“I swear on my children, they’re real Levi’s.”
Then he turned and looked at Giorgi again. All business, he continued:
“There are loads of clients for them. But you have to tell me the price, buddy, if you leave them with me.”
“I need medicine for a child and that’s why I’m selling them, and I know nothing about prices at all. It’s the first time I’m selling anything,” Giorgi said.
Chashka and Moshe looked at each other. Then Chashka turned away, took the medicine out of the cupboard and handed it to Giorgi:
“I’ll deduct the price out of the jeans price. Come tomorrow and get the rest of the money from Moshe.”
Without another word Giorgi put the medicine in his pocket and said goodbye.
He was sure they’d turn him down for this job too, but he still went by the Research Institute to get the official answer. They apologized to him in the personnel department:
“They have considered your application, but there are no vacancies and probably won’t be any until next year. Bring your documents next year and you might get lucky.”
“I’ll already be very far away next year,” Giorgi told the lady wearing red lipstick. He politely took the documents back from her. He put the papers under his arm and, as soon as he was on the street, lit a cigarette. He crossed the street, stopped for a minute on the bridge, calmly threw the documents into the River Mtkvari and continued on his way. He asked a passerby for the time and took a trolley-bus. He had to see the brothers and he knew they would be home at this hour since it was already lunchtime and they always had lunch together at home with the family.
Paata opened the door for him and led Giorgi into the large dining room, where the hosts were sitting around the table. They all stood up to greet Giorgi. He wasn’t hungry, but felt he couldn’t refuse the father of his friends, so he sat at the table. Even during the meal the father read the Pravda newspaper. The elder son quipped to his father with a smile:
“If there were any truth in these newspapers, they surely wouldn’t cost five kopeks.”
“In Soviet newspapers I only read the news about foreign countries.’ Vazha, the father, said. He took off his glasses and smiled at his son but he wouldn’t leave his father alone:
“Aren’t you interested in the Soviet news?”
“I listen to Voice of America for that,” Vazha said, still smiling as everyone laughed. “It’s easier to determine the truth that way.”
For a little while no one broke the silence until Vazha asked:
“Aren’t we going to offer a drink to your guest? We don’t want him to say afterwards that we gave him a ‘dry dinner.’”
“Thanks very much, but I’m in a hurry,” Giorgi said and looked at the brothers.
“If you’re in a hurry, then we’ll drink quickly. How much is for us to decide, right?” Vazha said cheerfully.
“I really have to go,” Giorgi said and made a motion to stand up and looked at the brothers again. “I just dropped in to see the boys.”
“That’s what young people are like nowadays,” Vazha said with a smile. “Thank God we don’t live in America and you can’t buy it here, or else you’d probably be drinking coca-cola, instead of wine.”
Still smiling, Vazha shrugged in resignation and got to his feet. Giorgi thanked his hosts once again and followed the brothers into their room.
“I’m ready. I threw my papers into the river today,” he said quietly, but convincingly, as he waited for their reaction.
“You must mean into the Mtkvari,” Kakhaberber joked, as Paata continued very seriously:
“You’ve kept your passport, haven’t you?”
“I have. And what have you done?”
“What were we supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to see the monk.”
“We have.”
“And?”
“We haven’t told him anything yet. He’ll be here in a few days and we’ll talk to him.”
“Will he agree?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“We have to get him to agree. We desperately need him. He has to get the weapons into the airplane.”
“We know. They’ll search the rest of us.”
“Last summer when we went to Moscow, there was a priest on our flight and we watched him. He wasn’t searched. He was even treated with extra respect for the other passengers to see.”
“I know. That’s why we need him so much. In any case, I’ve made up my mind that I’m going. I already know I’ll never get a job here.”
“What if I did have a job, what’s the point? I’ll have studied for seventeen years and will be given a hundred and twenty roubles a month, plus deductions.”
“I’m off,” Giorgi interrupted and stood up. He said goodbye to them both and took out a cigarette: “I’ll have it when I go outside.”
“At the end of the week we’ll know the monk’s answer and let you know.”
“I’m waiting on you.”
Giorgi raised his arm and said goodbye to the brothers once again, and then left.
Manana opened the door for him as Giorgi kissed her. He took the child’s medicine out of his pocket.
He handed it to his wife with a satisfied look and sat down on a chair:
“How is he?”
“Asleep.”
“Tomorrow I’ll have some money too.”
“They must have been so happy to offer you the job they’re already giving you your first salary tomorrow.”
Giorgi smiled.
“They refused me.”
“You took the papers?”
Giorgi nodded to Manana.
“Give them to me. I’ll put them away. They might be of use someday.”
“Where are you going to put them?”
“I’ll put them under your Levi’s.”
Giorgi studied his wife’s face carefully, trying to figure out whether she had already found out what happened to his jeans. Unable to read her thoughts, Giorgi replied boldly:
“I don’t have the papers anymore.”
“Where are they?”
“Probably already in Baku.”
Now it was Manana’s turn to smile:
“If you threw them into the Mtkvari, your papers haven’t even reached Rustavi yet. If you change your mind, you could meet them there.”
“I’m not going to change my mind anymore. Everything’s already decided.”
“What are you going to do about us?”
“I’m going because of you, so I’m not going to leave you here, am I? Let me get out of here first and then, of course, I’ll take you too.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“But you’ve decided to go for good?”
“I have.”
“You’ll probably go wearing those new Levi’s.”
Manana didn’t smile, but for some reason the joke angered Giorgi. He got to his feet, took out a cigarette, lit it, and then put it out again. He left, slamming the door behind him. In his anger, he forgot that the baby was asleep.
On November 18th 1983, just as Giorgi was wounded and received a fatal bullet during the hijack attempt, he probably looked back to the evening he showed his little son a bright star in the sky, telling him to wave at it if he ever missed him…
The Sea
The Black Sea was calm and so still that it hardly moved. This was usual in autumn, before the stormy and tempestuous days of winter. At sunset, the sun was big, red and beautiful.
Tina and Gega would watch the sunset from the balcony of the house. There, you could see the entire shoreline, which was thoroughly controlled by Russian border guards with submachine-guns. Turkey was only a couple of villages away. Getting close to the border, even within a few kilometers, was forbidden of course. Tina and Gega rented a room in a house that stood high on a mountain slope with a wonderful balcony. The hosts were Laz and, like most Laz, they often had delicious Black Sea fish to eat. They frequently invited Tina and Gega to lunch and dinner. They became very close to their hosts, but Gega was careful to study English in secret. He did not wish a family that lived so close to the border to find out and grow suspicious. That’s why it was even a bit comical to be learning new words together with Tina in whispers. She covered him in kisses after each correct answer.