TOLSTOY
Daria held out longer and better than we had feared. Your mother was impressively brave. Right up to your birth, Brilka, she showed incredible strength, and managed to protect you and keep you away from all dangers and from the horror that surrounded her. She held out as long as she could. You have to understand that, Brilka.
I was astounded by her steely discipline, her unbroken will, and above all her love for this person who rewarded her only with his contempt, with verbal and physical torture and endless complaining. I don’t know where she found the strength to do it all. Anyone who offers themselves up as a sacrifice with open arms — I thought at the time — anyone who gives all they have will sooner or later be empty. After two complicated operations, which his parents even sold their apartment to fund (the procedures were carried out in Israel), Lasha was brought back to Tbilisi and the Green House for a long period of rehabilitation. The apartment on Vake Park had also been sold to pay off his debts. Paralysed from the waist down, he was in a lot of pain and dependent on expensive drugs. The doctors had not given up hope that one day he would walk again, provided the patient was strong-willed and had access to the latest medical techniques and a capable physiotherapist. But even if the two families had been able to drum up more money for treatment abroad, and had engaged the best physiotherapist in the country, you couldn’t have called this particular patient strong-willed.
I kept escaping to the city, to the library, or to Miro’s narrow bed. I was fleeing from myself, from the grim news that arrived every day from Abkhazia, from the images we had to reconcile ourselves to, would have to get used to from now on, the streams of refugees and the constantly rising death toll. The eyes of crying children and the charred ruins of houses. The women who had been raped. The bombed-out buildings. The calm sea; again and again, the calm sea. The evil Abkhazians, the good Georgians. The evil Georgians, the good Abkhazians. And the Russians; again and again, the Russians: the peacekeeping troops, the mediators — who were also the biggest provider of arms and training to the Abkhazians. The sixteen- or seventeen-year-olds brought in to fight by the Mkhedrioni and the National Guard, lured by fantastic promises of vague heroism, by weed — and, if that didn’t do it, heroin. The poor training and organisation of the Georgian army. Pushing forward and being forced back. The fire; fire, again and again: cars, houses, people burning. And the sea; again and again, the sea, calmly looking on as the horror unfolded.
We, who lived far from the battlefields and were only concerned with getting through the next day; we who were without work, without any prospects, any answers; we who had to worry every day about where we were going to get firewood, kerosene, candles, flour, sugar, butter, milk powder, learned to live with these images of the war, to repress them. We got used to the muffled shouts, a strange mixture of joy and rage, when the electricity came back on; we got used to it going off again and a muffled but unmistakeable groan running through the house; to hearing the government disparaged in ever-clearer terms in the city. But we also got used to the idea that the blue helmets, the UN troops, NATO, and the West, were not going to come and save us and defend us against evil Russia. Got used to the fatalistic thought that we Georgians would not succeed in pulling ourselves out of this swamp, either. No; we didn’t really believe that.
In this city of millions, everyone was soon acquainted with everyone else, because who knew: maybe they would come in useful for some kind of errand or purchase. Skinny hens, anchored with string, ran up and down the balconies of tower blocks. The street dogs multiplied at a rate of knots and roamed the streets at night in search of a little sustenance, howling like a pack of wolves.
We got used to everything.
We played dominoes, cards, board games, we told jokes, listened to one another in dark kitchens, living rooms, bedrooms, where we sat wrapped in thick blankets and clutching hot water bottles, in a silence that descended over the city like a bell jar as darkness fell. We remembered old stories, and rejoiced as never before when the winter was finally over and spring came, bringing warmth, lighter days, and a few less worries. We could eke out a box of matches forever, bake cakes with maize flour, and make ten different varieties of bean soup. And we could laugh at ourselves and our improvised solutions: at the Komsomol membership book with its Lenin’s head that was plugging a hole in the window, or the teapot that we wrapped in a woollen blanket to keep the tea warm for longer. We stopped listening to news of fresh robberies, break-ins, and murders. We were glad when the day was over and we were still alive. No, we didn’t want to think about the war raging in another part of our country, tearing our fathers, brothers, husbands, friends, neighbours, and acquaintances away from us and bringing them back maimed and traumatised or even in wooden coffins.
Everyone was afraid for someone. Everyone was missing a family member, a friend. And so we tiptoed around the war, closed our eyes. And when we had electricity, we watched the images of the war in Yugoslavia on television. It was strange: we took an interest in this foreign war; for a moment we were even grateful because it gave us a chance to forget our own.
We were living in a timeless time.
*
Daria’s belly started to show quite early on. The pregnancy didn’t make her blossom; she looked weary and haggard, as if she were saving up the last of her strength for the birth, after which she could finally submit to a process of decline that could no longer be staved off. Elene was worried about her. Kostya was worried about her. Nana, Stasia, Aleko — everyone was watching her, whispering and conferring behind her back. Nobody wanted this fate for her, but nobody dared to tell her that it might be time to think about a divorce, time to hand Lasha over to a hospital or at least to the ministrations of his parents.
The intoxicating aroma of hot chocolate woke me again in the night, and I went into the kitchen, where Stasia had baked three cake bases with the help of a gas canister and was sitting at the table smoking, when the raised voices of marital conflict started up again in Daria’s bedroom. Stasia stared into the distance, pretending not to hear what was going on in the other room. I contemplated just marching in there and suffocating my brother-in-law with a pillow. But I never went into the bedroom. No one did. We all looked through him as if he were a ghost.
Some days, I retired to the attic with my typewriter and wrote until the letters began to swim in front of my eyes. It didn’t matter now how well I wrote, or what I was writing; the main thing was to do it, to stop myself losing my mind, to forget, to transport myself to far-off times and other lives simply in order to escape my own.
My most important essay, which I had written by weak candlelight, was not accepted. I had probably paid too little attention to nationalist propaganda when I wrote my piece on ‘The Generalissimus — a Georgian’. My professor even thought it ‘tended towards treason’.
‘You must lack all conscience, Jashi!’ he reproached me. ‘To write like this in times like these, as if we didn’t have enough pressure from Russia. You’re studying history — my goodness, take a look around you! Look at the state your country is in. And you? You pour out this filth, now of all times, when the country is at war, when these Abkhazian and Ossetian traitors are crawling before the Russians, you can think of nothing better to do than pen this libellous piece of filth about your homeland? This doesn’t just insult me, as someone trying to educate you to be an objective person with an analytical mind — it insults all those young people risking their lives for your freedom —’
‘This war shouldn’t have been allowed to happen. It’s our refusal to engage frankly with ourselves as a nation, with what we are, that led to it. It was this total capriciousness, an unprincipled approach, a lack of diplomatic skill, a kind of thinking based on nothing but pure instinct, and blind patriotism that got us into this situation, if you ask me. And all I was trying to do in my essay was to understand why we’re stuck in this mess, and why nobody has thought to question these things!’
‘You have dared to call into question the fact that Russia —’
‘Russia, Russia. I hear this word all the time. Or America, or Europe, or whatever. When are we going to stop viewing ourselves through the eyes of a patron? When will we finally start looking in the mirror, without false sentimentality or pity, without this disgusting patriotism based on nothing but myths?’
‘Jashi, you’ve overstepped the mark!’
‘I’m just trying to expose how certain things are connected. Aren’t you sick of these endless glorifications and perpetual conspiracy theories as well?’
‘Audacity is not necessarily a quality to be proud of, Jashi! Imagine what would happen if an essay like this were to fall into the hands of someone in Moscow; what joy it would bring them to read that yes, we Georgians are traitors, we’re unprincipled, we’re —’
‘Perhaps we’re not entirely blameless in this whole mess, have you ever considered that?’
‘Well, it seems you have, and what glorious conclusions you have drawn. Bravo, Jashi! Bravo! You should apply for the Russian secret service.’
‘Russia, again; the KGB, again. You see, that’s exactly what I mean.’
‘You want the truth? The truth, do you? Why don’t you just go to Sokhumi and see with your own eyes what’s going on there. Go to Abkhazia and then report back — objectively, critically, instructively! If you don’t, I shall expect a complete rewrite of this essay.’
I was so filled with anger at my professor that I immediately decided to go to Abkhazia. I wanted to prove to this nationalistic idiot that I was right. I knew that I could never tell Miro what I had in mind, so I decided to search for a way to get there on my own. My plan seemed to me at once absurd and elitist, but I was stubborn. I would go there and see for myself how helpless our troops were, see the Russian ‘peacekeepers’ who were bringing tanks and munitions into the country by boat, the brutality of the Abkhazians, the brutality of the Georgians, the brutality of the Russians. I would see the indescribable conditions in which Georgian refugees were trekking on foot through the Svaneti mountains. Yes, I would stop closing my eyes to the apocalypse on the Black Sea. I would go there. I would write about it. The war was already everywhere. It was just a question of perspective: whether you encountered it with your eyes open or shut, I thought.
How stupid I was.
I set out for the Chess Palace, the headquarters where I had once gone to find The Shark. I found only a few Mkhedrioni still there. They had nothing left to drink, and the looks they gave me weren’t as self-assured and piercing as they had been before. When I asked after The Shark, one of the guards cleared his throat, scratched his head, and eventually said that The Shark had been killed last month in Gagra.
‘How?’
I don’t know why I wanted to know that.
‘Shot in the head. They didn’t have trenches.’
The man lowered his eyes.
I tried to imagine The Shark dead. What he had felt as he was hit. I couldn’t do it. The only thing I could think of was that beautiful house in Gagra, my games of backgammon with Rusa, and her blood in the bathroom. The sea; again and again, the dark, whispering sea that had no interest in whether we were at war or at peace. Half of the territory in Abkhazia was already in Abkhazian — and therefore in Russian — hands. The border with Russia was open. It was just Sokhumi left now. In December, the day before the arrival of 1994, Gamsakhurdia died in the mountains of Samegrelo, where he had been hiding with his followers. His wife confirmed that it was suicide, but for many years half the population maintained that he had died a hero’s death fighting the Mkhedrioni. And then, before I could go to the war, the war came to me.
I decided to find Cello. According to Miro, he had been turning up at the garage quite often recently, which meant he was in Tbilisi and not fighting. He could help me get to Abkhazia. Sure enough, people at the print works, which was still one of the Mkhedrioni’s bases, confirmed that he was in the city and would be there the following day. The next evening, I used the last of my petrol to drive to the print works, where I found a few familiar faces from the poker games. They all greeted me effusively. Cello, however, just shook my hand rather than hugging me like the rest of them. He offered me a chair and sat down opposite me.
‘The boys say you want to talk to me about something?’
His probing gaze made me just as uncomfortable as it had before, and I tried to appear as neutral as possible.
‘Well, yes. I thought you might be able to help me get to Abkhazia.’
‘Abkhazia? You?’ he asked in disbelief. ‘That’s a place you flee from; you don’t want to go there of your own free will, believe me.’
‘I know, but … I want to write about it, about everything that’s going on there, and I thought …’
‘So you write, do you? Any more hidden talents, Einstein?’
‘Well, I want to try.’
‘No, the boys are right: there’s no figuring you out.’
‘Can you help me?’ I asked, looking him in the eye this time. He paused for what seemed an eternity, scratched his bald head, and ran his tongue over his unnaturally red lips.
‘Can I help you. Hmm … I don’t know, Einstein. You never looked like someone who needed help.’
‘Everyone needs help sometimes.’
I was annoyed with myself for my submissive answer, but at that moment I couldn’t think of anything better to say.
‘I would have liked it if you’d needed something before. In the days when we used to play cards here, remember?’
‘Of course I remember. It was fun, wasn’t it?’
‘Fun. Hmm, fun. I don’t know. Depends who for, doesn’t it?’
I knew it. I’d known it at the time: he was a bad loser.
‘So …?’
‘So. Well, thinking about it, I could help you; sure I could. I have my ways. I could get you a press pass. Fifty dollars and you’ve got yourself a deal. But I need to have my fun as well, right? I need to get something out of this as well, don’t you agree?’
‘Come on, what do you want?’
‘Well, we could play a game. I’ve got a hundred dollar note on me. That must be enough of an incentive for you, right? I haven’t played in a long time, and the boys are itching for a game as well. The ones who are left, that is. So, boys: a game of poker?’ he yelled out, not taking his eyes off me. An enthusiastic murmur came back in response.
‘I don’t have any money.’
‘Oh, we won’t let that stop us. Like I said, I’ve got a hundred.’
‘But what if I lose?’
‘Oh, come on, you never lose. You don’t need to worry about that.’
‘Yes I do. So, what if I lose?’
‘Then I get a kiss, and I get to stroke your left breast, with no material in the way, if you get my meaning.’
I don’t know which took me aback more: the cold precision of his idea, or the fact that he even had such a fantasy about me.
‘One kiss, and one touch of my breast?’ I asked.
‘That’s right.’
‘And then you’ll sort out the press pass for me?’
‘That’s right.’
‘And what if I win?’
‘Then you get a hundred dollars and the press pass as well.’
‘Agreed.’
‘I knew my offer wouldn’t scare you away. That’s why you’re Einstein, and not just some random girl, right?’
‘Then find some cards and get the boys over here.’
It was a nerve-wracking game. From somewhere they produced a full bottle of chacha, and I was so nervous that for once I joined in the drinking. Everyone emptied their pockets and laid notes and coins on the makeshift card table. Everyone except me. Even as we were playing I had a creeping sense of doubt about how serious his offer was, and it also quickly bec
ame clear to me that my lucky streak had run out that day. Stubborn as I was, though, I kept playing, spurred on by the idea of getting to the battlefield and bagging myself a hundred dollars to boot.
We played as if possessed. With the utmost concentration, and literally everything at stake. But there was nothing I could do with the cards I was dealt. I tried to escape unscathed, but even the best bluffs didn’t help me win a hand.
Of course I lost. Of course he won.
I still clung to the idea that he was just going to grope my almost non-existent breast and stick his tongue down my throat. I’d been through worse. Fortunately, he didn’t celebrate his luck in the game as ostentatiously as he had before, on the odd occasions when he managed to outsmart me. He didn’t make a big deal of it; he just stood up at the end and asked the boys to leave us alone, saying we had something to take care of. I wasn’t happy about this; we could just have gone into one of the other rooms.
Before long, they had all said their goodbyes, slapping me on the shoulder and hugging me, and Cello and I were alone together. He carried on drinking. Suddenly I thought of Miro. What would he say about this absurd and humiliating scheme? I felt ashamed. But a player always pays his debts. One way or another. I tried to look calm and composed.
When the bottle was empty, he turned his probing eyes on me and asked if we should make good on the promise. I got up and planted myself in front of him, unbuttoned my shirt, doing everything with deliberate, mechanical movements, and stood there topless before him. He bent down and pressed his full, blood-red lips to my mouth. He tasted bitter, of alcohol and something else that at the time I couldn’t put into words, but would now call brutality. Even though the whole thing seemed incredible and repulsive to me and I couldn’t get Miro’s face out of my head; even though I now saw myself as stupid and naive to want to travel to the heart of a nightmare and assume I could find some form of truth there; even though I was already cursing my professor and realising that I would never voluntarily go to a warzone, that I was grateful not to be among the hundreds of thousands of Georgians forced to flee over the Caucasian mountain passes, risking their lives in the freezing cold — despite all this, at that point I still wasn’t frightened. Not of this cold, emotionless man mechanically kissing me, this man who thought he was humiliating me by putting me in this situation, taking his revenge for the fact that he had lost to me so often in the past. At that point, I still thought I would soon be able to leave the room and hurry back to Miro, confess my absurd plan to him, and apologise for being arrogant and over-estimating myself. But then he grasped my other breast as well and squeezed it so hard I flinched with pain. What if he didn’t keep his promise? We were alone. It was late. The print works were in the basement of an old, empty newspaper building. I tensed and tried not to let him feel the fear that was rising within me.
The Eighth Life Page 101