In vain I sought my loved one’s grave;

Despair plunged me in deepest woe.

Scarce holding back the sobs I cried:

O where art thou, my Suliko?

AKAKI TSERETELI

I stayed at the Green House for two weeks. I let my mother take care of me and played backgammon with Aleko. I walked up and down the hill. I searched for the ghosts under the cherry tree. But I never went up to the attic, the stairs to which were now blocked by a door that was permanently locked. I drove into the city, sat in newly opened cafes and restaurants, wandered aimlessly around the streets. All the city had to say to me were things I no longer wanted to hear, and all I wanted to confess to it, I kept to myself. I asked after the people I used to know. I looked around hesitantly. I didn’t allow myself to get involved in any more political debates with Aleko, who thought that the country was on the road to improvement, that the new president had western values, and that his young cabinet had what it took to prise Georgia away from Russia once and for all and take it into Europe.

I passed the places I used to pass every day, looked for streets and buildings that had been familiar and were familiar no more.

Only in the hours I spent with Brilka, the evenings when she danced for me, when we ate together, when she showed me something that was important to her, when she woke me in the morning and chattered away to me — only then did I feel at home.

*

One evening, I dialled the number I still had in my head, and recognised Lana’s voice at once. It took her a while to understand who was calling. Then she started telling me how much she had missed me and how good it was to hear my voice again. Apparently I no longer represented a danger to her son. The kilometres and the years that lay between us were probably security enough for her. When I finally asked after Miro, she began talking about how busy he was, but then she gave me his mobile number all the same and invited me to dinner, which I politely declined. Of course it was easy to love me from a distance. I called him and we arranged to meet in a café in the Old Town the following day.

He was aloof from the beginning; he fiddled self-importantly with his car keys and smelled of an unfamiliar aftershave. From the very first second, he talked of nothing but his work. He was the head of a small building firm which was doing fantastically well as the real estate market was booming. He told me about his travels and his life, which was wholly dedicated to work and seemed to include everything except life itself. He asked me no questions, as if afraid I might say something that would throw him off balance. Something that might challenge this image of the happy, imperturbable man. But eventually, when I could bear the whole act no longer, I touched his hand tentatively and asked him how he was.

‘But I’ve just been telling you how I am,’ he replied with a nervous laugh.

‘What, you mean all that nonsense? I asked how you are, Miro. You can try as hard as you like to be a stranger, but it’s never going to feel that way to me.’

‘I’m not trying —’

‘I thought I had a thousand questions for you, but now it feels like I don’t have any at all.’

‘Well, that’s fine with me.’

‘I just wanted to see you, to know how you are. I’m not here to reproach you.’

‘And what should you be reproaching me for?’

‘Maybe for kissing my mentally unstable sister? Maybe for leaving me alone on the train we were supposed to be getting together? Maybe for hurting me very badly?’

‘And here we go again with the reproaches … Let’s change the subject.’

‘Where did you go, Miro, after you got off the train?’

For a moment he looked straight at me with his big eyes; for a moment I thought I saw a flash of something familiar after all, but then his face resumed its neutral, impassive look and I lowered my gaze.

‘What about the film?’ I asked, before getting up from the table.

‘What film?’

‘What film?’ I repeated in disbelief.

‘Oh right, the film. Good grief, Niza, what decade are you living in?’

‘I’d like an answer, please!’

‘It turned out the material had been damaged in storage. Apparently it was too damp where it was. Most of it was irreparably destroyed.’

*

Two days before my departure, I took Brilka to visit the graves of Christine, Stasia, Kostya, and Daria. We sat in the shadow of an oak tree, looking at the gravestones. I had a cold beer and Brilka sucked at a bottle of Fanta. The place was hot, empty, and quiet.

‘I don’t want to stay here,’ she said suddenly, pulling at a blade of grass.

‘But you have to go back to school, and carry on with your dancing, too, and —’

‘Take me back with you.’

Although by now I knew the right answer, the one that should have followed her request, I said nothing.

‘I’ll find a way to get hold of Kitty’s rights.’

She was wrestling with herself, with her pride, with her fear of another disappointment, and yet she kept going, because, unlike me, she was brave.

‘Will you write me a story?’

‘What kind of story?’

I played the innocent. I couldn’t admit to having read her notebook. I couldn’t expose myself to an even greater risk of her hating me.

‘About Kitty and all that. Then I’ll use it for my choreography.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Sometimes I hate you!’ she cried, springing to her feet. ‘Then go away. Get out of here! I wish you’d all leave me in peace!’

From one second to the next she had started shrieking hysterically.

‘Brilka, you need people to look after you; you need structure and a secure life, and those are things I can’t give you. I’ve got enough problems of my own. Come on, you’ve seen how I live. Brilka, please, look at me!’

‘Just say it, say it! Admit it! Stop lying to me, like you lie to everyone — Aman and your mother and Aleko, and the whole world and yourself as well — and probably my mother, too!’ she snarled angrily in my face.

‘Say what? Admit what, Brilka?’

‘That you don’t want me. You’re no better than them. You’re worse than all the others, even. Much worse. At least tell me that you don’t want me, you never wanted me!’

‘But Brilka, that’s not true … Stop, wait!’

She started running through the graves. I ran after her.

‘You’re lying again! Just leave me alone. Piss off. Go away. Everything I wanted has already gone wrong!’

‘Brilka, stop!’

She wanted to hide her tears from me. I couldn’t bear her weeping. Or my lies. I wanted so much to be able to give her something other than my devastating answers. But I was so terribly afraid of being brought to life by her — without realising that she had done it long ago.

*

On the day I went to the airport — I left the car for Aleko; it wouldn’t have survived the long journey back — Brilka was nowhere to be found. I didn’t say goodbye to her.