Life, I hold your reins in my hand

Thus from your Hell I forge a Paradise.

TABIDZE

The American bombing offensive in North Vietnam was followed by the food sack offensive, in which the US Air Force dropped sacks labelled ‘Donated by the people of the United States’ all over the devastated country. And Christine received a letter from the housing department. She was invited for an interview, where she was informed that, as a single woman, it was capitalist selfishness to claim such a large amount of living space. Christine, who had already prepared herself for the impending war with Kostya, and was under no illusion that she could win it, did not attempt to beg the officials not to throw her out of her own home. She was given the choice of handing over part of her living space to strangers, or accepting an apartment allocated to her by the state. She opted for the latter.

Luckily, those bastard officials didn’t dare resettle her on the outskirts of the city: they offered her a two-room apartment in Vake. As a loyal state health-service employee of many years’ standing, they said, she was entitled to live in the city centre.

It was a cruel break, an almost inhuman loss. She had spent practically her entire life in this house; this was where her story had been written, this was where it had all begun. Now that Kostya had declared war on her, though, her fear had vanished. It felt like a liberation: as if, all these years, the property had been keeping her from something essential. She could walk out, taking only the things that really mattered to her. And those weren’t the old clothes and pictures, the furniture, all the stuff that had accumulated over the decades — they were the pictures she carried within herself, the memories she had stored in the photograph album of her mind. They were what mattered. No one could ever take them away from her. No government office. No commissariat. And no Kostya, either. She would take them all with her to her fifty-two-square-metre apartment. To her new life. Which, from now on, she alone would control.

Once Miqa’s two broken ribs and split lip had healed, he helped her pack. They sold the silver cutlery and other household items, and he gave her enthusiastic advice about decorating the new apartment. Although neither of them said it out loud, both assumed he would move in to the new place with her. She installed a foldout sofa for him, and proudly showed him the sparsely furnished room he was to occupy from now on.

*

She cooked for him, did his laundry, and they would talk until late into the night, discussing everything that was on his mind. She spoiled him with little presents, like a pair of jeans bought for a horrendous sum from the illegal traders in Didube, which made Miqa shout for joy.

There was one thing, though, on which she would not relent. However much he clung to her, demanded her full attention, was jealous and possessive, she refused to get romantically involved with him. She managed their daily lives, provided him with what he needed, gave him security, and, little by little, cured him of his lack of confidence, encouraged him to take risks; but she never let herself get carried away by their former tenderness, she denied him the intimacy to which he so vehemently laid claim.

Instead, she convinced him to make friends with his peers, to connect with people his own age, and, although it broke her heart when she realised how hard this was for him, how alien he felt among his fellow students, she forced him to challenge himself. Ever since the nightmarish encounter with Kostya, she had been preoccupied by the shocking realisation that Miqa had never learned to defend himself, and for this she took the blame. Stasia had been right when she’d accused her of feeding him too many dreams and not letting him bite off enough tough reality.

She started telling him about her life. She didn’t spare him; she guided him through the labyrinth of her thoughts and feelings, opened the doors on her fears and desires. She wanted him to understand that her body was shrivelled, her skin wrinkled and soft, that she walked more slowly than before. That all the memories and stories she spread out before him had come at a price, had not passed her by without leaving their mark. She wanted to shake him awake; she wanted him to rebel against her, but the more she talked about herself, the more words she excavated from her memory, the more she tried to restore him to reality, the more he clung to the dream he had of her.

*

It was only under duress that he accepted birthday invitations, or stayed behind with his fellow students in the cafeteria after lectures, or had a beer with them in Mushtaidi Park at the weekend. He started to bring home a few of his new acquaintances, more to impress her than anything else. Skinny, unkempt-looking young men with greasy hair who bit their fingernails. Later, the clique was joined by a girl with dark rings under her eyes and glasses that covered almost half her face. They would sit in his room, discussing the new generation of Soviet cinematographers and drinking cheap wine from teacups. For the most part, the girl just listened, leaning back on the couch with slightly exaggerated nonchalance and nibbling peanuts or sunflower seeds. Sometimes she would permit herself to make a comment: an ironic remark, or something funny, at any rate, that made everyone laugh. Christine had to admit that she had underestimated this girl at first, had thought she was just a decorative appendage for the boys. But the exact opposite was true: she was eloquent, quick-witted, had a sharp mind, and was impressively well-read. Lana, this girl with the cinnamon skin and the unspeakable glasses, wasn’t even studying film or theatre with the boys. She was enrolled on an engineering degree at the Polytechnical Institute, but her keen interest in film meant that at some point she had come across this film studies course and got to know some of the students.

*

‘Why don’t you apply to study directing, Lana?’ Christine asked her one day. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about film, from what I can tell.’ They were standing in her windowless kitchenette, where Lana was waiting for Christine to prepare tea so she could disappear with it back into Miqa’s room.

‘My father was a cobbler. He died of a stroke at fifty-three. My mother has worked as a secretary at a heating pipe manufacturer’s for twenty-three years. We’re Armenian. I can’t risk it. I’d make a laughing-stock of myself the minute I walked out in front of those idiots on the examination board. A poor, ugly Armenian girl wants to be a director and make films, oh, how sweet! I really don’t need that, Christine,’ she answered, with her customary acerbity.

‘You mustn’t look at it like that, Lana. You’ve got talent. I may not know anything about the film business, but I see how the boys look up to you, and that, my dear, says a lot.’

‘But Christine, you do know what they call us Armenians? Don’t you? Please don’t start telling me about the ancient friendship between our two nations; and I’d prefer not to have to hear anything about socialist equality, either. Yes, we Armenians are heartily welcome in this country, we have our own quarter and our own baths, we even have our own theatre, but the moment we feel like being something other than cobblers, goldsmiths, or pawnbrokers, we’re swiftly called to heel. Also, we wear more gold necklaces. That’s easily misunderstood, isn’t it? Right? Come on, what is it they call Armenians in this country?’

‘Lana, I think you’re exaggerating somewhat with your racist classification.’

‘The Jews of the Caucasus, Christine. That’s what we’re called. Any other questions?’

*

Perhaps it was Lana’s wounded pride, the stigma that came with her background, that initially sparked her interest in Miqa. Perhaps she was just happy to have found someone who appreciated her talent and had no right to look down on her, because as the son of a traitor — a poor, banished alcoholic — he could count himself lucky that he was permitted to study at such an elite faculty. Or perhaps she thought that, through Miqa, she would get a chance to assist in the creation of something she was prohibited from doing herself. Resentful and ambitious as she was, though, this interest must very quickly have become a dogged determination that, on closer inspection, Christine found alarming.

Christine had spotted Lana’s watchful eyes on Miqa, her feigned indifference; whenever he said anything, she would encourage him, and she made no secret of her hope that he would take her out to the cinema or theatre. At first, Christine thought that Lana’s fearlessness, her talent for standing up for herself, would do Miqa good. But then she saw how easily Miqa could be manipulated, and how well Lana had mastered the art of manipulation, and from then on she steered clear, leaving it to Miqa to decide how far to take things with this quick-witted girl. To Christine, she seemed too grown-up for her age, too rational, too inscrutable and embittered. Not compassionate enough with Miqa’s doubts and fears. Christine saw how she would steer every discussion the way she wanted it to go, how she always had to be right. Hidden behind her outsized glasses that made her eyes look like two little black dots was an impressive dose of scepticism and disappointment. But maybe Miqa needed a companion like this at his side? Someone so unwavering, so demanding? She would teach him to defend himself. Christine confined herself to her new role as hostess, and was happy to listen to the increasingly animated discussions in her apartment, which she seldom participated in but could follow clearly through the thin wall. She loved the joie de vivre the young people brought to the apartment, and she liked the contented smile on Miqa’s face when she laid the table for his friends and invited them to sit and eat.

*

Until one afternoon she heard Miqa telling Lana about Sopio Eristavi. She turned off the radio and pricked up her ears.

‘This is incredible. That’s your story? We have to tell it; you have to.’ Christine heard Lana’s voice, urgent and insistent. ‘That’s a proper subject, not the cheap entertainment you normally see in our films. Do you realise what an amazing screenplay that would make? You could use her poems. You said your father kept them. You have to do it!’

‘No one’s going to fund this film. The Institute certainly won’t. A screenplay like that wouldn’t even make it past the board.’

‘Of course not, Miqa, you silly boy; we’ll have to trick them. We can’t let any references to the actual person show through. No one will know her story, anyway. We have to let them think it’s just a student film about the hard lot of an artist, all that nonsense. They’ll think it’s too ambitious; they’ll smile at you condescendingly, but that’s great, the best thing that can happen is for them to underestimate you. But we have to be careful. We’ll write two screenplays. One will be presented to the board, and the actors will get the other. It’s that simple. And when the film comes out, they can protest all they like, it won’t matter, because it’ll cause a stir and anyone with so much as a spark of honour in them will follow you. We could smuggle the film out of the country. My uncle works as a technician in a film studio, he has contacts, he can get us access to their editing room; we can work undisturbed, at night, when no one’s there.’

*

Christine hoped Miqa would dismiss the idea as unworkable and make Lana stop talking about it. But the conversation kept recurring. The boys came less and less; more and more often Miqa and Lana retreated to his bedroom, and more and more often her name came up: Sopio Eristavi. Christine summoned all her courage and spoke to him about it. This time he was reticent, as if he had to keep a secret, and brushed her off with excuses. It was just an idea; what was wrong with him taking an interest in his ancestors’ history; she was the one who’d encouraged him to seek out like-minded people and do things he wanted to do.

‘I just want to be sure it’s you who wants to do these things and not someone else,’ she remarked pointedly, before going back to sit in front of the television.

Two months later, without telling Christine, he took Lana to the mountains to visit his father. Tidying his room after his return, Christine found the old, crumbling notebook containing Sopio’s poems — poems that were banned before they even had a chance to find readers. She sat down on the edge of the sofa and started leafing through the pages, lost in thought. She immersed herself in individual poems, trying to resurrect the period they both celebrated and accused.

That evening, she opened the door to him with an icy expression, and later, as he was enthusiastically spooning up his soup, she placed the book on the table. He stared at the slim volume for a while, as if seeing it for the first time, then shrugged.

‘Yes, I went and got it.’

‘I don’t like secrets, and you know it. What are you two planning?’

‘We’re going to make a film about my grandmother. We’ve already started writing a script. Lana has some amazing ideas.’

‘Lana this, Lana that. Where are you in all this?’ Christine surprised herself with her offended tone when asking the question.

‘You wanted me to find someone my own age. Well, now I have.’

*

She spent weeks trying to dissuade him from his plan. It was too dangerous. Memories of his father’s case were still too fresh. He shouldn’t push his luck. There were things for which other people might be forgiven that he would not; they knew who his father was, after all, and this time she wouldn’t be able to protect him if anything should happen. No, she had no one left whom she could ask for help. He should let it drop, he should find another subject, there were plenty. He was still too young to tackle Sopio’s story, he understood too little of what it was he wanted to tell. But Miqa remained stubborn; he listened to her with an indifferent expression and insisted that he had already planned everything and thought it all through.

One morning, Christine found Lana sitting in the kitchen, poring over a great pile of notes and bits of paper. They’d been writing and discussing in Miqa’s room the previous evening. Miqa, it seemed, was still asleep.

‘You haven’t been sitting here all night, have you? Why didn’t you go and lie down?’ asked Christine.

‘I didn’t want to offend you; the sofa bed is very narrow, after all,’ murmured Lana, without looking up from the heap of papers.

‘That’s none of my business. I didn’t even know you were —’

‘We’re not. Not yet. It’s my mind he desires, not my body. I can’t blame him. After all, I know who shaped his aesthetic ideals.’

Christine froze, coffee pot in hand. She didn’t know whether to express outrage at the remark or ignore it.

‘But he needs me,’ Lana continued. ‘And he knows it, and with time I’m sure he’ll learn to lower his optical standards.’

‘Oh, I’m sure you can get him to do that,’ hissed Christine, through her teeth.