The Searcher

by Christopher Morgan Jones

  “Koba,” he said. “Tell me. Have you seen a little notebook of mine, about this big, black leather? I’ve mislaid it. I wondered if it might be in the car.”

  Koba pushed his lips out and frowned.

  “No, Isaac. I do not think so.”

  “I think it may have slipped out of my back pocket on the road. Can I have the key? I’m going to take a look.”

  Koba held up his hands. “No, Isaac. I go.”

  Hammer feigned protest, and then relented. He knew that Koba would want to go himself, though whether to stop Hammer from searching the car, or to read the notebook if he found it, or simply to do a selfless deed, he still couldn’t tell.

  “Father,” he said, once Koba had shut the door behind him, “would you apologize to our hosts for me? I seem to have brought more people with me than I would have liked.”

  The priest nodded, and said something to Eka, who by means of a nod let Hammer know that she was grateful for his words, and that under the strict rules of Georgian hospitality all were welcome under her roof.

  Hammer thanked them both, and addressed the priest again. “Can you ask Irodi what his friend with the dogs said this afternoon? We were out, and they talked, and I have no way of knowing what about.”

  The priest looked up from his peeling. “You do not want to talk in front of your friend?”

  “Nothing wrong with your instincts, Father.”

  “Or with yours. I would not trust him.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  The priest breathed deeply and started again with his knife. “I would like to know what he did before the revolution. In the old Georgia.”

  “You think he’s got a history?”

  “He seems an angry man.”

  The priest put down his knife, and asked a question of Irodi.

  “He says the man he spoke to is a shepherd. He will stay here for the winter, and look after many of the flocks, for many people. One of these men told him before he left that he had seen a car abandoned in a wood near Keselo, toward Omalo. He saw it there one day, and it was there again the next day. He did not recognize it.”

  “Does he know what it was? The color?”

  The priest asked, and it was clear from Irodi’s response that he didn’t know.

  “Does Irodi know where this wood is?”

  “He does. He will take you there tomorrow.”

  Hammer and Irodi shared a look. “Gmadlobt.”

  Irodi nodded and said something to his father, and together they left, meeting Koba on his way back in and giving him plenty of room to pass. The exchange was polite enough, but to Hammer at least it was clear that they’d prefer him not to be in their house.

  Koba came into the room, shrugging.

  “Nothing, Isaac. No book.”

  “You check under the seat?”

  “Ya. Everyplace. Is not there.”

  “Then I’m sorry to have wasted your time, Koba. What are you cooking for us?”

  “Shashlik. Very good.” As Koba began to explain how he had marinated the meat and just how good it would be, Natela came down the stairs, followed by Eka. She was smiling, but her face was drawn, her eyes tired, and she had the look of someone who might prefer to be alone. Hammer had warned her that there would be dinner but hadn’t expected a feast.

  “How you doing?” he said.

  “OK.” She held her smile.

  “Koba, this is Natela. She’s a friend of mine from Tbilisi.”

  Koba nodded and held out his hand, and while he shook Natela’s turned to grin at Hammer. “Gamarjobat,” he said, and a few other words of Georgian. Natela thanked him and looked to Hammer.

  “I need cigarette.”

  “Let’s go,” he said, and ushered her outside.

  • • •

  It was almost cold now. The sun had set and fresh clouds had covered the sky, but a pale light lingered. The slate of the houses, the grass they stood on, the dark woods beyond the village: everything was gray except Natela’s face as she lit her cigarette from the flame of a match. She took a deep drag and let the smoke out into the breeze.

  “Better here?”

  She inhaled again and nodded, but with no certainty.

  “It’s going to be OK. Tomorrow, I look for Ben. You can stay here with Vano and Eka. They’re good people. No one knows you’re here. Then, when we’re done, I’ll figure out a way for you to be safe.”

  “What about him?”

  “Koba? He leaves tomorrow. I’ll make sure of it.” He held her eye to show that he meant it. “What did he say to you?”

  “That he was sorry for me and I would be safe up here.”

  How did he know to be sorry for her? Eka must have told him, Hammer thought. Or Koba had asked her. He let it go.

  “So what happened? Where did you go?”

  She closed her eyes and drew on the cigarette.

  “You leave Luka’s. I waited for hour, maybe two. It made me crazy, and I need cigarettes, so I leave, go to shop. One hour I walk, I have air, I go back to Luka’s and two men are there, in door on street, they come out talking. Two big men. I stop, they go to car and sit. So I go.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I did not want.”

  “Why not?”

  “I tell you before. Your world, I do not want it.”

  “It’s not my world. And I’m afraid we’re both in it.”

  She nodded slowly, as if she had always known it.

  “So, where did you go?”

  “My friend. Marta. In Rustavi, out of Tbilisi. She is good friend. I think I stay one week, they forget, the police. I go back. But the police, they come there, today, they say to Marta, where am I? How they know? Where I am. How?”

  Hammer had been wondering the same thing. “Maybe they didn’t. Maybe they were checking everybody you know.”

  Natela’s chin jutted out and she gave a brisk shake of her head in suppressed fury.

  “They stayed. In car, outside, as before. Made me crazy. Crazy with it. Then I think, God, what can I do? I cannot leave, I cannot stay. So then I think, I am in your world. And I call you.”

  “How did you get out?”

  “Through window, at back. Marta lives on fourth floor but knows someone on first floor. They drove me out in the . . . how you say where bag goes?”

  “The trunk?”

  “The trunk.”

  Natela flicked her cigarette away, took the pack from her pocket, and lit another. She smoked too much, Hammer thought.

  “So. You. You find your friend?”

  He shook his head.

  “I think we found his car. I know he was here.”

  “You find him, maybe we stop all this crazy shit. Maybe they stop.”

  “Is that why you’re here? To tell me that?”

  “What else can I do?”

  The look she gave him was full of understanding and challenge. I know this is not your fault, but you have to end it. It can’t go on. Her trust was a spur and a weight at once, but he didn’t remember being so glad of anything.

  “I’m close. We’ll be safe here.”

  Then Natela took a step toward him and hugged him, holding him close, and he couldn’t tell whether she was taking succor or giving it. Perhaps it was just the closing of the deal between them. In any event, he didn’t mind. He felt her cheek against his, smelled that already familiar smell of perfume and fresh smoke, and closed his eyes for a moment.

  “It’ll be OK.”

  She pulled away, took another drag, and smiled.

  “How you find these people?”

  “This is how I make friends. I force my way into people’s lives.”

  The smile stayed.

  “Come on,” he said. “It’s dinner. I need your help.�
��

  “I finish this.”

  “How many packs you bring? How long can we last up here?”

  EIGHT

  They were seven for the supra, three on each side of the kitchen table and Vano at the head. In front of him lay a curled, polished ram’s horn; everyone else had a small glass, which Eka and Irodi filled from two jugs of dark white wine, but these remained untouched until Vano, without his cap and wearing a fresh checked shirt, rose and made his speech, looking deliberately from face to face as he spoke and lending his voice a rolling, melodic quality that suggested he knew precisely what he was going to say and had said it many times before. Hammer was struck by his manner, which was welcoming but stern and seemed to suggest that, while their coming together might be pleasant, the tradition they now embodied was grave, and of the greatest significance. Next to him Natela had bowed her head a little, as one might at the dispensing of a sacrament, while Koba, in the opposite corner and less controllable than Hammer would have liked, sat up straight and crossed his arms over his belly. The only light in the room came from three candles on the table, and from the fire burning quietly in the hearth.

  All this Hammer took in without the benefit of knowing what was being said. Vano talked for a long time, perhaps two minutes, and then with a nod signaled that the priest might translate. This he did in summary, with one eye on Vano, who was clearly keen to begin the feast. It was an honor to have guests in their home; an opportunity to discharge the ancient Georgian obligation of hospitality, and to make new friends in the process; the food they were about to eat and the wine they would drink were a blessing from God and part of the great bounty of their dear country. Hammer thanked the priest and went to raise his glass.

  But the toast had not yet come. Vano checked him with a look and resumed, taking up the horn and holding it out for Eka to fill from a jug. At his words everyone stood, and the priest just had time to tell Hammer that they were drinking to the heroic dead of Diklo before Vano shouted “Gaumarjos!” and they all tossed back their first tumbler of wine. Hammer kept his elbow high, and watched with a certain awe as Vano, the chieftain, drained the horn.

  The taste was familiar by now, but this was sharper than the stuff he’d had last night, and though it brought a pleasant flush of warmth he was grateful that before dinner he’d persuaded Eka, who had clearly thought him crazy, to give him a glass of sheep’s milk. Filthy stuff, which was not quite cool and tasted of hay and animal, but he had got it down with a smile and could feel it now, doing its work, softening the blow a little.

  Then they sat, and they ate. Hammer tried to take as much bread and potato as he decently could to soak up the alcohol that was to come. He was a pretty good drinker, and for his weight no slouch, but these people were likely to be in a different class. They had had a lifetime of training.

  “Meat, Isaac,” shouted Koba from the other end of the table. “Eat meat and you will not be drunk, yes?”

  Hammer had heard this theory of Koba’s before, and trusted it as little as he trusted his other one, that if you ate a little after each toast you would have no hangover. The problem came when you ate like an American, one big dish of food all at once. Then you would suffer the next day.

  Conversation was slow. Hammer didn’t know whether it was supposed to be, or whether people were holding back because it would be rude to speak Georgian and daunting to speak anything else. Unable to leave a silence unfilled, he filled it.

  “Does every village have dead heroes, Father?” he said, smiling across the table.

  The priest chewed deliberately before he spoke. “All Georgia toasts its dead, but in the towns it is . . . it is not so real, perhaps. Here it is real, and every village in the mountains. . . . ” He stopped to let his hosts know what he was talking about, and to ask Vano’s consent to continue—which was given with a nod.

  “Over the ridge here, into Russia, is barren country. Not like this. It is all stone and ice. The people who live there are hard, like their world. They once had a leader, Shamil, who fought the Russians when they first came to this part of the world.” At the mention of his name Vano crossed his arms, and seemed to grow more rigid still. “He fought them bravely, viciously, but he fought the Georgians, too. They were all Christians, he saw no difference.

  “One day, two hundred years ago, Shamil’s men crossed the border and attacked the fortress here. Everyone from the village was inside. Sixteen men held out for eighteen days, but not for longer. All were killed. Men and women and children. One man killed his wife and sister so that they would not be taken. They requested it.”

  “Gutiso,” said Vano, with a deep nod of respect.

  “That is the man,” said the priest.

  Hammer had no adequate response. Koba, sitting next to the priest, let out a little puff of air that might have expressed consternation or derision.

  “It’s not so long ago, I guess,” said Hammer at last.

  “For these people it is yesterday,” said the priest.

  “It is terrible story,” said Koba, as he speared a piece of meat and put it in his mouth.

  The next toast was to family, the great bond of life without which none of them would have been present. This prompted some questioning of the three visitors. When it came to Hammer, his stock answer seemed inadequate; this was not a place to hold back the truth. So he told them that he had been in love once, and that it had ended badly, and that he had never found love again. The words were strange to him, but there was comfort in hearing them said. Only Eka responded, speaking directly to him.

  “She says that you have a good heart,” said the priest, “and that a good heart will find its reward in the world.”

  “Thank you,” said Hammer, strangely affected by the wine, and the soft light, and the quiet, and by the simplicity of Eka’s words, which she spoke with warmth and as fact. He expected the silence that followed to be broken by Koba, but even he seemed briefly under the spell of the feast.

  Glass after glass was filled; glass after glass knocked back. After family came friends, and then Georgia, and children, and after that a suite of others, all proposed by Vano with great weight and eloquence, among them a solemn plea for the health of their guest’s missing friend, whose misfortune had brought them all together.

  When Vano wasn’t making toasts he said little, watched his guests, and somehow managed, despite the quantities of wine they had all now drunk, to remain dignified and upright, prompting Hammer, whose thoughts were sliding about, and whose tongue was beginning to slip, to wonder whether there was perhaps some magic trick to the horn—a tube attached to the leg of the chair and down into the ground. His own battle was lost, in any case. The alcohol had won, and he was glad of it. No; delighted, comfortable, unexpectedly happy. Everything glowed; everybody glowed. What a good, simple thing it sometimes was to be human, and what a talent these people had for it. How strange to find something that felt like home in the furthest corner of the world.

  And he was fairly sure, after all, that even Vano was looking a little less stern, a shade more approachable. When everyone laughed, as they often did, the corners of his mouth would crease, and he would allow himself a gentle nod. The rest of the table had settled happily. Irodi, who had said only a dozen words all day, revealed himself as a wry storyteller, full of tales of the cunning of the Chechens, the ruthlessness of the Dagestanis, and the stupidity of tourists. Natela and the priest translated what they could and summarized the rest. Koba—his arms still crossed, but now in what appeared to be contentment—ate his fill and between toasts helped himself to wine from the jug.

  Just as Hammer thought they must have left no toasts unsaid, Vano touched him on the arm and with some words of Georgian and a gracious gesture invited him to make one of his own. This was a great honor, he knew, and the hush that came over the table confirmed it. Natela put an encouraging hand on his arm and though he welcomed it, it didn’t he
lp. Ideas floated about just beyond his grasp. No word would come. The one thought in his head was that he couldn’t bear to fail his hosts, or Natela; and behind that there lay a dim sense that he wasn’t as good in these situations as he had once been, and had lost the art of being drunk. He looked around at the faces waiting for him, and then remembered where he was.

  “It’s a long time since I was in the mountains. I make it thirty years. I live in a city, and I’ve always lived in cities. But my house is next to a park, a very beautiful park, and every day I’m in it. Every day. It’s where I go to find peace, because in London there’s a lot of noise.”

  He paused to allow the priest to translate.

  “So it’s this quiet place surrounded by cars and buildings and millions of people, all running around in a frenzy all the time. But the park needs the city. Without it, it’s not a park, and not as beautiful, I always thought. It’s just a piece of country, like anywhere else.”

  The priest gave him a slightly wondering look, as if he wasn’t sure that what he was saying conformed to etiquette, but relayed Hammer’s words just the same.

  “But the beauty I find here? Boy. This is some park you have. All of Georgia seems blessed, but I think God saved his best work for you. Really. I don’t know what it’s like when you live here, but for me, someone who’s always running, running all over, doing a lot, achieving not so much, for me coming here, it’s like the park. Everything is that much more lovely because it’s set inside a world that’s loud, and busy, and violent sometimes. You have nasty things going on just over your border, some terrible fighting between some pretty ugly people, but here, it’s paradise. I don’t mean it’s easy, but it’s perfect. It’s how it’s meant to be. Sorry, Father.”

  He let the priest catch up.

  “Listen. I’m talking too much. I talk too much. That may be why I feel so comfortable here. Let me get to the point. My toast is to the mountains. They’re what keep you apart. They’re what keep you safe. Long may they stand to protect you and your people.”