The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  *

  ‘The events of the past twelve months … have compelled me to dedicate my full attention and capacity for work to the single task for which I have lived for many years: the struggle for the fate of my people … In this hour, as the spokesman of Greater Germany, I therefore wish to make the solemn avowal before the Almighty that we will loyally and unshakably fulfil our duty also in the new year, in the firm belief that the hour will come when victory will definitively favour the one who is most worthy of it: the Greater German Reich.’

  So said Hitler in his 1945 New Year address, which was to be his last. The year did not begin well for him: on 1 January he was informed of the German forces’ retreat before American and British troops near Koblenz. The Generalissimus was now vigorously urging his armies to storm Berlin. Like Stalingrad for Hitler, Berlin was of huge symbolic significance for Stalin. Besides, he didn’t want to be left empty-handed when Germany lost its sovereignty and the world was re-divided; rather, he was creating facts on the ground. First, though, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops. Ukrainian units found six hundred and forty-eight unburied corpses there, and around 7,600 living dead; they smelled the sharp stench of the poison gas Zyklon B. On 3 February Berlin experienced its heaviest bombing by US forces, resulting in 22,000 deaths.

  On 13 February, Dresden was annihilated — the joint work, this time, of the British and American air forces. The countless victims of the bombing were so badly burned they could not be identified. The piles of rubble weighed eighteen million tons. At the end of February, the Western Allies reached the Rhine.

  German radio continued to play ‘Das Wunschkonzert’, a programme of popular songs and operettas decreed by Goebbels, interrupted by news of the war.

  On 16 February, the Swiss government froze all Nazi assets in Switzerland. In March, the Americans occupied Frankfurt. Air raids continued all over Germany; the deafening noise was the lullaby of that winter. In the same month, trials of collaborators began in France; thousands were condemned and executed in dubious judicial proceedings, while others had their heads shaved and were paraded and taunted on public squares.

  A girl so thin you could see right through her died of typhus in Bergen-Belsen. She had been brought there from Auschwitz just a couple of months earlier, along with her sister, and certified as a person who was sick but could potentially be restored to health. She died not knowing that her diary would survive her and be read by millions.

  On 16 April, the 1st Belorussian and the 1st Ukrainian Fronts under the leadership of Zhukov and Konev launched the attack on the German capital. The 9th Army was crushed in no time. On 22 April, they advanced on the city centre.

  Meanwhile, in the bunker — it was the night of 28 April — the Führer’s last will and testament was being drawn up. Grand Admiral Dönitz was to become president of the Reich. Goebbels was to be chancellor. Then the world’s most macabre wedding took place: Adolf and Eva were man and wife at the end. Two days later the Hamburger Zeitung reported: ‘This afternoon, fighting Bolshevism to his last breath at his command post in the Reich Chancellery, our Führer, Adolf Hitler, died for Germany.’ No mention anywhere of a bullet or of the potassium cyanide taken by the newlyweds. Just eight hundred metres away, on 2 May, the Soviet flag was raised above the Reichstag. 150,000 Wehrmacht soldiers were taken from Berlin into captivity. On 7 May, the unconditional German surrender was signed in the French city of Reims. It came into effect on 8 May at 23:01.

  The war was over.

  There were no more words. But there was shouting. And the drinking of strong schnapps.

  The Red Army soldiers looted, taking everything that wasn’t nailed down — and everything that was.

  Duke Ellington played ‘I’m Beginning To See The Light’. And couples danced in Times Square, and there was a lot of passionate kissing.

  In Europe, the air smelled of ashes.

  The ghosts choked on their own threnody. The butterflies refused to emerge from their cocoons. And Sinatra sang ‘Dream When You’re Feeling Blue’, and people fainted.

  The war is over. Those words, again and again. It sounded so simple, proclaimed on every wireless programme and on every cinema screen, so surreally simple: The war is over. Followed by marching bands.

  On Red Square, Lenin’s legacy was invoked, and neither Ellington nor Sinatra were played, but there was kissing all the same and people probably fainted there, too. And the Generalissimus bragged, ‘Three years ago Germany aimed to dismember the Soviet Union by wresting from it the Caucasus, the Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltic lands. However, this was not fated to come true. Germany is utterly defeated. The German troops are surrendering. Comrades! The Great Patriotic War has ended in our complete victory! Glory to our heroic Red Army, our great people, the people victorious! Eternal glory to the heroes who fell in the struggle and gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of our people!’

  Although he didn’t know it, the end of the war also marked the beginning of his personal end. A few months earlier he had survived his first stroke, but soon his doctors would diagnose him with hypertension, arteriosclerosis, myocardial insufficiency, and chronic hepatitis. But the Generalissimus was content: the Soviet Union had emerged from the Great Patriotic War a global superpower.

  *

  Andro was transferred via an assembly centre for displaced persons to the Plattling concentration camp near Regensburg. He hoped that there he would be given permission to leave the country.

  At the Yalta Conference, however, it was decided that all Soviet citizens would be unconditionally handed over to the USSR. Neither the International Committee of the Red Cross nor the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration could do anything about it. Even before this decision, the British had already started to extradite thousands of Soviet prisoners of war to the USSR. A similar fate awaited all returnees: some were shot immediately on arrival in the ports of Murmansk and Odessa; others were transported to the gulag, or sent to the Manchurian front shortly before the end of the war. The most tragic extradition took place in Dachau in 1946: out of one hundred and forty people who were due to be sent back to the Soviet Union against their will, fourteen cut their throats with shards of glass. The Americans described the act as an ‘inhuman orgy of suicide by the Red Army traitors’.

  Andro Eristavi was handed over to the Soviet authorities along with one and a half thousand other Soviet prisoners of war in Plattling and taken to a Siberian gulag near Nazino, infamous for the ‘Nazino tragedy’ of 1933, when six thousand Soviet internal deportees were simply left on an uninhabited river island with no shelter, no provisions, and no tools. After two weeks, only two thousand were left alive. Four thousand had starved or frozen to death, or disappeared, or, notoriously, fallen victim to cannibalism.

  And so the dream of Vienna was hung, drawn, and quartered.

  *

  A few days before the official end of the war — the day Benito Mussolini and his lover, Clara Petacci, were captured on the run, shot by partisans, and their corpses hung upside down on the Piazzale Loreto in Milan — the war also ended for Kostya Jashi, when he was recalled from the Baltic and sent by train to Moscow.

  He was received at the naval commissariat by an elegant, soft-spoken man in a smart dark coat with a fur collar. It was only on closer inspection that Kostya recognised his best friend, Giorgi Alania.

  Giorgi took him to his light and spacious apartment right on Tverskoy Boulevard and entertained him like a king. Exclusive apartments like this were the sole preserve of ministerial employees, but initially Kostya wasn’t interested in such tedious details; he just wanted to enjoy the luxury and eat the good food in peace. Giorgi mentioned in passing that he had been promoted and was now working for the NKVD, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs. He didn’t go into how he had got there or what exactly he did there; only later did he indicate to Kostya that he was not yet autho
rised to discuss his precise activities. Kostya, however, was more than happy that his friend was still devoted to him, admired him, and could clearly anticipate his every wish. Giorgi took him out, invited him to opulent dinners in restaurants to which Kostya couldn’t have dreamed of gaining entry, and never tired of praising Kostya’s courage and heroism. He confided in his friend that he too was soon to be promoted to captain.

  How Giorgi Alania had managed to get from the humble shipyard at the end of the world to the ministry remained a mystery. Kostya was forced to admit to himself that he had underestimated his friend.

  On certain days, though, between the popping of champagne corks and the lavish visits to exclusive restaurants and the long conversations that went on into the night, he was seized by a sudden fear — the fear that he could no longer hold back the memories. He had survived the war; bombs were no longer falling. There was no shooting. Yet Kostya found it hard to get used to. As paradoxical as it seemed, even to him, it was only now that he felt unprotected. He didn’t know how to handle daily life. He knew, though, that the memories would come: a terrible army of them. They would not spare him. And somewhere in the deepest recesses of his mind there dwelt a woman with a ring on every finger who refused to be banished, no matter how hard he tried. The fear that she might no longer be alive was driving him mad; he was losing himself in search of a shadow.

  Giorgi Alania invited beautiful women to his home, swathed in furs and laden with jewellery. They wore blood-red lipstick and fluttered their eyelashes, flirted with Kostya the war hero, took him into their midst, touched him, admired him, asked him to fill their wine glasses, vied for his attention; but when one of them put on a record and invited him to dance, he left the room and asked his friend to send the women home. Alania obeyed, but visits of this kind became a regular occurrence: Alania no longer came home without female company. Until one evening, emerging from the kitchen, he spied Kostya on the sofa with a blonde, and saw that Kostya was allowing her soft, velvety lips to heal his wounds and dispel his gloomy thoughts. Alania gave a sigh of relief, visibly pleased that love could, after all, still be bought.

  ‘And what do you plan to do now?’

  Alania was sitting with Kostya on the balcony the following evening, watching the people on the street below.

  ‘Wait for my next posting,’ Kostya replied, cracking his knuckles.

  ‘You deserve something better. I could help you.’

  ‘Help me what?’

  ‘Ensure you’re treated according to your merits.’

  ‘What exactly is it that you do, Giorgi?’

  ‘I already told you: I’m at the NKVD.’

  ‘And what’s your line of work?’

  ‘I can’t discuss it.’

  ‘Come on, Giorgi, we know each other. Stop being so secretive.’

  ‘A lot of departments have been established there, and —’

  ‘Departments? What are these departments for?’

  ‘Our group is responsible for the repatriation of Soviet citizens abroad. Right now they’re preparing us for foreign assignments. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that.’

  ‘Repatriation? What’s so mysterious about that?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more, Kostya. I hope you don’t think it’s because I don’t trust you.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. But how can you help me?’

  ‘I’ll put in a good word for you at the ministry.’

  ‘Was it you who had me brought to Moscow that time? And was it you who arranged for me to be granted home leave?’

  Alania didn’t answer.

  ‘So it was you! I can’t believe that didn’t occur to me. But — many thanks. What else can I tell you? I’m not cut out for a desk job, you know that.’

  ‘Yes, I know that. Your skills and preferences will be taken into account, don’t worry.’ Alania had stood up and was leaning over the balcony railing. Kostya came and stood beside his friend and put his arm around his shoulders. ‘You know you mean a great deal to me, don’t you? I’d do anything to make things all right for you again.’

  ‘There is something you could do for me,’ Kostya murmured.

  ‘What? Tell me — it doesn’t matter what it is.’

  ‘I’d like to ascertain the whereabouts of a certain woman.’

  *

  That autumn, people started to clean up the mess in the world and enlarge the cemeteries in the cities. Kostya returned to Tbilisi. He spent his first weeks at home sleeping or listening to the Blaupunkt radio. It was during these weeks that Kitty played her first lead in a student production; in my imagination it was Antigone. But that play was probably banned at the time, so you can decide for yourself, Brilka, what role it was that Kitty played. Two days after her premiere she received a letter, and immediately recognised Andro Eristavi’s handwriting. She ran to the bathroom and threw up. She sat on the edge of the bathtub for what seemed like an age before she found the courage to open the letter. Then she went into Kostya’s room, woke him, and sat down beside him on the bed.

  ‘You have to help me.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Kostya, half asleep, rubbed his eyes and sat up.

  ‘Andro’s alive. He’s in a gulag. I have an address. We’ve got to get him out of there. You have to find out what he’s done and —’

  ‘What he’s done? Are you out of your mind? He betrayed his country! He’s a deserter, a coward. I’m surprised they’ve even let him live.’

  At this, for the first time in her life, Kitty slapped her brother’s face. Shocked and angry, Kostya leapt up, quickly pulling on his clothes.

  ‘Please, please, forgive me — you must help me! Kostya, please.’

  ‘You’re crazy! You’re putting us all in terrible danger!’

  ‘Perhaps we can apply for a transfer, to somewhere nearby, where I can visit him … He’ll die there, Kostya.’

  Kitty had fallen to her knees in front of her brother, clinging to the jersey Kostya had just pulled over his head. Kostya stepped back in disgust and tried to pull his sister to her feet.

  ‘Stop humiliating yourself! Get up!’ he said loudly, turning his face away from her and her piteous gestures. He pushed her away and fled the room.

  Learning from the Soviets means learning to be a victor.

  POSTER SLOGAN

  The post-war world fell into a frenzy. People wanted to celebrate life and clear away the rubble; they wanted to dance heathen dances of survival, they wanted to drink, they wanted to celebrate, they wanted to gorge themselves on all the things they had lacked in recent years. People wanted shallow operettas, they wanted risqué songs, they wanted nice, sentimental films with rural settings. They wanted to forget; they wanted to live as if there were no tomorrow — and no yesterday. The euphoria was infectious, dangerous, charged.

  In our little homeland, too, people sang and celebrated until they felt dizzy. And of course the regime celebrated itself; people organised insane orgies of gratitude in its honour and extolled its cleverness and might. They celebrated the Generalissimus, the great Father of the People, who had led his country victoriously out of the apocalypse and back into the light of socialism. New legends and myths sprang up around him, praising his bravery and self-sacrifice on behalf of his country. Perhaps the most powerful myth was about him and his son. In 1941 his oldest son Yakov had been taken prisoner by the Germans. When the fascists found out who this prisoner was, they suggested exchanging Yakov for General Paulus, who had been captured by the Russians at Stalingrad. But the Generalissimus — so the legend went — replied: ‘I do not trade field marshals for lieutenants.’ And so Yakov met his miserable end, shot in the back of the head with a German gun.

  This legend testified once again to the selflessness of the Great Father and his loyalty to his homeland. The act was not seen as inhuman; on the contrary, the s
tory showed the extent to which the leader suffered with his people and the — yes — superhuman strength he demonstrated in taking this almost biblical step and sacrificing his son. The Soviet Union shone. The Generalissimus was a victor. And victors are forgiven everything.

  *

  After the war, Stasia returned to Tbilisi permanently and registered for the first time with the People’s Commissariat as a person in search of work. Christine continued to work at the hospital. And Kostya seemed in no hurry to be redeployed; he enjoyed the ministrations of his mother and aunt, slept for days on end, went to the sulphur baths almost daily, as if he wanted the hot steam to scald the war from his skin, and flirted with students in teahouses. Kitty reeled from one emotional extreme to another, and it sometimes seemed to her that there were two people living in her chest, two completely different entities who were compelled to fight each other. The happy, light-hearted Kitty had not reappeared since the day they drove her out to the village school; but vestiges, hints of this happiness, still flared up in her occasionally, like charred branches in a dead campfire. On days like these she enjoyed her studies, the different parts that she tried on like new clothes. She enjoyed her fellow students, who were all able to party with such glorious abandon; she enjoyed survival, and new beginnings.

  She wrote regular letters to Andro, described her daily life, gave him hope, continued to play her old, cheerful self, told him about the new books she was reading and the theatre premieres she went to. But she never wrote about anything real. She never mentioned her worries, not with so much as a line. She was afraid that he wasn’t strong enough to withstand the endless tortures of the gulag, and wished with all her heart that he would return, but didn’t know how it was possible. Even if there would be no Vienna for them now, even if their illusions and hopes were irrevocably shattered, even if they would never kiss one another on green-painted benches ever again, she would never give up hoping for his return. His replies were never longer than half a page. The letters were read, of course. He only ever wrote, in his small, spiky hand, about daily life in the quarry, his delight in a sunny day, or a soup that was more substantial than usual. Only once, in his first letter, had he written the word ‘Forgive’ at the end. But she hadn’t commented on that.