XXII. SMASH IT! COME ON!
They returned to Tbilisi two days later, at just as late an hour as when they had arrived in Berlin. Exhausted, sleepy, but with a sense of relief now that everything was over, they got into a taxi. Vazha immediately started bothering them:
— Can I stay at your place for a couple days? I ordered some cosmetic renovations in my apartment, and the workers are gonna be living there.
— Renovations? — Mariam laughed. — If anyone ever walked into your apartment, they’d turn around instantly and forget the way there out of horror! Ever tried clearing out the piles of junk yourself?
In truth, Mariam did not want to be sarcastic, but every unpleasant remark toward Vazha somehow slipped out on its own.
“How do I refuse him politely?..” she thought. “Damn, it’s like I’m his hostage. I depend on him for everything! I walk around him like it’s a minefield. One day I’ll confuse harmless irony with actual anger, and then, I’m afraid, we’ll have to move the band forward without him… Although no, Vazha will cling on until the very end even if I ruin things. I’ll just feel ashamed, while nothing else changes. And after all, it’s only thanks to him that I went to Berlin, thanks to him hundreds of thousands know about us, he got us everywhere! Of course, if you think about it, most people subscribed after that viral clip, but technically, Vazha organized that too! And yet how badly I want real love!.. So should I let him stay or not? Emi said she’d go to university tomorrow, and I’ll probably spend the whole day with Salome. Fine. I’ll let him stay…”
— Alright, — she said to Vazha, — you can stay with us, but only for one day, until tomorrow evening, while nobody’s around. After that go back to your place and sleep with the workers, if they don’t refuse by then!
Vazha merely looked at her silently with approval.
“You really are cruel, Mariam,” he thought to himself.
Not long later, their journey finally over, they once again stood before the porch of the house on Mtatsminda. Vazha immediately collapsed onto the sofa, while Mariam and Emi stepped out into the garden and froze there, listening to the steady birdsong and looking at the stars, which that night formed shapes above the mountain.
— Do you think that’s the Bear? — Emi asked thoughtfully.
— Yeah, looks like it… I used to be good with constellations as a kid, but I’ve forgotten most of it now. Shame! You know, it feels so good just to breathe this air! — Mariam admitted. — I only just realized how especially fresh and pleasant it is here, how familiar it feels somehow! Life in Berlin is good, but I felt awful there, like something was pressing down on me. Finally I can breathe deeply again. Life is wonderful, and everything around me is blooming.
— What’s blooming? It’s still winter, isn’t it?
— Everything in my life, Emi. I only recently realized how much this life has given me, how many riches greater than any money or luxury I have, and how grateful I should be to fate for all of it. Maybe there really is some mysterious destiny capable of granting a person unconditional happiness? And I’m so close to that unconditional happiness! It’s you, Emi, and the other people close to me. I live for all of you. From now on, I want to wake up every morning with gratitude for a new day. I’m completely bathing in your love! I’m unbelievably lucky…
“What’s gotten into her?” Emi thought. “She doesn’t seem drunk! Although… Mariam has always been like this deep inside, she just didn’t always speak about it, didn’t always show this light of hers, and sometimes it simply pours out of her… She’s a person with an incredible soul. It’s a shame I can’t be like that. Maybe I’m incapable of understanding what happiness even is! I want at least to be happy with you, but I only think about it — I can’t actually feel it. This knot of anger, jealousy, and resentment is stronger than everything bright inside me…”
— Yeah, the moon really is beautiful tonight, and the sky, and the Bear… — Emi got lost staring into her friend’s eyes, black as two burning coals. — Ah, sorry, I was listening to you, I remember everything you said, I just drifted off for a moment. I’m happy for you, Mariam. I’d like to thank fate like that too… at least for the fact that we’re together.
— Oh, Emi, you thoughtful little girl! — Mariam said, taking her by the shoulder and wrapping her neck in one large soft arm.
Emi had not been at home for a long time. The next day, Vazha sat alone in the kitchen, gulping chacha from a murky green bottle. White midday sun hammered against the windows. Mariam woke up, suddenly jumped out of bed, and ran outside in whatever she had on. She didn’t even text or call the one she had been waiting for so desperately that morning.
About five minutes later, Salome came downstairs, with tousled hair and a crumpled, dirty hoodie. Mariam immediately recognized that smell — “tobacco and vanilla” — and screamed like a child upon seeing her. Salome almost screamed too. Tears burst onto the girl’s small face and started streaming down at once. Mariam wiped them away with her hand:
— I was so scared! So scared for you all these days! Thank God you came! — she said in relief.
Salome shrank into her embrace and went quiet.
— I’m trying so hard… — she said — not to think about my father, my mother…
She wanted to say something more, but couldn’t: bitterness, joy, and excitement all pressed against her throat and took away her voice. Salome was so childishly gentle, so sincere, but there was so much pain in her eyes — more than a fourteen-year-old girl should ever have to carry.
— Let’s go to my place… I can, I want to change, and we can go for a walk, — she managed to suggest.
Mariam nodded, and soon once again, for the third time, she found herself in that “concrete box” sunk into the ground. This time it smelled like grief.
On the sofa in the living room lay two little girls, with enchanting eyes, listening to their aunt’s monotonous stories about lions and rabbits. She read in a flat voice, occasionally adjusting her red glasses, and only paused when Mariko ran out of the children’s room with a notebook and pen.
— Nine times seven is sixty-three, and multiplied by five is three hundred fifteen, right? — Mariko asked quickly, stumbling over her words.
— Correct, — the aunt replied, — now do the next examples. Try hard, you go back to school on Monday.
Salome led Mariam into the room. Along the whitewashed wall where she and Mariko slept, drawings were displayed: lyrics of favorite songs, eyes, anime characters, a huge inscription “ANGELIC KISS,” and below it the sisters drawn standing together holding hands. There were also children’s drawings of cartoons, fairies, and animals.
Mariam looked in amazement — not so much that she liked the art itself; she liked that Salome had brought her here. “This is her entire world… a world built together with her sister… my God, how touching…”
— Mariam! — suddenly rang out Mariko’s cheerful, completely childlike voice. — You came! I was waiting for you!
Mariko immediately jumped into her arms and almost hung on her back. Mariam herself quietly began to cry.
“Why do I keep humiliating myself? Why do I keep humiliating myself?” Vazha repeated to himself alone, addressing the deaf walls of the dirty kitchen. “Why do I need this girl who doesn’t even respect or love me? Why do I need this band I’ve been carrying since the beginning?”
Vazha clenched his fist and suddenly slammed it against the table so hard that the plates jumped slightly.
“I’m a man! I must have dignity! What dignity do I even have? I’m just a rag they use and wipe their feet on. Do good and you’ll get evil in return! What is my life without Mariam? I’d be wandering peacefully like before, going to clubs with friends, messing with drugs, wasting my father’s money, my life, my youth. I’ve lived like that for twenty-seven years. Without love! Love is a damn curse! Vazha Gelashvili — son of the brilliant Konstantin, the most charming and beautiful Hollywood actor. When I started my career, they even called me Gelashvili Jr., compared me to my father, predicted the same fame for me. And damn that name! I’m the richest, yet still at the very bottom! — he confessed to himself, drinking from the bottle. — Should I wash myself or what? I haven’t touched shampoo for a week, even though I stayed in a five-star hotel. Mariam keeps telling me: wash, wash, wash, do your laundry, buy new clothes, you stink! I never cared about hygiene! And I still don’t! But after her words I still started feeling dirty, like a homeless man!”
Vazha went into the shower and, in rage, broke the curtain and knocked down the rod, completely out of control.
“I need friends, friends! They’ve left me alone here all day. They’re probably all rotting at home anyway, I should call them!”
An hour later, two hardened junkies and troublemakers came to Vazha’s place, one of whom had recently been released from prison after a serious street fight. They looked no less disgusting than Vazha himself.
— So, boys, shall we cook up some high? — one of them suggested as soon as he arrived.
— Let’s do it! — Vazha replied.
Soon, used syringes appeared on the kitchen and living room floors.
— Want some music? — Vazha asked. — My girl writes stuff like this, it’ll blow your mind!
— No way, old man! — one of them exclaimed. — You’ve got a girlfriend? Congrats! I never would’ve guessed, we haven’t seen each other in like two months!
— Yeah, I do! A black-haired beauty, she plays in a band, “ANGELIC KISS,” you know them, right guys?
Vazha turned it on:
“I gently kissed my dearest friend
She shyly smiled at the end…”
After about ten songs, Vazha was completely broken, sitting with his eyes wide open and huge pupils. He wasn’t crying, though he looked like he was, frozen in place. He said:
— You know what? I don’t actually have a girlfriend… I just want her to be my girlfriend. She treats me like garbage!
The guys tried to calm him:
— Come on, don’t worry! One doesn’t love you, another will! You’ve still got time, bro!
By evening, the three of them were in a semi-conscious state.
— Smash it! Come on! — a loud voice was heard.
Vazha climbed onto the kitchen table and started throwing plates onto the floor. They shattered, glass fragments scattering everywhere.
— Bet you can’t climb the chandelier and jump down without breaking it? —
— Are you crazy? — Vazha snapped, making a grimace. — How am I supposed to climb that?
— You’re like forty kilos, light as a feather. Come on, it won’t break!
— Fine. A thousand lari!
— Where the hell am I supposed to get that kind of money? You’re the Hollywood son, not me, I work shifts at a factory!
— Whatever, you don’t have to pay, I’ll do it!
The kitchen suddenly went dark. Vazha fell down and hit his head, holding a lightbulb pressed to his chest. At that moment, Emi appeared in the doorway.
Mariam and Salome made a long detour through the city; they had been wandering the streets for hours, talking without stopping. They decided to stop by the river.
— I could basically live with you, — Salome continued, sitting down on a lawn that had thawed in the sun. — My guardian doesn’t care anyway.
— You think so? — Mariam asked.
— Yeah, she never asks me anything at all: where I go in the evenings, what I do, whether I even study. She’s barely more than a neighbor to me.
— I’d actually be really happy if you lived with me. We’d always be together. You already feel like part of the home to me, like family…
— What about Emi?
— What about her?
— Well, how does she even feel about me? We’ve never really talked, except that one day we all met. What if she doesn’t like me at all?
— She likes you, Salome. At least, she’s never said anything bad about you, only good things. She just told me you’re sweet and still basically a child. But honestly, Emi isn’t far off from that herself either.
— Sometimes I felt like she hated me. I don’t know, I often feel like that. Sometimes I think everyone hates me.
— That’s not true. I love you, Salome, — Mariam interrupted.
Salome smirked, shyly said “thank you,” and continued speaking:
— I wish… I wish I could just escape this cage for real. I would gladly do it, but my sisters are the only thing holding me here, I can’t abandon them. My sisters are the most important thing to me. Especially Mariko—we’ve lived side by side our whole lives, she wouldn’t be able to handle it if I left.
Mariam always felt touched whenever Mariko was mentioned.
— Although I’ll still have to leave them eventually. I want to study abroad, live in a big city somewhere in Italy or Germany. But I don’t have money… I’ll figure something out anyway, try to get a scholarship or something. I’d have to be at least eighteen for that, and Mariko would be fourteen then. She’d already be a teenager. Maybe she’d handle it better by then? But I still don’t want to abandon her!
— But you wouldn’t be abandoning her! Even if you go abroad, you’ll still be her sister forever. You can come back during holidays, and maybe she’ll even go to university too.
— You’re right, Mariam. I wonder what she’ll be like at fourteen… Sometimes it feels like she’s a little version of me, like she’s so similar to me… She’s so weak and defenseless… — Salome cried. — And so kind! I just hope she has a better childhood than I did! At least our father is gone now, and that’s already something good.
— I’ve always been so amazed by how you treat your sister, and how she treats you… You’re the brightest people. I’m serious, very few people can love like that, almost no one.
Mariam, as if by habit, put her arm around Salome’s shoulder and, for some reason, slipped her hand under her shirt and felt a wet patch of skin.
— Salome?! Are you okay?
She immediately understood what it was. She still remembered from her own experience how it felt to the touch. She flinched, horrified, her hands started shaking.
— Yes, I’m fine, it’s just that… I’m sorry, Mariam.
— What? Don’t apologize, — she said gently. — When did you do it?
— The night before yesterday. It was unbearable, I couldn’t handle my thoughts, and I thought it might be a way to switch off. I know it’s bad.
— I used to do that too at your age. Yes, it’s bad, it harms your body. But you didn’t do anything wrong! You were just trying to deal with pain, it’s hard, you tried to help yourself and made a mistake, don’t worry, that happens. Did you clean the wound? God, poor girl! You should have told me that day—I wouldn’t have gone to Berlin, I could have stayed with you, I could have comforted you! I should have stayed!
— No. I think it will heal on its own.
— Clean it. Is this the first time, or has it happened before?
— It comes in periods, since I was about ten or eleven. This year it’s the third time already, but I hope it’s the last, I really want to stop.
— You will stop. Everything will be okay, you hear me? Don’t even think otherwise! Oh, wait a second, I think I’m getting a call, I’ll check who it is.
Mariam pulled her phone from her pocket and saw an incoming call from Emi.
Emi was at home, in her room on the second floor, holding the phone with trembling hands and trying to get through. Her face was red and sweaty, her thoughts tangled, and only a suffocating fear wrapped around her whole body. She wanted to run, but there was nowhere to go: downstairs, apart from Vazha lying in a drunken haze with a lamp in his hands, two of his friends were shouting loudly:
— That’s Vazha’s girlfriend!
— No it isn’t, that’s not her!
— I’m telling you, it is! Let’s go upstairs and ask what the hell is going on, why Vazha is suffering like this? Huh? Come on! Are you in or not?
— Come on, it’s not her, calm down! Don’t bother the girl!
Emi waited until Mariam picked up, and screamed in panic:
— Come home! Vazha and his friends have trashed the whole house! Hurry, they’re here, I’m scared!
Mariam, just hit by a blast of cold coastal wind, was shocked and said awkwardly:
— Okay, I’ll be there soon.
Salome, looking at her with frightened puppy-like eyes, sensed something had happened to Emi when she saw the sudden change in Mariam’s expression. She only asked:
— You have to go?
— Yeah, I do, — Mariam replied. — Vazha has caused some trouble. Emi isn’t herself, her voice was shaking.
Mariam headed toward the house; walking at a normal pace would take her at least thirty-five minutes, and she decided to speed up. Finally, out of breath, she arrived and saw roughly the same scene: Vazha on the kitchen table; the room growing dimmer, the window light at late dusk barely covering the approaching darkness. The guys instantly snapped to attention when Mariam entered. One of them started:
— Hey, what the hell, come on! — he swung his fist.
Mariam ordered them, “Get out!”, but realizing they were not in a state to listen calmly, she forcefully shoved the most aggressive one in the back and, grabbing him by the collar, dragged him out the door, not even intimidated by his raised fists. The second one left on his own, and only Vazha remained, whom she had to shake hard. When he came to, Mariam shouted:
— Get out immediately!
Vazha, looking around and realizing what he had done, quietly left with his head down.
— Emi, come downstairs, they’re gone! — Mariam called. — I’ll clean up a bit, light a candle, and we can have dinner.
Emi didn’t come out right away. She waited a while longer, caught her breath, and then came down on shaky legs.
— How are you? — Mariam asked awkwardly. — Are you okay now?
— You’re the last person who cares how I am, I think, — Emi replied angrily.
Mariam looked into her eyes and made an embarrassed expression.
— Sorry. I didn’t know it would turn out like this.
— And why did you let him into the house in the first place, knowing I’d be back early? Or did you not think about me at all, as usual? This is only your house, I guess?
— Emi, let’s not… I also had a hard time in all of this. I didn’t expect him to be capable of this, I’m completely shocked myself. Vazha will never come here again, I promise!
— I don’t need your promises… And still, I don’t understand how you could. How could you choose this person? How could you not send away someone who already smelled like death in that club when he hit on you? How?!
— Thanks to that person, we’re not nonames from a Tbilisi backstreet, but a world-famous band with hundreds of thousands of fans. That doesn’t justify Vazha, but it still has to be taken into account. I know those two he brought harassed you. I’m really sorry, Emi.
— You’re a hypocrite! — Emi snapped.
After the word “hypocrite,” they silently went their separate ways upstairs. Dinner fell apart, there was no evening talk in the garden, no warm conversation under the cold night sky. Mariam texted Salome for a long time, then started writing a new song and almost immediately gave up. Emi watched a true crime podcast, worked a little on a drawing, and thought a lot about Fleya and suffered. Emi and Mariam went to bed without saying goodnight to each other.