The Iron Bridge: Short Stories of 20th Century Dictators as Teenagers

by Anton Piatigorsky

  Soso recalls some of the parables circulating through the seminary about their exemplary leader. It has been said that Lado, at loose in the city one evening, enchanted, seduced, and deflowered an otherwise chaste Armenian girl in less than an hour. The students still laugh about it. Another tells of how the great Lado, having orchestrated a public debate between himself and a pompous priest, conned the priest into making an illogical and paradoxical statement about morality. It was a trap that proved God did not exist. The priest was so embarrassed by his utterance that he gave Lado the wolf’s ticket for three days. And of course there’s the well-known parable that Soso first heard back in Gori, the one about Lado’s bravery during the student revolt at the end of ’93, which resulted in the seminary’s temporary shutdown. Lado stood on his chair in the refectory, calling out for other students to boycott their classes until all their demands were met. He insisted that the monks end their constant spying, that the rector fire the seminary’s worst offenders, and that the school immediately establish a Department of Georgian Studies with classes offered in their native language. Lado emphasized these points by dumping his entire bowl of beans onto the recently mopped floor. The Sermon of the Beans is what the students call it, and it’s far holier to them than Jesus’s talk on the Mount.

  Lado may be the hero and commander, but every successful movement must be led by more than just one man. He will need a prized disciple upon his return to Tiflis, someone patient and strong, with a firm grasp on the classic literature—a second-in-command who can be trusted and relied upon. Silva Jibladze, the killer of the former rector, is certainly a committed soldier, but he’s said to be a lunatic, without the cool head needed for any position of authority.

  Lado’s disciple. That’s what Soso will be. He is sure of it. As he scales the steep street on Holy Mountain, Soso remembers that afternoon last April when he was called into Archimandrite Serafim’s office. It was the first time he proved his worth as a revolutionary in Lado’s mould. When Soso entered the room, he faced the iron-latticed window framing the greenery of Pushkin Gardens, the austere wooden desk, the Byzantine cross with its top crossbar and bottom slanted bar engraved INBI, and the redundant bookshelf, stocked with Scripture ad nauseam. Old Black Spot stood, while the white-faced, white-haired Archimandrite Serafim sat at his desk. Two dour and severe inquisitors.

  “Glory to Christ, the Lord and King,” said Serafim upon Soso’s entry.

  “Glory to the Lord,” answered Soso, crossing himself and shutting the door behind him.

  “Iosif Vissarionovich Djugashvili, sit down.”

  Soso recalls how he inhaled the fresh spring air seeping through the window. The wind carried on it the faint sweetness of camomile. The high windows in his dormitory didn’t open at all. He craved that breeze. It was his first year in the seminary and he’d already been cooped up for months, longing for flowering season, which he’d loved since he was a little boy. As he sat before the Archimandrite, revived by that scent, Soso wanted nothing other than to go outside for an entire spring day, from dusk till dawn, as he did back in Gori, to climb the steep trails of Gorijvari, play in the intricate, linked caves of Uplis-Tsikhe, and swim the river Kura.

  “Mmm,” said Archimandrite Serafim with approval as he rifled through reports from Soso’s teachers. The morose Inspector Abashidze stood unblinking behind the Archimandrite’s desk as if he were an Okhrana agent or, with all his girth, the Tsar’s own bodyguard. “You are proving to be a very good student, Djugashvili.”

  “Thank you, Archimandrite,” whispered the scrawny fifteen-year-old.

  “Your secular history, Holy Scripture, Church Slavonic—all satisfactory.”

  “Thank you, Archimandrite,” repeated Soso.

  Serafim, to Soso’s surprise, then clicked his tongue with disapproval. “I see your Greek could use some work.”

  “Yes,” said Soso, fighting a grin. “I know it could.”

  “All in all, very satisfactory,” concluded the Archimandrite as he put down the papers and nodded. “Well then, no doubt you know about the problems we’ve had in recent years. The murder of our last Archimandrite. The unfortunate expulsions of last spring.”

  “Yes,” said Soso. “I do.”

  “Of the several students behind that most recent disturbance, there was one culprit in particular. Vladimir Ketskhoveli, the student leader.”

  “Lado,” said Soso.

  “A boy who won’t be giving us any more trouble,” said Serafim, half smiling. “But now we’ve got to contend with his brother, Vano, that one in your year. He’s a friend of yours, correct? You were at school together in Gori?”

  “Yes,” said Soso.

  “So you must have known Lado as well?”

  “Not really, no. I saw him around. He was older.”

  “Causing trouble at a young age?”

  Soso shrugged and clasped his hands, but didn’t answer the question.

  “I suspect these things run in the family.”

  “I don’t know if they do,” said Soso. “Their father is a priest and very pious.”

  “Yes,” continued the Archimandrite. “But our challenge today is to prevent a repetition of ’93. Some bold little Georgian uprising led by the younger brother.”

  “I don’t have anything to do with that.”

  Soso heard the deference and piety in his tone. It was a convincing performance, but the officials in this seminary never trusted students. The Archimandrite nodded at Soso suspiciously. Inspector Abashidze, always eager to find a liar, chuckled and shook his large head.

  “You’re a good pupil, Djugashvili,” continued Serafim. “We’re very impressed. You’re a pious and obedient young man, and your performance in the choir has been exemplary to say the least. We think the priesthood will benefit greatly from your service.”

  “Thank you,” said Soso, forcing a smile, trying his best to look grateful for the praise.

  “And so we know you’ll tell us if this Vano Ketskhoveli imagines himself a hero. If he thinks Lado’s rebellious blood flows in his veins as well. We’ve always trusted our best students to keep us informed. And we’re right to do so, aren’t we?”

  Soso found himself unable to say anything.

  “Especially when that student is a half-boarder who has already requested additional assistance with his dues.”

  Soso lowered his head. He recalled the obsequious letter he had had to write to the Archimandrite the summer before. Even with the help of his mother’s wealthier friends and Gori’s police chief Davrishashvili he couldn’t raise enough money to pay the school’s fee. Unlike the other seminarians, with their princely parents and sophisticated backgrounds, he was indeed in debt.

  “You should answer when addressed, Djugashvili.”

  “Yes,” said Soso, forcing himself to speak. “You can trust me.”

  “I’m sure I can.”

  “That’s all, then,” said Inspector Abashidze, his flabby arm gesturing towards the door. He twitched his nose—a nervous habit that Soso had seen a thousand times.

  Soso stood and managed a smile for the two brazen, blackmailing dogs.

  “Glory to Thee, O Christ our God and our hope,” the Archimandrite intoned, making a sign of the cross.

  “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages,” replied Soso, mirroring his master’s gesture.

  “Continue making us proud.”

  It was only Soso’s first tense encounter with the authorities, but already he had shown all the qualities necessary to become Lado’s disciple. He had prepared the priests accordingly with his excellent grades and exemplary performance in choir. He played the model seminarian, showing no apparent desire beyond that of remaining in the good graces of his dear Russian priests. And then, as he sat before them, Soso was meek and pious, angelic and articulate, seemingly willing to rat on his friends and companions if that’s what the priests required of him. He’d earned their trust, whi
ch showed great skill. Now, as he walks in the city, lost in thought, Soso is sure that Lado will come to appreciate and even rely upon his capacity for deceit.

  The boys move into a less populated neighbourhood of houses with larger yards, pet goats chained and bleating, the occasional trellis overgrown with grapes. Iremashvili turns around and notices that Soso has slipped well behind the group. “Hey, Koba,” he calls. “Come on!”

  Kapanadze spins around and walks backwards, smiling at Soso, tossing a rock up and down from one hand to the other. “Save me, Koba the avenger,” he cries in a false, girlish voice. He throws his rock into the street, clutches his breast, and blinks. “Please, Koba, help me—I’m Iago and he’s Nunu.” He whacks Vano on the chest with the back of his hand. “Hurry up and save your friends.”

  Iremashvili and Vano laugh together. Vano kicks a stone.

  “Are you or aren’t you Koba?”

  Although the question stings Soso, his face remains vacant and placid, and his dull eyes regard the reedy boys marching a dozen paces before him. Koba is the hero of The Patricide, Alexander Kazbegi’s most famous novel, and Soso’s favourite. All Georgian boys pretend to be Koba the Avenger during their war games, especially the well-read nationalists like these seminarians, and so it’s always been vaguely comic that Soso has tried to monopolize the name of their collective hero.

  The others turn and continue forward. Soso keeps his distance until they reach their destination.

  Zakaria Chichinadze’s small, packed bookstore and unofficial lending library occupies several small rooms on the first floor of an old brick building. Sunday is not a day of business, but the owner knows these students have only a few free hours each week and so he waits for them by the entrance, propping the door open with his foot. Past a row of stacked bookshelves and through a narrow threshold is Chichinadze’s dark and windowless office. Its ceiling is far too low for any of the taller Russian Okhrana agents to comfortably stand beneath, but it’s perfect for fellow Georgians. The office has a cracked brick floor and a constantly replenished jug of napareuli wine, and serves as the secret refuge for seminarians to read their forbidden books or discuss socialism’s progress with an eager and knowledgeable elder.

  “Good seminarians!” Chichinadze cries, bowing his head in mock deference. He pats each boy on the back when they enter the shop and waits at the door as the shortest and slowest of them, Soso Djugashvili, lopes crookedly in silence.

  “Hello, Soso,” says Chichinadze warmly, although one glance at the boy’s face informs the bookseller that he shouldn’t try to touch him.

  Soso nods briskly and slips into the store.

  With the front door closed so that passing Okhrana officers won’t suspect Chichinadze of operating on a Sunday, the boys make themselves at home. As Vano pleads for a copy of Plekhanov, Kapanadze searches the shelves of Russian works for Dostoevsky’s Devils, and Iremashvili tries to capture Chichinadze’s attention by exaggerating the story of Inspector Abashidze’s morning search, Soso hides between bookshelves and scans a recent edition of Iveria for the poem that he’s written. The editor, the famed Prince Chavchavadze, doyen of Georgian poetry, told Soso that he liked his poem, loved it even, but still Soso wonders if the old prince has lived up to his word and published it. Soso eagerly searches the paper and, to his surprise, finds “Morning” in the right-hand corner of the final page.

  He rereads his work, his heart pounding with excitement. The poem’s images of roses and larks, violets and nightingales are a Romantic celebration of the Georgian motherland, but they suddenly seem derivative and a bit embarrassing. Still, he can see that his poem has some virtues. The scan of its syllables and the rhymes he worked so hard to perfect hold up. It’s a decent poem, he decides.

  Most importantly, it’s done. Soso is officially a published poet, not so different from the great Eristavi, and only sixteen years old. The thought of his precocious success does not penetrate Soso’s mask of equanimity. He stays sitting in the aisle, popping into his mouth the dried cherries and small grapes that Chichinadze keeps in a big bowl by the store’s entrance. Although his first poem has appeared in a prestigious newspaper published by the great nationalist prince himself, Soso resolves to keep it a secret. His life as a poet, he has decided, is no one’s business but his own.

  Kapanadze, clutching Dostoevsky’s novel, crouches behind Soso and lays his arm around his chest. Soso is surprised by the firm squeeze. He shuts the newspaper and yanks his small body out of his friend’s grip.

  “Hey, Koba, lighten up,” says Kapanadze, now laying a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I was only kidding back there in the street.”

  “Get your hand off me before I bite it off your wrist,” Soso whispers through his tight teeth.

  Kapanadze holds up the offending hand in obedience. “All right,” he says. “Right away. I’m sorry, my friend.”

  While Soso tries to refocus his attention on the front page of Iveria, Kapanadze backs away, slips behind a nearby bookcase, and moves into the back office to join Iremashvili, Vano, and Chichinadze. The air inside the store gradually turns blue as smoke from the pipes the owner has offered the students drifts out of the office. Soso remains in the aisle, pulling a variety of texts from the shelves and reading bits and pieces.

  An hour slips by. Soso’s peers and the bookseller debate the future of Georgia—whether resistance to the Russian authorities should proceed by liberal reforms, as argued by Prince Chavchavadze in Iveria, or by revolution, as argued by the International Marxists. When the debate shifts to the status of Mesami Dasi, the Georgian socialist party, and whether Noe Jordania, the party’s charismatic leader, is more of a reformist or a revolutionary at heart, the students argue for the latter, using as proof the fact that Lado is planning on joining that secret organization when he returns from Kiev.

  It’s an unbelievably stupid position, Soso decides. They have no idea what they’re talking about. At the mention of Lado Ketskhoveli, he has to cover his ears with his hands and try to focus all his attention on the Victor Hugo novel he’s laid in his lap. There is nothing more irritating to Soso than the pompous declamations of boys who will never make it with the great Lado.

  Eventually, the seminarians’ idiotic banter becomes too much for Soso to bear. He grumbles and curses, slams his book shut, and moves into the doorway. “It’s nearly three,” he barks. “I’m going back to the Stone Sack.”

  The air is so thick that the bodies in the back office are almost silhouettes. Chichinadze, leaning on his desk, blows a puff of smoke through his rounded lips and checks the clock on the wall. “Nonsense,” he says. “You have at least half an hour.”

  “Come join us,” says Vano, the long pipe in his mouth a ridiculous juxtaposition with his youthful features.

  “No, I’m going,” says Soso.

  “Wait a moment,” says Chichinadze. “Do you still have Darwin’s Descent of Man?”

  “Yes, but I want another week with it.”

  The bookseller nods. “I’ll mark it in my ledger. Take your time, Soso.”

  “Koba,” Soso growls.

  Chichinadze raises his brow and fights off a smile. “Right,” he says. “Sorry.”

  Soso slips out of the store and marches down the hill towards Yerevan Square. Each step stirs a cloud of dust beneath his sole, as if it were afraid to touch his boot. The dirt rises and swirls in the thin mountain air, only settling on the weathered brick when it is certain the boy has moved on and will not turn back. At least the dust has the good sense to understand who I am, Soso thinks as he quickens his pace, stomping harder with each step.

  Once returned to the Stone Sack—as all the students call the seminary—Soso lies in his bunk with his head propped on a pillow, reading Charles Darwin. The other seminarians are gradually returning from their free time and assembling in the dormitories. Soso buries his face in his book so he doesn’t have to meet their curious glances. He has hidden his forbidden text inside a larger, tedious book
on ecclesiastical history.

  Abashidze stands in the doorway and scowls. “Absolute silence in study period!” he barks. “Punishable by solitary.” He closes the door and locks it from the outside.

  The seminarians glance at the door to make sure the Inspector is really gone. A dozen students rise from their bunks and desks to arrange a circle of chairs in the back of the large room. Seid Devdariani pulls his chair into the corner and commands with a sharp whisper that the younger students hurry up and assemble around him. He is stroking his almost full beard and reclining, trying very hard to look like an important revolutionary. Ilya Parkadze positions himself beside the group leader to the right, also stroking his beard thoughtfully. Kapanadze and Vano Ketskhoveli occupy seats to his immediate left. Soso drags his chair into the position directly opposite Devdariani and then sits with his elbows splayed out on the armrests as wide as he possibly can. He stretches his feet to the floor and grimaces. Iremashvili curls like a centipede in the chair beside Soso’s.

  The students have to conduct their meeting in calculated and practised whispers, just loud enough to hear each other. The dormitory’s inner walls stop a foot short of the ceiling, so the priests patrolling in the hallway can eavesdrop on them if they speak too loudly. They have stashed dummy books under their seats in case their meeting is interrupted.

  “I take it you’ve all had a chance to read the Plekhanov,” whispers Devdariani, still stroking his beard.

  Vano lowers his eyes and murmurs his false affirmation along with the other seminarians.

  Parkadze withdraws the forbidden book from inside a folded surplice and hands it to the leader. Devdariani palms the brand new edition with one hand, like the priests with their holy books, rubbing his fingertips on the leather cover and laying it on his lap.