In the morning it rained hard, and on the slick, newly wet roads that wound into the mountains Koba’s big arms had to work hard to keep the Toyota from sliding into the shoulder. But still he drove fast, swinging round long corners, racing up behind ancient army trucks, overtaking on the shortest clear stretch, and finding fewer and fewer checks on his speed as the traffic gradually thinned. Hammer, keen to get on, discovered a handle above the window and gripping it firmly did his best to concentrate on the world outside. Dark, twisting tunnels of oaks gave way to gently rising plains, and through the gloom he could just make out shadowy peaks ahead. Grasses and wildflowers everywhere grew uncontained.
“The road’s not too bad,” Hammer said, after a long period of silence.
Koba threw back his head and laughed one of his tremendous, grand laughs.
“This is not road,” he said.
“That’s great,” said Hammer, and watched the landscape change around him. He wasn’t sure how to say what he wanted to say.
“Koba,” he said at last. “Last night. You OK?”
Koba looked across at him, frowning.
“Ya,” he said, with emphasis. “Why not?”
“I didn’t expect that to happen.”
“Isaac, is best thing. Motherfuckers die. So? They are motherfuckers. Is OK.”
It seemed to have made no more impression on him than the car in the ditch the day before. Hammer envied his robustness. Georgians had to be tough, he guessed.
“Did they talk to you? The police?”
“Ya, is normal.”
“Did they mention my friend?”
“No. Only you.”
That was interesting. Heaven knew what it meant.
Before leaving town Hammer had called each of the two numbers he had for Natela three times before giving up. Finally, he had sent her a text, and tried to consign her to the back of his thoughts, where she had no intention of remaining.
He had slept patchily, and woken without appetite—either for a run, which would have helped him, or for breakfast, which he forced down in any case. He couldn’t leave, but couldn’t stay. What would he tell Elsa, that he’d ignored his only lead to wait for a phone call that might never come?
The truth was, of course, that he had no power over Natela’s life. She could be dead, or in danger, or she might simply never want to see him again. He would never know, and in each case there was little he could do. So he had called Koba, and once they had driven round enough to be sure that no one was following them—to Koba’s great enjoyment—they had stopped only to buy phones, boots, and a winter coat before heading out on the road east to the mountains.
“You are quiet, Isaac,” Koba had said, half an hour in.
“I’m sorry, Koba. I didn’t sleep so well.”
“Mountain air. You will be good.”
Now, after an hour’s climb, still in trees, the way began to level out and then slowly descend. Through gaps in the green Hammer thought he could see a great plain below them, and wondered when they would start to climb again.
“Is this Tusheti?”
Koba turned to look at him, gripped his shoulder with a sturdy hand, and beamed.
“This is Kakheti. Tusheti like this.” He raised his hand to the roof.
“I thought these were the mountains?”
“No,” he said, stretching out the syllable on one low note.
“This isn’t the road, and these aren’t the mountains. OK. How long to the real mountains?”
“One hour. Two. First we stop and eat, buy food. Wait for end of rain.”
It took Hammer a moment to register this.
“We don’t have time to wait.”
“Road not possible in rain. Too much danger.”
“Koba, we have no choice. I need to get up there.”
“Only way in rain is fly.”
“Fly?”
“Helicopter. From Tbilisi.” He looked at Hammer. “It’s OK. Rain will stop.”
Hammer checked his watch. It was noon, and the city was already more than an hour behind them. Their route was set—and besides, this was the way that Ben would have come. There was only one road up.
Soon they were down on the flat, at the edge of a wide plain that was checkered with fields and bounded in the distance by an immense wall of mountains that rose sheer out of nothing and disappeared into dull clouds. So straight was this wall across the horizon, so abrupt and complete, that it was little effort to imagine a just god setting it down to protect the blessed land of Georgia—less a part of the land than a fortification. Down here the world was human; there were vines and crumbling square houses and tractors left abandoned at the side of the road, and every so often the distinctive conical tower of a church, but it was all made tiny by the mass of black rock behind, where men and women were surely never meant to live.
“Caucasus,” said Koba, with pride and respect. “We must cross.”
• • •
In a town called Telavi, which was set a little above the plain and had a jumbled, Alpine air, they stopped and bought provisions. How long would they be gone, Koba wanted to know, and when he found that Hammer wasn’t sure—two days, four—bought enough for a week, on the grounds that there was nothing to eat where they were going but milk and cheese. He had been once before, and yes, it was beautiful, but for him he preferred to look at the mountains than sit on top of them with a lot of crazy sheep people (or shepherds, as Hammer slowly realized he meant). Still, they needn’t suffer; they would eat well. As he got out of the car Koba held his hand out, looked up at the sky, and announced that the rain would stop in twenty minutes.
The supermarket first, for rice, pasta, tea, beer, wine, crackers, biscuits, oil, butter, salt. Then to the covered market, where an old man sliced them huge cuts of lamb and old ladies sold heavy bags of the freshest tomatoes, aubergines, potatoes, parsley, apricots, cherries, the dirt still on some of it and bloom on the rest. Koba went about his business with the pointed confidence of a city dweller among hicks and Hammer, to compensate, supplied unlooked-for smiles and gamarjobats as he followed. When they came out, the rain had indeed stopped, and the sky had started to lighten from the south. Their last job was to fill up the Toyota and its reserve tank—when Hammer saw the plastic barrel in the trunk he felt sure that Ben had done the same, on his way here—and after that Koba declared that they were ready. Or would be, just as soon as they had had lunch.
“Koba, we have enough food for a platoon. We need to go.”
Turning down the corners of his mouth and shaking his head, Koba pointed north to the mountains, where black clouds still sat on the peaks.
“We wait. Best thing we wait for tomorrow, dry road, but you cannot. OK. I drive good, it’s OK. Now have lunch, my friend’s hotel, very good, we can see, we watch the . . .” He gestured upward, not knowing the word.
“Clouds,” said Hammer.
“We watch the clouds. One hour, maybe two.”
Hammer saw the resolve in his broad face and realized that arguing wouldn’t work.
Two hours, in the end, which was enough for Koba to have his fill of trustworthy food. Hammer ate a little, said less, and tried to stop checking his phone by forcing his mind up into the mountains and keeping his eyes on the sky. When he was done he went outside, took his phone from his pocket, and dialed.
“Ike?”
The line was bad and the connection slow, but he could still hear a world of fear and hope in that one word.
“Elsa. I’m so sorry. I should have called.”
“Are you OK?”
Extraordinary, that she could spare a thought for him.
“I’m fine. Fine. Yesterday just got away from me.”
“How—how is it?”
What to tell her? Did he give her hope or prepare her for the moment it might die?
“I’m getting there. He feels closer.”
“You don’t know where he is?”
“I think I do. I think he’s in the mountains.”
He heard her sigh, and for the first time realized that his quest must be beginning to look very much like one of her husband’s. In and out, he had told her. A quick result. Then, he had been happy to play the savior, the wise man, the sane alternative to Ben’s madness. Now, all that felt foolish, and cheap. Not so noble, those first intentions.
“Ike, it’s been days.”
“I know.”
“How long . . .”
She couldn’t frame the question, but he knew what it was. How long before the odds lengthened into impossibility?
He told her about Natela, and her conversation with Ben, and everything else that had set him on this course.
“This is the closest I’ve been.”
“She might have told you sooner.”
She was afraid, he wanted to say but he didn’t want to explain why.
“We’ll get there,” was all he said, and somehow he still meant it. “I’ll call when I can, but it’s wilderness up there.”
He hung up. Inside, Koba was pushing his plate away, finally satisfied.
Slowly the sky lightened, the lower peaks began to show themselves, and by the time Koba was drinking his second coffee and smoking his third cigarette the whole range could be seen: damp, forbidding, but no longer inundated. In Telavi the sun had begun to shine.
“I make call,” said Koba, “then we go. My wife.” He wandered into the parking lot to make it.