AN AMERICAN SUPRA, Part Five
or
Drown, Swim or Fly
Turning Back To See
Tbilisi 8
The covers keep us warm. We snuggle close to use our body heat to ward off the cold. Certainly the walls and the windows do not. The walls hold the night’s cold and the windows are fragile interference for the harsh winter winds that drop the temperature each night, each morning, each day. I go to the Academy when I teach and it is cold. I go to the National State Museum to view the works of art by a sliver of daylight from the covered windows and it is freezing inside so that we do not stay long. This morning, although the bathroom calls, we stay a little longer under the covers. There has been no gas for a week, therefore no heat and no cooking. As we summon our resolve to meet the day and the practical matter of using the bathroom becomes more pressing, we move, get up quickly to dress in the multiple layers of cloths that are only a partial deterrent to the cold. The lights go out as if throwing another challenge to living in Georgia before us. We also have had infrequent electricity since we came back to Tbilisi in late January. Anne jokes, “Maybe we should go back to bed.” For a moment, we consider this wild idea and then reject it with pleasant thoughts. We turn to the job at hand, battling the cold. When the temperature is low in the apartment, the freezing attacks the body but more it attacks the spirit. It is hard to have lofty thoughts when your limbs are beginning to numb It is just too damn cold. We have endured it for two months; Georgians have endured it each winter for eleven years. In May, we will be leaving all our winter clothes with friends who are staying. Many cannot afford to fly away from the cold that blows from the Caucasus. America and Russia has a “cold war” for years but they had no idea of this kind of indoor weather. Yesterday, Parliament (who does noting to help with the problem, in fact these five days were caused because the government did not pay a Russian gas company) announced that it was “Women’s day” and all the shops were filled with flowers. It was beautiful, although a rebirth of a day that the Communists started. I suspect, though, that it really was some camouflage for their inaction in holding off the cold. Raphael, our driver, tells us about how the television says, “Today it will go on.” For the fourth and fifth day, it is a lie. There is no gas. There is no electricity. There was no water all night. My room for painting, which had been the warmest with the gas heater, is cold and unused. It is hard to celebrate the colors of life when your fingers are blue and chilled to the bone. And the Georgia wind does its job to find each crack, each defense against the numbing frozen march of air. It blows the useless television disc outside the living room window, the roofs of tin on the garages below containing all the BMWs and Mercedes, and it blows away initiative if you let it. Therefore, I write to warm my limbs. I write and draw to keep alive the creative spirit which is the heat of my life. I write because passion can be warmed by the inner body heat. And lastly, I write while I seriously considering going back to the warmth of our bed.
A Georgian painter friend complained the other day about her daughter’s minor operation, which was in actuality not so minor. Her daughter has lived in America for a time and has gone to doctors there. Any procedure was explained in detail before any “minor surgery” was performed. Here, she says, she is told nothing by the doctor in charge. That was the style during Communist times but it was to change when democracy came to power. Obviously, it has not. The friend’s daughter is very upset because she feels that it is more than just doctors not telling patients what they are doing. It is a human rights issue. I think that she might be right. We have no gas for days and no one, in any way, television or by public announcement, tells the people “why”! Oh, they play the domino excuses. “It is not our fault. It is the Russians. It is the City of Tbilisi. It is someone else than us.” Raphael relates to us what he gets from the television but mostly it is propaganda and inaccurate (everyday is the day that it will come on). They promise and do not deliver. No explanations.
The electricity came on at 10:00 a.m. after three hours, while businesses downstairs have to use more expensive kerosene, but now we have our electric heater on. I notice the pattern of the outages. It is always during business hours so that the stores have to use their generators run by kerosene. I ask, “Who sells the kerosene?” Another Georgian friend answers, “Mafia.” Whether it is true or not, there is no trust in the government, its announcement or its promises. Now, we huddle in the small computer room which can take the chill out of the air. The rest of the apartment is still freezing. In Georgia, you count your small blessings and wait.
As the end of my Fulbright Scholar’s nine months comes to an end, I begin to compare the two cultures, Georgia and America. The major differences, beyond size and living style, are three that I see: 1) the system (only one, and not really that, of the cornerstones of democracy are in place in Georgia- education of the elite to lead), 2) human rights (women, citizens, minorities, etc. are not honored in practice although they are in rhetoric), and 3) America’s problems with the elemental comforts of life are the exception; in Georgia, they are the role. The latter situation leads to no planning, no scheduling, no initiative. There are no or little human rights honored in practice which leads to distrust of any governmental agency or individual who wishes to make politics his or her profession. The first difference that I mention, the system, is a major problem to becoming a full partner in freedom and peace. I have come to love Georgia and her people. In a family setting, they are a most generous people. They take you to the womb of their heart. Although this is a male dominated culture, I still see it as a “she” not a “he” culture. In truth, the women may be one of the dominant forces in bringing Georgia into the 21st century and to a true free democracy. The Georgian love of art (visual, performing and literary) is an asset to growth but it must be wedded to a political system which can be trusted; one which gives more than it takes.
There is silence that goes beyond normal where even the creaking of this old concrete building is a welcomed sound. I know that it is impossible for concrete to “creak” but there is that sound that dismisses the impossibility of the event. A gentle wind adjusts the tin roofs but only a quiet sound in the absence of any other sounds. Somewhere in the kitcheon, something keeps a metronome kind of measured beat but not a disturbing sound, a kind of soothing remembrance of our timed existence. There is no electricity again so I write by the light of two candles. At one time in my life, this would have seemed romantic but now it is just inconvenient. Anne stays in the warming comfort of the bed but I was getting too warm and the solace of sleep is not possible when the mind is alive with ideas. Now, I am not warm at all. One light, probably run by battery power, is lit high up in the darkness, like a square star in the approaching morning sky. It is interesting with candles that as they burn they give off more light, using more wicks to burn. The morning sky now is a dull dark gray with a whisper of blue. Silhouettes of the apartment buildings come to life and a tower of red dots projects itself into the dawning sky. The wind picks up and the metronome becomes more of a hurrying beat. My mind says, “It is an antenna somewhere hitting the building, blown by the wind” but this logic does not register, only the bar sound striking the impenetrable apartment building.
Saturday, I had class again, two students and two faculty members. The Academy does nothing to advertise my lectures, and no one comes to open the room that I was using in the first semester. Anne gets discouraged. I do not have the time or luxury of that emotion, having too much to do in too little time left before we leave Georgia. I will, though, create a poster to get out the word on my Saturday lectures and see if that will help.
Now the single square of light is spotlighted against a large minimal square of black/gray. There is a painting there somewhere, I think, storing the image.
It is now only 67 days before we board the airplane to Beijing and then home. I find it hard to look ahead more than a week at a time and those weeks are streaking by with a speed that surprises me. The Kagle Resource Room for the American Art and Architecture (a name that I first protested but not loudly or prolonged), the playground (which Lika has taken over with a passion), a David Kakabadze Studio Foundation (which must be created before I leave), my exhibit of “Joe and Friends” (which is taken over by Nino Zaalishvili with her normal efficiency) and all this is to be accomplished in the next five weeks. The last three weeks will be closing up shop, packing and getting ready for the journey home. I have been asked to extend my Fulbright and I decided that, if asked, I will come back later next year to see the completion of projects that do not get completed, but no more than three months. But all this is a flash, a glimmer of a future decision, reality is NOW.
Definition is coming to the surrounding apartment buildings. My one square of light slips back into the emerging landscape of city squares, triangles and other structures. I am beginning to see my painting table, not just the small circles of light from the two candles. When I return to the States, I will attempt to keep up this journal but here it has been a lifeline to reality that transcends Georgia to some universals (which also transcend America). I see Georgia as a surreal landscape at times. Time here is like the Dali painting of dripping watches. In Tbilisi, citizens do all that they can to survive and push away the reality of their bare existence, no pay for hard work, and constant unintelligible shortages of basic needs like electricity, water and gas. Tbilisi motorists drive too fast, have no road etiquette (except push in front, go first), nudge bumpers into line without waiting for their turn, seeming to rush everywhere but have nowhere to go except survival. Magritte painted this world of faceless people in a measured, ordered, stagnant, perpetually-in-motion-with-no-destination world. And yet, at home with their families or at the Opera House with their children, one sees a different face to Georgia, generous, purposeful and beauty-seeking. In business life, all too often, planning is a myth. Many feel that Americans have silver and gold pockets for the asking, deep and unending. The concept that I have tried to teach of “to get, you have to give something of value” is difficult for Georgians to fathom and “in kind” contributions matching hard cash for grants is a painful lesson, not easily learned. It appears that no one values their time, because the time that people work is not valued in salary amounts commensurate with their labor, energy or effort. Therefore to put a value on life and work to match someone else’s grant money is not apparent to a Georgian. As I said many times, life here is hard.
We are driven to the Opera House to see the ballet, give our tickets and are told that they are for last week’s performance (although when we bought them, we were told that last week’s ballet was sold out but they had tickets for this week’s special event). Standing in front of the small caged window, I complain that I was given the wrong tickets. A student of mine from the Academy helps to translate and we are told to go to the person in charge upstairs, inside the Opera House. When we get there, we are ushered to our box seats as if nothing had happened. It seems that when tickets are printed they run out, so any ticket is given to Americans to use. Somehow, magically, all at once, the tickets are for this week. Georgia is not like anyplace in the world that I have traveled. You do have to accept surrealism everyday as a way of life. It seems to work.
As I stood at the ticket counter, a large woman tried to edge her way in front of me, although she could see that I was being waited upon. Since I am also large, she didn’t get in front of me but I had to bodily make it clear that this would not happen. There is no concept of “waiting your turn”. There is no turn. For me, it shows a lack of understanding of human, individual rights. Life here is a collective pushing in front of the line. Again, the contrast is vast. The ballet is marvelous. I have used that word “marvelous” too often but I have tried to find another word and just “marvelous” fits. The ballet dancers are professional, acrobatic and superb. The audience is one of the best that any society can boast for in their understanding, appreciation and loyalty. The box where we are seated has an older prima ballerina sitting in front of us. It is refreshing to watch her on center stage at each intermission. Going to the ballet today has been the worse and the best experience.
June: Letter from Tbilisi: As our year in Georgia comes to an end and my Fulbright work is over, images spring to life before my mind’s eye in a clear and sometimes fuzzy panorama. Georgia is like the Roman god Janus, the keeper of doors and gates, who was honored as the god of beginnings (in fact, we name our first month of the year after him). His Roman name was “Ianuarmius” which is close to our word January. He was honored because “one must emerge through a gate or door before entering a new place.” Certainly, Georgia is a new place which has traditions which stretch back 3500 years. Janus was the god with two faces.
Walking the streets in Tbilisi, one sees enormous poverty. Beggars everywhere with a hand out, mothers with rag doll babies in their limp arms, haggard old people, talented musicians, and little children who follow you down the street tugging at your clothes. If you try to cross Rustevili Avenue, you take your life in your hands. You daily see the most inconsiderate drivers in the world speed up when a pedestrian is in sight. I watched a man on a small side street getting knocked down by a Mercedes (or it might have been a BMW) and saw the driver yell at the man for injuring his shiny car. It seems that drivers take the years of frustration of no electricity, no gas, no water for long periods at unscheduled times out on the gas pedal. There is no road etiquette. Double center lines are ignored, one way streets are just a challenge to overcome by backing up or driving in the wrong direction, and red lights are occasionally obeyed. Everyone drives as if their life depended on the speed that they could obtain on the short stretches of narrow streets whereas the truth is the pedestrian’s life is the one at stake.
And yet in the home, as a guest, you are honored as no guest is honored anywhere in the world. As one friend said in Kutaisi, “Georgia has survived the oppression of Mongols, Turks, Persian, and Communists because at our table we honor all guests, even our enemies. We greet them with wine, food and an honored place at the table. In fact, at the Georgian table, a plate is always left empty for the guest who might come.” My students carried my bags to class. They came to lectures when the inside of the building was freezing more than the outside because the three-foot thick walls retained the night’s cold and held it for the day. I told them, “If you come, I will teach and we will freeze together.” Georgian hospitality is legendary and goes back for thousands of years. It is one of the tools of their survival as a people, a culture and a unique civilization. But then, since democracy and freedom came in 1991, their institutions are impersonal. The hospitality of the home is not carried over yet to the public places. It took me three days to find their national state museum and when I entered no one greeted me. And museum viewing is an experience unlike any other place. It is dimly lit, cracked and peeling walls, and at times viewing national gold and silver icons by candle or flashlight (it happened three times in West Georgia). My friend Maka Dvalishvili worked several years to create a collection of museum reproductions of rare Georgian treasures. She raised the money from outside sources, designed the objects, began the marketing campaign and then, a few days before the final official opening, she was told the national museum, who housed her institution of arts and culture, would have no electricity so the opening had to be cancelled. The government would not pay the electric bill for the museum. It was with tears of joy that she heard that she could open the exhibition, but with only three days to get out invitations and prepare. Planning in Georgia is a daily process and long range plans are a myth or dream of the future.
Like the image of Janus, Georgia shows many sides. Its love of the arts is unmatched. I have watched mothers take small children to the ballet, opera and exhibitions that would challenge the patience of mature, knowledgeable adults. They learn dance, music, singing, painting, poetry early in their education and hold it close for life. The supra, the ancient toasting to honor and preserve the traditions of Georgia, is an event at every meal where family and guests gather. Some drink too much; most doesn’t. The stories of recent courage and dignity by individual Georgians are too numerous to relate. Everyone tells you the government is corrupt and new leadership is needed but the march on Parliament in November of 2001 was peaceful and orderly. Although the problems are enormous, the process of becoming a new democracy is moving forward in fits and spurts but still moving. In Roman times, the temple of Janus was a symbol of the state of the Empire. If the gates were closed, the Roman Empire was at peace; if open, it was in turmoil or war. The gates in Georgia are now both open for democracy to come in as an honored guest and closed so that the Georgian traditions can still flower and grow.
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