Hammer hesitated. Koba, he was beginning to understand, was an angry man, and by drinking he would be complicit in his anger. But not to drink would be the deepest insult, and really he had no cause. He had drunk with worse people, after all. And he wanted the drink.
He knocked it back. It was rougher than the chacha Natela had given him, and scorched the back of his throat on its way down.
“Ha!” said Koba. “Good, ya? One more.”
He poured again, slightly less carefully than before.
“Here. Take.” They raised their glasses. Koba leaned forward across the table, took Hammer’s glass from his left hand, and transferred it to his right. Then, not quite happy, he gripped Hammer’s elbow and lifted it until it was level with the glass. Feeling like a marionette, Hammer let himself be manipulated.
“Now. Is good.” Adopting a serious expression, Koba resumed. “You are good friend. First time in Georgia. Good man. You look for your friend. This is honor. You are man of honor. Your friend, maybe not. But you, yes. I hope you find your friend. Here, I think, we will not find him, but somewhere, yes. So, toast. To friendship.” He brought the glass to his lips, then “Gaumarjos!” and down it went.
“Gaumarjos,” said Hammer, and drank. The day began slowly to slip from him.
Koba drew his sleeve across his mouth. “Your friend, he is like you?”
“What am I?”
“Good man.” Koba clenched his fist and held it to his breast, filling their glasses with his other hand. “True friend.”
Before Hammer could answer, the third toast was made, to God, plain and simple, and the third glass drained.
“All friends let us down sometimes, Koba. No one’s completely true.”
“Bullshit. Good friend is good friend. Always.”
“No one ever let you down?”
“Let me down?”
“Sure. Kept the money you loaned them. Stole your girl. Lied to you. Shared a secret you didn’t want shared.”
Koba frowned a lopsided frown, somewhere between suspicious and confused. “Such person no friend.”
“You don’t do forgiveness?”
“I forgive, I am weak.”
It was all about perspective, Hammer thought, and one’s surroundings. Come as far as he had and it felt petty to blame Ben for anything, but that could change, if the two of them ever made it home.
By the time they were ready to eat, Irine had gone to bed, the room was full of smoking lamb fat, and they were on their sixth toast, which Hammer resolved should be the last. They would start early in the morning and he wanted to be alert. After a lengthy speech about his father, and his grandfather, and the great heroes of Georgia, Koba stood, with immense solemnity, and as Hammer did the same they toasted the dead.
He could cook, Hammer had to concede. The lamb came with raw onions and salad and everything was good. By now they were drinking wine, and Hammer could tell that another toast was coming, and when Koba moved to fill his glass he put his hand over the top of it and, smiling, shook his head.
“Koba, thank you, you’re very kind, but that’s enough for me. I need my wits tomorrow.” Koba frowned. “I need to be fresh, in the morning. You drink, go ahead.”
“No. Must drink.”
“When we find my friend, then I drink. But for now, no more.”
“You sleep well. Mountain air.”
“I hope so.”
Koba was beginning to be drunk, and his face made an exaggerated display of puzzlement, dismay, resignation. “OK. Is best for you, OK. We drink later. But now, one more. Important toast.”
Drunk enough himself, Hammer couldn’t find the will to resist. He took his hand away.
“Very important toast. For you. We are men. We make work. We fight. We drink chacha. But,” Koba took his voice down low, “each man, he has mother. Yes? With no woman, he is nothing. They are mothers and wives and daughters. They are brave like ten men. And beauty. In Georgia, women are most beautiful in world. I think you know this, yes?” He winked at Hammer, who, even through the creeping haze, wondered what he meant by it. “Men come to Georgia, they never leave. Stay forever with Georgian woman. You should do same, yes?” Another wink. “So. Drink, please. To mothers and wives. To women. Gaumarjos!”
• • •
Hammer woke in the middle of the night to the noise of Koba’s snores coming through his closed door. They had a growling quality, like a wild animal disturbed. He fumbled on the floor for his phone and checked the time. Almost two. His head hurt, and his limbs still felt as if someone had pulled taut all the tendons inside. He brought the heavy sheets and blankets up round his ears against the cold.
His first memory was of the road, and the drop beside it; his second, of Koba’s great red face winking at him over the chacha. It had meant something, he was sure, but perhaps nothing more than a leering guess that Hammer’s frequent walks had masked some sexual escapade.
A bare bulb was shining on the landing and he squinted past it as he shuffled quickly to the bathroom in the cold. On his way back, he went to close Koba’s door, in the faint hope that it might cut out some of the noise, and for a moment watched him sleeping, the big sprawled frame vibrating noticeably with every breath. The room was already a mess: his clothes were on the floor where he had stepped out of them, the contents of his plastic bags emptied against the wall, his wallet and phones by the foot of the bed.
Two phones. The notion struck Hammer as odd, as the winking had struck him as odd. He looked at the phones, then at Koba, who appeared to be in the deepest imaginable sleep, and after briefly consulting his conscience stole inside.
A minute later he was back in the bathroom, examining his haul—ready to act if the snoring stopped but not sure what he would do. The phones were locked. Both were simple models, but to judge by their condition one had been used for a long time and one was almost new. The wallet was similarly anonymous. It was well made and well worn, and at one point must have held more than it currently did, because the leather sagged around its contents: nine hundred lari in cash, which was something like five hundred dollars—a large amount, especially given that he had refused to take any of Hammer’s money until the end of the job; and two receipts, one from the supermarket and one for the gas that Hammer had paid for that day. That was all. No credit cards, no driver’s license, no loyalty cards, no notes, photographs, or tickets. Nothing that might identify him. Perhaps this was what a normal Georgian wallet looked like. Perhaps, when he traveled to the mountains, Koba kept things light and emptied his wallet of anything he didn’t truly need.
From the next room the snores still came. Hammer crept in, left Koba’s things as he had found them, gently closed the door, and almost tiptoed back to bed. As far as he knew, Koba hadn’t stirred, but that made it no easier to get to sleep, and for a while he lay in the dark, wandering round this strange new world and trying to force it against its will to take on any kind of shape.
FOUR
The next time he woke, the night was over and a cheerful light was coming through the flimsy checked curtain in his room. He splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom, skipped shaving for the first time in perhaps ten years, dressed quickly, and went downstairs, seeing on the way that Koba was still out cold, on his front now and making less noise.
Irine was busying herself with breakfast in the one big room where food was cooked and eaten, which smelled faintly of sour milk and last night’s smoke. She had a round face and the wind-browned look of a sailor. Three large nylon bags were lined up on the floor, and she had filled them with pans and plates and bowls, the contents of a tall dresser by the window. Hammer greeted her, exchanged smiles, and headed outside into the cold sun of the morning.
No messages, so with no great purpose beyond needing to wake up, Hammer walked. Irine’s was one of the neater houses: some looked spruce, some shabby, some uninhabi
ted and standing on the verge of ruin. In between them, any ground that hadn’t been trodden into a path was thick with grass and wildflowers. He met cows grazing and a sheep tied up, saw horses in the pasture in the distance and a 4 x 4 speeding by on the road, wandered down the hill to a meadow where the bones of two rusted jeeps sat neatly in a corner, all their parts plucked for further use.
But there were no people. On his way back up, feeling the extra exertion in the thin air, he peered through the window of an abandoned house and saw inside a blackened room where a cloth still covered the kitchen table and empty bottles, perhaps from one last celebration, lined up neatly against one of the walls, covered in dust. The road had been built only thirty years earlier, Koba had told him, and before that the only way down to the plain had been on horseback. Already it seemed to have taken many people with it.
“It’s quiet out there,” he said to Irine on his return. But she didn’t understand him, and rather than try to explain he smiled and let her serve him his breakfast of fried eggs and tea and slices of an enormous, pitted cheese that tasted of farmyards. Hammer’s appetite surprised him, and he was on his third egg when Koba made his entrance, slow and bear-headed, and took his place at the table with a heavy sort of grunt. The sour smell about him announced that he’d already smoked a cigarette in his room. Irine gave him tea, which he acknowledged with the smallest nod.
“Morning, Koba,” said Hammer, his tone warm enough but firm. He needed his driver alert up here. “How you doing?”
Koba’s eyes were red and a little swollen. He nodded a greeting.
“In mountains feel not so good,” he said. “Air is . . .” He rubbed his thumb and forefingers together, as if testing its quality.
“Thin,” said Hammer.
“Ya. Thin,” said Koba, rolling his head from side to side to stretch out some discomfort in his neck and failing to meet Hammer’s eye.
“It sure is. But we have an easy day. We drive round, ask some questions. That’s it. No mountains to climb.”
Koba raised one eyebrow as he sipped at his tea.
Irine brought Koba his eggs and cheese, and without thanking her he started forking one of the eggs round the plate.
“Tell her breakfast was delicious. And ask her why there are so few people in the village. Please.”
With another raised eyebrow Koba put the question to Irine, who turned from the sink and gave a nod and with it a short answer.
“All people left,” said Koba, fixing another piece of egg with his fork. He seemed to be leaving the cheese. “Summer ended. In week, two weeks, first snow fall, road closed. No way down.”
“Does everyone go?”
Koba asked.
“All go, except sheep people. Crazy people.”
Irine said something and for a moment she and Koba went back and forth in Georgian. Hammer wanted to apologize for the brusqueness of his interpreter’s manner, but she seemed not to mind.
“She goes today,” said Koba.
“Today?”
“Is smart. Smart for us also.”
“Is there anywhere else we can stay?”
“No.”
Hammer didn’t pursue it. Unless there was a miracle there was no way he could leave today.
“Ask her if there have been many visitors in the past week. Since last Tuesday. Foreigners.”
Irine shook her head.
“She says none,” said Koba. “Wrong time. Is too late.”
Hammer thought for a moment, hesitating to ask his next question. Two days ago he would have been happy for Koba to hear it but now something gave him pause. He asked another instead.
“Where is Diklo?”
“Diklo?” said Koba. “What is Diklo?”
“Just ask her, please.”
Irine knew it; she illustrated her directions with her hands.
“She say is six miles. That way. First Shenako, then Diklo. Is on Russian border. Right next.”
“Only one road?”
Koba nodded.
“The road is good?”
“Good road.”
“Then that’s where we’ll go.”
Koba looked crestfallen.
“Koba, it’s fine. If you don’t want to stay up here just drive me to Diklo and get back down the mountain. I don’t want to stop you.”
Koba coughed and shook his head, without conviction.
“Is OK. We go. I tell my wife.” He pulled a phone—the older of the two—from his top pocket, and asked something of Irine, who pointed out of the window, up the hill. Muttering about the terrible signal, Koba left the room.
• • •
They saw no one before Shenako, a rough, pretty village that sat on two spurs of land—at the end of one, a grand house, at the end of the other a weathered church, both built from slate. Here, too, there was a sense of quiet, of emptiness. Mountains stared down on the place. Two men repairing a roof with old pieces of rust-red corrugated iron were the only people in the scene. The city, all that noise and scheming, seemed impossibly far away.
Hammer told Koba to stop and for once Koba did not object. He hadn’t been able to make his call earlier—“fucking mountains”—and was becoming restless about it, checking his phone for a signal every two minutes. As they drew up he checked it again, and Hammer told him he should get out, stretch his legs, find a place to make the call, and get it out of the way, and as he did so thought he’d take the opportunity to see how far he’d get on his own. They wandered over to the men on the low roof, who directed Koba to a piece of high ground beyond the church. Hammer watched him go, and when he was out of earshot gave the roofers one of his best gamarjobats. He smiled up at them, and they stopped work to look down at him with faces that were neither friendly, nor unfriendly, nor curious.
“Gamarjobat,” he said again. “Beautiful day. Forgive me, but I’m wondering whether you gentlemen might have seen this man.” He passed up his phone. “He’s a friend. I’m looking for him.”
The first man studied the face and handed the phone to his friend, who after a minute reached down to return it to Hammer. Neither said a word, or showed any response. It was hopeless. Hammer smiled at them, thanked them in Georgian, and looked around him. In among the three dozen houses smoke was coming from two of the chimneys. Colorful washing blew on a line. A hundred yards from the village Koba was struggling up a steep slope with his phone in his hand. This is it, Hammer thought. There’s me, my angry driver, and a small collection of people who don’t speak my language or have any reason to care what I say.
• • •
Clouds had crept in from the east and now moved across the sun, bringing a new chill to the air. Hammer rubbed his hands together, raised a hand in good-bye to the men on the roof, and walked up to the church, keeping one eye on Koba and his call. When he was finished they would try the two houses that seemed inhabited, and then move on to Diklo.
He was peering in through one of the church’s tiny windows when a voice addressed him, deep and startling.
“Gamarjobat,” it said, and as Hammer turned to greet it he saw a man in a simple black robe with a chain across his chest and a domed black cap on his head. He was tall, young behind the mass of blond beard, and his eyes were an innocent, serious blue. There was something of the explorer about his face.
Hammer gave a respectful bow of his head in reply, and the priest asked him something in Georgian.
“Sorry,” said Hammer. “I’m American. English. I can’t speak Georgian.”
The priest gave a little nod himself, and when he spoke again it was in good English and a European accent that Hammer couldn’t immediately place. He didn’t smile, but his face was mild.
“Welcome,” he said. “I am sorry that the church is locked.”
“That’s no problem, Father. Is Father OK?”
“If
you like.”
“I’m Isaac Hammer.”
The priest shook the hand that Hammer offered, but didn’t give his name.
“I was just having a look around. I’m on my way to Diklo.”
“You seem to be going the wrong way.”
Hammer looked confused. “I thought it was up the valley.”
“I meant that everyone else is leaving.”
“Aren’t they just. I think I am the tourism industry right now.” Now the priest smiled. “You’re a little out of place yourself, Father, if I may say.”
“Sometimes I feel that. There are not so many German priests here.”
“German?”
“I came with a group from my seminary and stayed. Here it is like the Early Church.”
Hammer nodded. This was not so hard to imagine.
“So what do they do for priests up here when it snows?”
“They manage without. Possibly they could manage without in the summer, too.”
Hammer grinned. Over the priest’s shoulder he could see Koba beginning a slippery descent from his perch, phone still in hand.
“Say, Father, do you know of anywhere round here I could spend the night? Here or Diklo.”
“You’re staying?”
“Just a day or two. The thing is, I’m looking for a friend.”
Hammer described his mission, not the full version. His friend had been traveling in Georgia and hadn’t been heard from for days. The trail had led here, to this unlikely place.
The priest had not seen anyone up here, nor heard of anyone, but then he had been busy preparing for his own departure to the low ground. Such a person would almost certainly be noticed, especially now, at the end of the season—Tusheti was a huge place, but a small one—and he knew who would know, if anyone did.
“Vano and Eka. They live in Diklo. Vano is the head man in the village. Their son is a ranger in the national park. Everyone knows them. Tell them I sent you. For money, they may help.”
“Can they put me up?”
“Maybe. You can ask.”
The Searcher Page 25
