The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  But Stasia didn’t come to Wenceslas Square. Stasia didn’t see her daughter singing. Stasia’s son had called the previous evening and ordered her to keep quiet, to stay in her hotel, and to set off for home with the Intourist agent as soon as she was able. Stasia began to fear for both her daughter and her son.

  Three women from Leningrad who had come for the congress were sitting in the hotel lobby, distressed and worried about the journey home. The men from Kharkov were talking to their ‘tour guide’ — who was really a KGB man — about the possibility of catching a train to Ukraine.

  By evening, as the situation continued to escalate and became increasingly ugly, the tour guide managed to find a bus that would take the congress guests to the airport. He ordered them to quickly grab their suitcases and board the bus.

  Stasia stood in the lobby, her hands shaking, her lips pressed together, her little suitcase at her feet. She was the first to see the uniformed man enter the hotel and walk up to the tour guide. He showed him a document, which the tour guide studied intently for a long time before nodding, impressed, and shaking the uniformed man’s hand. Then he pointed his finger at Stasia and gave her a surly look. Stasia stared at the tour guide in amazement: she could hardly believe that anyone might want anything of her, and as the uniformed man approached her, she instinctively looked round, as if she expected there to be someone behind her who was the real object of the tour guide’s finger. Then sheer panic overwhelmed her, and she felt paralysed. If she took a step to the right, towards the centre of town, she was endangering her son; if she stepped to the left, towards the airport, she was abandoning her daughter.

  For hours she had been in a state of fear, incapable of doing anything, of making a decision. Where could she even look for Kitty? Who could she ask? Had they already got her daughter out of the city? Had her hopes been in vain? And who was responsible for creating this brutal, macabre scenario? Surely it couldn’t be that every time she went anywhere, her journey culminated in a war! Was this her curse?

  ‘I must ask you to follow me, Comrade.’

  The uniformed man spoke Russian with a Caucasian accent. A whole map of medals adorned his chest.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘We have a few questions about your documents, and unfortunately we have to take you to the commissariat. Nothing serious — I’m sure we’ll soon be able to resolve these problems, and then naturally we’ll drive you to the airport as well.’

  ‘But — what problems?’

  ‘Follow me, Comrade, and we’ll explain everything on the way.’

  Strangely, Stasia’s panic dissipated. She didn’t feel afraid of this man. Something in the way he spoke to her, the way he bent down towards her; something in his posture, which had a youthful, relaxed aspect in spite of all the medals, made Stasia trust him.

  He took her bag and headed for the exit; she followed him, accompanied by the patronising looks of the other congress participants. Typical Soviet citizens: suspecting everyone they met of being spies and enemies, capable of switching in seconds from kind, friendly librarians to informers. Already she could hear them talking on the bus: I could tell from the start that something wasn’t right about her, she was so quiet and withdrawn; she didn’t want to go to the department store with us, either, and gave me and Martha such a snide look when we asked about the knickers and bras. I’d have so liked to buy those knickers, you know, you won’t find a pair like that in ten years back home, and even if you do they’ve all already been sold under the counter, with a horrendous mark-up, you know what they’re like … And so on. Ah well, what can you expect of the population of a country where you can’t buy proper underwear, thought Stasia, and got in the back of the car.

  They started weaving their way through the crowd. Screaming, running, aggressive, desperate, hopeful people. How awful, thought Stasia, that this scenario seems so familiar to me. How much older do I have to get before images like these vanish from my head?

  The uniformed man was driving the car himself, although a man like him would normally have a driver. All of a sudden, she was suffused with relief. Her limbs relaxed, the back of her neck stopped hurting, her hands warmed up. She leaned her head against the window. As if the congress guests and the Intourist moles and the cut-throat tour guide had been the real threat; not this man, who was taking her with him into the unknown.

  *

  The photo was taken, and the film — miraculously — was slipped past the soldiers who arrested and searched the photographer on the spot, along with hundreds of others in Wenceslas Square. Kitty escaped before they could handcuff her, too; swept up by a mob of students, she ended up in a side street where she was carried along by the next wave of people, like a paper boat in the gutter, floating aimlessly, helplessly, from one street to the next, from one danger to the next; a throng of students swept her onto a bridge, where she walked straight into the arms of a Kyrgyz soldier who ordered her to show her papers. When she produced her British passport — exhausted, hungry, with an expression of dazed indifference — the Kyrgyz called on his colleagues for help. After some deliberation they decided to take her along to the nearest police station where there would be a more senior official who could deal with her case.

  In the military vehicle, she explained to the soldiers — in accent-free Russian that nonetheless sat like lead on her tongue and would no longer flow light and sparkling from her lips — her reason for being in the city. She feigned ignorance about the events on the streets, claimed she had only got mixed up in this chaos out of curiosity, and kept repeating that she had to be back at the hotel on time because the komsomolets was supposed to take her to the airport.

  This conversation took place at five forty-five. At five fifty-five, the Kyrgyz radioed the local militsiya with the news that a foreign woman had been arrested. At six fifteen, Stasia was fetched from her hotel. Almost simultaneously, Kitty arrived at the police station near the Charles Bridge, where Stasia, too, was brought shortly afterwards.

  The Kyrgyz soldier’s confusion upon picking up a British citizen in the tumult — even though she was clearly from the Soviet zone — had enabled Kitty’s dream to come true.

  Giorgi Alania had been on the phone all day; he had even taken the risk of using the telephone box right outside his London flat for the phone calls to his middlemen in Prague. When he had hung up the previous night, he had already suspected that Kitty would not stick to the arrangement, that the temptation would be too great, that with her British passport she would feel too safe not to give in to her hope of finding her mother in that sea of people. It was, of course, a daredevil recklessness that flared up in her so quickly, a recklessness bordering on naivety. He knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t be able to resist this temptation. He should have refused Kostya’s request. This was a more than hazardous undertaking; he had allowed himself to be persuaded into something that was far too risky, and he had done it because, for the first time since he had been recruited by the NKVD, his emotions had clouded his judgement. He had put her, his best friend, and, above all, himself in tremendous danger.

  From London, he placed calls to his accomplices and alerted them. No one could tell him where she was. But Fate proved merciful, and he was given a chance to rectify the only mistake he had ever made in all the long years he had spent on the Kitty Jashi file; for he was never wrong in his choice of accomplices. He received a call from the militsiya officer, whom for years he had secretly been supplying with little envelopes of banknotes (real British pounds, to be precise), informing him that Kitty Jashi had been arrested. And although he knew he was acting rashly and was taking an even greater risk, he told his confidant to bring Stasia to her daughter.

  *

  I often asked Stasia about this moment. Back then, though, the words she used to describe their meeting seemed to me disappointing, small, almost insulting. They weren’t worthy of this moment, which co
uld have been a scene from a classical drama, except that it wasn’t the gods sitting in judgement over the destiny of mankind but the KGB. Back then, as a young girl nosing around my family’s secrets, I wanted something truly dramatic, something that had the scent of Destiny; instead, Stasia talked about a small, dirty, foul-smelling interrogation room where she was brought by her Caucasian protector, and which her daughter walked into shortly afterwards. (At this point she always stressed that, at first, she had thought she was hallucinating.) She told me that the uniformed man with all the medals quietly informed them that they had exactly one hour before Stasia had to be driven to the airport and Kitty, who would now miss the flight she was booked on, was expected back at her hotel.

  Stasia described the reunion with the usual unsentimental, almost banal words that were so typical of her, and that seemed even simpler and more commonplace the greater or more painful the event they described.

  No tears. (‘No, no, we didn’t cry! What good would tears have done us then? Brought relief? Tears just fill gaps, act as substitutes. If the person you want to shed tears for is standing in front of you, you don’t cry, you make use of the time you have. Tears can wait, after all; they can be wept later, at any time.’)

  I imagine the scene. The stark ceiling light in the empty room. At first, silence. Tentatively, they move closer. A few steps on either side; the echo of those steps. Kitty, walking up to Stasia and feeling her face like a blind woman. As if trying to trace the marks of the time that lay between them, the new wrinkles, the grey hairs: to identify the past.

  ‘I’ve never yet made a journey that didn’t end in a war.’ Stasia was the first to speak.

  ‘Oh, that’s not true, Deda.’ They both had to reaccustom themselves to the word; it was like a lump in Kitty’s throat. ‘You just have a knack for bad timing.’

  ‘Timing; what’s that?’

  ‘Oh — never mind.’

  ‘You’ve got an accent.’

  ‘I don’t get much chance to speak Georgian.’

  ‘You’ve grown.’

  ‘Grown-ups don’t grow any more.’

  ‘Yes they do; you’ve got taller. Do you really live in Great Britain? And … you make music?’

  ‘Yes. I sing. And I write songs. Deda, oh God, Deda …’

  Kitty covered her face with her hands. And Stasia put her arms around her daughter. Her body must have felt as light as a bird to Kitty; so delicate, after all those years, as if it were made of sand running through her fingers. At least, that’s how it always felt to me when I hugged Stasia as a child.

  Stasia told her about Tbilisi, and Kitty told her about London. Then Stasia told her about Christine and Elene and Nana and Miqa, and about Andro, too. Only the good things, the cheering things, the most optimistic things. And Kitty spoke about Amy, and kept quiet about Fred. Stasia told her about Kostya, about the library and her imminent retirement, and Kitty told her about her music.

  They talked about many things — but not their fears and their hate and their impotence, and certainly not about the ghosts. But one question, the question that had pulsated under her skin like a deep wound for all the years since her flight, the question that had seared itself onto her retinas and through which she saw everything in the world — this question Kitty did ask.

  ‘Why didn’t you stop him? You knew it wasn’t right, putting everything in a false light, deporting me like that, condemning me to blame myself all my life for sending someone to their death. Why?’

  Kitty was clinging to her mother like a little child now: she wouldn’t let her go, hugging her shoulders, burying her head in her neck, inhaling her smell, because these impressions would have to last, to endure in her memory for God only knew how long.

  ‘I’m your mother. I gave birth to you. It’s not in my power to send you to your death. I’m responsible for your life. Yes — I’m there to make sure you live. I stake my own life for that. No matter what the reason, no one can demand of a mother that she be responsible for the death of her child. It would be inhuman of you to expect such a thing of me. I kept you alive. I had no choice.’

  As if he had been waiting outside the door with an hourglass, the uniformed man returned. Their time was up. Kitty didn’t want to let Stasia go; she cursed and screamed, begged that they be granted a little more time. But Stasia kept stroking her face, and whispered in her ear:

  ‘I will not die without having seen you again. No matter how long it takes, I will not die until you come home. So pull yourself together now, Kitty, do it for me; go, go, because you will come back to me again; the times are changing, Thekla says so, Sopio says so, yes, that’s what they tell me, they’re changing and you will come home and I will stay alive until then. Until you come.’

  *

  It took the armies of the Warsaw Pact just three days to put an end to the Prague Spring. The Czechoslovakian reformers, including the imprisoned Dubček, were summoned to Moscow and made to stand in the corner like schoolboy truants. Upon his return to Prague, Dubček, humiliated, had to tell his people that Moscow had rescinded all the reforms. In the course of the Prague Spring, tens of thousands of people fled the country. At Moscow’s behest, the Czechoslovakian Communist Party was restructured and some members were expelled. In protest against the state’s capitulation, two students immolated themselves on Wenceslas Square, near the spot where Kitty had stood and sung her songs.

  I drink the grief of sunset

  — The deep red wine.

  No shame — what I knew, I forget

  what’s forgotten is buried in time.

  ANDREI BELY

  No, it couldn’t go on like this, not one more day! For days on end, or was it weeks, the same record had been playing on repeat — and who was that singer, anyway? For days on end, the same refusal to go to school; for days on end, no eating breakfast or dinner together; for days on end, she had just lain in bed snapping at anyone who came to bring her something to eat. No, it couldn’t go on like this. Either her daughter was in love or she had some other problem, which must have something to do with those boys at school and her bad marks, because Elene didn’t have a fever, she didn’t look ill, she even had a good appetite.

  Nana considered how she might persuade her daughter to talk. At least she had succeeded in sending her to school that morning, despite her abject protests. Hopefully she really had gone. Nana couldn’t go on lying to her teachers forever, telling them Elene had the flu. Her head already hurt from all the thinking and making of plans, and she absolutely did not want to call Kostya again and admit that she couldn’t cope. The power struggle between them was enough of a strain on Nana’s nerves, as was the fact that Elene discussed all her secrets with her father on the telephone, falling silent and looking irritated whenever her mother entered the room. Under no circumstances could Kostya be called upon for advice this time.

  There was no counting on Stasia, who ever since she had got back from Prague a few days ago had been wandering around like a deer in the headlights, preoccupied with vague thoughts, which of course she didn’t share with anyone. So Nana asked Christine for help, relying on her neutrality; perhaps she would manage to squeeze out of Elene whatever was causing her bad mood.

  Christine agreed, and asked Elene, who had just got back from school, to sit with her at the garden table. It was a beautiful day, full of glorious, shimmering colours, as if dressed for a carnival. Christine was intoxicated by the sight of her wild garden. Wearing a black dress embroidered with red carnations, in which she looked like an old angel cautiously hiding its wings, she cut an overripe watermelon into little pieces for her great-niece, and Elene began stuffing them greedily into her mouth.

  ‘Your mother says you’re worried about something.’

  Elene shook her head and wolfed down another piece of watermelon.

  ‘Is something upsetting you?’ Christine asked insistently. She lo
wered her face to Elene’s.

  ‘Miqa’s a pig!’ blurted Elene suddenly, and gulped down the fleshy red fruit.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Miqa’s a pig.’

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’ Christine groaned softly, and pushed the plate of watermelon aside. ‘Look at me, please. You can go on eating later. Have you two had a fight?’

  ‘No. He did bad things to me, and I want him to move out.’

  ‘Bad things?’

  Christine didn’t buy her great-niece’s feigned naivety.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Ask him yourself. You two have a good relationship.’

  There was something Christine didn’t like about the way she had said ‘a good relationship’, but she didn’t object, focusing instead on Elene’s words.

  ‘Well, you’ve got a sharp tongue; I’m sure you didn’t let him get away unscathed,’ said Christine tartly, surprised by how affronted she was. Elene’s words were full of malice, and disproportionately hostile for her age.

  ‘I want some more watermelon now.’

  Truculently, Elene pulled the plate back towards her.

  ‘Elene,’ Christine began, aiming for a more pedagogical tone of voice this time, ‘you’re not little children any more. He may be very different from you, but you still have to respect him and be polite to him; he’s part of our family.’

  ‘Family don’t do things like that.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Christine’s blood ran cold. How could the little girl she had watched grow up, that lively, loving child, suddenly have such a mean look in her eyes, such a cruel tone of voice? What was she getting at?

  ‘Yes — ask him, ask him, why don’t you!’ Suddenly Elene was screaming. Bright red watermelon juice spurted from her lips; her eyes burned as if they were on fire; she was completely beside herself. Christine shrank away. ‘He shouldn’t have done it, I told him not to, I asked him to stop but he didn’t listen to me — he hurt me.’