MODERN GEORGIAN NOVEL

Novel Irakli Samsonadze Tamaz Chiladze Lasha Tabukashvili Shorena Lebanidze Irakli Kakabadze Zviad Kvaratskhelia

Novel INTELEKTI publishing

Authors Irakli Samsonadze

Tamaz Chiladze

Lasha Tabukashvili

Shorena Lebanidze

Irakli Kakabadze

Zviad Kvaratskhelia

Nino Sadghobelashvili

05

Irakli Samsonadze

18

Tamaz Chiladze

40

Lasha Tabukashvili

58

Shorena Lebanidze

70

Irakli Kakabadze

Zviad Kvaratskhelia

96

84 Nino Sadghobelashvili

Irakli Samsonadze

Irakli Samso

onadze Irakil Samsonadze was born in 1961.

In 1983 he graduated from the journalistic department of the Tbilisi State University.

His first play ‘At Midnight’ was published in the magazine ‘Khelovneba’ (‘Art’) in 1985.

Published books:

‘The Triptich’ (plays, 2000); ‘Suburb’ (stories, 2003); ‘A Turkey’s Egg’ (2010).

Publishing House Intelekti published Irakli Samsonadze’s trilogy ‘Leah’s Time’ (2010), ‘A Cushion’ (2012), ‘The cloud called Darinda’(2012) and collection of short stories ‘Frightened Street’ (2013).

‘A Cushion’ was sold to Antares Publishing house, Armenia (2014).

About 15 plays by Irakli Samsonadze were staged in all the operating theaters in Georgia.

Awards: State prize in literature (the collection of plays ‘The Triptich’, 2001) The literary prize ‘Kvali’ (for the short novel ‘A Cushion’, 2002).

The literary prize ‘Saba’ for the monopoly ‘Granny Mariam, or a Traditional Georgian Festive Table’ (2003).

The first prize of the competition of Mikheil Tumanishvili foundation ‘A New Georgian Play’ (for the play ‘A Clinical Marriage’, 2010).

The literary prize ‘Saba’ for prose collection ‘Frightened Street’ (2013).

IRAKLI SAMSONADZE

The cushion

8 Irakli Samsonadze

THE CUSHION Novel. Georgian. 136 pages Published: 2012 Rights held: World Rights Rights sold to Armenia (Antares Publishing, 2014)

Irakli Samsonadze’s novel covers the last decade of the 20th century, the time when bureaucracy and profiteering boomed in povertystricken Georgia.

The protagonist of the novel is a writer who sees himself as a respectable member of the society of the has-beens. The reality of those years looked something like this: the taxi driver – a former builder, the company owner – a former doctor, the politician – a former athlete, the merchant – a former farmer, the petty smuggler – a writer once upon a time.

The Cushion narrates about the people and the country buried under the empire ruins. The novel describes a whole range of human emotions, recalls numerous significant events of the recent past, all told following the flow of life.

Original in its form, the one-paragraph novel renders the reality of the post-Soviet Georgia in a truthful and objective way, without undue embellishments. It is regarded as one of the most authentic and reliable piece of fiction written about the 1990s.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by ELIZABETH HEIGHWAY

...Writer. A writer needs to write. Big-time smugglers need that predatory spirit just as much as they need a loyal fence and a load of money. Petty smugglers need a stack of two-lari notes to hand out to guys manning checkpoints who really can’t be bothered. After the war Vakho sold his semi-automatic and rented a stall at the market. Abkhazia wasn’t Vakho’s first war. Before that there was Tskhinvali. Then came the war in Tbilisi. Then Abkhazia. It was after the third war that Vakho sold his gun. ‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘I’ve fought all the wars I’m going to fight. I’m not cut out for it, anyway. Let’s see if I’m any better at selling stuff.’ He said I should give it a go too. I said no. Why? I don’t know. I couldn’t tear myself away from the TV. Then Vakho gave up the stall and started bringing in soft drinks and beer from Turkey. He said I should give it a go. I said no then too. ‘Your brain’s going to turn to mush watching that thing all day,’ Vakho told me. ‘That’s what I’m hoping,’ I answered. He helped me out from time to time. He never left money around for Ketino to see. She worked it out for herself. He’d just slip the money into my pocket. Then he’d let out a breath. A long breath. Long. As though he was breathing his heart right out of his chest. Vakho can’t get enough air. When he feels overwhelmed Vakho’s heart cries out for more. His heart. His kidney. You can get by without a kidney well enough.

Work’s so exhausting. Hopalong Nana. We offered her a kidney each, me and Vakho. Yes. I tried to sell my flesh to Hopalong Nana. In Maxim’s friend’s cafe I tried sell my soul. Ten years back. Or twelve. Ten or twelve. Roughly. Vakho loses interest in things so quickly. He lost interest in importing soft drinks and beer. He suggested we rent somewhere out and open a garage. I agreed. We sold Ketino’s piano. It broke Ketino’s heart, but she came round. Ketino really wanted me to get off my backside and do something. I was doing something.

The garage on a dark winter’s morning. Old car tyres for chairs. A low table. On the table - playing cards covered in car oil. Dominoes, too. White. Holes filled black with grime and oil. Tapping. Banging. Creaking. Me sitting cross-legged on a tyre. A black winter’s day outside. Watch TV, or watch the black winter’s day. That’s how it was for a while. Vakho told me we wouldn’t take a penny for ourselves until we’d bought Ketino a piano. We bought one. Not bad. Ketino liked it. ‘I’ll teach,’ Ketino said. ‘Now that I’ve managed to get my husband out of the house I really should teach.’ And she did. And shut the door on me. That monotonous tap-tap-tap on the keys. Frayed nerves. Me in the kitchen, on a chair. Ketino’s teaching voice from the other room: ‘Let’s begin, then. Minuet.’

D... E... D... E... D... E... D... C... A... A... Frayed. Nerves. The noise of the workshop is better. Another workshop opened nearby. Then a second. Then a third.

Vakho told me we should cut our losses and try smuggling instead. So Vakho and I became petty smugglers. Vakho believed with one job he’d be raking it in.

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Raking it in. I raked it in. We’ll be raking it in. What a strange expression. Well, wherever it came from it stuck. Yes. It stuck. Time’s in-and-out breath. Time’s essence. Time’s spirit expressed in a word. Me and Vakho in a car. Vakho at the wheel. Me in the passenger seat. ‘We’ll bloody well show them. We’ll be raking it in,’ says Vakho. And then he lets out a breath. A long breath. Long. His heart is soothed. He leans far forward. As if he’s trying to wrap himself around the wheel. He jams his foot on the accelerator. The maroon Lada picks up on Vakho’s feelings. It starts to howl. Vakho is mad. Possessed. He can’t even see what’s happening right in front of him. An accident. Several near misses. Vakho’s had many near misses. He doesn’t escape completely unscathed. But he does escape. Me and Vakho in Sokhumi. Vakho’s wearing military uniform.

He’s holding a rifle. Tattered trousers. He sees me. Cocks his rifle. He smiles at me. Lets off a burst of gunshot into the sky. ‘We’re going to win, goddam it!’ We lost. I sat staring at the TV for a long time. What was my existence. My grandmother’s flat. The plane-tree next to the small iron balcony. In winter I can’t see the tree. In early spring I see it. I see it all year round except in winter. We sold one flat and bought two more. Close to each other. Mum took the one-bedroom.

Me, Ketino and the boy had the two-bedroom. There was some money left over. I wanted us to live together. Over my dead body, said Mum. ‘Let me have some peace and quiet in my old age,’ said Mum. ‘Please, just let me have some peace and quiet.’ It’s not what Mum really wants, but Mum would never admit it. Mum’s stubborn. And I’m tired. Then Ketino went a bit funny. As if she was staring intently into the distance. I don’t like it when Ketino’s like that. Ketino probably doesn’t like it when Ketino’s like that either. She wanted Mum around to help out. That’s what all women want at the end of the day. Some get their wish, some don’t, but it’s what they all want it. Mum knew as much. She made sure we knew it. We’d tired her out and she wanted a rest. From us. I know what’s needed, but I’m exhausted before the day has even begun. That’s probably why I turned to petty smuggling. Vakho at the wheel. Me in the passenger seat. ‘We should have gone the same route as the minibus,’ remarks Vakho.

He’s so right, I say. It’s not too late, says Vakho. I’m supposed to nod, show I agree, urge him on. Vakho needs me to urge him on. So yes, I urge him on. We stocked up on two-lari notes before we left Tbilisi. We threw our bags and a threadbare old sack into the truck and set off for Ergneti. When we get to Ergneti market me and Vakho are going to buy grain. Cartons of cigarettes. Pasta.

Sugar. Corned beef. We’ll fill our bags and our sack with goods. We’ll load up the truck. We’ll drive back to Tbilisi. We’ll hand out some 2-lari notes to guys manning checkpoints who really can’t be bothered. We’ll split the goods among the stalls in the farm market and we’ll split our profits 50-50. Three identical stalls. Identical goods on identical shelves. Leila. Maka. Darejan. Darejan has downy hair all over her pudgy cheeks. Maka is unhealthily thin. Very independent. Tormented by her independence. Leila is pure. Plump. Like a bun soaked in milk. Loud. Cunning. She seems sweet enough, but she wants something from you. She’s too practical not to. Leila’s always showing off in front of Vakho.

Vakho knows that Leila has that cunning streak. He knows she wants something from him. That’s why he steers clear. Although, who knows, maybe that’s just how it seems to me. No. That’s how it is. If anything was going on Vakho would let me know. On the journey from Tbilisi to Ergneti, or from Ergneti to

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Tbilisi. He would steer the subject round to Leila and wait for me to ask: ‘Is something going on with you two?’ He wouldn’t answer, just press down even harder on the gas. That would tell me everything I needed to know. An unknown woman. A pounding heart yearning for closeness. I yearned for her. She was far away. Ketino. My Ketino. That body I knew so well. Me and Ketino on a wintery night. Ketino has already put the boy to bed. Ketino pours hot water into an empty Coca Cola bottle. The plastic bottle folds in on itself. It crumples at the waist. Makes a tortuous sound. Ketino holds the bottle by the lid. She turns it upside down. She touches it, testing. Then she presses it against her chest and comes over to me. Ketino’s familiar body, which in winter I struggle to recall. I try to remember, to slip off her thick shirt, to remember. Ketino’s whisper: ‘Wait, it’s cold.’ Ketino, scrunched down under the rough blanket pulled up to her chin.

Under the blanket my hands, creeping about, trying to bring Ketino’s body to mind. Condensation on the inside of the blanket from the hot Coca Cola bottle.

The blanket seems even more rough. Ketino gives her body to me from the navel down. My thigh against Ketino’s naked thighs. Heat in such cold. Heat from Ketino’s nakedness from the navel down. From the anticipation of our union. Knowing I can flick her switch. Turn her on. Heat from our desire. The blanket against my back. Ketino’s heat. Ketino’s eyes shrouded in darkness.

She holds tight onto the edge of the blanket to stop the draught. And now yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Like that. Feeling one’s own flesh grow ready. Yes. Yes. A bit more. That liberating moan, so close. Yes. And then fulfilment. Strength drains. It’s over. The winter’s night swallows our room. Ketino and I go back into the sensation of our own bodies. Ketino in her shirt. Like a spectre Ketino moves towards the bathroom. Me on the bed in the silence of the night. All expectation gone. Ketino’s rapid steps towards the bed. Ketino scrunched down under the blanket pulled up to her chin. Oooooh. It’s cold. She is separate.

Free, like one who’s paid her dues. Ketino. And me, too. On cold winter nights, amid the sounds people make when their switches are flicked, Ketino and I pay our marital dues. No. On cold winter nights Ketino and I feel the pain of our marital dues. On nights when we do not make love, we feel the pain of a night that ends without love. And when we do make love we feel the pain of making love only to pay our dues. Maybe that was why we invented the game. No. Not invented it, invited it. No. Resorted to it. Famous people beginning with M. Maupassant, I say. Mozart, says Ketino. Michelangelo. Merimee. Modigliani, Marquez, Mikoyan. Mikoyan? Who the hell’s Mikoyan? You’ve never heard of Mikoyan? You’ve made him up! We laugh. We sort it out. She gives in. Or I give in. Moliere. Maradona. Miller. Monroe. Mastroiani. Mazinho. Matisse. Manet.

Monet. When one says Manet, the other one says Monet. Of course, because Manet always leads to Monet. I’m calmed by Ketino’s voice. I’m calmed by the fact that someone somewhere made their mark on the world and a husband and wife wrapped in the rough blanket of existence remember their name. My eyelids are growing heavy. I go to sleep. I’ve had this dream several times before. A tiny robin sits perched on the spine of a large animal. I can’t even tell what kind of animal it is. A rhino, maybe. Or some kind of dinosaur. It has light green skin which in places is torn open to show dead, white flesh. Only a bit.

Flesh hangs off its stomach. Off its legs. On its head, sides and backbone there’s nothing left at all. The bird has a razor-sharp hooked beak. The beak is

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out of proportion to the body. It sits there on the flesh-stripped backbone of this large beast, not moving, only preening itself from time to time. It’s so strange, this lively little robin sitting on the corpse of the beast. Strange and exhausting.

Exhausting because it makes no sense. There’s no explanation. And yet the dream shines stubbornly through from the depths of the darkness. Maybe it’s a vision, a dreadful vision that follows me around and reminds me of myself. I had this vision at the rubbish tip too. Vision, dream, whatever you call it. I had it at my mother’s house. Yes. Mum. Mum came round yesterday. My mother made my boy a little cushion. They took themselves off somewhere to be alone. He called me: ‘Look what Granny made me!’ A little cushion, hand-sewn by a woman half-crippled with arthritis. Flashes of joy from the boy’s warm eyes. The boy.

He is ill. Either he gave me the flu or I gave it to him. Ketino and the boy are asleep, side by side. The cupboard. Handkerchiefs in the cupboard. I need to get one. I’ll go in quietly. I need to get a handkerchief. A cigarette between my fingers. I’m already on my second. When did I start a second cigarette. I can’t remember. Smoking is a habit, and habits sneak by unnoticed more than anything. A stub in the ashtray. An ember, clinging to the stub, goes out. Muscles in motion. Muscles filled with painful weakness. I feel cold. I must have caught a chill. Flu. The kitchen door. Out into the narrow corridor. Five steps. The sixth goes unfinished. Cold fingers on cold iron. The creak of the door. Sh! Quiet!

Darkness behind closed curtains. I wait for my eyes to adjust. They adjust. Ketino and the boy have the same look of calm on their faces. Distant memories.

Silent sadness. Sadness in the dark of a room behind closed curtains. Cupboard. Door. Creaking. Sh! Quiet! Ketino and the boy have the same look of calm on their faces. Handkerchiefs on the top shelf of the cupboard. I take two.

Dry. Clean. Into my pocket. The door can stay open. Out of the room on tiptoe.

Fingers on cold iron. Careful with the handle. Into the narrow corridor. Two steps. Handkerchief out of my pocket. Bone. Pain. Towards the kitchen. Handkerchief to my nose. Flu germs expelled from my body. Pain in my sinuses. Air starts to flow through my nostrils again. Handkerchief into my pocket. Fridge. In the fridge - vodka. Vodka and garlic to fight the flu. Who thought that one up.

Some drunk, probably. It doesn’t matter. By the fridge. Fridge door. Two fingers round the neck of the bottle. Check the bottle. More than half. Corned beef. Still some left. The electricity’s out. So’s the gas. Garlic. It must be in the kitchen.

Kitchen door. Into the kitchen. Bottle on the table. Drawer. Garlic. Tiredness in the joints. This morning started with wants and needs. The bread’s stale. Bread money. Leila. Maka. Darejan. Sack on my back. Exhaustion. Came from afar. It stayed with me. We travelled together, exhaustion and me. Now we’re in the kitchen. We peel the garlic. We separate the cloves of the peeled garlic. We throw the skin into the rubbish bin. It’s cold outside. It’s winter. From my window - a bridge. Bare trees. Pavements wet from melted snow. An occasional car speeds down. The heady smell of garlic. Garlic and vodka. I’ll buy some chewing gum. Gum. Cool mint. Ketino. Her husband starts drinking first thing. My wife’s expression when she comes into the kitchen. No. When she catches me out. Something must be wrong if the mornings are starting like this. Hopelessness. Not her. Me. The child is too ashamed to go to school. Why is he ashamed.

He’s supposed to take some money in for the school fund. I try to think of something funny. A story. An anecdote. Just something. It doesn’t matter what. I try

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so hard it hurts. I remember one. I tell him. He doesn’t laugh. I’m annoyed.

Ketino’s unrelenting coldness annoys me. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it.

He doesn’t get it. The laugh I gave when I told the story now seems so fake and feeble. I feel offended. I get more annoyed. It’s on days like this that me and Ketino fight. Tense faces. Words we hurl. Fear in the eyes of my boy. It sobers me up. I avoid his gaze. Sometimes I cannot calm her down. Preparations for the New Year. Ketino decorates the artificial tree. Ketino has very old toys.

They’ve probably got sentimental meaning. Every year me and Ketino add two or three new toys to the old toys. It makes the boy happy, finding the new ones.

Ketino’s been in a mood all day. She’s looking for a fight. I can feel it. She’s looking for a fight because the fridge is bare. But I’ll come up with something.

By hook or by crook, on New Year’s Eve I always manage to rustle up a little feast. But Ketino is agitated. That’s why she’s looking for a fight. I can’t get away from her. Something keeps me pinned to the armchair. Maybe it’s the desire to cheat winter just for one day. Yes. When the tree in my flat is decorated and my boy is happy, I feel as if I’ve cheated winter, just for one day. Ketino makes a few comments: what have I got to be happy about? And more. Or she snaps at the boy for no reason. The irritation builds in her throat. I stay in control. I say nothing. It makes her want a fight even more. A toy slips from the boy’s grasp. Lies shattered like shrapnel on the floor. Ketino hits the boy. Mercilessly. Raises her hand, and then down. Onto his tiny head. Raises her hand, and then down. Mercilessly. Onto his tiny head. Ketino stares at me when she hits him the second time. Challenging me. Bitter. Lips pursed. Over to Ketino.

Back of my hand to the face. Ketino on the floor. Kicks. Kicks. I can’t remember how many. The boy’s voice sobers me up. Not his voice. The torment of his soul. Fragmented utterings from a tormented soul: ‘I’m going to die. Right now, I’m going to die.’ With one hand he clings to my trousers, with the other he beats me. He cannot breathe. His words come out in fits and starts. I’m going to die. Right now, I’m going to die. I’m by the door. The door bangs. The boy’s tormented soul and its fragmented utterings follow me around. Heavy. A weight on my heart. My heart is heavy. My body stunted by the weight in my heart.

Vakho. I drink vodka with Vakho. I can’t get drunk because my heart is heavy.

Vakho gets drunk. Vakho’s eyes go red when drinks. He kicks a chair. He staggers off. He makes a phonecall. Who’s he calling? Twin sisters. What twin sisters? Maia and Manana. Vakho says the twins let him have it on credit. No. Vakho says they let him have it ‘on account’. Yes. That’s what Vakho says. I tell him I’m not in the mood for whores. Vakho calls anyway. They don’t answer, but still. Where are you, you whores? Where are you, you tramps? says Vakho and dials again and again. I stop paying attention. I think about Ketino and the boy.

I think and remember the boy’s words. I think and feel angry with Ketino. I think about the destitution that has brought us to our knees. The three of us. Yes. The three of us. Beaten by destitution, and each beating the other. Ketino beating the boy. Me beating Ketino. The boy beating me...

IRAKLI SAMSONADZE

Leah’s Time

14 Irakli Samsonadze

LEAH’S TIME Novel. Georgian. 317 pages Published: 2011 Rights held: World Rights

Leah’s Time is a saga novel, giving a panoramic view of the adventures of a family that emigrated from Hungary, starting from the first Bagar who settled in Georgia in the beginning of the 19th century. The Bagar family history develops against the background of the real events unfolding in Georgia. The author traces the family life over two centuries, depicting its representatives in diversified situations, impelling them to act under completely different circumstances.

There are real historical figures in the novel, such as Akhmed Pasha, Khrushchev, Orjonikidze and many others, but the narrative focuses around the Bagars. We meet the first Bagar in 1800, while the last one lives in Tbilisi in 2000, working as a supervisor of the city clearing service. While cleaning up the mass after one of the demo rallies, he discovers a corpse behind the bushes and, together with his two employees, attempts to hide the crime evidence. They take the body to the cemetery on the capital’s outskirts to bury. It looks as though the action is genetic in its essence, well-rehearsed, because every Bagar over these two centuries has taken part in similar secret burial.

The Bagars have hidden many bodies of those killed by them or others.

The several hour long scene in the brothel is central to the novel. The episode is significant as far as the weird sexual act involving one of the Bagars and twelve whores in the Kutaisi brothel determines the ensuing plot developments.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

Precisely there and then, at Madame Joujou’s, the query posed by Redhead Margo gave rise to the fantasy in Konstantine Bagar’s mind, which thereinafter hath been known under the name of Leah’s Clock amongst the lovers and loyal devotees of licentious orgies.

The young man cast his gaze at Margo, jumped down onto the floor from the table where he was sitting, for some reason shook his hands as though they were dusty and said: ‘Therewith I intend to demonstrate before your very own eyes Leah’s Clock!’

Upon stepping down his inebriated state became obvious. He proceeded to do the round of the whores, touched one’s bottom but abandoned, finding it distasteful, then tried another’s but seemed likewise disgruntled. Finally he discovered what he craved for – a whore of about twenty-five or so, neither plump nor excessively lean. He slapped her on the bum he approved of, ordered her to stand facing the table and warned: ‘Stand here! Don’t move!’

The whore stood soundlessly in the indicated place.

Konstantine examined every single breast without exception. He was far from satisfied with the result for the reason that some breasts were hanging down to the bellybutton, some were spiky like immature pimples. Two of the whores had them grown as large as watermelons ripened under the scorching sun, therefore soft and clammy to the touch. He did succeed in selecting one,took her to the table and placed her near the first one, at about a pace away. He made her face the table and said: ‘Stand still!’

The second whore did as she was ordered.

Now it was straw-haired Henrietta that the young man went for because he took fancy of her pale skin. He positioned her likewise, a pace away from the second one.

Thereupon he chose the fourth, fifth and sixth whores, but contrary to the earlier, he abandoned his principle of identifying specific features. He simply followed the dictate of his eye and intuition.

Thus he filled one half of the table. Then he set to do likewise to the other half.

The next two, both short, the one with a tea rose entwined in her hair and the other saying Oh as if chastising or chiding someone, were ordered to bring chairs. He made them kneel on them, with their faces towards the table and admonished them:

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‘Don’t you dare move! Don’t bring any trouble upon yourselves!’

They all marked his wordsnot daring to badge, observing him with great curiosity though. The ninth whore turned out to be the scrawny one with a long nose and it was this ninth choice that received the most severe instruction: ‘Once you put your head on the table, don’t even think of raising it! Don’t let me set my eyes on that beak of yours! Take the warning!’

He was similarly unrelenting towards the tenth whore. Not unexpectedly, though, because she was rather advanced in years, hiding it under a thick plaster of poorly applied make-up. She must have been a little younger than Madame Joujou, about the same age as Limping Natela. He addressed her harshly: ‘If not for Leah’s Clock...’ Thereupon he avoided looking at her.

He threw his gaze at the eleventh whore, a decisively unsightly one, though the youngest amongst them. He said to her: ‘No song or dance about it! Stay quieter than water, lower than grass, as mute as a fish!’

He approached Margo, whose squint spoke of drink, and eyed her for some time, sadly, then grabbed her hand with a woeful ‘Ah’ and placed her at the table in such a manner that the sixth whore was directly facing her. Then he strolled around the room, picked up the canes, tried them by lightly whipping his arm and, visibly content, commanded in a heavy tone, as if hammering every word: ‘No sound from you, no moan or whimper, not even a tiny noise! If I do hear you, blame yourselves for the consequences. Is that clear?’

No one had the courage to voice their agreement, so they nodded.

‘Any questions? If any, ask now!’ he said.

Again they indicated by shaking their heads that they had none.

‘Excellent!’ the young man said. ‘Now disrobe in the area where I am about to travel!’

They all did so, immediately and obediently, at his command.

‘Excellent!’ Bagarrepeated. ‘Bend low, glue yourselves to the table with your bodies and stay like that! Don’t you dare mar my dream!’

They all followed his orders fearfully, leaning over the table, mute and subdued.

‘I intend to take a test round,’ Bagar said. ‘Here comes my last warning – not a sound from you!’

He walked to the table, lashed at whoever it was and waited for her to utter a sound. She withstood, despite finding the pain excruciating.

‘Good for you!’ he praised her and moved to the next one. His cane whizzed.

The second whore endured it too, maybe encouraged by the praise the first one deserved. In any case, she clutched her teeth to mufflethe groan erupting from the depths of her stomach.

‘Well done!’ he praised her too.

The young man circled the table, giving a bitter whipping to all of them. It is fair to mention that Taliko the Brunette and the whore with a long nose even

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delighted in getting lashed across their bottoms but remembering the severe warning about refraining from uttering a sound, they abstained from showing their pleasure. The twelfth one, namely Redhead Margo, wholeheartedly swore at the young man, but inwardly. She craved to scream, ‘Why? What for?’ but she stifled the moan, not losing control.

Gradually, blood rushed to Captain Bagar’s face, he felt excited as a result of such walloping andcane swishing, seemingly sensually aroused by beating.

However, it would be erroneous to assume that he had forgotten the reason of visiting Madame Joujou’s place. He cut a slice of his favourite juicy pear, brought it to his nose, sniffed its rich aroma and remembered Leah. He thereby twice repeated ‘Leah! Leah!’ and circled the table anew. This time he passed the cold pear over the bruised skin of each whore. When he reached Margo, he touched her red hair and said again, ‘Leah! Leah!’ Then in full readiness, he moved to his first choice, patted her bottom, closed his eyes and thus started his travel into Leah’s depths.

With his eyes closed, in deep reverie, Konstantine Bagar moved from one whore to another without leaving his semen in them. Oft he called out for Leah, praising the pallor of her skin, admiring her breasts, her warmth and softness, adulating her femininity, recalling the pleasure moments spent with her, the passionate, ecstatic delight he had experienced with her, repeating over and over again ‘Leah! Leah!’

In the meanwhile, the whores, being sternly warned, followed the orders.

They kept silent least the young man was inadvertently jolted out of his daydream. Stretched face down around the table, they looked like the lines of a gigantic clock the only difference being that instead of moving inside, the minute hand approached them from the outer circumference. In the event of the young man reaching the number six whore, Redhead Margo’s suffering impelled her to reach out her hand for the chalice with the red wine. She drained it thinking: ‘I suppose I can wet my mouth until he arrives.’ Observing her, other whores became ashen, astounded at her courage and rebuking her with their glance.

Thereat Margo became pensive: ‘Damn you, I’m neither here nor there! He has started at one o’clock and is still lauding his Leah. By the time the young man reaches me, he may very well finish his job. What else is there for poor me to do?’ Thereupon she put her elbow on the table, placed her plump cheek on her palm and glared in turn at her mates as if saying it was none of their business.

By and by, Major Lepsveridze felt stronger by leaps. He dragged himself from the peephole and stared at Madame Joujou’s shapely backside, so alluringly raised, and groped for it.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ Madame Joujou thought to herself, ‘I wonder if I can evoke the long unpracticed trade I seem to have missed so much. Anyhow, they say one never forgets the skill of swimming. Lo and behold! This Lepsveridze is a surprise!’

Major Lepsveridze’s breathing became faster.

As for young Konstantine, he remained unaware of Margo’s naughtiness

Leah’s Time IRAKLI SAMSONADZE

18

and impudence as far as he was completely engrossed in eulogizing Leah as ardently as ever. In his dreamy longing for her, he had his eyes closed, ­passionately ejaculating her name as oft as not: ‘Leah! Leah!’ Thus, gripped by overpowering lust, he travelled in Leah’s depths.

In this manner and mode, he finished with the short whores kneeling on the chairs, passed them and came to the long-nosed and the elderly ones, finished with them and passed on to the young ugly one and whence he approached Margo, the latter though, ‘Well done, young man! You’re welcome!’ However, she dared not move fearing it might reveal her impertinence. She remained as she was, with her cheek in her palm. Konstantine Bagar was in no hurry, neither was Margo. With all the time in the world, they enjoyed it and she thought, ‘Go on, you might do another round! Perchance there were twenty-four hours in Leah!’

Thereupon there came from the attic the sound akin to sensual moaning.

Bagar paused for a fraction of a minute, then grabbed Margo’s white backside with all his might and let out a powerful bellow: ‘Tears of Heaven! I hear your wail from above. Here I come!’ And he came thereat, falling on Margo.

That moment in time Major Lepsveridze fell spared on Madame Joujou and the latter thought: ‘Indeed it is said one never forgets how to swim! Oh, my! I’m dizzy.’

In the meantime, Margo thought: ‘Thank God it’s over for the young man and us!’ but aloud she said: ‘Hurray, Hurray! Now we can revert to a feast with our hearts at peace!’

Alas! The poor woman was gravely mistaken. She must have stayed quiet.

No sooner had she uttered the words, Bagar flew into a rage. He stepped away from her in revulsion and yelled in a thunderous voice: ‘Why have you blemished my dream, you dirty whore, the filthiest of sluts!’

Forthwith, he kicked her so recently fondled white bottom, grabbed her hair at the nape, dragged her across the floor, first striking her with his fists and then booting her.

Conundrum ensued. The whores jostled to escape the confinement of the room, got jammed in the doorway and squeaked like pigs when some fell down.

Bagar, unwearied, continued to kick and jolt at miserable Margo.

‘Are there more raving lunatics like him in the gendarmerie?’Madame Joujou rebuked Major Lepsveridze. ‘Even at the peril of myself, I intend to help her!’On saying these words, she raced to the stairs having confirmed that Major would not be supportive in this matter.

Major Lepsveridze was still attempting to regain his breath. Ostensibly, Madame Joujou was wobbly as a result of the recent passionate turn. It might have been the effect of the latter or of her such emotional haste, but the truth of the matter was that she missed her footing, which proceeded in falling with a heavy thump. Therein she had to be aided, which she loudly announced by summoning rescuers:

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‘Foot! My foot! Help! Oh, my foot! Help!’

Out dashed Konstantine Bagar from the room, pulled some money from the inner pocket of his uniform, threw the banknotes directly in the face of screaming Madame Joujou, following his gesture with a hearty kick aimed at her hip, swore emphatically and let her be. Abruptly he spotted Limping Natela who came rushing down the hall to save her patron and turned to her: ‘Get out of my way, you miserable being, or I’ll break your other leg!’ And as Limping Natela grew into the wall in terror, he sent several oaths at her whilst passing her. Presently, the young Captaindashed out into the street.

Somehow he reached his rented rooms and threw himself on the bed, fully dressed. He slept through until the next evening. On waking up he knew exactly that he would not be able to live without Leah. He forced himself to his feet and scrutinized his unshaved face with sleepless bloodshot eyes in the mirror. He likened himself to a wretched wanderer and went to the window. The unusually brightly lit evening seemed odd to him. However, there was nothing bizarre as far as an enormous white moon had crept over the city. He turned away from the window, headed for the door and stepped out onto the street.

He was sober but looked like a drunken man. Neither did he remember about his haughty grandfather, Jason Abashidze, nor did he harbor a stratagem or a clear notion in his mind.Merely following his sole yearning, he was drugged by the potent drug called Leah.

Tamaz Chiladze

Tamaz Chila

adze Tamaz Chiladze was born in 1931.

Worked for the magazine ‘Tsiskari’ (‘The Daybreak’) (1958-64), was chief editor of the magazine ‘Sabchota Khelovneba’ (‘The Soviet Art’) (1973-81), from 1991 he was reading a course of lectures in dramaturgy at Georgia’s Theater and Cinema Institute, in 1997-2008 he was chief editor of the magazine ‘Mnatobi’ (‘The Luminary’).

He published the first collection of poetry in 1956. Since that time many of his books have been published.

Novels: ‘Noon’ (1963), ‘A Pool’ (1972), ‘A Cactus Garden’ (1994), ‘Breughel’s Moon’ (2007).

Tamaz Chiladze’s books are translated into many languages of the world, among them into French, English, Ukrainian, Spanish, Italian, Czech, Slovak, Serb, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish, Armenian, Estonian, and Latvian, Lithuanian.

His plays are staged at theatres, both in Georgia and abroad (in the form of television performances).

The plays were staged by celebrated producers.

Producer Robert Sturua staged the following performances at the Rustaveli Theater according to Tamaz Chiladze’s plays: ‘A Role for a Debutante’, ‘The Visiting Day’, ‘A Bird Has Died in the Grove’, ‘The Hunting Season’.

In 1996 the radio broadcasting corporation of Western Germany awarded him the first prize for the play ‘The Quartet of the Paradise’.

In 1999 he was nominated for the title of the ‘International Personality’ of 1999-2000 by the Cambridge International Center of Biographies.

In 2013 his novel ‘Breughel Moon’ was sold in USA to Dalkey Archieve Press.

Tamaz Chiladze

BRUEGHEL’S MOON Novel. Georgian. 148 pages Published: 2007 Rights held: World Rights Rights sold to USA (Dalkey Archieve Ptess, 2013)

The novel is about an individual’s solitude which is particularly acutely felt in the modern world of the hitherto unseen technological advancements.

The plot focuses on a rather dramatic relationship between a wellknown psychiatrist and the wife of a foreign country’s ambassador. It transpires that she is the daughter of an astrophysicist and the Guest from the outer space, who was stranded on Earth after his aircraft had an accident.

Very different characters appear in the narrative: doctors, embassy employees, the state security officers, lunatics and dissidents locked in the Soviet psychiatric institutions...

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

After that things took a fantastic turn. Of course I’m using the word for want of a better one, but the events I witnessed and was part of were more characteristic of science fiction or fantasy, these extremely popular genres. I think we’ve defined the term too hastily and rather superficially. Is everything we call fiction the result of fantasy? It’s inconceivable that a human mind can construct or construe anything which isn’t prompted by some secret, yet unknown reality. Even the most daring dreams have been triggered by the reality. No human can dream of things which don’t exist, which are unattainable or ephemeral.

The main problem is that the reality still remains impenetrable and inexplicable while it truly is the magic workshop of our dreams. Even more, humans don’t know the place they live in, our own planet. Just like survivors of a shipwreck fortunate enough to reach an uninhabited island, geological, biological and archaeological expeditions still roam the continents. A human being wasn’t born on Earth. We arrived. Despite plenty of interesting discoveries (or maybe thanks to them) one thing is clear – our planet is absolutely alien to us, in other words it’s part of the reality we are trying to comprehend so painstakingly but to no avail. And that’s good because if we succeeded, our fully understood existence would certainly lose that life-giving grain which or thanks to which we are called humans and not animals. Secrets are for a human mind only, a secret needs a sensible creature as only common sense can push you towards solving a mystery. Or give you the strength to live.

I’m turning the pages of my diary and as I’ve wished to reread it, it means the joy of life has returned to me. Rereading one’s own diary equals remembering oneself. And that is exactly something we lose from time to time or forget caught in the turmoil of our everyday life. And another page: one might even believe the majority of the planet’s population came as a result of space migration. Nearly the same happened when Columbus discovered America. Hordes of settlers practically from all corners of the world moved to the new land. Our planet was discovered by an alien Columbus and immediately colonies from various planets moved towards the Earth at different times and in different numbers. Doesn’t the variety of how we look prove this? How can people living on different continents of our tiny planet look so strikingly different? Apparently, creatures from the outer space had been settling on Earth. A human being – an anatomically perfect, thinking mechanism – has evolved over the time as a long-term experiment of the nature and shaped into what we are. But how can the God’s power and will have been limited to a tiny planet? A human is a

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human, even in the space! And the Georgians seem to have been well aware of the fact. Amiran, our mythological hero did bring a bride from the sky, but Qamar was an ordinary woman, in fact so ordinary that she taught him how to kill his father. The first thing the outer space settlers introduced to Earth was a wheel – the symbol of the sun, intuitively familiar and so precious for all dwellers of the universe. The symbol is deeply engraved in the collective memory of mankind, firmly linked to the idea of continuous movement. The fact that the Incas and Aztecs had never heard of a wheel until the Americas were discovered only proves that they, though the creators of a highly-developed civilization, were the indigenous people of the planet Earth...

All of this was written at various times. The notes have different dates but because I was writing them, it means I had more or less recovered from my illness. In a way, my layman’s notes serve as kind of evidence...

It all started with a visit of my former patient. The term ‘former’, though, is least applicable to our patients as I was so used to their regular visits.

She was a tall woman, wearing a dress too short for her age. She sat down. Crossed her legs. As if demonstrating her slender long legs. She took a package of cigarettes and a box of matches from her handbag and put it on the floor. It was a discolored canvas one, more like a soldier’s sack than an elegant handbag. She lit a cigarette. I pushed an ashtray to her. We were sitting at the table.

‘I’m going to take your time,’ she said. ‘If you aren’t ready for it, please let me know and I’ll leave immediately.’

‘I’ve got plenty of time,’ I said. ‘I’m all ears,’ I indicated she could start talking.

‘I’d like to tell you something, doctor. Don’t you smoke? Ah, of course you do! It’s you who got me used to it.’

‘Did I?’ I asked with a smile.

She didn’t reply, just went on: ‘You’ve already heard the story I’m about to tell you, but you don’t remember it, do you? Apparently, you don’t recognize me either. Yes, I’ve changed a lot.

Twenty-seven years have gone by and I’m a completely different person now.’

She waved the smoke away, following it with her eyes. For some reason she smiled at me and said: ‘You were the doctor of my ward.’

She rolled the sleeve of her left arm and showed me her wrist. There was a very faint, thin scar with hardly visible ragged edges, as if covered by thin paper.

‘Do you remember?’

‘I’m sorry, I don’t...’

And then suddenly I did: ‘Can it be you?’

I sprang to my feet.

‘My god!’

I sat down again.

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‘Are you Nunu?’

‘Twenty-seven years have passed since then,’ she said, ‘maybe more. I’m not sure.’

All at once he remembered it all as if his eyes began to see what he hadn’t noticed before. Dark, dungeon-like wards full of rats and cockroaches, dirty windows with metal bars, long musty corridors reeking of food, walls covered in mildew because of the seeping water, multi-colour stinking pools at the toilets.

‘A man going insane and punished so inhumanly is pure injustice,’ a patient told him. Against the backdrop of this latrine-like building from hell, a woman was sitting on the edge of a neatly made bed, combing her hair looking at herself in a pocket mirror – an angel accidentally fallen from the heavens. The woman was diagnosed with an anxiety syndrome caused by a psychological trauma and distinct abulia with a complete loss of volition.

‘Do you also think I’m mad?’ she asked him at one of the medical checks.

At the time he avoided a direct answer: ‘Everything will be clear with time,’ he said or rather muttered and his own words affected him to the extent that for many nights he would wake up with a jolt, choked by a thorny ball wedged in his throat.

The story she told would make anyone believe she was insane. She had a room to herself from the beginning, thanks to ‘influential acquaintances’ as they said, but that wasn’t true as good connections were used to get people out of there, not for staying in, even in relative comfort. At first the woman didn’t talk at all, which was taken as a clear symptom of mutism. But then she suddenly started to talk and talked without stopping. Whoever it was – a doctor, nurse, janitor or another patient – she would be telling the same story over and over again. Some listened, others didn’t, clearly avoiding her. Every patient had a sad story of their own. No one visited her. Her manners and speech were typical of a middle-class intellectual. Once she asked Levan for a cigarette.

‘But you don’t smoke, do you?’ the young doctor was surprised.

‘I don’t. I’ve never smoked but I want it very much.’

At the time Levan had been working for about two years in the clinic bearing his eminent father’s name. He handed her a package.

She took a cigarette: ‘You can light it I guess.’

She inhaled greedily.

‘Careful!’ Levan cried.

Unperturbed, she let the smoke through her nostrils and said: ‘It’s great!’

‘Is it really your first cigarette?’ Levan asked.

‘It is.’

She was taken somewhere a couple of times, for quite some time at that.

Levan used to regularly supply her with her cigarettes. One day a commission from the Ministry of Health visited the clinic. Levan watched through the window how academician Tavzarashvili walked into the garden, hopped across the decorative tiles as if a child playing hop-scotch, then halted at the bust of Iase,

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Levan’s father, took off his straw hat, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his bald head. One couldn’t say for sure whether he showed respect to the deceased colleague or just wiped the sweat.

For starters, Tavzarashvili took a petition signed by the clinic patients from one of his retinue. The patients demanded that Nunu ‘be evicted’ from the clinic as she was occupying a much needed place for a real patient. The petition was endorsed by the Minister with a hieroglyphic signature. Tavzarashvili put the paper on the table, spread it with his hand and studied it carefully. Then he banged the table with his fist and got to his feet, saying there was no need to take anyone’s time. He wiped his sweaty forehead and added his head wouldn’t need casting in bronze. He laughed a lot at his own joke.

A week later Levan met Tavzarashvili at one of the workmate’s wedding party. The tables were laid in the garden and most guests agreed the place looked like Eden. Academician Tavzarashvili remarked he couldn’t bear to be among such a lot of flowers as he was from Eastern Georgia, not particularly abundant in flowers.

‘Oh, but you love roses,’ the host squinted jokingly.

‘Roses? The rose was introduced in Georgia by the Persians. The lilac is our flower – it blossoms like a flame and dies down like a flame. As for the Paradise, I’m going to have enough of it as I’ve already got a one-way ticket there.’

‘Stop it, Lado,’ the host protested. ‘Have you forgotten Rustaveli’s words that no sensible man kills himself till Death.’

‘Yes but where are sensible people?’ Tavzarashvili laughed. Then he remembered his mother, saying most of all he missed young nettles prepared by her. When he married, he said, he took his wife to the village to meet his mother. She cooked nettles at his request and his wife whispered to him not to eat them as they’d sting him, he chuckled.

When the guests began to leave, Tavzarashvili stopped Levan and asked him if he remembered his visit to the clinic and how much he laughed there.

‘There was nothing to laugh about. It was scary!’ He stressed the last word, uttering it very loudly.

‘You were scared? What of?’ Levan asked.

‘What was her name? That patient of yours?’

‘Which patient?’ Levan was unsure.

‘I remember,’ Tavzarashvili said. ‘Her name is Nunu. God will never forgive me!’ he added.

‘I’m afraid I don’t follow you,’ Levan was genuinely confused.

Tavzarashvili turned and headed for the gate. Then he stopped, looked back at Levan and said: ‘When I was standing at your father’s monument, do you know what I was thinking about? I thought people were much kinder in the past...’

Next time he saw Tavzarashvili was ten years later and at a distance. It was on the airfield, when together with others Levan was getting into the plane flying to Sukhumi. The elderly man was standing in the middle of the field, surrounded by a pack of stray dogs, with a hat in his hand. They said since the day

27

his son perished in the plane fire in Babushera, Tavzarashvili went to the airfield every single day and stood there without his hat.

‘As far as I recall, you were discharged quite soon, weren’t you?’ Levan asked the woman.

‘In fact, I was transferred to another clinic. You weren’t there when at midnight I was put in a car and driven away. Apparently you don’t remember, but why should you anyway? I used to tell my story to everyone, including you of course, you being in charge of my ward. Do you recall nothing, anything at all?’

‘Nothing except your name.’

The woman opened another package of cigarettes.

‘You and I had just started our respective careers,’ she said with a smile, ‘you as a doctor, I as an insane patient. I’m hugely grateful to you, first of all because you got me used to smoking...’

‘Who is ever thankful for that?’ Levan laughed.

‘Oh, I am. I can’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t smoke. Secondly, I’m grateful you’re listening.’

‘That’s nothing. Actually, it’s my duty, especially that I was your ward doctor, wasn’t I?’ ‘No, no! I don’t want you to listen out of duty. I hate the word! It’s awful, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not sure...’

‘So you disagree!’

Levan avoided answering her.

‘No one wants to listen to anything anymore,’ she said. ‘That’s why they choose to listen to TV. But there’s so much you can hear from another person!

Everyone knows and carried so much!’

‘Sometimes unaware they know it,’ Levan smiled.

‘Exactly. No one wants to listen anymore. They say they’ve got no time. But the world is full of time like a pool with water.’ She got to her feet, went over to Levan and stroked his hair. Levan didn’t move. ‘And we delight in it, enjoying ourselves.’ She went back to her seat. ‘Just like dolphins, splashing and playing around. For some reason, I’ve always remembered you.’ She touched her scar. ‘Some considered this as a sign of madness, while I’ve never done anything as sane or as necessary as this. As I said, you heard my story in the clinic and heard it several times. And yet, I’m not at all surprised you’ve forgotten it.

Actually, it would be surprising if you remembered it. I, on the other hand, was telling it practically without any variation for ten tears, of course when asked or ordered to do so. What’s more, I listened to the record with my own voice narrating it. I suppose some things, quite a lot in fact, was my addition, the result of my disturbed mind. In short, my story is a mixture of reality, dreams, fantasy, thoughts, wishes and hopes, aspirations and images – my life made up my me.

Much of it is the fruit of my imagination but the bulk of my story really happened to me. Sadly, from my bitter experience, I can’t persuade anyone to believe it.

Most part was told by the Visitor – for practical reasons, let’s call him a Visitor, the one who is the main character of my narrative. True, I didn’t understand his

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language, but do people always make themselves understood solely through words? Because there are languages of eyes, hands, gestures and even silence. Anyway, he managed to tell me enough to nurture my imagination to make up a myth about a man who came down from the sky. Yes, it is a myth!’ she repeated with a smile. ‘And I’m its author, someone who gradually believed that everything narrated really happened to me. I’d like to add that the more I told the story, the more I was convinced the world was deaf. No one heard me. Quite recently I’ve typed it on the computer because I’ve started taking a computer literacy course and saw it as fun to have it as a file. However, I don’t cherish any hope there are people out there who care for reading either. Okay, I’m joking, it doesn’t refer to you. I’ve brought this CD to you. If you have time, you might want to read it. Somehow I believe you’ll find it interesting.’

Levan took the CD. ‘Sounds interesting...’

She interrupted him: ‘A lot of it is true!’ She lit another cigarette. She sat with her eyes closed for quite some time, then said, ‘I don’t want to leave!’ She opened her eyes and added, ‘Are you scared?’

‘Oh no! Why should I be?’

‘Personally, if I were the Sultan, I’d have the chatterbox executed!’

‘Executed who?’ Levan wanted to know.

‘Scheherazade!’ she smiled. ‘But people are much kinder in fairy tales than in real life. Even me, didn’t I tell my story over and over again just to preserve myself? I invented some of the details, added things and then completely forgot which ones were true and which were made up. Actually, it doesn’t matter in the least. I spent ten years in psychiatric clinics. It took me very long to realize I wasn’t a mere patient, that I was a prisoner. I suddenly realized it in Moscow, where the clinic was full of the dissidents, amazingly sensible and highly intelligent people...’

When she mentioned Scheherazade, Levan guessed her visit would be long or frequent. And he was right. *** Nothing could be seen through the porthole except a red wall of meteorites.

The control panel was twinkling in many colours, also indicating the trouble he was in. Among the hazards his people could face in the open space, the meteorite cloud – this stomach of the cosmic pirates – was considered fatal because the Voice was lost. It was the Voice which directed the pilots’ actions, teaching them what to do at the times of difficulty.

Suddenly the meteorites disappeared and he saw a cardioid planet, so called because of its resemblance to a heart. He was approaching it at a dangerous speed. His panel showed how he passed through the exosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere and stratosphere until he fell into the troposphere. It was like taking a ride in a high speed lift. Practically immediately he felt how his glass

29

module hit the water and bobbed up and down. It was the Pacific Ocean. He travelled to nearly all parts of the planet, crisscrossed it in all directions till he ended up in Abastumani woods, the place, in Nunu’s words, he was destined to be. You can’t run away from your destiny, Nunu said. Thanks to the poor imagination of one of the witnesses, his module was dubbed the flying saucer.

In fact, it could become completely weightless while moving, transform from its physical state into an aspiration, thus becoming as fast as an aspiration or a thought. In desperation he hit the invisible walls of the planet, unable to find the way out, the White Rabbit hole that would allow him to escape. The Earth seemed to have protective armour around it. Not only physical objects were bound to stay on the surface, even his radio waves failed to penetrate it so perfect was the natural protection of this small planet unless one knew where exactly the escape door, hole or crack was.

Now he lived in a cave in the woods and of course he had no idea the place was called Abastumani. He befriended a wolf. At night they used to sit at the cave opening, staring at the star-studded sky.

One day he saw a woman on the opposite slope. She was gathering mushrooms into the lap of her dress. That night he dreamt of her – she was standing wrapped in thick fog up to her chin, staring at something with a glazed look. He moaned and opened his eyes. A strange, hitherto unfelt melancholy gripped him. The next day the woman came to the same slope again. He headed towards her. Noticing him, she let go of her lap, dropping the mushrooms. He approached her and put his hand on her shoulder. She looked him directly in the eyes, without blinking, then rubbed her cheek against his hand. She turned and walked away. She came back two days later, bringing him a branch of a sycamore tree. They stood looking at each other, not uttering a word. Then he took her hand and led into the cave... When she left, he let a bloodcurdling cry directed towards the sky as if trying to let his native planet know of his happiness. After that the woman came nearly every day.

From his module he had transferred everything he might need in the wood.

Then he pushed it down the crevice to the bottom of the ravine. By then he had lost all hope of returning to his native planet despite the constant buzz the tag on his neck produced. Once the woman put her ear to the tag but unable to hear anything except soft buzzing, looked at him questioningly. He said he would be found. He didn’t offer anything else.

He was thinking about her, reclining on his side with his head propped on his arm. The wolf was sitting next to him. The lulled world around them was filled with silence complete with rustle, creaking, crackling, burbling and warbling.

Every world has its own specific silence. The buzzing of his neck tag seemed to intensify and alienate the silence which already sounded like music to his ears.

It felt like listening to his own thoughts put into words: Tell me, tell me, why is it that I want to be alone and my loneliness isn’t haunting me?

Unexpectedly, a little boy riding a donkey appeared on the path hidden in the lush shrubbery. Having descended from the sky, the man certainly didn’t know the boy was the local ranger’s son. The retarded boy used to take newspapers

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from the post-office to the observatory on the top of the mountain. Noticing the wolf, the donkey spun, tossed the boy and trotted down the hill, kicking all the way as if the wolf was chasing it. In truth, the wolf didn’t even budge. Yelling for help, the boy ran after the donkey, as fast as he could...

Some time later the woman came from the observatory and made for the cave. As she neared it, she halted alarmed by the strangely tense silence, dead silence in fact. Then she saw the dead man and the wolf at the mouth of the cave. The weirdest part was that she wasn’t in the least surprised, as if she knew all along that she would find both the man and the wolf killed. She seemed to have reconciled with the idea...

The very first time they met she guessed he wasn’t local in the broadest sense of the word. Better say he wasn’t from this world. That’s probably why she was gripped with the fear of death. But she didn’t know who was to die – she, having seen the Visitor, or the Visitor, squatting, patting the wolf lying at his feet. The beast’s death didn’t count as it didn’t compare to her or the Visitor’s deaths. It was precisely the feeling or dread of death that speeded up everything which happened between them. Like a silent melody, the shadow of death accompanied and intensified their passionate attraction to each other, which was all-consuming as it was. The way she saw it, their entwined bodies wheeled down the slope at a frightening speed, leaving a singing blood trail on the blade-sharp stones. Afterwards, they seemed to struggle back, laboriously climbing the slope, freeing themselves from the entangling haze holding them like thorny bramble, finally lying side by side like a pair of fish tossed onto the beach by the waves, able to survive only if the very same wave returned them back to their life element...

She felt it wasn’t only her secret. It could have become an omen of a global catastrophe. In a way, being a scientist, precisely an astronomer, it even obliged her to report to the relevant authorities the location of the man from the space, but... She couldn’t take that step. It was more than she could bear. She shuddered at the thought that the man she betrayed in this way would fall victim to the cruelty of the science – a guinea pig that is never asked if it finds it fun when it’s skinned alive. She felt rather acutely she was erring, first of all betraying her own profession. Something she sought out during the hours spent looking through the observatory telescope was right there, beside her on Earth. But the problem was that the outer space Visitor had become part of her essence that drew her to him in a powerful craving to become one. She was drawn to him, attracted and pulled like an animated shred escaping the blaze, yearning to turn into a new flame even if for a very short while.

She took the dog-tag off the dead. Put it into her pocket. That’s when she heard panting. Someone was scrambling up the slope. She hid behind a tree.

It was the ranger. He had a spade and a pickaxe over one shoulder and a rifle over the other. He was heading directly towards the cave. He dropped the spade and the pickaxe on the ground, leaned his rifle against the tree and sat on a boulder. He lit a cigarette. She came from behind the tree.

‘Did you kill him?’ she asked.

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The ranger didn’t answer. He got to his feet and spit on the palms of his hands. With the blade of his spade he drew a rectangle on the ground. Then he picked up his pickaxe. She went nearer.

‘Are you going to kill me too?’

He ignored her again.

That’s how they were for a long time – him digging, her watching. Strange but she didn’t even think of running away. Probably because even if she tried, she wouldn’t be able to run away from the ranger. Then she said: ‘Give me the spade. I’ll help you.’

He immediately passed her the spade. He was standing knee-deep in the grave. He climbed out and lit a cigarette.

For quite some time they dug one after another. Then they threw the corpses into the grave and covered them with soil. The ranger broke branches from the nearby shrubs and threw them over the new grave. Then he picked them up and tossed away. Instead, he cut squares of turf from different places and put them side by side on the newly filled grave. Now it was undistinguishable from the rest of the area.

‘You look experienced,’ she said. He didn’t reply.

Then they sat down and had a smoke.

‘And why did you kill?’ he asked.

Now it was her turn not to answer. She leaned back, resting her head on her hands, and stared at the sky seen as blue patches through the foliage.

She heard a cuckoo from afar as if it was her own heard that went: cu-ckoo, co-ckoo.

It might be better this way, a much better option, she thought. But she didn’t make an effort to think why this death was a better option...

Most of all I loved Bruegel. I used to read Bruegel’s album as a book of poems. I would keep it by my bed and leaf though it before I fell asleep. The strange visions that started in my young days might have been intensified by the imagination of the great Dutch to such an extent that sometimes I found it hard to differentiate whether something was happening in reality of was the result of my imagination. The lewdest image that haunted me was a little nobody in a doublet – a typical Bruegel character – screwing an enormous moon.

You might have easily guessed the image was influenced by Bruegel’s Flemish Proverbs, specifically from the picture in which a spread-legged scoundrel is pissing at the moon (or its reflection). What else but a proverb can better render the idea that humans apparently don’t deserve the world so generously given the Almighty as they are certainly unable to appreciate the Great Wonder. It was the symbolic image of ungrateful mankind. But my visions didn’t stop there: the little nobody would turn to face me, grinning and flashing his fleshy legs and showing his penis. Sensual hallucinations kept tormenting me, weird scenes strangely connected to each other.

We slept in a king-size bed. Due to a surgical mistake my husband was unable to have a usual intercourse so we helped each other. A masturbating

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couple. And all the while that little nobody, the Bruegel creature, used to tear me apart like a brute, drag me down the barren ground, and I would leave my flesh on the shrubs, bramble and shingle. I seemed to resist him, fight back, but in fact it was my struggle that excited him more. He would rip my clothes off, bites my nipples, tear at my underwear with his teeth. I screamed and groaned and whined. A kind of beastly, wickedly dark orgasm used to blot out my mind.

Instead of coming I used to feel drained out. Then suddenly I’d come to my senses, start catching my breath, spared and petrified, wrapped in a soaking nightie fit to be wrung out. My husband lay next to me, covering his head with a blanket. Of course he was awake, of course he was aware of what was going on but it wasn’t difficult, was it? He never let me know though, not even in a word. Only once, I’m not sure in what connection, he muttered more to himself: ‘The monastery canon didn’t consider it a sin if monks ejaculated in their sleep.’

That was that...

I was an astrophysicist, my husband a writer, spending all his days at the typewriter. I used to go over to him, lean on his shoulders with my elbows and read what he had been typing. These were easily the most idyllic moments in our married life but it’s only fair to say that it was love that made me marry a man twenty-five years my senior, someone I’d loved since my school days.

Better say had loved what he wrote. At night I’d fall asleep hugging his book to my heart. In my dreams I’d turn into one of his characters, someone thirsty for love, gripped by an eerie melancholy. Once I bragged to my friends I’d marry him one day. And I did! But that was later, when I already graduated from the university. I visited him. It was a surprise for him. He didn’t remember me. Why would he if he’d seen me once only? He was invited to the university to talk to a group of young inspiring writers. I approached him with his book and asked him to sign it. He asked my name. And all the while I believed he’d remembered me, even considered me very special. That time I stayed at his place for a long time.

We talked and talked till quite late. Then everything happened in a banal way.

No, actually there was nothing banal to it. It was anything but banal, especially that he was unable to have a traditional intercourse for instance. I found it surprising but didn’t show it. I said it didn’t matter to me when he asked how I felt about it. I laughed saying I wasn’t a virgin, adding I’d accumulated quite a lot of experience for my twenty-two years. I lied. I had no experience whatsoever. I wasn’t a virgin though. One of my group mates managed to take care of it in the bathroom at a friend’s birthday party. Then he disappeared, apparently terrified on the consequences.

On completion on my doctoral degree, I was sent to the Abastumani Observatory. My husband followed me. He said it was immaterial where he lived, even thought the place would be better. We had no strings attached: his mother died just before we moved, while my mum moved in with her new husband.

We brought everything we might have needed to the cottage designated for us. The amount of luggage was truly amazing. We just couldn’t discard our old things from our old houses, especially the books. Now I think we suffered from human nostalgia, lack of human vitamins which not only we but several genera-

33

tions sought to compensate through reading. I had the impression my husband had read everything there was to read. Mainly he enjoyed the Roman poets, particularly Catulus which he read more often than others. He even intended to translate his poems and learned Latin for the purpose. Books, you may easily agree, are heavy to carry, especially when it’s part of your baggage. The same refers to art albums and vinyl discs. We also brought lots of cassettes.

Ultimately, it meant I could listen to my favourite music whenever I chose to, for instance Grieg’s piano concerto performed by Richter. I like not only Scandinavian music and literature but thinking about Scandinavia which miraculously calms me down. It has got the same effect on me as an attic full of magic things for a dreamy child. But isn’t Scandinavia a kind of a magic attic for Europe?

Our little flat was soon full of books – they were on the shelves, tables, floor and window sills. In our sitting room – the largest room in our tiny house – we hung a Khevsurian rug on the wall with my husband’s double barreled hunting gun and ammo. We even had a small fireplace. In front of it we spread a bear skin bought from a local gamekeeper. We used to lie on it and stare at the flames. ‘Pensive at the hearth, like the Dickens’ characters’, as one of our poets said. My husband would mostly be quiet while I talked. He dropped a phrase or two if he agreed with I said, but frown if he didn’t. When I felt I was overdoing, I used to stop, saying I was tired of talking. ‘No’, he used to say, ‘keep talking, I like it when you talk.’ Usually I protested, saying I did a lot of talking as it was, mainly on the phone of course. Having a landline phone was a huge privilege, an expression of respect towards my husband demonstrated by the local government. It was 1980, too early for cell phones...

‘Look at the son-of-a-bitch! He’s pissing at the moon!’ I shouted, striking the picture with the back of my hand.

‘You always react with the same jury,’ my husband smiled. ‘Every time you look at the picture, you are angry as if he’s going to stop it.’

‘I’d kill the rogue with pleasure. Have your fag here if you wish, don’t go,’ I told him. We were reclining on the bear skin at the fireplace.

‘You can’t stand the smoke, can you?’

‘That’s okay. I want to tell you something,’ I could no longer keep back the truth from him.

I had been seeing the man from the sky for some time. Had my husband been healthy, surely I would have told him earlier. It might have been his condition that stopped me from telling the truth. Actually not might but certainly.

‘Okay, I won’t smoke,’ he said. ‘I’m listening.’

‘It’s nothing,’ I patted his knee.

After a while I said: ‘You know, my professor failed to make me a good astronomer but managed to make an amateur philosopher out of me. Want to hear what I’m thinking of when I stare through the telescope? It’s inane but I’m still going to tell you: astronomy is nothing else but our nostalgia over the lost paradise.’

‘Not sure about a philosopher but you’re certainly a poet,’ my husband said with a smile.

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‘Possibly and I like it even more! It kind of suits me more. I know you don’t like it when I prattle, but you’ve got to be patient. You’ve got no choice and can’t sneak out.’ All the while I was stroking his hand, his beautifully slender fingers. I used to laugh he had the idle fingers of a writer. In fact it was these long fingers that worked day and night, typing, day in day out, tirelessly hitting the keys. As a result he looked like a hermit. And not only looked but actually was one. He never mentioned it but I felt he had escaped something truly unpleasant when he chose to leave Tbilisi. That’s why I consciously avoided talking about literature, I mean our modern writing.

I’d had never given it a thought whether my husband loved me or not. It was a kind of an assumption that he did. It took me two years to start doubting. Why should he love a girl who so suddenly appeared in his life, pressing his book to her chest and meekly asking for his autograph in a quivering voice? They say you can’t cheat the destiny. That’s exactly what happened to us – my husband and I were destined to be together without any prerequisite, without even considering it necessary to get to know each other better. I was stunned by my own boldness but at the same time I was aware I was imitating one of his characters, her manner of talking and moving. Except I couldn’t get used to smoking.

I tried but nearly choked. I suspect he saw through me because once he said with a smile I was a better girl than I thought. By then we were already seeing each other, or rather I used to visit him. He lived with his elderly mother, forever neatly combed and dressed as if ready to go out. The thin, grey-haired woman used to sit in front of the TV, and never talked to me. She would glance at me, nod slightly and turn back to the screen. I was sure she couldn’t overhear our conversation but, frankly speaking, I tender to forget there was someone else in the room apart from the two of us. It looked as if Beso, my future husband, was reluctant to take me to the other room or to indicate, somehow hint with his eyes we weren’t alone. That must have been the reason he nodded to everything I said with a polite smile. But there was no stopping me as if I felt I wouldn’t be able to find a more appreciative listener. It was him I absolutely had to tell about my thoughts and feelings, or which book or film I fancied. And not only that – I used to recite lengthy passages from his book! He listened with his head dropped down. In general, he wasn’t much of a talker, or it might have seemed so, especially compared to me. Once we went for a walk. At Anchiskhati Church we sat on the low stone wall and I suggested going inside. We lit candles. I told him to make a wish. I certainly did and it came true! A couple of days later when we were talking in his sitting-room as usual, he leaned towards me, put his hand on mine and asked if I’d marry him. That’s when I was lost for words. I just stared at him. He was worried, wondering if it came totally unexpectedly. I didn’t answer. Then he turned to his mother: ‘Mum, this is my future wife.’ Her expression didn’t change. Only later I caught a glimpse of her reflection in the TV screen, spotting a glint of a tear in her eye... The next day he told me the story of his fatal operation. We were buying the wedding rings.

He was so calm and matter-of-fact that for a second I even thought he was punishing me for my audacity. In general, God always mocks me by fulfilling all my

35

wishes but in the weirdest, least imaginable ways. We were getting our rings but in fact I knew nothing about him except of course his books. I didn’t know because I didn’t want to, chose to turn a deaf ear to his numerous romantic adventures I hear from my friends and acquaintances, who kept narrating them as if deliberately. I had resolved he was to start a new life with me and that’s exactly what happened...

I spend every single spare minute walking in the woods. I had hiked every hill and mountain, visited every small village, crossed every field and meadow.

I preferred walking alone, shunning company during these long walks. My husband surely loved staying at home and typing, and of course listening to music, especially the German romantic composers. ‘Stop these solitary walks,’ the locals warmed me over and over again. There were plenty of thugs and sexually disturbed patients from the nearby TB sanatorium roaming the area, they reasoned with me. I was warned against possible trouble but actually I came across a miracle, a true wonder. It was a huge celestial drop emanating heavenly light from his body which had taken a human shape. It was the first time I felt what the sky was as if I’d seen it for the first time. Not for a moment I thought he might have been an alien, mainly because he was no different from us. Most of all he was utterly dissimilar to all the hideous aliens from all science fiction films, the ones swaying like seaweeds, hardly holding their pumpkin-like heads on thin necks. I won’t recount what happened between us later as I don’t wish to repeat myself. The only thing I’m going to say is it was the first time I fully appreciated how wonderful it was to be woman! Till then I’d never had a normal intercourse in my life. Te most disgusting was that one in the bathroom which left me with the repulsive sensation of wetness and cold. I remember sitting on the edge of the bath tub for some time, feeling tired, completely drained and utterly surprised for some reason. And all the way I felt that not only the sickening experience but everything else too was senseless. I locked myself in.

Turned on the hot water. Found the shampoo. I undressed and soaked myself in stinking rather than aromatic bubbles. I closed my eyes. Must have dozed off. I was brought to my senses by loud banging on the door. Finally I came out of the bathroom. ‘Were you taking a bath?’ the girls asked me. ‘Have you gone insane?’ I said yes and asked for a drink...

I met the man from the sky a few times. Of course I didn’t run to our rendezvous like Emma Bovary but I couldn’t imagine not going to see him. Most worryingly, I couldn’t tell anyone about my sensational secret, the significance of which, or rather its enormity, dawned on me only gradually. We both very quickly adopted the obvious and the easiest, the speech of hieroglyphics – the language of the mute. After that the gigantic secret shank, only to become my private one. God seemed to encourage me by saying what I’d thought of the universe and its inhabitants was correct. But most importantly, I saw the creature embodying the infinity and not only saw but actually perceived him. Once again I was convinced that, just like the universe, a human is a world of infinity.

The intelligent life scattered across the boundless space is no different from a human, from us...

Brueghel’s Moon TAMAZ CHILADZE

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It was early autumn. As I said, I used to spend my free time walking in the woods and fields, thinking about numerous things, silly ideas churning in my head. For some reason a line from a poem kept popping up again and again: ‘And all becomes so gentle around.’ I even repeated the line aloud. Indeed, the area was strangely gentle, softly silenced. A cobweb glistened among the branches. And you seemed to be wrapped in the soft, sun-warmed net, like a helpless insect unaware it the deadly peril. Its instinct prompts it’s inevitable, that it’s bound to happen. The foliage is immersed in the peaceful, self-assured tranquility, smugly still, boasting of colours, forever changing the hues. It looks pretty stable but soon the autumn dazzling striptease will start. At times, just like a drop of water on the tap rim, a leaf will detach itself from the branch, come spinning, sliding, gliding in the air, dancing to the music unheard by us, fully succumbing to its rhythm. It’s still alive, or thinks it’s alive, but is now alone, solitary, left on its own, not part of the myriad of its kin any longer, just a tiny part of the green darkness created by the myriad of its kind. Slightly upset and frightened by this sudden realization, it keeps flying and dancing, somewhat astonished and dazzled though. In short, it doesn’t know it’s free and dies. It spins for some time but then, as if suddenly becoming heavier, starts to fall – sliding towards the ground, spreading itself on the earth. That’s how it finishes its life with a soft touchdown – dancing to the end. Does it have to be a leaf to teach us that one death forewarns of many more to follow? I was thinking that morning. Somehow grown and strangely transformed by the news, which I even had checked with the doctor of the local clinic, I was unhurriedly walking home, dizzy with the inexplicable happiness I couldn’t fully realize. What the doctor confirmed should have been a true disaster given my personal life. But, lo and behold! It was the other way round: thousands of shiny and glittery pellets of joy kept spinning in my head. And not only in my head. My whole body was bustling as if fireworks were let loose, as if it had turned into a shred of the sky, into a new territory of the sky. Only, of course, if it’s possible to imagine swelling and growth of the sky.

I began to walk faster, thinking I should share my joy with my husband. I didn’t have other people I could call close and wasn’t particularly friendly with my work mates. Then I got angry with myself: ‘Are you out of your mind? Don’t even think about it!’ True. If there was one person I couldn’t tell about it, the worst of all expect to get thrilled by it, was my husband. Suddenly I noticed a lot of people around, among them many militaries. Something was amiss, something unusual must have happened, otherwise why were they here, what were they looking for? But I couldn’t ask anybody. Immediately I was reminded of the grave near the cave. Then I saw the ranger.

‘Carlo!’ I called him. ‘Come here!’

He came over to me. Slowly, reluctantly, moving with deliberation. He kept looking around as if unwilling to be seen with me.

‘What’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Who are they? What are they looking for?’

‘They found it,’ he said quietly, avoiding my eyes.

‘What?’ my heart thumped.

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‘The geologists have found it. At the bottom of the ravine.’

‘Found what? What could there be in the ravine?’

‘Something. I’m not sure what. Pardon, lady, but I nearly shit myself with fear.’

I sighed with relief.

‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘Be a man!’

‘I rely on you,’ Carlo said and gazed away.

‘Don’t be afraid. I’ve told you I’m dumb as a gravestone.’

‘A lot of army around, more and more lorries are coming.’

‘Don’t be scared,’ I told him again and left.

My husband was typing. He didn’t even raise his head when I went into the room. I hung my jacket on the rack. Took off my sneakers, leaving them at the wardrobe. I crossed the room in my socks, stroked his hair and asked how things were going. He didn’t reply.

‘It’s so good outside!’

He nodded. It didn’t matter to him what was happening outside. He was uninterested.

‘Such a lot of people! And soldiers too. I wonder what’s going on.’

‘I know,’ he said and stopped typing. He stretched his arms. ‘I’m tired. They phoned me offering a walk in the woods. Apparently they need more people.’

‘Why aren’t you going then? Nothing better than a leisurely walk in the woods – it’s so beautiful! If I were you, I’d take the gun and go. Remember Baudelaire?

‘I took my gun and went out to kill time.’

He smiled: ‘Why would I need the gun?’

‘I don’t know. But you’re its proud owner, aren’t you?’

‘It’s my dad’s gun.’

‘Fine, but does it matter? Doesn’t it shoot if it’s your dad’s? You do clean and polish it regularly. Who or what are they looking for? Did they tell you?’

‘Said they found something in the ravine.’

‘Such as?’

‘Something... How should I describe it? Something like a spacecraft. I don’t believe it. Sounds like a sci-fi film!’

And something strange happened – I was offended, can you imagine?

Deeply offended but to this very day I’m not sure what was it that hurt me. Was it that he called my happiness, the joy that completely filled me sci-fi? Possibly that’s why I changed my mind about keeping it a secret and blurted out: ‘I’m pregnant!’

He was taken aback.

He stared at me for a long time.

I immediately knew I shouldn’t have told him but it was too late.

Without a single word he turned to his typewriter and hit the keys...

The next day, as soon as I came back from the observatory and opened the door, an unusual silence made me uneasy. I remember thinking it was unusual... He had the double-barrel hunting gun pressed to his chest, his big toe still on the trigger...

Brueghel’s Moon TAMAZ CHILADZE

38

It wasn’t a scream. An abominable creature seemed to be ready to jump out of my mouth. I covered it with both hands. I stood there for a long time.

Then went onto the balcony and took an oil can. I sprinkled it around the room.

Emptied the can and dropped it in the corner. From the cupboard I took a bottle of Cuban rum, which I had brought from Tbilisi. Sat in the armchair and drank straight from the bottle. Felt like swallowing fire. I got to my feet. Went to the kitchen to fetch matches. Then returned to the armchair. Took another swig.

This time I kind of liked it. I struck the match. Stared at it for a short while as if it was a beetle in a pin, then tossed it and took another swig, a larger one. I started to sing. Quite unexpectedly for myself. It was a simple song from my childhood. I was singing and drinking and all the while tears came down my cheeks. Because of the smoke. I was choking on it, coughing, my eyes were burning, but I kept singing...

I opened my eyes in a hospital ward. First thing I saw was a young bald with a white coat over his shoulders. I managed to ask what the date was. My mouth was dry and my lips swollen. The young man replied with a smile I should have asked about the month rather than the day. I immediately blacked out, but not because of his words of course. Before I opened my eyes again, I was dreaming I was in the Abastumani woods. With its eyes half-closed, the wolf had its head in my lap. ‘Where’s your friend?’ I asked it, scratching it behind the ears.

‘Can’t you see him?’ I said I couldn’t. I felt he was there, somewhere near me, probably even in me. That’s why I cried. And that’s when I woke up or came to my senses or came back to life – not sure what to call it. And I immediately saw the same bald young man. He was staring at me exactly as he did before my black-out. I learned from him that I had been in a coma-like state for five months. The next day two of his colleagues brought a recorder into the ward and let me listen to my own delirious speech for more than an hour. It turned out that in my sleep, or whatever the state was, I talked continuously, telling about the man who came from the sky.

‘Can you hear?’ the bald man asked me.

I nodded.

‘Can you recognize your voice?’

I nodded again. He didn’t make it a secret that he was an intelligent officer.

During the whole time, namely five months, he had been sitting at my bed, waiting for me to wake up or rather come back to life. And, of course, had been taping whatever I said. I spoke clearly and calmly as if I knew it was taped. Interestingly, I was repeating the same story, without striking variations.

‘So,’ the major said, ‘you’re repeating the same over and over again.’

I replied after a long pause: ‘I’m telling my husband all that happened,’ and added, ‘I’ve never lied to him.’

‘Your husband is dead,’ the major said.

I couldn’t help it. Tears streaked down my face, burning the skin on my neck.

‘I know,’ I said quietly.

I remembered everything all too clearly. What baffled me was how I got out of it alive, who saved me, how I got to the hospital. In fact, I didn’t want to

39

be saved. I wasn’t at all ready to start a new life. As I listened to my voice, I was surprised at my own calmness. Moreover, I was bewildered by the weird precision, the pedantic accuracy of the text which I was repeating just like a recorded message.

The major got to his feet and wiped my tears with a tissue. That’s when I realized I couldn’t move a finger. I was bandaged like a mummy.

‘Is your story true?’ the major asked smiling kindly.

I nodded.

‘Can you tell me now what happened?’

After a long while I replied: ‘No.’ ‘Why’s that?’

‘I’m tired.’

He immediately sprang up and addressed someone sitting behind him: ‘Take care of her!’

The next day I narrated my story to him word for word, exactly as it was recorded on the tape.

For some time he sat quietly, then said: ‘Please be frank with me, did you invent the fairy tale?’

‘A tale?’

If my narrative was considered a piece of fiction, why did he spend all these months by me bed? Or why did they look after me so carefully, why did they support life in my practically dead body? Why was I brought back to life from what seems to have been a clinical death?

He seemed to have guessed my thoughts. He smiled with his strange lopsided smile – only his lips stretched. He looked away and said, as if to himself: ‘Do you actually understand the meaning of your story?’

Then he drew a piece of paper from the case at his feet. He stared at it for a long time. I believe he wasn’t reading it, just played for time before saying’ ‘A physicist!’

I replied: ‘I haven’t held anything back. Even from the person I should have told nothing. Yes, I am a physicist, an astronomer. And I understand perfectly well what I’ve said.’

‘Exactly!’ he said.

That day we didn’t talk anymore.

When I woke up the next morning he was sitting by my bed again.

‘Of course,’ I said, ‘some things, actually quite a lot are added, purely my inclusion, but the main point is we were really seeing each other.’

‘And you...’

‘He was an alien!’

‘But why...’

‘Didn’t I notify the authorities?’

Our conversation began to resemble a game – I had to guess what he wanted to say. So far I was doing fine.

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‘I didn’t because...’

I stopped, as if suggesting he joined in and he readily followed the rules of the game: ‘You fell in love with him.’

Till that moment I was talking to him but not looking at him. Now I turned my head. He wasn’t smiling, his face tense, a bead of sweat glistening on his temple.

‘How do you know?’ I asked.

‘Because you’re pregnant!’ he blurted it out severely, even rudely.

I suddenly remembered about my pregnancy.

‘I’ve got a husband!’ I tried to protest.

‘You had one,’ he corrected me calmly.

Apparently, he was well informed, including my husband’s problems.

I said after a short pause: ‘I haven’t held back anything. That recording is absolutely true. It all happened like that. And I can’t add anything. Now, can I ask you leave me alone?

I’m very weak.’

Without another word, he got to his feet and left.

That night I went into premature labor. It might not have been premature but that’s what I believed. I didn’t even know how long I’d been in hospital, how much time had passed since... At that point I stopped thinking as recalling the past was excruciating. When I felt the pain, I was somehow relieved as it’d save me from the annoyingly polite talk with the investigator.

Strangely enough, I felt no connection with the baby except the pain when it came out of my body like a rough piece of rock. No, that was my imagination, or rather that’s how I perceived the pain in my imagination because the baby was born by Caesarian section and I was heavily anesthetized. Surely, they brought it to show me but I didn’t even look. ‘A girl, it’s a girl’ was all I heard. I just couldn’t look at her. Milk was oozing from my swollen breasts. They hurt. I was well aware I had a baby but that was it. Believe it or not, I had no emotion towards her. Not surprisingly, I had no wish to see her. That’s no good, the doctors used to reprimand me, it’s your baby after all. They found it bewildering.

So, it can be said that I did have a baby but failed to become a mother.

Soon I was able to get up. I was allowed into the hall. I used to shuffle along the corridor all alone. The wards on that floor were empty. Then came a new investigator. He was holding a bunch of flowers as if it were a signal flag.

They were, how do I put it, kind of official flowers, the type that haven’t got names, only numbers. He was wearing plain clothes but apparently couldn’t find a matching tie, so he had a khaki one, the kind they wear with the uniform and fastens at the neck with a button.

‘Do you feel better?’ he asked.

‘Thank you. I’m fine.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ he shoved rather than gave me the flowers. ‘Congratulations on having a baby.’

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I thanked him. Put the flowers on the window sill. Immediately the nurse came in, put the flowers in a glass jar and placed it on the table. She stared at the investigator. He indicated she could go. The nurse closed the door quietly behind her. I knew all his questions by heart. He didn’t ask anything new, however, as opposed to the previous investigator, he blamed me for treason. He did smile, but his expression remained unchanged. I laughed: ‘If it’s treason, probably it’s better to blame me for betraying the planet rather than my country!’

Just like the previous one, this officer also brought in the cassette player and made me listen to my delirious prattle again. It went on for several days.

Eventually, he told me I was being transferred to another clinic the following day. Which one, I asked. Wasn’t this a clinic? Psychiatric, he replied calmly and immediately added: ‘Is it so unexpected?’

‘Can I be frank?’

‘Sure! That’s why I’m here.’

‘I thought you’d hit me.’

‘How can you say that? What made you even think of it!’ he sounded genuinely surprised, even affronted.

‘Why am I transferred to the psychiatric clinic? Am I mad?’

‘Can what you’ve been saying,’ he indicated the tape with his gaze, ‘and what you actually did...’

‘Oh my god,’ I sighed.

‘Yes,’ he went on, ‘can all this be considered normal?’

‘How do you know what is normal and what is abnormal?’ I blurted out, rather argumentatively, which surprised me a lot. ‘How can you be so sure?’ I shouted at him.

Without as much as raising his eyebrow, he replied evenly: ‘The experts will shed light to that issue.’

‘Including the treason?’ I was extremely agitated. The mention of the clinic deeply upset me. The enormity of my misfortune seemed to dawn on me only now.

‘That as well,’ he said and rose to his feet. He took the white coat hanging on the back of the chair. As opposed to the previous one, he didn’t bother to even wrap it around his himself. When he came, he had it in his hand, trailing it behind. Soon I was transferred to the psychiatric clinic.

Lasha Tabukashvili

Lasha tabuk

kashvili Lasha Tabukashvili was born in 1950.

His literary debut took place in the magazine ‘Tsiskari’ (‘Down’) with the story ‘A Boy Was Killed’ in 1969. He has about 20 stories published. They are translated into many languages (one of his stories ‘Goodbye, My Lady’ has just been published in Tokyo in a literary almanach of European writers in the Japanese language).

Lasha Tabukashvili is also the author of plays (‘A Wound’, ‘It Is Spring Beyond the Shutters’, ‘An Old Waltz’, ‘They Are Taming a Sparrow-Hawk’, ‘Roads Going Towards You’, ‘But He Has Not Allowed It to Me’, ‘In the Place of a Former Church’, ‘What Does It Matter that the Wet Lilac is Wet?’, ‘Snow-White Snow’, ‘An Asteroid’) staged at almost all the academic theaters of the former Soviet Union, also in Czechoslovakia, Germany and translated into many languages.

In 1998-1999 the well-known New-York Eugene O’Neill drama center twice enrolled Lasha Tabukashvili into the list of the best playwrights of the 20th century, and after the millenium he found himself in the list of a hundred best playwrights of all times.

In 2006 he was awarded Shota Rustaveli prize. ‘

Give Us Another Smile, Gwynplaine’ is Lasha Tabukashvili’s first novel published in 2014 by Intelekti Publishing.

Lasha Tabukashvili

GIVE US ANOTHER SMILE, GWYNPLAINE Novel. Georgian. 312 pages Published: 2014 Rights held: World Rights

The novel has two protagonists: Beka Ishkhneli, 24, and Lazare Ishkhneli, 62. The former lives in Tbilisi, Georgia, the latter is an American.

However, it can be said that these two are halves of one entity split in two. Lazare’s father, Otar Ishkhneli was one of the conspirators of the 1924 anti-Soviet rebellion. It was in that distant year that the Ishkhneli family split: the idealist stayed behind, while the rationally practical one emigrated. This seems to be the reason that Beka and Lazare fail to understand each other, both having their own, diagonally opposing viewpoints.

Having arrived to Georgia, Lazare finds himself in the country of paradoxes. It is the place where they start business without a comprehensive plan, where nurses allow themselves to teach surgeons because they believe they are more nationally-minded. It is the country where con men spent more money on entertaining those they are going to trick than what they get from their deception.

The novel opens with a gunshot – the artist shoots at his self-portrait, symbolically executing himself. The motive of self-destruction becomes one of the focal points of the narrative.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

California, 1964 Lazare was walking along the ocean beach. The recent rain had left its pebbles glistening and the long waves of the morning storm had washed plenty of seaweeds and shells ashore.

Lazare turned to look at his newly bought house. It had become his rather unexpectedly because his investment bank usually acquired the buildings in the most beautiful places around the world, bought classic chateaux or modern architectural marvels or sometimes yet unappreciated edifices. But it was in this huge, and yet amazingly light house, which seemed to hover above the ground, that the young man – so fed up with staying in various hotels and rented offices – found so much desired comfort. Now this house at the ocean had become Lazare’s haven...

The wet beach was deserted. The height of the season had passed but it didn’t stop the surfing and diving enthusiasts. However, no one was on the beach except a young girl collecting shells. Lazare walked on... For the last two years he was preoccupied, closely studying the business of the English nobleman who was instrumental in sacking his father Otar Ishkhneli. Together with his expert, Lazare scrutinized his financial situation and discovered that even without any outside help, the spendthrift was surely and steadily heading towards bankruptcy. Lazare just delivered the last blow. For him it wasn’t sheer business, more the acrimony accumulated since his childhood.

He didn’t feel any pangs of conscience or enjoy the sweet revenge. He had resold the man’s estates in half price, getting rid of them as if it was a liceinfested pillow. Then, as though testing his own luck, he had put all his assets at stake and surprisingly it paid bringing him huge profit. Since then, however, he hadn’t done anything so rush. He became a careful gambler with his acute intuition...

Now, at the ocean front, the young man in his late twenties, who had freed his heart from vengeance, walked on – a successful Georgian American.

The young girl went on choosing the shells. She was wearing loose gray pants and a short black cardigan. Wiping tears, she put the shells in a little basket. She must have been seventeen. And she caught Lazare’s attention despite her swollen face. He stopped nearby, watching the process of collecting and selecting shells for quite some time. The girl wiped her tears, snuffled and decided to find out what the hell the stranger meant by staring at her.

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‘What are you staring at?’

‘I’m debating whether to ask you the dumb question.’

‘Go on, try me.’

‘Are you OK?’ ‘I’m fine.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Look for yourself.’

‘At a weeping little girl?’

‘I’m not that young. I’m nineteen,’ the shell collector announced proudly.

‘Am I supposed to see anything else?’

‘That it’s not the time and place for your stupid questions.’

‘Which one would be sensible?’

The girl laughed. Lazare handed her his handkerchief. She blew her nosenoisily.

‘You can keep it.’

‘That’s what I intended to do.’ Suddenly she was concerned. ‘I must be quite a sight!’

‘You look like the Little Red Riding Hood.’

‘Fine. I’m keeping the hankie as a memento.’

‘Bye,’ Lazare thought he might have overdone with it. He turned to walk away but heard her: ‘I’ve just thought of another question. You can ask me if I care for a drink or two.’

‘A drink or two?’

‘Great! I’m Lizzie.’

‘I’m Lazare’ ‘Nothing shorter?’

‘Gwyn.’

‘Which is?’

‘Short from Gwynplaine.’

‘Oh, Hugo! Don’t feel like laughing but still laugh? Where are you taking me, Gwyn?’

‘The choice is yours, Lizzie.’

She didn’t think for long naming an Alsace restaurant.

‘I feel peckish and they’ve got the best food on the beach.’

‘Wonderful! I like hungry guests.’

Lizzie left her basket on the beach, saying she didn’t really know why she decided to collect the shells. She was just killing time... They sat on a veranda of a small restaurant. She asked for a glass of Campari for an aperitif and before she half drained it, she told Lazare her boyfriend had left her and that’s why she was crying. She intended to leave the place because she was fed up with the damn resort, the ocean, diving and sex on the pebbles. She managed to tell a lot about herself over a double portion of escargot and a sole fish, washed

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down with three glasses of Sancerre. After the dessert and coffee chased by fifty grams of Courvoisier, she turned to Lazare: ‘Why Gwynplaine?’

‘My friends nicknamed me because I had Gwynplaine’s make-up at the Halloween.’

‘Only once?’

‘Not really. I often used the same make-up for fancy dress parties. We used to enjoy them.’

‘What? The fancy dress parties?’

‘Yes and I would sing a song which became a kind of tradition. It was a joke really.’

‘Which song?’ Lizzie sounded interested.

‘My Sweet Unforgettable Caroline.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘I told you it was a joke.’

‘So, fancy dresses and carnivals. Are you a Latino?’

‘I’m not.’

‘Jewish maybe?’

‘No. Ethnically I’m a Georgian but was born in the US.’ ‘America is huge.’

‘In New York.’

‘New York isn’t America! It’s more like Babylon. Ha! Born in New York!’

‘OK, I won’t do it again.’

‘Plan to be born elsewhere?’ Lizzie didn’t wait for the answer. ‘What is Georgian?’

‘It’s a nationality and in general try to hide your American ignorance.’

‘I’ll try,’ Lizzie laughed. ‘But still, can you please explain?’

‘I’m from the Caucasus.’ Lazare asked for a pen and paper and drew a scale map. Lizzie studied it carefully and exclaimed in surprise: ‘Wow! You’re Russian!’

Lazare swore in Georgian.

‘Do you want anything else?’

‘Why are you angry at me?’

‘I asked if you’d like to order anything else.’

‘No, thanks!’

‘Then we should go.’

‘Which hotel are you staying in?’

‘I’ve got a house here.’

‘Where?’

Lazare pointed his thumb behind his back. The girl’s eyes rounded.

‘That one belongs to a famous architect and I like it very much. Why lie ­to me?’

‘I bought it.’ Lazare was growing a bit weary of talking to her. The sense of

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novelty was wearing off. Lizzie seemed to feel it.

‘Don’t get mad at me, please! I’m just playing with you,’ she said childishly in an attempt to regain the lost position.

‘I’m not so easily maddened,’ he said and Lizzie calmed down.

‘And I’m out of sorts! Otherwise, I’m quite normal under the normal circumstances. Will you show me your house?’

‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Oh, please! Tomorrow I won’t be here.’

‘OK, let’s go.’ Lazare left the money for the waiter and rose to his feet.

Lizzie smiled at the maître.

‘Arrivederci, Carlo! Mille grazie.’

‘Prego, senorita. Please come back.’

‘I’m leaving tomorrow.’

‘That’s a pity. Arrivederla!’

Before stepping inside the house, Lizzie stopped Lazare: ‘I just wanted to tell you there isn’t going to be any sex.’

‘Oh, really? Why didn’t you warn me in advance?’ the young man feigned indignation. For the first time Lizzie eyed him thoughtfully.

She liked the house very much, even voiced a couple of professional comments and finally said: ‘I’d love to have something to drink.’

‘Wouldn’t it be too much?’

‘Don’t worry, Gwyn. Usually I don’t drink but today I’m deeply upset because of that son-of-a-bitch.’

‘What will it be?’

‘Scotch, please. No! Have you got Irish whisky? The one with a faint aroma of smoke?’

Later, with a glass of whisky in her hand, she stood on the balcony overlooking the ocean telling her story: ‘I went to a women’s college in Boston but dropped out. Then I took up photography but I fear I’ll soon be fed up with it. I’ve got a problem understanding myself! In the morning I was crying because of that asshole but by the evening I’ve already forgotten him. He became a stranger! As if it all happened ten years ago and I’m sure I won’t remember a thing tomorrow. I haven’t decided if I’m simply insensitive or invent problems myself in order to solve them later.

Last time I cried was when Kennedy was assassinated! Our families were quite close. What can you say to that?’

‘Take it easy.’

‘You’re quite nice for your age. I wish you were younger. How old are you?’

‘Twenty-nine.’

‘As old as Methuselah!’ Lizzie laughed. ‘I’m kidding. In fact I like experienced and reserved men. Unfortunately I can’t pronounce your name – too many consonants. Ish... Ikh... I’m Lizzie O’Brian.’

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‘Very few consonants! From the Boston O’Brians?’

‘Bingo! That’s my clan – old money, impenetrable and pathologically snobbish!’

Lazare looked at his watch. He liked the girl more and more but he had business to tend to. Being O’Brian, Lizzie sensed it, rose to her feet, heartily thanked her generous host and asked for his business card, not offering hers in return though.

‘I left it in my hotel,’ she lied but Lazare chose not to notice it, just said it was a pity. She looked at him with renewed interest.

‘The garden is untended,’ she dropped as they walked to the gate.

They bid goodbye. Suddenly Lizzie turned back to him with a washed smile: ‘You must be thinking the boyfriend would surely run away from someone like me, right?’

‘I’ve got to confess I didn’t have time to think about it.’ After a pause Lazare added with a smile, ‘Life is beautiful, Lizzie, as beautiful as you!’

A month later, on his return from Washington, Lazare dismissed his driver and the moment he walked into his garden, his thoughts were of Lizzie. He was wondering how she would react to the attention his garden was getting from the new owner. He longed to take a quick shower, wrap himself in a fluffy bathrobe and then enjoy the ocean view, watching the waves for a very, very long time... He was glad to regain the long-lost feeling of returning to a cozy home.

‘I must be a true hedonist. Business is just a mask, my little Lizzie,’ he thought as he went inside his house. At once he questioned himself of the reasons his thoughts so frequently travelled to Lizzie. He hardly had time to undress when his phone rang.

‘Hello, Georgian! It’s Lizzie.’

‘Hello, Lizzie.’

‘Are you going to say you’re happy to hear me?’

‘I am.’

‘I can definitely say so. Where have you been for the whole month? Making money?’

‘That too. But I believe I’m suffering from dromomania.’

‘Is that an urge to wander?’

‘Yes, something like that.’

‘Are you at home?’

‘Take a guess.’

‘Remember you said I looked like a Little Red Riding Hood? But you haven’t lived up to either the wolf or the hunter.’

‘Does that mean I’m the Granny?’

‘Granny, Granny, why have you got such beautiful eyes?’

‘I’ve often thought of you too.’

‘If you miss me, I can come.’

‘I don’t suppose it’s a good idea at the moment. On the other hand, why not?’

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‘As you wish, Granny! Will you meet me at the airport?’

‘I will.’ Lazare guessed she was serious about it. It was too late to reverse things.

‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll call you about my flight.’

‘What’s wrong with me?’ Lazare asked himself as he stepped under the shower. Then he settled comfortably in a deck-chair on his long balcony noting with pleasure that the ocean waves promised a meeting with Lizzie. He dozed off lulled by the rhythmic splashing and sloshing. When the phone broke the silence, he picked it up.

‘I’m calling from the Boston airport. My flight is...’ and when Lizzie dictated the flight number, she demanded to continue the conversation. ‘I’ve got to wait for an hour and I absolutely hate waiting! Can you entertain me? It’s you who insisted I spent two hours on the plane.’

‘Did I?’ ‘Who else? I don’t know any other Georgian on that coast. Frankly speaking, neither on others!’

‘Unless my memory fails me...’

‘It does. I hate flying. I’m scared of being suspended somewhere in the sky.

So, better talk to me!’

‘How are you?’

‘Not bad. My ex-boyfriend has turned into a bad dream while you have remained in my reality, which was pretty surprising in the beginning. In fact, there are lots of strange things around us, aren’t there? As if we’re trapped in a circle of weird things. What do you say?’

‘Lots of familiar things too and who can say which is better? Are you still interested in photography?’

‘I am. I bought a new camera, Made in Japan. It’s hanging down my shoulder right now. It’s nice of you to remember about my craze.’

‘You’re pretty good too for phoning me.’

‘I called you on the fourth day. Thought I’d ask how you were, just say hello.

Then I called you regularly but you vanished! And you didn’t give me any other numbers! Do you have a yacht?’

‘I do. I think we should stop now or else we won’t have any topics left for later. What are we going to do then?’

‘It’s a man’s job to think of it. I don’t insist that you insisted on my arrival, but please don’t hang up! I’m nervous before the flight and prefer to talk... Ah, they’ve announced my boarding! You can meet me with the sign saying Lizzie, you are welcome! Ok, I’m tired of this foolish talk. The rest will follow when I get there, my Georgian! See you, Gwyn!’

Lazare thought it wasn’t worth calling his driver, drove his Range Rover from the garage and headed unhurriedly to the airport. His heart throbbed with excitement.

This time Lizzie was wearing bell-bottom pants and a green sweater. The

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camera was hanging down her shoulder. She greeted him rather indifferently and pointed at a large suitcase which she wanted to be put in the boot. They hardly talked on the way back. She told him the hotel she was staying in and lit a thin cigarette. After a couple of empty phrases, Lazare fell quiet. When they stopped at the hotel and a Pilipino boy took Lizzie’s luggage, she asked off-handedly: ‘What are we doing this evening?’

‘Nothing if you’re going to carry like that.’

‘Is that blackmail?’

Lazare didn’t reply. He got into his car and drove home. He swam for a long time in his pool, then forbade his valet to call him to the phone unless it was really vital. The valet felt lost, wondering how he was going to decide which call was important, but Lazare didn’t pay attention to his protest. He exercised instead. He was doing his second mile when the pale valet brought him the phone attached to a long cord. He handed it to Lazare together with a small towel.

‘The young lady is calling for the seventh time.’

‘Why aren’t you picking the phone, Gwyn? I’m hungry!’

‘The service in your hotel is quite good. Order whatever you want. I’ll pay.’

‘That has nothing to do with it! I just want to see you.’

‘Look, even when I was your age, I never fell to those female tricks.’

‘If I’m not mistaken, I’m your guest and have arrived only because you asked me to,’ Lizzie reminded him icily.

Lazare had difficulty not to burst out laughing.

‘Why have you ascribed to yourself the VIP status?’

‘It’s my birthright.’

‘Enough of those Boston games, OK? My ancestors were Imeretian nobles but I’m quite adequate, so bon appetit!’

The valet looked silently at his master who was holding on to the pool edge, hardly holding back his laughter. The phone rang again.

‘I know that yours is one of the oldest monarchies, but it doesn’t fit you to throw me out like a stray cat, Gwyn!’

‘Where do you want to dine?’

‘At Carlo’s maybe?’

When he walked into the hotel lobby, Lazare didn’t regret putting on his Savile Row suit. He couldn’t believe his eyes: where was the tearful girl picking up shells? Lizzie was wearing an evening dress that looked great on her petite body. She had a pearl necklace and diamond rings on and her hair was held up high, very little make-up... She certainly knew how to impress men. Now, striding towards him in her high-heeled shoes, she didn’t show any regret. Her eyes held his. The playful phase was over and Lizzie O’Brian was ready for new challenges.

‘O, bella senorita! Che bella! Senior Lazar, I’m so glad you are back with us!’

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‘Did you come here without me?’ Lizzie tensed.

‘I did, three or four times.’

‘Alone?’ she asked in a seemingly disinterested way and opened the drink menu.

‘Together with my business partners.’

‘Alsace cuisine, an Italian host and a Georgian guest!’ Lizzie put the menu away. ‘I’ll start with Cointreau. What about you?’

‘Something Irish in your honour.’

‘My advice is Bushmills. Incidentally, did you tell me on the phone you were an Aryan?’

‘No! I said I was Imeretian.’

‘Such a relief! I thought you were a racist.’

‘I didn’t mean seriously what I said. Imereti is a poor region in Georgia.’

‘The people there are said to be similar to those from Gascony, right?’ Lizzie lit a cigarette. Lazare was stunned.

‘How do you know about the Georgian monarchy or the Imeretians?’

‘I did my homework in the library. By the way, the materials are rather scarce and unsystematic. The Armenians are much better at their history.’

‘Nothing doing. In fact, you have touched something in my heart with that interest in my people.’

‘Your heart?’ Lizzie ordered the aperitif for both of them.

‘You have! Personally I’m pretty indifferent to such things, maybe because I received them in gigantic doses in my childhood and have shunned ever since.’

‘Have you been to your country?’

‘No.’ ‘Because it’s in Soviet Russia?’ she dropped her playful tone.

‘I don’t know.’ It sounded more like a groan and Lizzie guessed it was time to change the topic. ‘Let’s go to my place. It’s still quite early. What are going to do in your hotel?’

They first kissed in the garden. Later, when they settled on the sofa, Lizzie dropped her shoes and put her legs across Lazare’s lap. Instead of a cigarette, he rolled one using fine tobacco. Lizzie rummaged in her handbag.

‘Wait, I think I’ve got some good Moroccan stuff.’

‘It’s not marijuana, Lizzie! It’s tobacco.’ He leaned and kissed her on the lips.

‘Please give me some time. Take me to my hotel,’ she said when she regained her breath.

‘I definitely don’t like the Granny’s role.’ Lazare kissed her again, longer and more passionately this time.

‘The wolf and the hunter rolled in one! The Little Red Riding Hood doesn’t stand a chance!’ Lizzie returned his kiss.

In the morning Lazare stood in front of the bathroom mirror absent-mindedly turning his toothbrush in his hand. To his surprise otherwise lively and boisterous Lizzie turned out to be rather timid and inexperienced in bed. She was

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aware of it and nearly apologized to him, saying she only had two men before and only now she realized they were no good. She did miss the main thing though: Lazare fell in love with her for what she was.

The next day they went into the ocean on his yacht. Lizzie caught a big fish...

A week passed like a magnificent dream. Frequent love making gradually woke a woman in her and one day, at the climax, she let out a sweet long moan. Lazare was filled with joy and when dazzled Lizzie asked what happened to her because she felt like dying and then came back to life, he said: ‘How do I know? What I know for sure is that it was the most wonderful musical passage I’ve ever heard!’

In the airport, when Lizzie went through the passport control, she turned to him: ‘Please, don’t leave the initiative in my hands. Call me! I think I’ve fallen for you, Gwyn.’

Lazare just nodded and twenty days later, when he realized the world had turned black-and-white without Lizzie, he called her in Boston. She readily accepted his suggestion to accompany him to Italy.

‘However, I’ve got a request. I don’t suppose I can bear the long distance flight. That’s why I’ve never been to Europe. Can we sail, please? I know it takes time and if your business is going to suffer...’

‘Don’t you worry about it. I’ve never been a slave of my business. You can choose the ship and the route.’

They spent the last week in Tuscany. In a street cafe in Florence, over an ice-cream, Lizzie got pensive: ‘After all these magnificent antiquities America looks like a well refurbished modern building where I haven’t lived yet. Actually, I miss Boston and your house. At the same time, I wouldn’t be able to stand these antiquities for a long time. I wouldn’t wish to live here. I find all this magnificence kind of oppressing.

Even in Venice, occasionally...’

‘I can guarantee it’s going to be occasional.’

Lizzie threw him a trusting glance: ‘I believe you.’

Lazare had never been so happy in his life. Travelling with the girl he loved, the house which had become so welcoming... ‘Wish you were alive, Mum and Dad. I’d colour your lives, utterly spoil you, make you forget all the problems and overcome bitterness. I’d make up for it all,’ he thought.

Once Lizzie visited Lazare on her own but soon he had to leave her in order to take a business trip across the country. She didn’t return to Boston and stayed in his house for four days alone. She would stroll along the beach, pick shells and then drop them again on the shingle. She did take one, however, a particularly big shell, the one that sent the ocean sound through the body if you put it to your ear. She put it on the shelf hoping Gwyn would like it.

Lazare returned early in the morning, sent the car away for the day and went

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into the garden. He immediately saw barefooted Lizzie running towards him in her nightgown. That’s when he finally decided...

‘Will you marry me?’ he asked Lizzie. She was reclining on the pillow, playing with her locks.

‘If you hadn’t, I was going to suggest it myself.’ Then she looked at him seriously and stroked his hair. ‘For some reason I’m sure I’ll be a good wife to you because I love you, Gwyn!’ After a while she added, ‘I’ve got to prepare my family. The O’Brians are a difficult lot, so please be prepared for a little discomfort. And you’ve got to reconcile with the idea of a formal wedding. What’s the alternative? We can’t go to Vegas for a quick solution, can we? I’m sure you’re going to charm them, no doubt... Also, you need to know that they aren’t interested or impressed by your millions. They haven’t allowed even the billionaires into their tight circle. Nothing doing – that’s the style of the Boston aristocracy, the first colonists.’ She thought for some time. ‘Incidentally, it wouldn’t harm your business in the least!’

‘Don’t let me hear anything like that, ever!’ In a second Lazare apologized to his fiancée, who was genuinely frightened by his rude tone, ‘I don’t need your family’s connections and influence.’

The wedding attracted plenty of attention from all kinds of media. Lazare had only seen most of the people in glossy magazines, the celebrities he found shaking hands with. His arm ached and his permanent smile turned into the Gwynplaine’s make-up. The O’Brians demonstrated exemplary generosity in treating their guests. In the church Lazare managed to ask his friend Kursha if he looked like a fool, to which Kursha replied all grooms looked dumb. He believed he was putting his pal at ease.

Finally, the newly-weds were ceremoniously seen off to Corsica where they spent their first honeymoon week. Kursha was ecstatic with their choice and thanks to his numerous relatives’ involvement, the week was truly honey-sweet.

It was in Oletta that Lizzie told Lazare: ‘You like Corsica and admire the Corsicans’ loyalty to their traditions. Why don’t you visit your homeland, Georgia? I could come with you.’

‘Lizzie, I’m the son of a White Army officer, the participant of the 1924 rebellion and so on. Besides...’

‘And I’m a woman in love and feel you’ve got a problem with self-identification. Personally, I spent all my childhood with shrinks because I was completely alienated from myself. Even now I sometimes think there is someone slumbering in me, demanding to be woken up. Wake me up, Gwyn!’

‘I believe we have embarked on an extremely complicated verbal venture in the middle of our honeymoon. It’s best not to question certain things. As for waking you up...’ Lazare removed the blanket and got on top of Lizzie.

With the intuition of a loving wife, Lizzie felt that her successful, powerful and seemingly complex-free husband was scared of the self-identification problem, was in fact horrified of it... Lazare read contemporary Georgian literature, kept

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up to date with the events in Georgia but avoided all contacts with other Georgians. He explained it with the hardship, the painful memories he had lived through in his immigrant childhood. Once Lizzie arranged a meeting between Lazare and a Georgian man who had defected to the West after the World War II. She invited him home for dinner. In the beginning Lazare felt tense and even angry with her, but little by little he unwound. However, when the new immigrant called his former compatriots ‘Soviets’, Lazare erupted: ‘How can you call the Georgians Soviets even if they live in that country?

How have you become so haughty so soon? I know I’m violating all the existing hospitality rules, but who do you think you are?’

‘Indeed, it’s easy to hurt me. One thoughtless word would suffice. But my reply might be painful to you, my dear host!’

‘Fine, let’s go out into the garden. Let’s see what kind of man you really are!’

The man followed him without hesitation. They stood facing each other threateningly but Lizzie ran panting down the stairs and threw a white scarf between them.

‘You can’t step over the scarf thrown by a woman!’ In this critical situation Lizzie had remembered an old Georgian chivalry tradition, which she had read about in the library. The stunned men stared at the white scarf. Then the guest burst out laughing and Lazare joined him. They climbed the stairs arm in arm, with tears glistening in their eyes. That night the men drank several bottles of Montrachat.

It turned out that the guest’s father and brother were executed in the 1937 purges.

‘I fought bravely but was wounded and taken prisoner. But who remembered it when after the war I was sent to Siberia together with my medals? That’s why I defected,’ the man said. ‘I suspect my family was persecuted as a result. You can’t drop a white scarf at the Soviet system!’

The guest left at dawn and Lazare didn’t see him again. Both might have regretted discontinuing their relationship but they did nothing to restore it. Two Georgians chose to avoid each other. Lizzie thought it was like two dominant bulls meeting. She decided that scrutinizing the tender issue of Lazare’s ethnic belonging, which had become painfully sensitive, and poking in the sore wound it had left wouldn’t help the new family in the least.

Lizzie and Lazare settled in his house at the ocean. He was aware his lifestyle was bound to change. If earlier he preferred to be alone and shunned from any contacts with the locals, Lizzie’s presence had seriously topples his priorities. Their house suddenly became extremely attractive to various visitors – a perfect entertainment place. Lizzie turned out to enjoy parties and hardly a weekend passed without their house and the garden being crowded with people. Lazare wasn’t in the least annoyed, in fact, he seemed to like it. However, occasionally he remembered his family parties, very traditionally Georgian, with plenty of food and drinks and wondered if his present guests would think he

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was weird if he raised a wine horn to his motherland. He would chuckle at himself. But he had no horn and other winds were blowing... Now he devoted more time to sports. He was the member of the local elite club and regularly played tennis. He soon became quite popular thanks to his charm and outgoing character. As for Lizzie, she was everyone’s favourite. They did have some privacy as well because she had in inborn sense of balance which helped her to alternate contrasting events. After Corsica she had abandoned her camera, deciding to become a model housewife.

On ordinary days only the gardener and two cleaner ladies disturbed their coziness. Lizzie discovered a culinary skill in herself and learned some Georgian recipes so Lazare often dined at home. But they stayed loyal to the Alsace cuisine, enjoying an intimate candle-lit supper, which had become their weekly ritual. Lazare had moved his head office to the town and ran his sizeable empire from there. From time to time, though, he was obliged to take business trips. But these separations were only beneficial for the young couple because they kept their tender feelings floating on heavenly clouds, not allowing them to sink in to the murky depths of routine.

One of the parties at the Ishkhneli place was nearly ruined by Jane’s appearance, which caused a mini earthquake among the male guests. This femme fatal in her mid-thirties was the embodiment of their sensual desire. Ever smiling and distance-keeping, Jane didn’t look like a typical vamp, that’s why the female part of the society just about tolerated her dazzling sexuality. Lizzie, quite jealous by nature, felt immediate sympathy for Jane and their friendship wasn’t limited to twittering at numerous social functions. She thought she had found a friend, failing to notice the growing interest Jane was demonstrating towards Lazare. She was sending the unmistakable signals, veiled but obvious to him. Gripped by passion, he found it increasingly difficult to resist her, to refrain from responding to her. Jane was unique and Lazare fought hard to ignore her tender attack.

At one of the club tournaments, Jane and Lazare played doubles. The sight of a near naked woman on the court was absolutely unbearable. Her charm affected men on their hormone level, enslaving them, turning even the most resistant puritan into a chest-banging gorilla.

Lazare and Jane were beating their opponent, two well-known businessmen. And it wasn’t surprising at all! Whenever she bent at the net or ran towards the rear, the men missed the ball. One of them hit himself with his Dunlop racket and had to stop the game. Elated by the victory, Jane touched Lazare’s sweaty nose with her finger: ‘We make an amazing symbiotic entity in tennis... A striking compatibility!

Incidentally, I rent a room here, so you can take a shower. I’ve brought a new bedand we can check it too,’ she laughed, ‘for durability!’

‘Aren’t you afraid of the possible damage?’

‘I’m not!’ She locked eyes with him, then climbed the stairs. ‘In fact I take

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pleasure in such catastrophes.’

With his blood pumping madly through his body, Lazare followed her like a hungry hound. Jane was opening the door when he thought of Lizzie waiting for him. She had discovered a new recipe and expected him for dinner. Lazare looked at his watch.

‘What’s up?’ Jane asked immediately and eyed him suspiciously sensing he had lost interest.

‘It’s absurd to come in for five minutes and besides, I wouldn’t dream of showing such disrespect. Sadly, I’m expected for dinner.’

‘What kind of dinner can outweigh stepping inside?’ She sounded slightly surprised.

‘It’s at home... A new recipe,’ Lazare mumbled. Jane’s eyes gleamed with fury. She pulled herself together in a minute: ‘Oh, I see, little Lizzie. I fully understand you,’ she laughed. ‘I’ll take it as a bona fide excuse this time.’

They didn’t play together since then. Jane invariably greeted him warmly but an uneasy feeling didn’t leave Lazare. He seemed to sense with his backbone there was some imminent threat coming from the woman and decided to safeguard himself. He went to the court to find her. He just wanted to talk it over with her. ‘And if I feel she hasn’t forgiven me, I’ll just screw her! That kind of woman shouldn’t beg for it,’ he thought.

Jane was nowhere to be seen. Lazare stretched his ankle in the first set and had to go home. He limped upstairs and heard Lizzie’s sensuous moans coming from their bedroom. In a second they were replaced by near weeping mumble... Lazare didn’t hesitate in his next move. He pulled the sideboard drawer, took out the Colt, then fell to his knees. Something was squeezing his heart causing an unbearable pain but he managed to load the gun. He took a deep breath, the pain went away and he kicked the door with all his strength.

He froze on the threshold with his finger on the trigger. Like the mythical Diana, naked Jane was reclining on the king-size bed while Lizzie was hiding behind her back like a scared fawn.

‘Wow, are you going to kill us with that big gun of yours?’ Jane yawned like a panther that had just gorged on its favourite food. She looked Lazare up and down and burst out laughing. ‘Lizzie, I believe your wonderfully potent hubby is going to join us! Come on, Gwyn, you are in for lots of surprises!’

Lazare looked down at his shorts and was ready to put the gun to his temple.

The sight of the two beautiful women got him an erection.

‘Come on, Gwyn, let’s play with your young wife!’

‘Count me out,’ Lazare growled hoarsely, lowered the gun and went out.

The next day Lizzie’s mother called him in his hotel room.

‘Can I still call you Gwyn?’

‘Sure, Mrs. O’Brian.’

‘I’ve just arrived and am in the hotel. Can you come down?’

Give Us Another Smile, Gwynplaine LASHA TABUKASHVILI

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‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ The woman said she would wait in the lobby.

Lazare dragged himself up having spent a sleepless night. He took a contrasting shower, tidied himself up and went down. They sat at a low table.

‘To spare you long explanations, Mrs. O’Brian, I’ll say I won’t allow this to grow into a scandal. I have already warned my lawyers that the divorce is caused by irreconcilable differences between us.’ Lazare sipped some water.

‘It means the reputation of your family will not be tainted. Neither the name of your daughter.’

‘Gwyn, you did right not to shoot those two stupid girls. They’re not worth it.

The woman left Lizzie immediately. She said she wished to punish you, Gwyn, for rejecting her. Women don’t accept rejection, especially the beastly ones.’

Mrs. O’Brian looked into Lazare’s bloodshot, sleepless eyes with sympathy and covered his hand with hers. ‘Tell me one thing but please take your time – is it a full stop in your relations with Lizzie or an ellipsis?’

‘A full stop.’

‘I understand. Lizzie’s dad knows nothing. He’s very traditional and God knows what he’s capable of! I’m not trying to justify Lizzie, but she is a victim.

I’m dying of lung cancer so I haven’t got long. Please think about the ellipsis.

There are twists in life, quite dramatic at times. Don’t allow that woman defeat you. Do you think you might wish to look at it all from a different angle? Lizzie loves you!’

‘The woman has already won. Her victory is final and it’s not my fault.’

‘It breaks my heart. Such a pity.’ Mrs. O’Brian left him, walking very upright across the hotel lobby.

Lazare didn’t stay in that house. He sold it two months later, or rather gave it away for practically nothing.

He was sitting in a street cafe with Lizzie. They were supposed to sign the divorce papers in half an hour.

‘Even in my worst nightmare I couldn’t imagine what’s happening now,’ Lizzie whispered.

Lazare drank some water and looked at his watch.

‘Gwyn, please, I haven’t been unfaithful to you! It was like tsunami! That woman woke something unfamiliar in me.’

‘We’re late, Lizzie.’

‘I want ice-cream. I want it very much. We’ve got another twenty minutes and I’m going to have ice-cream.’

‘As you wish.’

Lazare smoked, patiently waiting for her.

‘I made a mistake,’ she said when she finished her ice-cream. ‘I should have ordered it with chocolate topping.’

‘Time to go, Lizzie.’

‘Wait! Wait a minute! Wait another minute!’

‘Calm down, I’m still here.’

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‘If we go in there, Gwyn, it’s going to be over. Do you understand it?’

‘That’s what we are here for,’ he reminded her softly.

‘Gwyn, you don’t get it, do you? Please, give me another chance!’

‘Cut the dramatics, Lizzie. It’s well below your dignity.’

At that moment Lizzie’s nose started to bleed and she leaned forward.

‘Ice!’ Lazare shouted and covered her face with her handkerchief. The waiter brought him a package with ice-cubes.

‘My nose is freezing, Gwyn!’ The bleeding stopped. ‘Is the dress stained?’

‘No, it’s fine.’

‘That’s because I’ve got small breasts,’ Lizzie giggled. ‘I’m keeping this handkerchief just like that first one. Remember, Gwyn, when I was picking those shells and you...’

‘I do and please drop those sentiments.’

Lizzie didn’t marry again. First she looked after her dying mother, then she travelled a lot, carrying her Made in Japan camera. Some common friends saw her a couple of times on the beach where she was picking up shells and then scattering them again on the shingle.

She died from leukemia three years later. On her deathbed she asked to see Gwyn because she had something to tell him. Lazare flew to Boston but she was already gone...

By then it was 1968. The gigantic shell found by Lizzie remained on Lazare’s shelf but it was barren because the ocean sound couldn’t be heard anymore.

Shorena Lebanidze

Shorena Leb

banidze Shorena Lebanidze was born in 1965.

In 1984-1989 she studied in the Journalism department of the Ivane Javakhishvili state university.

1990-1997 she was part of the editorial staff of the first independent Georgian newspaper ‘7 Dghe’ (7 days), while writing about the complex socio-economic situation in Georgia in her articles, essays, critical letters and reports from the conflict zones of Abkhazia and Samegrelo; She worked on journalistic investigations, and reviewed all the important events of the time. Her articles brought to light the mistakes made by the government in the war of Abkhazia and the arena of civilian conflict that Samegrelo had become; the secret details of the bloody battles, scandalous assassinations, and the terrorist acts against the important political figures of the time committed by the so called ‘Sadzmo (Brotherhoods) of Tbilisi’. In the following years Shorena Lebanidze worked as a journalist of the political division for the ‘Rezonansi’ newspaper, as a page editor for ‘Saqartvelos Gazeti’ (The newspaper of Georgia), a journalist for news shows of the major television networks ‘Rustavi 2’ and ‘Imedi’; as an editor of the late night news show for the television network ‘Metskhre arxi’ (Channel 9); also worked with the newspapers ‘Kviris Palitra’ (Palette of the Week) and ‘24 Saati’ (24 Hours). In the years 2006 through 2011 she was the script writer for the ‘Rustavi 2’ documentary film division and a part of the creative group for the films produced by this division.

Two documentary-fiction novels by Shorena Lebanidze – ‘It is me – Pirosmani’ (2012) and ‘Pass into the Conflict Zone’ – were published by ‘Artanuji’ publishing company.

Shorena Lebanidze

PASS INTO THE CONFLICT ZONE Documentary Novel. Georgian. 262 pages Published: 2014 Rights held: World Rights

The documentary novel is based on the reporter’s memories. The author describes the events of one year at the end of the 20th century – from the start of the Abkhazian war to the end of hostilities and civil confrontation in Western Georgia.

At that time, immediately after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Shorena Lebanidze worked in the newspaper 7 Dghe (7 Days), the first independent media in Georgia. As a reporter, she had to travel extensively to the western part of Georgia – Abkhazia and Samegrelo – to cover the developments at the frontline.

The author describes the events through an emotional and highly appealing narrative, telling about the Georgian reality laden with murder, treason, rage and fury, and about those people who created that reality.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

From the chapter ‘Ochamchire’ 22 September 1993 After an exasperating jostle we finally got on the plane feeling relieved we made it, but unexpectedly we were rudely pushed back and with one single shove dropped out as if we were vermin.

‘What’s going on?’ we protested loudly.

‘No room,’ the soldier decisively blocking the gangway cut us short.

We glanced around helplessly looking for some acquaintances for assistance but no one seemed to care for two lost reporters. Those few who, thanks to the innate compassion, still miraculously had the ability to show attention, tried to patiently explain to us the risks connected to flying over the city under artillery shelling, pointing out the sheer stupidity of our demand. Those less polite chose not to lose their precious time on us, pushing us out of their way as if we were useless load.

In short, we didn’t fly.

Two hours later, back in the office, we received the fax saying that the flight of TU-154 carrying soldiers had exploded while landing in Babushera airport.

It was Lia who read it first, then handed it to me with a trembling hand.

I immediately visualized the sturdy, dark, angrily frowning soldier who pushed us so callously down the gangway. Then I remembered other soldiers I knew, those sitting at the portholes, shaking their heads at our plea, avoiding our gaze, shrugging their shoulders, saying there was nothing they could do. I also remembered Ghia Svanadze I met a year earlier at the governmental residence in Sukhumi. He desisted me from flying to Gagra referring to the incident connected to the military cutter and the heavy shelling from Gudauta. Then my memory recalled those privates who were assigned as our bodyguards in the Agudzera headquarters while all others had left to regain the control of the surrounding villages. And of course Krialashvili of the Eagle Squad, who led the way in the knee-deep snow with his gigantic strides, and sang ‘Years later we’ll tell our kids...’ faking carefree manner in order to either cover the distant cannonade or to disperse the gloomy fear engulfing us.

I’m not sure if it was the demise of the soldiers, the fall of Gagra, the tragedy of Sukhumi, the ultimate loss of Abkhazia, or the overwhelming emotion of gratefulness, but I wept. I mourned our soldiers burned in the exploded plane

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landing in Babushera, those who had inadvertently saved us by their stubborn determination from fulfilling the death verdict we had been so thoughtlessly sentenced to. On their part it certainly was self-sacrifice, the battle they fought to save someone else’s life, without shedding blood or reverting to arms though... *** A week later, on 29 September, at daybreak, we headed for the Ortachala coach terminal. We managed to get on the crammed Icarus and drove westward, cluttering and rumbling, unhurriedly, at a snail’s pace in truth.

The coach passed the vast open spaces of Kartli and painstakingly approached the winding mountain pass of Rikoti. Near the village of Boriti it started to rasp, inched for a while, then the engine ceased to emit the rattling and jangling noise and stopped dead.

We were obliged to walk for quite some time, then were given a ride by the patrol jeeps moving between the military police and the Interior Ministry checkpoints. The last of those cars took us as far as the turn to Gali, leaving us at the curb and driving back.

It was well past midday and we barely breathed from exhaustion, hunger and thirst, but more than empty stomachs we were troubled by something else: The junction was deserted like the world’s backwater. Not a soul moved in the direction of Gali and Ochamchire. On the other hand, in the opposite direction heading for Senaki, the whole country seemed to be flowing in an unbroken stream, as if the sea waves had suddenly reared and began to walk. It was the endless line of refugees with their babies fleeing the homes of their ancestors, abandoning the entire area along the river Kodori, laden with their belongings.

As far as the eye could see it was the caravan of a biblical dimension – cars and trucks, horse and donkey, drawn carts, bicycles and tractors loaded with dusty furniture useless now, once valuable crockery, rolled matrasses with holes in them showing chunks of wool or cotton, suitcases and bundles hastily crammed with clothes and shoes. The procession was heartrending, the river of desperateness bringing along the sorrow of the forsaken motherland.

‘Have you all fled?’

‘Yes, all of us.’

‘What did you do with your houses?’

‘Some of us locked them, some of us used long poles with petrol soaked rags to ignite them.’

The man looked down at his hands. He only managed to utter those words through his gritted teeth. He had built that house with his own hands and burned it with his own hands.

‘Did you manage to save anything?’

‘I’m not sure...’

He had pulled a rusty wheelbarrow from under the barn when the flames

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were already wrapping his wooden house in the middle of the orange grove.

The sizzling fire swallowed the painstakingly planed chestnut boards, while the wind, which had started to blow as if to spite him, whirled away their ashes with the thick black smoke.

‘Why didn’t you leave earlier?’

‘We still had hope.’

Indeed they had: the population of the Kodori River were lulled by the yet another peaceful agreement, were temporarily relieved, exactly like those living along the Gumista, this and that side of the river, but likewise deceived.

Ironically, the three-sided peace agreement of 3 September 1992 and of 27 July 1993 treaty signed by Russia, Georgia and Abkhazia turned out to be clever decoys. However, the bogus documents came as a surprise to only one diplomatic party, Georgia, because the first agreement was followed by the loss of Gagra, Leselidze and Gantiadi, while the second brought about the fall of Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia.

On 29 September, while we were on our way to Ochamchire, hardly managing to cut through the human stream heading for Senaki, the Russian and Abkhazian flags were already victoriously raised above the capital of the autonomous republic. The Russian-Abkhazian allied forces planned to cross the border on the river Kodori which divided the territories controlled by Sukhumi and Samurzakano. Moreover, they wanted to reach the Enguri River on the border with Samegrelo in order to raise the Abkhazian flag.

The clock had started to tick, counting down the time. *** When we had walked about five hundred meters, we were overtaken by a truck. The driver had found a safe place for his family in Senaki and was returning to Ochamchire to fetch more household goods. He offered to give us a lift and helped us get on board which had lost its tarpaulin.

We drove very slowly. And it began to rain. First it was just a drizzle but little by little the rain got stronger until it turned into a downpour, drumming on the metal roof of the cabin. We were completely drenched though we hardly noticed either the wetness or the damp cold or the juddering of the truck. With our raised shoulders to shield our heads, we silently stared at the muddy tractors and carts moving in the opposite direction along the sloshy road, which left the rows of abandoned, padlocked or burned down, charred houses in their wake.

A heavy smell of smoke hung around. The silence was broken by the screech of tyres, the squelch of feet stepping into puddles, the sound of a rafter or beam falling in the singed houses whose fires had been quenched by the downpour.

It was the end. And it was called a defeat.

From the chapter ‘The Kodori Boundary or the Diversity of War’

Pass into the Conflict Zone SHORENA LEBANIDZE

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*** Soso Toria, the representative of the government in exile in Chechnya in 1993:

One September evening the President took me into the garden for a quiet talk. He needed to impart extremely important information with me and wished to avoid unwanted witnesses. In general, he preferred to be in the garden, pacin­g it for hours, from dusk till midnight, without his bodyguards. Here he could stay away from the prying eyes to discuss serious issues with his collocutor. Better safe than sorry, as they say. Even the walls had ears. After all, we lived in the Security Service building in Grozny, the building equipped with the latest technological devices.

Not a sound was heard. It was quite late already. The lights went out in the windows, one after another. Only the guards’ room was brightly lit.

For some time we walked without speaking. The President looked tense.

With his hands on his back, he walked unhurriedly, his head bent low, stepping very carefully and quietly. I didn’t dare ask him a question, but was impatient for him to break the silence.

When we reached the gate, he suddenly stopped, turned to me and said clearly and firmly, as if his decision was taken recently but was final and irreversible: ‘Get ready, we’re going to Georgia!’

He didn’t offer any explanation for his decision. He just continued to stroll under the trees along the lofty wall.

I cannot say his words came as a complete surprise. The wish to return to our country was acute for all of us since the day we found refuge in Chechnya.

We avoided discussing the painful and rather sensitive topic only because we feared that at the time of the Abkhazian conflict the appearance of the ousted President near the front line could easily change the mindset of the patriotic war into the fully fledged civil war. If there was anything that deterred us, it was our desire to avoid further escalation of tension, our fear that we could expose our homeland to more peril. Mr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia had repeatedly said we had no other way except living in exile. The change of the initial decision would give the political opponents the possibility to ascribe more blame on President Gamsakhurdia, to scrutinize his every step, to blame him for the inevitable defeat, not to mention the dangers connected to the intended travel. The fate of the country and the life of the President were in dire danger. Anything was possible in the country torn by the conflict and thrown into the turmoil and all of a sudden his words, ‘Get ready, we’re going to Georgia!’

Anxiety petrified me. I couldn’t utter a word. I suddenly realized the enormity of the responsibility. In my stunned state I thought, ‘No way! It’s out of the question!’ But I had no strength to raise my voice. I found myself in a desperate situation because I had no right to oppose the President. I took his word as a law and I couldn’t break the law. I don’t remember asking for additional

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clarification or ever needing to be told twice. A slight hint, often untold, from the President was enough for me to act. However, now it was no time to show tact and reserve.

I rushed to the residence, grabbed a pen and wrote on a piece of paper: ‘I am against it.’ Then I went back to the garden and gave him the paper folded in four with a shaking hand. He took it, unfolded and read it. The President folded it again without a single word, tore the paper into little bits and dropped them into a litter box.

‘Mister President,’ I gained control over my voice and managed to look him in the eyes, ‘there will come the time when I am held responsible for everything, when my nation puts me on trial.’

‘I want you to know,’ he said calmly, ‘that I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’ve made the final decision and please, let’s not argue about it. It would be useless, taking a lot of our time.’

So, that was that. Whether I liked it or not, whether I agreed or not, I was obliged to comply with my President’s orders.

Mr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia sensed that my mood had changed and in order to ease up the tenseness, he began to recite Megrelain folk poetry. I wasn’t able to remember anything apart from a short extract. I was so nervous, I couldn’t brace myself. I was upset, gripped with fear, anxiety, doubt and confusion – all of these bothered me to the extent I was deeply distressed. I knew all too well what his phrase ‘Get ready, we’re going to Georgia’ meant. I was aware how dangerous it was for the ousted President to return to his homeland, to fly over the border from Grozny to Senaki.

Just imagine: no coordination or communication with the ground control, no information about the weather conditions, no guarantee the plane could reach the destination safely. We had to fly following our intuition, relying on the visual contact, in complete secret. Who could say what the weather would be like in Senaki – sunny or rainy, clear or overcast? Would the radars in Rostov try to bring down the aircraft flying over the Caucasus? Would the pilots chosen by Guram Absandze be able to find the airstrip in Senaki, which none of them had ever seen? The reason being that the Soviet regulations banned all civil pilots to get anywhere near the military bases.

I was an aviator with twelve years’ experience of working in the 31st aviation factory. Consequently, it was no problem for me to identify aircraft I might have assembled with my own hands, or to differentiate between a military and a civil airfield. As soon as we took off, I sat next to the President and pressed my face to the porthole, staring intently at the ground.

Guram Absandze was in the cockpit. The Rostov air control was trying to contact our plane to discover our whereabouts but the pilots switched off the radio. They were tense, discussing what altitude would be best, what course to take, how to regulate the speed, how to manage the expenditure of fuel and oxygen. And above all, they wanted to determine where we were, whether we had already reached Georgia.

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When the plane came out of the white clouds, got ready for the landing and the ground became visible, I shouted in anguish it was the Kopitnari airfield.

The pilots asked me how I knew.

‘Of course I know! There’s a SU-25 assembled in my factory on the airstrip.

Why would a military plane be in the Senaki airport? Speed up, fly higher and turn right!’

They took heed of my warning. Mr. Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who hadn’t uttered a word during the whole flight, asked me quietly: ‘Do you recognize anything?’

We were looking through the same porthole. Our heads were touching.

‘Yes, Mr. President.’ I was unusually excited. ‘That’s the sanatorium building in Menji.’ I pointed at the white structure. ‘The resort of Menji. We’re near Senaki.’

He sat up straight. Then he turned towards the cockpit and called out: ‘Guram! Tell the pilots to land.’

We landed. Guram was extremely worried. Although he had warned the airport authorities he was bringing in commercial goods supplies for the militaries and asked to be protected from any hindrance, he still couldn’t rule out unexpected developments. Before getting out, he warned us several times: ‘I’ll go out and talk to them, find out what’s happening. If I don’t like anything, I’ll signal and you are to fly immediately. Don’t wait for me.’

Everything was in order.

The President stepped on the gangway, inhaled deeply, looked around, went down the steps, then stopped after taking several paces, knelt and kissed the ground... He kissed the soil... It was a heartbreaking sight. Extremely painful even today to recall...

At midday, alongside the members of the ousted Supreme Council, he was already standing on the dais, addressing a large crowd of supporters touched to their tears, thrilled by seeing their president. I cannot say the fact that he was surrounded by the public admiration and love had dispersed his worries without leaving the trace of his deep concern. He was still pallid, his eyes sunken. However, he must have felt encouraged and elated, strangely keen and determined.

It was with the resolution that he made his last public speech: ‘Time has come and I’ve returned. I don’t intend to leave anymore. I prefer to be here, with you, and if Destiny wills it, to die among you!’

That’s why he returned to his homeland – to die...

Several months later, when Jokhar Dudayev, the President of Chechnya, heard about President Zviad Gamsakhurdia’s death, he said with the same resolution and finality the words which echoed those that the people of Zugdidi heard on 24 September: ‘It’s my turn now.’

From the chapter ‘Three Stories’

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VOVA After the fall of Gagra, during my first trip to the front, I was haunted by the question: What motivated those soldiers who went to the war the outcome of which was predestined? What moved those young men who didn’t know for sure whether they were supposed to sacrifice their lives for the interests of their homeland or the political ambitions of separate individuals? Who were they supposed to fight – the Abkhaz separatists, the revengeful forces of the ousted government or the Russian occupants, or all three of them?

When I asked Vova Selepanov, my 24-year-old next door neighbour, the reasons he had volunteered to join the army, he looked at me in disbelief and answered: ‘What else is there for me to do? The country’s going to the dogs, so how can I stay at home? All my friends have already joined. How can I stay behind?’

I didn’t say anything. What was there to say anyway? For Vova the fact that the war had started was far more important than delving into the reasons of the bloodshed, more significant than even the most logical, plausible arguments explaining the underlying political motives and causes of the ongoing crisis. It was too early a stage for the deep analysis and close contemplation.

So far the deafening roar of shellfire and anti-aircraft guns muffled the common sense, the voice of reason, humane laws and even conscience.

Vova and the rest of the young people were insistently reminded that the Georgian Guard had moved in to fight the Abkhaz separatists who had illegally abolished the Georgia’s jurisdiction in the autonomous republic. However, the ultimate goal of restoring the lost position was cleverly hidden behind the simple fact that the conflict between the two ethnic groups was instigated by some high-ranking para-military leaders wishing to loot their own country.

Along with others, Vova was called not to allow the territorial disintegration of his homeland. But no one bothered to explain that any disintegration, of land or territory, was primarily caused by the crumbling of the country if it wasn’t built on the spiritual and material unity. No one took pains to notice that the unity had vanished long ago and that the deadly hostility was indeed between the separate shreds and shards of the broken-up country. In truth, Georgia split in two, the national perception split in two, an individual split in two were fighting each other.

When I further questioned Vova’s reasons of joining the army, he looked at me as if I had asked him the sum of two plus two. To him it was only natural to remind himself to the military conscription officer because he was healthy

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and sane, sporty and strong. He wanted to fight because he wished to help his country in need, to defend it. He wanted to go to the front because everyone did, all his friends. For him it was as simple as the fact that two and two make four.

Vova wasn’t forced to join the army because there was no national mobilization announced. Neither was he impelled by imitating others or driven by the ambition of making a name for himself. He didn’t need to prove anything because he was studying in the Polytechnic University and had already mastered several skills. He was only moved by the desire to share the fate or doom of his friends, on a larger scale the destiny of his home country. Being with the others, sharing with the others was his genuine motive.

I remember we were talking in the sitting-room. He looked exhausted. He had come over very early in the morning with the floor polishing gear. He said he would not only help us but practise as well. He had rolled up his sleeves, knelt down and was putting the varnish on the newly planed floor. He worked meticulously and unhurriedly. I invited him to have dinner with us. He refused, shaking his head: ‘I’m expecting to be called any day. I’ve volunteered to join the army. So, I’d better finish soon and get ready.’

He smiled and left. I didn’t see him anymore. It was autumn. His body was returned to the family in spring. As it transpired, he was surrounded but chose not to be taken prisoner. He rose to his feet and managed to shoot at the enemy. He was shot in his chest.

Had he stayed behind, I doubt very much he would label what he did as bravery. At the best, he would call it self-sacrifice or self-denial. Just like he had done earlier by helping his neighbours, caring for his aging mother and the like. It was something he did following his natural instincts triggered by the circumstances. If only recently he had been operating the plane machine and holding a varnish brush, why couldn’t he hold a trench shovel and a gun?

If only yesterday he was dripping sweat, why couldn’t he drip his own blood today?

In other words, the circumstances changed but the desire to analyze one’s own role in various conditions, one’s attitude towards the accepted values had remained the same.

I believe there were no long-term plans or predetermined career steps for Vova. He lived every second and every minute doing a specific job. Had he worked in a factory, he would have been extremely accurate with his lathe.

Had he lived in the countryside, he would have taken good care to his vineyard, tended to his garden, planted trees, tilled his field, swept his snow-covered roof. Had he married, he would have been an excellent husband and an exemplary dad. But he went to the front and what else could he do but fight?

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Had he avoided danger, he could have thought of leading his friends out of the siege. And not because he had to follow someone’s orders but because he would be prompted by the reality around him, whether it was being on duty in the sentry box, digging the trench, or earlier – sitting at the school desk and reading a book. Even if he had found a way to safety, he would have gone back, right under the shower of bullets. He would have gone back over and over again, until he made sure all the soldiers had been moved to safety. Until he could breathe, crawl and drag his mates on his back...

I should have known him better not to question him about his reasons for joining the army. Apparently, I didn’t. I heard but hadn’t fully realized the simple and heartfelt words said by Vova Selepanov, a 24-year-old student from Tbilisi – ‘I’ve got to be where everyone else is.’

Irakli Kakabadze

Irakli Kakab

badze Irakli Kakabadze was born on 17 November 1982. He studied at Tbilisi Spiritual Academy, also universities in Tbilisi and Petersburg. He teaches and is the editor of the journal Mastsavlebeli (Teacher) and the internet paper Mastsavlebeli.ge.

He is the author of poetic and prose works:

Letters and Barbed-wires (2010), Iaki Kabe – Poems (2012, the 2013 bestseller), The State Gallows (2013), Iskandar Baltazar Kirmiz – The Guide to Turkish Songs (2013).

Exodus (2014).

His works have been translated into the Lithuanian, Russian, French and Belorussian languages. He has participated in numerous literary festivals and programmes and is actively involved in defending the human rights and freedom of speech, raising his voice against their violation.

Irakli Kakabadze

EXODUS Novel. Georgian. 180 pages Published: 2014 Rights held: World Rights

Irakli Kakabadze’s short novel tells about the painful experiences of a ten-year old boy during the hostilities in Abkhazia. It is a story about the war predestined to be lost, the confrontation between ethnically close people which lasted for thirteen months, taking 1,300 lives and turning more than 300,000 others into refugees.

Seen through the boy’s eyes, the war is presented in a trustworthy way, giving an in-depth picture of the reality which befell the people of the country that had only recently declared its independence from the Soviet regime.

The protagonist is a writer himself who experienced all the hardship an­d misery of the war. His book is an attempt to keep the memory alive of the people and tragic events which had a huge impact on the boy’s mind in those dreadful days.

However, Exodus is neither a piece of documentary prose nor a collection of essays. Occasionally, it is extremely hard to differentiate between the reality and the child’s memories and perceptions, to decide where the boy’s fantasy merges with the real events, because the dreams and emotions are as plausible and authentic as real life itself.

The depiction is so expressive, gloomy and dramatic that the readers seem to be facing death on practically every page of the novel. Owing to the author’s narrative style, one can live through the atrocities of the war together with the little boy and fully experience the pain of those people who were forced to abandon their homes in their home country.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

He asked to be left alone.

Said he was dying and the cemetery was the best place for it.

You go, he said, someone will find and bury me. Who’d begrudge him a handful of dust?

He lay at a broken, moss-covered gravestone.

There were neglected, destroyed graves around.

The gravestones were completely hidden under the moss and bracken.

Rust seemed to have covered stones, moss, fences, thorns and teasels.

There is nothing more horrifying than abandoned villages and cemeteries.

Go, he told me, what are you waiting for?

I prefer it, he said, this way, without pain and suffering.

Take pity of me, he said, I’m too tired, can’t take it anymore.

Don’t torture me, please understand me and do as I tell you, he said.

He hardly swallowed his saliva. His mouth and eyes were dry.

He looked up at me, with suspicion, panting.

You’re crying like a woman, he said, but I’m not even dead yet, only preparing to die.

I’ve got plenty to reconcile myself to, he said, so please leave me alone, show consideration and pity for me, will you?

Are you out of your mind? one of our relatives asked. He was with us at the time and knew all too well how we had crossed the mountains to Russia.

If I leave you here, what do I tell your wife and children?

He had buried his own wife and two daughters five days ago.

He had hidden them in an old farm house quite far from the village but a week later a local lad brought their bodies on a cart.

The three of them were badly tortured.

People said all three had ‘pigs’ in Russian written in black paint on their bodies.

They were raped.

The lad killed himself that night.

Of course you know him, Grandma said. He was a bit retarded, talked to himself, walked around singing and humming, she said.

You’ve certainly seen him but just can’t remember. Must have seen him at the cinema, she said. He used to sit in the front row, alone, because no one wished to sit next to him.

The Indian films were shown late in the evening. It was always dark and so crowded no wonder I didn’t remember. How could I?

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Sometimes I couldn’t even get inside. The show was sold out.

I did know the house where the family lived, though, but had hardly seen anyone apart from an old man and woman, probably the lad’s grandparents.

He and his brother worked in the wood, in a timber yard. Most of the time they lived there, so how could I remember?

Their mother had died giving birth to the younger one, the lad.

And less than a year later, his father had eloped with a Russian tourist and nothing was heard of him since then. However, some of our neighbours who sold flowers in Russia brought back stories about him, but they sounded very similar to the ones told about those who had moved to other countries and were considered lost for their families.

They said he was very loved by that woman.

That he had three step-daughters who doted on him.

He’s changed a lot, they said, looks and behaves like a real man.

He’s got a comfortable life, eats properly and looks healthy, they said.

But now, I believe, the whole village was furious with the man, more irate than with those Russians, Chechen or Cossacks. He can’t go on living as if nothing happened when the fifteen-year old lad’s death is sure to haunt him forever, they boiled with indignation.

They cursed those evildoers too, blaming them for his suicide, saying the grave sin was theirs and not of the poor orphan boy. May they burn in hell!

I don’t know who said it and whether it was true, but the rumor was that those men had raped the women while they were alive but forced the lad to do it with the dead.

It was out relative who buried him.

He came to us at the break of dawn. I wasn’t sleeping. The night had been particularly quiet compared to the recent ones.

Those few still in the village must have spent a sleepless night. Everyone was alert, expecting something to happen, something awful.

Neither had I slept that night.

I tossed and turned in my bed, one ear turned towards the sitting-room, listening to the bits and pieces of my grandparents’ conversation. Mainly it was about the ways of getting me safely out of the village. I was haunted by the lad, trying hard to remember his face, going over all the neighbours I had ever met in an attempt to decide which one was him.

A thick fog had engulfed the area. Nothing could be seen through the window.

Our village was getting that strange fog quite often, coming up from the ground like icy steam, wrapping everything around, muffling every sound. The complete silence would be broken by an occasional chirrup at dawn.

Our relative knocked on the back door.

He quietly identified himself, whispering through the crack.

Grandma opened the door carefully but it still creaked. The sound sent shivers through my body.

To me it seemed that the creak had travelled through the village, reaching the wood at its edge.

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I was lying in bed fully dressed so I got up and joined them in the sittingroom.

He said he needed some boards.

Grandma reprimanded me for getting up and wrapped a blanket over me.

She offered a low stool to the visitor and said she’d put the kettle on for tea.

Only a couple of days ago Grandpa had given him some boards for the coffins.

The man said he could do without them if Grandpa didn’t have any left. He could use a wardrobe for the purpose, but Grandpa wouldn’t allow that.

Who was it for now, Grandpa wanted to know.

It was for the lad. The grave had been already dug.

He said he was to only one to take care of the poor lad. His grandparents were old and helpless.

And there was no one to care for them either.

The older brother had disappeared the day the lad died. Nobody had seen him since or knew of his whereabouts.

Apparently he had left very early in the morning, taking nothing from the house, only the clothes he had been wearing.

The brother had wept for two nights, without uttering a word, only looking at the family photos. They said he had taken only those with him.

Grandpa thought he might have gone to look for his father, that’s why he needed the photos.

The three of them were quiet. I was looking through the window. The fog was impenetrable, but the longer I looked, I could see how it was thinning, rather gradually though.

I used to do it very often. If you stare at the snow for quite long, you will think you’re in the sky. You’ve got to imagine you’re a bird or that you have died and are flying through the clouds.

If you stare at the sun, you can see anything you wish, anything you can imagine or dream of. Anything your imagination can visualize.

Our relative rose to his feet. Said he was thirsty.

He said he was a real beast.

He breathed.

Drank water.

Smoked.

Even ate a piece of bread the day before.

Humans were beasts, he said.

Grandma started to cry. First she whimpered, then suddenly tears gushed down her face as if something had burst in her.

As a rule she cried silently. I only remember her mournful cry at the family funerals or when friends died. Other mourners would listen carefully to what she said through her tears, curiously eyeing her, catching every word she had for the deceased, nodding to her.

Then they would echo her words and it would be Grandma’s turn to nod to them.

I fought back tears, finding it hard not to cry. The urge to cry was as contagiou­s

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as sneezing for anyone listening to Grandma’s words at mournful times. Very few could resist them and refrain from weeping.

There’s no time for tears, our relative said and looked out of the window.

No time as they were coming to the village at night.

Grandma covered her mouth and said she was sorry.

Why it took them so long, Grandpa wanted to know, especially that the village was practically deserted.

Only the old people remained.

The old people, two bumpkins and the loot left behind by the soldiers.

There must have been at least twenty trucks loaded with the choicest furniture in front of the village hall.

They had left the loot behind, so who’d care about the old?

I also had a memento – three bullets I had hidden in the backyard, under the hazelnut trees, together with a black band with some kind of a prayer in Russian written on it. Nearly every soldier I had seen in our village had that kind of band tied around their foreheads.

I soldier gave it to me on the river bank. He said I was as pretty as a girl and was bound to be abducted when I grew up.

He asked me where I lived and promised to bring me a car when he came back.

I told him I didn’t need it.

Later, when I recollected the meeting, I regretted turning down his offer. I could have given the car to my brother and made him happy.

I should’ve accepted his offer. He might’ve meant it.

I often dreamt of it – black, sleek, brand new.

Sometimes I dreamt the soldier was bringing it to me but exploded on the way.

At other times I dreamt I was riding with him and drowned in blood.

Grandpa rose and went to the window. He blocked the light and it got dark in the room. As if the night had crept inside.

I imagined it was nighttime and someone had just broken into the house.

Lately I often had such dreams.

I dreamt I was all alone facing a group of heavily armed soldiers covered in mud and blood.

Tears flowed down my cheeks.

Grandma hugged me.

Don’t cry, honey, don’t.

Grandpa put his hand on the relative’s shoulder and whispered to him he couldn’t accompany him because he was scared of the dead. Couldn’t even look at them.

The man didn’t say anything, didn’t turn his head. He stood peering through the fog.

I thought he hadn’t heard but in a short while, already at the door, he said it was all right, he could take care of the lad.

He asked if the shed was open so he could get some boards.

Grandma offered to help.

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She wrapped a woolen shawl around her shoulders and once again asked me not to cry.

Grandpa said he was scared of the dead. Repeated it three times.

They weren’t angry with him. They knew him all too well.

In order to dodge conscription when he was young, his parents had found him a truck driver’s job.

Grandma used to tell me that’s how he was raised. Everything was done for him. He grew up in hothouse conditions, unprepared for real life.

Apparently, he’d never lifted anything heavier than a book.

A book, cigarettes and you, Grandma used to laugh.

When she washed him, she would giggle like a little girl but grumbled as well, rebuking him for the need to bathe him.

He was nicknamed Worm. I heard it from the Kurdish cobbler who was friendly with Grandpa since their school days.

He was as skinny as a worm when he was young.

He was a good driver but, as they say, accidents happen.

Once he had to return town late at night. He was driving in the countryside when his head lights failed him.

He couldn’t find a proper place to stop.

He decided to drive to the nearest settlement and fix them.

But there were only fields and copses and wild planes around.

He hurried fearing people would go to sleep and he would be unable to find help.

Even the moon didn’t come out that night to his aid.

It was pitch dark. His unluckiest night.

Nobody knew where the woman with a child was going at that time.

The child was six.

It was September. The child was preparing for the first day at school.

Grandpa didn’t even consider dodging the punishment though his family tried to convince him to agree to their efforts. He was adamant.

He did his penance in full. Only in his last year he was released from prison on amnesty thanks to his exemplary behaviour.

Grandma used to say he was respected so much that the prisoners pleaded with him to stay. They planned to collect money to pay him salary.

They had even asked the prison head to appoint him as a librarian.

Before going to sleep, he would cross himself. For some reason, whenever I saw it, I was reminded of the accident.

When he repeated three times he was scared of the dead, he dropped his head and stared at the floor.

His arms hung lifelessly.

As if he was hanged.

Like that hanged man I had seen several years ago.

Very early in the morning I was going to the toilet at the end of the garden when I saw Grandma’s sister’s drunkard husband hanging from the purple plum tree. His limbs were still flailing, but when they released him from the noose, he was gone.

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Grandma put him down, tried to resuscitate him but it was too late.

She didn’t cry.

She said she wouldn’t because he made everyone’s life miserable when he was alive and even in his death he managed to do so.

Before going out she told Grandpa to give me some tea. The door closed quietly behind them.

After a while Grandpa put on his shoes and told me to put on something warm because we were going out too.

When he bent down, he was breathing heavily, as if snoring.

I went over, knelt and tied his laces.

He patted me, straightened my hair.

Said I needed warm clothes in the morning chill.

Grandma had packed my things quite some time ago and if I needed anything I had to find it myself.

I rummaged through the case and pulled out my favourite sweater Mum had knitted, pale blue, nearly watery, with buttons.

Mum told me she knitted it from the yarn she had brought from the Golden Sands when she was pregnant with me.

And then, later, when she worked night shifts and left my brother and me with Dad, she used to knit it, whiling the sleepless nights.

As we walked through the gate and headed for the river, I spotted a shadow in the fog. It was coming towards us.

I was gripped with fear and started to tremble.

We stopped.

The figure was fast approaching. His trouser legs made a strange sound, like a screech of footsteps in fresh snow.

Grandpa told me not to run.

He held my hand tightly and asked who it was, quietly, as if to himself.

The reply didn’t come immediately and I was about to scream. Then the man identified himself. It was our relative.

I breathed out. Grandpa sighed.

It sounded as if he had let out part of his heart with the sigh.

Our relative said the lad’s granny wouldn’t allow the burial. She held him to her chest, not giving him up.

She doesn’t respond to pleading or common sense, he said.

She might have lost her mind, not surprisingly, he added.

I came back because I believe you’ve got some sleeping pills at home, he said. He hoped to make her sleep so as to bury the lad.

He wanted to take two more boards because he couldn’t carry all four at the first go. They were too heavy.

Grandpa said they still needed drying.

Apparently Grandma wanted to wash and neaten the lad.

The man said that was taken care of.

When we got there with the pills, I walked into the sitting-room too.

Grandma was sitting near the door. She told me to go into the other room.

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The lad’s granny was sitting on a low settee in the other corner of the room, hugging the body.

There was a red carpet hanging down from the wall. I thought it was similar to ours.

I didn’t see anything else. My relative opened the bedroom door and let me in, closing it behind me.

There were two separate beds inside.

One was hidden under a heap of clothes.

An old man was lying on the other, fully dressed.

He saw me.

Here you are, son, he said very quietly. His lips hardly moved.

I knew you’d come. Where have you been?

Why do you have to upset Granny? he asked. Why don’t you take pity of us?

I stood frozen at the door, unable to budge.

He closed his eyes. I thought he went to sleep but soon he said he was cold.

I’m freezing, he said, cover me.

I went to the other bed and pulled the blanket from beneath the clothes heap.

I covered him and he stretched out his hand.

I was scared.

He said he wanted to kiss my hand.

I put mine into his stretched hand.

He took it to his lips, very slowly, and kissed it lightly.

Why is it so cold? he asked.

Are you cold?

Dress warmly, he said, and always keep your feet warm.

I’m freezing, nothing seems to warm me, he said. He wanted more to cover him.

There was nothing else, so I covered him with the clothes.

I threw all of them over him.

He thanked me. Said his old bones were warmer. And then he fell asleep.

For a very long time I sat on the spare bed, looking at him.

No sound reached me from the other room.

His forehead was deeply creased. I counted the wrinkles, lost count and started again.

It was hard because the big and small lines merged.

Even his closed eyes looked like small creases lost in the bigger ones.

Gradually the room got lighter, showing thick dust that covered everything around.

I thought the old man was not moving.

I got nearer to have a closer look.

He was breathing.

I was wondering if Grandpa had seen the dead lad.

I drew the curtain a little and peeped outside into the garden. Grandpa was talking to our relative. They were looking down at the boards.

Carefully, I opened the door and went into the sitting-room.

Grandma wasn’t there anymore.

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His granny was still sitting on the settee, clutching his body.

I stood glued to the wall. She glanced at me, sighed woefully and dropped her head again.

He had new clothes on. Socks, but no shoes.

He looked like a dummy in the shop windows I saw in Sochi.

His body seemed stiff, frozen, rigid.

For some time I stood looking at him. I wanted to see his face but his granny held him close to her chest.

I tiptoed outside.

I was told Grandma was in the kitchen and directed me there.

It was a separate structure. The door was wide open. I stepped over the threshold onto the earth floor.

In the middle, on a huge table there were piles of bowls, frying-pans, empty and full bottles, medicine jars and boxes, a hammer, a straw hat, a rubber fly swat, a wooden mortar with its pestle and an oil lamp.

It was dim inside. The light came only through the door. And it was permeated with the odour of mildew and humidity mixed with antiquity.

The same smell was in the bedroom but mixed with the reek of urine, the kind that hits you in the houses of lonely old people.

They said she didn’t take the medicine. Didn’t open her mouth to swallow the pills.

Grandma said she’d ground some and add to her tea.

But what if she refuses to drink it? some worried. She wouldn’t let us touch the body.

What is there to do? We can’t wrestle with her, can we?

We’re running out of time, Granma said. And we need to get the boy out of the village tonight. God knows what they’ve got in store for us. She herself intended to stay behind.

Grandpa protested that there was an agreement to leave together. He refused to leave her alone.

Our relative said there was no time for argument, that it was urgent to bury the lad and of course to start thinking about getting me into a safe place.

Some time ago, the same relative was on duty in the sentry carriage put at the village entrance. The soldiers made the second attempt to find me, asking him to direct them to my house.

One of our neighbours had paid the soldiers to bring the carriage from Gagra a long time ago.

The local men spent days inside, playing domino and discussing politics. At night they took turns guarding the village with their hunting guns.

The first time the same soldiers came inquiring about me, my Armenian neighbour turned them back, saying there was no one of that name in the village.

In fact, he didn’t know my family name, which is different from that of my grandparents, so he didn’t make the connection.

The same man had warned Grandma to take me away to a safe place. He knew awful things were about to happen and advised her to at least save me.

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He said he had huge respect for her late father and that his soul wouldn’t let him be if he didn’t alert her.

Grandma took no notice of his words at the time. She asked why he wasn’t running away with his three children. Were they coming with the ready-made lists? How were they supposed to know who is whose child?

He said they indeed had the lists.

The war’s over, the school year’s staring, the locals are disarmed, how can I go now? she asked.

She said she hadn’t abandoned the house and her parents’ graves during the war and was not ready to flee now.

The neighbour apparently told her rather than ending, the war was only beginning.

I’ve warned you, now it’s up to you, he added.

I overheard it when Grandma told others about the lists and immediately passed the story on to other kids. Since then we used to play the List Game.

We would make lists of all kids we could remember starting from the first house to the very last in the village. Then we would sign the paper, fold it, put inside the envelope we took from the old post-office, lick its edge, glue it and drop in the letter box attached to the post-office wall.

The story was that General Karkarashvili was asking for a particular child.

He intended to fly him to the capital. But first the child had to be taken to Gantiadi early the next morning, at seven sharp.

The general’s second wife was Grandma’s friend’s daughter, so my grandparents appealed to her to help get me to Gantiadi. They explained there were too old to do anything on their own.

We spent a sleepless night, preparing to leave.

Grandma washed me and made me wear a white shirt.

She baked some pastry, telling me to share them with everyone in the helicopter.

They are sure to be very hungry, she said.

I know you’re going to behave properly, not embarrassing me, she said, not bothering anyone.

If you need to go to a toilet, say so.

She made me wear a new pair of shoes bought for the first school day for the money of three pails of figs sold in the Adler market.

She put some money and a starched, ironed handkerchief in the right pocket of my trousers, warning me to be careful not to lose them.

It was still quite dark when Grandpa and I set out.

We walked all the way to Gantiadi. He was silent, saying nothing, asking nothin­g.

I was greedily taking in the surroundings. Amazing how many things had remained unnoticed on the otherwise familiar road. To me it all seemed new and unseen.

In truth, I had taken the road many times and probably could have walked blindfolded.

We used to take it every time we went to the beach and then returned home.

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We arrived in the town very early in the morning and headed straight for the military headquarters.

The building was deserted.

On the ground floor, at the start of a long narrow hall, there were two men.

One of them had his head and his gun on the table. He was sleeping.

The other had his machine-gun between his legs. He was watching TV and didn’t notice our arrival.

Grandpa said hello.

The sleeping man raised his head – the other didn’t turn away from the screen – and grumpily asked what we wanted.

Grandpa asked if General Karkarashvili was there.

No, he said and put his head on the table.

We’ve got an appointment, Grandpa explained, to get the boy to Tbilisi. Did he know where to find the general?

Last night they drank too much, the man watching TV said without looking at us, and flew to Tbilisi.

We remained standing for some time. Then Grandpa said we should leave.

We sat on a bench in the square in front of the building.

You must be hungry, he said. Let’s have some of those pastries.

I wasn’t hungry but if I didn’t have some, he wouldn’t either.

He said he had dreamt that night that the helicopter exploded. Knowing how prophetic my dreams can be, maybe it’s good we didn’t get it? Maybe God saved you in this way?

I knew he was lying. He didn’t sleep a wink.

I nodded.

Your Grandma will be mad if I take you back, he said.

He suggested visiting her cousins. They might enjoy seeing us.

And we can find out about their plans, whether they intend to stay or leave, he said.

They lived just two streets away, at the waterfront.

Theirs was a big, three-storey house. The extended family as well as friends from other cities used to spend their summer holidays with them.

The large garden used to be full of noisy children, that’s why if we went to the seaside I always asked Grandma to visit them.

The gate was open wide. All doors and windows had been taken out.

We didn’t go inside.

There was a toy truck on the steps. The one I used to carry sand in.

I wanted to take it but didn’t have the courage to say so.

Grandpa said they had obviously left the town.

Flowers were in full bloom along the driveway, on both sides up to the front door.

We had the same flowers – white and violet irises.

They had taken the bulbs from us the previous year.

Our irises bloomed for a very long time. Everyone was astonished, asking what kind they were to last so long.

Grandpa used to grumble, telling Grandma it was better to plant some beans,

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pumpkins or marrow instead because flowers would be planted on their graves.

Originally he was from the eastern part of Georgia where people didn’t have front gardens.

He would mutter about the distance one had to cover in order to get to the front door. One needs a train, he used to say, to get to your neighbour’s house.

My shoes hurt my feet terribly and walking was painful. But I didn’t mention it.

Not to think about the pain, I began counting steps.

I convinced myself after another hundred steps we would be at home, I could toss the shoes off and lie down to rest.

When Grandma washed my feet, she was horrified at the blisters. My socks were soaked in blood and she bitterly regretted causing me such suffering insisting on the new shoes.

On the way back, Grandpa talked a lot.

I didn’t listen. I was counting the steps.

He asked several times if that was so.

I nodded without a word.

This time I didn’t pay attention to the surroundings. I only concentrated on my feet, counting without lifting my head: 57...

58...

59...

60...

61...

99...

100...

A couple of times I lost count because I was thinking what Grandma would say when she saw my feet.

When we reached home, I nearly fell down.

Grandma said it was the very same day Grandpa began to give up.

She heard the gate and came running.

She hugged and kissed me.

Didn’t ask anything.

She kissed me everywhere she could reach – on my cheeks, the forehead, neck and hands.

She took me inside the house, saying we must be exhausted and promised to bake a cheese pie.

Grandpa sat down on the ladder leaning against the grapevine supporting structure. He said there was only a month left till the harvest.

It surely would be a special harvest, Grandma said. Our vine had never been so laden with juicy grapes.

Zviad Kvaratskhelia

Zviad Kvara

atskhelia Zviad Kvaratskhelia Was born in 1986.

He has published short stories, miniatures and documentary works in the literary periodicals and separate books (collections of prose ‘The Right Hand’ (2005), ‘Allegory’ (2006), ‘Hae’ (2008), ‘Fontanelle’ (2011), documentary prose ‘Ilia in Samegrelo’ (2009), and a novel ‘It Was Twenty To Three’ (2013).

He was assistant editor of the magazine ‘Kartuli Mtserloba’ (‘Georgian Literature’) in 2010-11, he works in Artanuji publishing as an editor in chief.

The first collection of his stories ‘Hae’ had a preface by the famous Georgian writer Otar Chiladze, where he says: ‘I’m sure that his appearance in the literary arena will only give hope to all of us that the Georgian word will never lose strength, either the Georgian spirit or the Georgian consciousness…’

From this first book of this author we can see that Zviad Kvaratskhelia is originally thinker. He has special ability to introduce us the character with the help of one detail described in a few words. Besides this author has a talent of satirist.

The 25 stories in Zviad Kvaratskhelia’s another book ‘Fontanelle’ are united with main subject – The civil war and the hard situation in Georgia in 1990-s. This book is about fear and hope. It’s about people who are from country divided into two parts. Each part has its truth and the civil war which started in the name of this truth has brought the most terrible unfairness to the country.

Zviad Kvaratskhelia’s novel ‘02:40PM’ is the winner of the most important Georgian Literary Prize ‘Saba’ (2014) for the best Georgian novel.

Zviad Kvaratskhelia

02:40PM Novel. Georgian. 222 pages Published: 2013 Rights held: World Rights

At a glance, Zviad Kvaratskhelia’s novel is a story of one sin. The sin of the young days is shared by several characters, among them the protagonist-narrator, alienating them but, strangely enough, connecting them as well.

Martha, a young beautiful girl, falls victim to a group of lads raised in the swamp of ruthlessness, unlawfulness and irresponsibility.

She is part of it herself, having decided to pay with her own body for the questionable benefit of stepping into the swamp. She did it in an attempt to save her imprisoned brother from the harsh verdict.

Everyone seems to be dragged into this abysmal system, starting with the civil servants and finishing with her next door neighbours – they all have their personal motives and their own truths.

The author of the detective novel calls the young people ‘the mined generation’ because they lived through several civil conflicts and wars, as well as personal tragedies. As one of the characters describes, they all have a timer ticking inside and nobody can say with certainty when the mine is going to go off, making them bleed to death.

[ Extract from the novel ]

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translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

‘Check!’

Guga said, closed the door behind him and sat down on a chair. He looked strangely content and excited, his forehead flushed and eyes red. His old scar above the upper lip was inflamed, but his face radiated unhidden joy. He deftly pulled a cigarette wedged behind his ear, put it in his mouth and leaned forward expectantly. Someone, I believe the nearest to him, offered a lit match.

‘Who’s next? I think it’s Ako, right? Do we keep to the agreed order?’ Heavy smoke whirled in the room. Guga eyed us sitting on the wooden bench. Then he slapped Ako on the shoulder and pointed at the door.

‘Is it going to take long?’ Oto rose to his feet. He had a pocket-knife with a beautiful handle in his hand and played with it nervously. Opened and closed it, then slipped it in his pocket, then took it out again, opened and closed it. He had a crumpled cigarette pack for a rainy day, a neatly folded handkerchief and the recently acquired knife in the pocket of his threadbare, stained corduroy trousers. The origin of the precious knife was as dubious as the story he told about getting it. He claimed he had taken it from a tough guy on the block and many believed him.

‘Are you an office manager or what? What’s the rush?’ Guga chuckled and touched the scar above his lip. ‘I’m sick and tired of the damn thing. Just like a tick sucking my blood, glued there forever. I’ve tried medicine, was told to keep it dry, not to lick it. The next thing is to wear a yashmak, like Scheherazade!’

He stretched the last word in a sing-song way, as if savoring it, and followed it with a cough.

‘How did you grab her?’ I believe it was Reziko who asked, unexpectedly, shyly and as if to himself. The question remained suspended in the air, like his thumb pointing at the door. He was rather timid, embarrassed to look you straight in the eyes. I can’t say he was a coward because I’d never heard about his fright. Quite the contrary: once the police was called when someone decided the fight was getting out of control and becoming really dangerous. We all scrambled while Reziko faced the cops on his own. Apparently they took pity of him and let him go with a warning not to get into trouble again.

Neither do I remember him bragging about the incident. Any other guy would have exaggerated the whole thing, telling it over and over again to anyone who’d care to listen. But Reziko never mentioned it, didn’t even seem angry at being left alone.

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Bragging wasn’t his style. I guess he wasn’t good at it as opposed to Guga who could easily sell others’ deeds as his own and present them in such a convincing way that didn’t leave room for suspicion or doubt.

‘How?’Guga gave Reziko a challenging look. ‘Some bodging it took!’

‘Yea, but you said she wouldn’t have it.’

‘You know, there’s something which is gonna remain exotic and desirable unless you touch and tame it. That’s exactly what a woman is. We, the smart ones, know thousands of ways of taming her: attention, gifts, visits, plenty of them in fact, you’ve got to really pester her, always looking for a pretext to see her, and other things...’

‘It doesn’t work with all of them.’

‘Some of us, the old pros, know the cure for those. Actually, in the beginning I had some problems as she said she wouldn’t agree to it. I tried this and that, even talked to her friends but all looked gloomy. Then I found out that while I’m sweating blood over her, she’s seeing someone else in the evenings! That’s when I hit the roof but what could I do? When she doesn’t want you, you can’t kill her, can you? I decided to call it quits but one day I saw her. We were in the school yard and she walks by and suddenly she beckons me. I go over and she asks me if I’ve ever tasted a cake. I say I have. What’s it like, she asks. I immediately sensed where she was leading but didn’t show it. I said it was cool.

‘That’s it, both a woman and a cake are the same for the likes of you, they’re cool, so stick to the cake as you can deal with it better!’ she says. The moment she said it my heart began to thump like mad and I promised myself the bitch wouldn’t get away with it. I, Guga Khidisheli, would make her the talk of the city!’

An indistinct noise reached us from the room. It sounded like a sigh. Reziko smiled lopsidedly, turned towards the door and rose to his feet.

‘Poor thing, she’s in pain, Ako!’ I blurted out without thinking. Guga winked at me. He had a mischievous gleam in his eye.

‘It starts with pain. She’s utterly spoilt, pampered by her dad. Any kid, even the worst kind, is embarrassed if the parents dolt on them too much. First they’re afraid to run away from home, fearing they’d end up in the street, but sometimes they’re lucky to escape. Right now, behind that closed door, Ako doesn’t question what he’s doing in that dark, cold room with the girl screwed by his best buddy. He is ecstatic he’s escaped the claws of his dad.’

Oto laughed so much he dropped his knife. He leaned to pick it up but Reziko was faster. He started to play with it.

‘Give it back!’

‘Come on! Don’t be daft. I’ll just have a look at it.’

‘You’ve had a look. What else do you want?’

‘Is it dope to measure by grams? Why can’t I keep it for a minute? I’ll have a look and give it back in a minute. Ha, Napoleon’s dagger!’

‘For me it is!’

‘Give it back,’ Guga was getting impatient. ‘He’s like his granny, protecting everything hers like she’s sitting on eggs.’

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The door opened, letting out the smell of wet cement. Ako’s head showed in the gap. There was no confidence in his look. His eyes seemed to plead with us not to question how it was and that the first time was something to remember for the rest of one’s life. I don’t think he was in the mood of talking at all. His slightly ironic, watery gaze had disappeared. He crossed the room without a word, drew a low stool from the corner, spread his handkerchief on it and sat down.

‘Who’s next on the list?’ Guga didn’t even look at the pale faces around. He seemed unperturbed, just like those suave men in ties supervising the university exams. However, instead of a tie he had a checkered handkerchief around his neck which he fiddled with – sometimes taking it away and then putting it back, or just straightening it as if showing he hadn’t forgotten it was there.

‘Come on, bro, what list? Let her rest a bit,’ Ako tried to protest. His words hit the white walls as if they were mud balls. Guga had covered the walls in light wallpaper and its cold gleam suited our disposition. Any attempt at remonstration – saying we preferred it otherwise, would have been futile. And yet, Ako tried to protest.

Protest is like marriage: in the beginning it’s hearty and genuine, but later it needs loyalty.

‘Who’re you to tell me what to do?’ Guga sounded harsh. ‘I brought her, I tied her... You knew that, didn’t you? Wasn’t it you,’ he turned to Oto, ‘who phoned me several times last night asking not to leave you out of the fun? And you,’ Reziko’s veins tensed visibly under Guga’s stare, ‘like to pretend you’re a nice guy, right? But it’s not like that in real life, bro! If you kill a man, you mustn’t faint at the sight of blood.’

Blood seemed to gush to my eyes. I wished I had the courage to beat the shit out of him, but the weak, faint hatred in me was just about enough to be described as anger. The emotion was flowing in my veins like the bog water, muddying and stirring my blood, but it wasn’t powerful enough to push the current from the bottomless pit in order to become true courage.

‘You did get in, didn’t you?’ Guga continued to rage. ‘Neither of you have done anything, just came to the feast, are enjoying it and still have the nerve to talk about scruples?’

‘We haven’t said anything of the kind, bro. Just said she might need a minute to rest.’

‘Not a minute, not even a second!’

It was twenty to three. My English class starts at three, I thought bitterly, surreptitiously touching the well-worn books hidden under my shirt and held by the belt. If I miss it, the teacher will surely call Mum. No, I can’t sneak from here.

Oh, God, what do I do?

The adjacent room was dead quiet.

‘You’re the next,’ Guga pointed his finger at me. ‘Go, do it!’

Do it? No! I didn’t come for it. I didn’t know anything of the kind was planned.

I just followed the boys for company. I had smoked cigarettes and pot for

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company­, missed classes, lied and sworn for the sake of being part of the gang.

One should always have a kind of regard for others – call it respect, deference or reverence. That’s what they teach me at home: never contradict your seniors, give up your seat to them in public transport, love domestic animals. What else? Stay away from trouble, let sleeping dogs lie...

‘What are you waiting for, boy? Can you hear me? Go, do it! Or are you scared of black panties?’

Is the coward talking about fear to me? I had seen with my own eyes how he begged not to be hit because it was painful. He promised to kneel only not to be hit. He had crossed someone and was being punished but managed to get out of it by tearful pleading and a river of excuses. And now he’s eulogizing about being tough! I don’t want his girl even if she’s a beauty! I won’t have time anyway as I’m late for my English lesson. I’ve got to be there in five minutes. I’ve got to cross the street and walk through the gate. Other kids would be already sitting at the table while the sour teacher corrects their homework. Black and white, black and white, lazy child, crazy child... Black panties... Asked if I was scared... The teacher would take her glasses with her hand holding a red pen...

‘Okay, the baby’s scared to death. Let’s forget about him. Who’s next on the list?’

I came out. Suddenly tears rolled down my cheeks. I was weeping bitterly. *** The neighbours found Martha the next day. She had made a knot from a woolen scarf. In fact, she had first unhinged the huge chandelier from the ceiling (her fingers showed how much effort she needed for it), hid it under the bed, brought a stool from the kitchen, put the knot through the hook and hanged herself. That’s what it looked like, but who knows what happened before all that.

Her mum had left a month ago. She followed her acquaintance who claimed she knew how to get a well-paid job in Trabzon. Nothing is worse than leaving your country for economic reasons, but whining doesn’t save from starvation.

One needs to make an effort.

Theirs was a tearful goodbye. Mum said she trusted Martha to take good care of herself. The coach was full. The driver was standing at the open hold, cramming bags, cases, sacks and rucksacks into it. The women crowded him, screaming and yelling, demanding that the luggage was handled properly, that they had clothes and food in them and worried about their safety. ‘If you’ve got food, why take the long trip?’ the driver retorted angrily.

‘I’ll be back soon,’ Martha’s mum said. They were at the ticket office. Martha fumbled in her handbag looking for a handkerchief. She rummaged through, checking every section, even opened her purse hoping she might have stuffed it inside, but she failed to find it.

‘Damn!’

‘Don’t worry, love, you’ll find it. I left you some money in the sideboard,

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where Granny’s tea set is, in the sugar-bowl. It should last you till I come back.

If not, you can always ask Naira to give you foodstuff on credit. Also, if you need anything, go to Nargiza. She’ll help.’

‘How long is the trip?’

‘I’ll call you as soon as I get there. The women say if we get a good job, we can make enough in two months to last us for the rest of the year.’

‘But what kind of job you’re going to do, Mum?’ ‘I don’t know. They haven’t been specific about it, but please don’t listen to those who tell awful stories about the jobs abroad. Stay away from envious people and their poisonous tongues.’

Tears glistened in Martha’s eyes. Her light make-up and her hair combed back showed her wide forehead and the pretty oval of her face. Her eyelashes seemed to be gravitating towards the ground, just like branches laden with ripe fruit. One could say her eyelashes were more striking than her eyes, her most prominent feature.

The driver finished with the luggage. He used a thick rod to cram everything inside the hold, filling every inch. A red-head begged him to find room for just one more bag. She pressed it to her chest, still panting from her recent run.

‘What have you got there? Why carry such a lot? Are you moving to Trabzon for good?’ the driver grumbled. ‘It’s tangerines, dear. I picked them in haste hoping to sell them on the way. If not, we’ll eat them, my good man.’

‘Leaving in five minutes!’

When the coach left the station, Martha remained standing for a long time.

Clutching the handkerchief she had finally found, she looked like a survivor in the hacked vineyard in the late November chill. *** ‘I can’t tell her! Anyone but me! I just can’t call her!’ Nargiza chafed, jumping from the chair only to sit on another.

I’ve heard from wise men that there are two most difficult things in life, both unpredictable and ungrateful: translating poetry and breaking the news of a child’s death to a mother. I can’t say anything about the former as I don’t know much about it except a couple of poems I can recite at a dinner with friends.

Sadly, I’m much more familiar with the latter.

Martha’s mum arrived early in the morning. Her scream woke me up and it has haunted me ever since. Other women joined her, more experienced mourners, but one voice still stood out distinctly being the most sincere and echoing the deepest anguish. As I was hastily putting on my jeans and a T-shirt and then rushing down the stairs, that sound – bitter and oppressing – engulfed me as if seeping through a crack in the old building. It reminded me of something nearly forgotten...

A group of people had gathered at the entrance to the building. They formed a line, waiting to climb the stairs to express their condolences. Some stood as

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a separate group waiting for others to come, grumbling about some people’s insensitivity: the poor woman had arrived from Turkey to bury her daughter while some took ages in front of the mirror to look their best.

I stood at the end of the line. Trembling from fear or cold, I put my hands in my pockets. Immediately, one of the neighbours told me gruffly it was unacceptable to walk like that into the room where the dead was laid.

In those days there were plenty of other things related to rituals and rites, proper and improper, but for some reason Nargiza’s story affected my blurry mind most of all.

‘It was already quite dark when I heard a knock. As a rule, Valiko and I don’t go to bed till late – we watch TV, then it’s time for his medicine and of course he absolutely has to have his last cigarette, so normally we’re still up till quite late.

It’s the sleep that reminds us of itself rather than us remembering the time. Anyway, I came to the door and saw our Marthushki through the peephole. I opened the door. Her hair was dishevelled and she stood there with her head dropping low. I’d never seen her so unkempt as she was always so smartly dressed and tidy. And now, at such a late hour I thought it strange and even ominous. I asked if everything was okay and she said everything was fine but there was no water in her flat and asked if she could use my bathroom. The whole neighbourhood uses my shower and surely I invited her in. I said, honey, of course you can take a shower and reminded her the blue tap was for cold and the red for hot water.

I gave her the towels and said she could use the shampoos – there were two different kinds. I showed her the small shelf with everything she might need.

She smiled at me, nothing indicated there was any trouble...

‘When I left her in the bathroom, Valiko told me off for not paying more attention to the girl. ‘What kind of woman are you if you haven’t checked on her for such a long time?’ He grumbled that I neglected her, left onher own, not knowing if she had any food or needed anything else. I told him he was talking nonsense because Marthushki’s mum was a practical woman and wouldn’t rely on people like us. She had left her daughter everything she might’ve needed.

I rushed to the cupboard where I keep the hair-dryer sent by my Shorena from Germany. I opened the box, complete with the instructions and the guarantee sheet, and took the dryer out. I gave it to Marthushki, saying I’d never dream of allowing someone like Valiko use it, that only angels like her were the right ones for a brand new dryer. She smiled back at me, poor girl...

‘There was that stupid soap opera on TV, an entertainment for idle people, sheer waste of time. When you watch it, you seem to enjoy other’s lives, take in the beauty of their homes, their sleek cars, well-tended gardens, streets, pavements and the conditions in general – all very exotic and absolutely amazing! I normally look out for the interior. God, I wish I could have such colourful wallpaper in my own flat! That would make my life really happy. How can I get old or die early if the interior is so wonderful? It’s the conditions that make or break us! When you’re cold and hungry, the death gets you easily, though you have died hundreds of times but it’s the hundred and first time that gets you.

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People die in those soaps too, some in car crashes, others’ throats are slit for money, some are shot in their heads because of jealousy, but still – our death is of a different kind, has got a national character... ‘Then Valiko swore at TV, saying the bastards wanted to spoil us or even conspired to make us lose our identity. He grabbed the remote control from me and switched to a political channel. If you wish to make me bored, you’ve got to make me watch and listen to the politicians. You never know who sides with whom, who’s got his finger in whose pie. One word from them and everyone’s up on their feet, discussing and gossiping, swearing and cursing them and their ancestors. I just don’t understand how they manage to reach such popularity when they’ve got no manners, which should come from the family... Valiko told me my limited mind would never grasp those intricate matters and he might be right. As far as I see, those politicians are really cunning and tough...

‘I didn’t get the chance to feel bored as Marthushki came out of the bathroom, all clean and fresh, her hair dried, dressed in clean clothes and bringing the crisp aroma of water and steam. A real angel! I thought she might be hungry and was about to put the kettle on for tea, offered her butter, buffalo cheese, some honey and what not, being sure she’d enjoy it after her bath. But she flatly refused.’ Auntie Nargiza,’ she said, ‘don’t even ask me to have anything because I’m not hungry. If I were, I wouldn’t be embarrassed to say so.’ I saw her out and watched her as she opened her door and got inside her flat. I did feel sorry she refused to touch the food, but then I thought she’d be going straight to bed especially that it was so late. I decided to treat her to a hearty breakfast, either at her or my place. I checked the time and it was twenty to three in the morning. ‘Hey, Valiko, time to hit the hay,’ I said. We went to bed but I couldn’t sleep. I wanted to kick myself for not insisting she had something to eat. She refused but the stupid me had to insist. She might’ve enjoyed tea, cheese and honey straight from the countryside. When I woke up, it was quite late already, so I immediately busied myself – I’ve got a big tray which I filled with all sorts of yummy things. I was sure Marthushki would love the breakfast, so I knocked on her door once, then again and again. No one answered. I thought calling her name was a bit too much as we’ve got rather strange neighbours, utterly unpredictable and inhospitable. What could I do? I went back home and started phoning but got no reply. I called Valiko, urged him to get up and help me bring the door down because I was sure there was something wrong. He said I was nuts, worrying for nothing as the girl might’ve stayed with a friend or a neighbour, that it was foolish to break the door only because there was nobody in. I insisted and he gave in. Valiko’s an old mechanic and is very good with all sorts of locks, so the door didn’t stand a chance. We got inside and what do these cursed eyes see? How did she think of it or do it? It’s beyond me!

‘I don’t remember anything since that moment. Lots of people walked in and out, even the ambulance was called in, I believe, and the police. They took photos, drew schemes, took notes. I think I’ve talked to five different people, telling the same story. Now I’m telling you the same, but is it going to help the poor girl­?’

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It wasn’t the last time Nargiza told the story. She repeated it without any visible strain. Neither were the neighbours against hearing it over and over again – they listened quietly, inserting a mournful interjection or a pained sigh here and there. Martha’s mum sat without uttering a word, frozen in her grief, watching this one-woman show, listening to her deeply private tragedy told by another person, obliged to hear about the last moments she had missed – hear it ad infinitum from a chatty neighbour... I was amazed at her patience, stunned at her willpower which stopped her from throwing out the idle woman so eager to tell about someone else’s misfortune and misery. She must have been bitter and deeply heartbroken but apparently didn’t have the courage to do what she must have wished to do fearing the neighbours reprimanding her for leaving her only daughter alone, being away when she was dying.

The two seemed to have reversed their roles. Now it was Nargiza who was the witness and the main mourner, together with her idle Valiko, her favourite soap operas, her dreams of a home with colourful wallpaper, shiny bathroom, the German hair-dryer sent by Shorena, her tea-butter-cheese-honey.

There were others, standing in the garden, willing to tell their stories. Not restricted by the ethical side or curbed by scruples because they didn’t give a damn about conscience, their versions caused constipation, just like stale food.

The constipated minds struggled with the undigested lies and truths seeping through them and reaching the point where even Nargiza couldn’t have differentiated them. She just kept on telling her story – like a drunkard, a hunter or an old womanizer who is only fit to talk without tiring.

The same heart-rending scream woke me up on the day of the funeral. I looked out of the window. I couldn’t believe my eyes!

While I hastily put on my pants and shirt and then ran down the stairs, that sound – bitter and oppressing – crept towards me like a crack in an old wall, reminding me of something. Then it suddenly came back: during my summer holidays in the village, we boys liked to splash and fish in the river. When the water became too muddy and it was impossible to see the fish, we would play our favourite game called the Wall of China. We would collect large stones, throw them in the water and make a kind of a dam. Then we scooped wet sand from the bank and filled all gaps. The water would stand still, yet trying to find a way out, a weak spot in our shanty in order to gush through, destroying our stone structure.

I felt like that makeshift dam until the woman’s scream gushed through it, gripping my heart in a second.

I stood, smoked, listened. I said nothing. ...In those days a lot of madness and unimaginable stupidity was washed ashore but it’s not worth telling about them as you are bound to hear them anyway. My personal opinion is that there should be as many reins, cradles, prams, school desks, beds and graves as there are people under the sun...

There is no other way.

Nino Sadghobelashvili

Nino Sadgho

obelashvili

Nino Sadghobelashvili Was born in1980.

In 2002 she graduated from the Literature Department of the State Institute of Culture.

Apart from teaching, she worked for the literature section of the Patriarchate Radio.

Intelekti published her following works: The Flannelette Paradise (short stories, 2006); Midnight Lullaby (poems, 2008); Wings and Hands (poems, 2011); The Shelter (short novel, 2013); Pregnant (novel, 2013) and A Second Here, a Second There (novel, 2013).

In 2007 Giorgi Sikharulidze staged her play The Flannelette Paradise in Lado Meskhishvili Drama Theatre in Kutaisi. In 2010 Avto Varsimashvili produced a film of the same title.

Several plays by Nino Sadghobelashvili were staged in different Georgian theatres.

Since 2012 she has worked in the film studio Khomli.

Nino Sadghobelashvili

PREGNANT Novel. Georgian. 276 pages Published: 2014 Rights held: World Rights

The novel could have been about love but in fact the fate of the characters is determined by its lack.

An artistic person’s life is particularly hard in the country which has been fighting for its freedom for several decades. But it might be interesting as well.

Pregnant tells about the life of an artist who is resilient due to her weaknesses despite the problems of the country torn by a civil war.

[ Extract from the novel ]

translated by MAYA KIASASHVILI

There is nothing better than the sense of taste to feel freedom. Everything else is washed by the big river of the body, draining it into the memory depths with the gush of heart blood. Only it remains, like the taste of salt in the mouth.

You’ve got to feel what freedom is with your sense of taste. Discover if you are indeed free.

The taste is bitter, too bitter for some. If you have tasted it at least once, you’re not going to forget it. Then you keep recalling it, trying other things just to get the approximation of the taste, neither overdoing nor turning it blunt.

One can only pity the country constantly fighting for freedom. Along the way, more than often it loses the sense of taste altogether, unsure what to chew next. Voracious and insatiable, it sometimes gobbles its own children ...

Everyone is hurrying too much, otherwise why’s freedom so unattainable?

And they shout Long Live! As if it were incantation.

But long live what?

Something nobody knows about, has never experienced. What if some get a heart attack because nobody has seen what a free country is?

And still, they shout Long Live! Because they disperse their fear. It has to be incantation to drive away fear. Like a magic spell.

The words fill the streets, blackening and scratching their mouths like sand.

But does sand have taste?

For many years the words have been used to congratulate the fearful country. Yelled, bellowed, then splashed with sand instead of water, brought back to senses and then everything moves on.

Move on but where? Where are you going with sand-filled mouths?

No answer.

It’s common knowledge. Everyone loves the childishly sincere and harmless phrase ‘no answer’.

The city discards its morning shroud and wraps itself in orange.

Is anything going to happen today?

Are the endless confusion and turmoil going to stop? Are people going to congratulate each other not on victory, God forbid, but on being free at last? Or maybe, the other way round, all’s going to end in grand lethargy for once and forever. Then some can choose to wake up, get up if they want, but it won’t be the old country.

For a moment she felt sleepy. She wished to doze off, fully dressed. ­She could skip several days and nights in her sleep. The universal law of sleep could allow her to dodge them. And on waking up, she would be as expectant and hopeful as ever, with her thoughts, love and homeland kept in her dream.

Then she could bring it all intact to the safety of the banks of sobriety.

Let’s all sleep instead of shouting Long Live! Let’s keep it all in our dreams.

Keeping equals survival, doesn’t it?

She followed the train of her thoughts. A thought is like a sea or an ocean, capable of cuddling you on its bottom. How many things are connected in this world? The sea, thought, sleep, incantation and sea again. And all of this makes a cradle. The world has the shape of a cradle. It is in the eternal rocking of the cradle that the wind and snow, trees and rivers, humans and animals emerge from. The sleep too, like a path connecting one mountain to another. And the sound of weeping – the most unerring alarm-clock on Earth. The cradle is buried in the heart of the Universe, somewhere among the stars and the invisible lilac waters. Its crowns of gold and the beaded arch are occasionally shadowed by the sun ... The cradle rocks, on and on, giving birth to life fledglings ... They scatter among the stars and all this looks like a dream ...

Can the country exhausted from fighting be excused if it falls asleep? It might recuperate.

She heard her name shouted from the street. She opened her eyes and rushed to the window.

The curtains drew heavily as if made of iron bars. Their thickness slapped her waist and pulled her inside.

She looked out.

Lexo and Pikria were standing under her window. Lexo was hopping on one leg to keep warm. He had Pikria’s hand in his pocket.

‘Come down,’ Pikria shouted as soon as Eka’s head showed in the window.

Very quickly Eka pulled on her blue sweater, wrapped a woolen scarf over her head and went down the stairs.

Pikria’s nose and lips were glistening from frost. Both had lackluster eyes.

‘Where to?’ Eka felt frightened and got closer to Pikria.

‘Let’s go.’

She followed them without a word.

They quickly crossed the street. Again there were the three of them. The three of them were heading towards where they usually went to. The roads are the ones we choose, aren’t they? They are unknown, unseen until we choose them ... Or were they four already?

Pikria was hiding a big pillow-belly under her coat. The pillow was in fact breathing, inhaling and exhaling tender down through the tiny nostrils.

Lexo kept looking at her belly. Pikria was as solid as a rock. She was frowning.

‘They’ve started to disperse the protesters,’ Lexo said through his clenched teeth.

Eka covered her eyes with her hand.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ Pikria looked at her.

‘I slept,’ Eka body touched Pikria’s and immediately turned into the same kind of solid rock. The frost instantly cracked her from head to feet.

‘Quick, Lexo, quick!’ Pikria was leading the way, kept warm by her own heaviness.

‘Where do you think you’re going? You’ve got to be sensible.’ Eka grabbed her by the shoulders and turned her.

‘What do you mean?’ Pikria shook off Eka’s grip.

‘Lexo!’

‘I told her but does she listen? You know her.’ Lexo pulled a cigarette from a package but it broke in his shaking hand. He swore.

‘Are you out of your minds? Where are you taking her? Go back! Here’s my key, go to my place.’

‘I’m going to be fine. We’re wasting time.’ Pikria walked on without looking back.

‘What if something happens to the baby?’

‘Something’s already happened to the baby,’ Pikria stopped. She spoke without facing them. ‘And it’s better if it isn’t born at all if it’s going to live in this kind of country!’

‘What kind of country? Pikria, are you nuts? They’ll manage without you. It’s not your business. You’ve got to think about the baby now, its life!’

‘I’ve swallowed darkness. Know what it means? Know what it is when you’re pregnant? How can it be born in this darkness? With all the fear and brutality around? Should I lie to it about the past? And then walk in the desert for forty years or more?’

She stomped the icy ground and nearly lost her balance. Lexo and Eka dashed to her sides, holding her firmly between them.

They held each other’s arms. There were three of them again. No, four. The three of them listened to the fourth’s breathing. With their stomachs.

‘What’s wrong with us?’ Eka sighed and walked on.

‘What can they do to me? Surely, they can’t kill me. The fools. Idiots.’ Pikria kept up with her.

A distant, muffled din reached them as if echoing from a dry well.

Lexo stood shielding them.

The noise neared.

The colours of flags and placards mixed with the mud and iodine fog.

‘Long live!’

The distant crowd shouted already hating what they congratulated each other with. Just like drunken guests at the wedding party telling each other how beautiful the bride is, but little by little their ardent efforts grow into a brawl. A deadly clash. The bride can well be pretty but who remembers or cares about her beauty

*** Eka’s knees were trembling. She saw some people running by, covered in blood, their clothes torn.

Lexo and Pikria were running ahead of her, so Eka caught up with them, panting. She grabbed Pikria’s coat so firmly her fingers ached.

There were military trucks parked nearby, at the street corners.

‘Lexo, look out!’ Eka shielded Pikria with her body and followed the soaring flare with her eyes.

It left a thick trace of smoke behind.

They approached the square. People huddled in agitated groups.

For a minute they lost each other. Then found again, with their backs.

Lexo was shaking someone by his shoulders, yelling at him.

Pikria was shouting. Eka too.

But no one understood anyone anymore. Neither did they.

More shots were fired, instantly scattering the crowds.

Another group appeared in their place.

Men in police uniforms walked in front, but they didn’t lead the rest. Apparently, they were captured by the crowd and were led like prisoners, kicking, hitting and spitting at their captors.

Lexo took Pikria by her arm and pushed her into the nearest alley.

More shots were heard from the square.

Who was shooting at whom ...

The policemen had freed themselves and turned at the crowd.

People ran for their lives, tripping over each other.

Lexo was caught in the stampede and was dragged along.

Eka was nowhere to be seen.

The area was wrapped in the bitter-smelling fog.

Pikria leant against the plane-tree, frightened for the first time. Very much frightened. She wanted to cry. But she was so cold she failed to turn her dread into tears. She pressed her body against the tree trunk, closing and opening her eyes. She felt no stirring in her belly, otherwise she could have thought of the baby instead. Her gaze fell on the church dome, quite near, sticking out of the gap in the thick fog. She trusted her eyes, relying on what she saw as if it was her mum.

She felt awful, dreadful in truth, but who could she turn to, who would listen to her. Her whole body was aching. Eka and Lexo were nowhere to be seen.

She couldn’t bear it for long. If she fainted, the crowd would surely trample over her.

She pulled herself together, at least as best she could. She willed herself to unclench her fingers, drawing her nails out of the bark, straightened her coat and stepped into the square.

She looked around and discovered she was all alone. The crowd had scattered. She was a lonely figure standing in the vast grey space, not knowing what to expect in another second.

She spread her arms.

The front of her coat opened and her belly rolled out like a swan.

No one saw her or else she would have guessed the obvious, simple, imminent ...

As she spread her arms, she felt wetness in her body.

A fistful of water seemed to move from her toes, slowly making it up her legs, knees, thighs, reaching her hips causing a lot of pain, and stopped there as if collected in a bowl held under a chute.

For a moment she also felt there were two of them, facing each other – the city and herself, she and the country, the entire world. And she was giving birth to it. And with the profound grief that was hard or impossible to put into words, she forgave everything. She forgave in unbearable pain.

The moment was never to repeat itself. She had to scream.

More shots were fired.

Pikria closed her eyes and it got dark.

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