Waiting for the Electricity (22 page)

The doorbell rang. It was Merrick’s father. “Dad,” Merrick said. “Didn’t we agree that you would call before you visited?”

“Yes, but I wanted to meet your new guest.” When he saw me he put his hands together as if to pray. He made a little bow, as if he were a Japanese person. “We deeply respect your traditions,” he said. He looked at Merrick. “Can he understand me? Maybe I should speak more slowly.” He turned to me and bowed again. “We. Honor. You. Our culture has lost its way. We live in a spiritually bankrupt society. We hope that you can teach us the old ways. We can get you a horse.”

“What?” I asked.

“Perhaps. You. Have. Not. Ridden. In. A. Car. Before.”

“Dad!” Merrick said. “He took the airplane here. He’s heard of a car before.”

“Quiet, son. Haven’t you heard of Ishi, the last Native American? He stepped aboard a train but who knows what was going on in his soul? We don’t want to turn this fellow into a jaded American. What sorts of activities have you arranged for him?”

Pluck. Pluck. Merrick plucked his three-stringed guitar. There they were. The father, the son, the homeless man, all singing songs for me. They couldn’t sing very well, hadn’t mastered the harmony, but they were trying so hard. They had such hope, such mighty idealism, such open expressions. “I haven’t had this much fun in fifteen years,” I told Merrick. “I think your family is not pessimistic.”

“Actually, my dad is fairly pessimistic. He’s always worried about global warming. Any time I go to a baseball game he says, ‘You better enjoy it now. There won’t be any baseball in the future.’”

Later, I pulled the lint off my trousers with the tape I had brought. I polished my shoes with a sock. I put on my sunglasses and slicked back my hair with some water. I told Merrick, “I am ready to see the town.”

As we walked down the street, I took off my sunglasses because the sky was overcast. A few blocks down some workers wearing helmets and matching orange jackets with reflector tape on them were excavating the sidewalk to insert some pipe. They had been provided with a lot of equipment: huge cables; cranes working, purring; humming
machinery. “Usually the only cables we have left in Georgia are seat belts,” I said. “Your machinery makes me feel like a dignified man. It is helping me see things from a vertical position.” I tried to stand up straighter.

On the street of Geary was a Georgian bakery. I was very surprised. “I am shocked that you have such a shop devoted to the old world,” I said.

“The old world? Right. You’re a man of the old world. Would you like to go inside?”

“But why? I already know what the old world smells like. It is like old leather furniture. Your country has a new smell. Besides, what excuse would I give to make their acquaintance?”

“Just to talk?”

“But why? We don’t meet in other countries just to say hello. They might become suspicious and think I’m a junkie.”

But no Georgians worked there—only happy Chinese people, and I did not feel comfortable asking them for a job. They sold
khachapuri
for four dollars each. “I think that price is a little too high,” I told them. “In Georgia they only cost twenty cents.” But they also sold beautiful and cheap slices of cakes called Mother-in-Law, Napoleon, Princess, Madonna, and Tbilisi.

I bought a Mother-in-Law, took the cake outside, and sat down on the curb. “I have heard that in America it is okay to just sit on the curb and eat cake,” I told Merrick. “We will share this cake,” I said and took from my pocket a fork.

“You brought your own fork?” he asked. It is easy to shock Americans, even in their own country.

Another funny incident: Radio Shack. Merrick wanted to buy some special AAA batteries for a project he was working on. I scrutinized the cords, wires, and tiny adapters sold in perfect packages with clear directions. “It’s so easy to understand these directions,” I told Merrick. “In Georgia, our writers use words from the sixteenth century in order to sound sophisticated.”

A customer walked up to the counter, and waiting for the clerk, rang the little service bell. She kept dinging it, annoyed. I called Merrick over to the surge protector section, which was located next to the service counter. “Come here!” I said. “Quickly! Watch!”

“What? What?” Merrick said.

“Quiet,” I said. “Just listen.”

The clerk had come out from the back and was saying, “Sorry for making you wait,” he said. “Phone call.”

“Oh, excuse me, I’m wondering if you could help me. I have a problem with my answering machine. Maybe you could look at it?”

“Isn’t that funny?” I nudged Merrick.

“What’s funny about that?”

“It’s beautiful. So many words! In Georgia we only say, ‘Fix this!’”

Outside, we crossed the street at the crosswalk. A car coming toward us stopped. I waved at the driver. “They are so polite,” I said to Merrick.

“Not really. It’s the law.”

“In Georgia it’s the law too, but no one follows the law. Tell me, seriously, how do you get everyone to follow the law here?”

“Not
everyone
follows the law here,” he said.

That wasn’t a good answer because it was obvious that Americans followed the law well enough to keep their electricity running. I pointed up at the dozens of power lines strapping the city together. “In Georgia the copper contained in those wires is worth about five dollars a kilo at the current exchange rate. If this were Georgia those wires would have been clipped a long time ago.”

“That’s hard to believe,” he said.

“Believe it. I’m not joking. A few winters ago half of our power lines were cut and sold to Turkey. But here, I have heard that even if utility companies try to raise their prices they first have to pass many regulations. They can’t just raise them whenever they feel like it like in our country. It’s a beautiful system.”

“Yeah,” said Merrick, “I guess we’re used to it.”

“But it’s important to think about it, to pay attention to it.
America looks how Georgia used to look. And then in one night, kaput. Now, in Georgia, we only talk about, you know, mysticism and delirium.”

That evening I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling again, and wondered if I could stay here. Find a job here. Send money home. I threw away the lines I had written to Tamriko and took out another piece of paper to write to my family.

Everything is fine here. Don’t worry about me. My host is a good guy. In the shops everyone smiles so happily. That is the best part. And the streetcars move in and out with electricity all the time like they used to in our country and it is so regular that it is easy to be calm. California also lost electricity last summer and it was called “national disaster.” Imagine. I am trying to have an adventure but Americans are such quiet and polite people. They donate rooms in their houses to people with meager salaries and are studying to make houses out of straw. I am living with a Democrat. I do not know the exact meaning yet. I begin business seminars tomorrow. Merrick says they are all Republicans there
.

15.

M
ERRICK WOKE ME UP EARLY IN THE MORNING.
“S
LIMS
,”
HE SAID,
rapping on the door. “If we’re late my sister is going to kill me.”

Susan, Merrick’s sister, was in charge of the business seminar. Her organization had run out of host families, which was why I was staying with her brother. Brother and sister did not resemble each other at all. She was the one who looked, how else can I say? Official. But elegant. The backlight through the window shone a cinematic highlight on her hair, the color of good quality Russian chocolate. But the overall atmosphere around her made you feel as if you were watching a documentary on a Turkish-made TV. The reds were too bright and smeared outside the lines. Maybe she looked like this because her lipstick had smudged, creating the impression that she was always rushing-rushing and didn’t have time to look at herself too closely. She wore a maroon “power suit,” as she described it, and her smeared lips were in sync with her suit, and drew me to them because they contained the authority of knowing what they were saying. I admired her nostalgically and a little tenderly. She reminded me of a younger Hillary Clinton. I tried to imagine her in one of our Soviet spas. I wondered if she liked to rub her body with the cubes of salt that Merrick kept near his bathtub. Despite the ample curves in her maroon suit, she acted like a businessman. I was sure she went to the
building under the computer center for business lunches and didn’t attend any womanly cooperative craft society.

As is the American custom, she first gave us an
outline
of her life by clicking her computer mouse in what she explained was a program called PowerPoint, a type of software that would be
advantageous
for us to learn. “It looks more professional,” she said, “to have bullet points. Though it’s usually men who tend to be more impressed.”

She said in her
former life
she used to work with the World Bank when they were funding the construction of nuclear reactors in Eastern Europe. But one day when she was walking to work she saw her reflection in the black glass of a savings and loans building and said to herself, “Who is that woman wearing those professional looking shoes?” So she quit her job with the World Bank and decided go into foreign policy for nongovernmental organizations. “And yet,” she said, “I must admit I’ve never lost my
competitive edge
. I want to teach you all about the free market economy. If you learn about policy making, you can make the policy. Not many people realize this. There are always organizations vying for diminishing funds, but not many know the appropriate means to obtain them. Though the exorbitant budget cuts by the current administration have compromised our resources, the US still has a vested interest in financially supporting programs for the development of democracy in post-Soviet republics.”

I hadn’t sat in a lecture hall as a student in seven years, though I did occasionally
deliver
lectures at Rustaveli State University on maritime law. But it was always my bad habit that whenever I sat in a lecture, the military instructor before my eyes became a little bee, engaged in an activity that had nothing to do with me. Such were our instructors. I could barely endure the last month of the university, having to sit and listen to the military lecturer tell us that if one Georgian was facing
y
amount of soldiers, he should be able to defeat them; that if we were being attacked from the rear, we must turn around. “Let us practice outside now,” he would shout.

Of course it’s okay for our poets to sit drinking under the almond
blossoms thinking philosophical thoughts. But when
I
sat under the almond trees outside the university, on my shoes to keep dry, nursing a bottle of homemade
chacha
, the military lecturer would come over and yell at me, “Slims, you are supposed to be marching around with the others. We are on a reconnaissance mission. Already they are nearing the Turkish Boys’ School.”

“Don’t you have any respect for the great philosophers?” I had yelled at him.

“What sort of Georgian are you?” he had said. I almost had to join the Georgian military for my wanton remark.

Susan also resembled a bee, but watching her, the life of a bee took on an entirely different meaning. I remember learning how in order to communicate to the others the bee does a little dance and points at the honey with his behind. I felt that by listening to Susan I could find America’s honey. “We already know that current leaders in positions of power in your countries,” Susan was saying, “have no viable examples of a free market economy, of democracy, of adaptive techniques other than the staid echoes of communism. Over the next six weeks, we will therefore mentor you in sustainable business practices and aid you in your search for partners, potential donors and investors. We will work side-by-side with you to study the achievements of the businesses in your own countries and help you make informed choices about new marketing concepts to help promote awareness of your products and services. The first two weeks will be your induction period and the last four weeks you will participate in your internships. As I said, this effort will require courage, creativity, and extraordinary willpower. Let’s go around the room now and introduce ourselves. I want to hear your positions.”

We were all a little reticent, especially after that speech. I had been looking forward to coming to the American heaven, but now I was also beginning to understand that there is a lot of pressure in paradise.

“What’s she talking about?” asked the Russian man sitting next to me. I wondered if his understanding of English was poor.

“Just follow her example,” I said. “She’s really happy, like an optimist.”

“Like Puff Daddy,” he said.

We sat in a circle, or rather a square, on plushy leather couches. Sergei—the man sitting next to me, slumping in his chair—was of the melancholy type. He wore the traditional mafioso outfit: black leather jacket, sweatpants, flip-flops, and in his mouth he chewed a toothpick.

“Sergei,” Susan said, looking at her clipboard. “Can you tell us where you’re from?”

He was from the Urals. His mother was a Russian factory worker but his father was a Tatar—he was quick to qualify. “My biggest concern is for our water right now. It is filled with all kinds of metals. When I fill up my bathtub the water is the color of forest honey, the black honey that comes from the trees, not the clear honey from flowers.”

“Sergei here is always thinking about our nature,” interrupted the man sitting next to him, and slapping him on the back. “Allow me to introduce myself.” He stood up and addressed Susan, ignoring the rest of us. “My name is Mikhail, or Misha you may call me.” Swankily dressed in a white shirt, tie, and gray sports coat, with a mobile phone attached to his hip, even his lanky body type was fashionable in a
new
Russian sort of way. “And I, we”—he stooped to rap Sergei on the shoulder again—“want to tell you that in Russia now there are good people and there are bad people.” Sergei, beside him, nodded slowly. “Believe us,” continued Misha, “believe us, really. It’s a fact. Maybe you see these Russian immigrants in your cities in their tracksuits talking loudly and smoking Marlboros by the swimming pool. And we sympathize with your condition. That is why Sergei is the only company I can truly trust. Do you agree, it is only possible to trust the company you were born with?” He looked around the room. “Okay, we are all in agreement. It is a fact. That is why Sergei and I can know that we, ourselves, can establish a new tradition among the travel agents. I know you think that our travel agents are corrupt. And yes, your thinking is correct. Our travel agents take bribes from innocent people. But we are striving for
something other than that. Sergei and I want to study about the American travel agents. We have formed a sort of covenant and no longer will we be accepting bribes.” I gazed at them dreamily. This was something quite interesting. “Here is our phone number.” He handed our instructor his business card. “If you ever come to Russia and if you have any problems with your travel arrangements you can call us. With the glory of God you won’t have any problems. But if you do, you can call us.”