That long black cloud is comin’ down

I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.

BOB DYLAN

I came into the world on a rainy autumn day, 8 November 1974, in a village hospital, after a labour that lasted precisely eight hours. The contractions started in the middle of a fight between my mother and her father. And the same day that my sister, as I’ve already said, concussed herself falling off a pony at the stud farm.

Apart from my birth, and my sister’s fall, nothing special happened that day. Except, perhaps, for the fact that, on this day, my mother finally lost her patience in the eternal battle with her father and her eternal hope for the understanding of her female relatives, and started screaming.

‘Are you a whore?’ my grandfather is said to have yelled at her; and my mother, weeping, is said to have screamed back, ‘I might as well be, the way you treat me!’

Two hours later, she went into labour.

Parties to the conflict: my domineering grandfather, my infantile grandmother, and my mother, increasingly losing control of her own life. Stasia was standing somewhere on the terrace, smoking one of her roll-ups. She had long since grown accustomed to this shouting, but that particular day something must have caused her to lose patience. Bursting into the living room, she snarled at her son: ‘Tell me, have you completely lost your mind? Are you a sadist, or what? She’s nine months pregnant! Perhaps you could let her give birth in peace first?’

For a moment an unaccustomed silence filled the room.

‘You keep out of this, Stasia!’ was Kostya’s only comment.

‘I’m to keep out of it, am I? You lunatic!’

It always astonished us how this delicate, sexless, ageless creature could, in seconds, fly into such a rage. Nana couldn’t help smiling inside, but it didn’t show on her face; her expression remained one of dismay and concern.

‘Ugh!’ shouted Kostya, probably referring to both his mother’s choice of words and the general situation, and left the room.

He walked down the hill to the stud farm, with Daria, his golden girl, holding his hand, and stood with her admiring the Dagestani ponies. Then he sat her on one of them, and was holding her by the waist when the pony suddenly broke free and threw the little girl off. It happened so fast that my grandfather failed to catch her.

As my grandfather was throwing himself on his granddaughter in desperation, blaming the horse breeders and threatening to close ‘the whole organisation’ down, my mother started to groan. At the same moment that my mother, accompanied by her corpulent mother, was heading for the hospital in the village, my sister Daria, usually called Daro, Dari, or Dariko, was also being rushed to hospital, but in her case it was the best hospital in Tbilisi, not a ramshackle village clinic. It was announced that Daria had slight concussion. And a few hours later, a few kilometres north of the city, that I had come into the world.

‘This child is a product of Elene’s shamelessness and depravity, sealing my conclusive defeat in the battle for her honour, so I have absolutely no reason to be happy, or to celebrate anything at all. Even if it’s not her fault, the girl is the embodiment of all the ills her mother has brought down upon us.’ This was Kostya’s only reaction to the happy news that he had become a grandfather for the second time.

And when I was finally brought to the Green House, the home that did not welcome me, my great-grandmother awoke from her somnambulistic state, looked at her great-granddaughter, and said: ‘This is a different child. A special one. She needs a lot of protection and a lot of freedom.’

And everyone slapped their palms to their foreheads and groaned. The mad old lady had come back to life, and they weren’t really sure whether this was a good thing or a disaster.

That same day, Stasia finally revealed to the members of her family the true purpose of her barn. It was to become her new rehearsal room. She planned to start dancing again, she said. At which everyone shook their heads in disbelief and mild embarrassment and presumably thought: you must be joking!

And I thought what a wonderful world, and laughed myself to sleep. Perhaps I saw them all, their heads bent over my cradle: Ida with her ringed fingers, fanning my cheeks; Thekla with her memorable scent of wilted flowers and powder; my great-great-grandfather, who smelled of chocolate, pensively shaking his head at the fact that, once again, I had to be given the surname Jashi. And then my sister Daria, who had easily and painlessly shaken off her concussion, came and bit my upper arm so hard that my screams frightened the horses in the field. Until my mother ran in, pulled Daria off me, and screamed at her in desperation, ‘What are you doing? She’s your sister, she’s your little sister! You have to love her!’

*

The call came at dawn one day in May 1975. Kostya was still away on one of his business trips to Batumi. Elene, unable to sleep, was roaming the unfinished attic again. Nana was fast asleep and snoring. So Stasia dragged herself out of bed, looked for her slippers, and stumbled to the phone.

‘Yes, damn it?’ she panted into the receiver.

‘Stasia?’

‘Christine?’

‘Are you well?’

‘Yes, I’m all right, how are things with you?’

‘I need your help.’

‘Why, what’s happened?’

‘You have to help me.’

‘Spit it out!’

‘Miqa. Miqa.’

‘What is it this time?’

‘He was interrogated yesterday.’

‘Interrogated?’

‘Yes, the militsiya was here.’

‘Those bastards. What’s he done?’

‘He made a film.’

‘A film. What about?’

‘About … Sopio.’

‘What?!’

A heavy pause followed, a pause that felt as if it were about to burst and spill its entrails.

‘Yes, it was supposed to be his graduation film. He’s been working on it for over a year now. It all seemed to be going well at first …’

‘Is it that bad?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Talk to him. To Kostya. I hate myself for having to ask you, but it’s the only thing I can do for Miqa.’

There was a lump in Stasia’s throat, something furry and nauseating; her words disintegrated in her mouth before she was able speak them. There was so much she wanted to say to her little sister; but where were they, the words, or at least the tears — why did her wretched tears so often forsake her?

‘Stasia? Are you still there?’

‘It’s good to hear your voice, Christine.’

‘You have to help me.’

‘I’ll speak to him when he gets back.’

Stasia went out into the cool, damp dawn, violet and marsh-green. There was nothing that lasted, nothing that was stronger than an echo, nothing that didn’t run through your fingers, that didn’t wither. Night after night she had placed her dreams under her pillow, hoping for a miracle, and the miracle had never come to pass.

And now there were worthless tears. Now there were fatherless daughters and motherless sons, now there were party badges on people’s chests, now there were disorientated girls and boys behind bars, there was scorched earth; there were still La Bayadères and Petrushkas, but for a long time now there had not been any parts in them for her.

Stasia was collapsing beneath the weight of her neutrality. What an effort it cost to absent yourself from the world.

She stood there in a threadbare nightdress, bare legs in filthy rubber boots, and looked out at the morning, at the dawn breaking over the land. The morning was infinitely, painfully beautiful. But the people who could have delighted in this beauty were wounded; they could not become one with it, were condemned to remain observers for all eternity.

Neutrality was an illusion.

A new day was breaking over Stasia.