Georgian political life was sunk the moment Georgia allied itself
to Russia. After this annexation, and after a very nebulous agreement
had been made on the retention of our own national identity,
the Georgians threw aside all political ideas and plunged wholly
into the whirlpool of Russian life.

THE CAUCASIAN HERALD

All these White Guardsmen, nationalists, liberals, even a few Mensheviks who met daily in their billets, the hordes who passed by Stasia’s girls’ school speaking in excited whispers, seemed united in a single aim: to seize the moment and declare Georgian independence. The balcony of Europe — an ironically poetic description of our homeland — should finally be released from bondage and given the freedom for which it had yearned for so long.

But Stasia took no notice of them. She just shrugged, and went on dreaming of her ballet career. She had little time for all these discussions — after all, there was so much beauty, so much delight in the world, especially when you were experiencing the first signs of love, and imagining your future in Paris with the Ballets Russes. No matter what her father, her husband-to-be, even the whole country wanted — all Stasia wanted was freedom and Paris, but above all: to dance, dance, dance. Let these sombre-looking gentlemen punch each others’ lights out; she would dance on towards her dreams, and, like Ida Rubinstein, appear as Scheherazade at the Théâtre du Châtelet.

Every day, she waited for her White Lieutenant to pick her up from school in the afternoon, so that she could give free rein to her competitive spirit on the steppe. Then, all the political talk fell silent. Then, everything fell silent, and all that remained was her beating heart, the breeze, the echo, and the sound of horses’ hooves on the red earth.

Our seventeen-year-old Stasia, in love for the first time — Stasia, who would rather learn Latin and astronomy at school than knitting and crochet — rode, was free and full of life, and neither socialism nor democracy could do anything to alter that. She was already plotting ways to convince her husband-to-be to go to Paris and start a new, quite different life there.

And when, one evening, as they sat on a fallen tree-trunk, Simon asked Stasia if she could imagine going with him, as his wife, to the cold, northern country where a career awaited him, Stasia was suddenly at a loss.

She wept inwardly for that other life — no matter which — that, with one decision — no matter which — she would have to give up. Didn’t one have to be born twice — three, four, countless times, even — in order to do justice to one’s desires? To the possibilities of this world? And, as always at such moments, she thought of her dead twin sister, whom she called Kitty, after Kitty in Anna Karenina — Tolstoy’s Kitty who, following many romantic troubles, finds a home port in Levin after all — and felt even more despondent.

The White Lieutenant was mulling over quite different things, and was searching for a solution. For some time he had been feeling straitened both ideologically and financially, and his hope that the liberals would defend his country against the communists was dwindling with each day that passed. The situation in Georgia was too uncertain for him to remain there: he didn’t trust all the local unions and coalitions.

He had to act; he had to pick a side. Under no circumstances did he want to remain trapped in his little hometown. Out there, people were shaping whole countries anew, and that was where he wanted to be — not sitting in smoke-filled rooms in this provincial town, talking to high-school students about what others were accomplishing, far away from him.

These were great days, when you could rise to the top or be declared an enemy with equal speed. Under no circumstances did he want the latter.

But, if democracy were to fail in his homeland, the Bolsheviks would achieve definitive victory, and then he would have no chance here.

On the other hand, the Reds needed helping hands — as many as they could find.

And so he sat there, beside this girl who so enchanted him, not daring to confess to her that he was about to join the RKKA, the peasant army, the expansion of which had just been ordered by Trotsky himself.

In any case, Stasia wept inwardly beneath an oak tree — I’m sure it was an oak, and I’m sure it was very old. Quite sure. Simon grasped Stasia’s shaking shoulders, under the pretext of comforting her. Of course, the first kiss was wonderful — I’m sure it was, very sure, Brilka: the first kiss of our story has to be wonderful!

I don’t know whether Stasia gave her consent immediately, that early evening, but what is certain is that three evenings later, Stasia entered her father’s little study, which always smelled of chocolate and lavender, sat down in front of him in the heavy leather armchair, and informed him that she was going to marry Simon Jashi the following day.

The chocolate-maker looked up from his papers, took off his reading glasses, fixed his eyes on his daughter, and laughed.

But that wasn’t all. Stasia went on: ‘I don’t want a wedding party. I want to take the money for that, and for my dowry, and use it to finance my dance training. As far as I know, this marriage is in accordance with your wishes, Father, and now I simply expect you to say yes.’

Her father was still laughing, but now he put on a stern voice, and said there was no way that was going to happen (or some phrase of the time to that effect) and that he wasn’t going to make himself the laughing stock of the town just because his daughter had fanciful ideas in her head. Everything had to be done properly: the engagement, the period of waiting, and then a wedding befitting their status. She was, after all, the first of his daughters to marry — that called for a big celebration.

And then he would have to have a serious word with his future son-in-law: a respectable young man such as Simon couldn’t go letting his wayward wife call the tune.

Stasia listened to all of this calmly, even declining the delicious-smelling Turkish coffee her father offered her. Finally, she stood up and said that she would either get married in this way or not at all, and in any case Simon would soon be leaving for Petrograd. She must have uttered this sentence with an air of such determination that, although her father did not agree, he did nothing further to prevent his daughter from walking up the aisle the following morning, in a simple white dress that had been made for her elder sister Lida’s first ball.

The chocolate-maker must have wrestled with himself and his doubts for a long time before deciding to keep his promise and give Stasia his recipe in her dowry. Perhaps, in the years after his first wife’s death, he had decided to trust his business sense more than his superstition. After all, it was this recipe that had enabled him and his family to live a good life all these years, even if he hadn’t expanded into the big cities and still hadn’t put the hot chocolate on sale. But, in small doses, this mixture of ingredients didn’t seem to do any harm — on the contrary, it brought people joy and allowed them to forget their troubles for a while, without exacting a fatal price. He had surely done the right thing in keeping the hot chocolate under wraps, the chocolate-maker mused the night before Stasia’s wedding, although he now no longer knew whether his reasons for that were the same as they had been when he came back from Europe with the recipe in his pocket.

The decision not to sell the hot chocolate gave him a good, secure feeling, as if he had thereby warded off further calamity, which would have struck had he disobeyed his instincts. Of this he was quite sure. Even if he would never say so openly, especially not in front of his employees or his wife, even if he sometimes found his own speculations ridiculous, this black premonition had remained at the back of his mind ever since the deaths of Ketevan and Stasia’s twin sister. Against his expectations, it didn’t wane over the years; on the contrary, it grew all the stronger with time and solidified into a conviction.

But Stasia was not one of his employees, and she certainly wasn’t Lara Mikhailovna. Stasia was perhaps the only person to whom he could entrust his secret without fear of ridicule.

And so, the night before her wedding, he summoned all his courage and knocked on Stasia’s bedroom door (she was awake; she couldn’t sleep all night for excitement) and asked her to get dressed and follow him. Stasia put on her clothes, her father took her by the hand, and they walked over to the chocolate factory.

He unlocked the door, flicked on the electric light (still a rarity in the little town at that time), led her into the production room, and asked her to take a seat. Then he began to prepare the chocolate. She was to observe him very closely, he said, to take note of the ingredients in the spice mix and repeat them aloud as he mixed them. Stasia, astonished at her father’s secretive behaviour and the reverence he was displaying, suddenly forgot all restraint as the most magical aroma she had ever smelled began to spread through the room.

As the daughter of a confectioner famed throughout the land, she was used to all kinds of delicacies, but she had never smelled such a bewitching scent, let alone tasted it. As if hypnotised, she listed all the ingredients one after another, repeating the quantities with rapt attention as she felt her mouth starting to water. After that, her father instructed her to write down, with great precision, everything she had heard: the ingredients, the preparation time, and — very importantly — the exact dosage. A pencil and a piece of paper were set out for her on the table, and she noted down her father’s secret neatly, in her best handwriting. She had to concentrate hard because of the intoxicating aroma filling the room.

Then she was given a small, delicate cup, as light as a feather, filled with a heavy black liquid, which she began to devour with a silver spoon. Her gums: awakened to incredible joy; her head: intoxicated by the taste; her tongue: drugged. She savoured the chocolate, one spoonful at a time, and for a few minutes forgot the world around her.

‘What in God’s name was that?’ she asked, once she had licked the cup clean like a hungry cat and set it down carefully. ‘And why have you never shown it to us before?’

‘Because it’s a secret recipe. I mix a small dose of my secret into all our chocolate products, but the recipe was originally invented for this hot chocolate, which you have now been allowed to taste. But …’ He paused and gazed at his daughter steadily. ‘But it is dangerous.’ He hesitated again, as if searching for the words to describe something that could not be described in words.

‘What do you mean, dangerous?’ Stasia asked, still with the ecstatic feeling in her breast that the taste of the chocolate had left behind.

‘You have to believe me, Stasia, my girl. What I am about to tell you may seem strange, but you have to believe my words — promise me!’

‘But Father —’

‘Promise me!’

‘Yes, all right, I promise. Of course I promise.’

‘Too much of a good thing can bring about too many bad things. And I have never seen a person taste this chocolate without demanding more, and, yes, craving more. But the combination of craving and enjoyment can lead to dependency. Please remember that!’

‘Of course people want more — it’s so sinfully delicious!’

‘No, you don’t understand. This chocolate can only be enjoyed in small amounts. A very small quantity of the ingredients can make any chocolate product a true delight, but in its pure form, in this form, Stasia, it can bring about calamity.’

Stasia, who was not used to hearing such words from her father, let alone the reverent tone in which he pronounced them, tried not to let her consternation show and assumed the most serious expression she could manage.

‘You must promise me, by all that is holy to you, that you will keep this precious secret as the apple of your eye. This recipe must never be allowed to leave the family. Outsiders must never be allowed to use it. You must never use it lightly, or prepare it for some party or other. It should remain something rare and special. If I had sold this chocolate in the shop I could have made a considerable profit from it over the years, but I decided against it.’

‘But why me? Why are you giving me the recipe?’

‘Because when you were born I swore, in memory of your mother, that one day you would inherit the secret, and …’

‘And?’

‘Because you had survived the calamity and, as it seemed to me …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. Stasia didn’t entirely understand, but nor did she dare ask any more questions. There were other things occupying her head besides some calamity that her father imagined this heavenly chocolate had provoked.

‘But sometimes …’

‘Yes, sometimes. Just make sure that these times are rare and that the occasions are special.’

That night, Stasia took an oath, swearing to learn the recipe by heart and destroy the paper. And when she was lying in her bed again, recalling the taste with all her senses, she was sure that this secret recipe could heal wounds, avert catastrophes, and bring people happiness.

But she was wrong.

*

On the day of the wedding, the chocolate-maker’s second eldest daughter, Meri, was in the countryside with a sick aunt, and their stepmother feigned a migraine. It was just timid Lida and ten-year-old Christine — carrying large bunches of flowers, the only one to approach the day with enthusiasm — who accompanied their sister to the altar. The monk Seraphim, Lida’s confessor and a family friend, conducted the wedding in the little Church of St George.

Simon consoled his father-in-law with the prospect of a belated wedding party befitting their status. He promised to be there for his wife in good times and in bad, and to care for her. They spent the wedding night in a guesthouse not far from the cave city, and the next morning Stasia smiled the tenderest smile she was ready to show. She had not yet mastered the smile of a married lady, and the smile of the freedom-loving girl who rode astride had already faded.

Simon left the town barely two weeks after the wedding, taking first a carriage to the railway station and then the train north, and Stasia returned home a married woman.

All this happened at the start of the chaotic year of 1918, the same year that our countryman, who was then simply called Joseph, Koba, or, affectionately, Soso, was made commander of Trotsky’s Red Army.

The same year in which the Bolsheviks issued a decree with the title The Socialist Fatherland Is in Danger, paragraph eight of which read: ‘Enemy agents, profiteers, marauders, hooligans, counter-revolutionary agitators, and German spies are to be shot on the spot.’ The first year of the Cheka. The Cheka, which was later renamed the NKVD, and would finally be called the KGB.