David's Revenge Read online

  The opportunity unexpectedly arose when I came home at midday. He was sitting in front of the TV set watching the repeat of a soap about a German family. I asked him if he’d had any lunch. Yes, he said, he’d made himself something from the freezer. I don’t know whether I showed surprise, but anyway he added that Julia had kindly said he could help himself from the freezer if he needed to. Of course, I said, that was what its contents were there for, he must make free with them.

  I fetched myself some curd cheese and sat down with him. He obviously found it difficult to tear himself away from the stirring story of the TV family. Smiling, he let his eyes wander between me and the screen. Perhaps he was wrong, he said, but he thought that very likely he could learn more about Germany from what went on in a programme like this than from half a dozen books. Well, I said, some might doubt whether life in German families was really like what happened in this soap.

  Of course, of course, he agreed, naturally everyone knew these incidents were adjusted to the audience’s taste for commercial reasons, but on those very grounds… And he let his gaze return to the screen.

  I was already wondering whether he really intended to continue the conversation with the television still on, but then the programme came to an end and he switched off, leaned back in his armchair and sighed. I said he was welcome to watch any other programme that interested him, but he dismissed the idea. No, no, he had to go out soon anyway. He had an appointment with the director of a publishing firm. Oh, indeed, I said. What firm was it? It was called Lyra, said Ninoshvili. I’d never heard of this outfit, but I nodded knowledgeably. So did that mean, I asked, that his project was getting somewhere? Oh yes, oh yes, although it wasn’t easy. He hadn’t signed any contractual agreement yet, but the prospects already looked good.

  I nodded. Silence fell. I used it to say that since the opportunity arose, I had a few more questions to ask about the causes of the Georgian civil war. Go ahead, he said, what did I want to know?

  I said his explanation had been very interesting. All the same, I’d been slightly surprised by the uninhibited way he had spoken of the concept of race. He looked at me enquiringly, as if he were surprised.

  Well, I said, for a start, and to take just one example, the idea of the white Caucasian race was absolutely obsolete, no reputable anthropologist used it these days.

  No, of course not, of course not! It looked as if he didn’t take offence at my objection, indeed it set him off on a critical digression about ethnology. He quoted Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, the German naturalist, who—as of course I knew much better than he did—taught in Jena in the eighteenth century and was the first to divide mankind into the Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American and Malayan races or varieties. He also quoted Baron Cuvier and his system of distinguishing between only three main races, the white, the black and the yellow.

  Before he could turn, as it seemed he might, to the subdivisions of Cuvier’s system, I interrupted him. “Yes, that’s all true as far as I know. But I’m sure you are also aware that in Germany the concept of race is particularly loaded. You must know that, for us, it evokes the memory of a shameful, catastrophic phase of our history. The memory of the Holocaust in which the Jews perished.”

  He turned his dark eyes away from me and sat there in silence for a while. Then he said, “My friend! I do most sincerely beg your pardon! I spoke without thinking, and in front of your wife and your son too. Will you accept my apology?”

  I said it was nothing to do with that, he didn’t have to apologize. He replied, “Thank you, my friend. And I will just add, to help you to understand me better, that anti-Semitism is foreign to the Georgians. For a long time, many Jews have lived in our country as highly regarded citizens. Perhaps that is why I spoke so thoughtlessly.”

  I wasn’t letting him get away with it so easily. I said perhaps I had also misunderstood his remarks about the Abkhazians and the Ossetians. Fair enough, all I knew about the Ossetians was that their customs are rough and ready, like those of all the mountain-dwellers of the Caucasus. But Abkhazians had already been living in the land of Colchis and participating in its culture, according to old sources anyway. And that wasn’t all: I had read, at some time, that they used to govern the old kingdom of Georgia along with the Georgians, as a kindred people with equal rights. Or was it not true that in the list of his titles, David the Builder had even described himself first as King of the Abkhazians, and only then as King of the Georgians?

  He nodded emphatically. “Right, quite right! But unfortunately the Abkhazians were unworthy to be singled out for such praise. They didn’t want to be our kindred people, they separated from us. And what happened? They returned to savagery. They reverted to what they had been before. No culture.” He smiled. “Do you know, the Abkhazians don’t even have their own alphabet! No literature. Their liturgical language, their official language—all borrowed from the Georgians. No one has to tell an educated man like you what that means.”

  I felt as if I were banging my head against a brick wall. While I was still searching for another argument, he looked at the time and got to his feet. “I’m afraid I must go now, but we should explore this subject further. I came here to learn, and you’re helping me. Very clever questions.” He came over to me, clasped my arm in both his hands, and looked me in the eyes. “My friend, what I said at supper… let me ask you again to forgive me. And thank you.”

  He turned his handsome face with its regular features away, shook his head silently as if he could say no more without bursting into tears, let go of my arm and left the house.

  Chapter 19

  I don’t believe that Fate corrects our self-confident but mistaken judgements by instantly teaching us a lesson. All the same, pride comes before a fall, and sometimes surprisingly quickly.

  This morning there was a punch-up in the school yard during break, worse than anything we’ve seen before for violence. There were two Turkish pupils involved, but they were fighting on opposite sides. It wasn’t a case of race or nationality, just plain ordinary human antagonism.

  Four eleventh-year students, one of them a girl, were sitting on one of the benches lining the path from the street to the school yard. Five others—out of a party of twelve on their way to the kiosk by the bus stop to stock up on something indispensable for the day’s remaining lessons, such as jelly babies or coconut bars—were walking past the first four. Among those five were Christian Berkhan, his Turkish friend Hasan Ileri and plump Natascha Schmidtlein.

  According to the unanimous accounts of Christian, Hasan and their two male companions (at this point Natascha was unwilling to say anything at all about it to the principal), one of the boys on the bench shouted after them, “Hey, where’re you guys off to with Fatso there? Going to show you her big arse, is she?” The girl sitting on the bench is said to have laughed.

  It wasn’t Hasan or either of the other two boys from Natasha’s class who reacted, no, it was easy-going Christian who turned and planted himself in front of the bench. He apparently asked the four, in threatening tones, “Want us to smash your faces in?” Thereupon, according to the statements given to the principal, the boy sitting in front of him kicked him in the balls. Christian went for the boy’s throat, Hasan and Natascha’s other two swains were quick to join the fray, and a fracas ensued, after which my colleague Frau Müntefering, who is trained in first aid, had to patch up nine of the combatants. Then Kubicki, our trainee teacher, drove two of them to Accident and Emergency at the hospital, because Frau Müntefering had diagnosed possible concussion.

  The girl who had been sitting on the bench suffered injuries too: a thick lip and a cut in her earlobe, which was bleeding. One of the boys with Christian, the lad who blamed her for causing the whole thing, stated that she had previously torn out a tuft of his hair. Hasan Ileri, when asked who gave him his black eye, replied, “The Turk.” Natascha Schmidtlein had not taken part in the hostilities, but by general agreement of the others she tore a loose slat out of
the fence around the school grounds and handed it to the gallant Christian, who hit little Rudi Ballensiefen on the head with it, drawing blood.

  I can guess what would have happened if Natascha, or the girl who laughed at her fat arse, had happened to have a Kalashnikov ready to hand instead of a fence slat. If I’d thought that to forget all the commandments of peaceful human coexistence, you had to be a Georgian, or a Serb or a Croat, I’d have been taught a lesson there and then.

  I’m considering incorporating some lessons on the Georgian civil war and its causes into my history course, maybe a four-part series. It probably wouldn’t do much good. But surely we must at least keep some hope going; what else can we do?

  Chapter 20

  The publishing offices of Lyra and one Dr B. Unger occupy the first floor of an apartment building in a remote suburb. I looked up the address in the phone book and went to see the place. Even if Dr Unger is a bachelor and lives in one room, the publishing firm can occupy at most three rooms on that floor.

  To glean more information I called Gerd Buttgereit, who is commissioning editor at Grabosch & Haumann. He knew the name of the firm, but after looking up some details told me that its main offices were in Leipzig. Dr Unger, named as head of the branch office here, opened it a year ago. Lyra publishes poetry, as you might conclude from its name, but also has a list including translations of a dozen or so novels and collections of short stories from the eastern European languages.

  I wouldn’t have made these enquiries if I hadn’t come to feel serious doubts about Ninoshvili’s commitment to his cultural project. For instance, when I came home in the afternoon of the day before yesterday he was sitting in Julia’s study (she had said he could use it now and then), telephoning with the door closed for almost two hours. However, his various conversations didn’t sound at all as if he were making contact with German publishers. I kept hearing him laugh as I passed the door. Twice I thought he was speaking Russian.

  After he had finished phoning he took up his position in front of the TV set. Watching television was obviously becoming one of his favourite occupations here on German soil. Besides his claim that he learns from what he sees there, he has come up with another argument, one that can’t be dismissed out of hand: he has to keep up to date with what’s going on in Georgia, he says. However, he is glued not only to the news but to any kind of trash, not least the ads whenever they pollute the channels.

  A couple of days ago in the afternoon, as I looked in through the living-room door, he was singing along with the Maggi soups jingle—“Mag-gi… such good soup!” Then he burst into laughter. I asked what the joke was, and he gave me in all seriousness an analysis of that intolerable nonsense: the melody is catchy (for God’s sake, you wonder why he thinks such stuff is typically German!), you can’t forget it, but even better is the picture of the soup spoon suddenly tying itself into a knot—very clever, very amusing. The advertising people really know how to fascinate the public and “…how do you put it? Get their product to stick in the mind.”

  Yesterday afternoon, when I suddenly realized as I was working that I hadn’t heard a sound anywhere in the house for some time, I found him in Ralf’s room. Ralf, who hadn’t played chess with me for over a year, was sitting at the chessboard with him. In between two moves he explained to me that chess was particularly popular in Georgia, and Georgian players were phenomenally successful, as the two women world champions Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze, among others, had shown. He was sure I’d know those names.

  I did know them, or at least I’d read them once, but I said briefly no. He smiled. Ah, well, that was the fate of the Georgians, he said. Nana Ioseliani, now preparing to take the title back from Xie Jun of China, was a world-class player, although the war had cramped her style. However, the Western media obviously preferred the Polgár sisters, although Ioseliani was a considerably stronger player than those three Hungarians.

  After imparting this information, he checkmated Ralf in four moves. Neither Ralf nor I could work out the combination he was using from the position of the pieces on the board. It would have been worth a hundred marks to me, maybe even two hundred, if I could have shown him that he’d made a mistake. But he sacrificed two pieces, one of them his queen, and drove Ralf’s king into a corner. It was a conclusive combination. Our guest smiled and put the pieces back on the board for another game.

  The two of them played until supper. I was already feeling this was as much of an imposition as a man in Ninoshvili’s position, here on a mission like his, could allow himself. But at noon today he made use of his time and exploited our hospitality even more outrageously.

  I came home around twelve, probably earlier than he had expected. When I didn’t find him either in the living room or in Julia’s study, I called, “Hello?” There was no reply. I assumed that he was out and felt a certain relief, because I still wanted to believe that his intention of opening up Georgian literature to German-language readers was more than just a smokescreen. But as I climbed the stairs to my study I heard rushing, glugging sounds coming from the bathroom. I stopped outside the door. No doubt about it, water was running into the tub.

  I knocked on the door and called, “David, are you in there?” He replied, “Hello, Christian! I was just running myself a foam bath.” I heard water splashing. “Do you want to come in at the moment?” he called.

  I gasped for breath. Then I called back, “No, no, I wouldn’t like to disturb you.”

  Sitting down at my desk, I tried to recover my composure. The top floor of the house has a spacious, comfortable shower in between Ralf’s room and the spare room. Until now, all our guests had been perfectly happy with it, even Erika. At least, none of them has ever expressed a wish for a foam bath in the tub that Julia and I use in the first-floor bathroom.

  Perhaps he asked Julia, and perhaps she said it was all right. I don’t know, maybe I don’t want to know. One way or another, that man is intruding upon my private space in a way that brings me out in a sweat.

  I spent about ten minutes sitting at my desk, and I still couldn’t master the turmoil of my feelings. Suddenly I had an idea. I rose to my feet and moved cautiously to the bathroom door. He had turned the taps off, but the water in the tub was splashing slightly. I heard his voice as he hummed to himself, and all at once he burst into song. This time it wasn’t the Maggi jingle. He was singing a Georgian folk song, or at least it sounded as melancholy and heartfelt as I imagine the songs of Georgia must be.

  Stepping quietly, I climbed the stairs to the top storey and opened the spare-room door. I stood listening, and then went over to the leather case. The clasps were closed but not locked; they could be opened. I lifted the lid of the case.

  I had already been surprised that he hadn’t yet shown me any of the manuscripts he said he was trying to sell in the Federal Republic of Germany. What I found in his case was far from impressive, at least in terms of quantity. One quite thick manuscript of about three hundred pages, and a bare half-dozen shorter texts. Under them, in a folder with the stamp of Julia’s law practice on it, were the copies she had had made by her secretary.

  Two books and a newspaper in the Georgian alphabet, a Georgian-German dictionary. A document case with which I had once seen him leaving the house: it was empty. A notebook containing telephone numbers, most of the names also written in the Georgian alphabet. Otherwise just bits and pieces: a chocolate bar, empty envelopes, a well-worn knitted waistcoat.

  On a sudden impulse, I leafed through the book. I found four medium-sized photographs between the pages of one of them. Three of the photos showed men, the fourth was of a blonde woman. There were notes in Georgian on the backs of the photos.

  I felt a drop of sweat running down my temple. I went through the suitcase again, this time more thoroughly. I found a pair of thin, black leather gloves tucked into a side pocket, and a flick knife with a decorative handle in another.

  After I had stood there for some time as if dazed, bending o
ver the suitcase, I pulled myself together, put the lid of the case back and shut the clasps. I had already left the spare room when I turned back. I opened the wardrobe door, felt around in the underwear and shirts that he had stacked neatly on the shelves, searched the pockets of his suits. Nothing of interest. I opened the drawer of the bedside table. Underneath a street map of this city I found a photograph of Matassi.

  She was leaning on the balustrade of a lookout platform, smiling, her shadowed eyes looking at the photographer. In the background, I could make out the Kura Valley and the higgledy-piggledy houses of Tbilisi. I thought she didn’t look a day older. She was as beautiful as I remembered her.

  Ninoshvili spent almost an hour in the bathroom, and after that another half-hour in the spare room. It was nearly two when he knocked on my door. He looked splendid, tall and strong, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, a supple figure. His chestnut-brown hair shone. He was wearing a tie with a discreet red-and-blue pattern and a pale-blue shirt. The document case was tucked under his arm. “I must be off now,” he said. “I have an appointment.”

  I nodded. “Good luck, then.” He said nothing for a moment; he did not take his dark eyes off me, but was looking at me as if he had to think about what I had wished him. Then he said, “Thank you. I thank you, my friend.” And he closed the door.

  Chapter 21

  In all times allowances have been made for youthful high spirits, and so today there are still many who think our young people no better but no worse than the young have always been. But even without looking on the dark side too much, even if we try to judge with leniency, it will not have escaped the watchful eye that there is little for the heart to rejoice in as we contemplate young persons today. We hear new complaints about the younger generation daily, and only too often we read newspaper reports of serious crimes and misdemeanours committed by young people. Criminal statistics showing that the number of youthful offenders found guilty in the courts has risen by over fifty per cent in the last twenty years… give us grave cause for concern.