Foreigners (17 page)

As more young people arrived, David gave up his table and moved to a place near the entrance of the restaurant, a small corner between a wall and a planter where he could watch the goings-on. He looked on with feelings of both nostalgia and envy as those around him, loosened with drink, began to mingle more freely. Then, thinking of Rebecca back at the cottage alone, he decided to have one more pint before heading out.

Inside the restaurant, the bar was crowded and he had to force his way to the rail. With his drink finally in hand, he went outside again. There were fewer people on the terrace when he returned, the bulk having already made their way indoors to the dance floor that had been set up at the back of the restaurant.

Still holding his drink, David wandered down to the bottom of the terrace, to where two large bouncers guarded the narrow gateway that opened on to the sidewalk. As he approached, one politely held up his hand.

“Sorry, sir,” he said, motioning to the beer in David's hand. “Can't take that with you.”

David looked at his full glass. He took a drink and then set it on a table.

“Just having a last sip,” he said. “I'm finished with it.”

“That's good, then,” the man said and crossed his heavy arms.

“I wonder if you can tell me something?” David said, feeling a little unsteady now.

The second bouncer narrowed his eyes at David.

“What would that be, then?” the first said, his attention divided.

“There's a building,” David began. “On the other side of town. In the middle of a river. It's fallen down. Abandoned. Do you know the one?”

“Afraid not, sir.”

“Oh,” David said, nodding. “Just thought I'd ask.”

The second bouncer looked at him again and stuck out his chin.

“What you want to know for?” he said.

“Just curious, really. I was wondering what it used to be?”

“That's the old paint factory,” the man said, his tone harsh. “Goddamn awful place it was. When they was making red, the whole goddamn river went red. Like blood, it was.”

“So it wasn't a workhouse, then?”

“A what?”

“Nothing,” David said. “Never mind. Have a good night.”

David could see the lights from the bottom of the drive. The cottage was lit up like a beacon on a hilltop. He made his way slowly, dragging his feet in the gravel so they made rasping sounds in the quiet night. The front door was unlocked and he shielded his eyes against the glare in the entranceway. With his free hand he felt for the wall switch and turned out the
light, then he went to the back bedroom. It was empty. He found Rebecca curled up on the rattan sofa in the lounge. Her back was to him.

“Why have you got all the lights on?” he asked.

When she spoke her voice was thick and nasal, as if she had a cold.

“I wanted to make sure you could find your way home.”

David could tell she had been crying. And when she rolled over he saw her nose was raw from blowing and her eyes puffy and red. He remained standing in the doorway for a moment longer, then went over and sat on the edge of the sofa. He ran his hand over her hair.

“I'm so sorry,” he said. “Really. I wanted this to be different.”

“You've been drinking,” she said.

“Yes, a little.”

She turned away from him again and wrapped her arms over her stomach. David took his hand from her hair. He glanced around the lounge and thought what an ugly place it was that they'd come to: the tacky furnishings, the cheap bamboo lattice hiding the kitchenette, the coin-operated lighting. It was perfunctory, seedy, like a roadside motel in a degenerate part of town. He wished they were somewhere else.

“I asked about the old building on the island,” he said, because he could think of nothing else. “It used to be a paint factory.”

“I don't care, David.”

“No,” he replied. “Nor me.”

She reached out then and took his hand and placed it against her belly.

“I can't stop thinking about it,” she said quietly.

“I know.”

“Everything I see reminds me.”

“Yes.”

“When you looked at that little girl today I thought I would be sick. I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit that woman and take her child and run away.”

David nodded his head and did not resist as she pushed his hand hard against her stomach, digging her nails into his flesh.

“And then, in my mind, I was back there again. Standing there in the middle of the bank with it running down my leg. Into my shoes. On the floor. Everyone staring at me. Pointing. Putting their hands over their mouths while it all ran away like goddamn piss down my legs.”

“Don't, Rebecca,” he said, feeling far away from her. “Don't do this to yourself.”

She pushed his hand away and sat up, her eyes dry and angry now. She shook her head and laughed.

“To myself, David?” she said. “Is that what you think I'm doing?”

Rebecca got up from the sofa and crossed the little room and stood on the hearth. She looked down at the electric fire, its bars black and cold.

David went to her, put his arms around her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder.

“It'll be fine,” he said, close to her ear, her hair moving under his breath. “Everything will be okay again. We'll be okay again.”

“No, David.” She stiffened under his touch. “No, David,” she said again. “No, I don't think we will.”

IOSIF IN LOVE

A
LEXANDER
S
VANIDZE LOOKED ACROSS
the table at Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Even now, with three glasses of vodka drunk and the fourth ready to be tasted, he could not imagine this man a priest. It wasn't so much his friend's scruffy appearance: the patchy unkempt beard that struggled to hide his pallid complexion, the startling shock of raven hair, the rough threadbare coat or thin checkered scarf. It wasn't even the fierce black eyes that caught the faint flame of the gaslight burning on the wall opposite; the devil Rasputin himself has ferocious eyes, Alexander thought, and still he is a cleric, of sorts. This man, Iosif Vissarionovich, had been one short step removed from the ecclesiastic life: five years at the Tiflis seminary and just a single examination away from ordination. And yet Alexander simply could not envision him in the intricately embroidered cassock and absurd conical headdress of the church.

“Tell me, Koba,” Alexander asked Iosif, “what was it like? The religious life?”

“Alyosha.” The faint smile that had moments before curled Iosif's lips disappeared and his mouth became no more than a pencil line etched below his moustache. His voice had gone cold, like a lump of coal pulled from the earth, thought Alexander, feeling its chill.

“Alyosha,” Iosif said again, his tone lighter this time, and his smile returning. “I have told you, Alyosha, that I do not wish to speak of the church. It is a hideout of deceivers and hypocrites, backward-thinking old men who pollute the minds of the workers with their hypothetical God. All of them hand in pocket with the Tsar and his sycophantic ministers, intent on keeping the proletariat pinioned to the stinking earth with their pig-fattened thumbs.” As he spoke, Iosif's eyes grew darker still, even as his smile widened, stretching the whiskers on his chin and accentuating the randomness of his beard. “But do not worry, Alyosha, my friend. In time they will be called to answer for their liars' deeds. Then we shall see about this saviour of theirs.”

Iosif began to laugh as if he'd just divined the humour of an elaborate joke, and Alexander watched in strange wonder at the paradox that was his friend's face. In repose it had a sternness that was frightening; it was not so much that it was cruel, as simply, and disconcertingly, devoid of emotion. But when Iosif laughed, his entire face crinkled; even his thick-bridged Georgian nose scrunched up, giving him an almost pixieish quality.

“You know, Koba,” Alexander said, laying a hand across Iosif's forearm, “it would not do to have Kato hear you talk such.”

Alexander knew that the mention of his sister would quiet Iosif, and quiet now was how he wanted him. Though revolutionary talk was rife in Tiflis, it was best kept behind closed doors—especially now that the
gendarmerie
had circulated their photographs. While he wouldn't admit it to Iosif, even being in this tavern unnerved him. That this quarter was sympathetic to the cause did not seem to help the matter. There were many ears about, not all of which, Alexander was certain, were so friendly that he and Iosif were safe from being turned over to the authorities for a fistful of kopecks.

Iosif, despite his best efforts, now wore the face of a fool, and looking at his friend, Alexander could tell that he was angry. Yet the buffoon that took up residence in Iosif's cheeks, adding to them traces of scarlet that not even the frigid winds of Irkutsk had been able to muster, would not allow this spleen to gain purchase.

“How is Yekaterina?” Iosif asked, an idiot-like shyness descending upon him.

Alexander lifted his glass to his mouth and as the vodka slid warmly over his tongue, offered a mockingly noncommittal shrug.

“Has she,” Iosif said quietly, leaning forward, “asked about me?”

“My dear Koba,” Alexander said, finding it was now his turn to smile, “you know how little our sweet Kato asks for.”

Iosif could see he was being toyed with but refused to rise to the bait. “But me?” he whispered. “Has she anything to say about me?”

“Why don't you ask her yourself?” Alexander replied, pushing his empty glass into the middle of the table. “Come eat with us this evening.”

For the briefest of moments, so fleeting that he thought he may have imagined it, Alexander saw worry flicker through his friend's black eyes. But Iosif was quick to recover himself, and with a cough he chased the anxiety away.

“I do not believe your mother would welcome my company,” he said coolly. “She does not think highly of me, I am afraid.”

“Koba,” Alexander said as delicately as he could. “You, of all people, should know how little it matters what a mother thinks, if you will forgive my saying.”

“True,” Iosif replied. “Though I did not wish to say as much.”

“I would have thought by now,” Alexander said, laying his hand again on the other man's arm, “you would have realized that to me you can say anything. Besides,” he continued, lowering his voice, “you must come. We need to talk about Erevan Square. If we're not careful, that Kamo will blow a hole in the middle of Tiflis. But this,” he said, looking warily about, “is not the place to talk.”

Iosif nodded. “You are right, of course,” he replied, casting a glance at the men sitting at the surrounding tables. “No one is to be trusted.”

“He is a pig,” Alexander Svanidze's mother said to him as she lifted the heavy kettle from the iron stove-top. “Do you see him? The way he eats? Sucking the walnuts from his salad and
leaving them on the side of his plate. Does he know the trouble it was to get those walnuts? Is he a squirrel collecting them for winter?”

Alexander looked back down the darkened corridor toward the sitting room; he could hear Iosif's annoyed voice. Things were not going well. He had not expected to see David Suliashvili sitting before the hearth with Yekaterina's hand in his own when he arrived home from the tavern. He was only thankful that Iosif had had errands to run and did not accompany him.

“Please, Mama,” Alexander said in a hushed tone. “Please keep your voice down.”

“Why?” she mocked. “Is the terrible Koba liable to silence me in my own home?”

Alexander glanced nervously at his mother. She had not seen Iosif Vissarionovich's temper, had not witnessed its swift and astonishing brutality. He left her then and made his way back along the murky passageway to the sitting room. There he found David Suliashvili sitting before the hearth again, but Yekaterina no longer sat beside him. His sister had moved to the rocking chair, where she sat with her embroidery, stitching the elaborate design into a traditional shawl that she hoped to sell at the Tiflis market. Alexander noticed, however, that the needlework did not command the whole of his sister's attention. Each time she drew the thread through the material she cast a glance across the room to where Iosif stood, one hand resting on the mantelshelf, the other gesticulating, using his newly affected ebony pipe to drive home the point he had just made about the Tsarists' betrayal of the people. Looking at his friend, Alexander could not help but
feel the twinge of sympathy. Iosif, after their meeting in the tavern, had returned to the safe house to change his clothes in preparation to see Yekaterina, and he stood before them now wearing shiny black trousers and an oversized peasant blouse that, for all its bagginess, only served to accentuate the withering deformity that knurled his left arm. He had also trimmed his beard, but had done such a poor job of it, in nervous haste, Alexander imagined, that it appeared even more erratic. On his head he wore a Turkish fez, which, whether out of forgetfulness or intent, he had not removed during the whole of dinner. It seemed to be causing him some discomfort, but he made no move to relieve himself of it. In all, he cut a rather foolish figure; he looked a poseur. Yet Alexander could see that to Yekaterina he appeared anything but; when she looked at him, she did so with eyes filled with warmth and reverence; it was as if she was seeing not a shabbily dressed and awkward suitor, but a dashing brigand.