The Lack of Light, page 52
“I know. But there came a point when I couldn’t be your intermediary anymore. I was caught between the two of you: if I’d taken even one more step, I would have had to choose.”
“And so you just closed your eyes and disappeared. Is that what you wanted to tell me? You always were the peace dove who wanted everything to be okay, weren’t you?”
I fight the desire to turn my back on her and go inside. It’s hard not to be offended. Her weapons are sharp.
“We’re never just one thing, are we?” I say. The pensiveness in her gaze is unfamiliar to me, too. It’s as if all the impetuosity, spontaneity, excitability have been erased from her character.
“No, you’re right about that,” she says. “You were the one who kept the balance; you were the one who worried most, who was always trying to find a solution, who felt responsible for everyone. I know how hard it was for you.”
I lower my gaze. I can’t afford sentimentality now. “Thanks,” I mumble, and stare at her bright red, perfectly made-up lips encircling the thin, elegant filter of her cigarette. “It feels so senseless, having no contact with either of you for so long,” I begin, carefully. “I don’t even know anymore why it had to be that way . . .”
“Oh, I think we can say there were a few reasons.” Her cynical undertone is back, and she is giving me another scornful look. Does she feel a touch of nostalgia for our friendship, too?
“She wanted to rescue you. Don’t forget that. It might have been her biggest mistake.”
“Rescue me? Oh, give me a break . . . Please don’t try and defend her, I can really do without that right now.”
“Think of what you meant to her.”
“She’s obsessed. She always was. It’s pathological, and it’s got nothing to do with me,” she says. “She destroyed my life, and my family’s. That’s not love—that’s not caring for someone. It’s just her ego, the fact that she always has to prove herself, always has to be right. But life’s not that simple, it never is. You of all people should understand that, shouldn’t you?”
She looks at me, trying to provoke me; her eyes glitter dangerously. She’s making a dig about Rati, about the many overlaps in our biographies. And again I have nothing to counter with.
“I don’t think she wanted it to happen that way. I think she intended something completely different,” I say, in another feeble attempt to stand up for Ira.
Nene shakes her head vehemently. “You’re never going to convince me. I won’t ever accept that theory. It was an act of pure egotism. She’s obsessed—just look at her. She’s become the person she wanted to be, and it’s obvious what that is.”
I want to argue, I want her to see things from a different perspective and let go of her anger, so we can get to the heart of the conflict—which she has never spoken of, never acknowledged. The source of the whole tragedy that took place between these two people.
“Call it what you will, but you knew—all those years, you knew what she felt for you.” My voice is colder now; I feel the scab of the old resentment breaking open again.
“Yes, but her love was sick!” I recoil. She notices, and gives me an apologetic look. “Look, sick or not, am I obliged to her in some way? I can’t do anything about her inclination, can I! What does it excuse? The fact that she presumed to know what was best for me, for us? Who did it help? Apart from bringing her a certain amount of fame.”
“She shouldn’t have made the decision behind your back. She interfered in something that wasn’t her business. I don’t deny that, Nene, and I didn’t deny it then, either. I’m just saying her motives weren’t those you accuse her of. Ira wasn’t thinking of how it might benefit her.”
Of course, I can’t help thinking of Ira’s dark, resolute look before she left for America. A look that indicated a decision, which she made on the basis of my confession . . .
Nene doesn’t respond. We sit in silence for a while, watching a pretty waitress set out glasses.
“I could never cope with her feelings. For me, she was the big sister I’d never had. And of course I sensed how she looked at me sometimes. I’m not blind. But what would you have done in my place? Dina, yes—maybe Dina would have been liberal enough, maybe she’d have found the right way of dealing with it. But I’m not Dina. In my world, it was just something that didn’t have a name, and no good would ever come of it. I was afraid of rejecting her, I didn’t want to hurt her, but I never felt the same way.”
I am grateful for her words, and smile at her. “I know, Nene,” I say quietly. And I see her again, in my mind’s eye, walking toward me after my return from Istanbul, little gray-eyed Luka in her arms; it seemed he had not yet chosen between the colors of his parents’ eyes, wasn’t yet sure which to adopt. How grateful I was that she needed me: I hurried to her house almost every day to rock the baby for hours in that big room beside the open window, with the sweet Tbilisi spring stretching out its arms toward us.
LUKA WAS AN angelic bundle of joy, a quiet, watchful baby with big eyes of that indeterminate color, thick eyelashes, and raven hair. Whenever I looked at him, I couldn’t help thinking of Saba, of his life that had ended in such a ghastly way.
Nene mastered her new role with impressive patience. Becoming a mother had brought her some calm, though she complained constantly about the lack of sleep. The peaceful, dignified pride she had radiated during her pregnancy was now an integral part of her. Her hectic manner had disappeared; her need to please also seemed to have taken a back seat. And although she was always perfectly made up and wore ostentatious dresses, her appearance, once so eccentric, no longer came across as vulgar; there was nothing provocative about it.
In the weeks after I got back from Istanbul, Nene and her bright, airy room, fragrant with peace and milk, were a refuge and an oasis for me. I would flop down with the little boy in my arms, and forget all my problems and discontent. I immersed myself in their daily life, listened to her worries about her baby’s constant hunger, his colic, or how lightly he slept. She talked about Guga, newly in love, and how happy he was with Anna Tatishvili. She talked about the extreme friction between Tapora and her brothers, and about Manana’s divided loyalties, which put a tremendous strain on her. I heard a note of pride in her voice when she spoke of her brothers. How her brothers had protected her and got her out of the country; how they had shielded her from Tapora’s all-powerful will, and the pressure they had been under ever since. She complained about Manana’s inability to accept and love the baby as her grandson. Manana supported her daughter, cooked and cared for her, made sure she lacked nothing, but refused to bond with Nene’s child. When Nina Iashvili appeared at their door one day and asked to see her grandson, Manana turned into a Fury, screaming that it was Otto’s child and how dare she show up at their house like this. In response, Nene came secretly to Vine Lane, with Luka in her arms, and rang the Iashvilis’ doorbell. Since then, she had been paying regular visits to her unofficial parents-in-law, and was happy to see the grandparents so besotted with their grandson.
It must have been mid-May when the call came, late at night. Nene started howling down the phone and couldn’t calm down. It took me a while to understand what she was trying to tell me: Guga had been attacked on his way home and brutally beaten up by two men on Dzerzhinsky Street. They’d been wearing balaclavas, had hit him with the butts of their rifles, thrown him to the ground, and kicked him with their jump boots. Neither his head nor his hands had been spared; bones had been broken. It wasn’t until dawn that the all-important call came from the hospital to say that his life was no longer in danger.
Nene was absolutely hysterical that night. I sat with her, not knowing whether I should be more worried about her or her brother. I guessed that the beating had been a warning; the only question was who it had come from, and I prayed my brother had nothing to do with it. Not long after the call, the doorbell rang. We were alone with Luka. I went to answer it, full of trepidation, and there was Dina. I hadn’t seen her since my return. I’d called her, I’d visited Lika, but I’d never managed to catch her, and she hadn’t contacted me, either. And now here she was, unexpectedly standing in front of me, and I didn’t know what I wanted to do most: cover her with kisses, or slam the door in her face. Her camera hung over her shoulder, her hair was short, and she wore frayed jeans and a baggy yellow shirt. She was as luminous as ever; not even war, it seemed, could diminish her boundless energy.
“I’ve just come from the hospital. He’s okay,” she said, by way of greeting, and walked past me into the apartment. It took me a moment to recover; I stood in the doorway, my knees trembling. Later, we sat in the big kitchen surrounded by spice jars, pots of jam, and various cooking utensils, speculating on the possible motives for the brutal attack on Guga. Who was behind it, and what consequences might it bring? All the while, I was wondering whether Dina was meeting Zotne again, whether she was using his camera. I cursed him.
“No—it wasn’t Tapora. This was too violent. I’m afraid it’s more likely your brother was behind it,” said Dina, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye, and taking a red Magna cigarette pack from her pocket. Nene had calmed down a little, and had gone to the bathroom to wash off her smudged makeup. The two of us were left alone, face to face. Luka was sleeping peacefully in his crib.
“I came round several times, I called—you never called back,” I blurted out.
“Sorry, really busy.”
“You’re avoiding me.”
“You made your position clear, when we were at the hospital.”
“That’s nonsense, you know it is. I was in a panic, I was worried about you . . .”
“About me? No—you were worried about your brother. I’m the one you blamed, remember?”
My eyes filled with tears. She seemed so sure of herself, so callous. I looked for any marks on her face, the marks of war, which for me was inconceivable. But I could see nothing.
Nene came back; we talked about Guga again, and the terrible potential ramifications of this attack.
“We have to offer an olive branch, to be on the safe side. Approach Tapora. He’ll expect it.”
“What sort of olive branch?” I asked.
“I don’t know. My mother’s been begging me to do it for ages. She says I’m the only one who can soften him. She’s falling apart. The atmosphere at home is poisonous, and now this with Guga . . . He’ll probably want me to marry. That’s what he’s wanted all along. That’d be the only way to save face, and that’s what it’s always about with them—nothing else.”
“That would be perverse,” Dina interrupted. “You can’t go off now and marry some random idiot. No way.”
“Welcome to my life,” said Nene. She sounded resigned. “It’s all pointless, anyway. I’ll just get married again, and hopefully my brothers will stay alive.”
The two of us stared at her in disbelief. We were utterly speechless. How could she even contemplate the idea?
“Think about it. Tapora can’t be behind this! However angry he is, he’s not going to have his own nephew killed,” I said, raising my voice.
“There is absolutely no way you’re going to let yourself be married off again!”
We turned to Dina in alarm.
“The same shit cannot keep happening over and over again.” There was a new expression in Dina’s eyes: censorious, merciless. So that was where it was hiding, the change, the marks of the past few months, the traces I’d been looking for.
“Dina’s right. You’re not a lamb that volunteers to be slaughtered whenever things go wrong, in the hope God will send good weather.” I couldn’t understand how she could entertain this self-flagellating idea so calmly. After everything she had been through! But she said no more; as far as she was concerned, the subject was closed. When Manana returned from the hospital, stony-faced, we left mother and daughter alone, and headed out into the street.
Dina had lit a cigarette before we reached the bottom of the stairs. It was a warm, sunny day, the kind of day you want to embrace. We walked toward Freedom Square. Suddenly, she came to an abrupt halt, turned to me, and hugged me tight.
“I’ve missed you so much, Keto!” she cried, wrapping her arms around me.
“I’ve missed you so badly, too!”
She took my hand and pulled me along behind her, as she had so many times before, ever since we were small, as if she were my infallible guide through this confused and murky life. I was relieved, I was happy, I was grateful for her impulsivity, for her—yes, her compassion, and her impressive ability to slip from one mood to the next, the way a rollercoaster plunges from the greatest possible height down to the depths, then immediately ascends once more. We took a marshrutka to Vake and entered a block that smelled of damp and rat poison, clearly once a public building—an archive, a government department? I’ve forgotten—but now apparently disused and left to become derelict. There, on the third floor, at the end of a dark corridor, she unlocked an upholstered door, and we stepped into a semi-darkened room smelling of chemicals and plastic. The next room along served as storage for the spotlights; rolled-up screens and reflectors were also piled up in there.
“Posner let me take this over. Isn’t it great?” she announced proudly, as if this were not a dump, but a photography lab equipped with all the latest technology.
“Yes, it’s great!” I cried enthusiastically, fired up by her delight. She didn’t care what it looked like; the most important thing was for her to have a place of her own where she could pursue her passion.
We spent the afternoon in silence, in the dark. I watched her as she worked, and with every second I could feel myself returning, bit by bit, to the here and now. She had survived Abkhazia; I had returned from Istanbul. We didn’t need more than that. I was by her side, digging myself a tunnel back to her heart.
That was the day I first saw the photos she had taken in that village, Achadara: black-and-white snapshots of the war, which she developed without comment. Among these pictures, pegged to a washing line to dry, I came across the face of the red-haired boy, and my heart skipped a beat.
“Dina, you met him? And you didn’t tell me?”
“Yes—his name’s Gyo,” she said, almost reluctantly, when she saw me in front of the photo. “It was a chance meeting. And yes, he’s back here, too; he also escaped the war. What do you want from me now?”
Did I want something from her—some sort of explanation? Why did I think she owed it to me to tell me about this improbable chance encounter with the red-haired boy? Because I had saved him, too; because I thought he owed us both? On the way home, somewhere around Mziuri Park, I was overcome by a despair so deep that I stopped in the middle of the road, sat down on the nearest curb, and wept. Fortunately, the road was completely deserted at this time of night; although the weather was mild, there was hardly anyone about. She sat down beside me.
“Do you want to meet him? He’s nice. He’s studying engineering or something. But Keto, I think it’d be better if you just let it go. Your problem is that you keep going back to the past. And yes, if it helps, I also wonder what would have happened if. But these questions are pointless; they don’t get anyone anywhere. We made our decision, that afternoon.”
“It was your decision, Dina. Yours.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I left him lying there. I would have let him die.”
She lit another cigarette and put her arm around me. I let my head sink onto her shoulder.
“You would have gone back, too. I know you. A bit later, maybe, after we’d crossed the river, but you would have gone back.”
“But I didn’t. I kept walking.”
“Anyway: we didn’t leave him there. He survived. He was just accompanying his friend, who wanted to ask for more time to pay off his gambling debts. And he escaped the war. He’s well, he’s alive. That’s all that counts. You’re not helping anyone with your doubts and self-recrimination. Just stop,” she added, almost pleading. It was so good to feel her protective arm around me again. That was how it had always been, as if my true destiny lay in her shadow, and I was a plant that could only blossom in the shade.
“Why did you go to Abkhazia? Weren’t you afraid of dying?” The question still burned inside me.
At first, she didn’t reply. She drew on her cigarette, exhaled the smoke, then said quietly, “I felt useful there.”
This startled me, but I let it stand. I had to accept it, I had to learn to live with her pain.
“I want you to photograph me.”
It was the first and last time I ever asked her to do it. I had an urgent need to reveal myself to her, to show her all my distress. She had to understand that I wasn’t hurting any less. I wanted her to see what I tried to hide from everyone, to see that I was not someone she needed to shut out. That I was still ready to share everything with her, the internal and the external wars.
“Strange—I thought you hated it?” said Dina. “But okay, sure, let’s do it. I’d really like to, actually. I’ll ask Posner if we can use his studio—or we’ll do it tomorrow, somewhere outside, when it’s light.”
“Now.”
“What do you mean, now?”
“Let’s do it now.”
“It’s too dark, and I’m really tired.”
“Please.”
She must have seen from my face how serious I was. She hesitated for a while, then got to her feet with a groan.
“Fine, let me think for a minute. But I’m telling you, it won’t be any good, nothing’ll come of it.”
“Let’s try, anyway. Let’s go back to your studio. You’ve got spotlights there.”
“Come on, Keto, that’s really not a nice location.”
“Please. Trust me.”
She gave in. We trudged back toward Vake Park. On the way, I spotted a kiosk that was still open, and bought us a couple of sodas and an overpriced bottle of vodka with money I had left from Turkey. We lit our way along the dark corridor with a little flashlight, she unlocked the upholstered door, and we were back where she had been developing her pictures a couple of hours earlier. She switched on a single lightbulb in the side room.
