The Lack of Light, page 64
It’s a faster, danceable version of “Let the Music Play.” I consider whether this song by the soft-voiced and wholly apolitical Walrus of Love can be described as the anthem of a Georgian decade, and conclude that this is entirely appropriate. Because from 1994 onward, maybe 1995, it basically had no competition. People played this song nonstop: on the crowded dance floors of people’s apartments, in cars at full volume, as well as in the few clubs that were opening up one after another, with their slapdash decoration, minimal technical equipment, and very limited range of drinks. It’s the ultimate Orphean song of my generation. We, the children of the nineties, who swapped our childhood and youth for Kalashnikovs and heroin—we, of all people, listened to Barry White and longed for nothing more than eternal love and the ecstatic fruits of that love, for fun and excitement. We, of all people, let the music play. And how! We played it right to the bitter end.
A SQUARE-SHOULDERED BOUNCER with a headset looks us up and down; he seems to deem us harmless enough to be admitted to his realm. Barry White gets louder and louder, his deep, velvety voice luring us down into the underworld. I see Nene descending the steps in front of me. She’s taken the flip-flops off again and is pulling her murderous high heels out of her handbag. I see Ira following, her eyelids heavy now—and I see her ashen face the day she summoned us all to her, when the noose she’d placed around the Koridzes’ neck could no longer be concealed. I see Dina’s horror, see her blasting pure hatred at Ira, and even here, on these neon-lit steps, I tremble.
For Dina, Ira’s vendetta was a gigantic and unforgivable betrayal. I’m almost certain now that she was even more horrified than Nene, who was directly affected, and if Dina were still alive, I doubt she would ever have been capable of forgiving Ira. Nene is still trying to understand the motives for Ira’s decision, but Dina took a very clear stance right from the beginning: she was convinced she knew all the reasons behind Ira’s campaign, and wasn’t prepared to budge so much as a millimeter.
As we enter the big, dark room, where the dance floor flashes with multicolored light, I am desperately trying to reconstruct the events of those days in my head. We sit down at a little table by the wall, in an alcove, just as we did back then, in Ira’s gloomy apartment, except that now one of us is missing. We, the musketeers—but our d’Artagnan left us long ago.
Nene storms the dance floor, having failed in her attempts to persuade us to dance; she plunges into a haze of sweaty bodies, overpowering perfume, and Barry White’s alluring voice. Ira and I try to work out how to describe this place: Ira labels it “wannabe fancy.” It’s an unexpectedly mixed crowd; even at our age we don’t particularly stand out. The women are quite dolled up, and the men, many of whom have conspicuously gelled hair, look shady. Yet the place doesn’t look cheap, and there’s something futuristic about the design, with all the neon strip-lights and the white alcoves in the walls. Barry White seems to be playing in an extended version; he won’t stop singing. I hear Ira in her dimly lit room, in another century, telling us, “Tomorrow it’ll be public knowledge, so I want you to hear it from me first.”
SHE LOWERED HER HEAD, and tried to control the trembling in her hands and in her voice. Dina, whom I hadn’t seen for weeks, shot a puzzled look at me, and I shrugged. Nene drank her Turkish coffee and seemed distracted. A mother of three small children, dealing single-handedly with her mother’s sorrow as well as her own grief for her dead brother, and worried about her other brother, the criminal, her thoughts were often elsewhere these days.
None of us had anticipated such a speech. None of us had anticipated this turn of events, the things Ira was saying to us.
“What’s she talking about?” Dina looked at Nene, but she just rolled her eyes, apparently the last to realize that this conversation was about to take a catastrophic turn.
“Ms. Public Prosecutor is so busy these days, she scarcely has time for her friends anymore, so how should I know?” Nene’s reproach was directed at Dina, too, who she felt had been avoiding her since she had argued with the two would-be artists at the party.
“Please let me finish. This isn’t easy for me, because what I’m about to say will change everything, and I want you to understand why I believe it’s the only possible way.” Ira was pale, and the rings under her eyes were so dark she looked ill. I stretched, and leaned in over the table.
And then Ira told us. About her decision “to put a stop to all this.” She told us about her life in America, her loneliness, the work she’d put in, how she had clung to her objective, which had demanded everything of her. We didn’t speak: I remember the icy silence in the room that made me shudder, broken only by Ira’s nervous voice. She told us about her plan, explained every step; she led us, open-mouthed, down the path she had taken. Where was this heading? We couldn’t believe she could actually have done what we were beginning to guess.
“At eight o’clock tomorrow morning, live on Channel Two, Ika is going to play a recording of a phone call your brother made.”
Nene, who seemed to have lost the thread a while ago, was jolted out of her daze. She stared at Ira. “What did you just say?”
“It has to end, before countless more people lose their lives.” Ira raised her eyes and looked at us: she had regained her self-control.
“You’re preparing an indictment against Zotne? And why television, what’s Ika got to do with it? I don’t understand . . .” Dina hastily lit a cigarette, jumped up, and started pacing back and forth.
“Ika is the official face of the case. Tapora’s apartment was bugged: we’ve got a lot of recordings of phone calls and conversations. Tomorrow the shit’s going to hit the fan, and there’ll be no going back. I’ve been working on the charges for years: drug trafficking, extortion, numerous instances of grievous bodily harm, unlawful possession of firearms.”
I was frozen in shock, and then I heard a laugh.
“You’re joking, right?” Still laughing, Nene repeated the question. I remember how her laughter gave way to an expression of sheer horror. I recalled what Ira had said to me in her room, before she left for America, and cold sweat broke out on my forehead. I hadn’t paid much attention to her words at the time, nor had I kept my promise. I hadn’t taken the steadfast determination in her words seriously.
“You will call Ika right now, and you’ll destroy the material.” Dina interrupted Ira’s monologue.
“Excuse me?” Ira stood up.
“You heard me. We are not traitors. We don’t do things like that. Did you for even one second think about Nene? Or her mother? And I care what happens to Zotne, too.” Her nostrils quivered; her chin trembled. “What you’re planning to do is beyond the pale. It’s worse than anything Zotne’s ever done.” She turned to me. “Did you know about this?”
“What, are you mad? No, I had no idea.” Her suspicion felt like a slap in the face, especially as for months now she had been acting as though we were no longer good enough for her.
“This is all pretty convenient for you—Zotne won’t pose a threat to your brother anymore . . .”
I couldn’t believe my ears. How dare she accuse me of such a thing? I stared at her: she was looking at me with utter contempt. Her words were an arrow shot between my ribs.
“Stop it! No one knew anything, no one!” Ira stepped between us. And before I could lunge at Dina and throw her to the ground, strangle her, or scratch her eyes out—just then anything was possible—we heard something drop, and saw Nene slide to the floor.
Now she’s dancing. I never cease to be amazed by this inexhaustible source of energy. After all she’s been through, where on earth does she find this joy in life, this abandon and delight in love, all to drown out the deadening silence inside. At the same time, I know it’s her camouflage, that she has to move like a whirlwind so as not to be stuck in the silence that is all the people she loved left behind, people who now exist only in black-and-white photographs. She has to dance to Barry White in murderous high heels and flirt with a tattooed waiter so as not to hear this silence. I know this; I understand it. We all have our lies that sometimes serve as crutches. She has to do it, just as Ira has to chase after success, and I have to bring old artworks back to life.
“Do you remember, back then, when you dropped the bombshell, and Dina wanted to go and find Zotne?” I yell in Ira’s ear.
Ira has ordered drinks at the bar, and we’re waiting eagerly for our water; we stocked up earlier at the kiosk, but we don’t feel comfortable whipping it out of our bags here on the dance floor.
“She spat in my face, would you believe, that afternoon, before she walked out . . . And yes, she tried to find Ika as well, but I’d anticipated that, so I’d sent Ika out of town for a few days: even I didn’t know where he was. He’d been told to go straight to the studio on the morning of the broadcast.”
“Didn’t you ever have doubts? I mean, when you realized Nene and Dina would never forgive you, if not before?”
“I was sure they’d understand me one day. I convinced myself.”
“Do you think Dina would have got over it, if she was still alive?”
Ira shrugs. She suddenly looks pale and tired, as if someone has flicked a switch. The ultraviolet light intensifies her wretchedness. Ira saw it through—and accepted the consequences.
“Why didn’t Zotne run away? He could have gone to ground.”
She shrugged again. “I don’t know. I think he overestimated himself, thought his krysha was all-powerful. And he underestimated the public, the pressure from the media, as well as ordinary people’s desire to see the big shots and the powerful go down. The mood in the country had changed: Shevardnadze had put his biggest opponents behind bars, and people were holding their breath, waiting for the big boss of the Mkhedrioni to go on trial. Everyone realized that a new era had begun, that gang rule was coming to an end.”
In my mind’s eye, I see myself sitting with Eter, watching TV, the bearded journalist’s face flickering on screen as the recording is played. Holding my breath, feeling that none of this is real, it’s all just staged. I see my brother enter the room, see his pale face and drooping shoulders, his fingernails, bloody and bitten to the quick, his puzzlement as he recognizes Zotne’s voice. I don’t know what to do; I want to keep him away from anything that might interfere with his recovery: I am trying to shield him from all that reminds him of his previous life, but it simply isn’t possible.
Ira knocks back her glass of water, brought by a young woman in a short skirt, then jumps to her feet and holds out her hand. “Come on, let’s dance!”
I stare at her in disbelief. Ira has never danced in her life, and I wonder where her tiredness has gone. “You want to dance?” I yell, because now that Barry White has fulfilled his function and lured us here, the music has changed to loud electro with a pumping beat that makes talking impossible. I take Ira’s hand and follow her obediently onto the crowded dance floor.
“I’m so good these days that I never leave a club alone,” Ira shouts in my ear. She gives a roguish laugh, and I’m taken aback by her adolescent glee. We set off in search of our party-loving friend.
Is that what she is? Are we still friends? Can we use that term, when for years now we’ve only been in touch on holidays and special occasions, leaving in-person meetings to chance? Does a friendship last forever just because you shared your respective childhoods and youth? This distant echo that holds us together, a few black-and-white pictures that capture us. Would we choose each other as companions today? Wouldn’t our very different wishes, longings, aspirations, and desires be an obstacle to us forming an alliance? Wouldn’t our life experiences, fears, skepticism, and, above all, self-delusion set our alarm bells ringing right away?
And yet something in me tells me that it’s true: the years don’t change a thing.
An oriental sound enters the mix, and my body starts to sway. I wonder how late it is, and realize I lost all sense of time long ago. We spot Nene at the other end of the dance floor, dancing with a young couple; her attention is clearly focused on the man, who’s obviously enjoying it, while his partner looks on in amusement. We dance toward them. When was the last time I danced? When was I last sixteen? My body is thawing. I open my arms. Ira’s moves aren’t as sinuous as Nene’s, but they’re stylish. Nene spots us and laughs, her face suddenly lit up by the strobe light.
I close my eyes and see Dina. How effortless she and my brother made it look when they danced rock and roll. I open my eyes and see Nene moving toward us, her face shining with sweat. I close my eyes and see Reso; his long-drawn-out, slightly questioning “Kipiani” beckons me on, and I dive down to all that is buried deep within me. With no one else was desire so unforced, and being together so impossible. I open my eyes again and see Ira homing in on a blond woman in knee-high boots. She wants to show me something, a side of her I don’t know; she’s revealing herself to me, the American Ira, the seductress who never goes home without a prize. She beguiles the woman; she is a spider luring her prey into her web, patient, confident, and the woman, surprised and curious, lets herself be lured.
I close my eyes and see the soot-blackened spoon in the kitchen. The first evidence of the lethal offensive that had now invaded my home as well. I freeze, hold my breath, and the years slide across each other like drapes. I see this spoon in the winter of 1997, a few days after Ira detonated her bomb and our friendship broke apart like a pomegranate, disintegrating into a thousand bloodred pieces. A misappropriated spoon on our kitchen dining table; and I see another spoon, discolored by a lighter flame, lying beside Guga’s body three years earlier.
So I knew what I was dealing with. I knew that the deadly poison now flowed through my brother’s veins as well, and that I had lost. Yet for a few weeks we had hoped things were improving; he seemed more stable, less apathetic; the medication had been reduced, his appetite had returned, his eyes no longer glittered quite so manically. Every small, autonomous action on his part made us jump for joy. Every reasonable word he addressed to us was a relief. He was shaving again; he went out, even bought things from time to time; he watched films, listened to music, and occasionally saw Sancho or one of his friends, when he would shut himself away with them in his room. Once he asked me about Dina, and I hesitated to tell him that Dina had made a new and nicer life for herself. And then I saw the spoon, and knew that he had been feeding us lies.
I open my eyes and see Ira put her arms around the blond woman’s waist. She winks at me. Nene appears at my side, and observes Ira’s seductive charm with fascination. Herself a mistress of the art, she seems no less impressed than I am. Nene and I dance together; she is soft, pliant, her body full of unexpected curves and bends. Her body is deceptive; it purports to be undamaged, uninjured, agile, full of desire and pulsating eroticism. It betrays nothing of the dead that have paved her way, the thousands of suppressed screams and decapitated wishes, the countless self-inflicted wounds.
I close my eyes, and see my grandmother’s dead body—my grandmother, from whom I hid every needle, every spoon, every belt, to maintain the illusion that Rati was getting better; who, one morning, simply refused to get up. When my father emerged from her bedroom, his face masklike, expressionless, the first thing I thought was that she had gone to join her perpetual opponent and most loyal friend, and would now be arguing with her about Rilke and Baudelaire.
I open my eyes; Ira is about to kiss the blond, to prove to us that she has nothing more to hide. She is free. Yes, we are free—we’re in a free country, after all, in this party-loving city, in this futuristic club, light years away from the black-and-white images of this evening. Yes: we are gods of ourselves at last.
I close my eyes. I move to the beat, overlaid with a balaban melody: what does this sound remind me of? Of course—the duduk, the simple, sighing sound of the duduk. I see Levan playing the duduk, with extreme concentration and a tender expression on his face; I see his thick eyelashes, his laugh, see him glance over and wink at me from the driver’s seat. His olive complexion, his warmth that envelops me like a blanket. His breath in my ear, his guffawing laughter, his quick wit, his sparkling eyes as he talks to me about Stravinsky, or should that be Debussy—I don’t remember now, and it doesn’t matter anymore. When did the Iashvilis sell the apartment? Was it before or after I moved to Germany? And which of the many funerals did I last see him at? No—the last time must have been on the Maidan, during one of my summer holidays. He was in the company of a Russian beauty he introduced as “a friend,” a woman who was the absolute opposite of me. I don’t know which disturbed me most, this long-legged woman in her very revealing outfit, or Levan himself. I suddenly felt oddly weak, and clung to the buggy my little son was sitting in. The way he looked at me and the boy. The way he forced a smile, put his arm around me, and said, “Ah, Keto—the indestructible Keto.” His close-cropped hair was already graying, and a pair of aviator sunglasses dangled from a black chain round his neck. I hadn’t seen anyone wear sunglasses like that for years. He seemed to have stepped out of a different time, with his black jeans and the toothpick between his teeth. His aftershave was overpowering to the point of vulgarity, his gold chain too flashy, and his former curiosity had given way to a hurried nervousness. He kept glancing around, as if he were on the run, and perhaps he was. The man who spent his life hunting his enemy had himself become a hunted man: following the wave of arrests and the disbanding of the Mkhedrioni, he fled to Russia to escape impending arrest. Rumor had it that he made it into the highest ranks of the Russian underworld and amassed a considerable amount of money, but after Putin came to power he fell from favor and had to leave the country. Seeing him like this, I couldn’t think what we ever had in common. I stood there in front of him, and suppressed the burning desire to lift my dress and show him my pale, healed scars. His eyes lingered on my son, as if searching for clues he didn’t find.
