Learning from the Soviets means learning to be a victor.

POSTER SLOGAN

The post-war world fell into a frenzy. People wanted to celebrate life and clear away the rubble; they wanted to dance heathen dances of survival, they wanted to drink, they wanted to celebrate, they wanted to gorge themselves on all the things they had lacked in recent years. People wanted shallow operettas, they wanted risqué songs, they wanted nice, sentimental films with rural settings. They wanted to forget; they wanted to live as if there were no tomorrow — and no yesterday. The euphoria was infectious, dangerous, charged.

In our little homeland, too, people sang and celebrated until they felt dizzy. And of course the regime celebrated itself; people organised insane orgies of gratitude in its honour and extolled its cleverness and might. They celebrated the Generalissimus, the great Father of the People, who had led his country victoriously out of the apocalypse and back into the light of socialism. New legends and myths sprang up around him, praising his bravery and self-sacrifice on behalf of his country. Perhaps the most powerful myth was about him and his son. In 1941 his oldest son Yakov had been taken prisoner by the Germans. When the fascists found out who this prisoner was, they suggested exchanging Yakov for General Paulus, who had been captured by the Russians at Stalingrad. But the Generalissimus — so the legend went — replied: ‘I do not trade field marshals for lieutenants.’ And so Yakov met his miserable end, shot in the back of the head with a German gun.

This legend testified once again to the selflessness of the Great Father and his loyalty to his homeland. The act was not seen as inhuman; on the contrary, the story showed the extent to which the leader suffered with his people and the — yes — superhuman strength he demonstrated in taking this almost biblical step and sacrificing his son. The Soviet Union shone. The Generalissimus was a victor. And victors are forgiven everything.

*

After the war, Stasia returned to Tbilisi permanently and registered for the first time with the People’s Commissariat as a person in search of work. Christine continued to work at the hospital. And Kostya seemed in no hurry to be redeployed; he enjoyed the ministrations of his mother and aunt, slept for days on end, went to the sulphur baths almost daily, as if he wanted the hot steam to scald the war from his skin, and flirted with students in teahouses. Kitty reeled from one emotional extreme to another, and it sometimes seemed to her that there were two people living in her chest, two completely different entities who were compelled to fight each other. The happy, light-hearted Kitty had not reappeared since the day they drove her out to the village school; but vestiges, hints of this happiness, still flared up in her occasionally, like charred branches in a dead campfire. On days like these she enjoyed her studies, the different parts that she tried on like new clothes. She enjoyed her fellow students, who were all able to party with such glorious abandon; she enjoyed survival, and new beginnings.

She wrote regular letters to Andro, described her daily life, gave him hope, continued to play her old, cheerful self, told him about the new books she was reading and the theatre premieres she went to. But she never wrote about anything real. She never mentioned her worries, not with so much as a line. She was afraid that he wasn’t strong enough to withstand the endless tortures of the gulag, and wished with all her heart that he would return, but didn’t know how it was possible. Even if there would be no Vienna for them now, even if their illusions and hopes were irrevocably shattered, even if they would never kiss one another on green-painted benches ever again, she would never give up hoping for his return. His replies were never longer than half a page. The letters were read, of course. He only ever wrote, in his small, spiky hand, about daily life in the quarry, his delight in a sunny day, or a soup that was more substantial than usual. Only once, in his first letter, had he written the word ‘Forgive’ at the end. But she hadn’t commented on that.

So far, Kitty had kept this correspondence secret. She intercepted the postman, and took her letters to the post office after lectures. She had hoped that Kostya would help her, but she had to accept that this was not going to happen, and one day she approached Christine — who still had good contacts among the nomenklatura — with her request. They were sitting in a newly opened ice-cream parlour on Rustaveli Boulevard. Kitty stared at a big poster announcing the new opera season.

‘How long have you known?’ Christine stirred sugar into her cup of tea.

‘A few weeks. I got a letter from him. But Kostya —’

‘You should keep him out of it!’

‘Stop leaping to his defence all the time!’

‘What are you hoping Kostya could do?’

‘I thought he might make it possible for Andro to be transferred. There are plenty of labour camps around here, too.’

‘So you still think you have to love him?’

‘What do you mean by that? I’ll always love him — he’s our Andro.’

‘What you love is the memory. You’re not the same person, and I’m sure he’s even less the person he once was — the one you know. You can want to help him, but do it for his sake, not your own.’

Christine finished her tea. Kitty fell silent, chewed her thumb, and gazed out at the street, where young lovers and parents with children were strolling up and down. Although Christine didn’t promise her anything then and there, in the days that followed she considered what she could do. If Andro really had been accused of treason, it was highly unlikely that he would still be alive. It was possible, then, that in the last years of the war he had actually had second thoughts, that he had perhaps been of service to the Reds in some way, and they were thanking him for it now by letting him live. She asked some of her husband Ramas’ old friends for advice, enquired as to whether there was any chance of seeing Andro’s file, and informed Stasia that Andro had made contact with her daughter.

Stasia was racked with guilt. She refused to think that Andro might suffer the same fate as his mother. She could never have forgiven herself for that. She had followed her son to Russia, naively assuming that she could save him, and had left the gullible, inexperienced Andro, to whom nothing was more alien than warfare, to his own devices. If she thought about it long enough, she couldn’t even reproach him for taking this disastrous path and, in doing so, infecting her daughter with misfortune, too.

Stasia made up parcels of food and clothes, and slipped rouble notes into the pockets of post office and customs officials to ensure the parcels reached Nazino; and she took her son to task. He should contact someone in the central administration, she told him, to find out why Andro Eristavi had been sent to Siberia.

Eventually, Kostya could no longer withstand the constant pressure in the house — his sister’s expectant, beseeching looks, Christine’s intercession, Stasia’s insistent demands — and called Giorgi Alania in Moscow. Unlike the search for Ida, which was proving extremely difficult, where Andro was concerned Alania quickly found what he was looking for. In a late-night telephone call he described to Kostya in detail the path Andro had taken. The only reason he was still alive, Alania explained, was his involvement in the Texel uprising.

*

A magical scent wafted through the house. Kostya had gone out, and Kitty was still at rehearsal. Christine, in her nightgown and already on her way to bed, came downstairs and into the kitchen. Since that terrible night, Stasia had never made the hot chocolate for her again; she didn’t know that Christine had been in possession of the recipe for quite some time. Christine sat down at the table with her sister.

‘You haven’t made it for ages.’

‘True. But I thought we two had earned it.’

Stasia poured the thick liquid into two porcelain cups. They began to spoon it up slowly, relishing it.

‘You have to contact him,’ Stasia blurted out suddenly.

‘Whom should I contact?’

‘You know who.’

‘Excuse me?’ Christine’s voice grew icy.

‘We have to get Andro out of there. He won’t survive otherwise.’

‘And how are we supposed to do it?’

‘We’re responsible for this boy. Yes, perhaps he made a mistake, perhaps he made the wrong decisions. But he was so young, Christine. What happened to Sopio cannot be allowed to happen again. We’d never forgive ourselves.’

‘And would I forgive myself for seeking him out again, looking him in the eyes, after all that’s happened?’ Christine’s tone remained icy, and her expression was filled with disgust.

‘It would be to save a life, Christine. To save Andro. We raised him like our own child; imagine if it were Kostya …’

‘I can’t, Stasia. I simply can’t.’

‘I hate myself for having to ask you for this favour, but there’s no other way. With his history he won’t stand a chance, unless … He’s the only one who can help him.’

‘I don’t even know if he would be prepared to receive me, to listen to me, or where I could even reach him. He’s in Moscow most of the time.’

‘He’ll listen to you. I’m sure he will always want to see you.’

‘But he hasn’t. Not in all the years since.’

‘I saw his look.’

‘What look?’

‘The way he used to look at you.’

For a while, Christine said nothing. She licked the last remnants of the chocolate from the cup with her finger. Suddenly she looked up and said, ‘All right. But in that case …’

‘In that case what? I’ll do anything.’

‘In that case, you have to accept that Simon is dead.’

Stasia gulped. She stood up. Sat down again. Lit a filterless cigarette.

‘Say it,’ repeated Christine sternly, fixing her sister with a look of schadenfreude.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Why do you want me to —’

‘Say it!’

‘He … he …’

‘Say it, and yes — I’ll seek him out and petition him for Andro to be pardoned.’

‘He’s …’

‘Stasia!’

‘… dead.’