We stayed up late smoking hash and slept in, and Sasha is worried we’ll miss the people in military uniforms or the nationalists picking fights with old grannies for wearing the orange and black ribbon of Saint George which commemorates Russian soldiers in WWII, symbolizes Russian patriotism, and is now illegal to wear.
We stop at the edge of the park. Sasha is disappointed by the size of the crowd, and tells me it was busier in previous years. Still, we navigate through the crowds of young people and families taking photographs in front of the fountains and head toward a group gathered at the foot of a giant stone figure with two outstretched hands, one clutching a flower. We squeeze past chairs set up in front of the military band, mostly occupied by the elderly. I comment that the band sounds like Tom Waits and Sasha seems happy that I’m getting into the spirit of things.
“There are the nationalists,” Sasha says, pointing to men in black T-shirts and camo at the Memorial of the Unknown Soldier.
We watch parents pushing to the front of the memorial, where they take pictures of their children placing flowers on the stone surrounding a small burning flame. News cameras are arranged in formation, and Sasha points to the men dressed in green fatigues surrounding a photograph propped up on the feet of the stone figure. “There’s the photograph of Stalin.”
I realize that the men standing on either side of the memorial are in fact guarding the controversial figure. Stalin is still revered and worshipped in the region, Sasha explains, mostly by the elderly, but the men surrounding the memorial aren’t exactly geriatric.
“I want to punch them in the face,” he says. “Should I do it?”
He tells me about a Stalin statue that stood in Gori for fifty years, before being removed by police cordon in the middle of the night. It is illegal to put up any new Soviet symbols on buildings or signs, but old symbols can stay.
“So is that why people wear the ribbons?” I ask. “As protest?”
“Some people think things were better under the Russians,” he says.
“They’re idiots for wearing them, but the Georgian nationalists are no better.”
We watch a group of young men harassing a group of old ladies, each wearing the ribbons. The scene at the park crystallizes. Sasha points out the police officers and politicians, the Russian sympathizers, the group of Georgian nationalists on the far end of the park carrying signs with an image of the ribbons crossed out like a no smoking sign.
“There they are,” he says. “Maybe a fight will break out.”
We observe the young men following the old ladies away from the memorial and toward the edge of the park. Sasha considers approaching the men, but thinks better of it. He tells me he’s worried he’s talking down to me and I tell him I enjoy his play-by-play. This makes him even more exuberant and he divulges something that happened the year before that he hasn’t told anyone.
“I stole the portrait of Stalin and burned it in the flame,” he tells me.
“It was in the evening but there were still a few people gathered. I ripped it in half and burned the pieces. And then I left the park before anyone could do anything.”
He tells me he’s thinking of doing it again this year, but there are too many people, and he’s afraid of the nationalists.
“Am I a coward?” he asks me. “What would you do?”
I want to watch him rip the photograph and burn it in the flame, but I tell him to listen to his gut. We stand on the edge of the memorial for a few more minutes, Sasha waiting for an opportune moment to rip the photograph away from the group of middle-aged men and teenagers, but the moment passes, and I know he isn’t going to act.
“People are watching us,” he says. “We’ve been standing here too long.”
I follow as he abruptly turns and heads for the fountains. We walk past teenagers posing for pictures in the ankle-deep water. Sasha points out the old men wearing military uniforms adorned with medals. “Some of them are faking it,” he says. “Wearing their fathers’ uniforms for the attention or praise. Most people that fought in the war are dead now.
This guy looks pretty young. I should ask him how old he is, but his medals look real.”
A group of men in leather jackets pass by. “They’re the Georgian nationalist bikers,” Sasha says. “All they care about is ripping ribbons off old people.”
We reach the edge of the park where the anti-Russian protesters are gathered, holding signs. “Georgia is an occupied state,” Sasha reminds me. “They consider the Russians their colonizers.”
Sasha calls out to the old man from the photography event, who’s carrying his camera and photographing the various factions of people. Sasha laments the lack of activity compared to the year before and the man tells us that the opposing political party was apparently banned from entering the park.
“It’s a public event,” Sasha says. “That’s ridiculous.”
“The police must have thought they’d start trouble.”
We reach the edge of the park, and we rest on a bench. “Okay, my monogamous girlfriend,” Sasha says. “Do you want to get food?”
I’m tired of Georgian food, oily eggplant and heavy khinkali, so opt for his favourite buffet, which Sasha warns is going to be a madhouse.
“You take a number and everyone’s salivating over the glass display case,” he says. “It’s usually a war zone in here. They installed the number system to add some civility, but sometimes forego it entirely.”
We try a new location on the edge of Vake Park and Sasha is disappointed that it’s not as chaotic as he imagined. “I guess no one’s heard about this one yet,” he says.
He chews with his mouth open, meat sticking to his lips, as he asks whether I’m still thinking of heading back to Yerevan to finish the residency.
“Davit and Nara have already left,” I tell him.
“You could take the marshrutka.”
“Then what was the point of getting the apartment early?” I say. “I thought that meant you wanted me to stay.”
“I asked you to come, and I’m glad you did,” he says. “But you should think about yourself. Don’t you think it looks bad to leave the residency early?”
“You think I should tell them that I left? You told me it was fine.”
“Well, if you’re not going back you should probably email someone.”
I start to cry, and Sasha tells me he’s sorry for bringing it up.
“I’m only trying to look out for you,” he says. “I say this because I care.”
When we have sex that afternoon, Sasha asks if I’m still on my period and comments that I’m dry. He spits onto his hand and rubs it on my cunt.
“You don’t seem that into it,” he says.
“I am,” I say. We lazily start fucking, but he asks to stop after a few minutes.
“I lost my boner,” he says. “I was thinking of World War Two and the Ukrainians murdering Jews. My mom will be happy.”
He gets up to use the bathroom and I scroll through the pictures of Yerevan I have saved on my phone. I’ve decided to pretend I’m still in Armenia, that I haven’t left the revolution for the asshole of my boyfriend. I hear Sasha showering, and settle on a picture of Mount Ararat taken from the Cascades on my last clear morning, its peak a wisp of cloud floating over the last of the Soviet expansion blocks, weightless and free.
Mother Tongue
Madeleine Maillet
The neighbourhood has the quietude of the muggiest summer days; cars pass on the road, air-conditioner blades turn in backyards, but there are no sounds of kids playing, no birds call. Arousal washes over me like a breeze. Since Maman died, desire, when it comes, has been divorced from any object. When I asked my high school boyfriend what was the weirdest thing he ever masturbated to, he said, summer vacation. Just the idea of it. Now I’m a mildly depressed forty-three-year-old woman with the sex drive of a boy. A respite from noise makes me horny. But my husband’s starting the lawn mower, rupturing the quiet. He’s got his shirt off. His posture has that correctness that comes from the motor’s kick. In the evening sun, he looks like he belongs in a naturalistic painting, but his sweating and squinting undo the impression—it’s 98 degrees Fahrenheit with the Humidex, whatever that means, probably boiling in Celsius. Claire is working on a landscape with her sidewalk chalk in the driveway. I can see her horizon: blue above, green below. She has her shirt off too, her eight-year-old shoulders starting to broaden.