Somewhere East of Life Page 11

A copse of stunted trees had grown up round the mosque. As the file of men passed by, Burnell noticed field mortars among the trees, idly guarded by two soldiers from the rear detachment. The copse was terminated abruptly by a steep cliff, on the edge of which stood the mosque. Its mihrab wall faced due south over the precipice toward far-distant Mecca.

  The force passed by the ruinous building, to pick its way over the lip of the cliff and down, on the first leg of a descent into the valley of the River Tskavani. That valley was as yet parceled up in mist and shadow; there seemed no limit to its gloomy extent. The sound of running water filtered up, and the chipped song of a bird. So dramatic was the view, Burnell ran off several photographs, until he needed both hands for the descent, and put the camera away.

  To some extent, Burnell was prepared for the rigors of the territory. After his phone call from “Tartary”—a communication of which “Gus” Stalinbrass no doubt had some knowledge—he had read up on the region. His oldest informant was Douglas W. Freshfield, whose book, Travels in the Central Caucasus and Bashan: Including Visits to Ararat and Tabreeze and Ascents of Kazbek and Elbruz, had been published by Longmans Green of London in 1869. The stalwart Victorian described the hardships of travel in the unlucky isthmus between Black and Caspian seas. But neither the hachures of Freshfield’s maps, nor the elegance of Kronheim’s illustrations, fortified Burnell sufficiently for the way in which the crumbling goat path they were now following threatened to pitch them down into the valley below.

  Low scrub, often aromatic, grew underfoot. No flowering azaleas, which Freshfield had led Burnell to expect, flourished on these precipitous slopes. They had to progress at times on their bums, clutching at the scrub.

  After half an hour of perilous progress, a dramatic change in the light altered the scene. Across the gulf of valley to the west, piled cumulus revealed themselves, their gray-blue mushrooms burgeoning from the compost of the Black Sea. No sooner had they materialized than they warmed from neutral colors into faded rose and then into bright pink. As the strengthening sun brought about this transformation, thunder sounded in the bellies of the clouds and they were lit from within by lightning—Japanese lanterns of a terrible beauty. They were in the world of the romantic artist, John Martin.

  As progress improved, Burnell allowed his thoughts to wander. He recalled the boyhood trip to Iceland on which his father had taken him. It had been disastrous. As they scrambled up the slopes of Vatna Jokul, his father had said, “You’ve always been afraid of getting your hands dirty, Roy.” They were filthy enough now to satisfy the old man.

  His father belonged to “the old school”—a school Burnell at once admired and resented. Earlier generations of Englishmen had regarded Transcaucasia as a legitimate part of the great globe with which the British were involved, to ruin or rule. Throughout the last century, British power had dwindled away. The British Isles were now a remote appendage of central EU power. So he found himself scrambling along under a petty warlord. Enjoying it, of course, he told himself.

  Old Freshfield—a distant relation on Burnell’s mother’s side of the family—had traveled where he would in his day. He moved through Central Caucasus, grandly summoning up Russian colonels to mail his letters home, or post-chaising into the wilds at will. Among various traveling companions, Freshfield had numbered young Englishmen going to help build the Poti-Tiflis railway, then under construction. Now here was Burnell, with half his head missing, under the orders of an ambitious sadist known as the Dead One. A century and a half saw a change in everyone’s fate.

  All day long, the West Georgian army worked its way down the slopes, men and animals, mainly in single file. Flies buzzed about them as the heat increased. It was known that the Tskavani valley harbored belts of radioactivity seeping from a local water-cooled nuclear power station which had been forced to close down. Nothing could be done about that hazard. Birds of prey wheeled overhead. Their numbers had increased recently.

  Toward evening, a halt was called. The sun disappeared early behind the great shoulders of land above them. The Tskavani had a louder voice by now. Guards were posted, no fires were permitted.

  The friendly officer in the SAS combat jacket, who introduced himself as Lieutenant Ziviad Orpishurda, came over to talk to Burnell and Irving. His was a large and open face. When he gave his great brigand’s smile, his eyes became almost lost in wrinkles and his strong teeth showed. He was perhaps forty years old. Gray tinged his temples. He wore a beret at a rakish angle.

  After some halting conversation, concerned mainly with the difficulties of the day, Orpishurda produced a bottle. He carried a khandzali, the Georgian dagger. His jacket pockets were stuffed with bullets. He had loaded himself down with an ancient machine gun, weightier than most men could carry. This he set down beside him in order to produce the bottle. The liquor was called, he announced, chacha. Irving refused it. Burnell nearly choked on it and then, liking its sensation of setting his whole anatomy on fire, took turns with Orpishurda swigging from the bottle.

  The day faded as they talked. Mists rose. The donkeys coughed like old pensionable men.

  Orpishurda was from the province of Samegrelo. He had lived in Poti for many years, and extolled its virtues. “Poti is magnificent city, a port. Since before Christ, many empires visit Poti—Roman, Persian, Byzantine, Arabic, Ottoman…” He shrugged, looking toward where Kaginovich’s bodyguard had set up a tent for their leader. “We march to Poti after Bogdanakhi, and must take the city for West Georgia Republic. Is it your General Stalinbrass will help us?”

  There was clearly an advantage in claiming a closer connection than was the case with the ferocious American general. Irving gave a tactful answer which seemed to please Orpishurda.

  Peals of thunder rolled down from above to fill the valley. Under cover of the noise, Orpishurda said, leaning closer, “Many officers know the Dead One is nothing good. Is mad fellow. But our cause is good. Poti is held by Georgia. It is vital for us, for West Georgia Republic. Our way to the sea—you understand it?” He passed the bottle again. “Our people have many bitter memories. Georgia men under present rule and Muslim Azerbaijan make great misfortune for us. Once we were rich, even last century under Moscow rule, still very rich. Now—all is ruin. EU must help us. You understand it? Maybe use nuclear weapon. We are Christian people many centuries.”

  Jim Irving nodded. “Europe has long-standing fears of Muslim extremism. Possibly exaggerated. There is wide sympathy for the problems of this area.”

  Orpishurda smiled very hard, evidently disliking this response. “Exaggerated not. How can you understand it, sir? Is old Caucasus saying, ‘Only friend of the men is the mountains.’ ” He took a moody swig of the chacha and fell silent. The silence extended itself. Burnell said nothing; contrary to what Irving had said, he believed the EU had given up on Transcaucasia long ago.

  “We’ll be turning in,” Irving said. But Orpishurda squatted on his heels and pulled Irving down beside him.

  “When you are young man, sir, you have take a walk on the Moon? Is it so?”

  “It’s a while ago now.”

  “Holy mother of Jesus!” As more thunder sounded, he stared earnestly into the face of the older man. “That was in different age, no? Much better time, more peaceful, when Josef Stalin lived?”

  Irving laughed. “Not quite that long ago.”

  “How was it on the Moon? To walk there, I mean? You like it? You like to go again?”

  “It’s hard to explain… Also the experience itself has been obliterated by the number of times I’ve told about it. You’re right, though, the world was quite different then. I have problems explaining it to the youngsters. I was brought up cheek by jowl with technology—right up against it. I subscribed to the entire American ethos…like there would always be progress and we were all Good People and America was the best place, the Land of the Free and so on… And it was our duty to fight for Democracy and the American Way of Life… Well, you don’t need to hear all that, Lie
utenant. Yeah, I liked being on Luna…”

  He was reluctant to tell about it. He had told it a million times. But Orpishurda wanted to hear. This was his chance of wider horizons. So Irving proceeded as night closed in round them.

  “OK, we got stuck on a nasty bit of Luna, in the Apennines. Our buggy turned over on its side. There was a good chance we might never get home—the first men to die on Luna.”

  “Did you have great fear?”

  Now their faces were growing dim. Burnell listened, letting the chacha burn within him like a lantern.

  “Of a sudden,” said Irving, “I found myself trusting in God, rather than Mission Control in Houston. It was a revelatory moment. There I stood on another world, and I was granted a perception of life as a miracle—not just my life, though that too, but the whole shebang, everything, homo sapiens, consciousness… The universe itself, I guess… As something wonderful that had been conceived in a mind countless times more powerful than any human mind—the mind of God. That was my great moment of vision.

  “And I knew myself to be contained within the Mind of God…a much bigger concern than NASA.”

  Orpishurda seemed disappointed. He stuck a finger into the curls beneath his beret. “But we’re all in the mind of God, sir. We know that much even on Earth, here in this valley…”

  “Well, I didn’t know it till that moment. And that’s how I’ve felt ever since. It changed me.” For a moment he was silent, thinking over what he had said. “We were able to heave the buggy upright again. It weighed less up there. Once we got the ship back to Earth, I quit NASA. Now I do what I can. I’m haunted by a religious sense of mission, to spread the word of God.”

  Burnell asked, “Was that your best moment, Jim? In your entire life? That moment of revelation?”

  Irving said, “It transformed my existence. Since then, I’ve had many such moments. I live within revelation.”

  “Um.” Burnell was always uncomfortable with religion.

  Orpishurda gave a laugh. “Would you kill someone?” He patted his machine gun.

  Irving gave a forced laugh. “If it was God’s will, I’d kill anyone. Killing is one of the auxiliaries of Brother Death, part of the Almighty’s plan. You know what they say—you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.”

  “How about not making the fucking omelette?” Burnell asked.

  He received a cool smile. “Perhaps Death and Love are equal in God’s eyes.”

  “You can revere a God with eyesight like that?” Burnell asked. Hostility rose within him: he detested the easy confidence of people—generally men—who claimed God was on their side. Particularly when God went easy on killing.

  Orpishurda was getting to his feet, and Irving with him. Orpishurda shook hands with them both, promising they would talk again in Bogdanakhi. The Mayor of Bogdanakhi, he said, had proclaimed his friendship toward the West Georgians, and life would be easy there for a day or two until they mustered forces and moved on to Poti. He clapped a broad hand on Irving’s shoulder, before making off into the dimness.

  As they turned in, Irving said quietly, “You’re not a Believer, are you, Roy? I can always tell.”

  “Well—no offense meant. It was NASA who got you to the Moon and back, wasn’t it? Not God.”

  “Oh? How is that?” The voice was calm, tolerant.

  “Tell you some time.” To himself, Burnell thought, “Let’s get to that historic wreck of a church, grab the ikon, and get back to good old Germany…” He settled down with his head on his precious pack, preparing for his disturbing dreams.

  They came at once.

  Next morning, more mountainside. Heavy rain soaked everyone. Cold heavy rain. The path turned to mud pudding beneath their boots. But the Dead One led on, and at last they reached the valley bottom.

  There was the Tskavani, hammering its stony way to the distant Caspian, black, gray and yellow, by turns.

  Only ten kilometers ahead lay the city of Bogdanakhi. After a two-hour slog through sodden undergrowth, the forces gathered in a grove of sweet chestnut trees. Fires were lit, a gruel was served with bread and a ration of local brandy. The rain petered out. The Dead One addressed his men. Rain had by no means dampened his savage spirit. Showing his irregular teeth, he reminded them all of the insults which had been heaped on West Georgia throughout the ages, from the time when Bagrat of Iveria had forced a union with eastern Georgia in the tenth century. Now they were able to strike back at all who had persecuted them. Soon the whole world would ring with the name of West Georgia. The entrails of the enemy would decorate a path from the valley of the Tskavani to the icy teeth of the Caucasus.

  The men, content with something in their bellies and cigarettes on their lips, squatted or leaned against tree trunks, listening placidly, with every evidence of good nature that bandoliers and Kalashnikovs allowed.

  Bogdanakhi, Kaginovich emphasized, was the gateway to Poti. In Poti, friendly nations would bring them supplies and men to the docks. Armies! Armies! The docks would swarm with them. Bogdanakhi had been held by irregulars, Azeris and Ossetis among them. Now it was free. The Mayor, a friend of Kaginovich’s, would welcome them.

  “We are winning through, my heroes!” He repeated the phrase. “We are winning through.”

  Kaginovich was wise enough to keep the speech short, and to throw in a scatological joke, at which everyone laughed. Burnell studied the brown faces in the clearing. He read there looks of contentment, and nothing of the tension he met with on the faces of men in the city streets of FAM. Unlike those bread-winners, these soldiers had presumably convinced themselves of the justice of their cause. They had then settled for the guerrilla life, where office hours were unknown.

  Smoke from the cooking-fire rose among the trees. While the sweet chestnuts still dripped, their upper branches became full of sunlight which, as the sun rose above the valley, worked its way downwards, just as the smoke struggled upwards. It was agreeable to be here, half listening to a speech they must have heard often before, sitting on their butt-ends with their mates.

  They had, Burnell thought, justified their existence in their own eyes, if they bothered to think about such matters. They had food and drink. They were outdoors, on a kind of hunt. They did not have to wash. They cared about their weapons but not, judging by appearances, their clothes. No great deal of thought was required of them. This was the neolithic inheritance; they resisted the urbanization, the suburbanization, which was overtaking the world, including Georgia. Their idea of a city was a place to be taken, a place of only temporary refuge.

  They were a gathering of males. No doubt it was a woman who put the first ruched curtain up in an Ice Age cave.

  Well, all that was fine as far as it went. But war was its pretext. If only these struggles could be carried out with dummy rounds…

  According to Irving’s muttered translation, Kaginovich was now saying that there were dangers everywhere. Be alert, men. Only within the city will we be safe.

  As if to emphasize the truth of his words, two shots sounded from the other side of the river. A West Georgian who had been sitting on a log fell over backwards, rose to his knees so that all could see a smashed erupting face, and then collapsed. Some of his comrades grabbed their guns and rushed toward the river. Their officers called them back. They could be running toward a trap.

  In grimmer mood, they buried the dead man among the bushes—here were Freshfield’s first azaleas—and a rough cross was hammered into place by his head. A prayer was said before they moved on.

  The Dead One sent two pairs of scouts ahead of his column. The first pair returned and reported all clear. The column pushed alertly through dense vegetation which gave way to abandoned apple orchards. They were keeping beside the Tskavani, which now ran straight toward Bogdanakhi.

  They came to a marshy area where recent rain had brought out an abundance of fat green frogs. Forgetting about the recent death of their comrade, the soldiers dropped their rifles and ran about catching
the frogs, laughing as they did so. A fire was started in a hollow trunk. The officers cursed. But the men would not forgo the chance of a feast. They skinned, barbecued, and ate the frogs before they would advance another meter.

  The going became stickier. The Tskavani, bringing down broken branches from the hills, had flooded and left behind pools of mud. As the column was skirting the largest of these pools, having to pick its way over fallen limbs of trees, a driver leading one of the provision donkeys slipped and fell into the stinking brown stuff. Dragging on the rein to save himself, he caused his animal also to lose its footing.

  The donkey tumbled in upon its driver. It struggled fiercely, braying as it did so, in its struggles burying the driver and working itself deeper into the mud. Soon only the man’s hand showed, still gripping the bridle. Burnell suffered the vision of a pensioner’s hand clutching the handle of a push-chair. No one could reach him without being themselves engulfed in the glutinous muck. Loaded as it was, the donkey only sank deeper.

  Its eyes, its great gray lips, were distended in terror. Men called encouragement to the animal. When it reared up and seemed about to free itself, they cheered. The creature must have become entangled with a concealed branch. It plunged down further. With a last broken cry, it was gone.

  The officers bellowed orders, asking if everyone wanted to be shot where they stood. The column proceeded on its way.

  The noise they had made brought more desultory sniping from the far side of the river. The column gave answering fire.

  The second pair of scouts reported in. They had met up with Bogdanakhi’s forward defenses and identified themselves. The city was free and calm, and would welcome the great liberator, Lazar Kaginovich.

  Bogdanakhi came as a pleasant surprise to Burnell. Most of it remained standing. On its outskirts stood gallows, where hung an array of corpses of enemies of the people, all flaky like strangled chickens. Yet beyond this lay a semblance of civilization. That is, if paved streets and parking meters meant anything.