He was now well over thirty, but his face still seemed very boyish to Stasia. His thick brown hair, good-natured brown eyes, thick lashes, bushy eyebrows, his long, straight nose, well-shaped lips, and, in particular, the little moustache he had grown. She looked at him and sensed that it would be very difficult ever to forget these years, this separation, ever to overcome it — that it would be very difficult for her to become the old Stasia again, with a head full of fanciful nonsense and feverish dreams. She felt empty and dreamless, exhausted. His sleeping face did tease a smile from her, but at the same time she felt an immense sadness.
Outside, she could hear footsteps, the shouts of soldiers; it sounded as if they were mustering.
‘Simon, wake up, I think you have to go,’ she said to her husband. He sat up, looked at her in disbelief, and shook his head.
‘They’ll manage without me,’ he said, and kissed Stasia on the lips. These words made Stasia furious. Suddenly, her sadness gave way to anger. Then why, why had he never come, not once? If they could spare him here, if he wasn’t out there saving lives, then what and who excused him for leaving her alone for so long — and worse, for leaving her there in suspense?
Stasia felt tears welling up in her eyes, full of disappointment — but again she said nothing, she made no accusations, she didn’t scream at him; she swallowed her rage and let him undress her. To begin with, Stasia found it difficult to let herself go: she was listening to the footsteps in the corridor, the shouts and the conversations in the yard. It seemed she couldn’t remember what it was like to soften, to feel this special joy, to no longer be tense and filled with fear. It took a great deal of effort for her to make love to her husband. Only it was not as it had been on their wedding night, in the guesthouse, where she had felt this euphoria, this joyous excitement. She simply lay there, patient and quiet, her eyes closed. But even like this she could find no relief; she kept seeing Thekla’s stiff back in a simple cotton nightshirt, the sheet of paper with her name at the top, and the watch, which she had sewn into her underskirt.
‘I want to go home. I need an exit visa. I can take a boat from Odessa,’ said Stasia finally, when they were lying naked, side by side, breathing in time with each other. For a brief moment, Stasia hoped he would say that he didn’t want this: that he wanted her to stay, that he would do everything humanly possible to keep her by his side, but then he replied:
‘Yes, it’s time you went home.’
‘How long will you have to stay here?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘How long is everything going to be like this? What was the point of our getting married?’
‘Stasia, there’s a war on, and things are no better for us here, believe me. I’m kept regularly informed, and …’
He spoke for quite a while about the necessity of the Bolshevik victory, various fronts that still had to be defended or wrested from the Whites, a few adventures that he and his team would have to face in Moscow, and difficulties in the Party leadership. Stasia barely listened. She found it hard to follow him; she had no idea why he was telling her all this, and she doubted his socialist convictions. Everything he said sounded like a poem learned by heart. Something in his voice sounded very tired, empty, resigned — a state that felt familiar to Stasia. But he didn’t admit it; he wanted her to go on thinking of him as the confident lieutenant, sure of himself and his work. And yet, thought Stasia, it would be so much easier if he, or she, were to tell the truth. Then, perhaps, it might be possible for them to come together. If they would only try.
*
Stasia finally saw her hometown again at the end of 1920, after an absence of almost three years. She was met by her eldest sister, Lida, who had spent most of that time in the Church of St George; her grey-haired, sad-looking father; her smartly dressed stepmother, who had put on weight; and an almost surreally beautiful Christine, who had just celebrated her thirteenth birthday. Meri, the second eldest, had finally found a suitable husband, a notary from Kutaisi, and had followed him there. When she arrived in her homeland, Stasia did not yet know that, in addition to all these people, there was somebody else at the family gathering — in her belly.
At this point, she was already pregnant with her first child, my grandfather.
The patisserie was still going, though they were constantly afraid for all the family property, which was threatened with expropriation. Democracy was on a shaky footing in Georgia. There were daily workers’ and peasants’ uprisings and factory strikes, and the socialists were boycotting the government. Nobody knew what the next day would bring, and the nation was disconcerted by the unclear political axis of the various parties and groups. Nobody knew who to vote for, or why; the laws, the demands, the promises changed every day.
Stasia’s return to the bosom of her family was given the celebration it deserved. There was weeping, arms were constantly being thrown around her neck, and even Lara, who was usually so reserved, shed a few tears. Stasia told her family in detail and at length of her hardships and battles in Petrograd — everything she had not told her husband. It was only the end of the story that she kept to herself, until the evening when she confessed it to her father in his study, after allowing herself a sip of his cognac. Her father’s gaze was fixed on the floor as Stasia gave him her account in a wavering voice, though she said nothing of the chocolate and the poison. She didn’t want to disappoint her father, or give him the impression that she had acted recklessly, abusing her knowledge, and, most importantly, failing to keep the promise she had made him. But, above all, she didn’t tell him because she had still found no answer to the question of whether, in this case, the chocolate and the poison were one and the same, and she was afraid of this answer.
She was back home. She had survived. Even if, once again, Paris seemed so far away, and Thekla had left her in the lurch — or was it the other way round? — even if at the end of it all she still wasn’t with her husband: she was still alive, and that was good.
*
A week later, Stasia was to finally discover the reason for her sentimentality and hypersensitivity: the pregnancy.
The discovery made her feel a strange mixture of irritation and excitement. In view of the circumstances, she wasn’t entirely sure whether to be glad about the news. The ministrations of her father and Lida, however, alleviated the pain, the longing, and the dark memories to some degree. Lida had grown to be a sort of dove of peace for the family. She strode about the house with her crooked gait, performed all kinds of services, helped out in The Chocolaterie, did Christine’s homework with her, and was responsible for the whole family’s wellbeing. In her mind, she had already become a bride of Christ, although her entry into a convent was perpetually delayed by her father’s objections.
In the evenings, Stasia sat in her father’s study, sometimes with a newspaper or a book, while he engrossed himself in his papers. His presence gave her a sense of safety.
‘I always used to think you were too dreamy to love seriously, but now I suspect I was wrong. Still, no woman should travel so far for a man, and no man should leave his wife alone for so long,’ he told his daughter one evening. He asked if she would like a hot chocolate — he would make one for her, just this once — and Stasia had to run out and vomit.
The Red front relocated to Azerbaijan. When the Bolsheviks were able to safely suppose that England would abandon the competition for access to the Orient, and therefore to oil, fighting officially commenced. The war finally ended in victory for the Reds, and the Sovietisation of the country, as Stasia’s belly inexorably grew. The neighbouring country of Armenia, weakened by the war against the Turks, was also unable to put up any further resistance. The Crimea was now under occupation, and Kiev had been firmly in Soviet hands since the summer. The question was how long Georgia, which the Bolsheviks had so far recognised as sovereign territory, would be able to remain an independent country.
B
ut in February 1921, the dam broke. The Georgian Bolshevik Filipp Makharadze and his followers proclaimed the Soviet Republic of Georgia, and called on the Russian Central Committee to provide military support against the ‘Third Group’ and the Mensheviks.
The 11th Army took just nine days to capture the capital, meaning that by 25 February the resistance had already been broken and the country belonged to the Reds. The ‘Third Group’ government had fled to Kutaisi, and left the country altogether a short while later.
During Stasia’s pregnancy, the Reds had brought all supplies of wheat and weapons under their control, as well as the entire rail network. At the same time, the people in thirty-seven Russian governorates were starving, and the western press was already carrying reports of cannibalism and of many thousands of children with rickets. When somebody was facing the firing squad, their life could be bought for around four litres of sunflower oil and three litres of vodka.
Yes: all of this happened while my grandfather was growing in his mother’s belly, and when he came into the world that hot August, his country already bore the name of the Georgian SSR. Two weeks later, in the Church of St George, one of the few intact churches left in the city, he was baptised Konstantin, but from then on everyone called him Kostya.
*
A little less than a year after Kostya’s birth, just before his father met him for the first time, the chocolate-maker’s property fell into the hands of the state, as they had feared, and the spacious house in the city centre was divided in two. The upper floor and the large attic room now accommodated two workers from the wood factory and their families.
The Chocolaterie continued to exist as a nationally renowned institution; now, though, it belonged to the state, and my great-great-grandfather was a state employee.
From this point on, as a silent protest, my great-great-grandfather stopped adding his secret ingredients to the chocolate mix, which quickly led to a loss of custom. He was forced to change the shop’s decadent, capitalist décor in favour of the Party-approved style, which would not necessarily have delighted most of his customers, either: they went to the shop to enjoy the Parisian or Viennese atmosphere, not the dismal reality of an occupied Soviet town. The servants were dismissed, of course — there was no place for a nanny in this new proletarian life — and so Stasia and Lida spent their time child-minding. Only occasionally did Stasia manage to escape her day-to-day life and ride out into the steppe, on a Kabardin she borrowed from the stud farm.
The range of food on offer decreased with every day that passed; people’s clothes lost their colour, and the town’s only dance school — and Stasia’s only hope — was closed down. Instead, they opened a branch of the Komsomol, the ‘All-Union Leninist Young Communist League’, a Party youth organisation, which continually struck up patriotic songs and glorified the October Revolution, and whose goal it was to raise young people as ‘loyal communists’.
Rally the ranks into a march!
Now’s no time to quibble or browse there.
Silence, you orators!
You
have the floor,
Comrade Mauser.
VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY
By the time Simon Jashi met his son, Kostya could already say ‘Deda’. Simon had had a leave request signed off for the first time. Stationed somewhere on the Don, where the peasants kept calling for uprisings, his brigade was responsible for re-education. Stasia and Simon went for walks and ate her father’s chocolate cake, which didn’t taste the way it used to. They played with their son, visited the town’s first cinema, and even rode out into the steppe together, but Stasia couldn’t help feeling as if she was living a stranger’s life: this husband simply didn’t feel like hers, and, when he departed, she experienced a real sense of relief. Alone, she was at least able to carry on dreaming of the life she had once wanted to lead, which had nothing in common with the one she was leading now.
Kostya had just started attending the town’s first state kindergarten when Simon Jashi suddenly turned up unannounced one March morning: a gaunt lieutenant with a full beard, standing outside the entrance to the house, calling for his wife. Three broken ribs that had never healed properly had given him a pulmonary embolism, which he had survived; he now limped, and his hands trembled. He had been assaulted by a peasant with a shovel, and given leave from the army for a few months as a result of his physical impairment.
Stasia, who was just tasting her son’s porridge, hurried to the door with the spoon in her hand. She looked her changed and dramatically aged husband up and down and tapped the spoon against her thigh, not knowing what else to do. This man, the father of her son, who she had always wished would love her more than he loved his duties, stood before her in his pitiful state, but neither she nor he uttered a word. They stood facing each other, with no idea where to begin.
My great-great-grandfather suggested to the newlyweds — for how else should one refer to a couple who had shared a bed for only a few nights in more than five years — that they go to the countryside, to one of the villages close by, and take some time there for each other and the child. He had a friend whose summer residence had not been expropriated: a simple, traditional Georgian lodge, just a few kilometres from the town, but far enough from the hustle and bustle of the world. They were to get to know each other again there, and Simon was to get well. The owner of the house wouldn’t bother them; they would just have to look after a few hens, two cows, and a bit of greenery.
*
The simplicity of the house, the peace of the countryside, the remoteness from politics, their everyday occupations, the friendly local peasants — all of this suited the couple very well. At first, Stasia even enjoyed working on the land and with the animals: it was a change, after all, and she was determined to give her family a fresh start. They could begin a new life. Somewhere, the remnants of that first, foolish, crazy, provocative feeling of being in love must still exist. There were horses in the village, too, which could be rented and ridden. A good start, Stasia thought, since riding had been their shared passion. But Simon was so fragile, so tired, that he couldn’t even manage to mount one of the horses. Most of the time he stayed silent, gazing listlessly into the distance, giving his son an occasional smile, only eating when Stasia reminded him to. Stasia still couldn’t see — she refused to see — that something within him had been irrevocably extinguished.
Meanwhile, in Russia, coroner’s reports were piling up:
Corpse no. 1: skull completely shattered, lower jaw broken.
Corpse no. 2: skull smashed by two bullets.
Corpse no. 3: skull and surrounding area shattered by a metal object.
Corpse no. 4: a soldier, judging by clothing, three bullet holes in the skull.
Corpse no. 5, certainly the bishop: cause of death difficult to determine, as he was apparently buried alive.
Simon Jashi had seen enough of that. More than enough. The handsome horses, his wife’s energy, and the love of his son could not make him forget it all.
Stasia’s effort to put on a cheerful, beaming face every day, whether she was doing the laundry or mucking out the cow shed (a task she took as seriously as saving her marriage), whether she was peeling potatoes or telling little Kostya a story, had no effect. Everything seemed to pass Simon by without leaving any impression on him. He rose late, spent an eternity sitting over the strong coffee that his father-in-law sent from town every three weeks, and read the paper, which always reached the village two days late. He ate what was put in front of him, as if he had no further desires or needs, and afterwards he went for a walk, returning home only late in the afternoon. After supper, he went out to play cards with the neighbouring farmers, and, when he came back at night, Stasia was usually lying in bed awake, but with her eyes closed, hoping he would want to wake her, tell her about his thoughts and worries, ask her about her own, plan the next day, something — but nothing of th
e sort happened. Deadened as he was, empty and resigned, he lay down silently beside his wife, turned his back to her, and fell asleep straight away.
During this time, the only one who seemed to be alive was Kostya. He grew, and was delighted by each new discovery; he learned to walk and talk, he laughed and cried. The little village constituted his whole world, and he wanted nothing more. And if his parents, who were so wrapped up in themselves, happened to laugh, it was mostly due to Kostya having done something funny or said something inappropriate for a toddler.
Although the couple’s country life was only supposed to last a couple of months, and at the start they said that Simon would soon be redeployed, nothing happened. For some reason, Simon seemed to be in no rush to take up his promised post, and his superiors didn’t seem to be missing him too much, either. And so his leave stretched out into an eternity, or so it seemed to Stasia. He received a small, regular pay packet, and, with her father’s support and hardly any demands on their money, they managed quite well. The time the Jashis spent in the countryside passed slowly and languidly, and, above all, quietly.
On rare occasions, Stasia took Kostya into the town to visit her family, and, every time, she found herself on the verge of never going back to the village and the sleepy little wooden house. But the chocolate-maker’s household was a far cry from what it once had been. They had nowhere near enough money. Inflation had reached Georgia. The Party was setting about the project of collectivisation and industrialisation, and living space was tight. The wood factory employees and their families did not get along with the chocolate-maker’s family. They were living on top of each other, and Lara, who seemed to be gradually expanding out of sheer vexation, was always bickering with the workers’ wives.
The Eighth Life Page 10
