The Lack of Light, page 38
“Hold him off. For as long as I can.” This final sentence unsettled me even more.
“I’ll talk to Rati, I’ll take responsibility for what happened, I’ll say . . .” But what could I say, other than the truth? And that would have disastrous consequences, one way or another. Rati would never understand her motivation. Things were ramping up between him and Zotne, and it was only a matter of time before open warfare broke out. And the truth about the five thousand dollars that were meant to be Rati’s get-out-of-jail card would be a lit fuse. To Zotne, Dina wasn’t just a woman he silently desired, but an all-powerful weapon in the fight against my brother. It was the ultimate way to humiliate him, to bring him down.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
I didn’t know whether or not to believe her. I hated her silence, but feared the moment when she would tell me the whole story of what had happened that night. The images that appeared in my mind when I imagined the scene disgusted me.
“Let’s go to sleep now,” she said, pulling the thin sheet up to her chin.
I lay there sleeplessly for a while longer. Of course the peace I had felt in the last few weeks had been nothing but smoke and mirrors. Soon I would have to go back, and reality would bury me, the reality of flayed dreams, fragments of grief, angry lumps of undigested matter. And why did Dina imagine I could slip effortlessly into a new life, when she herself would forever remain a hostage to our here and now? And what about Ira? With all her ambition, she was the one we’d thought could do anything, and here she was rejecting the best version of her future, in the belief that she had to do the right thing. And were people like Reso really signposts to another life, who could guide us out of our narrow world of flapping laundry, driven men, wars, and rusty swings under mulberry trees? Should we pursue them because they might be the future, a new world that wasn’t torn and raging, a world of light? This new, light world frightened me just as much as the one I knew. I didn’t know how to play by its rules; I was unused to peace and orderliness, the rules of polite conversation, upmarket restaurants with fancy food. Those were strange fairy tales from films or books in which people were respectful to one another, strolled barefoot through green parks, only visited their parents on public holidays, vacationed in sunny countries, drove beautiful cars with air fresheners dangling from the mirror, kept memories of everywhere they had visited stuck to the fridge within their own four walls, and spent a fortune on carefully assembled bunches of flowers—not for any special occasion, but just to please the eye and decorate their fashionably furnished apartments. These were fairy tales of a world where young people were allowed to stay young for a long time, where they had the luxury of finding themselves. I was just as unfamiliar with this world as you were, and yet, as always, you were right. At all the crucial forks and crossroads of life, you were right. To this day, I can’t forgive you for predicting my future, because it wasn’t a future I wanted. I never wanted to set off for a new world without you. I hate the fact that you died and drove me to flee, caused me to become the person I am today. Not because this version of myself is so bad—no, there is so much I am grateful for—and yet I would give a lot to know what would have happened had you lived. What it would be like not to be the survivor of a dramatically shipwrecked dream; not to be honoring you as a visionary or an icon with celebrated exhibitions, the way you only honor the dead. I want to know how it would feel to live with you by my side, restless, demanding, insatiable, caustic, the woman with the most answers to my never-ending questions. I no longer hold it against you, Dina, my fire-eater; I understand now, as I’ve always understood you. But not a day passes when I don’t make you live on, weaving you into the years that came after. This way, you belong to me; your future belongs to me. I can shower you with happiness, celebrate your triumphs, and give you back everything you were denied.
You saw it all coming, while I went on stumbling around, clueless. You had to live in the fast lane, and I couldn’t keep up. That night, you had already begun to draw a tentative future for me in the sand, a future far away from you. I didn’t understand what you were trying to tell me then but, without guessing it yourself, you were already preparing me for your death, and placing Reso at my side as the safe ferryman who, unlike Charon, would bring me back from the realm of the dead to the world of the living.
FOR THE NEXT two days, we avoided any difficult subjects. We drank wine and were lighthearted and childish. We hitchhiked to the restaurant in Sighnaghi and bought a simple meal with the money we had scraped together. We lay under stout fig trees, and ate the watermelon that people sold at the roadside. We switched on the battery-powered radio and searched for music that was joyous and beautiful. We wallowed in memories, and told each other anecdotes from our school days until we cried with laughter. We held hands, giggled, and hugged one another at every opportunity. We admired the sunset, which we all longed for after the fierce heat of the day. We played poker with time, asking it for a postponement. We flattered the weary, powdery sky above us. We dispensed joy and relived our childhood. We fluttered above our worries like bright, speckled butterflies. We shook ourselves free of all pain, which flew off us like droplets of water from wet dogs.
We stuck our tongues out at fate.
We went on kissing our misfortune.
The Sea of Extinguished Lights
Maya, Reso, and I stayed in Kakheti until mid-August. The money ran out, and we spent our final days there uncertain whether we would have to leave without having fully revealed “The Baptism of Jesus.” But at the last minute, Maya managed to get hold of the pigments, linseed oil, casein, and other fixing and binding agents we needed. Every day, we waited for the experts from the city, who had supposedly been engaged by the diocese to come and provide a conclusive analysis.
I couldn’t creep away from myself any longer; Tbilisi was calling me back, and thoughts of Nene, Levan, my family, and Dina kept me awake at night. In mid-August, Maya admitted defeat. She told us she had no further resources or reserves. “The Baptism” would be our last job, for now. The Church had postponed all other restoration work until further notice, and so there was nothing more for us to do.
The three of us sat dejectedly in the garden as evening fell, each absorbed in our own thoughts, each with our own worries about going back. Reso had switched on the little battery-powered radio, and we ate salty cheese with a little bread, and cucumbers and tomatoes whose scent you could smell all over the garden.
“At least we managed to save Nino, and the Baptism,” said Maya, trying to cheer us up with her optimism.
“They have no idea what a great service we’ve done them—and for absolute peanuts,” said Reso, as cynical as ever.
“Yes, we should all be proud of ourselves,” said Maya.
Reso had put his feet up on a tree stump, and his eyes roamed the garden. He was very tall, and his lean, wiry frame reminded me of a stork. His movements were supple and over-cautious, and so quiet that it was often a shock when he suddenly appeared, as if he’d floated into the room rather than being carried on two legs. His features were girlishly delicate and very regular, apart from his slightly pointed chin, which affected the way he spoke. It always seemed like his mouth was full of water. His dark brown eyes were trusting and warm, belying his otherwise roguish look. He wore short-sleeved shirts and short cloth pants, which often drew criticism from church staff. “I’m working for God here. He can hardly hold it against me if I get hot sometimes” was his only comment. His impressively thick hair was another thing that didn’t seem to go with his rather affected appearance. Whether it was the shock of brown hair on his head, the sideburns that grew at a rate of knots, his beard stubble, his leg hair, or the chest hair that sometimes protruded from under his shirt, it all gave the impression that Mother Nature was making fun of his fastidious ways. My initial dislike of him had vanished, though a slight sense of unease in his presence had never left me. All the same, over the last few weeks, a strange bond had established itself between us, fed primarily by his sharp-tongued humor, and our conversations. I also liked it when he praised me in his very understated way. It was something he did only rarely, so I was all the more grateful when it happened—because as time passed, I came to value his skill more and more. He was so far ahead of me in terms of experience that I envied him his expertise and courage; he often took very unconventional approaches. I was impressed by the calm he exuded as he was working, the way he would turn inward, the devotion his eyes revealed during phases of deep concentration. That always made me think of Lika. And Dina had been right: what I liked most about him was how different he was from all the men by whom I was usually surrounded, the men who shaped my world. He was the antithesis of the masculine worlds I knew. My father’s world was so weirdly abstracted, so frighteningly divorced from reality, that it was like a monastic existence beyond all earthly concerns. And I didn’t even want to think about the world of the “boys,” Rati’s or Zotne’s. Reso was a member of a species I had never encountered before, a completely different category of Georgian man. Someone who was entirely indifferent to patriarchal doctrines and the masculine code of ethics. He didn’t care about them; in fact, he avoided any kind of societal norm, and even made fun of them. He seemed to abhor any form of power and all patriarchal privileges. Only the fact that he couldn’t so much as fry an egg gave any hint that a traditional female role might feature in his background. He had a real aversion to all stereotyping and dogma, but in particular to male dominance.
He made me laugh constantly. His grouchy, sometimes sarcastic humor fell on fertile ground with me; I couldn’t help but burst into peals of laughter. And not even Maya, who was a very uncomplicated, receptive person, could truly understand our connection. It became increasingly apparent that he was in top form whenever I was around, producing one punchline after another, and, despite our concentrated work, he never missed an opportunity to make me laugh. All the same, even as we grew tentatively closer, I was convinced that Reso would remain a stranger to me. After our sojourn at the monastery, I thought I would probably never see him again.
Over one of our frugal early breakfasts—Maya had already gone to get ready—we had a conversation that first took me aback, then stayed with me all day.
“You could become one of the greats, Kipiani.” His insistence on using my surname put a strange distance between us, drawing a line that, in turn, allowed for a different kind of openness. “I mean, you’ll never earn true recognition in this weird profession, let alone fame and fortune, so do think carefully about it. But if you keep going, and stay true to yourself, you could be really good—really damn good. And you know I don’t say these things lightly.”
“I’m only just starting out, though,” I murmured, embarrassed.
“Maya and I are good teachers, but you need to leave us behind and go elsewhere—I mean, somewhere you can really be taught something that challenges you. You’ll soon master what we’re doing here. That is, if you don’t go marrying some idiot in the meantime, and drop the whole thing.”
“What makes you think I’m planning to do that?”
“You’re in love: that’s pretty plain to see.”
I wondered if he could have been eavesdropping, that evening when Dina, Ira, and I sat in the garden by candlelight and he came to join us.
“I don’t know that I am.” I was surprised at myself. Until two seconds earlier, I really hadn’t meant to share anything from my private life with him.
“You are.”
“So you’re an expert in love, are you? You certainly don’t look it.” I regretted the remark even as I said it. He turned away and gazed into the distance. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. I mean, I don’t really know you at all . . .”
“You didn’t offend me,” he said, gruffly. “I wanted to talk about your future, not about men.”
“Well, you started it,” I muttered.
“I hope you progress—that’s all I meant.”
“It isn’t like you think it is, though.” This revelation, too, was unplanned, accidental; I hadn’t intended to talk to him about Levan.
“That’s what they all say, and then they end up like our landlady here, at home in front of the stove.”
“You don’t seem to have a very high opinion of Georgian women.”
“It’s Georgian men that I really don’t have a high opinion of. And leave your fingers alone, you’re going to need them.” He didn’t look at me; his face was still turned away as he spoke, and he sipped his coffee, which had gone cold. Lost in thought, I had begun to chew my thumb.
“So you don’t imagine your own wife . . . staying at home?” My question felt stupid, somehow, but I couldn’t think of a better way to put it.
“What kind of idiotic question is that? Where are we living, the Middle Ages?”
“I mean . . . I just mean, you wouldn’t want to have her to yourself?” This phrase was clumsy, too, but I was self-conscious and incapable of finding the right words.
“How do you mean?”
“Well, when you love someone, you don’t want to share them with anyone . . .”
“Sure, I’m familiar with that impulse.” His answer surprised me. “But it’s an illusion: you can never be enough for someone, you can’t replace the world for them. No matter how devotedly you love them, you’ve got to let your partner have their freedom. They must want to come back to you of their own accord. And if they don’t, then it isn’t meant to be. We all have so many wishes and desires, no one individual could ever satisfy them. That would be a terrible thing to expect.”
“A lot of people see it differently.”
“That’s just ignorant, romantic kitsch. In a healthy society, in an intact country, the desire for love should never be at odds with self-development.”
“Our country isn’t intact, then?” For a moment, he looked puzzled by this; then he saw the sarcasm in my face, and smiled, with his usual hint of derision. “Sometimes I don’t even know what I want. It’s kind of tiring,” I said, with deliberate nonchalance, stretching my legs.
“You’re still young; you have all the time in the world to find out. Assuming you don’t make any stupid mistakes in the meantime.”
“So in your eyes, being with the person you love is a stupid mistake?” Something in what he was saying riled me, even though I knew it was well-meant, and he had actually been trying to tell me something else.
“With the person you’ve fallen for, yes.”
I instantly turned red. What had given me away?
“I see you, Kipiani.”
“You’re so smug.”
“I’m a realist.”
“How should I take that?”
“From what I know, I conclude that it’s complicated. And in Georgia, complicated usually means that he wants something other than you, and is expecting a sacrifice. Or I am completely off of the mark?”
“I can’t tell you that . . .” I relented. “Okay, it’s complicated. But not in the way you might be thinking. And I don’t even know what I want from him.”
“Well, as long as what you want isn’t for the male gaze to teach you how to love yourself. Because that’s the mistake so many women make.”
I was about to respond when Maya waved to us. We got up at once and took the crockery and leftover food into the house, rushing to get ourselves ready for the drive.
AND SO, ON THE evening of our final day of work, we were sitting in the soft evening light, listening to the little radio and eating the overripe and enchantingly fragrant tomatoes.
“Good work, Kipiani,” he said, out of the blue. He was looking me in the eye, which he very seldom did.
“Thank you, great master,” I answered, half in jest, dipping the last piece of bread in the delicious sunflower oil.
“What can I say? I have a damn good nose for hidden talents,” said Maya, with a wink at us, and lit one of the filterless cigarettes she always allowed herself after a good day’s work.
“Are you available to hire for other jobs, Kipiani?” Reso asked, and I was a little surprised at this—from what I knew, he usually worked alone, and often in neighboring countries. I mistrusted him, without knowing why. Ever since Dina had put the idea in my head that he might be interested in me, I’d been wanting to prove her wrong.
“I’d be open to it,” I said, with a slight hesitation. At the same time, I was seized with unexpected delight; this suddenly seemed like a sweet, comforting promise that our idyll might be continued.
“Good. Wonderful. That’s settled, then.” He clicked his tongue. “In that case, I’ll need your phone number.”
I nodded and wrote it down on a scrap of newspaper. He watched me, winked, and said in his typically dry way, “I like you, Kipiani. I really like you. I hope you don’t throw your talent at the feet of one of these would-be Wild West heroes.”
I thought about the girls from our neighborhood and our school who wanted to do right by their families, and would stay home after their engagement or marriage. I was offended that he seemed to be counting me among them. Would I do that for Levan? Would he be enough for me—would he be able to replace the whole world? I was surrounded by these girls who believed they owed men their freedom, who took a societal oath as soon as they hit puberty: never again to be their own master. They didn’t resist the pressure, because there was always a dubious “honor” to defend—but they were also in trembling love, somnambulant and addled, prepared to sacrifice everything to the flames of their longing. Not everyone was as strong as Dina, and hardly anyone received freedom as a dowry.
“I won’t do that,” I said, and wished I had said it a little more emphatically. I forced a smile.
“Don’t think you need to make a sacrifice. The person you make it for will never know its value, and you’ll be left empty-handed. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about.”
For the first time since we’d met, there was a transparent, fragile quality to his voice. The self-satisfaction he wore for show had suddenly vanished. I was puzzled by his choice of words, but didn’t interrupt, sensing that this was important, and that the knowledge was painful to him. He was speaking from his own experience. Maya had gone to bed, and we were about to follow, but I didn’t want our conversation to end. I wanted to fully savor what remained of this peace. And so I looked attentive, and tried to indicate that he should keep talking.
