The Lack of Light, page 35
As was only to be expected, Otto Tatishvili seemed to have vanished off the face of the earth. The rumor was that Zotne had helped him flee, at Tapora’s request, to avoid a gang war. Even Rati eventually gave up; there was no point in searching for him. Otto was sure to have been taken out of the country—and in any case, he was under Tapora’s protection. Rati would be patient, wait it out, until the enemy made a mistake. In the end, whoever had the greater staying power would taste the sweet fruit of revenge. And making Zotne pay in Otto’s place went against their code, so this was not an option.
Levan remained cold and disdainful, grim and unfriendly. Grief had poisoned him, and his hatred was bone-deep. Rati threw himself into restless activity, as if trying to silence his pain. He was manic, driven, always coming up with new ideas for business models. He and his boys were out on the streets from morning till evening, growing ever more daring, more antagonistic, more power-conscious. My father withdrew completely into the world of his formulae. The outward circumstances in which he and his friends doggedly continued to work were absurd: despite never receiving their salaries, despite the absolute hopelessness of it all, despite the total collapse of all scientific life in the country, they went to the partially burned-down Academy every day to keep working on their encyclopedia. The Babudas, too, carried on with their teaching. Grieving for Saba had brought them a brief period of reconciliation. Their political debates had subsided after the president fled and the military council took power—only to flare up again with unexpected vehemence when that same military council brought back the ultimate Georgian export, the Soviet Union’s former foreign minister Shevardnadze, known as the “white fox,” and made him the chairman of their parliament. Eter saw him as the long-awaited “politician of moderation and good sense.” Oliko called him unscrupulous and “power-mad,” and said he didn’t care about the country; they had pleaded with that “conceited old cockerel” to come back and “save his country,” but he was only out for himself, and was putting our hard-won independence at risk once again.
But most of all, it was Nene, and my inability to lessen her suffering, that drove me to flee. Following the first visit Ira and I paid her after Saba’s funeral, I walked out onto Dzerzhinsky Street at a complete loss, with a terrible tightness in my chest, and had to sit down on the curb. She had been lying on the bed like an anemic princess with only days to live, in an ankle-length white nightdress that emphasized her pallor. Her hair, which almost reached her waist, was thick and loose, and her eyes had an unhealthy gleam. She took our hands and spoke a few disjointed sentences. And then, shortly before Maya Sanikidze confirmed that I was coming with her to the former monastery of Bodbe to make its faded frescoes shine again, two other things happened to turn this promised trip to Kakheti into something that more or less saved my life.
WHEN I ENTERED the courtyard that morning, on my way out to the Academy in the warm June day, I witnessed a brawl that no one would ever have imagined. I would sooner have thought my father capable of giving someone a beating. But here was Rostom, the intelligent aesthete who took our portrait photographs, the man who sat in the corner at children’s birthday parties with a gentle smile on his face, laying into Davit Tatishvili. Davit was lying on the ground, his shirt ripped, making no attempt to defend himself, as if acknowledging that the pain being inflicted on him was the logical punishment for what his son had done to Rostom’s, as if surrendering to his fate. Rostom was lashing out with unexpected brutality, screaming at him, “Give me back my son, you murderer, give me back my son!”
Strangely, the courtyard was deserted, with not even a curious neighbor at a window to sound the alarm. And so I had no choice but to get between them, and try to pull the screaming Rostom off Davit, which of course I failed to do, until the car mechanic Tariel and his son Beso appeared and dragged the raging photographer away. Davit was breathing heavily, and remained lying, motionless, on the ground. There’s no way I can stay here, I told myself, and without giving a second thought to how I looked, without washing my face or changing my dirty clothes, I ran all the way to the Academy. Since the disaster at the zoo, I again had the oppressive sense that death was on to me, and I had to run for my life.
The second thing happened not long after. It was one of those light-filled summer days, when the warmth in Tbilisi is enchanting and hasn’t yet tipped over into stifling heat. I had just left the Academy and was heading down the cobbled slope to Rustaveli Avenue as usual, when I was startled by a car horn. Looking around, I spotted Levan in an unfamiliar black car; he had clearly been waiting for me. I felt a kind of unease, as if I were ashamed that he had to wait for me outside this building, which had also been Saba’s alma mater. He waved me over, called my name, and I sprang into the passenger seat. Inside, the car smelled of smoke and a spicy eau de cologne. Ever since he’d started shaving his head, the Babudas had been jokingly calling him “Fantômas,” after the film starring their beloved Jean Marais. It made him look harder, and oddly clear, like a frozen lake. I had scarcely been alone with him since Saba’s death, and had been dreading this moment. An invisible wall had gone up between us. My heart clenched as I thought of his brother’s beautiful face, lying in his coffin. The irreversible nature of this death settled on all of us like ash after a terrible fire.
“Let’s go for a drive, okay?” he said, stepping on the gas without waiting for my answer. It was late afternoon, and there was a beautiful, reddish tinge to the light. My heartbeat quickened.
“How do you like the new wheels?” he asked, impassively.
“Very cool. You know I don’t know anything about cars, though.”
“Your brother gave it to me.”
“What? Huh . . . I guess business is booming, then?”
“I don’t need your snide comments. Can’t you just be happy for me?”
It was the wrong moment to remonstrate with him for the way he lived. For a fraction of a second, I even felt resentment that Rati had managed to do something I had just poured cold water on: bring him a little happiness.
The car had a bewildering stereo that twinkled and flashed like a child’s toy. Levan proudly inserted a cassette of classical music. I don’t remember what it was, now, but he talked about a specific conductor and the beauty of the music, and it moved me to see that he was capable of appreciating this beauty again. I turned my face away. I was grateful to him for letting me share in something that had meaning to him: an unexpected gift. I wondered who else knew this special side of him, and felt a pulse of jealousy. I didn’t want to share this part of him with anyone; it was the only thing he would let me have, and I wanted an exclusive right to this, at least.
The warm breeze blowing through the open window tousled my hair and caressed our faces. We were silent for a while. This, too, was new. He had always liked to talk, and talked a lot, even when it was senseless chatter that drove his friends and me to distraction. Now, he seemed entirely lost in thought, as if there existed within him a parallel universe of wordless pain. When a beloved person goes, they leave behind an awful, jagged crater—and you can never grant anyone a glimpse into your abyss, never let them see the extent of the damage.
I have always been comfortable with silence, and never understood why people say you must “endure” it. But Levan’s silence wasn’t natural. He had been an outgoing person, playful and curious, and he couldn’t bear stasis. His father had sometimes used the word “quicksilver” when talking about his younger son, with a sigh and a shake of his head. The Levan sitting beside me now seemed to have nothing in common with that quicksilver boy. Where was the troublemaker and rebel now? Where was his interest in me, his volubility, his playful charm, his attentiveness toward women? I have seldom met a man who loved women with such great respect, and who enjoyed their company so much. It seemed to be less about erotic attraction with him; he sought the company of women regardless of age or attractiveness. Being with a group of women brought out a quality in him that, in my eyes, made him even more lovable: an almost physical surrender to what he perceived as their difference. He marveled at it, but met it with a deep acceptance that I have never encountered in any other man. As if the opposite sex were alien to him, and remarkable for that reason alone; as if every movement, every behavior he didn’t understand, every inexplicable emotion—every accusation, even—filled him with humility. Unlike my brother and the rest of his buddies, Levan never gave the impression that he regarded his own biological sex as superior. In fact, women seemed to impress him. And whenever he flashed this particular look at me—head tilted to one side, eyes slightly narrowed—and I knew I had his attention, I wanted never to move from that spot, to remain forever in this state of grace, beneath this dome of safety and admiration. I also loved the moments in our loggia when he flirted with the two Babudas, making them blush and exclaim, “You cheeky lad,” or some other silly, old-fashioned phrase. In those moments, I wanted nothing more than for the whole world to know that we belonged together.
But Saba’s death had changed everything. And on that sunny afternoon, I felt for the first time the unease that dwells in such a realization, as we drove through the dusty streets of our wounded city, and he kept me at arm’s length with his silence.
When at last it became unbearable, I finally ventured to speak. “How long are we going to stay quiet for? I’d like to know how you’re doing.”
“How do you think I’m doing?” His voice was rough, aggressive. Why had he come to pick me up if he didn’t want to talk to me, if he found my words so exasperating?
“I think you’re doing really badly.”
“And what should I do to change that, in your view?”
“Talk to me, maybe?”
“No. Stupid chatter isn’t going to help me. The only thing that will help is Otto Tatishvili’s corpse lying at my feet. But Rati’s right: I’m going to be the most patient man on earth. I’m going to wait, and however long it takes, I’ll get him in the end.”
“He still hasn’t been found, then?” I asked, mechanically, though I knew the answer already.
Maybe we should stop pretending to ourselves, I thought. We had long since abandoned any veneer of civilization, and had fallen back into the dark rainforests of the Stone Age. Moral paradigms were alien to us. I held my palm out of the open window to feel the air rushing past, and was following my thoughts to their logical conclusion, when the girl in the snowsuit sitting on the ladder in the Babudas’ room appeared in my mind’s eye, blowing my dark dystopia away. I thought of my professor, who spoke tirelessly day after day about the beauty of art and the “magical gold” of particular icons. They were still among us, those people who had not yet become beasts. And it wasn’t simply because the opportunity had never presented itself, but because they had decided against it, and were defending that decision with everything they had, resisting the pull. We had a choice; we always have a choice. But I feared that without these people, left to my own devices, I wouldn’t be strong enough to make the right choice. Had I not already been put to the test and found wanting?
“Anyway, we’ve started putting Zotne’s people through the wringer. He’s surrounded by traitors and bastards he thinks are loyal to him. But deep down, they’re only loyal because they’re afraid of Tapora, and the first chance they get, they’ll stick a knife in his back, you can bet on it. Sooner or later we’ll get one of them to talk, and then it’s just a matter of time before we get Otto.” His grip on the steering wheel tightened, and he slid a little further forward in his seat. “It’s a question of honor—I mean, actually, it would be simple enough to find out where he’s hiding. His sister would be easy prey . . .”
These words made me freeze in shock; the outrageousness of what he was implying made my head spin. I didn’t think much of that stuck-up Anna, but no sister in the world deserves to pay for her brother’s mistakes.
“You don’t really mean that!”
“I said very clearly: it’s a question of honor. Are you not listening to me?”
“But you can’t even think something like that! It’s disgusting! What would you do, beat her until she talks?”
“Oh, there are other ways.” He took a cigarette from the glove compartment and lit it. I felt a strong urge to get out of the car—and he must have registered that, because his tone grew softer, more placatory. “Don’t worry, no one’s going to touch her. At least that sick family has disappeared from our courtyard. My mother doesn’t have to endure their ugly mugs anymore.”
“So they’ve really moved away, then?”
“Yeah. They won’t come back. After my father gave Davit a beating, they must have got the message. Good for him, because otherwise I’d have had to take matters into my own hands.”
I couldn’t help but think of Rostom’s desperate cries as he hit Davit. And of the pain in my ribs when he struck them with his blindly flailing fist.
We had been driving aimlessly around the city for a while when he took the exit to the Museum of Ethnography, and started up the winding road into the hills.
“Want me to show you what this car can do?” Suddenly he gave a broad grin, and stepped on the gas. The car shot forward, my stomach lurched, and I cried out.
“Please, slow down!”
But he ignored me and floored the pedal. The city below us shrank to miniature size; the day condensed and disappeared, flowing into a tepid summer evening. Fortunately, we met very few cars coming the other way; no one seemed to be in the mood for a jaunt into the countryside. He laughed, and kept glancing over at me, as if my fear was spurring him on to greater exuberance. I could feel that I was going to throw up if he didn’t stop. The road to Turtle Lake had several switchback bends, and he skidded around them so fast that I thought we would come off the road and roll over. Just before we reached the dusty turnoff to the woods below the lake, I saw a truck coming down the narrow road toward us, and held my breath. I don’t remember whether I said anything, screamed at him, or just stayed frozen in my seat, expecting to die—a senseless, idiotic, unforgivably stupid death that we had brought on ourselves. For the first time on this breakneck drive, I saw something like fright flash across his face; then he wrenched the steering wheel round with all his might, and we bumped and jolted through potholes, finally coming to rest in a cloud of dust on the little woodland track. The truck blew its horn angrily, and the driver flung a few curse words after us.
I threw open the car door, stumbled out, and flopped onto the earth. The sun was already low in the sky, and pine trees lined the narrow path that lay promisingly ahead of us, leading into the depths. Levan handed me a bottle of water, and I washed my face with it. I didn’t know what to say; the fear and anger had robbed me of words. It was only as the tension subsided that I felt my body crumple, and for a while I just sat there, motionless.
A little further up the hill, above the woods, lay Turtle Lake. How often we had rented paddleboats there as children—how much my brother and I had laughed. I suddenly felt old, as if my whole life were behind me and I could expect nothing more from it. I stood up and took a few steps, trying to get a hold of myself.
The air was glorious, and the silence that surrounded us beguiling. I heard him open the trunk, then he switched on the car headlights, lighting up the dusty track ahead. He walked over to me, holding a plastic jerrican of dark liquid in one hand.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what got into me.” The way he said it, so casually, reinforced my belief that he was no longer flirting with life, as he always used to, but with death. “This is very good red wine. It was a gift to Rostom, straight from the Racha vineyards. You like red wine, don’t you?”
Now I noticed two plastic cups in his other hand. I was still in a daze, incapable of saying anything, and I stared at him in disbelief. I was astonished at this careful planning, which was so unlike him, but mollified by the fact that he had given this outing some thought, even bringing a blanket that he spread out at the edge of the trees. He left the car door open and turned up the music. I sat down, took one of the plastic cups, and gulped down the red liquid, as if it were medicine that would give me back the self-control I needed. He sat down beside me, and we looked down at the city, where here and there a light was twinkling. It looked as if the notorious Block 9 was operational tonight. He slid closer and put an arm around my shoulders.
“That was stupid of you,” I whispered.
“Come on, don’t be like that, just forget it, okay? I wanted to show off my new car, that was all—let me have that.”
“You could have killed us.”
“Ah, Keto, now you’re exaggerating.”
“You think I’m exaggerating, do you?” I picked up the cup he had just refilled for me. “And before you get drunk and then drive me back, you should know I’d rather walk.”
“I’m offended that you have so little faith in me.”
“Faith? Maybe your pain excuses everything, but it doesn’t justify everything.”
For a while he said nothing, just smoked and sipped his wine. I hadn’t eaten much that day, and the fear was still in my bones; I could feel the heavy wine going to my head. But it had a calming effect as well, and the hectic pace of my thoughts slowed. I drifted, grew light, wanted to linger, to stay in this place with him and never go back to the world. The anger gradually drained from my body, and I softened, wanting nothing more than this illusion of peace. I wanted this wine, and him at my side, and the city below us.
Eventually, he put a hand on my knee. Evening had fallen, and the darkness and the alcohol gave him courage. But while the wine had a calming effect on me, all at once he seemed tense and nervous again, harried and aggressive. He chewed a match and scratched behind his ear. I stretched out; I had no desire to return to the zoo, to his brother’s coffin, to Dina’s naked body in the arms of Zotne Koridze.
