Waiting for the Electricity (39 page)

I bought a Kazbegi beer. Under the beer’s influence—and noticing the sun sparkling on the warm, emerald bottle—I became sensitive to the beauty of the winter light. “Light. It is light that is important. Whoever wins this election, may the sun always shine on his head,” I said, and raised my glass to Shalva, the policeman, who was standing by the side of the road, bowing and waving at the women who drove past. One stopped her car and gave him a bag of apples. Shalva divvied them up on the curb and gave me half. I spit out the seeds for the blackbirds.

At the end of the voting day, the electricity quivered, and like the candle in Vaja Pshavela’s poem, “its light embraced the hearths, and at times gleamed brighter still, but then flickered low and died.”

A pair of European election observers—some sort of official scrutineers—emerged from the Center for Democracy rolling their necks, which were so stiff from their intense observation work. They wore bright yellow badges advertising the importance of their work. Fortunately, they hadn’t already made an appointment, as I could tell by their halfhearted steps shuffling in one direction and then in
the other. I knew I must address this issue very diplomatically so I shuffled, a little experimentally, until my strides matched theirs, and asked them, “
Romeli satia
”—what is the time, in Georgian. They didn’t understand Georgian and made this clear to me by using the un-Georgian body language of raising their eyebrows and bobbing their heads.

“Ah, you are foreigners!” I said. “Do you know Anthony?”

“Who’s Anthony?” they asked.

“It’s a joke,” I said. “But you should meet him. You would all really like each other, I think.” I gave them my business card—it had an emblem of a sheriff’s star in the left-hand corner—to let them know I was not merely a Georgian peasant. I led them to the Cafe Soviet Nostalgia because I knew today was the day that the violin player played in the basement.

“The electricity is out here,” one of the election observers said while adjusting his ski cap. “Let’s go to a different place.”

“Ah, but the elections are over so the electricity is out everywhere,” I said. “We can sit by the window for some light. Also the women are the most beautiful here.” From Tamriko, I ordered some
khachapuri
and Kazbegi beer.

I couldn’t understand everything they spoke about because as we waited for our food the two only cavorted in Swedish to each other. When I began to feel a little bored I ordered another beer and demonstrated to Tamriko how I could open it with my belly button.

When our food arrived, with the golden yolk of the hen floating on top of a steaming boat of farmer cheese, I said, “Sunny-side up!” in order to assure them that I was no mere dilettante of the English language and it wasn’t my intention to use them only to practice my English, but that I had more serious matters to discuss. I wanted to wink at them but felt so sorry for them as I watched their struggle with the
khachapuri
, cutting into it with their knives and forks, all the butter leaking off the bread into a puddle on the platter.

“It’s okay to use your fingers,” I said and tore off the outer railing of the bread boat to demonstrate how to scoop up some cheese and dip it in the yolk.

After they had taken a few sips of beer and had spoken to me about the exaggerated alcoholic content of it, I stooped my head toward theirs and whispered, “What would you do if you saw someone, one person, stuffing fifteen ballots into the ballot box?”

They looked at each other. One man cleared his throat; looked down at his beer; and turned it, slowly, counterclockwise on the table. He said that they were sent to observe, not to interfere, and that he had seen these
irregularities
and had noted them in his book with the date and the time. His voice lacked contrition, didn’t even try to feign it.

“But what is the use of that?” I asked. “Don’t you know, we Georgians will try to get away with anything?”

“We are here only to observe,” he said. “Not to act as police.”

“But what is the use?”

“Diplomatic purposes,” the other man said.

“Georgian elections are like women,” the first said. “So changeable.” He was trying to change the subject.

Right then the electricity came on. “Ah,” I said, pointing to the light. “A sign. Perhaps you are right. Tamriko!” I yelled. “He says the elections are like women. Would you agree?”

But she hadn’t heard me because a newly electrified radio in the kitchen crackled forth, “I wear my sunglasses at night.”

Even though I usually had the
chonguri
in my heart, filling my blood with the resonance of a traditional Georgian instrument, reminding me what and who is a Georgian, this modern disco music, this doom-boom-doom music, started to speed everything up. Now I had to align my heart to
that
beat, and where there is speed there is no feeling. It reminded us all, sitting in the restaurant, what people in Western modern countries were feeling. Subversively, the music whispered to us
catch up!
with the heroic rhythm of a UN rescue helicopter on the slopes of Mount Kazbegi, evacuating skiers out of the snow—those who got stuck in the chairlift when the electricity went out.

The sun was setting like a huge pimento, gilding the restaurant tables in goodbye light. But nobody was noticing because we were all nodding our heads up and down to the rhythm of this American song.
I said, “Listening to this music is the way that we feel close to you in the West because it is your main emotional reality.”

They became indignant; they claimed that this had nothing to do with their emotional reality. “It’s music from the eighties,” one of them said. “And we’re Swedish.” Yet even
they
couldn’t help nodding their heads up and down to its dictatorial rhythm. I watched them: one spoke into the ear of the other. The man nodded and waited his turn to respond. Both of their hands were splayed on the checkered red-and-white tablecloth, hunching over their foamy tankards of high alcohol content beer.

It was only then, while listening to this Western music, watching everyone nod in tune to an unelected melody, something native to neither our soil nor our soul, did I remember my promise to the eternal Toastmaster in the sky, how I had once wanted to put forth an individual effort. But to bring real democracy to Georgia could only be accomplished through collective effort.

“Are you writing a political document?” Malkhazi asked leaning over my shoulder to try to see what I was writing. “Because if it is, it’s going to be the most boring thing in the world to read.”

“Do you think the politicians will be offended at what I write?” I asked.

“Well now,” he considered. “That depends entirely upon whom you dedicate it to.”

That evening, after the results from the elections had been tallied, we learned that old Shevardnadze had won again! One hundred and twenty percent of the population had purportedly voted for him. And so, it seemed that once again democratic values were thrown into the rubbish bin.

“Looks like you’re going to have to dedicate your book to
him
,” Malkhazi said as we watched the election programming on TV. A big brass band was playing our anthem and ol’ Shevardnadze was smiling.
He still wore a suit that looked like it was from communist times, but the later period, around the time the first lightbulb commercials appeared. The program was interrupted, however, to show the beginning of a ferment in front of the Parliament Building. Usually, the only protesters were the retired grandfathers. But now, after fourteen years without light, water, and movement, the people’s resentment had increased to such a degree that the usual posse of old men, women, and communists were joined by young people. I even saw some old school friends from the university on TV. They, and so many others, were gathering on the steps, under the columns, in the middle of the intersection where the statue of King David on his horse seemed to be girding people up. It was becoming clear that something was going to happen. I wanted to join them.

This new Saakashvili was using the high quality, advanced, technical diplomatic skills of the West. There were so many people gathered in the main square, even the ice cream seller was getting some good business. Saakashvili wrestled the ice cream seller’s megaphone away from him and shouted to the people to come together side-by-side. “Sing!” he shouted. At first only one or two obeyed. But soon others began to harmonize in a polyphonic tune.

Eduard Shevardnadze fortified the parliament with more of his guards. In the air was the old familiar aroma of civil war. But both parties knew what civil war meant; Mikheil Saakashvili knew he had to be careful. Everyone knew that if even one person was shot, too much blood would be spilt. Saakashvili decided that none of the protestors should be armed. He took away their guns and their swords and announced that true victory could only be achieved with flowers—in particular, a rose.

“If there was ever a time to steal a flower for your girl, this is the time,” Malkhazi told me.

People from every corner of Georgia came to Tbilisi in transports filled with roses. The military watched wearily, but to speak truthfully, they were bored with old Eddy Shevy’s policies too. In fact, the soldiers could not suppress their astonishment and admiration. They had not expected such an immense crowd. “There isn’t even
room to swing a cat,” one of them was quoted as saying the next day in the newspaper.

At home, Juliet was even preparing to join them. She was wearing all kinds of bags over her shoulder. One of the straps had broken so she had replaced it with a telephone cord. “Brotherhood has come back to Georgia,” she said. “They are all holding hands in front of the parliament building. Saakashvili has called for people to join him, even from Western Georgia.”

In the villages, the atrophied rosebushes, the ones garlanding the Stalin statues, perked up. We gathered them by the bushel, all the unruly ones growing out of control up the balconies. We gathered the
Rhododendron caucasicum
, also known as the snow rose of the alpine meadows—the secret to long life when you drink it. We gathered the five-petaled roses, associated with the five wounds of Christ, and the blood red ones symbolizing the blood of the martyrs. Like Georgian Don Quixotes we held out our roses like swords.

Malkhazi said he would drive. But as soon as our local dictator realized that Saakashvili meant to reunify Georgia, to take over Adjaria, he declared a state of emergency and closed down the borders to our province. His own residence was no longer safe. His Russian soldiers roamed the streets trying to protect him. Putin called Bush and left a voice mail. A bridge exploded. The dictator had blown up the bridge over the Choloki River, which united our province with the rest of Georgia. Bush called Putin back.

Our local dictator blew up all the bridges, but the Georgian army came into our town by way of the sea. Ten-year-old boys climbed onto tanks and waved Georgian flags.

The dictator had thought that he had the whole of Adjaria in his pocket. He had thrown little salaries and pensions to us like bones to a dog. But now all of Western Georgia was in chaos. In the local villages people harvested the rest of their roses.

Those of us who couldn’t come to Tbilisi because of the blocked roads watched the Rustavi 2 news station and saw the streams of vehicles, fifty thousand people filling Freedom Square and Rustaveli Avenue in front of the parliament building. Saakashvili entered the
crowd bellowing songs. Every evening and into the morning for almost a whole week they sang, while President Shevardnadze still insisted that he wanted a face-to-face discussion, he wanted a peaceful solution and, if given another chance, he would fight corruption.

At dawn on the day when Shevardnadze would be sworn into office, yet again the hymn sounded in the parliament. It was time for old Eddy Shevardnadze to make his acceptance speech. But the noise of the crowd outside, being urged to sing, was so huge it was like something by Shostakovich—those first seconds, which sound like frying or the static sound we used to have to listen to when we couldn’t reach the top button of the old Soviet push button televisions. And then the crowd got its melody back. Mikheil Saakashvili yelled to Edward Shevardnadze through an official bullhorn, “Look here at this crowd. Restore justice to them or resign. If you want a revolution, you will get it!”

Edward Shevardnadze responded, “I tell you there must be no protest meetings. Or disorder! People must calm down, become quiet, and mind their own business. If they do not refrain from using force, the police and the internal army can take care of them!”

“Now or never!” yelled Mikheil Saakashvili.

At exactly that moment the police guarding Shevardnadze realized that their deeds could awe the world. The world would never see again such a peaceful protest or such happiness. Shevy’s soldiers, his own military men, refused to defend him against their fellow Georgians. They broke their own cordon and let the people wielding their rose petal weapons into the parliament building. Mikheil Saakashvili and a hundred other young people stormed the parliament carrying so many roses into the hall at the moment Edward Shevardnadze was making his welcoming speech that many wondered if it was actually another holiday for women.

“Resign, resign!” shouted our Saakashvili to Shevardnadze.

“I will not resign!” replied Eduard Shevardnadze. But Shevardnadze’s chief guard soon deciphered the situation, surrounded his object of protection, gathered him from his chair, and escaped out of the building.

“I feel hungry,” Saakashvili said, and in one sip, finished the cup of tea prepared for Shevardnadze.

That evening Edward Shevardnadze officially resigned and promised journalists that he would write his memoirs.

Euphoria had begun in Georgia. Some began to speak aloud about past violations. Some were so happy they spoke to themselves. “They have gone through a lot of suffering to get here!” reported Western newspapers.

The women leaders thanked the youth who had been particularly active and asked them to be peaceful. The male leaders asked the new troops to be clever and careful. Even the old communists supported Saakashvili.