The Eighth Life

by Nino Haratischwili

  *

  Christine did in fact tell her about the whole situation; more than this, she voiced her suspicion that Kostya was behind the state’s excessive interest in Miqa. Elene sat staring into the black tea in disbelief, her cheek propped on her fist, desperately racking her brains. But before she could say anything, they heard the front door open and Miqa’s slow, heavy steps. He walked into the living room, where he paused for a moment in the doorway at the sight of Elene and gave Christine a quizzical look, as if considering beating a hasty retreat. She beckoned him over and he joined them at the table, but made no attempt to kiss Elene in greeting.

  ‘Did you call the Jashis?’ he called to Christine, who had gone to the kitchenette to warm up his lunch.

  ‘No, I came of my own accord,’ said Elene.

  ‘Aha. You thought: poor Miqa, I have to see with my own eyes just how deep in the shit he is?’

  ‘You have to give back the film,’ she said, not responding to his hostility.

  ‘Oh, and who asked for your opinion?’

  A threatening ‘Miqa!’ came from the kitchen.

  ‘What? Why should I follow her advice?’

  ‘Because it isn’t her advice, it’s all our advice!’

  Why couldn’t she just say: ‘Kostya has probably had my closest friends arrested, too. Kostya will take his revenge on you, and all because I was too much of a coward to distance myself from my false truth. A truth that — damn it, Miqa! — doesn’t exist, or a truth that I don’t know!’ Why had she come here? For this! To warn him about her father. Perhaps this was what it had been about all along? All her eavesdropping and spying: she believed her father capable of the worst and expected him to take things to the limit. Knowing all the while that she had given him permission to do so. She had caused Kostya to neutralise Miqail, Beqa, and, yes, above all Miqa, the eternal thorn in his side, in the belief that doing so would mean she, Elene, was out of danger.

  Elene had wanted to cut herself off from him, to bite through the umbilical cord with her teeth, an umbilical cord that had bound her not to her mother but to him, and still did.

  Why couldn’t she stand up and yell out what she was thinking so that the whole world could hear it: Yes, I’m the gunpowder in Kostya’s rifle. I am his right hand. I am the firing squad. I am his boss. I, I, I am his war, the war he is constantly fighting against the wrong enemy. It’s me. Yes, I am being punished; for a long time I thought punishment had passed me by, but I am being punished, so hard, so suitably; yes, really, suitably. Because everything I say turns into a bullet, a bullet for him to load into his gun. Kostya will pursue you to the limit. Not because you did something to me, but because I wanted you to do something to me. I always thought I had to punish my whole family for letting you have the life at their side that should have been mine, but it’s not true, it’s completely untrue, I’ve understood that, Miqa, I know it now. It was never about that. I wanted to punish you because you drove me away. Because you didn’t need me as I did you.

  Because you didn’t go sniffing like a hound for traces of me when you returned to the house after the holidays, the house I had to leave again when you arrived. Because you had no need of me. How I hated your vain, poetry-infected, gloomy self-sufficiency! How I hated your melancholic passions that had nothing to do with me, that never involved me at all!

  No, no, it wasn’t jealousy of the grown-ups that made me compete with you; it was jealousy of the grown-ups because they had you and I didn’t. Because they were around you and I wasn’t. Because you were here, and I was there.

  I don’t know you, I don’t even know what kind of person you are. I don’t know why you let people destroy your belief in the world so easily. I don’t know whether you prefer raspberry or strawberry jam, Miqa, but I wanted to know that and many other things as well. But you always made it clear to me that I was unworthy of your dreams and wishes, that I didn’t deserve your affection. Yet I put up with it all, I left everything to you, I left my whole world behind for you and went away.

  Why wasn’t it enough for you?

  Why couldn’t you at least have pretended to me, that wretched afternoon, that you liked me — a little, just a tiny little bit? Why did you have to display all your scorn, all your disgust, with such brutality? Why did you have to make it so blatantly obvious that even when I was offered up to you, gift-wrapped, I still wasn’t worthy of your acceptance?

  Tell me, admit it to me at last, yell it out: tell me how much you’ve hated me, all your life. How fervently you’ve wished me dead — totally, utterly annihilated! How hard you’ve tried all your life to suppress this hatred. To play the good, docile, perfect boy, the victim! Please, do me that favour, release me, say it to my face, do it, Miqa —

  ‘I want my child to be able to be proud of me one day!’

  Miqa was arguing with Christine. Elene, who had been lost in thought, was suddenly wide awake.

  ‘Your child?’

  ‘Yes, my child!’ snapped Miqa defiantly.

  ‘I didn’t know … I’m sorry,’ she murmured.

  ‘How would you have known?’

  ‘Is it the woman from Mtskheta?’

  Why did she feel so defenceless, so stupid? What had become of all her intentions?

  ‘The woman from Mtskheta? Yes, that’s the one. Her name’s Lana, by the way!’

  ‘Miqa, calm down, please. I won’t have you using that tone!’ Christine planted herself in front of him. His expression changed abruptly. Suddenly he was his old, obedient self, the melancholy, docile Miqa of his childhood. She put her arm around his shoulders, as if to remind him of who he was, what was at stake. What … Yes, this was precisely what was at stake. This round wooden table, where he had just sat down again, because she wanted him to; her butter biscuits, the black tea, not too hot, not too cold, with a slice of lemon. This life with her, this self-contained life with this old, veiled woman, stoically defying her age in her tight-fitting dress. Yes, this was what it came down to; but something had gone awry.

  And once again Elene saw the absolute harmony between the two of them that had brought tears to her eyes all those years ago, in Christine’s old house on Vera Hill, when she had sat on the branch of a tree and secretly spied into Christine’s bedroom without being able, at the time, to understand what she saw. The way he had combed her hair, the way he had gazed at her, with such adoration. Wasn’t she too old to receive such looks? How scandalous, how provocative this picture had seemed to her then. And it had been precisely this intimacy, the self-assurance with which she put her arm around his shoulders, the knowledge of something that could not, must not, be named, that had brought the tears to her eyes.

  ‘I’m happy for you both.’

  Elene’s voice was barely audible. All of a sudden she wanted to get away, to flee; she didn’t want to be at the mercy of these feelings any more, they were hardening into a lump in her throat. She didn’t want to know anything any more, didn’t want to look for any more answers. It would all be so much easier if she could accept the way things were and just carry on.

  And yes, she should have said to him: ‘Flee, drop everything and get out of here, stay away from me, stay away from Christine, stay away from all that reminds you of my family, start all over again, start your own story, go, run, forget your film and the past and that afternoon, and think of your child, a child with another woman who shielded you from blows for which I was responsible — don’t ever look back again!’ But could she say it to him?

  No: she would let him walk, fall, into the abyss. Because it still felt so good to see him wrestle with himself, with his inability to become what he wanted to be. Yes, my friend, we’ll walk this path to the end together, together, my Miqa! And all because it felt so good to see that he had not got what he wanted, either, when he ignored her pain and numbed his desires and pressed her body under his, and made clear to her with every secon
d of it that she was not worth loving.

  Whoever wants to help the waverers must first stop wavering himself.

  VLADIMIR LENIN

  In July, Miqa was arrested and charged. Just three days earlier, in a dark brown suit that was decidedly too warm, he had paid a visit to the Tbilisi registry office with Lana — wearing a smart, cream-coloured two-piece suit and a white rose in her hair — and two film school friends who still dared to act as witnesses, and had married the mother of his child.

  The charge against him was ‘misappropriation of state property’, and he was also accused of ‘anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda’. He was initially taken into custody in Ortachala. The trial date was set for the late autumn, and a special commission was set up to track down the film reels. Both Christine’s apartment and Andro’s house were searched. As the footage seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth, the lawyer gave neither Christine nor Lana any hope that Miqa would be released any time soon, because as long as the film reels were just a dangerous rumour, the state prosecutor could assume they did indeed contain something truly outrageous. He was also able to imply that the accused had shown an unwillingness to cooperate, which made his situation even worse.

  When handing over a peredacha — the name given to packages smuggled to inmates by bribing the prison staff — the intermediary Christine had engaged was struck by the alarming state Miqa was in. The boy looked terrible, he said. Apparently he was having difficulty coping with life in jail; the other prisoners, most of them the worst sort of criminals, were giving him a very hard time; he was suffering from the unspeakable conditions: in short, the boy was not someone who could handle prison, and they had to get him out of there as fast as possible; he was at risk of both mental and physical breakdown.

  *

  ‘I think I made a mistake.’ Lana didn’t dare raise her eyes, didn’t dare look at him directly. In the visitors’ room the guard stood leaning against the wall, wheezing and trying to look as absent as possible. She leaned towards him across the scratched table.

  ‘What are you trying to say?’

  Even his voice had changed. As if it had renounced all interest in the outside world.

  ‘You’ve got to get out of here! It’s imperative, Miqa. Christine’s right. You’re not someone who can cope with a place like this.’

  But before her lips could form another sentence, Miqa sat upright on his chair, shifted a little closer to her, and whispered: ‘No way. Whatever happens, you will do nothing. Do you understand me? We’re going to see this through to the end.’

  ‘To the end? We’re about to have a baby!’

  ‘You knew that back then!’

  ‘I don’t want to take the blame for this.’

  ‘Do as I tell you. That’s all I want from you. I’d rather you told me what they think of me. Have you talked to the others? What are the lecturers saying?’

  His face lit up for a moment. As if that was what mattered. As if none of this counted — his current state, his misery, his fear — only the opinion others had of him.

  ‘They … they think you’re a hero. They’ve even started a petition. The whole institute is up in arms. They’ve plastered your photo all over the building. They’re planning to send an open letter to the public prosecutor’s office. Even some of the lecturers are standing with the students and saying it’s absurd to arrest you over a film that doesn’t exist.’

  She didn’t know herself why she told him this. Perhaps because he wanted to hear it; it gave him the strength to endure it all. Because she was exaggerating: there were no photos of him, the petition had come to nothing, and the few lecturers who had initially supported him had been keeping their mouths shut since he’d been taken into custody. She had to keep this hope alive for him; but the more her belly swelled beneath her clothes, the more she despaired, the more senseless the whole undertaking seemed to her. The less she understood herself.

  She’d tried to make contact with the film collective to get some moral support, but no one wanted to talk to her. People kept their distance, hung up when she called yet again. How could she ever have believed that his absence would be easier for her to bear than his lack of courage, his giving up? That she would rather have a director at her side than a father for her child?

  *

  Stasia had already laid the table and was waiting for her guests with great excitement.

  ‘I’ve persuaded him. He’s going to sit down with us. He’ll hear you,’ she whispered to her sister and Andro as they passed. He’ll hear you! It took all of Christine’s self-restraint to bite back a caustic remark. He’ll hear you! As if he were the lord of the manor and they his serfs.

  The table they sat at was laid as if for a feast. Nana had taken the children to Vake Park, and Elene was wandering around somewhere down in the village.

  After about half an hour, Kostya appeared in his dressing gown with a thick scarf wound about his neck. He nodded absently to them both. No handshake, no embrace. Better that way, thought Christine. She patted Andro’s hand under the table. Andro had come to town from the village at Christine’s behest especially for this meeting. The sight of him filled Christine with alarm. He had gone bald, only his magnificent beard glowed white, and you couldn’t miss the schnapps blotches on his cheeks. The hard skin on his hands was covered in boils — the price for his loyal devotion, for all the many heads of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

  ‘Apologies for my appearance. I can’t seem to shake this flu; it’s very annoying.’ Kostya took a seat at the table. As if what he was wearing was the most important thing about this meeting.

  The silence weighed heavily on them. Stasia’s attempts at family small talk got nowhere. Andro pushed the food around his plate, and Christine seemed to have lost her appetite as well; she, too, held back while Stasia blathered something about the four village girls who had recently started coming to her for ballet lessons. Kostya sat stiffly at the end of the table, leaning back in his chair, like an observer of the scene who had been forbidden to contribute or intervene in any way. It was Christine who finally spoke up and began to voice her thoughts and suspicions about what had happened to Miqa.

  The thin crust of civilised behaviour was soon scratched away and primitive energies released: an unimagined delight in destruction and relish for self-sabotage. They battered each other with words, fired sentences, wounded with revelations. And soon the forbidden name could no longer be avoided: the ghost of Kitty was invoked, and a bonfire of memories lit in her honour. They vied for her love; they threw the scraps of all their memories into a magician’s hat and mixed them together. And this feast of terrible memories would have been allowed to rage much longer if Kostya had not abandoned the path of conjecture and yelled out, in a threatening voice, one fact that massacred all others and turned Andro’s grief for one son into a tragedy of two.

  ‘You talk about her as if it were a logical consequence that my sister had to go away, that she couldn’t go on living here! As if she made a free decision to leave us and her country! Have you ever thought about the life she would have had if you hadn’t betrayed your homeland and she hadn’t been carrying your son in her belly?’

  Andro didn’t understand. He had reached the limits of his physical capacity some time earlier, as no alcoholic drinks were on offer; he waggled his head like a Vanka Vstanka roly-poly toy, scratched his beard, and looked to Stasia for help. He searched for words, stammered. His ignorance was painful to behold. Kostya, coughing, also looked around him in surprise. Christine wondered whether he really was unaware that, after all these years, Andro still didn’t know, was still groping in the dark, or whether he had planned this revenge. Would he pull the emergency brake and bring the train to a halt before it hurtled into the abyss? Seconds later, though, Kostya had shaken off his momentary puzzlement, and continued, undeterred.

  ‘Andro — you must have wondered, didn’t yo
u?’ He seemed to be making a huge effort to restrain himself, as words like ‘parasite’, ‘traitor’, ‘bastard’, and ‘deserter’ did not fall from his lips once that afternoon. He had opted for a crueller weapon: incontrovertible facts.

  ‘You were irresponsible enough to believe the Nazis were our future. And that’s why they abducted your beloved, and her child —’

  ‘Kostya, please!’

  Christine’s voice was tentative, as if she weren’t sure whether to stop her nephew or let him go on speaking. But while she was still grappling with her indecision, Kostya had already decided. He wanted finally to break his feeble yet tenacious enemy.

  ‘They aborted the child — the child you planted in her womb with no thought of what it means to be a man, to bear responsibility for your wife and child, to protect them — even, if necessary, to protect them from yourself. Instead, you threw yourself so pitifully into the role of abused victim that others had no option but to bear that burden in your place!’

  How skilfully Kostya placed every emphasis, every pause. As if he had been practising for this conversation all his life. An eerie silence fell, broken only by the ticking of the clock. You could practically hear the grass outside breathing.

  *

  Andro had followed Christine up to the Green House in the hope that Kostya would get his son out of the place he had sent him to. His life would surely have continued as imperceptibly as it had for years, indifferent, quiet, and brooding, leaving tracks he carefully obliterated behind him in the sure and certain belief that nothing in his life was worthy of preservation.

  Perhaps he could not have prevented anything; could not, with his scabbed palms, have protected anything; perhaps he would not even have managed to convince his son that his life, at least, was worth preserving. But he would have tried — with what strength he had left he would have tried, if this atrocity, buried in a schoolyard long ago, had not robbed him of his last remaining shreds of empathy and the ability to battle through each day simply by continuing to exist.