Waiting for the Electricity (44 page)
Like the teapot boiling
it must let off steam
or it will blow off its hat
like a person
.
All the world is crazy
clever or stupid
.
The roof is flying off the house
.
Now is the time to speak
about what is inside
Whoever’s heart is hungry for the living come to me
I am crazy for this world
.
My body is a ship with a pipe
and it’s polluted with too much steam
.
It’s time for it to return to sunny and clean lands
.
Don’t believe the crocodile tears
.
It’s real rain
.
It’s the fashion to build cities out of ice
but the sun will melt it
.
Forgive me my fortune
for I cannot accompany you
.
In heaven there are also countries
.
There is a Georgia there too
but it is not for sale
.
“Come, Tamriko,” Juliet said. “Let’s move back to the village.”
“I’ll follow you,” Malkhazi said.
“I’ll follow you, too,” I said.
This book would not have been possible without those who taught me to see with a Georgian lens. My deepest thanks go to Giorgi Murvanidze, Zviadi Mikeladze, Anzor Katamadze, Nona Mikeladze, Manana Mitaishvili, Tamuna Kiknadze, Tornike Tsotsoria, Tamuna Kobelashvili, Manana Antidze, Tamriko Siradze, Marina Giorgadze, Nino Inaishvili, Vano Kobelashvili, his wife Qeti Goguadze, and everyone in their village. I would also like to thank Inga Goguadze for her songs. Also thanks to Kuba Sheshenkojoyev for teaching me what a village can be, and to Mathjis Pelkmans for his far-reaching perspectives. I am also deeply grateful for those who supported me in a variety of ways: Dana Dizon, Susan Lindauer, Amber Mahler, Mehera Kleiner, Susan Marshall, Izida Zolde, Naveen Chauduri, Nan Wicker, Cate Calson, Julia Weidmann, Smita Patel, Laurissa Kowalchuck, and Marjorie Thomas for their steadfast friendship throughout this process. I am grateful to Rebecca Kunin for offering to be my New Zealand wife if I ever needed to immigrate; Allison Siebecker for plying me with chocolate chip cookies and prune alcohol; David White and his barbecue and Shop-Vac; Chandra Shukla, who remembered what I wrote; Micol Hammack to compare notes with; Markus Bennett—the metaphor man—and his lovely Cecilia for their garden-talk rejuvenations; Larry Thrasher, who set out an extra plate at the dinner table for Slims, and Larry’s mother who prayed that Slims’s life would improve; Ken Paul Rosenthal for his courageous experiments; David Kay for offering to host a radio show for Slims to give advice to four blocks in Brooklyn; Daniel Smith, who actually read the Juliet parts and liked them better; Lulu Torbet, who
was the very first to read it and said I might have something; Martha Gies, who told me the oil industry was more important to write about than Kyrgyz kidnapping; Laura Didyk for hawk jokes and her intuition; Jeff Gillon, who could also write something really funny; Tom Parker, who still believed in this book after a long time; Joan Gelfand, who still believed in the pursuit of truth after a long time; Garth Dyke for his creative support and the huge table he gave me to write on; David Leavitt for his valuable suggestions; Padgett Powell for his stories that are so funny it’s hard to really believe it; Mary Robison for the way she articulates her sentences; Jill Ciment for consistently pushing me in the right direction; John Cech for his childhood looking-glass; Vince Amlin for his touchstone of wisdom and humor; Larry Reimer for the same, and for his sermon on waiting; Roger Beebe for daring to read the thing; Stu Crosby for actually laminating the manuscript so he could read it in the bathtub; the MacDowell Colony for the time and quietude and company; Peter Demek for being himself; Melinda Stone for her homemade fellowship; the MFA@FLA gang, most especially Sarah Sheldon, Harry Leeds, Rachel Khong, and Elizabeth Bevilaqua (oh heck, everyone there!); the magnificent support of the Rona Jaffe Foundation; Merwan Irani, for consistently keeping my funny bone tickled; Joyce Barison for her avocado, wasabi, and sardine sandwiches; Shanti Elliott, for her far-reaching magic and rituals; Mark Thomas for appreciating my humor; my cousin’s children; my other cousins, Matt, Maria, and Miguel; Chris Fortin, who taught me to trust my feet again; my Aunt Francis, whose very existence helps me connect my feet with my heart; my Uncle Bruce for reminding me of the economic reality of sheep; Bill Offermann and my mother, Kate Frazier, for the deep solace of their coffee talks; my father Allan, who told me he wouldn’t speak to me unless I quit my job and started writing; my sisters Jessica and Annie, also true storytellers and interpreters in their own right; my brother, David, for his grand generosity and his big deck to write on; my sister-in-law Lelah for the same; my nephew Julian who thought I was writing
Waiting for the Electron
; my tireless advocate of an agent Irene Skolnick; and my ineffably brilliant editor Mark Krotov.
“This inventive debut from Nichol, who has taught English in the Republic of Georgia, where the book is set, provides a satirical but good-natured look at the clash between American and Georgian attitudes … Tongue-in-cheek humor and Slims’s deadpan narration of his improbable tale add considerable appeal to this promising first novel.”
—
Publishers Weekly
CHRISTINA NICHOL
is a 2012 recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award. Nichol grew up in the Bay Area, studied at the University of Oregon, and received her MFA from the University of Florida. She has traveled widely, worked for nonprofit film companies, and taught English in India, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and, of course, Georgia. Her work has been published in
Guernica
and
Lucky Peach
.
Waiting for the Electricity
is her first book.
JACKET DESIGN AND ILLUSTRTION BY ANTHONY MORAIS
THE OVERLOOK PRESS
NEW YORK, NY
