გადავწყვიტე, ჩემი პროფესიული შესაძლებლობები გამომეყენებინა და ჩემს ბლოგუნიაზე რამე ჭეშმარიტად ბლოგის ესთეტიკაში დამედო:) პირველი (და იმედია, არა უკანასკნელი) ასეთი ნამუშევარია ზღაპარი თუ მოთხრობა სახელწოდებით: “თხუნელას შესახებ, რომელსაც უნდოდა გაეგო, ვინ დააკუკა თავზე”. ლიტერატურული შედევრის თადაპირველი ვარიანტი გერმანულ ენაზე გამოიცა და მისი ავტორი ვერნერ ჰოლცვართია, ხოლო ორიგინალური ილუსტრაციები ვოლფ ერლბრუხის მიერაა შესრულებული.
თხუნელას შესახებ, რომელსაც უნდოდა გაეგო, ვინ დააკუკა თავზე
ნორმალური ადამიანები (ჰო, ვიცი, რომ ნევროპათოლოგებს, ფსიქოლოგებს და ფსიქიატრებს არ მოსწონთ ასეთი ფორმულირება) თავიანთ დღიურებში ჩანაწერებს დღის ბოლოს აკეთებენ. მე კიდევ, მას შემდეგ, რაც ბლოგში პოსტვა ხელახლა გადავწყვიტე, ჩანაწერებს 2-3 და 4 საათზე ვაკეთებ, თუმცა დიდი იმედი მაქვს, რომ მალე ეს ყველაფერი შეიცვლება და იმ რეჟიმში ჩავჯდები, რომელშიც ყოველთვის მინდოდა ვყოფილიყავი და რომელიც (დიდი ძალისხმევის შემდეგ, ასე თუ ისე დარეგულირებული) თავის დროზე, ერთმა შარსებამ დამირღვია. როცა ამის შესახებ პირველად ვუთხარი, მგონი გაუკვირდა და არ შეიმჩნია, თუმცა ახლა, როცა უკეთ გამიცნო, ალბათ ხვდება რომ ეს უბრალოდ წუწუნი არ ყოფილა, არამედ რეალური პრობლემა, რომელიც კომპლექტში მომყვება:)
როგორც არ უნდა იყოს, მოვრჩი ჯეოსელის ჟურნალის სტატიების თარგმნას, რომელიც საგანგებო რეჟიმში სალომე დეიდამ მომაწოდა:) ამდენი გვერდი ასეთ მცირე დროში არასოდეს მითარგმნია. რა გამოვიდა, ეს სხვა საქმეა:) არა ჩემი – კორექტორების.
8 საათზე გაღვიძებულმა, კროკერს რესტორანში წასვლაზე შემოთავაზებას ვუთხარი უარი. ნუ, ჯერ იმიტომ, რომ ტელეფონზე ვლაპარაკობდი [არიან ისეთებიც, ვისაც 1 წუთზე მეტს ვესაუბრები] და ვერანაირად ვერ მოვახერხე სკაიპში პასუხი და რომც მეპასუხა, მაინც უარი იქნებოდა (რომელიმე ორიგინალური ფორმით), რადგან ღრმად მწამდა, რომ დღეს სტატია უნდა დამეწერა და პრინციპში, ამ მომენტამდეც მწამს.
სტატიაზე გამახსენდა… პოსტებს შორის უზარმაზარი შუალედების შესავსებად, გადავწყვიტე, რომ ჩემს სტატიებს ჩავსვავ უკანა თარიღით. ჯერ Georgian Journal-ში გამოქვეყნებულებით დავიწყებ და მერე სხვებზე გადავალ. თან ყველაფერი ეს ჩემი პუბლიკაციების სიის მოწესრიგებაში დამეხმარება:) ისე, GJ შედარებით ახალი სამუშაოა და ალბათ, ოდესმე დავწერ როგორ დავიწყე იქ მუშაობა, თუმცა აუცილებლად იმავე კონდიციაში უნდა ვიყო:) სხვანაირად არ გამოვა – მცხვენია:)
ხვალ დიდი დღე მაქვს:) ჰუმანოიდური რასის ერთ-ერთ წარმომადგენელთან ვიწვები ერთ ლოგინში. რა გამოვა ამ ყველაფრიდან, არ ვიცი. მარა ძალიან ცუდიც, რო არ იქნება – მჯერა:)
ამ ბოლო დროს, რაღაც ყველაფრის მჯერა:) [აი, პოსტის სათაურიც მოვიფიქრე] თოვლის ბაბუის კი არ მჯეროდა. არასოდეს:)
ეს სიტყვათა შეთანხმება (“ქართველი როკ-სტარი”) ალბათ (სამწუხაროდ), ისეთივე ბუნდოვანია, როგორიც “თანამედროვე ქართველი კინო-ვარსკვლავი”, “თანამედროვე ქართველი მხატვარი” და კიდევ ბევრი სხვა რამ, რაც იმდენად სუბიექტური და ლოკალური გაგებაა ჯერ-ჯერობით, რომ ძალიან გაწყვეტილი აქვს კავშირი დანარჩენ მსოფლიოსთან და, შესაბამისად, მოკლებულია შეფასების ყველანიარ ობიექტურ კრიტერიუმს.
- ანა მაყაშვილი
ლიტერატურის თეორიას, როგორც დისციპლინას, ყოველთვის იდეოლოგიური დატვირთვა ჰქონდა, ვინაიდან, თავისთავად თეორიული მოძღვრება იყო.
დღეს ოთხშაბათია:) ახალი ვთქვი ვითომ რაღაც. ეს დღე განსაკუთრებით არ მიყვარს. კვირის შუაა. მე კი ყველაფერი ნეიტრალური მეზიზღება. დღეს დღისით გაგა გავუშვი სახლში. თარგმანში მეხმარებოდა. ერთ თავს მოვრჩი. კარგი გამოვიდა. მანამ გაგა წავიდოდა ირმამ დარეკა. ვაგზალზე ვარო და მოვალო. არ ჩანს. უკვე რვა საათი გახდება მალე. ალბათ, მანამ ტუალეტში არ მოუნდება, არ მოვა. იქნებ რამე მოუვიდა? :) არ ვიცი, მაგრამ დარეკვა არ მინდა. რაში მჭირდება, რომ პირველი ვიყო ვინც ’ამას’ გაიგებს? :) არ ჯობია ვინმე სხვამ შემატყობინოს… იქნებ სტკივა ახლა რამე… აწვალებენ… ან თავს იწვალებს ხოხვა-ხოხვით გადაადგილებისას… ახლოს ხალხმრავალი ადგილი ეგულება… მიხოხავს… თავზე მტრედები ასკლინტავენ… მაგრამ თავისას არ იშლის… გადარჩენისთვის იბრძვის. ქალია მაინც:) გამძაფრებული ინსტინქტებით, რას იზავ? სისხლზე არაფერი დამიწერია :) არც ვაპირებ. არა, არა, არც შინაგან სისხლდენებზე :)
ვინამპში Blondie-ა. ირმა ისევ არ ჩანს. სამზარეულოში ლიულიუ, ეკა და მანანა ალაგებენ რაღაცეებს. ლოლა გურიჩას დაემგზავრა. ნეტა რის ფასად? :) გურო, ალბათ მომავალ პროექტებზე უყვება. ქალებს ხომ ძლიერ უყვართ ყბედობების მოსმენა? შეჩვეულები არიან. Рок. ისე ყბედობა ცუდი სიტყვაა? არ ვიცი. ბლუყუნს ჯობია მგონი.
აგრესიული ვხდები… ირმა მალე მოდი რა…
By Eka Ghaghanidze
translated by me:)
We meet twice a week. Both of us own the key and can get there whenever we want. However this never happens. We meet in front of the wholesale drugstore, near the traffic lights post. As soon as a familiar gray car appears, I strain my attention in order to have time to open the door of the Opel, tuck up the edges of my coat and get into the cab as fast as possible not to be annoyed by deafening signals of drivers irritated by a minute traffic block and at the same time to deserve Nugzar’s contented smile.
We drive there together in the gray car that has quite convenient smooth leather seats. I would surely experience pleasure driving it for hours in the darkened but still beautiful night city that is drawn in sadness with shyly twinkling lights smiling here and there. And if the stars go mad too, the city would begin flirting just like a virgin scattering the sparkling sparks like flavoured flocks around the thick braid – Mtkvari. But I know the wish is called so to stay as it is and that getting used to circumstances in relation between a man and a woman is more favourable than coming down a peg. So sitting in the comfortable car, I try to enjoy the view that hasn’t been changing for the last two years just like a tape that is stuck on the window. So I am getting used to the view alike permanent impression that the city in the morning is as boring as making the same bad day after day and as used as the shoes worn for some seasons.
On the way, Nugzar buys either some pieces of cake, each kind in twos, or an ice cream and an orange juice. Drinks are in the refrigerator. Coffee is there too. Moreover they are always there. They never end: neither the stock of coffee nor of the drinks. He has an ill heart – Arrhythmia or something like that. We rarely sip: he drinks vodka, I drink beer; but slowly and forcedly at the same time because some secular or religious holiday necessarily coincides with the one of those two days we spend for two or three hours on the 6th floor in a separate room located in outlying district block’s building. So we sit and absorb the drinks with our mouths, the silence with our ears and our still faces with our eyes. This happens before the electricity comes. That’s how we relax – after an effort we have put into getting on foot to the 6th floor because of an inoperative elevator. During the time of our temporary calmness exonerated by the recreation, I think about the labyrinths of unsolved crossword puzzles, while Nugzar thinks about an engine oil or varying rate of exchange. I know it’s really like that and I have no doubt about my intuitive qualities. What else can we do? We sit and wait for the electricity to come. In the light of candles or a lamp, it’s impossible to play cards or watch TV. In most cases batteries of our tape-recorder are low, even crushing doesn’t help them because later it rattles as if it’s fallen into some kind of audio-coma. We sit and drink. Mostly it is tea. We smoke cigarettes. Nugzar doesn’t like talking. He prefers to listen. Auditory organs are indeed an advantage of men. That’s why it’s mostly me who talks all the time. I tell him stories about my work. Sometimes I cheat and inspire events in the stories I had read in comic books. I try to entertain him so that he doesn’t get bored because he might take away the key from me. But I like coming here twice a week rather than staying at home. Sometimes his phone rings. If his face strains or his cheek nerve twitches, it means that his wife is calling. Generally she entrusts him to buy a TV schedule or a dishwashing gel. Nugzar agrees and puts his disconnected mobile phone on the table that gives me a green wink and lets me continue the conversation.
It’s already nineteen and two more centuries and we’re still with an oil-stove. Fujik blazes. I rotate my reddened fingers like a spit trying to recall something about an oil-stove from my grandmother’s stories. That doesn’t work. The stories about kerosene and oil-stove are so old that even grandmothers can’t recall them.
Rarely do we get hungry. We go to the kitchen. I talk there, smoke a cigarette, sitting on a stool I don’t waste my time. I exercise crackling my neck and watch Nugzar slicing a sausage, beating up the eggs, flavouring a sauce. Then he grabs a handle of fervent frying pan with his sweater sleeves down, smartly moving his hand and avoiding getting burned, he puts an unusual omelette on the table, blows at his fingers and says “Put it out!” about my cigarette. We heartily eat. Thought a slow and enduring movement of our jaws and a slightest clink of sliding forks and knives at the plates doesn’t deviate from the moral regulations. We both flirt with each other… I’ve always liked watching men in kitchen. I eat and smile at my quick thought: we live here, rather than visit this apartment twice a week. “It’s so delicious” – I praise his creation and my wish simultaneously.
We enter the bathroom in turns. Lying in the hot water, I’m not able to enjoy the felicity for long because the knock on the door calls me. Forcedly removed from the bath, half-dried-up, muffled in a warm bed I’m waiting for his turn of splashing flavoured foam to end. “Safe sex” – says Nugzar tearing the wrapper, always in the same voice. Sex with a condom. It’s ridiculous. But I do what he wants me to. Before we meet, I usually buy some in the drugstore nearby and keep them in my bag. For a while. As soon as the saleswoman notices me, she silently begins to serve me. From the lower shelf of her desk she offers me exactly the quantity I need. I always have my money ready because I don’t want to see her bothered by looking for a change. I feel very shy. When I was a child I used to buy the things in the same squeaky wrapper, but they were chewing gums. Instead of at the drugstore I had to give change to an old seller at the grocer’s shop. These two sellers are as different as my imagination and life. These last two successfully manage to sting each other.
“I felt myself as a real woman with you” – this is a phrase that satisfies Nugzar’s self-content requirements. And I’m not ashamed of lying to him. Sometimes it’s necessary to lie to withdraw into yourself and not to be bothered by the stinging questions. So that not only he but you too become well settled. In an ashtray you say goodbye to the useless cigarette stub and sorrow at once. Just like a curved embryo they are lying in a transparent cut-glass bowl and when you notice them you feel very satisfied learning that you won’t be facing an old age without pension selling newspapers and 1001 necessary items. You’ve been feeling good so far. You don’t wake up in the middle of the night feeling your hands grown numb. Nor you wet the mattress with an involuntary slaver. Like a fox you slip away hiding your brain full of hopes under the hair-dress. These are not only courses of life but the newly ironed highways that are tickling your heels.
Twice a week, in the evenings, Nugzar leaves symmetrically arranged kisses on my body. With his head on my stomach he falls into a doze. I slip my fingers into his hair and listen to his half-hour sleep that could be told by the sniff and movement of his lips. Walls in this apartment are very thin, so the striking of a clock on the kitchen wall easily reaches us. Bang, bang… it strikes so firmly as if it was an old man gone through the centuries. But it’s only a tiny, white, plastic, and thin and light, one or two-year-old Chinese clock that it really is. The number of the strikes makes us know when we have to leave. I wish this apartment had thick walls or at least, this clock had stopped… We quickly put our clothes on, run downstairs, jump into the gray Opel and stop to talk on our way. Once again I get off the car in front of the drugstore, near the traffic lights’ post and go home.
Walking home with my hands in pockets and nose in my collar I sometimes think about not wanting to see Nugzar’s wife and wanting her to be more beautiful than me, because then the thought that he always goes back to her would torture me.
I walk and I think. I walk and I think.
Then I get tired of sadness.
I walk and I don’t think.
Pleased with today’s meeting I begin to hop playing hopscotch with moving tiles just like a third-form girl.
I go back home.
And the wish that truly has been returning to me for the last twenty years, at the beginning of each December, doesn’t lose its strength. In the frosty wintertime, when my nose or one of my ears – an incomparable candidate of being frozen – reddens and can easily fall down on the ground after any strong hit, I begin to feel a need for sleep just like a brown bear. I would certainly sleep for three months and in the springtime with a little more weight and my sides heated I would join in everyday life. However, to tell you the truth there’s neither ground nor unbearable frost in this city and I have a long evolutionary journey before me until I turn into a bear… I’m being offended by the winter in Tbilisi because it doesn’t support the fulfilment of my seasonal wishes. The weather in this city is sick with some kind of functional disorder with anteroretrograde amnesia. Impudent sun is throwing away twenty-degree rays, fooled by the Greeks it still thinks it is Helios. It’s warm. It’s the middle of January and restless housewives after being idle for some time are airing their blankets. Smoking a cigarette and with nudist shamelessness I’m standing in front of the kitchen window overcoming a fifteen-minute-long waiting. I don’t even forget to exercise my eyes. I don’t read at all because nobody writes anything valuable. This kind of books are already written and read but I can’t avoid eye-skew anyway. That’s how I train my eye pupil: First I look at a scratch on the window, later along the alley. Then I rotate the apples of my eyes from left to right and vice versa opening and closing. Opening and closing. It’s the best way to improve your eye sight.
If we don’t consider distant mountainside and a tiny alley, only some buildings can be seen through the window of our kitchen. The densely built buildings are filling up the whole frame of the window with their height; with their colour they remind me of dirty teeth. But looking through other people’s windows is not amusing – the strange figures have yet familiar to your movements…
Haaaa! – A continuous interjection and a sudden vision rush with 220 volts. Totally unexpectedly I notice his face. “A naked woman with a cigarette in her hand, winking with her mouth open – is very fascinating indeed.” I thought about that later flipping in my bed in the middle of the night. But before that, when I first saw him, I leaped aside so fast that I was about to drop an ashtray. Hidden behind the curtains I don’t dare to move. At first I feel my heartbeat in my throat and then my chin begins to tremble. Bent down crawling on the flooring I manage to draw myself up only at the other end of the window from where a young man is still smiling to me. That means it was not a dream. A stooped silhouette with a wrinkled up forehead is stuck at his window observing our kitchen. He’s looking for me. He smiles again and with an olive scarf around his neck he’s holding its edges at his stomach with one hand. Stunned I move backwards. Three more steps and I would probably find myself at the door. If I move along the wall and won’t stumble I would probably leave the room being unnoticed. So I start behaving exactly like that… Gone out from the kitchen just like tailless lizard I slip under a plaid covering a hurriedly made ottoman by Nugzar and I freeze. I’m waiting for Nugzar. I can’t calm down. No, I won’t tell anything to Nugzar. Men don’t like when someone is touching their property, even with their eyes. Who is he? Obviously he had seen me before. I have such a careless personality – I stand naked in front of the window and smoke a cigarette. Until now I thought that nobody was studying me. I lie on the ottoman and I can’t calm down.
- What’s wrong with you? – I seem to be over-agitated for Nugzar.
- Nothing, – I try to be patient and conscientiously do the duty that has been incumbent on me for the last two years.
Before we leave I dare to look out of the window. There’s no one at the opposite side. What if he’d never been there? Maybe I dreamt. But because of ghosts never get on with such boring people as me, the window-dates went on and on. While Nugzar is having a shower, I stand dressed in a bathrobe in front of the kitchen window with a cigarette in my hand. The man in the olive scarf is now raising his hand. I was standing, smoking, smiling, just a little more and I could have believed that he was the one. The only one whom I would have spent the sleepless nights creating a handmade bound jumper as a surprise for, I would have torn the pages of any cookery book for making the most delicious dinner ever made. And he, with the olive scarf around his neck, relaxing in the armchair would read a newspaper with the enigmatic smile he used to so unselfishly share.
In a week I already knew that there was a bed and a chair in his room. The chair overloaded with outfits looked like a successful piece of avant-garde work. I was able to see the edge of a table with a broken-shaded lamp, a teacup and a clay pot with motley pencils and pens on it. The part of the green curtains, unlike me, was shyly attached to the edge of the window giving the whole space to the thin day curtains. The lights in his room were never on. But I wanted to examine the room more thoroughly. Standing on my toes and smart movements of my neck didn’t help.
From 5:00 to 5:15 p.m. – the mysterious 15-minute-long period of time, when I was able to see him. Who was he? I wanted to… I wondered to know so badly. I was standing with an inner unrest that was unnoticeable for him, I was smiling in response… and in my thoughts I was sinking in a part of this young man’s world as fast as my curiosity was letting me. Nugzar didn’t know anything. He shouldn’t have known that. From 5:00 to 5:15 p.m.… My lover’s seclusion in the bathroom didn’t bother me anymore. I wish these 15 minutes lasted longer; for more than longer, even for some seconds… the creaking of the bathroom door was dividing my hope and the duty of my own free will that I shouldered. I already knew that I was not planning to go back… the happiness was waiting for me at the other end of the window. I was getting angry, simmering like a teakettle left without attention. I knew I had to wait a bit more. Just a little bit more and could have told Nugzar everything I was thinking about him and his bi-weekly sexual acts. Nugzar became a subject of my ironic smile. Suddenly I understood that he was a poor, ugly, paunchy, ridiculous and a bald man. I was wondering how I could have missed all these disadvantages he had, and were revealing day after day. With his paunch shaking he was cutting bread. As soon as he finished eating he used to clean his teeth with a matchstick, smack, swallow the food left in his mouth, unbecomingly for his age he used to caper up and down the stairs and in spite of having taken a bath his armpits were stinking. I couldn’t understand why I was with him for so long. Maybe I felt sorry for him. What else could it be? I had to wait just a little more. Before that I was enjoying myself. I believed that there, in the opposite building, was living the one, the one and only. I had a secret and I couldn’t think of sharing it with anyone.
In two weeks, a hanging demy out of his window had once again scared me… “Tomorrow at 7 p.m. in the Opera garden.” – Inch sized red letters said. I quickly nodded my approval. I didn’t want him to change his mind. He didn’t even notice that. He was rolling the paper. I made Nugzar laugh a lot this evening. I was telling and telling… the jokes that were just coming into my mind, God knows from where. The tears of joy were falling from my eyes; I was stamping my feet and memorizing – “Tomorrow at 7 p.m.”
That evening on my way home I was in a hurry like never before. I had many things to take care of. I had just 24 hours left for preparing myself. But this meant nothing to getting ready for an arrangement with a man of your dreams. The colour of the curtains in his room is green. This is his favourite colour, I suppose. That’s why I would rummage in my wardrobe. I must certainly have a green dress or at least a sweater of that colour. For sure. If not then I will borrow it from one of friends of mine. I’ve spent the night before rolling from one side to another. I think I’ve even slept for a while because I remember myself dreaming about our date: warm snow was falling down, we were sitting in the garden on the bench and unlike my feet my fingers were feeling warm. He was holding my hands at his mouth warming them with his hot breath. “Look, I’ve got a wart on my middle finger” – I laughed not coping with the warmth that had already slipped down to my feet like a tiny brook. Later I was playing with a sweet cherry jam stone, while climbing under the table he was playing with my friend’s daughter. Soon I was loudly laughing and couldn’t answer my friend’s mimic question about this stranger.
At 8:30 a.m. I called my work, saying that I was ill, I filled up the receiver with cough. They let me stay home. I didn’t have time to work! I had so little time left until 7 p.m. I discovered that I really had a green dress. Not actually new but it was all right. The main thing was its green colour – the first attribute that described the beauty of the dress. No other colour could be compared with it today. I could have put on a green lipstick too. But the eyes couldn’t have been hidden from wearing the green lenses. Today it had to be this way. Today I had to be beautiful. Beautiful like I’d never been before.
This is an episode for interested in the meeting of the two.
Scene: Tea house Vincent
Time: 7:15 PM.
Dramatic personae: Woman – around 26, green-eyed dressed in a green dress. Man – about the same age, in an olive scarf.
Action: Tea drinking.
A single scene.
A café with one waiter and two clients. Any quiet music could be heard.
Soft voice of a man is breaking the silence.
Man: I’m glad we met.
Woman: So am I.
Man: Do you mind if I order a cake?
Woman: Oh! Yes I do. I don’t eat after 6 o’clock.
Man: That’s why you look so fine.
They both smile.
Woman: Could you please talk in a simple language?
Man: Sure.
One more smile.
Man: What are you doing in that apartment?
Woman (noisily swallowing a tea gulp): This is a peculiar profession, you know… I’m being painted… I don’t know how to say that…
Man: I understand. I thought the same. Are there many of them there?
Woman: Not too many.
Man: Are they paying well?
Woman: Fair.
Man: I need to ask you something.
Woman (putting the cup on a saucer, breathing deep and trying to calm down: God, what is he going to ask me for. If he invites me at his place, I would certainly go away with him. Will he be surprised if I agree to do that after the initial try? I don’t care!): I’m all ears.
Man: How to say that… I’ve wanted to know you since the day I first saw you. I know you can help me… I want to pose as well. Ask them whether they need a male or not. I’m a former water-polo player with a quite muscular body… I will also earn some money. During this time… do you understand what I’m talking about? This won’t harm me. What do you think? Will that work?
Woman: That will work. That will work. Of course!
Curtains are not necessary, especially the green ones.
I feel very lonely.
Rarely but I do want to cry.
I woke up. My room. The night darkness armed with the thick curtains.
As soon as the sun comes out, I will look for the cat. He must be hiding somewhere. I’m going to find him anyway and make him drink an insecticide mixed with milk… I will pet him and slowly he will die. My Flo (the cat would have been called so, if he had survived) has the stripes like a lion. I will count them all and cry as many ways as the number of stripes he has. So my heart will finally get tired. Tiredness keeps me away from the feeling of loneliness…
I feel better in the morning. I lightly feed my brain, weeded of unnecessary thoughts, with a hope that spring will soon come and thanks to that I don’t feel lonely anymore.
Recently, I walked across Mziuri. There was a music and torn, during the struggle against the microphone, voice coming out the heart of the park. I followed down the flow of young people. Round alike strained seats around the stage were filling up with mixed people. I sat next to a figure wrapped into the white sheet just like an Arab. I lighted up a cigarette. By the time I finished smoking it I already knew that some kind of open-air festival was holding there. In the lower part of the garden, painters were walking viewing their own paintings from time to time, while at the stage others were reading poetry. Anyone who happened to be there. A guy in shorts with crooked legs, chewing a gum was swinging the microphone and saying “if you don’t like my rhymes, you can kiss my…” pointing between his legs. I felt sorry for the people clapping hands. While they were replacing each other in poetry reading, cheerful girls were giving out condoms from the cardboard wrappers. I grabbed them with a cupped hand and went away. Until I threw them away, I was carrying them in my bag for two or three days. I’d rather buy them in the drugstore. Once again I check the small coins on a palm offering them to familiar girl.
We could have met at my place. At my house. Nugzar doesn’t want that. He says that meeting in the outlying district is more reliable. Let it be so. If he wants it to be like that… Twice a week I’m standing in front of the wholesale drugstore, near the traffic lights post waiting for a gray Opel. My heart is thumping… what if he doesn’t come?
By Teona Dolenjashvili
Translated by me :)))
15:00
The leader is carrying an avocado and honey. I’m making a rice salad. I never liked making dinners, and even here I couldn’t hide from this boring work. Sali is just 17, Nazira never enters the kitchen. It turned out that she was making a soup when her children were killed – 5-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl. How did it happen – I don’t know. She never talks about that and always looks at her watch. As if a timer was started for her and she’s waiting for a moment to come back to life.
We silently dine. Sali makes coffee. One of her pink lips is cut and now she stirs a silver spoon in a cup with her lissom fingers. Her brother brought her here. They kissed each other at the door. “We will meet each other in heaven, fidai,” – her brother said to her and left. She’s got chestnut-coloured hair down to her waist. Once the leader asked her to shorten it but she did quite the contrary – dyed and loosened it. She seems to be a bit self-willed. I personally think, that there’s no sense in being concerned about your hair when you’re getting ready to die.
My name is Aminat. I turned 26 in November. I’ve just had my last dinner. Now I’m smoking and looking through a window with my foggy eyes. A narrow Paris street can be seen from that window as well as a bookshop – a parallel world, where Parisian girls go and read books.
I have also read a book. I borrowed it from the leader. It was about the Mulhids, the fortress of Alamut and Fidais – the first suicide bombers. Today I know that I will never finish reading it, although I marked the pages read with a tanned pin – or maybe I will need that pin later for something…
15:10
I’m standing in front of the mirror putting an eye makeup. I fasten laces on my trainers. Put a rucksack on my shoulders and hide wires in my sleeves. In short – I’m getting ready. The leader has already explained what to do to me. Grandiose exhibition-action takes place at the Impressionists’ at 5 o’clock. There will be some senators too. That’s exactly where I’m going to explode… I say goodbye to the girls. Once again I check all the wires and the clock. Sali smiles and waves her hand “See you soon, Aminat!” – She calls me. That felt exactly like her brother…
15:20
I’m going along the shiny stairs of the subway full of advertisements. I travel on the second Charles de Gaulle line. The train rushes along the wet rails as well as this world in front of me. I observe the passengers. People are lost in their own depths. There could be someone among them who might share my happiness and come to the fascinating, magnificent gardens of death with me. Maybe some of them could even understand that this bright, shiny life is a lie and that the truth is somewhere else.
15:32
Streets are always strange. I’m scanning the shops and cafes that line the avenue. I enter the small, elegant boutique and choose the most beautiful scarf. “It’s a marvellous piece of Batik work,” – the seller tries to praise my choice approaching the desk and carefully packing it. I pay and write an address on the package. It’s a very expensive purchase; I don’t feel sorry for the money. This is my last gift. My mother will receive it tomorrow in the morning, on her birthday.
15:37
I’ve decided to take a rest somewhere. It’s just 15:30 and there’s a whole eternity before me. Time stretches infinitely, endlessly… La Campos café is a very nice place. I sit close to the glazed wall so that I can see the street. I like watching people bustling and running to different places. Everyone’s in a hurry to get somewhere – an exhibition, a lunch or a date – in time when there’s only one way to go and everyone will get there in the end, but probably with different tickets.
Garcon is carrying coffee and fried almonds. The coffee is as thick and flavoured as chocolate. Here are sour-ish cherries and dried peaches too. What a pity! I can’t take off my rucksack and comfortably laze in the chair. I drink the coffee with a bomb in my rucksack.
15:45
The café is unanimously, equally fizzing. Impressionists’ front can be seen from the window. Someone is rustling a newspaper at the opposite table. That will be me on the front page of all the newspapers tomorrow, and my countless brothers and sisters will be proud of me. Oh, how strange, even dying people can’t stop thinking about the future that doesn’t exist and has already ended for them.
I feel that someone is staring at me…
15:50
— Do you mind if I sit at your table? All the other places are taken; — He’s an Arab guy wearing a black t-shirt and worn jeans.
He’s ordering pizza… looks like he’s got a real appetite…
— They are very good in this place, aren’t they? – He smiled – My name is Tamir, and yours?
— Aminat.
— You’re just as beautiful as your name, — He quickly felt at home. Maybe he realizes that I don’t have enough time.
— Are you always so flirtatious when you meet people first?
— No. This is my first time. Before I sat down I was watching you from a distance. You have wonderful eyes.
I look at my watch.
— Are you in a hurry?
— Yup. They are waiting for me in heaven.
— I would also accompany you with pleasure. I’m sure that every place you visit will be like heaven.
Flirting seems to be very him. I like conversing with him. It wouldn’t be bad if I leave this world with one more acquaintance.
Tamir offers me an orange juice. He talks about himself. He seems to have graduated from university. Now he works in a bank. Wandering in the streets of Paris, cinematography and football are the things he likes.
— And what do you do for a living? – He tries to guess my occupation.
— I’m a fidai and I’m going to explode exactly in an hour, — I know he’s not going to believe it and that’s why I tell him the truth. He just laughs and tells me that only a strange-eyed girl like me can make such things up.
— Who are you going to blow up?
— Just several senators. Maybe some innocent people too. But there’s nothing to worry about. The French already consider every Arab to be a terrorist.
— Let the others take care of politics. You have to bring up your children.
— But tomorrow my child could also get killed.
— And so you have decided to take the initiative?
I’m looking towards the gallery. The first visitors have already arrived at the exhibition.
— You don’t understand. Probably you never will. I will be a huriah in heavens and I’m going to take seventy close friends with me.
He looks straight into my eyes. He stares at me for a long time, like out of sympathy.
— Why are you saying such things? Is that because you are already fed up with your life? – He asks me quietly and softly.
— No. Why do you say that? I love my life very much. That’s why I’m in a hurry.
We stare at each other as if we were bewitched. Where did this guy come from? Why now when I have just twenty minutes left until I die. Why did I let him go so far, why am I telling him the things I have never told anyone before. And why is he looking at me like that…
— And how much are you paid for this job? – He tries to smile.
— Well enough. I could have lived my whole life with a complete lack of concern upon it, but I won’t need money anymore. They would have sent money to my family, but I’ve decided to transfer it to Palestinian orphans.
— And how is it like… to die?
— I think it’s going to be cool. I already feel it. I have never been so happy before.
Tamir becomes more serious. He crushes his cigarette into the thick, transparent glass ashtray and bends down to me. I feel his breath and life. I get lost and avert my eyes…
16:25
Is it possible to fall in love in a few minutes? Now everything is possible, I guess. This is an illusion. A seducing illusion that is turning me upside-down, an intoxicator of existence is tying me up with a transient net and exploring new, undiscovered spaces for me…
— You look like a femme fatal, — Tamir says to me – That’s so good that I came here, to La Campos and met you. I have never felt this way before.
— This is madness. I’m sorry, I have to go. – It’s time to end this dangerous game with life.
— Don’t go. I beg you, — Tamir catches my hand, — if you leave now, I think that I will never meet you again. Just for a few more minutes…
He doesn’t understand that a few minutes mean the rest of my life, the only life that I have left… that I don’t have a right to delay, neither to think nor to love because thought is fear, feeling – weakness.
— I’m really in a great hurry. I will go now… and meet you tomorrow.
His eyes brighten up. Once again I’m witnessing the fact that we can only believe what we wish.
— Right here, right at this time, — I think his voice trembles too. His naïve, childish simple-heartedness is charming me. My heart runs dry. Nonsense! Unheard of and unimaginable nonsense, but I do love him.
— Yup. Right here, right at this time, — I whisper to him hiding my eyes. My eyelashes become damp.
Now, what do I need these useless sentiments for… again, I feel his hot breath. His lips are touching mine… the noise of the street, hissing, buzzing disappears in a distance. I become wrapped in a white, heady, virginal fog… I’m drowning…
16:43
We part near the entrance of the Impressionists’ exhibition. I don’t want him to see me entering the gallery. That’s why Tamir leaves first and follows the long, colourful street with hands in his pockets. Piece by piece the sun comes out of the clouds. Buildings are shelling just like an egg. It seems that the street stretches endlessly on and runs into the sky…
I enter the central hall of the gallery with wires in my hand. The hall is full of visitors. People in uniforms are also around. My intuition sharpens, feelings become highly abrupt. My mind begins to work more quickly. I know exactly what to do, where to go, what to say and how to smile so that nobody will cast any doubt on me.
I step lightly, scanning the works of the neo-impressionists. Braque, Picasso, Leger… — portraits divided into cubes and triangles, still lives, landscapes — very beautiful paintings, a bit aggressive, a bit mad, a bit strange. Artworks created on the edge of reality and abstraction, harmony and disharmony, order and chaos are drawing my attention and I believe that its authors felt the same way I do now.
The senators have just arrived. There are numerous reporters and art critics here. I’m not looking at the people. It’s seems to me that their bodies and faces are divided into elementary geometric figures… colours are very shiny… too much noise… I’m getting tense and sweat over the wires in my fist … death is thrilling on my fingers…
16:55
Thoughts are mixing up in my head. Delaunay’s “Circular Forms” – in my eyes… in exactly five minutes everything will come to an end. It’s not true when they say that the whole of your life goes by in front of your eyes. There was nothing going by or back. For some reason, Tamir waiting at La Campos, green gardens and a sandy sea-shore was all I could think of and it was for a moment only.
Then everything mixed completely up with the noisy space of the gallery. Next to one of the senators I saw my father who died long time ago. He was wearing an old, worn caftan with a teacup in his hand. With darkened eyes he was staring at Picabia’s monumental monochromic picture. He didn’t even look at me but then Bayatt came close to me who exploded in the airplane two months ago. He pulled in his Shahid belt and smiled to me. “I don’t need anybody’s help” — I whispered to him realizing that I was in a death-trance.
In the corner of the exhibition violins began to play. No, this is not a part of my lively imagination. They are really playing. The exhibition is opening. Cameras are clicking and the hiss of society talking to each other is being replaced by nice music. I’m in luck. Debussy’s music and Picasso’s paintings are seeing me off to the other side – the best thing that a miserable human being can create.
I’m approaching to the senators. Obviously there will many victims. It’s time! I prepare the wires and… blood freezes in my veins… Tamir is standing in the entrance of the hall and he’s looking straight at me!..
16:59
I shouldn’t have lost the time but I was so stunned that I couldn’t even move… the sunshine coming from the huge windows of the gallery is playing on Tamir’s face. He comes close to me smiling and blocks my way to Allah. Just a little more and I will see him off to the other side. How to stop him? How? How?
The visible world is breaking apart like the embossed compositions on cubic canvases and it sails past in front of my eyes. I close my eyes. No, everything’s late… the decision is already made. The sentence is already passed! I’m sorry, Tamir! Can you see? I shiver allover, my heart beats like crazy and my weak, blue fingers are yield to an end…
Ingrown wires on my palms dilate like blood vessels… the distance between two fateful endings becomes smaller… hands, bodies, souls combine and a mortal circle forms!
Didn’t I tell you I was a fidai?
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