1983.
March.
Those who have coronary artery disease tend to feel worthless. Take the distinguished composer Lado Menteshashvili of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, for example – he takes his blood pressure several times a day. For the last few days the arrow has teetered between 150 and 90. The composer takes medication to lower his blood pressure. His hypertension is linked to two things: a) a secret lover (his former student Keti) and b) the closed contest announced by the Composers' Union. The business with Keti needs no explanation: it's hard work wavering between a wife of 42 years and 260lbs and a 22-year-old student, but contests are more complicated still. Soon it will be time for the next festival in honour of the capital city ('Tbilisoba', as the government calls it), in Georgia they are awaiting the arrival of the All-Union Secretary General, and the Republic's leading composers have been summoned to the Central Committee and asked to take part in a closed contest. 'We need a song about Tbilisi,' says the Secretary to the Ideological Division of the Central Committee. 'Something contemporary, pretty, easy to listen to...' Further details: the Secretary General will be accompanied in Tbilisi by the famous Yugoslav singer Joanka Karlovich, who will perform the new song at the Tbilisoba festival concert.
'Why not a Georgian singer?' they ask the Secretary to the Central Committee.
'Georgians will be singing at the banquet,' they are told.
Why did it have to be an internal contest? The composers don't like it. One of them should have been told straight out, 'You're going to write it' or 'We've chosen you for the job'. It's not as if they don't know who'll produce what, is it? Isn't this all a bit.. unseemly?
It's a well-known fact that Soviet bureaucrats have a kind of telepathy when it comes to the worries and concerns felt by their cultural workers in particular situations. And now, too, it seems he's read their minds: like a kindly and experienced teacher, the Secretary to the Central Committee explains their reasons for making this an internal contest. Nor is he reluctant to bestow a smattering of superficial affection on his guests; he approaches each of the six composers in turn (for only six have reported to the Central Committee), pats them on the shoulder and waist, looks proudly at each as one might look at an innocent child, all the time with the expression of someone giving a protracted apology.
'So, Comrades, how should we have chosen you?' he says. 'Do you really think it would be fair if we'd summoned one of you to the Central Committee and just given him the commission? We wouldn't have dared, Comrade Shalva... We would never have ventured to do such a thing, Comrade Sandro... How could we have singled you out, Comrade Vladimir?... We simply couldn't have taken on such a responsibility. We value you all. And we are proud of you all.'
The composers cannot afford to sulk too much (nor is it worth getting irritated with high-ranking officials) because all are aware that, one way or another, the six of them are in a privileged position; there are countless composers in the country who would apply themselves assiduously to the task of writing a song about Tbilisi, but only these six have had the chance to be among the chosen ones. Failure to appreciate that fact would constitute ingratitude. All the more so under these conditions:
'It shames me greatly to touch on financial matters at all, but they need to be discussed too, so what else can I do?' The Secretary does his best to blush with embarrassment. 'The winning composition will be announced by a three-man jury from the Cultural Ministry and the First Secretary, and the winner will receive a prize of 50,000 roubles.'
The composers' cheeks burn. I should find out who's on the jury, each one thinks, and make a tactical approach...
'And finally,' the Central Committee official lowers his voice, 'a humble request: do not let anything slip about the contest just yet. We will announce it ourselves in good time. Then the gossip and speculation will begin and with it your torment.'
Everyone apart from the composer Lado Menteshashvili tries to somehow get the Secretary to the Central Committee on his own (everyone has prepared their own personal appeal), but no-one manages to linger in the office for longer than anyone else – they scupper each other's chances: nobody stands up first. Initially Comrade Lado had wanted to do the same, but he's no longer in the mood; his thoughts and feelings are taken up with former-student-Keti (I'm pregnant, she had said that morning to the composer with his 260lb wife and two grown-up children), so he happily relinquishes the Secretary to the Central Committee, surrenders him to his colleagues as their lot and totters hypertensively out of the room.
How should he write? What should he write? Where should he look for a melody? The only thing that comes to mind is the voice of former-student-Keti. He dedicated two compositions to his favourite student (even though, it seems, he forgot to write the dedication anywhere): the piano suite 'Elegy for the river Vere' (they shared their first kiss in that gorge) and a duet for clarinet and percussion. But now he has the feeling he won't be able to create anything, especially for Tbilisi (and anyway, there are already no fewer than four songs about Tbilisi) – before him he sees only former-student-Keti, with bags under her tear-stained eyes, and all he hears is this: 'I'll get rid of it, if that's what you want, I'll go by myself, but you need to tell me, you need to decide'.
Staggering like a drunk the composer heads off down Dzerzhinsky Street. He leaves behind him the gold-coloured Lenin that stands in front of the Central Committee, he tries to ignore passers-by, and in his mind addresses the vision of Keti:
'Don't ask me... I'm a nobody... a good-for-nothing...'
It's quite a long way from the Central Committee to his house (51 Barnov St.). On the way he has time to start crying four times. It's a good job passers-by don't recognise him (as a rule, composers rarely get recognised in the street). True, there was that time a group of schoolchildren stopped him for his autograph ('Comrade Lado, we really love your 'Seated on a branch, they slayed me'), but if you take into account how often his picture is printed in the magazine 'Soviet Art', say, then in theory he should turn many more heads. Apparently his looks are too ordinary: a hook nose, black moustache and a shiny head with a strip of hair round the back. In Soviet Tbilisi men like that are ten a penny.
'What was it she liked? What attracted her to me? What did she want?' Whether angry with Keti or with himself, the composer opens the door to his flat. He tries to change, quickly, to calm himself down, to give his 260lb wife his customary manly scowl. 'Did anyone call me?' he wants to say, but his voice fails him, he is overwhelmed, realising that in an instant his dignified frown, the benevolence of his 260lb wife and children and, most importantly, his customary entry into the flat could all be lost.
'You came in so quietly,' his wife says to him..
'Did anyone call for me?' A lump sticks in Lado's throat.
His wife hangs lovingly from his trembling shoulders, and though his skin, hair, scent, and even his way of standing exude calm and stability, the composer almost blurts everything out, almost opens his mouth and tearfully tells his sorry tale, almost says everything, begs for an enema to flush out his sins, to make them gush from him like sentimental sewage; the words lodge behind his teeth and he has to rush quickly into his study lest they force the illicit information out like fillings...
'I must suppress my sorrow by writing music!'.
Lado recalls Shostakovich's words: no matter how bad you feel, you must nonetheless write diligently.
'Do you want some dinner?' his wife asks him.
How they love to eat in this family, and how unfair that he should lose his appetite now!
'Yes.' He forces himself to eat, not to break a single tradition!
All the same, he goes into his room first. He thinks of the poet – he needs to find the poet. He will write the music as one might write a poem. Or maybe he should first find a theme? He created his song cycles 'Maia' and 'The Dadiani Verses' based on poetic texts, whereas his famous 'Mandolina' came to him by itself, without words. But for this project he doesn't think either method will work. The image of former-student-Keti is still there in front of his eyes, reproachfully intoning 'I'll get rid of it, if that's what you want... I'll get rid of it, if that's what you want'. Maybe he should just build something around those words, a song ('Tbilisi, expectant city') or – even better – an oratory ('Songs for unborn children').
He feels unwell. He goes to eat. His 260lb wife puts on another pound.
Lado doesn't manage to concentrate on music that day or the next. Keti chases the melodies from his heart. In the morning his finds a phone box, inserts 2 kopeks and calls his former student.
'I'll see you this evening,' he tells her, 'around 5. Will you have time?'
'Where?' The sadness in Keti's voice is like a challenge.
'At The Tea-house.'
He comes out of the phone box ten years older. Thank God nobody recognises him.
What should he tell Keti at five o'clock? Should he explain things to her in a loving way or should he make her hate him? Give her roses or palm her off with money? The evening is a long way off. Where should he go, he wonders? To the conservatoire? To the Composers' Union? Whom should he ask for help, with whom should he share his innermost thoughts? One brother lies in Vake cemetery, the other lives in Moscow. There's no point talking to his childhood friend Seva; he already knows what he'll say. Maybe he should speak to his son Rezo, man-to-man. No, the boy won't understand. What's more he has exams in the summer: he can't upset him – he'd fail, and then what the hell would he do, he'd never be able to forgive himself! Maybe he should talk to the Secretary to the Central Committee?
His feet take him to the gardens in Vera. There are weary pensioners dotted all over the place like weeds; at first he's startled, but then, when he realises the sorry creature reflected in the window of the Chess Palace is him, and not somebody else, he feels a sudden razor-sharp stabbing pain in his chest – just a week ago he'd been so young, vigorous and happy... by evening he'll have lost another ten years off his life.
The composer lingers outside the Blue Monastery. Why have I stopped here again, he asks himself, seemingly perplexed, and yet he doesn't move on, stays rooted to the spot like a mushroom. Is it in use, he wonders, and looks all around (as if checking he hasn't been seen). He enters the church. At first glance, it doesn't look completely non-functioning, but it's equally clear that it's not actively functioning either: the only person he sees inside is a cleaning lady, on all fours, a wet rag in her hands.
'They're on a break, dear,' the woman tells him.
'Oh, I'm sorry,' the composer says. Strange, he thinks, they even have breaks in churches.
'Until 2 o'clock,' continues the woman, and suddenly sneezes. 'Oy!' she laughs. 'My hands are frozen...’
The words 'bless you' spring to Lado's lips, but he says nothing – why should he even give a second thought to a stranger's sneeze? He goes outside. Again he surprises himself: he does not want to leave. They're on a break at the moment, he thinks, which means at two o'clock something's going to happen. He stays. He kills time wandering in the garden. At two he returns to the church. He enters. This time he doesn't even see the cleaning woman. Lado looks at his watch – five past two.
'Can I help you?' he hears.
Lado can't work out where to look.
'It was open,' he says, 'The lady said you were on a break...'
‘It's the priest, Father Davit. Standing in the corner.
The priest stares at him in amazement.
Lado is taken aback. Has he been recognised?
'Can I help you? What was it you wanted?' the priest asks again.
That's the crucial question. What was it he wanted? Why had he come back into the church?
He pauses for a second (just as he does before the rousing allegro in his two-part symphonic composition 'The Unseen') and utters the following words so softly ('pianissimo possibile', as former-student-Keti would say) you would think they were the worst words ever spoken.
'Will you hear my confession?'
'Aren't you Lado Menteshashvili?' the priest smiles at him.
I could really do without this right now, the composer frets.
'Yes... I am,' he says.
'Well! How... Goodness!...' laughs the priest. 'You are the last person I would've expected!... Me and the lads used to sing a four-part version of your song 'Longing'... before I became a priest, that is... at university... Yes... Confession? Of course... whenever you wish...'
The composer doesn't like the priest's tone, and thinks about leaving. Father Davit, as if he's read the composer's mind, adopts an expression more fitting for a priest.
'Have you ever been to confession before?' His tone is somehow more detached.
'Yes,' answers Lado.
'When?'
'A long time ago. My eldest brother used to go to church, he knew Callistratus...'
'Which Callistratus?'
'The Catholicos-Patriarch.'
'Aha.'
'Yes. Anyway, I went to confession too. When I was in the last year of school.'
'And now you want to again?'
'Would it be possible?'
'For you, yes.'
Lado follows the priest through the carved archway by the altar. How is he supposed to bare his soul to a complete stranger? He doesn't even know his name, although in the event he takes even himself by surprise and tells the priest everything that's on his mind (and in his heart). Father Davit conducts the proceedings with exemplary professionalism. The composer mentions former-student-Keti; because of her he's lost all peace of mind, he says, and that's precisely why he can't deal with work anymore, can't deal with the Central Committee's contest - and he is suddenly so moved that his eyes fill with tears, he divulges the news of Keti's pregnancy and hides his face in his wrinkled hands.
They talk for forty minutes more.
'If she loves you she'll have the baby and won't destroy your family,' concludes the priest. 'The main thing is not to refuse to become a father. Don't destroy a life. The two of you just need to agree some conditions. Bring her to me, if you like, and I'll give her my advice, talk to her.'
Lado feels strangely relieved. He thanks the priest: I had to tell someone, he says, or I'd have had a heart attack. Satisfied, he leaves the church ('If she really loves me she'll do what I tell her... if she really loves me...'); he feels liberated by his confession, and more sure of what it is he's going to say to Keti, as if he's found the words, the theme, even the melody... He walks past the windows of the Chess Palace without a care, no longer growing older by the minute.
And now we must leave this man here. He can sort out his problems by himself, without us. Our object of interest now is Fr. Davit Mujiri. It is him we need to follow.
And besides, surely we want to know where he's going? Where else but the place he doesn't even like going to, but often has to, for various reasons. At this point one thing needs to be said (it's important to him) – he didn't go there of his own volition, he went because he had to. You might even say because they forced him to.
If you were to ask him, he'd tell you he hates days like this like the plague. On several occasions he's feigned illness, other times he's lied to those waiting for him; but this time he cannot lie – he's had a meeting with a man known to everyone, the favourite composer of the Tbilisi elite. If he were to hide this and, God forbid, somebody found out, his punishment would be severe. Even though he's just a normal priest for ordinary people (unless he overhears something suspicious), when it comes to the famous there are special requirements.
Davit Mujiri and 34-year-old Zaur Tsertsvadze meet in Avlabari, in a khinkali bar behind the '26 Commissars' metro station. The priest is dressed in civilian clothes; he never goes to meetings in his ecclesiastical garb. He promises himself he won't tell the security agent anything about the composer's affair with his former student – he will leave it to the composer to do that – and will adopt his usual approach to the remaining information: in other words, he'll give a brief summary. He has four things (four confessions) to report today; he spends seven or eight minutes on each, and leaves Lado's story till last.
'Does he go to church often?' Tsertsvadze shows a lively interest.
'It was the first time he'd come to me.'
'Is he a regular, though?'
'Apparently he had an elder brother who was, but he's dead now.'
'Why did he come?'
'Out of respect for his dead brother.'
'What did you talk about?'
'Life, problems at work, family...'
'Is he dissatisfied with the Soviet regime?'
'The subject didn't come up.'
'Did he express dissatisfaction with anything else?'
'Only with himself.'
'Explain...'
'He can't write music.'
'He can't write music?'
And Mujiri relates in detail how Comrade Lado has not been able to write a single note for the contest announced by the Central Committee.
'The Central Committee's announced a contest?' Tsertsvadze's curiosity has been sparked.
'Yes, that's what he told me.'
'Interesting... What contest's that, then?'
'They need someone to write a song about Tbilisi.'
'About Tbilisi the ancient historical wonder or Tbilisi the modern socialist city?'
'I couldn't tell you. He didn't specify.'
'So, basically, he's having an artistic crisis?'
'Yes, that's it.'
'Is this contest for money?'
'He didn't say.'
'Do you like his songs?'
'When we were students we used to sing 'Longing' in four parts.'
'I see. Anything else?'
Mujiri tells the composer's story rather indifferently, adds a few bits, leaves a few bits out, says not a word about the whole Keti affair. After 40 minutes they go their separate ways. Mujiri leaves satisfied ('I didn't let the most important thing slip'), but Tsertsvadze is unusually agitated. This time we will follow him.
Zaur Tsertsvadze takes charge of a situation that to him is perfectly ordinary, even if it is completely alien to others – as always happens at such times, he forgets where he is, where he is going, and what he's supposed to be doing...
'A song for Tbilisi... a song for Tbilisi...' is the only thing going round and round in his head. He walks unsteadily towards the metro.
No, he can't go down into those tunnels just now, he needs to be in the fresh air... This kind of misfortune rarely befalls him, but when it does he can think of nothing else.
He shouldn't have gone to meet the priest – if only they'd sent someone else! On the other hand, maybe it's a good thing he did go!
He fell in love with music at the age of seven when he first saw the historical epic Bashi-Achuki. For a whole month he sang the hero's song. But not as it's sung in the film; differently, in his own special way. His relatives thought he had no ear for pitch. But it was not the song of a tone-deaf child...
Had he been helped, his life would have taken an entirely different path. But he wasn't helped – he was made to follow in his father's footsteps: they gave him a job in State Security. By that time he had already written around twenty songs. His friends know. They like his songs, praise them. Some even sing them. His mother knows. He doesn't tell his co-workers. He thinks they'll make fun of him. They don't take him seriously. Sometimes songs take shape in his mind while he sleeps: he wakes, jumps up from his bed and plays them on his guitar...
For him this is both happiness and misfortune at the same time. As time goes on he becomes increasingly convinced he was not made for spying but for music... music is his salvation...
He still thinks this now. Maybe right now is the decisive phase? Maybe he should take heed of this sign?
Like a virus, the musical theme attacks him frequently – melodies run through his head freely, independently; the process of composing delights him. Mozart was just the same, he says; he heard it on the radio.
At some point Tamriko, his classmate, told him he should pursue his talent (unfortunately, Tamriko herself followed another). Yes, he should have followed it. He could have been spared so much depravity, avoided so many terrible things. Lavrenti Beria had a talent too, they say, for painting. Apparently he once restored an old icon his son had broken. They say it took him the whole night to finish it. An iconographer he may not have been, but he was a painter nonetheless – everything would be ok!
And he kept that thought in mind as he carried on with his life. Instead of writing music, he spends his days trailing unreliable elements of the state. It's awful.
As soon as the priest had mentioned the 'song for Tbilisi', a cascade of melodies had flooded into his head, he'd stopped being able to hear the informant's voice, his heartbeat had quickened and his ears had filled with the clear sound of guitar strings..
Zaur Tsertsvadze has but one wish: to play the guitar, to pick out some chords. And he does just that, and by playing feels calmer. Nothing can now chase this melody from his heart. Only memory loss. But his memory is still sound, and that does not worry him (once he memorised a list of 300 suspicious students in three minutes).
For three days Tsertsvadze carries around with him two ideas, one about music and one about fate; he walks through the streets of the city, thinking, getting angry. He comes to a decision then changes his mind ten times, twenty times; you would think there were many Tsertsvadzes walking the streets of Tbilisi, not just one: 'I should get back to work and stop having these pipe dreams', 'I should give it all up and start writing music, draw a line under my old life; I can't go on like this', 'What will my mother say? What will my father say? What will my colleagues say? And the musicians, will they let me into their circle?', 'Will this make Tamriko happy? Will she still think about me, will she leave her husband?.. Oh, what a fool I am'.
Tsertsvadze stays at work until late reading anonymous complaints. He recognizes the experienced informants from the very first sentence (everyone has their own style): 'I hereby inform you that... ', 'I wish to tell you..', 'I am obliged to inform you...' He used to find reading these texts so interesting, but now he keeps dropping off, and gets no pleasure from wasting precious time on such pointless matters. It's all the same, all the same: 'He's meeting suspicious youths...', '..she's been listening to Radio Liberty..' '..he's reading The Gulag Archipelago...', 'he's got Reagan's photo up in the kitchen...', 'his kid drew horns on a picture of Lenin...', 'they've bought a second car...', 'he said something rude about Andropov...'
Just how long would he have to read this rubbish?! Young people wrote too, surely? And yet most of these informants were over 80 years old, people who'd cut their teeth in the '50s and '60s – old school... Some had completely lost their minds, writing complaints about people shot half a century ago. One woman, a long-serving informant, persists in reporting a neighbour who was killed in 1937 – no-one can convince her the man has been dead for ages (and, what's more, was subsequently 'rehabilitated' under Khrushchev). He starts reading this old lady's reports right now, but stops at the very first sentence ('I hereby inform you that yesterday, when I was on the tram...'), stuffs the papers into a drawer, turns off the light and sinks down into the pitch blackness. He sits there in the dark and says to himself: 'If I don't leave I'll be destroyed, I'll start hating people, I won't be able to get married, I won't want to have children'.
Zaur Tsertsvadze's workplace has two entrances – one on Chitadze Street, the other on Dzerzhinsky. Tsertsvadze, as usual, leaves from the second of these (the very entrance Lavrenti Beria used in his day), stands in the middle of the street and looks at his workplace. 'Maybe it's not worth coming back here anymore', he thinks. He's been going home on foot for a while now. He drags the journey to his house out for as long as possible; he is looking for melodies in the streets of Tbilisi. No, not melodies – a musical theme, one that will reinforce his decision once and for all.
He goes down to the sulphur baths in Abanotubani, greedily breathes in the sulphurous air rising from the Coloured Bathhouse and wonders about going to bathe in the public shower room, but he doesn't risk it – he is scared he might bump into a colleague, or a group of colleagues (coming here to spy on bathers is something his subordinates might do) – how can he be sure his colleagues wouldn't be frightened by seeing him, and think they were being spied on too!
Oh, how he hates this job! His loathing for the family profession drives him to write a song. The contours of the melody are blurred, like the naked bodies of bathers seen through the sulphurous haze of the Erekle bathhouse... Tsertsvadze looks up at the mosque. Here, too, he falters: should he go up there, he wonders. He wants to, to see the baths district from above, but dare not – true, the mosque isn't functioning, but Tbilisi's Muslims have their overseers too (he's afraid he might run into one of his colleagues here, too, and give them the wrong idea). Tsertsvadze's patch is the Georgian Orthodox cathedrals and their adjoining territory (Catholics, Russians, Jews and Armenians are divided up among other departments), so he walks down towards Metekhi Church, by the River Mtkvari. At school they were taught that it was here that King Vakhtang Gorgasali's pheasant came down... And look, there's the stone statue of Gorgasali looking down at him, raising his hand to found the city of Tbilisi. Hadn't he written a song about that? 'The Pheasant's Song': 'They killed me here, where the city was born...' Or was it 'they roasted me here'? It's funny, anyway; nobody will understand it. Maybe somebody else should think about the lyrics. But clearly it's a great theme nonetheless: Tbilisi through the eyes of the pheasant... Tbilisi's eye in the sky...
Tsertsvadze looks down at the Mtkvari. The waters are overflowing. In ten days or so they'll open the gates at the Ortachala hydroelectric plant and the water level will fall noticeably. The Mtkvari is rushing abnormally fast towards Azerbaijan. Tsertsvadze remembers the words of Mirotadze, Colonel-General of the Central Committee (speaking at a banquet commemorating the 9th of May): 'For me Tbilisi means the Mtkvari; where there is no Mtkvari there is no Tbilisi'. Tsertsvadze thinks the same (as the song says: my life flows like the Mtkvari). He will never say this out loud, but he wholeheartedly detests Vake, the exclusive neighbourhood of the Soviet intelligentsia. But even more than Vake, he hates the Executive Committee's recent project Nutsubidze Plateau, that hill flecked white with dozens of identical tower blocks. The Republic's leadership is currently so proud of its new development, but this high-rise Tbilisi makes Tsertsvadze feel sick. He once snapped at his father (who had just had a stroke): 'On principle, father, on principle I do not agree with the local executive committee's new industrialisation plan - these white tower blocks are sweeping through the city like a virus; they will make it sick and they will kill Tbilisi's soul.'
Tbilisi's soul... yes, that's what's important. He must hold onto those words...
Day and night Tsertsvadze has a guitar in his hands. He tries to gather his ideas, his fingers become swollen (a friend advised him that if he really wanted to play guitar, he should let his fingernails grow. But how can he possibly let them grow? It would be unfitting). He's been obsessed with a particular theme since last summer, has been carrying it around in his head for six months and has only now realised, it seems, what he's been keeping it for. It is such a simple tune it could even serve as an anthem for Georgia. Tsertsvadze's first judge is his mother. Whilst his father sleeps Zaur sits with his mother in the kitchen and, with his guitar in his hands and through pursed lips, sings his new composition. When his mother likes something she says 'Play it again', and when she doesn't like something she starts rewashing clean dishes.
This time the dishes remain unwashed.
'Haven't you got any lyrics?' asks his mother.
'Not yet. I'll start working on it.'
'Play it to your friends. They'll like it.'
Zaur usually performs his new songs for his closest friends on their birthdays, but this time he's taking things much more seriously – he's even decided to transcribe the song in musical notation. But, unfortunately, there's no way he can do this himself. He needs a professional, someone who can read (and write) music. His mother will help him find somebody (he would look himself, with the help of his office, but he doesn't want to use the experience he's gained in the Ministry of State Security to help Tsertsvadze the musician). Mother works in the Tbilisi bacteriophage laboratory, but one of her colleagues is Isolde Samushia, whose son, Merab Tserodze, is studying Composition and Conducting at the conservatoire. True, the young man is only in his third year, but he's already conducted fragments of Evgeny Onegin for the opera department. The mothers start planning their sons' meeting. For her part, Isolde considers it her duty to warn her only son: 'Don't give too much away, he works for the KGB'. The future conductor and the soon-to-be-ex-KGB agent meet in the Avlabari khinkali bar (Zaur is particularly fond of this place). Merab listens and says little (just like his mother told him to), whilst Tsertsvadze talks nineteen to the dozen, as they say; in fact he too makes his confession, to the young man charged with transcribing his songs; he says that since childhood he has dreamed of being a musician, that when his time came he yielded – wrongly - to the will of his father, who had just had a stroke, and that now he has a chance to leave his hateful profession once and for all. Tsertsvadze doesn't clarify what profession he means, and Merab, duly cautioned, listens in silence. This is the first time he's seen a real life agent of that grandiose, omnipresent organisation up close like this, and whether out of fear or something else he behaves entirely as if he is under the sway of its representative, Tsertsvadze. You might go so far as to say that he already likes the song, even before he has listened to it. At last the moment arrives: Tsertsvadze picks up his guitar (he has brought his own with him to the khinkali bar) and with a few words he's made up (but mostly through pursed lips) performs his song. Merab is enraptured (and is himself surprised by how sincerely); he cannot believe that Tsertsvadze is not a professional. 'It is an extremely refined theme,' he says. Tsertsvadze starts to perspire, he gets agitated, doesn't know whether to rejoice or exercise professional caution. Merab makes him repeat the song four times, no more, no less. Finally, a man comes into their booth, drunk and on the verge of tears, and kisses the men. 'Sing it again,' he says, 'one more time'. Tsertsvadze sings. The man tries to give him a 25-kopek note, Tsertsvadze wrestles him off, gently, politely, but the man doesn't give up, and stuffs the crumpled note down Merab's collar (between his jacket and shirt). The young men laugh. As soon as the man leaves Tsertsvadze reveals his heart's desire: 'I want to take part in the contest.' Once again, Merab is afraid to ask.
'Don't you want to know what contest it is?' asks Tsertsvadze; and he repeats the words spoken by the priest, or more precisely by Lado Menteshashvili, or more precisely still, by the Secretary to the Central Committee.
Aha, thinks Merab, so that's what's going on. Within the hour they are at Merab's house. At first Tsertsvadze had planned not to go with him (Merab lives in the neighbourhood of Saburtalo, which Zauri's sub-section covers; it would be inappropriate for him to be seen there), but then he agrees after all – he doesn't give a damn about professional phobias! Enough, he berates himself, from now on I must live freely! They find Isolde at home (along with Merab's elderly grandmother, 83-year-old Olya Chimakidze); Isolde is startled but doesn't show it. 'He shouldn't have brought him to the flat,' she thinks. 'He'd better not put microphones everywhere.' Merab asks Tsertsvadze to sing the song to his mother and grandmother. Tsertsvadze is a little shy; he no longer has either the voice or the inclination, but he sings it nonetheless. 'It's over, I've burnt all my bridges', he thinks, 'even strangers already know what I want'. 83-year-old Olya Chimakidze is flabbergasted, Isolde laughs awkwardly. Merab copies Tsertsvadze's song into his music notebook. He works until midnight. Zaur cannot believe his eyes, he stares down at the notes in astonishment: 'Is that what my song looks like? Did I really write that?' Merab tells Zaur to come back the next day: 'I'll do a bit of work on it tonight,' he says, 'correcting the mistakes.' Tsertsvadze apologises – he's so ashamed to have taken up so much of Merab's time - and happily goes on his way. The decision has been made – he is already a composer. He will present his case to his mother that very same day. He's not thinking about his father yet.
'So, you knew about the Central Committee contest too?' Merab asks his supervisor, the conservatoire professor and famous composer Akaki Mgeladze.
Comrade Akaki wonders how on earth Merab found out about it, even though he himself... he himself is actually one of the six. In this city nothing stays hidden, he says. And to think how severely they were warned to keep it a secret this time...
'Are there only six of you?' asks Merab.
'Yes... well, actually, five. It looks like Lado's been eliminated...'
'Menteshashvili? Why?'
'He's had a heart attack, apparently they gave him CPR this morning.'
'Poor thing...'
'I'm going this evening... I'll see his wife, I'm sure...'
'And the contest's going ahead anyway?'
'Well, what, do you think they'd tell Andropov we can't hold Tbilisoba because Menteshashvili's had a heart attack? Where did you hear about it, anyway?'
Merab tells the professor about a certain Zaur Tsertsvadze, a security services employee with a gift for music. He recounts what Tsertsvadze had earlier told him, retells his confession word for word. 'This contest is my chance' - that's what he'd said.
'He 's written a song too, I've got it with me,' Merab says.
The professor can't help but laugh. Things like this don't even happen in books. Merab's laughing too.
'Is he, you know, alright? He's not mad, is he?' he asks his student.
'I don't know... I mean, he writes music, and...'
'He hasn't promised to recruit you, has he?'
'He doesn't know musical notation. I transcribed it for him.'
'Good grief!' laughs the professor.
'Don't laugh, it's a shame,' Merab smiles.
'Sure, let him write, he's not bothering anyone,' says the professor, 'but you're going to have to break his heart, Merab... He just hasn't got it, has he? It's a closed contest. We're the only ones taking part; the people chosen by the Central Committee. Who on earth's going to let amateurs have a go? There wasn't even an announcement in the papers, was there? So tell him sorry, some other time... The sooner you get rid of him, the better.'
'Is there absolutely no question of him taking part?
'They'll put his name down if he gets Andropov to call them on his behalf.' smiles the professor.
'It's not a bad song, you know.'
'Oh, come off it now, really...' The professor grimaces.
'No, honestly, it's not...'
And Merab gives the notebook to the professor. The professor snatches it from him, irritated; he looks down at the page in disgust, but after a little while he raises his eyebrows and starts moving his lips. Merab is pleased.
'What do you think? There's a theme in there, isn't there?'
The professor goes over to the piano and picks out Tsertsvadze's melody.
'Have you added to it?' he asks his student.
'Not a single note.'
The professor plays it again. He stops. He gazes, scowling, at the notes.
'It's primitive,' he says, 'but it's easy to remember.'
Merab is pleased. 'He's dedicated it to Tbilisi; he wrote it specially,' he says.
'Yes, but they won't let him enter. I mean, just letting everyone do exactly what they want? Whoever heard of such a thing!
'Is there no way we can help him out?' Merab doesn't want to let it go. 'We're talking about saving a man... you might even say saving his soul...'
'Are you sure you haven't fallen in love, lad?' the professor laughs. The smile dries up on Merab's face; he realises that if he says any more, the insults will continue (he knows his teacher well). And so he falls silent.
'People like him won't manage to save their souls that easily,' the professor says angrily. 'I'm sorry, but that's not how it works, you can't be a devil all your life and suddenly turn into an angel! Stalin wrote poems too, but those poems aren't going to save him now...'
Merab doesn't want a debate, he just wants to get his notebook back.
The professor stops him. 'Leave it here, I'll give it to you tomorrow.'
Merab is surprised, but once again says nothing. He leaves. Again he meets a rather agitated Tsertsvadze in the Avlabari khinkali bar. He explains why he can't take part in the contest, but assures him straight away that he's written a brilliant song; tells him he showed it to his professor, who played it twice in a row. Tsertsvadze is so happy with this revelation that, in spite of his general distress, he no longer feels upset about the contest – the main thing is that musicians have admitted that they consider him a man of talent.
'Maybe somebody from government could put in a good word for you?' suggests Merab.
No, Tsertsvadze can't resort to that, not under any circumstances: firstly, he doesn't have enough influence – he is just an ordinary employee in the organisation – and secondly, Tsertsvadze-the-Security-Services-employee and Tsertsvadze-the-author-of-the-song-for-Tbilisi are two different people. The very fact that the former is putting something into action to help the latter is doubtless enough to jinx it all for him. To let their paths actually cross is out of the question. What a principled person, thinks Merab, I think I really am in love. They drink till dawn.
Tsertsvadze starts the process of leaving his job (leaving the Ministry for Security is not that easy – they might not let him go); he writes a declaration, fills in numerous forms... He knows only too well what a terrible path he's set out on – they'll make his life hell, they'll interrogate him five times a day, they'll assign two (or more) agents to him and bombard him directly with threats and bleak warnings. They might even force him to undergo medical research. But no, he's through with it – everything's decided: it's about saving his soul, no more, no less. In an organisation this large, one man, at least, should be given a chance.
Weeks go by, but still Professor Mgeladze is busy with Tsertsvadze's song. He composes variations, fine-tunes them, polishes them. This melody has chased every other right out of his mind. He covers the notes in red pen. He doesn't give a second thought to Tsertsvadze anymore – on the contrary, he is happy to have been given the means for revenge on some good-for-nothing KGB officer; not on the writer of this song per se, but generally, on an official from the Security Ministry. He takes pleasure from knowing that he is denying the music-loving executioner the catharsis he craves. Did they give millions of people the chance to be saved? They killed so many, wiped out so many; oh God, how they frightened him, Mgeladze, back in the 40s, when he was a student... But now they can't touch him, because this time he's on his own patch – this time he himself is the judge!
Professor Mgeladze takes issue with Tsertsvadze's melody – 'It's banal, childish, primitive...' – but whenever he plays a tune on his instrument it is only this one: this song alone grabs him...
'It's infantile... embarrassingly linear,' he whispers.
It is October 1983. Tbilisoba. The city can't accommodate any more guests. The roads are blocked – people from outside the capital are boiling khinkali, grilling mtsvadi and selling churchkhela right on Rustaveli Avenue. The whole city smells of char-grilled meat. Wherever you look people are eating shashlik. It's five in the afternoon. The people's 'grand promenade' is coming to an end – the citizens have gathered on the riverbanks. True, the 'dear guest' (the Secretary General of the USSR) couldn't come, but all of the local leaders have come instead. The musicians of the Tbilisi Jazz Orchestra are seated in the performance area. On stage stands the famous Yugoslav singer Joanka Karlovich, performing the new song written for Tbilisi.
The songwriter is the famous composer and conservatoire professor Akaki (Kako) Mgeladze. Comrade Eduard Shevardnadze, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, has given him an honorary award. Joanka sings in broken Georgian. The whole of Georgia listens to his song on state radio. The melody is simple, lyrical and easy to remember. They play Comrade Akaki's new composition over and over again on the radio and television. Among the people in the square stands the victorious composer's pupil, young Merab Tserodze. Merab can easily identify what it is he is listening to – thank God he has a good ear for music: it is KGB agent Tsertsvadze's melody. The very same one he heard that time in the Avlabari khinkali bar. Slightly modified, orchestrated, but very familiar nonetheless. Merab is flabbergasted. Surely he didn't steal it? Surely he didn't pilfer it so brazenly? But there's no 'surely' about it! He did! Nobody here knows but him that the winner is a plagiarist! Another time Merab would no doubt have congratulated his professor, but now, caught up in a crowd of people, he tries to get away from the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. It's what you'd call a life lesson. He wouldn't have expected it from the professor, though. 'What a dreadful city this is,' he thinks. 'I hate being here.' Back at home he says the same to his mother: 'In this city it's only the old who get the chance to live, old people and people from the Central Committee; it's their city'; but before then, on the way home, he imagines with horror what the angry, plagiarised Tsertsvadze might do to him and the thieving professor. Merab is afraid Tsertsvadze will show his true (KGB officer's) colours and seek answers from him and the thief Mgeladze. 'What a stupid man my teacher is,' he rages. 'What, does he think the man won't recognise his own melody? They'll have us rot in prison! He'll seek his revenge, he'll torture us! He'll never forgive us!' Merab quickens his pace, sweat pours off him, he starts planning – maybe it would better to find him, to tell him he had no idea his teacher was going to do what he did. He is angry with himself: whatever possessed him to take him that manuscript? If only he'd broken his leg and never gone to Kako's in the first place! 'I have to get out of this city,' he shouts at his mother, 'I don't want to be here! They'll all be talking about me now whether I like it or not! They've made me hate being here!' His mother, Isolde, imagines all kinds of terrible things; her mind running wild, she flushes red with anxiety: 'What's happened?' she shrieks at him. 'Just tell me, what's happened to you? Have you had a fight with someone?'
Tsertsvadze, though, will not hear his song until the next day; he will hear it on the radio in the taxi, on his way back from his latest interrogation (leaving his job will be harder than he initially thought it would be), he will hear it and not even recognise it; only when the song finishes will he realise what he's been listening to. Clearly at first he'll feel upset – did he really just hear that right? – then he'll feel a naïve satisfaction, and in the end he'll probably get angry...
What's really interesting is what he'll do next. Where in Tbilisi will he start rebalancing the scales of justice? What direction will he point the taxi driver in? Towards the Central Committee building? Towards the Composers' Union? Towards the Blue Monastery? Towards the Avlabari khinkali bar? Towards Merab's house, or towards the place where once a pheasant was boiled alive?
Translated from Gerorgian by Libby Heighway
Libby Heighway first became interested in Georgian whilst studying for a degree in Philosophy and French at Oxford University. She subsequently studied Georgian at the University of Chicago, holds the Diploma in Translation from Georgian to English, and is currently finishing her MA in Translation Studies at the University of Birmingham. She has a particular interest in contemporary fiction and poetry. She lives in Birmingham, UK with her two children and works as a freelance translator from French and Georgian.
Podcast read by Simon Shrimpton-Smith
