This was how the chocolate-maker had reasoned with his second eldest daughter. But she had just snorted scornfully and said she wasn’t that stupid. She wasn’t about to throw her life out of the window just so that he would finally have her out of the house. Of course, the banker’s son was famed throughout the town as a Don Juan, and Meri was not domineering enough to take him in hand and turn his head firmly in her direction. And yes, my great-great-grandfather would have liked to marry her off: he was, after all, seeking allies for the chaotic times that lay ahead — was that so reprehensible? But at the same time he admired Meri’s self-determination, and he let the matter lie.
Three years had passed since then, and nobody seemed good enough for Meri. One was too dull, another too old, a third had an awful mother, and so on.
Stasia, though, was the one who actually caused him the most trouble. Yet my great-great-grandfather couldn’t help loving his second youngest with the most sincere, respectful love he was capable of giving his daughters. Stasia was the most quick-witted and nimble, the most contrary of his daughters, the one who vexed him most and most frequently provoked his rage. But he loved her mischievous ways, and he even loved her peculiar dreams and her addiction to dance. She knew what she wanted, and, unlike little Christine, things didn’t just fall into her lap. She only did what seemed important to her. Perhaps her father recognised himself most in her; perhaps he had never overcome the guilt he felt about his late wife and Stasia’s dead twin sister; or perhaps Stasia was simply more accessible, less outlandish and alien to him than his two elder daughters.
His deep love for her had a firm hold on his heart — so firm that it hurt at times — even though he and Stasia argued most often and loudest, and Stasia sometimes seemed impudent and lacking in respect. But he was adamant that she should be happy, and should lead a life that never completely excluded her dreams — although never for a second did he seriously consider sending his child to the Sodom and Gomorrah of the West, to Paris, to become a frivolous dancer.
And so the chocolate-maker was all the more pleased when Stasia responded to Simon Jashi’s advances, and seemed to be far from averse to the young man.
Up to this point, Stasia had wanted nothing to do with men. She had refused to wear a Sunday dress to church, or to go out with her stepmother and sisters on a Friday and promenade along the main street — a kind of marriage market. She had also given the cold shoulder to the men who had flirted with her at several school and town balls.
It seemed that Simon could indeed become an anchor in the unfathomable waters of Stasia’s nature.
But that was where my great-great-grandfather was wrong.
Revolutions have always been characterised by rudeness;
probably because the ruling classes had not troubled themselves
earlier to accustom the people to good manners.
LEON TROTSKY
My great-great-grandfather’s concerns are understandable, Brilka: the times really were chaotic. Extremely chaotic.
At the point when our seventeen-year-old Stasia met her White Guardsman, the First World War had already been raging for three years. At the end of the nightmare that lasted a total of four years and raged across half the world, it had claimed more than seventeen million human lives and pulled almost forty countries with it into the abyss.
In our little country, and in our sleepy little town, people’s awareness of the terrible repercussions came, for the most part, via our great northern neighbour and ‘patron’, where the economic, political, and social problems seemed to have reached their height. Thousands of disillusioned soldiers and peasants deserted the front, and returned to their homeland infected with a new ideology: socialism.
Those were the days when the White Lieutenant Simon Jashi would hold forth in his philosophy circle, smoking a contemplative pipe.
‘Like all other totalitarian countries, Russia has spent centuries suffering from inferiority complexes — the most painful of all, and at the same time the most insidious, is probably its own imperialism, which is why sensibility to socialist texts and ways of thinking was, and is, particularly great in Russia. Even the beauty of St Petersburg is founded on serfs, and prisoners starved and beaten to death, who were forced to build a splendid city every bit the equal of Paris or Vienna.
‘I know this country. I have served it. But the Russian ruling classes certainly have this complex. The Georgian ruling classes have it, too, believe me. Life for the ruling classes is too good for them to change anything, but the sight of the peasants, most of whom are illiterate and enslaved, is too ghastly. Personally, I do not believe that revolution is an outcry from the people; rather, I believe that it awakens in the guilty conscience of the privileged,’ he added in a particularly contemplative tone.
‘So you believe that when our Liberator, Tsar Alexander II, passed a law to abolish serfdom, he was also motivated by such a complex, but did not consider that this step might end in economic and, above all, ideological disaster?’ asked a particularly keen high-school student.
‘Yes, that is what I believe. Granting freedom to the peasants only made the discrepancies in society even more apparent. Nor should we forget that, in the last few years, thousands of young people have moved from the cities to the countryside to spread enlightenment among the peasants, only to meet with lack of interest, resignation, and incomprehension.’
‘And you think that the assassination of Alexander the Liberator was the thanks he got for this very act?’
‘I can’t answer that definitively; that would be mere conjecture on my part,’ Simon continued, distinctly enjoying his role as lecturer. He could feel the rapt gaze of his boys fixed upon him.
‘And do you believe that this Lenin is acting for personal reasons?’ asked a red-headed anarchist in the back row.
‘How do you mean? And please stand up, I can’t see you.’
‘Well, after all, his brother was one of the five conspirators who were executed after the failed attempt on the life of Alexander III.’
A few young men in the front rows huffed demonstratively, apparently annoyed by the red-head’s showing off.
‘I can’t say that for certain either, my friend, I can only conjecture.’
‘And what about Nicholas II?’ asked the keen student, growing agitated (and forgetting about the psychological motives behind Lenin’s actions).
‘Nicholas II has never been able to choose between his God-given autocracy and western liberality, and that has now sealed his fate. In particular, following our defeat against Japan he fell into an unworldly apathy, which increased the aggression of the peasant uprisings all over the country threefold. And here I do know what I’m talking about: he should not have allowed them to fire on unarmed demonstrators at those gatherings in St Petersburg in 1905. He’s much too educated for that, and he should have known better: it was these hundred deaths that led to the formation of the first workers’ “soviet”. Really, that was their legitimation. It was he who gave them that trump card, if you ask me.’
The keen student nodded pointedly and wrote something down. This pleased Simon: already he was being quoted. And in order to impress them further, he added:
‘And Nicholas made a second grave error when he started sending peasants to the front for lack of soldiers. He didn’t consider that these peasants would come into contact with soldiers and their ideologies there, and would become infected with socialist ideas, spreading this anti-tsarist ideology around their home villages on their return.’
Simon blew out a slow, deliberate plume of smoke and let his gaze roam over the heads of his listeners.
*
In any case, Brilka, what we do know is that in the cold winter of the same year that Stasia believed she had found love, the unrelenting mass demonstrations, the ongoing violence, and the consequences of three years of war finally led to the tsar’s abdication. Bunin
recorded the words of a coachman at that time: ‘The people are now like cattle without a herdsman: they keep shitting all over and destroying themselves.’
Thus, in the year of my great-grandmother’s love, the Romanovs were replaced, after three hundred years of rule, by the workers’ and soldiers’ councils and a provisional government.
And all that, Brilka, happened exactly ten years after one of the most spectacular robberies of the tsarist era. A robbery that took place on a warm June day, in Tbilisi’s pretty Yerevan Square (later Lenin, and even later Freedom, Square):
It’s ten-thirty on a beautiful sunny morning scented with cardamom, coffee, dust, and cloves, the kind of morning you will only find in Tbilisi. One stagecoach and two Cossacks, the tsar’s mounted soldiers, laden with more than a quarter of a million roubles, the tsar’s private budget for the year, reach Yerevan Square.
The coach is about to turn right, towards the great classical building of the Central Bank, when some small round objects roll between the horses’ legs. They are followed by a deafening noise, screams, spurts of blood. Peasant boys, appearing out of nowhere, start firing machine pistols at the guardsmen who come rushing over. In the midst of the smoke, uproar, and blood, a man gallops up on a horse, snatches the bags of money, and rides off.
And although the entire Russian Empire looks for the money, the whole city is turned upside down, and apartments are searched, it cannot be found. Later, it arrives in Finland, sewn into a mattress. It is delivered into the hands of Comrade Lenin, who launders it there and sends it back to the Russian Empire, to the coffers of the Party.
The leader of this band of robbers is a Georgian cobbler’s son, a clever child of the lower classes, a twenty-eight-year-old seminary dropout. Lenin thinks very highly of him, and that must mean something. He has a lot of aliases; he’s been wanted by the tsarist secret police for some time now, for robbery, arson, and political agitation. The list of his offences against the authorities is long — but he does not yet bear the epithet with which he will go down in history; he is not yet called the man of steel.
*
Anyway, in the summer of 1917, the Bolsheviks, with around five thousand followers, represented a minority in the sea of political sympathies. But, by the end of October, when Stasia was still riding happily across the steppe, the Bolshevik military committee had occupied all the post offices, bridges, and stations in Petrograd. On 25 October, the transition government met in the Winter Palace. It was protected only by a few hundred junior officers, one hundred and thirty women from the women’s battalion of the army, and several hundred cavalry veterans.
The Bolsheviks, including around two thousand Red Army soldiers, walked up and down in front of the Winter Palace all day. That evening, three thousand sailors arrived to support the Red Army soldiers. The square outside the Winter Palace filled up.
Celebratory shots were fired from the Aurora and the Peter and Paul Fortress. The officers inside the palace began firing on the sailors, but, in the meantime, some of the sailors had infiltrated through the unguarded side entrances and arrested the transition government. This took place at two o’clock in the morning on 26 October 1917.
And with that, the ‘Storming of the Winter Palace’, so often invoked and represented in Soviet propaganda films, was at an end.
It left a total of two people dead.
*
‘People are losing faith in the transition government. Inflation in Russia is on the rise. The economy is stagnating. We hear that attacks, conflicts in the military, looting, confiscation of land, and criminality of every kind are the order of the day. Food supplies are dwindling, and the country may well be nearing bankruptcy. And this opportunist, Kerensky, who’s supposed to be leading the transition government, is trying to use symbols to increase his strength, and is losing more decision-making power and trust each day. What more could the Reds wish for?’
Bent over his newspaper, my great-great-grandfather was working himself into a lather. He was drinking his morning coffee in the chocolate factory, where he had invited Simon to join him.
‘In the elections, the Bolsheviks are sure to concentrate on the two big cities, Petrograd and Moscow, and will put almost all their finances into establishing and equipping an army. And, if they win, they’ll lead the Petrograd Soviet; apparently they’ve earmarked this odd fellow, Trotsky, whom I wouldn’t trust an inch, to do that. We’re lagging behind here, as usual. While the Russians have carried out their damned revolution, we’re still mulling over what the future of our country should look like, and that’s not good, Simon, not good at all.’
Both men were drinking black coffee, eating chocolate-filled almond croissants, and, as they had done almost every day for the past few weeks, talking of nothing but politics.
Georgian political life was sunk the moment Georgia allied itself
to Russia. After this annexation, and after a very nebulous agreement
had been made on the retention of our own national identity,
the Georgians threw aside all political ideas and plunged wholly
into the whirlpool of Russian life.
THE CAUCASIAN HERALD
All these White Guardsmen, nationalists, liberals, even a few Mensheviks who met daily in their billets, the hordes who passed by Stasia’s girls’ school speaking in excited whispers, seemed united in a single aim: to seize the moment and declare Georgian independence. The balcony of Europe — an ironically poetic description of our homeland — should finally be released from bondage and given the freedom for which it had yearned for so long.
But Stasia took no notice of them. She just shrugged, and went on dreaming of her ballet career. She had little time for all these discussions — after all, there was so much beauty, so much delight in the world, especially when you were experiencing the first signs of love, and imagining your future in Paris with the Ballets Russes. No matter what her father, her husband-to-be, even the whole country wanted — all Stasia wanted was freedom and Paris, but above all: to dance, dance, dance. Let these sombre-looking gentlemen punch each others’ lights out; she would dance on towards her dreams, and, like Ida Rubinstein, appear as Scheherazade at the Théâtre du Châtelet.
Every day, she waited for her White Lieutenant to pick her up from school in the afternoon, so that she could give free rein to her competitive spirit on the steppe. Then, all the political talk fell silent. Then, everything fell silent, and all that remained was her beating heart, the breeze, the echo, and the sound of horses’ hooves on the red earth.
Our seventeen-year-old Stasia, in love for the first time — Stasia, who would rather learn Latin and astronomy at school than knitting and crochet — rode, was free and full of life, and neither socialism nor democracy could do anything to alter that. She was already plotting ways to convince her husband-to-be to go to Paris and start a new, quite different life there.
And when, one evening, as they sat on a fallen tree-trunk, Simon asked Stasia if she could imagine going with him, as his wife, to the cold, northern country where a career awaited him, Stasia was suddenly at a loss.
She wept inwardly for that other life — no matter which — that, with one decision — no matter which — she would have to give up. Didn’t one have to be born twice — three, four, countless times, even — in order to do justice to one’s desires? To the possibilities of this world? And, as always at such moments, she thought of her dead twin sister, whom she called Kitty, after Kitty in Anna Karenina — Tolstoy’s Kitty who, following many romantic troubles, finds a home port in Levin after all — and felt even more despondent.
The White Lieutenant was mulling over quite different things, and was searching for a solution. For some time he had been feeling straitened both ideologically and financially, and his hope that the liberals would defend his country against the communists was dwindling with each day that passed. The situation in Georgia was too uncertain
for him to remain there: he didn’t trust all the local unions and coalitions.
He had to act; he had to pick a side. Under no circumstances did he want to remain trapped in his little hometown. Out there, people were shaping whole countries anew, and that was where he wanted to be — not sitting in smoke-filled rooms in this provincial town, talking to high-school students about what others were accomplishing, far away from him.
These were great days, when you could rise to the top or be declared an enemy with equal speed. Under no circumstances did he want the latter.
But, if democracy were to fail in his homeland, the Bolsheviks would achieve definitive victory, and then he would have no chance here.
On the other hand, the Reds needed helping hands — as many as they could find.
And so he sat there, beside this girl who so enchanted him, not daring to confess to her that he was about to join the RKKA, the peasant army, the expansion of which had just been ordered by Trotsky himself.
In any case, Stasia wept inwardly beneath an oak tree — I’m sure it was an oak, and I’m sure it was very old. Quite sure. Simon grasped Stasia’s shaking shoulders, under the pretext of comforting her. Of course, the first kiss was wonderful — I’m sure it was, very sure, Brilka: the first kiss of our story has to be wonderful!
I don’t know whether Stasia gave her consent immediately, that early evening, but what is certain is that three evenings later, Stasia entered her father’s little study, which always smelled of chocolate and lavender, sat down in front of him in the heavy leather armchair, and informed him that she was going to marry Simon Jashi the following day.
The chocolate-maker looked up from his papers, took off his reading glasses, fixed his eyes on his daughter, and laughed.
The Eighth Life Page 6
