‘It’s not just that.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘I don’t know. You’re … important to me.’
‘Thank you very much. I thought I should give you a few tips concerning your new work permit …’
‘I don’t want to talk about that now. May I ask you something?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Are you here? In the same city?’
‘What gives you that idea?’
‘You’re here.’
‘You know that, unfortunately, I can’t —’
‘It’s all right. Do you like conkers? I saw some today. I love them. They remind me of home, of my childhood. Andro and I … We always used to collect them, when we were children.’
‘Yes, I like them.’
‘What else do you like?’
‘I like music. I like your music, too.’
‘You haven’t heard my music.’
‘Yes, I have.’
Kitty thought for a while. Of course he was here, in London. They shared the same sky, the same streets, the same stations and faces. They shared the same rain and the same sun. It was a comforting thought. Perhaps he sat in her audience at the club, although she couldn’t really imagine this genteel man in those surroundings.
‘I would so like to know why you’re doing all this. And what you’re called.’
‘You can call me whatever you like, I’ve already told you that. I’ll gladly accept whatever name you give me.’
‘I can’t do it. There’s no name that seems to fit … to be good enough.’ She heard him laugh: he seldom laughed.
‘Is everything all right, Kitty?’ he asked, his voice composed once more.
‘I don’t know. I’m confused.’
‘What is it that’s causing you confusion?’
‘I love that about you, too. Your way of expressing yourself — like that: What is it that’s causing you confusion. It’s charming. You seem to me to be a daydreamer, and I’ve always had a great affinity for them.’
‘I’m honoured.’
‘I think I’m in love.’
‘Well, that’s wonderful.’ There was no pleasure in his voice. He sounded very serious.
‘No, it’s not. I feel so foolish, so stupid. And I mustn’t allow it.’
‘Why not? Are there adverse circumstances?’
He’s sure to be smiling to himself now, thought Kitty. She didn’t want to pursue the subject, although she felt a deep longing to talk to him about it.
‘I’d give so much to see your face right now,’ she said.
Again the disconcerted silence at the other end of the line.
‘Do what you think is right, and don’t think about the adverse circumstances. Almost all adverse circumstances, or what we think of as such, seem but a trifle in retrospect, don’t you agree?’
*
That somnambulant afternoon, with Billie Holiday in the background, Kitty had left Fred’s studio with a clear No. As soon as she started thinking about copper-haired Fred, she came up against her own frontiers. She was trapped inside herself. That afternoon, she had run out because she didn’t want to cross any more frontiers. Having crossed national frontiers, she capitulated before all others. She feared the consequences of her No, and feared the consequences of a conceivable Yes even more. She feared leaving the world that had been presented to her as the only right one, which was divided into men and women. She feared losing Amy’s patronage.
That afternoon, Kitty had decided to settle and not keep moving on, knowing full well that the woman on whom she had just turned her back was not a person who planned to settle anywhere. Knowing full well that this woman was a libertine, an entertainer, a tightrope walker.
She had returned to the care of her perfect patron, for whom Kitty’s career had become a raison d’être. And Kitty was not prepared to deprive her of that.
*
Two weeks after her visit to Fred’s studio, she found her benefactor slumped over the back of the sofa in her spacious, cluttered reception room, chest heaving, sobbing dramatically. When she cautiously enquired as to the reason for Amy’s tears, Amy told her Fred was going to America and didn’t know when she would be coming back. She had accepted an invitation from a Boston textile manufacturer to help him buy artworks and design a new gallery, where she would also be able to exhibit her paintings. She had given up her studio, and had left Amy one of her scrawls on a napkin promising to be in touch soon; perhaps by then, thanks to her new source of income, she would be in a position to invite her to the Hamptons for a weekend in the summer. She had added a postscript in which she sent greetings to ‘your timid little protégée, who unfortunately thinks so little of herself’. Amy flung the napkin melodramatically at Kitty’s feet.
Fred’s absence was to last two years, and despite the grief it caused — openly expressed by Amy, borne in secret by Kitty — it allowed the two women she left behind to come into their own. As if Fred Lieblich had sensed this, or even desired it; as if she had left the arena to the women she loved.
Kitty had left failure behind her in the East, Amy proclaimed, and now the West would start to make amends. She got her to record her first album in English, You And I. Her accent was her trademark, Amy said; under no circumstances should she try to lose it. The single was played on the English airwaves. And Kitty was invited to give radio interviews, always accompanied by Amy, her manager. She received offers from clubs that were far more upmarket than her jazz club. Amy began to think about a first public concert. Kitty diligently recounted her tragic past to journalists, different versions cobbled together for her by Amy; the more tragic the story, Amy said, the better the prospect that she would soon become a naturalised citizen.
The age of rockabilly was in full swing, Elvis and fiery rock’n’roll were on the horizon, and Kitty, who was never associated with any musical style or genre, gradually became — thanks to Amy — a face that people registered, with her eastern ‘purity’, the polyphony of her homeland, her music that always emphasised the power of melody.
Kitty: whose trail you set out to follow, Brilka, searching for yourself and at the same time refusing to become yourself, for fear that you wouldn’t be able to shake off all the ghosts that pursue us as we seek a new beginning for your story, which would also become part of mine.
Book V
Elene
Spilling tears from blind white eyes
A jet of water hits the skies.
JOSEPH BRODSKY
As the Cold War set in, Khrushchev tripled funding for the expansion of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal and its submarine fleet.
The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing, and the certainty of holding a nuclear bomb in their hands gave the superpowers a sense of omnipotence. The Soviet Union had detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, an exact replica of the American bomb that had laid waste to Nagasaki. The Generalissimus had ordered his scientists to copy it, allegedly telling them that experiments were not permitted.
Now scientists were working around the clock, on Khrushchev’s orders, to keep pace with their American competitors’ advances in the field. Since Khrushchev’s inauguration there had been an alarming increase in the number of nuclear tests. Soon there were to be as many as eighty detonations per year; seven hundred and fifteen confirmed nuclear tests were carried out between 1949 and 1990 in the Soviet Union alone. The consequences of this — specifically: radioactive contamination — were of no interest to the Party. Under Khrushchev, it began to pour money into the armaments industry. Forty thousand men worked at the shipyard where the first titanium submarine was built. The rest of the world, including the US, had a total of one-hundred and fifty-nine nuclear submarines during the Cold War. The Soviet fleet numbered two-hundred and twenty-eight.
Kostya Jashi tr
avelled to Nizhny Novgorod to proudly examine the first example of a nuclear-powered submarine.
*
While the parrot Goya, Elene, Elene’s eccentric grandmother, and her equally eccentric sister had formed an invincible fellowship, Nana had turned her attention back to her doctoral thesis.
Nana strove to provide a strong counterpoint to the sisters. They only obeyed their own rules, but Nana required greater discipline of her daughter. She wasn’t always successful in this, however, as Elene had developed a very strong will of her own, for which Nana held her mother- and aunt-in-law responsible.
The rampantly overgrown garden, the screaming parrot, the loud opera arias, the old necklaces and ribbons from Christine’s room fortified Elene’s free spirit. She defied her mother whenever she had the chance, and refused to comply with her disciplinary measures. In the battle for Elene’s favour, the two older women effortlessly, almost accidentally, conjured up one trump card after another. Their suggestions, their offers, their worlds were more exciting, more magical to Elene than Nana’s unimaginative regime.
In the summer, when Kostya came home to spend a few weeks with his wife and daughter, under palm trees on the Black Sea coast or in the health spas and sanatoriums of Borjomi and Sairme, the image of a close, intact family was maintained only with difficulty. The sullen look in his daughter’s eyes was not lost on Kostya, and Nana saw the question marks in them, too, when her child had the all-too-rare opportunity to be with both parents together. During those weeks, though, Nana really tried her hardest; she didn’t want to disappoint Elene, not for anything in the world. In this time away from Stasia and Christine, when she had her daughter all to herself, she wanted to do everything better, to prove to herself and her husband that her childrearing methods were the most effective. Kostya seemed slightly exasperated with her embodiment of the role of strict Georgian mother. He didn’t want the little time he was able to spend with his daughter to be taken up with pedagogical measures. He wanted to enjoy his daughter’s company, to fulfil her every whim, to indulge her; he didn’t want to have to ration his affection. And so these summer weeks became one long ordeal for the patient and otherwise peaceable Nana. Inwardly, she cursed the thankless role she had been assigned. She felt out of her depth, at others’ mercy, misunderstood, unsupported.
One hot August evening, after the two of them had drunk the iodine-rich healing waters in Borjomi and dined with other well-to-do guests at the sanatorium, Kostja paused at his wife’s bedside on his way to the bathroom, razor in hand, and informed her: ‘When the time comes, Elene should go to a suitable school, and that won’t be in this country. I want my daughter to have the best possible education, and thanks to my position I have certain opportunities it would be incredibly stupid for us not to take advantage of.’
‘You surely don’t imagine I’m going to leave my six-year-old daughter behind in a strange city thousands of kilometres away, do you?’
‘I’m not discussing this with you, Nana. I’m just informing you well in advance, so you can —’
‘Forget it, Kostya. Not on your life!’
‘My God, Nana, when are you going to wake up from your patriotic slumber?’
‘And when will you ever think of anyone other than yourself?’
That was the end of the discussion because Kostya didn’t answer his wife; he went into the bathroom instead, to shave in peace. That night the couple slept in separate beds.
*
When the time came for Elene to start school, Nana had long since lost her battle for influence over her daughter to Stasia and Christine. Confronted with two evils, she chose what she thought was the lesser: she decided it would be better to have a russophile daughter who was, nevertheless, disciplined, independent, and educated, rather than one who was feral, unworldly, and, at worst, mad.
Stasia and Christine sounded the alarm when they found out about the plan to send Elene to Moscow. They protested, argued, and made threats, but Nana stood her ground, citing her husband’s wishes. Elene cried, hid herself away, shouted obscenities, and stuck her tongue out at her mother, but this, of course, achieved little. Nana was adamant: her child was not going to grow up in this house in the company of two madwomen. Elene would finally get a decent education; she would learn to behave as a young girl should, not run around screaming like a Fury; she would dress properly, eat properly, speak properly.
*
Two nights before Nana — with a heavy heart, but a clear objective — was due to take her daughter to the airport, Stasia decided to employ her father’s magic in the hope of changing her daughter-in-law’s mind. For the first time in years she made the hot chocolate. As she had anticipated, the smell drew Nana to the kitchen and, not suspecting herself to be at Stasia’s mercy, she sat down at the table and gazed at her mother-in-law with grateful eyes. She spooned up the thick chocolate ecstatically, and Stasia spoke insistently to her as she did so, trying to convince her not to part with Elene; the magical drink made her daughter-in-law so soft and tractable that she came within a whisker of agreeing. Just at that moment, though, a sleepy Elene in yellow pyjamas slipped into the kitchen unnoticed, presumably woken by the most enchanting smell in the world, and before Stasia could stop her she had stuck her finger first into her mother’s cup, then into her mouth. Stasia froze, closed her eyes, and hoped for a miracle. A miracle that would undo this moment. But there are no such miracles, Brilka.
That night, Stasia lay in bed, unable to sleep, imploring all the gods, real and imaginary, to spare this wonderful child she loved so much from the chocolate’s curse.
The following evening, as Elene — accompanied by Stasia’s lamentations — was packing her socks and knickers into her suitcase, the doorbell rang. Still deeply despondent about the incident the night before, Stasia answered the door — and froze. Before her stood Andro Eristavi, bald, with a full beard. Holding his hand was a younger copy of himself. The same curls, but dark; the same eyes, but lighter; the same build, but stockier. Only the boy’s nose was a little coarser, his lips a little more full.
A visit like a bad omen. For a moment, Stasia’s conscience battled with her reason. Andro’s mother appeared in her mind’s eye, asking her to tell her boy stories of a good world. She fell on Andro’s neck, kissing him all over his face, as if he were the same age as the child whose hand he held. Elene, happy that the unexpected visit had relieved her of the sad duty of packing her suitcase, rushed over to Miqa and examined him in her bold and endearing manner.
The table was quickly laid, and Andro and Miqa took their places between Stasia and Christine. They sat silently, heads bowed, as if they had no right to be there. Unlike Elene, who couldn’t keep quiet during the meal and chattered away about whatever sprang to mind, the boy ate his cut-up meatballs like an adult and said thank you every time anyone handed him anything.
After the meal, Elene jumped up and dragged Miqa away from the table by his sleeve; she wanted to show him round the garden and introduce him to Goya. As they were drinking their Turkish coffee, Nana excused herself, too, saying she still had preparations to make for the trip. Alone with Christine and Stasia, Andro could finally broach the reason for his visit.
‘I’d like to send him to school in the city. There’s a programme for gifted kolchoz children, and Miqa’s smart. You know I can’t get a residence permit. But with you … If Miqa could …’
There was a long pause. Then Stasia put her hand on his and nodded.
‘Of course,’ she said. She could still see Sopio’s face before her. This, she realised, was her chance to fulfil her duty to Sopio, to make good with Miqa what she had failed to do for Andro.
Christine cleared her throat, seemingly astonished by her sister’s swift decision to take a strange child into the house, just like that. They had, after all, failed miserably at this undertaking once before. Andro put a tentative arm around Stasia and kissed her shoulder. It wa
s a sad gesture and, at the same time, expressive of great humility. Stasia was filled with a sense of relief. Suddenly Andro rose, as if he wanted to leave already; then he sat down again, plucking nervously at the tablecloth.
‘How’s Kitty? Where is she?’
Stasia and Christine were startled. They wanted to object; to say that it was better not to broach this subject, that they didn’t know anything either, and were weighed down by the burden of this not-knowing; that they were doing all they could not to go mad with worry about her, since Kostya refused to give them any information; all they knew was that she was in England, and safe. Instead, Stasia’s eyes filled and she wept silently, tears rolling down her sunken cheeks. And neither Andro nor Christine attempted to comfort her, because there is no comfort for a mother who has lost her daughter. From the garden they could hear Elene’s happy, bell-like laughter, and Miqa, panting.
Nana left for Moscow with Elene the following morning. Her husband’s aged housekeeper, Lyuda, had prepared his apartment on Nikitsky Boulevard for the little princess’ arrival. Starting on the first of September, Elene would travel from there to one of the exclusive schools, where she would share a classroom with the children of Party functionaries, directors, and high-ranking officers. And on the same day, the first of September, Miqa would step out of the house on Vera Hill to start first grade at an ordinary school in Tbilisi.
*
Elene hated Moscow right from the beginning, but she hated the school most of all. Elene hated her school uniform of heavy brown wool, the scratchy, starched white pinafore, the white bow in her hair; she hated the strict teachers, and her fellow pupils, none of whom she had anything in common with. She hated her parents for bringing her here, and she hated the cold, grey climate of this vast grey city.
She hated the gloomy, marble-floored corridors in the tall school building near Gorky Park. Hated her father’s driver, who drove her to school and picked her up again each day. She hated the parades at the end of every month in honour of socialism and the Party; she even hated the Sundays when her father took the day off for her, and tried to talk to her as if she were a grown-up — as if he could expect that of her, as if she were old and clever enough. She didn’t want to have to play the grown-up, to be old and clever enough for her father. Even though she liked Lyuda, who took care of her and made her blinis, her favourite, she hated the fact that she liked her.
The Eighth Life Page 49