The Pear Field Read online

  When the rain falls heavily enough to flush the staircase clean, the raindrops make their own distinctive sound as they land on the sun-baked iron before ricocheting off again. When Lela watches the rain lashing down, she imagines Tariel’s mother standing there by the fence, soaked to the skin, waiting for the skies to clear so she can turn her black mourning rags to the sun.

  The wash block smells of laundry soap, washing powder and damp, mildew-covered walls, and if someone’s got nits there’s an eye-watering fog of DDT powder too. Lela has her shower at the start of the week. She goes in alone when the laundry’s done and the children have all had their baths. When she pulls her unwashed clothes back onto her freshly washed body, it feels as if she’s climbing into an old, familiar skin.

  The rancid stench of enormous grease-spattered gas stoves permeates the dinner hall, an unremitting smell that varies only according to that day’s menu: porridge, borscht, fried potato with onions, or maybe what they call ‘fake cutlets’, made from stale bread, potato and herbs.

  The admin block smells of nothing at all, unless you count the odour of rich leather that comes from the panelled doors, the occasional whiff of an unwashed child on their way to class and the suggestion of Tiniko’s perfume. On some of the doors, the leather panels have been slashed open to reveal a soft yellow filling, handfuls of which have been torn off by the children to use in their play.

  The gatehouse smells of Tariel. What else could this tiny room possibly smell of? It is filled with his musty clothes, mothballs, the smoke from his papirosa and his dinner.

  Between the wash block and the dormitories there’s a wide green field covered in small pear trees. Everyone, young and old, stays well away. The trees produce pears every year without fail and everyone stays away from them too, for the lovely green field is permanently mired in water. Whether it’s water flooding in from an old broken pipe or rising up from an underground spring, nobody knows. At first glance, the water seeping up through the soil is barely visible. The field looks so enticing, especially to new arrivals at the school, who run out onto the field and then slow involuntarily, ominously, as their feet sink into the waterlogged soil. So the pear trees just stand there with their knotted trunks and tangle of low-hanging branches, alone and forsaken, and every spring they bring forth large, shiny green pears which nobody touches. The pears rarely ripen before the weather turns cold but instead remain rock-hard; those that do ripen never turn sweet but bear the taste of the peculiar groundwater that seeps into their flesh. If climbing the spiral staircase transports Lela to a fantasy world, running onto the pear field fills her with terror, the fear that she might not make it across, as she imagines the branches taking hold, throwing her onto the ground, pulling her body into the soft boggy soil, the roots snaking around her and swallowing her up for ever.

  The day after Sergo’s burial, Tiniko calls Lela into her office. She offers Lela some chocolate. Lela declines. Tiniko thanks her warmly for her support at such a difficult time. She starts talking at length about something, using words like ‘outlook’, ‘prospects’ and ‘aspirations’.

  The school is officially responsible for the care and education of school-age children with no family. After nine years, the children are expected to leave and start new lives. In the communist era there were vocational and technical colleges and employment schemes that were legally obliged to accept these children. They were even given flats to live in. But that was then and this is now, and nowadays everyone needs a flat: refugees from Abkhazia are at the top of the list, villagers who’ve come to the city for a better life, large families crammed into one or two rooms; even the rich want flats, for themselves, their children, their businesses…

  It’s been three years since Lela finished school but she doesn’t know where else to go. The staff at the school, to their credit, aren’t pressuring her to leave; no one is ever forced out. There’s no hope of her getting a job. After all, as Tiniko points out, if normal people can’t find work, what chance is there for a girl fresh out of a school for the intellectually disabled?

  Lela’s the only one who’s chosen to stay. Her peers have all left to make their own way in the world. Some didn’t even wait to finish school. Some moved into town and started begging. One or two have found work, maybe hauling goods at the flea market or transporting produce at the market. A few have got married. Some just vanished.

  Tiniko offers Lela a job watching the neighbours’ cars, working out of the gatehouse. A few of the neighbours leave their cars overnight on the large forecourt in front of the school. Tiniko charges a modest monthly fee; for some, the expense is worth it if it means not coming back to missing mirrors and tyres, to a stolen radio or, worse, no car at all. Tiniko trusts Lela and thinks she will do a better job than Tariel. She’ll be paid a portion of the money she collects from the neighbours and the rest will go to Tiniko for board and lodging.

  Lela accepts. Tariel limps sourly out of the gatehouse, taking his few belongings with him so she can move in. With Irakli’s help she brings a divan bed over from her dormitory, along with a glass from the kitchen, two sets of clothes and a handful of other items which she arranges on the small table. There’s a mirror on the wall. Lela takes the cross Father Yakob gave her and attaches it to the frame.

  Tariel doesn’t want to give up his job. He’s spent a fair few winters in the gatehouse. His wife, Narcissa, squeezed her ample hips sideways through the narrow doorway to bring him his meals every day. Once in a while Tariel’s son, Gubaz, filled in for him. Thirty years old and still single, a beloved only child, Gubaz went off to do military service and promptly lost his mind. His parents sent him to hospital; the psychiatrists ‘cured’ him and sent him back home. Now he just wanders around in a long black coat with his hair all over the place, muttering to himself. Sometimes he makes sense, if you listen hard enough. Up and down, arguing into the wind, which carries his words away but brings no answers. The whole thing has taken its toll on Tariel and Narcissa. Their only child – who never stole, always did what he was told, excelled at maths and knew how to talk to a girl – leaves to join the army and comes back via the madhouse, transformed, tormented. Unable to bear his own reflection, he avoids mirrors. His mother took down the one on the bathroom wall so now, when Tariel wants to shave, he reaches for the shard of mirrored glass hidden under the bath, leans it against Narcissa’s shampoo bottle and shaves using that, or takes his razor and bowl to the gatehouse and shaves with the mirror there.

  So Tariel limps out of the school grounds, disconsolate but convinced there’s no point protesting. He simply opens the gates and walks back home to where Narcissa and Gubaz are waiting for him.

  Meanwhile, Lela bids farewell to the five-storey dorm block and the room she’s called home for the past few years. The only reason she’ll have for going into the main building now will be to use the toilet.

  She goes into the gatehouse, sits on the bed and lights a cigarette. Tariel has left a large cut-glass ashtray on the table. Lela taps her ash into it. It feels strangely satisfying. Irakli comes in and sits on the bed beside her. Lela gives him the last bit of her cigarette.

  Irakli is nine and has been living at the school for a year. He doesn’t remember his father. It was his mother who brought him here. At first she put him in a children’s home in central Georgia while she stayed in Tbilisi for work. She kept in touch, although contact was infrequent. It was hard for her to get away. Then a year ago she brought him to Tbilisi. He was to board at the school from Monday to Friday and spend the weekends with her. But the weekends passed and Irakli never did go home. When he first arrived at the school, Tiniko asked Lela to look after him. He seemed happy enough, following her around while she showed him the ropes, and Lela found him to have both quick wits and a quick tongue. As a rule, Lela felt closer to the children who were more or less ‘normal’. She helped the slow kids too, when the need arose, but she kept her distance.

  When Lela and Irakli go outside they see Vaska and
Kolya sitting on the bench under the spruce trees.

  ‘I’m going out,’ Lela says to Kolya. ‘Can you open the gates if someone needs to bring their car through?’

  Kolya nods. Lela thinks she sees Vaska’s smile widen, no doubt because she asked Kolya although he can’t even walk properly and they both know that Vaska works the gates much better.

  Lela and Irakli go round to the block of flats next door. It is almost identical to the dormitory block: a white, five-storey building with green space on all sides, some of which now houses garages. The residents here were the first to call the Residential School for Intellectually Disabled Children by its nickname, the School for Idiots. Both buildings were constructed in Khrushchev’s time: one was earmarked for housing, the other was designated an auxiliary building and became the school.

  They go up to the top floor and ring one of the doorbells. Mzia opens the door.

  ‘Sorry to bother you. Do you mind if we use your phone for a minute?’ asks Lela.

  ‘Come in, come in!’ says Mzia, beckoning them into the entrance hall.

  The flat is spotless and smells of fresh baking. Mzia brings out a small stool for Irakli and Lela perches on the sideboard next to the telephone. They’ve been here before. Mzia carefully closes the doors leading off the hallway to give them some privacy.

  Irakli places his index finger carefully into each hole and rotates the dial steadily. Mzia’s daughter comes into the hall and stands there staring intently. Around seven or eight, she has a chubby belly, puppy-fat breasts and a large, hairy beauty spot on her cheek which reminds Lela of a furry beetle, although that’s something she’s never actually seen.

  ‘Who are you phoning?’ the girl asks Irakli.

  ‘My mum,’ he answers without looking up, and dials the number again.

  The little girl stands in the hall for a while until she gets bored and then disappears back into the kitchen. Irakli dials again. This time he gets through.

  ‘Allo?’

  ‘Mum, it’s me.’

  ‘Irakli! How are you?’ says the woman, sounding taken aback. ‘I haven’t managed to come home yet, Ika. I’ve had so much going on… I found some work but – Well, I need to look for something else. How are you, though?’

  ‘Fine. When are you coming back?’

  Irakli speaks tersely, clutching the receiver in one hand and leaning his opposite elbow on his knee.

  ‘Next week. I already told you, remember?’

  ‘Do you mean this week coming up?’

  ‘Yes, don’t you remember me telling you?’

  Irakli hesitates.

  ‘No, I remember,’ he says. ‘I thought you meant this week now, though.’

  ‘Where are you calling from?’

  ‘I’m at the neighbours’.’

  ‘What’s happening at your end? Are you still getting headaches?’

  ‘No.’ Silence. ‘Do you remember Sergo?’

  ‘Which Sergo?’

  ‘From school. He died.’

  ‘Oh, good Lord! What happened?’

  ‘A car hit him.’

  ‘My God, the poor thing. How awful. How did it happen?’

  ‘He was out front in the road, walking along.’

  ‘Oh, the poor mite…’

  More silence. Lela studies Irakli’s pale, pellucid skin, furrowed brow and downcast eyes.

  ‘Are you listening to your teachers and doing what you’re told?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good… Listen, Irakli, I’ve got to go. I need to get to work.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Be good. Do what your teachers tell you. And don’t go out front.’

  ‘OK.’

  Lela hears the click as Irakli’s mother puts the phone down. Irakli replaces the receiver.

  ‘Shall we go?’ says Lela, and gets to her feet.

  ‘Yep,’ says Irakli.

  As they are leaving, Mzia appears and gives each of them a couple of slices of lobiani flat bread wrapped in newspaper so that the hot bean filling doesn’t burn their fingers. They walk down the stairs in silence. Their appetites have gone.

  Outside it’s a warm, sunny day. Venera’s son, Goderdzi, is washing his car in front of the entrance, flooding the yard with water.

  ‘So did she say this week or next week, or can’t you remember?’ asks Lela, jumping over a soapy rivulet.

  Irakli hops over after her.

  ‘I dunno.’

  On their way back they bump into Marika. She’s only a few months older than Lela, although when they were little the age gap seemed much bigger. When they were about six, Marika used to have Lela round to play. There was one game in particular, where Marika would take Lela’s knickers off, followed by her own. They’d lie down next to each other. Marika would put her hand between Lela’s legs and ask Lela to do the same. Lela liked it when Marika touched her like that. She didn’t like doing it back but she did it anyway, even though it left a strange scent on her hand. Marika would tell her to close her eyes and go to sleep and they’d lie there in silence, wide awake, until she decided it was time to get up again. Marika had no father and was abnormally scared of her mother.

  When they got older, Marika changed the rules. One day she took Lela to the cellar and let her look between her legs. Lela saw something strange growing there. It reminded her of a cockerel’s crest and the once smooth, fleshy skin surrounding it was now covered all over in thick black hair. Lela thought she’d discovered a third sex. Then Lela pulled her knickers down too and they tried to join themselves together. They stayed like that for a while, unable to quite make themselves fit. Marika warned Lela not to tell anyone what they’d done, even though they hadn’t done anything wrong and the girls in her class played the same game. A few months later, when her own body started to change, Lela realized there was no third sex after all.

  Then the game stopped. In fact, everything stopped. Marika stopped having Lela round and stopped coming down to the yard. Lela thought Marika must finally have realized she shouldn’t be playing with retards. Now they cross paths from time to time in the yard or on the street and they always say hello. Sometimes when Lela sees Marika all grown up and walking around with her hair done nicely like other girls who have houses and parents, she wonders whether any of it really happened or whether she just made it up.

  Marika is walking towards them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Lela asks.

  ‘I’ve got an English lesson,’ says Marika with a warm smile.

  Her auburn hair dances across her shoulders as she walks. She carries on down the road.

  Lela starts eating her lobiani. Irakli takes a large bite out of his slice too.

  ‘What did she actually say, then?’ Lela asks.

  ‘She says she’s coming next week. She says that’s what she told me last time.’

  Lela brushes a scrap of newspaper off her lobiani, as if it’s an insect, and takes a bite.

  ‘Why do you keep sticking up for her? You know she’s not coming back but you just keep ringing anyway and making an idiot of yourself.’

  Irakli tears off another piece with his teeth.

  ‘I mean, it’s up to you,’ says Lela. ‘I wouldn’t keep ringing her, though.’

  They make a detour to buy cigarettes. Zaira is ill and her kiosk is closed, so they head to the kiosks further up the road.

  The sun is high in the sky, bathing everything in a brilliant white light. A gentle breeze blows through the branches, caressing the leaves and sending elongated shadows dancing lazily across the tarmac. It’s as if everyone has just packed up and left. Apart from an occasional car or marshrutka trundling down the road, kicking up clouds of dust, the street is deserted.

  They stop at a dilapidated kiosk selling nothing but kerosene, matches and cigarettes. It’s open, but there’s no sign of the owner. A man dressed in tracksuit bottoms and flip-flops who’s sitting alongside gets to his feet and wanders off into the courtyard behind the kiosk. He comes out a few momen
ts later with a hunched but spry-looking elderly woman, presumably his mother. She goes into her tiny kiosk. Lela asks for a few cigarettes and pays.

  That night a car pulls up at the gates. Lela comes out and sees Koba sitting behind the wheel of his spotlessly polished car. He winds the window down and looks at Lela standing by the gates. He seems different. Any diffidence or reserve he showed when Sergo was knocked down is gone.

  He runs his eyes over Lela.

  ‘How are you?’ he asks.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Where’s Tariel?’

  ‘He doesn’t work here any more. It’s me now.’

  ‘Yeah? Good for you.’

  Lela waits for him to drive in so that she can close the gates. He seems in no hurry.

  ‘When can I take you for a spin, then?’

  ‘Dunno. I’m busy.’

  ‘Wow. You’re busy all the time?’

  Koba shakes his head and gives a forced laugh. He drives in. The yard is empty except for a scrawny dog which gives a single hoarse bark, then collapses onto the compacted earth under a spruce tree.

  Lela goes back into the gatehouse. Koba parks, turns off the lights and the engine, gets out of the car and crosses over the moonlit yard towards the exit. He walks up to the gatehouse, knocks on the window, then immediately opens the door. He sees Lela sitting on the bed, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘I’m not asking you to do it for free. I’ll pay. How much do you want?’

  Lela says nothing. Koba stands in the doorway in a cowboy pose, but with his scrawny frame, red palm-tree shirt and jeans, he looks more like a tourist from another Soviet republic who’s ended up in Tbilisi by mistake.

  ‘What, didn’t you like it last time?’ Koba asks, and smiles the strange, lopsided smile he uses to hide his rotten front teeth. Sometimes, caught off guard, he grins widely, then remembers and hurriedly shuts his lips again.