Beqa, her rebellious boyfriend, received the news with less composure. He stared at her, stunned, scratched behind his ears, massaged his neck, cleared his throat, and tried to smile. Then he started doing everything in his power to persuade her. It was really difficult right now, he had no work, and not much prospect of any, either; he was living with his parents and certainly didn’t want to sponge off them. And with her parents — no, there was absolutely no question of that, quite apart from the fact that Elene’s father would never accept him as his new son-in-law; besides which, he was, as she knew, against the institution of marriage per se; of course he was happy that she was carrying the fruit of their love in her womb, it just wasn’t the right time to be starting a family. So, hmm, er, perhaps this time, this one time, it would be possible to, er, well, hmm, ‘get around’ the problem.
My mother stood up without a word, tucked her handbag under her arm, and left Beqa.
*
When Kostya heard that he was to be a grandfather again, he hurled the pretty cup from which he was drinking his evening black tea, and its scalding contents, at the wall. It had been one of his wife’s acquisitions; she was very keen on valuable household objects and was always asking someone with a travel permit to bring her back a Czech, German, or English tea set, of which she now had a sizeable collection. She screamed, shocked by his fury, as well as by the loss of the pretty cup, because what value was there in an incomplete tea set?
‘Do you know what you are? Do you? A whore, a cheap, worthless whore, that’s all,’ he yelled at Elene. Coming from him, this vulgar word was like a dagger to her heart, because there was nothing Kostya hated more than people who screeched like fishwives, or vulgarity of any kind. His weapons were argument, contempt, coldness, rejection; never words like this.
Elene sank into a chair.
‘Who said you could sit down? Huh? Who? That’s my chair. And you will sit in it when I say you can. Because everything in this house was put here by me and my work — everything you can touch and see. The people who live here have worked. But you? You’re a good-for-nothing — a freeloader and leech, on top of everything. The only thing you know how to do is trample on our nerves and our good name. That’s your sole vocation in life!’
‘Kostya, please,’ Nana interjected, the shards of her Czech, German, or English teacup in her hand.
‘What is it? What? Am I wrong? Enlighten me, then! She could have had it all, we gave her everything on a silver platter, and instead she trampled it all to bits with her slut’s legs. She spits in our face, then laughs at us behind our backs with her criminal friends. Because that’s what they are, my dear. That priest — don’t make me laugh. He wants to prepare a path to God for me, does he? Are you familiar with his history? Did he tell you about his spell behind bars? Or did your John the Baptist neglect to mention that?’
‘He’s got nothing to do with it,’ mumbled Elene.
‘Oh, right, so it was an immaculate conception, was it?’
‘He’s not the father.’
‘So much the better. Why don’t you reveal to us the father of your child? Why don’t you introduce him to us? Your honourable consort? It wasn’t enough for you to get involved with a gigolo, a traitor, a deserter; no, something was still missing, you had to surpass yourself. Well, I can’t wait to hear who it is this time. I’ll never be able to wash the shame away now. This is the path you’ve chosen. So you will do as I tell you. Because as far as I can see you’ve got no one else who’s in a position to help you. Apparently you can’t even hang on to your criminal boyfriend. On Monday we will go to a doctor and he will carry out an abortion. Is that clear?’
Nana looked away from her daughter at the shards in her hand. Elene’s chin began to tremble. Kostya stared defiantly out of the window at the sunlit landscape, into the free, clear day. And before another word could be uttered, Stasia entered the room, holding little Daria in one hand and her roll-up in the other. Daria laughed and ran to her mother.
‘Something happened?’ asked Stasia, and sat down at the table. Daria clambered onto Elene’s lap as Elene struggled to control her chin.
‘Leave Mama alone, Dariko. It’s not your fault that she’s a tart, my angel. Come to me,’ said Kostya calmly, holding out his hand to Daria.
‘I hate you!’ screamed Elene, jumping up and setting Daria down on the floor.
‘I’ll just have to live with that. All I want to know is, are we agreed?’
‘I’m going to keep the baby,’ said Elene.
‘Are you pregnant?’ asked Stasia. She broke out in rasping laughter. Nana and Kostya shot her furious looks.
‘Tart! Tart!’ Daria shouted merrily, clearly delighted by the addition to her vocabulary.
*
I’m sure I would have been a wanted child, conceived in love, if Thekla had survived the era that was no longer hers, if Stasia had been allowed to follow Peter Vasilyev, if Ramas Iosebidze had prevented his wife from removing her mask at the New Year’s ball, if Ida had conquered hope, if my grandfather had found the door between sea and horizon and opened it, if operating tables had not been used in schoolrooms, if Andro Eristavi had learned that, as a consequence of his mistaken beliefs, a child was ripped from Kitty’s womb, if Kitty had kept Death at bay, if she had stayed, if the world had castrated the Little Big Men before they could sow their seed, if the ghosts had been allowed to finish singing their songs, and if hunger had not been stronger than love. Yes, everything would have been better then, the way we want it to be when we come into the world: loving parents, a free country with no Brezhnev, and Lou Reed for everyone.
May there always be sunshine,
May there always be blue skies,
May there always be Mummy,
May there always be me!
PIONEER SONG
Because when I came into the world, Lou Reed was banned and Brezhnev — officially, at least — still firmly in place. As for loving parents: two months before my birth, my father managed to get himself sentenced to five years in prison for stealing a car, as if it had been his intention all along to avoid his responsibilities. They had managed to prove his involvement in other ‘criminal intrigues’ as well.
My mother paid a high price for preserving my life against Kostya’s will. Throughout her pregnancy, she was forced to live like a prisoner, eat what was put in front of her, play with her daughter when her father ordered her to, watch the television programmes her father permitted her to see, get up when she was woken, and turn out her light when it was time to do so. Any form of religious reading material was taboo, as were ‘lewd’ romantic novels; she had to read them with a torch under the blanket. It was her punishment, which she accepted in silence; she smiled and nodded, was grateful, and applauded them for putting up with her.
Meanwhile, Miqail was arrested — with no warning, no indication whatsoever — by the militsiya, who detained him on charges of ‘parasitism’ and ‘religious agitation’. And that was the end of Plekhanov Street for Elene. They started saying that she was putting the boys in danger, that her father was behind Miqail’s sudden arrest. She couldn’t throw her friends to the wolf that was her father. They had all done things that could easily put them behind bars; even if they hadn’t, something would be found, if that was what Kostya wanted.
Nana and Stasia had fought alongside Elene for weeks to persuade Kostya that the child in his daughter’s belly should not be aborted, no matter in what circumstances it had been conceived, or by whom. However, no sooner was it too late for an abortion than they started to side with Kostya again, making it clear to Elene that she had betrayed their hopes, too, and crushed their expectations. It was an excruciating time, but Elene decided to accept her martyrdom without protest. In order to give me life, she decided that God was greater than happiness and Heaven promised more than earthly existence. The daily battles with her father, the icy atmosphere i
n the house, a constant feeling of impotence, and, above all, the awareness of her own failure transformed Elene into a melancholy, scowling woman, usually sloppily dressed and, above all, very lonely. (We mustn’t forget in all this how young she was. It’s hard to believe, but she was only twenty-one when I was born.)
*
The heavier Kostya’s losses on the domestic battlefield, the more powerful he seemed to become in office. And imperceptibly, as is usually the case, anaesthetised by the rural idyll he had created for himself and by good, expensive wine, fortified by the ocean of bureaucratic opportunities, by the freedom of the nomenklatura to do as they pleased, and by the political stagnation of the age, he didn’t even notice that he was no longer giving a moment’s thought to things that, in Russia, would have scandalised him and got people into serious trouble.
Everyone stole. Everyone cheated.
The butcher stole the best meat and sold it under the counter for three times the price. The kolkhozes kept back part of the harvest and flogged it off elsewhere. Nurses pilfered gauze and bandages. The manager of the winery bribed representatives to smuggle crates of wine out of his own factory so he could use them to bribe other, more important people. Long-established thievery, practised until then in secret, was now the order of the day, and as everyone was doing it, no one had to be punished.
The militsiya acquitted people on charges of shoplifting and traffic offences; petty crimes were dealt with on the quiet. The public prosecutor’s office sold acquittals for rape and murder. Teachers and professors handed out good grades in exchange for cream cakes, French perfumes, and fine chocolates. The building contractor helped himself to building materials. The doctor was twice as attentive when treating a patient if some cash had been slipped into the pocket of his white coat beforehand. Artists stole from one another. And the politicians didn’t need to steal anything, because they already had the biggest share in all the other thievery.
People stole plaster of Paris, Rubin colour televisions, dressmaking patterns, cement, analgesics, Chinese thermos flasks decorated with red flowers, wool, condensed milk, spectacles, three-kopek school exercise books, talcum powder, beige polyester socks, furs, snowsuits (even in regions where it didn’t snow), camera lenses, green plastic bowls, preserving jars, records (no matter whose), Kosmos or Astra cigarettes, and Hygiene aftershave.
And my grandfather participated in the general suppression of any consciousness of wrongdoing. Which required countless stays at spa resorts, business trips — all with female companions, of course — formal receptions, good Saperavi, and the perennial goodwill of his subjects.
That long black cloud is comin’ down
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
BOB DYLAN
I came into the world on a rainy autumn day, 8 November 1974, in a village hospital, after a labour that lasted precisely eight hours. The contractions started in the middle of a fight between my mother and her father. And the same day that my sister, as I’ve already said, concussed herself falling off a pony at the stud farm.
Apart from my birth, and my sister’s fall, nothing special happened that day. Except, perhaps, for the fact that, on this day, my mother finally lost her patience in the eternal battle with her father and her eternal hope for the understanding of her female relatives, and started screaming.
‘Are you a whore?’ my grandfather is said to have yelled at her; and my mother, weeping, is said to have screamed back, ‘I might as well be, the way you treat me!’
Two hours later, she went into labour.
Parties to the conflict: my domineering grandfather, my infantile grandmother, and my mother, increasingly losing control of her own life. Stasia was standing somewhere on the terrace, smoking one of her roll-ups. She had long since grown accustomed to this shouting, but that particular day something must have caused her to lose patience. Bursting into the living room, she snarled at her son: ‘Tell me, have you completely lost your mind? Are you a sadist, or what? She’s nine months pregnant! Perhaps you could let her give birth in peace first?’
For a moment an unaccustomed silence filled the room.
‘You keep out of this, Stasia!’ was Kostya’s only comment.
‘I’m to keep out of it, am I? You lunatic!’
It always astonished us how this delicate, sexless, ageless creature could, in seconds, fly into such a rage. Nana couldn’t help smiling inside, but it didn’t show on her face; her expression remained one of dismay and concern.
‘Ugh!’ shouted Kostya, probably referring to both his mother’s choice of words and the general situation, and left the room.
He walked down the hill to the stud farm, with Daria, his golden girl, holding his hand, and stood with her admiring the Dagestani ponies. Then he sat her on one of them, and was holding her by the waist when the pony suddenly broke free and threw the little girl off. It happened so fast that my grandfather failed to catch her.
As my grandfather was throwing himself on his granddaughter in desperation, blaming the horse breeders and threatening to close ‘the whole organisation’ down, my mother started to groan. At the same moment that my mother, accompanied by her corpulent mother, was heading for the hospital in the village, my sister Daria, usually called Daro, Dari, or Dariko, was also being rushed to hospital, but in her case it was the best hospital in Tbilisi, not a ramshackle village clinic. It was announced that Daria had slight concussion. And a few hours later, a few kilometres north of the city, that I had come into the world.
‘This child is a product of Elene’s shamelessness and depravity, sealing my conclusive defeat in the battle for her honour, so I have absolutely no reason to be happy, or to celebrate anything at all. Even if it’s not her fault, the girl is the embodiment of all the ills her mother has brought down upon us.’ This was Kostya’s only reaction to the happy news that he had become a grandfather for the second time.
And when I was finally brought to the Green House, the home that did not welcome me, my great-grandmother awoke from her somnambulistic state, looked at her great-granddaughter, and said: ‘This is a different child. A special one. She needs a lot of protection and a lot of freedom.’
And everyone slapped their palms to their foreheads and groaned. The mad old lady had come back to life, and they weren’t really sure whether this was a good thing or a disaster.
That same day, Stasia finally revealed to the members of her family the true purpose of her barn. It was to become her new rehearsal room. She planned to start dancing again, she said. At which everyone shook their heads in disbelief and mild embarrassment and presumably thought: you must be joking!
And I thought what a wonderful world, and laughed myself to sleep. Perhaps I saw them all, their heads bent over my cradle: Ida with her ringed fingers, fanning my cheeks; Thekla with her memorable scent of wilted flowers and powder; my great-great-grandfather, who smelled of chocolate, pensively shaking his head at the fact that, once again, I had to be given the surname Jashi. And then my sister Daria, who had easily and painlessly shaken off her concussion, came and bit my upper arm so hard that my screams frightened the horses in the field. Until my mother ran in, pulled Daria off me, and screamed at her in desperation, ‘What are you doing? She’s your sister, she’s your little sister! You have to love her!’
*
The call came at dawn one day in May 1975. Kostya was still away on one of his business trips to Batumi. Elene, unable to sleep, was roaming the unfinished attic again. Nana was fast asleep and snoring. So Stasia dragged herself out of bed, looked for her slippers, and stumbled to the phone.
‘Yes, damn it?’ she panted into the receiver.
‘Stasia?’
‘Christine?’
‘Are you well?’
‘Yes, I’m all right, how are things with you?’
‘I need your help.’
‘Why, what’s happ
ened?’
‘You have to help me.’
‘Spit it out!’
‘Miqa. Miqa.’
‘What is it this time?’
‘He was interrogated yesterday.’
‘Interrogated?’
‘Yes, the militsiya was here.’
‘Those bastards. What’s he done?’
‘He made a film.’
‘A film. What about?’
‘About … Sopio.’
‘What?!’
A heavy pause followed, a pause that felt as if it were about to burst and spill its entrails.
‘Yes, it was supposed to be his graduation film. He’s been working on it for over a year now. It all seemed to be going well at first …’
‘Is it that bad?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Talk to him. To Kostya. I hate myself for having to ask you, but it’s the only thing I can do for Miqa.’
There was a lump in Stasia’s throat, something furry and nauseating; her words disintegrated in her mouth before she was able speak them. There was so much she wanted to say to her little sister; but where were they, the words, or at least the tears — why did her wretched tears so often forsake her?
‘Stasia? Are you still there?’
‘It’s good to hear your voice, Christine.’
‘You have to help me.’
‘I’ll speak to him when he gets back.’
Stasia went out into the cool, damp dawn, violet and marsh-green. There was nothing that lasted, nothing that was stronger than an echo, nothing that didn’t run through your fingers, that didn’t wither. Night after night she had placed her dreams under her pillow, hoping for a miracle, and the miracle had never come to pass.
The Eighth Life Page 67