Spilling tears from blind white eyes

A jet of water hits the skies.

JOSEPH BRODSKY

As the Cold War set in, Khrushchev tripled funding for the expansion of the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal and its submarine fleet.

The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union was in full swing, and the certainty of holding a nuclear bomb in their hands gave the superpowers a sense of omnipotence. The Soviet Union had detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, an exact replica of the American bomb that had laid waste to Nagasaki. The Generalissimus had ordered his scientists to copy it, allegedly telling them that experiments were not permitted.

Now scientists were working around the clock, on Khrushchev’s orders, to keep pace with their American competitors’ advances in the field. Since Khrushchev’s inauguration there had been an alarming increase in the number of nuclear tests. Soon there were to be as many as eighty detonations per year; seven hundred and fifteen confirmed nuclear tests were carried out between 1949 and 1990 in the Soviet Union alone. The consequences of this — specifically: radioactive contamination — were of no interest to the Party. Under Khrushchev, it began to pour money into the armaments industry. Forty thousand men worked at the shipyard where the first titanium submarine was built. The rest of the world, including the US, had a total of one-hundred and fifty-nine nuclear submarines during the Cold War. The Soviet fleet numbered two-hundred and twenty-eight.

Kostya Jashi travelled to Nizhny Novgorod to proudly examine the first example of a nuclear-powered submarine.

*

While the parrot Goya, Elene, Elene’s eccentric grandmother, and her equally eccentric sister had formed an invincible fellowship, Nana had turned her attention back to her doctoral thesis.

Nana strove to provide a strong counterpoint to the sisters. They only obeyed their own rules, but Nana required greater discipline of her daughter. She wasn’t always successful in this, however, as Elene had developed a very strong will of her own, for which Nana held her mother- and aunt-in-law responsible.

The rampantly overgrown garden, the screaming parrot, the loud opera arias, the old necklaces and ribbons from Christine’s room fortified Elene’s free spirit. She defied her mother whenever she had the chance, and refused to comply with her disciplinary measures. In the battle for Elene’s favour, the two older women effortlessly, almost accidentally, conjured up one trump card after another. Their suggestions, their offers, their worlds were more exciting, more magical to Elene than Nana’s unimaginative regime.

In the summer, when Kostya came home to spend a few weeks with his wife and daughter, under palm trees on the Black Sea coast or in the health spas and sanatoriums of Borjomi and Sairme, the image of a close, intact family was maintained only with difficulty. The sullen look in his daughter’s eyes was not lost on Kostya, and Nana saw the question marks in them, too, when her child had the all-too-rare opportunity to be with both parents together. During those weeks, though, Nana really tried her hardest; she didn’t want to disappoint Elene, not for anything in the world. In this time away from Stasia and Christine, when she had her daughter all to herself, she wanted to do everything better, to prove to herself and her husband that her childrearing methods were the most effective. Kostya seemed slightly exasperated with her embodiment of the role of strict Georgian mother. He didn’t want the little time he was able to spend with his daughter to be taken up with pedagogical measures. He wanted to enjoy his daughter’s company, to fulfil her every whim, to indulge her; he didn’t want to have to ration his affection. And so these summer weeks became one long ordeal for the patient and otherwise peaceable Nana. Inwardly, she cursed the thankless role she had been assigned. She felt out of her depth, at others’ mercy, misunderstood, unsupported.

One hot August evening, after the two of them had drunk the iodine-rich healing waters in Borjomi and dined with other well-to-do guests at the sanatorium, Kostja paused at his wife’s bedside on his way to the bathroom, razor in hand, and informed her: ‘When the time comes, Elene should go to a suitable school, and that won’t be in this country. I want my daughter to have the best possible education, and thanks to my position I have certain opportunities it would be incredibly stupid for us not to take advantage of.’

‘You surely don’t imagine I’m going to leave my six-year-old daughter behind in a strange city thousands of kilometres away, do you?’

‘I’m not discussing this with you, Nana. I’m just informing you well in advance, so you can —’

‘Forget it, Kostya. Not on your life!’

‘My God, Nana, when are you going to wake up from your patriotic slumber?’

‘And when will you ever think of anyone other than yourself?’

That was the end of the discussion because Kostya didn’t answer his wife; he went into the bathroom instead, to shave in peace. That night the couple slept in separate beds.

*

When the time came for Elene to start school, Nana had long since lost her battle for influence over her daughter to Stasia and Christine. Confronted with two evils, she chose what she thought was the lesser: she decided it would be better to have a russophile daughter who was, nevertheless, disciplined, independent, and educated, rather than one who was feral, unworldly, and, at worst, mad.

Stasia and Christine sounded the alarm when they found out about the plan to send Elene to Moscow. They protested, argued, and made threats, but Nana stood her ground, citing her husband’s wishes. Elene cried, hid herself away, shouted obscenities, and stuck her tongue out at her mother, but this, of course, achieved little. Nana was adamant: her child was not going to grow up in this house in the company of two madwomen. Elene would finally get a decent education; she would learn to behave as a young girl should, not run around screaming like a Fury; she would dress properly, eat properly, speak properly.

*

Two nights before Nana — with a heavy heart, but a clear objective — was due to take her daughter to the airport, Stasia decided to employ her father’s magic in the hope of changing her daughter-in-law’s mind. For the first time in years she made the hot chocolate. As she had anticipated, the smell drew Nana to the kitchen and, not suspecting herself to be at Stasia’s mercy, she sat down at the table and gazed at her mother-in-law with grateful eyes. She spooned up the thick chocolate ecstatically, and Stasia spoke insistently to her as she did so, trying to convince her not to part with Elene; the magical drink made her daughter-in-law so soft and tractable that she came within a whisker of agreeing. Just at that moment, though, a sleepy Elene in yellow pyjamas slipped into the kitchen unnoticed, presumably woken by the most enchanting smell in the world, and before Stasia could stop her she had stuck her finger first into her mother’s cup, then into her mouth. Stasia froze, closed her eyes, and hoped for a miracle. A miracle that would undo this moment. But there are no such miracles, Brilka.

That night, Stasia lay in bed, unable to sleep, imploring all the gods, real and imaginary, to spare this wonderful child she loved so much from the chocolate’s curse.

The following evening, as Elene — accompanied by Stasia’s lamentations — was packing her socks and knickers into her suitcase, the doorbell rang. Still deeply despondent about the incident the night before, Stasia answered the door — and froze. Before her stood Andro Eristavi, bald, with a full beard. Holding his hand was a younger copy of himself. The same curls, but dark; the same eyes, but lighter; the same build, but stockier. Only the boy’s nose was a little coarser, his lips a little more full.

A visit like a bad omen. For a moment, Stasia’s conscience battled with her reason. Andro’s mother appeared in her mind’s eye, asking her to tell her boy stories of a good world. She fell on Andro’s neck, kissing him all over his face, as if he were the same age as the child whose hand he held. Elene, happy that the unexpected visit had relieved her of the sad duty of packing her suitcase, rushed over to Miqa and examined him in her bold and endearing manner.

The table was quickly laid, and Andro and Miqa took their places between Stasia and Christine. They sat silently, heads bowed, as if they had no right to be there. Unlike Elene, who couldn’t keep quiet during the meal and chattered away about whatever sprang to mind, the boy ate his cut-up meatballs like an adult and said thank you every time anyone handed him anything.

After the meal, Elene jumped up and dragged Miqa away from the table by his sleeve; she wanted to show him round the garden and introduce him to Goya. As they were drinking their Turkish coffee, Nana excused herself, too, saying she still had preparations to make for the trip. Alone with Christine and Stasia, Andro could finally broach the reason for his visit.

‘I’d like to send him to school in the city. There’s a programme for gifted kolchoz children, and Miqa’s smart. You know I can’t get a residence permit. But with you … If Miqa could …’

There was a long pause. Then Stasia put her hand on his and nodded.

‘Of course,’ she said. She could still see Sopio’s face before her. This, she realised, was her chance to fulfil her duty to Sopio, to make good with Miqa what she had failed to do for Andro.

Christine cleared her throat, seemingly astonished by her sister’s swift decision to take a strange child into the house, just like that. They had, after all, failed miserably at this undertaking once before. Andro put a tentative arm around Stasia and kissed her shoulder. It was a sad gesture and, at the same time, expressive of great humility. Stasia was filled with a sense of relief. Suddenly Andro rose, as if he wanted to leave already; then he sat down again, plucking nervously at the tablecloth.

‘How’s Kitty? Where is she?’

Stasia and Christine were startled. They wanted to object; to say that it was better not to broach this subject, that they didn’t know anything either, and were weighed down by the burden of this not-knowing; that they were doing all they could not to go mad with worry about her, since Kostya refused to give them any information; all they knew was that she was in England, and safe. Instead, Stasia’s eyes filled and she wept silently, tears rolling down her sunken cheeks. And neither Andro nor Christine attempted to comfort her, because there is no comfort for a mother who has lost her daughter. From the garden they could hear Elene’s happy, bell-like laughter, and Miqa, panting.

Nana left for Moscow with Elene the following morning. Her husband’s aged housekeeper, Lyuda, had prepared his apartment on Nikitsky Boulevard for the little princess’ arrival. Starting on the first of September, Elene would travel from there to one of the exclusive schools, where she would share a classroom with the children of Party functionaries, directors, and high-ranking officers. And on the same day, the first of September, Miqa would step out of the house on Vera Hill to start first grade at an ordinary school in Tbilisi.

*

Elene hated Moscow right from the beginning, but she hated the school most of all. Elene hated her school uniform of heavy brown wool, the scratchy, starched white pinafore, the white bow in her hair; she hated the strict teachers, and her fellow pupils, none of whom she had anything in common with. She hated her parents for bringing her here, and she hated the cold, grey climate of this vast grey city.

She hated the gloomy, marble-floored corridors in the tall school building near Gorky Park. Hated her father’s driver, who drove her to school and picked her up again each day. She hated the parades at the end of every month in honour of socialism and the Party; she even hated the Sundays when her father took the day off for her, and tried to talk to her as if she were a grown-up — as if he could expect that of her, as if she were old and clever enough. She didn’t want to have to play the grown-up, to be old and clever enough for her father. Even though she liked Lyuda, who took care of her and made her blinis, her favourite, she hated the fact that she liked her.

But above all she hated the voice of the boy her own age who, uninvited, and, to her mind, inexplicably, had moved into her house the day she left and taken her place; that contented voice she could hear in the background whenever she spoke to her mother or grandmother or great-aunt on the phone. She should be where he was now. She should be him; she should be leading the life he led.

Miqa, on the other hand, loved everything that life in Tbilisi had to offer. The school, the city, the peculiar sisters; reticent, principled Nana; he loved the guilt-ridden attention that was bestowed on him; he loved having the right to be a child at last — because he didn’t have to do chores in the house, he didn’t have to keep the courtyard clean, he wasn’t constantly told he should act like a man and not like a crybaby, nor did he have to take part in his home village’s frightening pagan rituals.

Nana had to admit that Miqa was quite different to Elene: an absolute model of courtesy, good manners, politeness, and restraint. He was malleable, like soft clay; he was grateful for every gesture; compliant, shy, not the type to do anything silly. He was no trouble at all. He wasn’t especially popular at school, but he got tolerably good marks, and he never had to be reminded to do his homework. His presence in the house was almost imperceptible. He never interrupted the grown-ups when they were talking, he didn’t smack his lips while eating, he washed, he crept past the ladies’ bedrooms on tiptoe, and he never gave any of the house’s occupants any cause for complaint or rebuke. How had this country boy acquired such good manners, Nana wondered. Sometimes she would reproach herself and wonder whether she was a good mother, whether she had done the wrong thing by her daughter, whether it had been a mistake to expose her child to the influence of these unworldly women; whether it wouldn’t have been better if she had gone with Elene to join her husband in Moscow while his offer to live what he called a ‘normal family life’ still stood. It was almost embarrassing to be forced to admit to herself that she would view the future with much less anxiety if her daughter were equipped with the same character traits as Miqa.

Miqa fell under Christine’s spell right from the very first day. No matter how much Stasia made a fuss of him and always made him feel part of the family, Christine’s attention mattered more. He would try to guess her wishes and gauge her moods. If Norma was playing, he knew she was in a good mood, and that he would be allowed to sit in the room with her, listening to the music at full volume. Initially it had bemused him, but, as time went by, he found it more and more beautiful and impressive. If she was listening to Tosca, she was in a melancholy humour, and he would pick her flowers from the garden. If she didn’t want to listen to any records at all, she was tired or had a headache, and off he would go to boil water for her tea.

On the days when she picked him up from school, he could barely contain his pride at walking beside this elegant beauty. Though at first she was amused by his attentiveness towards her, ruffled his curls, laughed at and shook her head over him, which hurt his feelings, she gradually became increasingly tender. She didn’t return his tremulous, dreamy love with the same fervour as she once had her nephew’s; but she did return it, in that she made him her ally. Miqa was practically euphoric; he felt as if he were one of the chosen ones in Christine’s secret realm.

At first, Christine saw the boy as a welcome distraction in her daily life, which had become sadder and more sentimental since Elene’s departure. She also liked the fact that he was so well behaved, and she enjoyed his attentions. The way he would sometimes stare at her in amazement reminded her of Kostya; of before, of her heyday. Increasingly, she began to seek his company, as if he gave her something she had been missing for a long time, or was no longer able to accept from anyone else: he gave her a sense of completeness, as if he didn’t see her veil, her disguise. As if he saw her whole.

*

A playful, somnambulistic peace descended upon the house. For a while it even seemed to Nana that it was tidier, more homely. As if the wildness and neglect had been halted in their tracks. She also managed to finish her doctorate at last. It had cost her two years of her life and put an extra six kilos on her ribs.

The peace was interrupted only by the evening telephone calls from Moscow. That was when the three women would gather round the phone to listen to Elene’s somewhat distracted voice and to hear from Kostya how she was doing, what she was having for breakfast, whether she had a cold, whether they were wrapping her up warm enough, whether she was doing well at school, whether she had already made friends, and so on.

At times like these, Miqa would usually sit in the library in Ramas’ old study; picking up a book he would try to concentrate on it, but still he couldn’t help listening. He would hear the pride in Stasia’s voice when she spoke to her granddaughter, the concern in Nana’s, Christine’s subdued delight, and they would put him in an odd frame of mind.

He would think then of the mountains, of the house where he was born, of his mother’s suntanned skin, his melancholic father’s cracked hands and alcohol breath, the village boys who considered him unmanly, and he would feel afraid. Because he didn’t want to leave: he wanted to stay here, to go on enjoying the unconditional care he received in this house. But there was this girl, out there, far away, the girl with the thick hair and grazed knees, and her voice alone was enough to tear all three women away from him and focus their entire attention on her, for hours: this girl who was hundreds, thousands of kilometres away, whereas he, sitting in the room just upstairs, was forgotten.

*

Since Elene had been living in Moscow under her father’s and Lyuda’s supervision, she had become much more tractable than she had been in the realm of the women. She ate her meals without objection, did her homework, accompanied her father to various events, went with him to the cinema, theatre, museums; her behaviour was more grown-up, more ladylike, all of which gave her father the feeling of being in the right when he maintained to Nana that Elene was not a difficult girl at all, quite the opposite, she was the most obedient child in the world, you just had to know how to win her heart.

She saw the sparkle in Kostya’s eye when she recited a poem for him or brought a good grade home from school. She liked the way he was so solicitous then. Even though she sometimes cursed him in her head for transplanting her to this cold and alien country, he was her only source of stability and a substitute for all those she missed. He was the great man people greeted on the street with their heads bowed low; a man who made important decisions, and sat up late into the night bent over plans that seemed to Elene like secret code.

Lyuda catered to her every whim and never raised her voice. Yet Elene longed for Nana’s hysterical outbursts, her warnings, her constant discipline; wished she could be returned to Stasia’s and Christine’s negligent guardianship. Here, in these high-ceilinged rooms with the heavy, dark furniture, on these wide streets and marble staircases, there was no place for silliness; here, everything went according to plan. Kostya’s plan.

Under his command, her duty was to be his best soldier. It was a role from which she recoiled. At the same time, she was afraid of disappointing him. In her eyes, he stood on such a high pedestal, was so unassailable, his opinion had always seemed so definitive, that she didn’t dare to doubt him.

She wanted to walk, run, explore, seek, and find; instead she walked decorously, holding Lyuda’s hand; sat in her father’s big car like a fine lady; politely answered questions the grown-ups asked her; looked after her toys as she was instructed; and let her father read to her (mostly books he had selected) — only to press her face into her pillow late at night and cry until she fell asleep, exhausted. Only the prospect of the winter and summer holidays enabled her to get through it all, waiting for the day when she and her father would drive to the airport, board the plane, and fly to Tbilisi.

When they arrived, she flung her arms around everyone’s necks, gave them all sloppy kisses, ran, jumped, skipped, and sang. Because here she felt at home. She wasn’t afraid, not even of her father’s anger, because in Tbilisi his rules did not apply. Here, there was a mother; here, there was Stasia, Christine, Goya — and they would protect her. She was deliberately obstinate so as to put her mother’s and grandmother’s love to the test. She gladly accepted being sent to her room for being naughty because anything was better than having to play the grown-up in Moscow.

Miqa wasn’t at the house during the school holidays. His father came to pick him up and took him to the mountains. Nonetheless, he was omnipresent: his toys and clothes, and his books, carefully piled up on the old writing desk, were constant reminders of him. And when any of the women compared her with Miqa — Miqa’s so good, Miqa really loves that cake — Elene’s anger would bubble up, making her even more rebellious and uncontrollable. Kostya’s aversion towards the ‘parasite’s son’, as he tended to describe Miqa, was very apparent, and he would side with his daughter against him.

‘Will you stop winding her up by going on about this stupid boy!’ he said indignantly one evening in the kitchen after dinner. Elene had jumped up from the table and run out because Stasia and Christine couldn’t agree on how Miqa liked his potato pancakes: with or without butter?

‘If you want to bring the bastard up here and pay for him, that’s your affair, but I don’t want my child to suffer as a result.’

‘What are you saying?’ Christine’s fir-green right eye widened.

‘What am I saying? You took him in here behind my back — at my expense, mind — and not even my own dear wife felt it necessary to inform me.’

‘Kostya, please!’ Stasia admonished him.

‘What? I’m not the one who fought for the fascists; I didn’t plant the idiotic notion of capitalist freedom in my sister’s head; I didn’t bring a child into the world that other people have to pay for.’ Kostya’s tone was haughty and cold.

‘Andro is like a son to me — he was like a brother to you!’ Stasia had abandoned her meal and was looking her son straight in the eye, appalled. Nana stared fixedly at the floor, as if there were a secret door in it that could lead her out and away from this unpleasant situation.

‘How can you say such a thing?’ Stasia’s voice was trembling. ‘All of us — yes, all of us — are constantly striving to please you; I’ve accepted the worst thing, the worst thing anyone can do to a mother, and you’re asking the same of your wife.’

Christine stared at her sister in astonishment.

‘What’s that supposed to mean? What exactly am I doing to my wife?’ Kostya’s voice cracked.

‘You took Elene away from her, just because the child simply had to go to an exclusive Russian school; of course she had to live in Moscow, this is a veritable backwater, isn’t it? You’re taking her child away from her, like you took mine away from me.’

Stasia had jumped up from the table and fetched herself a cigarette. Her chin was quivering with emotion.

‘I took your child away from you? I did? You’re out of your mind, Stasia!’ He had stopped calling her Deda long ago. ‘I vouched for her, I staked everything — I risked my life, goddamn it, but it seems none of that’s good enough for you. I’m sure it’s easier to love a traitor and a murderess!’

The room fell silent. Christine slowly rose from the table and hovered uncertainly for a while, as if she didn’t know whether to go or stay. Stasia stood frozen by the tap, filterless cigarette in hand, while Nana glanced anxiously back and forth between Stasia and Kostya.

‘Don’t you dare call her that again! I swear to you by all that’s sacred to me —’

‘I didn’t think anything was still sacred to you!’ said Kostya coldly. He rose from the table.

‘Stay here, damn it, stay here! I want to know where she is, after all this time — I want to speak to my daughter. I can’t go on living like this!’

Kostya, already in the doorway, turned round again and looked at his mother.

‘I saved her from death. We have no information as to her whereabouts, do you understand me? You don’t, and I don’t. We know nothing.’

Stasia moaned. Kostya stormed out of the room and Christine followed him. Nana slowly got to her feet and began clearing the table. Stasia didn’t move; for a long time she stood there in silence. When she looked up again, little Elene was standing in the doorway with a grazed elbow.

‘I hurt myself. Because of stupid Goya.’ Elene gave her grandmother an imploring look.

‘It’s all right; come here, I’ll clean the cut and then we’ll patch it up, all right?’

And Elene hurried over to Stasia, holding her elbow out in front of her as if it were a trophy.