‘Her silence flouts me, and I’ll be revenged!’

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

‘God, this whole thing is some kind of nationwide psychosis!’ Miro slapped his hand against his forehead. Neither of us could tear our eyes away from the television screen. The Russian hypnotist and miracle healer Kashpirovsky, who had been performing mass hypnosis on television for quite some time, leading his huge audience into delusion and stupidity, had come to our city. In Tbilisi, too, thousands of people had made the pilgrimage to the Philharmonic Hall where he was doing his show, hoping to be healed. Outside the Philharmonic Hall, a little band of upright citizens was holding a pathetic demonstration, their placards warning of ‘Satanism’; telling people to save their souls and leave the ‘heretical show’ post-haste. But that didn’t seem to bother the ‘devil worshippers’ as crowds of them streamed into the hall. Many fell into ecstatic swoons or burst into tears, gasping for air and struggling for words.

Lana was on another of her trips, and Miro and I shut ourselves up in his room for hours.

‘So we’re on the verge of economic collapse; in a month or two there will be a hundred parties fighting for power; the National Movement has fallen out with just about everyone and they’re starting to tear each other apart; the communists are trying to save their arses; the Mkhedrioni Army is bullying the population; the Abkhazians and Ossetians are clamouring for autonomy; there are warnings of impending inflation, and what do we do? We invite a hypnotist over from Russia to “heal” everyone?’

I doubled up with laughter, then leaped off the bed and ran around his room, laughing hysterically and taking my clothes off as I went, while in the background Kashpirovsky drove the demons out of the Georgian people, until Miro finally caught me, threw me onto the bed, and landed heavily beside me. At times like these, the world and all its miracle healers, reformers, nationalists, and fanatics could go hang as far as we were concerned.

*

In March 1990, the law of ‘national sovereignty’ was passed. Other Union republics followed Georgia’s example, and even if that didn’t mean then that they would leave the USSR, everyone knew that sooner or later that was what would happen. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the political situation had changed across the world. Gorbachev — however friendly he appeared to the West — reacted harshly and imposed economic sanctions on all Union republics that had claimed national sovereignty; but against all of them together, including those that followed, he was powerless. He couldn’t employ the same punitive measures on all fronts; it would be too dangerous for Russia. And so this development was interpreted and accepted as an unpleasant but unavoidable consequence of his great reforms.

In Georgia, a party other than the Communist Party won an election for the first time since 1921. The ‘Round Table–Free Georgia’ nationalist union came to power, under the leadership of writer’s son and former dissident Gamsakhurdia.

When I asked Aleko what sort of person he was, and why he always spoke like a man possessed, as if someone were after him or he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to finish expressing his thoughts, he summarised in a resigned tone: ‘Well, yes, maybe he really is scared someone’s going to cut him off. Even as a schoolboy, he was arrested for anti-communist activities. Then later he had to spend two years in exile for founding the “Action Group for the Defence of Human Rights”. But this is the first time anyone’s really listened to him, so he has to roar like a lion to get everything out that he wasn’t allowed to say for all those years. Actually, though, they say he has a penchant for mysticism, for this — what’s it called again, some kind of new religion or something, it’s all the rage at the moment: anthro … something. In any case, esotericism and politics, it’s a terrible combination. And I’m telling you, the people who are left over, who didn’t get into Gamsakhurdia’s party, the nationalists and the camp followers he didn’t choose as friends, the people he left behind and didn’t offer high positions to — they’ll band together, even if they all hate each other, and they’ll wage war on him,’ He started to leaf through the daily paper, the front page of which carried a picture of a demonstration, as usual. I was too lazy to ask what they were demonstrating about this time.

*

Miro had always found it easy to distract himself. I, on the other hand, was increasingly beset by doubt when I was left alone: how were we ever supposed to find a way back out of this chaos? Where should we go? Where were you even supposed to begin? And what sort of life would it be then? Or should I somehow do it myself and not place any expectations on him, as David had advised me — should I start with myself? But how? How could I expect nothing from him? When you loved someone — you had to expect something, didn’t you?

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a book that I could read and understand. I could only understand by experiencing myself, by living, and life always seemed to be one step ahead of me, as though I would never be able to catch up with it. Eventually, this contradiction was carried over into my relationship with Miro. More and more often he seemed annoyed, left me waiting, turned up with his boys without telling me in advance, was out of sorts and difficult to satisfy, and accused me of controlling him. I felt shabby, sure that a lot of the brittle emotions that left me feeling helpless didn’t have much to do with him at all, that they were caused by my own inadequacy. I was jealous of the new friends he was making at university. The thing I had so loved about him I now hated with a passion. I couldn’t bear it when he clowned around in front of his new friends and played the entertainer at every party and get-together.

I was also disconcerted by the fact that he had suddenly started to think his degree wasn’t all that bad. He had told me he was made for something else, and now he seemed content with the meagre prospects afforded by his institute. I was afraid I would come to despise him, and then myself as well, now that he suddenly appeared so conformist, so comfortable, and so conciliatory. Now that he had suddenly started to dismiss art as the luxury of our age. To accuse me of being gloomy, depressing, unkind, even argumentative.

The more our words failed, the more misunderstandings they caused, the better our bodies spoke to each other at night. As if they were glad that our thoughts, our feelings were playing tricks on us. But by day we began to argue: first a little, then constantly. I told him that the life he was always talking about wasn’t just going to fall into his lap. He said defensively that he wasn’t prepared to do the things my complicated little head thought up. I said I was reclaiming a life that had meaning. He retorted that the two of us, our relationship, was meaning enough for him. I was focusing on things that lay outside this blissful, all-healing love.

There were days when more than anything else I wished I were normal and wanted the things that most people my age wanted. When I wished I could wake up with an unconditional Yes inside me, shout it out, run to Miro, tell him we should go to the registry office and get an official stamp on our love and an official bed. Days when I wanted to prove to everyone around me that I wasn’t as complicated as people told me I was; that I wanted the same things as other people. A little rented flat with an old gas cooker, baking an apple cake in the oven, a washing line strung across the living room with Miro’s underwear hung out to dry. No: I would inevitably start hating him, punishing him for not daring to do things with me, for the fact that we hadn’t overcome our fears and limitations, that we had remained prisoners of ourselves. I’d accuse him of stopping me from becoming what I might have become.

*

Even as she opened the door to me, I knew I would take revenge on him. And in a strange way, the realisation pleased me.

Her institute had called. She hadn’t turned up there for weeks and they couldn’t get hold of her by phone. Elene had asked me to look in on Daria; she suspected her daughter was in bed with the flu. I already suspected something quite different, but I didn’t want to worry Mother.

‘What happened?’ I asked, getting straight to the point.

‘I got a cold, and —’

‘Am I not even allowed to come in? Do we have to stand around out here?’

‘Listen, I don’t want you to catch my cold, and anyway, he’s asleep, and —’

‘Oh, the pasha is asleep. Of course, we mustn’t disturb his rest. Pardon me, I forgot.’

‘Niza, don’t start.’

I put my foot in the door and pushed past her into the flat. As she shrank back I saw the violet bloom below her left eye, and then her swollen lower lip. I didn’t know whether it was disgust or pity I was feeling.

‘Daria! I don’t believe this …’

She tried to hold me back, but I ran into the bedroom where Lasha was lying on his back, fully clothed and snoring. I pounced, straddled him, and before he could wake up and defend himself, I had already punched him in the stomach. He howled with pain, grabbed me, and hurled me off the bed.

Daria screamed, but everything was happening so quickly and I was in such a rage that I snatched up the nearest chair and began waving it around, while my brother-in-law struggled to his feet and came towards me, roaring. I swung the chair back and cracked him on the knee with it before he could get out of the way. The roar turned into a pitiful whine.

Before I could say anything, Daria grabbed me from behind with both arms and dragged me, together with the chair, which I refused to put down, out into the hall.

‘Have you completely lost your mind?’ she hissed at me.

‘And now you’re going to tell me he really loves you, and jealousy just made his hand slip. How are you meant to go on stage with a face like a boxer?’

‘He’s not doing so well.’

‘What about you? How are you doing?’

‘I told you not to get involved! Just stay out of it!’

I dropped the chair and staggered back a little way.

‘Daria, Daro … What on earth is wrong with you?’

She jerked her head towards the door, and as I slowly and reluctantly shuffled out into the stairwell, she slammed it in my face.

*

Over the next three days, I called her repeatedly; the telephone rang at least a hundred times in her flat, but no one picked up. Then I decided to go to The Shark. I marched right into the Chess Palace, where they still had their headquarters, and asked for him. The uniformed, armed Mkhedrioni soldiers at the entrance glanced at me with disdain and giggled like two schoolgirls, but at least they didn’t send me away. One of them backed slowly into the building, keeping his eyes on me, while the other blew gum bubbles in my face. A few minutes later, the first soldier came back, this time at a brisk pace — the silly grin had vanished, too — and told me to follow him inside.

In a smoke-filled backroom that smelled of alcohol, I found The Shark sitting with two other uniformed soldiers, cleaning his gun. I had never seen a rifle up close before, and my eyes were drawn to it in fascination. The Shark jumped up and wrapped his huge paws around me, lifting me up with a laugh.

‘Our Einstein is here! Hey, you morons, this girl’s got more brains than all of you put together! Come and meet her! She’s got guts, I tell you! And whenever she comes here, you treat her like a lady, okay?’ he called out.

The men glanced over at me with a degree of respect in their eyes.

‘So, what’s up, kiddo? How’s our little friend Miro?’

‘He’s fine. He’s not the reason I’m here. I need your help.’

I looked over hesitantly at the two soldiers.

‘Don’t worry, Einstein, go ahead, these guys are my brothers. So, who’s been stupid enough to mess with you?’ The Shark laughed, showing me to a chair.

‘Not me. It’s my sister.’

‘Oh, man, she’s hot. She’s so hot — I just saw her on television and … Hey, you guys, do you know who her sister is? You’re not going to believe this: Daria Jashi! Isn’t that amazing? So what’s wrong, Einstein?’

I gave him a brief outline of the problem.

‘He’s a total mug if he’s screwed things up with that angel. You’d have to be an idiot not to pander to every whim of a woman like that.’

The two others nodded in agreement.

‘Will you help me?’

‘Of course. You’re like a little sister to me. We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?’

*

Two days later, The Shark and his friends accosted Lasha outside the door of his apartment block and ‘had a chat’ with him. He sustained two broken ribs and a concussion, and ended up in hospital, where his doctor parents looked after him. Daria confronted me. One of the neighbours had recognised The Shark, which was how she had made the connection with me. She was not very understanding of my sisterly attempt to help. She screamed at me hysterically; full of hatred, and with a little schadenfreude, too, she told me she loved him more than anything else in the world and there was nothing I could do to change that. She would keep her mouth shut this time, because she was ashamed for me — ashamed that I, her little sister, was capable of something so awful — but if I or any of my criminal friends ever thought about doing anything to her husband again, there would be dire consequences for me. She added that she was glad to be moving out of this ‘bloody country full of peasants and criminals’ as soon as Lasha was out of hospital.

‘Where are you going?’ I murmured, avoiding her gaze.

‘To Moscow. A month from now we’ll be out of this hole. Lasha’s best friend is building up his own business,’ — she said the word in English — ‘and —’

‘He’s building what?’

‘Learn some English!’ she snarled. ‘They’re going to start their own business and earn a lot of money, and then Lasha can decide which films he wants to work on and which he doesn’t, and we’ll be off out of this shitty country. To a place where people won’t beat him up on his own doorstep in broad daylight!’

‘And what about your studies?’

‘I can finish my degree in Moscow and act there! Everything is so backward here, anyway. People here don’t even know the meaning of the word professional.’

‘He’s hit you once, and he’ll do it again!’

‘You’re not God, Niza. When are you going to understand that?’

‘What’s this got to do with God?’

‘You try to control everything, but that’s not how things work. It’s my life and I’ll live it how I want, with whomever I want.’

*

The first free presidential elections in Russian history took place in June 1991. Daria moved to Moscow with her lovely Lasha, and Kostya was surprisingly acquiescent; he still believed that over there all was not yet lost, whereas our country had been sliding towards the abyss for a long time.

Lasha’s parents had advanced him some start-up capital so he could buy into his friend’s business — something to do with banking and loans or credit or something like that, as Daria vaguely described it shortly before they left. What she didn’t tell us at that dinner was that she had also contributed some jewellery from her dowry.

*

Georgia declared its independence and reinstated the old constitution of 1918. The Georgian flag flew over the House of Government — newly renamed the Parliament Building — and we got a new national anthem of our own. So now we were free, though no one really seemed to know what ‘freedom’ meant. The peace lasted just six months, then demonstrations, riots, political tensions, and heated debates in parliament finally culminated in a coup against Gamsakhurdia, led by the National Guard and the Mkhedrioni Army. Attacks on party offices, shootings in the street, break-ins, beatings, injuries, arrests, yelling in parliament, yes, yelling everywhere, wild insults, aggression, and finally bankruptcy were everyday occurrences.

During that time, everything of value disappeared from the Green House: the beautiful furniture, the porcelain vases and mother-of-pearl caskets, all the silver cutlery, Nana’s jewellery and even her tea set collection. All the German, Czech, and Chinese tea sets assembled with such love and effort found their way out of the cabinet in the living room and onto the black market on the ‘Dry Bridge’.