Flight from the USSR

Giorgi

“Take him for a while, will you?” Manana asked her husband in a very tired voice. Giorgi took the baby who had already been crying nonstop for an hour.

Manana closed the bedroom door and sat down on a chair in the kitchen. She was about to light a cigarette, but changed her mind because the baby had begun to cry harder. Manana went back into the room.

“Give him to me,” she told Giorgi and took the baby back again.

“What should I do?” Giorgi asked his wife vaguely, as Manana answered exactly as he expected:

“Nothing.”

It was more the voice of a tired woman than that of an angry wife. Giorgi went to the kitchen, opened the small window and lit a cigarette. He smoked it quickly and nervously because, like any young father, it was baby’s crying which drove him crazy more than anything else. Normally he had a calmer disposition and could put up these things.

He smoked the cigarette till the end and then opened the fridge. It was empty. He closed the door in dismay, stifling the urge to curse. But his frustration quickly subsided when he tiptoed to the bedroom door. The baby had stopped crying. Giorgi carefully lifted the curtain hanging on the door to the bedroom. Mother and child were both asleep.

Giorgi lit another cigarette, more relaxed this time, and opened the little window again. He didn’t throw the stub out of the window as he usually did, but extinguished it under the tap. He lifted the lid of the trashcan, very carefully, and threw the stub away. Then he opened the empty fridge and closed it again.

“Surprised it’s empty?” asked his wife.

Giorgi turned around quickly. “I thought you were asleep,” he said as he sat down on a chair.

“I was, but I have to prepare food for the baby.”

“It might be his earache again.”

“It might.”

“Don’t you have that medicine anymore?”

“No, and I can’t borrow it from the neighbours anymore either.”

“I’ll buy some tomorrow.”

“With what?”

“I’ll buy it.”

“Are you going to borrow again?”

“I’ll buy it.”

“It’s hard to find too.”

“I’ll get it from Chashka.”

“It’ll be very expensive at Chashka’s.”

“I’ll buy it.”

“Let’s have some tea. Have you done anything about the job?”

“They’ll tell me tomorrow.”

“Will they take you?”

“Probably.”

“They won’t take you anywhere. Why do you hope they will?”

“They don’t know about my criminal record.”

“Even if they did, you were officially acquitted, you even have that rehabilitation sheet in your personal file.”

“No one ever looks at that sheet.”

“And you, of course, never tell them to read all the documents to the end.”

“Of course.”

“Your dignity and self-respect wouldn’t allow that.”

“I can’t beg.”

“Why do you hope these people will take you then?”

“I took out from the file what was unnecessary, before giving it to the staff department.”

The husband and wife both started laughing, but immediately remembered their child, and put their hands over their mouths.

“I’ll fry some potatoes quickly,” Manana told Giorgi. “There are still some left and it’s not too much trouble.”

“I’m not hungry,” Giorgi said as he lit another cigarette on the gas fire and opened the little window.

In the morning, Giorgi left home early. He looked at the parcel under his arm, once again, and took the trolley-bus to Lenin Square. From the square, he walked down Leselidze Street and turned towards the synagogue.

Several Jews were standing in front of the synagogue and Giorgi asked them if they had seen Chashka by any chance. They were reluctant to talk to a complete stranger. What business could Giorgi have with Chashka? He hadn’t seen him before but knew, like everyone in Tbilisi, that Chashka was selling foreign medicine that was hard to find locally. Giorgi didn’t know what Chashka looked like, but he intuitively felt that Chashka was standing there at the moment, so he stated his reason directly:

“I need medicine for a child.”

With his intuition and experience, Chashka knew this man was a real client and not someone from the KGB or other agency. He approached Giorgi.

“Come on,” he told him, leading him into the ground-floor flat of a nearby house. Chashka opened a notepad and offered a chair to his visitor. Out of curiosity, Giorgi tried to look around the room, but Chashka cut to the chase:

“What medicine do you want?” he asked as he looked into his notepad again.

“German eardrops, I need it for a child. He hasn’t slept for three nights. A neighbour gave us some Bulgarian stuff, but we’ve used it all.”

“That Bulgarian stuff is no good, you need either German or French,” Chashka interrupted him, accompanying his words with a gesture meaning, “there’s nothing else one can do.”

“Have you got it?” Giorgi was so nervous for the answer that he was about to light a cigarette.

“That medicine is generally very rare, and also very expensive,” began Chashka before Giorgi interrupted him:

“It can’t be more expensive than these,” said Giorgi, putting the parcel he had under his arm on the table. He opened it quickly and showed the contents to Chashka. Inside were new, genuine American jeans, which even Chashka was surprised to see. He eyed them for a long time, and then called to Moshe, who was standing in the yard. As soon as he came in, Moshe immediately understood without a word what was going on, and carefully inspected the jeans. Then he looked at Giorgi, smiled smugly, and said to Chashka:

“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…