embrace proved more difficult, more artificial, than anticipated. He had forgotten what it felt like to feel.

  ‘This is absolutely ridiculous!’ Simon told his wife, once she had apprised him of her scheme. ‘In case it hasn’t got through to you yet: we’re in the middle of a world war, Stasia! What, you think I’m going to get him some sort of fake authorisation? Like hell I will! We’re the Red Army, not a bunch of amateurs. If we lose, we’re all done for, don’t you understand? We’ll all become slaves; we’ll lose everything we have, not just our freedom — the future, our country, our home.’

  ‘I’d rather be a slave and know that my son is alive than a free woman with a dead son,’ she cried, somewhat theatrically.

  ‘Stasia, listen to me! Kostya is in the Navy. He’s a sailor through and through. It’s what he wanted. He’s a grown man. He’s serving his country. Even if that were not the case, nobody posts a capable sailor somewhere strategically unimportant like the Black Sea. It won’t be long before all young men are conscripted. It’ll happen in Georgia, too. Don’t kid yourself: this isn’t going to be over any time soon. We have to do everything we can to make sure we win this war.’

  ‘He’s not a grown man, he’s not …’ Stasia kept shaking her head, as if the only thing her husband had said that she had understood was the bit about Kostya’s age.

  ‘He’ll get through. He’ll fight. He won’t allow himself to be enslaved; he’s a model of courage and loyalty. You should have seen him, at his graduation parade, when he —’

  ‘You don’t understand. You’re the one who doesn’t understand all this, Simon, not me.’

  Stasia drew on her filterless cigarette and flapped away the smoke.

  ‘You have to leave the city right away, Stasia. We’re doing our best, but Moscow may have to be evacuated. You must go back to Tbilisi while you still can.’

  Simon made another attempt to take Stasia in his arms. This time it was slightly more successful. As she allowed herself to be embraced by her husband, Stasia wondered why she didn’t worry about him as much as she did about her son. The thought made her feel ashamed, and she wriggled away.

  The Red Lieutenant kept talking to her; he tried to change her mind, tried to encourage her to return home, but Stasia kept repeating that she had to see Kostya at least once before she would leave. She had to try, at least once, to speak to him. But Kostya was already at Lake Ladoga; he and his fellow marines had been assigned to safeguard supplies coming in via military road number 101 — the road that would later go down in history as the Road of Life.

  Stasia stayed in Moscow.

  Stasia stayed in the barracks and cooked potato soup for the soldiers in the barracks kitchen.

  *

  The Germans’ triumphal progress that summer seemed almost unreal. The success of Operation Barbarossa confirmed Hitler in his belief that he would soon defeat the Kremlin. Army Group Centre began to advance on Moscow. In the autumn of 1941, the Red Army regrouped and planned counter-attacks. Under General Zhukov, seventy new divisions were set up. All deserters and mutineers were to be shot on the spot. The autumn mud that made the roads impassable did Moscow and the entire Red Army a great favour. The Wehrmacht’s advance was delayed by weeks, and fuel, munitions, supplies of every kind, in particular winter clothing for the German soldiers, got stuck en route.

  Workers’ regiments were already on standby in the various municipal districts. And as Stasia continued to hope for a meeting with her son, Andro Eristavi received his call-up papers for military service. The majority of Georgian soldiers called up in the winter of 1941 were sent to defend the Western Front, and ended up in Kerch in Crimea.

  *

  Since her sister’s departure, Christine had shown impressive discipline. As if she had been waiting all along to be left on her own with two adolescents, she came back from her shadow world of cherry liqueurs and opera arias to grubby, careworn reality. She drew up daily plans for their family of three, assigning the chores: there was housework to be done, food coupons to be redeemed, donations to be collected.

  While Andro worked as a volunteer at the post office, Kitty helped Christine collect lint and bandages for the front, and together they planted vegetables in the garden; the food rations didn’t stretch nearly far enough. The war seemed to have given Christine a new purpose in life. Andro and Kitty went about inseparably entwined, like Siamese twins; they winked at and pinched each other, and were constantly challenging each other, as they so loved to do: whoever gets to the next crossroads first, whoever gets to the front door first, whoever plants more vegetables, whoever collects the most donations.

  ‘For our soldiers! Donations for our soldiers! They need warm winter clothing, socks, underwear, shirts. Everything welcome!’

  Kitty had caught the flu, so Andro was standing alone beside his big box outside the teahouse, calling on people, with a friendly smile and a loud voice, to donate for the front. All of a sudden a fine gentleman was standing before him, extending his hand.

  ‘You have my respect, young man! Such enthusiasm! That’s what I call true loyalty to your homeland. Many young people your age just laze about and think of nothing but fun. They don’t know what it means to be at war, but you — I take my hat off to you!’ He made an affected little bow, then took a donation, wrapped in newspaper, from his briefcase and laid it carefully in Andro’s box.

  The gentleman had the air of a foreigner, although he spoke flawless Georgian; he wore a perfectly tailored pinstriped suit and a strangely shaped hat with dark green trim. He introduced himself as David.

  ‘That should be enough for the time being,’ he said. He took an interest in the carvings Andro had with him, and held forth at length about trends in modern art. But the art he talked about was European, and he named names Andro didn’t know, impressing him all the more. The fine gentleman must have seemed to Andro like a being
from another planet.

  ‘Yes, there are many interesting things in this world; unfortunately, we don’t hear much about them here, do we, Andro?’ said the gentleman, concluding his monologue; and Andro was flabbergasted, because he had not yet told the fine gentleman his name.

  Before Andro could ask how he knew it, the stranger placed a matchbox on top of Andro’s carton and went on his way without saying goodbye. Andro picked up the matchbox and examined it. Finally, on the back, he found what he was looking for: an address, scrawled in tiny letters.

  Andro felt like a real man of mystery. For three days he walked around with the matchbox in his pocket and didn’t even tell Kitty about this remarkable encounter. He imagined all kinds of adventures the fine gentleman might be caught up in. He wondered what such an urbane, sophisticated man could want from him, and how on earth he knew him. After three days he could no longer suppress his curiosity and set off to the address he had been given.

  A winding staircase led up to the little attic apartment. There he was received by the gentleman, now wearing a dark blue suit and holding a glass of brandy, a drink Andro had only ever encountered in books.

  ‘You’re a fine young man. You combine many useful qualities: you have tact, curiosity, and good manners, too; you strive for something greater, and you’re loyal. But, alas, we are not living in a time in which such qualities are valued. Coarseness, betrayal, and greed are the order of the day.’

  The man quickly came to the point — a little too quickly for Andro’s liking. They had sat down in front of an old tiled stove and Andro had just taken his first sip of brandy when the man started to speak very insistently.