Flight from the USSR

Tina

Fifteen years earlier, on November 18th 1983, a young woman with a hand grenade stood in the open door of an unsuccessfully hijacked airplane. Her face was streaked with raindrops in expectation of the end.

She stood with a grenade in her hand to bring an end to everything, to make the authorities do whatever they had planned. The end was anxiously awaited after the unbearably lengthy siege of the plane. By then, everyone watching the events from the outside, and those sitting on the inside, could only dream for the end to come quickly. Some passengers and crew members were dead in the bullet-ridden plane, their corpses left lying in the aisle. Others were wounded—their moans interrupting the silence in the plane. One of them begged Tina to not explode the grenade. For a long time, Tina gave no answer. But eventually, as if to herself, she said, with a touch of regret:

“Calm down lady, it isn’t even real.”

But the lady still looked bewildered with horror, just like the other passengers. Among their faces Tina searched for the one that was the dearest to her. Finally, but only briefly, she found it and looked into Gega’s eyes.

Their eyes met for only a second. At that exact moment, special forces stormed in from on the top of the plane and filled the cabin with white smoke.

Ever since her childhood, Tina was stunningly beautiful. Boys made eyes at her and chased her wherever she went; school, art class, English lessons, anywhere.

But when she grew up, it simply began to irritate her. It seemed that boys were mostly interested in her beauty, but Tina always believed she was more interesting. For that reason, it is likely that Tina had never been in love before she met Gega.

Tina was a student of the Fine Arts Academy when Gega saw her painting somewhere, by chance, and made sure to get her number. As an experienced actor, Gega had such a voice that Tina would have believed anything he told her when he reached her on the phone to inquire about her work. He said he really liked her painting, and wanted to meet her. But, he also wanted to be sure to tell Tina, right away, that he was physically handicapped. For a long time afterwards, Gega couldn’t explain why he joked about being handicapped, but at the time, Tina’s kind reply simply stupefied him.

“It doesn’t matter whether you are handicapped or not, personality is the main thing for me.”

When he first heard Tina’s response, with an angelic voice that was so unlike the rather wild students of Tblisi’s Fine Arts Academy, he hung up immediately. He really hadn’t expected such an answer, and didn’t think a modern girl living in Tbilisi could be like that. He immediately regretted his crass joke but tried to justify it by the fact that he wanted to hide his true identity. Gega was a young actor, good-looking and extremely talented. Only twenty-two, he had already played successful parts in several films. At the time, he was well known in Georgia and extremely popular in Tbilisi, especially among teenage girls. Gega didn’t want to rely on his popularity. It was why he made up the story about being handicapped and stricken to a wheelchair. After he thought it over for a bit longer, he dialed Tina’s number again, though he didn’t giving up on his phony story.

“Hello?” said Tina in that adorable voice he had already missed. Upon hearing her again, Gega became lost and awkward for a second time. Although Gega was considered a talented young actor, this role was difficult to pull off. He quickly grew embarrassed at his lack of professionalism. He coughed to clear his throat.

“It’s me again,” he finally managed to say, clearing his throat again.

“Where did you go?” Tina asked with genuine surprise.

“Nowhere. The connection simply cut off.”

“What were you saying?”

“When?”

“Before the connection died.”

“I was saying that I was handicapped and that I can’t move without a wheelchair.”

“That’s ok, if you don’t mind, I can come to your place and bring my paintings.”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to bother you and also…”

“Also what?”

“Also I am always at home as it is, and I’d prefer to meet somewhere.”

“I see. I didn’t want to trouble you, but now I am.”

“Let’s meet wherever you want.”

“I’ll come to wherever you prefer.”

“I’d prefer the Arts Academy after lectures have finished.”

“How will you recognize me?”

“Well, you’ll easily recognize me. I doubt someone else looking like me is going to have a date in front of the Academy.”

“I’ve already said I understand your situation…”

“But I still think it isn’t particularly pleasant that some guy in a wheelchair is waiting for a beautiful girl like you after lectures…”

“A beautiful girl like me? How do you know what I look like?”

“I don’t, but whatever you look like, your friends will still be surprised to see your handicapped admirer in front of the Academy.”

“My life is my business.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow what?”

“Can I come tomorrow?”

“Our lectures finish at three tomorrow.”

“I’ll come by at three. I’ll be standing at the monument… I mean sitting.”

“I’ll come as soon as lectures are over.”

“Until tomorrow then.”

“I’ve probably tired you out already.”

“Oh, no, how can you say that…”

Gega really wasn’t tired but he didn’t want to continue the conversation, or rather couldn’t continue it, so he said goodbye and hung up. Then he smiled with a strange sense of pleasure. Apparently completely different girls did live in this city, though maybe there are very few of them, maybe only Tina, but still…

Gega also realized that Tina couldn’t be lied to anymore, as it really was a bad joke. Tina was the last person he wanted to hurt. He spent the night thinking it over while listening to his favourite records. He decided he would explain everything to Tina when they met at the Academy the next day and would apologize. Though he had already made up his mind, he still couldn’t sleep. He kept thinking about Tina’s angelic voice?—the girl who wasn’t like the others.

At noon the following day, he came by his friend Dato’s place. Dato Mikaberidze had a genuine Wrangler denim jacket that Gega prized very much, though he never mentioned this to him. Dato was very generous and would have immediately taken the jacket off and gifted it to Gega. Dato’s generosity was not because his father worked at the Ministry (foreigner tourism). He was simply very generous, period.

But that day, Gega decided to ask to borrow that Wrangler jacket for a day, or more precisely, for half a day—he would meet with Tina, apologize and return the denim jacket to Dato in the evening.

He called loudly from the street and Vazha, Dato’s younger brother, looked out of the window. Vazha’s nickname was ‘Simpleton,’ but he was a kind person, just like his brother. Gega raised his arm to greet him.

“How are you?”

“Alright.”

“Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“It burned down.”

“When?”

“This morning, it’s still burning.”

“Wow! Where’s your brother?”

“Dunno. He wasn’t home when I woke up.”

“I guess you were probably woken up by the fire engines…”

They both laughed loudly.

Gega waived goodbye to Simpleton and turned around to leave, but Vazha kept talking.

“Did you want anything?”

“No, nothing, I’ll come by later.”

“Come on, tell me.”

“Nothing special. I just wanted to borrow Dato’s Wrangler jacket for a day.”

“Hold on.”

Simpleton disappeared from the window and seconds later was standing in front of Gega on the street with the jacket in his hand.

“Take it. You’re really lucky. Dato wears it all the time but left it behind today.”

“No, I’ll get it from him later.”

“Take it, it’s really mine, Dad bought it for me but it was too big for me. Dato only has it for the time being. It’s going to be mine anyway. It’s a real Wrangler. It’s not going to wear out or anything…”

Gega smiled and stretched out his hand to Simpleton. “I will bring it back today.”

“Whenever you want. It’s still too large for me anyways. If you want, you can have it until I grow up.”

Gega laughed loudly.

“And what about Dato?”

“Dato’s going to be a monk, he won’t need jeans anymore.”

Vazha laughed loudly along with Gega, who suddenly remembered that Dato really had a friend at a monastery and often went to see him. Once or twice he had promised to take Gega but so far these were only promises. This was not the time to think about it. He thanked Vazha and gave him a Tbilisi-style hug.

Tbilisi had been the capital for fifteen hundred years, and like in any capital, for all the good things that happened there, there was also a darker side. As Gega left for his date and started to climb up the street that went to the Fine Arts Academy, three men with knives met him and demanded that he take off the jacket.

In those days, old-timers still used to stroll in that part of the city, and so it was a bit strange for a thief to say to Gega: “Hey, man, come over for a sec, I’ve got some business with you,” as he motioned Gega into the entrance of the residential building. Even stranger for Gega, just as he discovered two more ‘happy’ guys in the entrance, was that he was not scared at all. Quite the opposite, he found himself smiling, and calmly told them:

“Don’t waste your time guys, you can’t take it off me anyway!”

Gega was an actor, and in that entrance he spoke very calmly like a person with deep confidence in himself. Such composure surprised Gega. He’d never tried to be a hero and knew perfectly well that in Tbilisi, at that time, it was common for jeans to be taken off people. Like others, he had thought about how he would react in such a situation. Yet he had always thought that he would never let himself be killed if it ever happened, because he wasn’t a supporter of senseless heroism, especially when there wasn’t a need for it. In another place, in another time, he probably would have silently given over whatever was demanded with a smile, but on that day he acted differently. He reacted differently not only because the denim jacket wasn’t his, but because he was on his way to a first date with a girl with a beautiful voice who he hadn’t even met yet.

Two of the three thugs had knives, and before abandoning their robbery and running, they managed to stab Gega. In Tbilisi in those days, most knives were aimed at the legs or buttocks, even during fights, but Gega was stabbed in the stomach, as well as his legs. In fact, though he hadn’t realized it, they had also cut the jacket in their failed attempt to snatch it away.

When Gega came out into the street, he managed to take a few more steps, but having lost a lot of blood, he soon lost consciousness. He fainted right there, on the pavement.

When he opened his eyes, he was lying in a hospital ward. His mother was crying at the head of the bed, silently and carefully stroking Gega’s hand.

“Where is Tina?” Gega asked, looking at his mother. “Who is Tina?” his mother asked, drying her eyes in surprise.

“I don’t know, I haven’t met her yet,” said Gega, smiling at his mother.

Gega was right; he really hadn’t met Tina yet. She waited a long time in front of the Fine Arts Academy looking for a man in a wheelchair. But at that same moment Gega was being operated on at the hospital. He would wait days before he called her.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t make it, and didn’t call you. I’m still in the hospital.”

“How nice.”

“What’s nice?”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean it. I wanted to say something else. It’s nice you had a valid excuse for not showing up that day.”

“I’ll meet you as soon as they let me out of here.”

“You know, if you don’t mind, I’ll come see you at the hospital and bring you some fruit, or tell me what you like and what will make you happy.”

“No, please don’t come here, they’ll discharge me soon and I’ll see you then. Goodbye.”

“I hope you get well soon.”

Gega spent several more days in the hospital, and was visited by his friends and acquaintances that treated him like a hero. By then the whole city knew that the thieves had failed to take the jacket off Gega, he stubbornly joked:

“I was trying to give it to them, but they wouldn’t let me.”

With this repeated remark, he wanted to make clear that he wasn’t a hero. A year later, sitting on death row in Tbilisi’s Ortachala prison, Gega often remembered his hospital days when they wanted to make a hero out of him and he wanted to just be an ordinary person.

They didn’t keep him in the hospital for long, though he still found it difficult to walk. According to the doctors, his full recovery was only a matter of time. After the operation, Gega’s friends, the Iverieli brothers, who studied at the medical college, managed to get a wheelchair for him. In the evenings, when he was finally left alone, tired of all the praise, he would roll in his wheelchair to a black telephone hung on a pink wall at the end of the corridor and call Tina.

He met up with her the day after he was discharged. He went to the Academy in his wheelchair; this time he really couldn’t move around without it. However, Tina was irked by his initial fib about the wheelchair and didn’t talk to him for a week, though he called her every day. Gega attempted to come up with some kind of explanation, but Tina wouldn’t speak to him, though she didn’t hang up either. Staying silent, she just listened to Gega talk.

Gega struggled to explain a joke he could hardly explain to himself. Indeed, it was a twist of fate or karma that turned Gega’s poorly executed joke into reality when he was forced to go on his first date with Tina in a wheel-chair.

Eventually, Gega returned the wheelchair to the Iverieli brothers, who returned it to the hospital.

Dato flatly refused to take back the Wrangler jacket (the blood was carefully scrubbed out and the tear carefully mended by Gega’s mother) and promised to give Gega a new pair jeans.

Yet Gega didn’t want anything but Tina, and thought of nothing else. Only Tina—the most beautiful girl in the world…