Hard by a Great Forest by Leo Vardiashvili

Author:Leo Vardiashvili
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526659859
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2023-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

It takes me a near-endless minute to remember a ‘Tamaz’ from that life we lived decades ago. He was Irakli’s close friend. An absentee godfather to Sandro and me. I picture Tamaz opening his front door on Irakli – a man he hasn’t seen in twenty years. That strange fever glint in Irakli’s eyes, making him look like he just cried or is about to.

Awkward silence followed by awkward words. I picture Irakli handing over the strange play pages, asking Tamaz to keep them. A memento. A crumb.

‘Why?’ Tamaz would want to say, but one look at Irakli and he’d know there’s no point asking.

I barely remember what he looks like. Nicotine-stained fingertips and the smell of unfiltered cigarettes, rock-solid beer gut – that’s all. Yet somehow Sandro tracked him down, found him, retrieved that Kaleidoskupi page from him, and brought it here for me to find.

I’m sorry, brother, I’m too slow. What are you telling me with this page? Your trail’s fading. Birds peck at the crumbs you leave. There’s barely anything left.

I feel exposed, standing in the yard like this for everyone to see. I cram the page into my pocket and retreat into the stairwell, where we used to hide from the rain. Who knows what I’m hiding from now? I try to read the Kaleidoskupi page again but a familiar childhood fear shivers through me when I spot the slack, dark mouth of the communal basement.

I used to go down there with Lena. The odd angle of the entrance and the steep steps made it look like she was descending into her own clammy tomb. I’d refuse to follow her until she hit the light switch. Unable to resist, I dip into that same darkness now.

The Soviet-era clacking plastic light switch still works. Probably Surik’s handiwork. I descend into the chill, moist air of the basement. A feeble glow-worm trapped in a light bulb illuminates a large exposedbrick room. The walls are damp and the air’s choked with the smell of rotting cardboard. Other people’s junk piled into corners and against the walls.

‘Bublik, look.’

Surik guides me to a pile of boxes labelled ‘Sulidze’, the dust on them undisturbed for years. The tape, grown glue-less, comes away without protest and the box falls open.

I pull obsolete possessions into the light against their will – old lamp shades, bundles of cutlery rusted solid, mouldy cushions, magazines and newspapers faded of all colour and meaning.

The faint odour of our home is the only useful thing in these boxes.

I know I’ll smell it on my skin later.

‘Wait, Bublik, wait. Look again.’ Surik stops me.

Tucked under a grimy oilcloth I find a bundle of unopened letters tied together with twine. They’re addressed to me and Sandro, in Eka’s handwriting. Under the letters, past a layer of Communist Health magazines, something winks bright green. I throw the magazines clear and find a Christmas card staring at me:

My boys,

Merry Christmas! I hope you like your presents. I can’t send them to you just now.

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