The Pear Field Read online

  Vano takes the register out of the drawer and hands it to Lela. She looks at his withered old face, the dark circles around his eyes and his drooping, sagging mouth, and can’t believe that the old man in front of her and the man with the broom handle are one and the same.

  ‘Take this down to Gulnara,’ he tells her, and turns back to his desk.

  As Lela walks along the corridor she remembers the wash block, the blood running down her legs and the fear she felt when she thought she was dying.

  Gulnara is on the first floor, teaching practical skills to the little ones. Lela gives her the register. There’s a needlework book lying open on the desk and Lela is so struck by the similarity between one of the geometric patterns and Gulnara’s angular nose that she wonders whether that’s where Gulnara got the design from.

  Outside in the schoolyard, Lela feels sick. She sits on the bench in the shade of the spruce trees and lights a cigarette.

  She remembers another time, in the corridor outside the gymnasium, when Vano barred her way and grabbed her hand, led her into the gym and made her take off her clothes. When she was little that happened a lot: Vano would find her, grab her hand and take her somewhere. She didn’t like it, but she went anyway. Even now she can’t bear people holding her hand, not even Stella, Pako or Nona. Lela remembers how damp the changing rooms were. She remembers Vano pulling her trousers off, then her tights, then her knickers, and making her stand barefoot on the cold tiled floor. She remembers too how Vaska walked in on them. How he saw Lela standing there in the changing room with no knickers. Vano, sitting on a chair with no trousers… Vano didn’t see him. Vaska and Lela stared dumbly at each other, before Vaska turned and walked straight back out.

  When Lela got a bit bigger, Vano stopped taking her to his classroom and the changing rooms. When Lela looks at him now she sometimes thinks maybe it never happened, maybe that Vano only existed in her nightmares. But when she sees Vaska and looks at the subtle smile on his face, the reality of it all shudders back through her body and the shame of that past floods her with nausea.

  Lela spots Levan and his mother on a bench in the yard, talking in hushed voices. Levan’s mother is an attractive woman with long auburn hair and large breasts, wearing a figure-hugging skirt and a low-cut top. Lela imagines her life to be so full of men that there’s no room for her son. But even her heavy make-up can’t hide the suffering on her face. She is both beautiful and broken. She gets to her feet and pulls Levan into an embrace. He hugs her back shyly, resting his arms on her shoulders. Levan walks his mother to the gates and she leaves. He closes the gates and runs back towards the dormitory block without looking round, clutching in his hand the bag full of sweets she brought with her, thinking only of how soon he’ll be eating them. Lela watches as the woman walks slowly down the road and signals to the driver of a passing bus. He pulls over, opens the doors and waits, his rickety vehicle sputtering patiently on the spot. Levan’s mother gets on and travels back to a life in disarray.

  May draws to an end with a succession of rainy days. When the rain starts pouring into the trampoline room, Dali stands on guard to stop any children from sneaking in. She huffs and puffs around, depositing assorted containers, trying to outmanoeuvre the water.

  Lela is on the top floor, looking down at the street with a few other children, all staring at the downpour that threatens to inundate the school grounds. The waters are gushing down the road, surging through the gates and into the yard, then flooding left and right around the buildings as if laying siege to the school. Luckily for Lela, Tariel has spent many rainy May days in the gatehouse and her room is kept safe and dry by a well-maintained roof and a slightly elevated entrance.

  One afternoon the rain cascades down Kerch Street and floods into the school grounds so fast it seems that the water might flush away the years of accumulated grime and filth in a single swoop. Everyone is sheltering in the TV room, steaming up the windows by their sheer numbers. For the children, this is the closest they come to experiencing family life and togetherness. Then Tiniko walks in with Madonna, who announces that the American family has decided to adopt Irakli.

  Sitting by the window with Lela, Irakli turns beetroot red.

  Tiniko and Madonna have just come in out of the rain. Their soaking-wet hair lies completely flat, making their heads appear shrunken, and the contrast between this and their ample rear ends makes them look like wet chickens. They sit in the armchairs while Dali stands there crying with happiness, or maybe with grief. The children gather round. Lela shoves Irakli off the window ledge and gestures for him to join them.

  ‘Come here, Irakli!’ calls Tiniko.

  Irakli squeezes through to the middle of the crowd. Levan slaps him on the shoulder and bursts into song.

  ‘I just called… to sa-a-a-a-y… I love you…’

  The others laugh, but they stare at Irakli as if he’s just materialized in front of them. Lela looks now and finds his face completely transformed. He’s stopped blushing. He perches carefully on the arm of a chair.

  ‘Congratulations!’ says Madonna enthusiastically, as if she can hardly believe this miracle herself. ‘What a wonderful life you’re going to have, what a future! It’s a fairy tale! Providence has really smiled on you, my dear!’

  She turns to face Tiniko. ‘What swung it for him, do you know?’

  Tiniko gives a beatific smile, as if she’d never imagined things going any other way.

  ‘What did you say to me, Tiniko?’ Madonna says dramatically. ‘Let’s take their photos, you said! What harm can it do, you said! Ahh, well done, Tiniko! Just imagine! If we hadn’t sent that photo they might have chosen one from Yugoslavia! They’ve got a woman in Sarajevo, you know, she promised them a disabled child from the war! Just imagine… I mean… How old are you, boy?’ she asks, turning back to Irakli.

  ‘Nine,’ says Irakli.

  ‘You see?’ Madonna shifts round to face Dali again. ‘You see how quickly they changed their minds?’

  Dali gazes at Irakli. ‘The Americans liked the look of you, sweetheart,’ she says sincerely.

  Tiniko opens the window wide to let some fresh air in. The sound of rain and rushing water fills the room.

  ‘Lela,’ says Tiniko, ‘well done, my dear.’

  Madonna pulls a paper from her bag and addresses the room. ‘Right, we’ve got a lot to do! We need a medical certificate, birth certificate, all the forms’ – she counts the items off on her fingers, starting not with the index finger as Georgians do, but with the thumb, like an American – ‘printed, signed and all that… That’s for me and Tiniko to sort out, but the boy needs to do a biography and write about what he’s hoping to find with his new American family…’

  ‘I don’t speak American,’ says Irakli.

  ‘First of all, it’s not American, it’s English. In America they speak English. And don’t worry, we’ll translate it for you.’

  ‘Miss, he can barely write Georgian,’ Levan pipes up. ‘But I’m pretty sure he can manage something in English, right, Ika?’ Levan elbows Irakli affectionately. ‘I just called to say I love you: that kind of thing.’

  Irakli’s ears go bright red.

  Madonna goes on: ‘The child needs to be ready to travel in September. They’re coming for four days. They haven’t got time to stay longer and they’ll take him back with them then. It’s all here, look’ – Madonna waves the piece of paper – ‘I mean, it’s in English but I’ll translate: Dear Madonna and Tiniko. Thank you so much for the things you sent. Madonna has probably told you all about us, but we wanted to tell you ourselves what a warm, loving family this is – I mean, you can just tell, can’t you? – We’re enclosing all our paperwork and a little bit about ourselves.’

  Madonna skips ahead and starts speaking again, this time with great feeling: ‘It’s very hard choosing a child. We didn’t want to come over to Georgia to choose. We thought it might not be good for the children and we knew how emotionally draining it would be for us too.
At first we thought it would be better to go for a child no older than six because younger children find it easier to integrate and adapt, but when we saw the photo of Irakli’s kind, gentle face we –’

  Madonna’s chin trembles but she manages to compose herself and finishes the letter. ‘Basically, seeing him was enough to change their minds.’

  ‘Wow, Ika! They liked your ugly mug, then!’ Levan pulls a face. But Dali has tears pouring down her cheeks.

  It seems that the heroes of Kerch Street have not died out after all, for Irakli is destined to be one.

  When the rain finally stops, Lela and Irakli go back to the gatehouse.

  ‘What did I tell you, eh?’ says Lela, cuffing Irakli on the side of the head. ‘Take me with you, OK? Don’t just ditch me now you’re an American.’

  She laughs and Irakli smiles back.

  They light up a cigarette and the room fills with smoke. Lela gets up to open the tiny window.

  ‘Lela?’ says Irakli.

  ‘Lela-Lela-Lela, what now? You won’t have your Lela in America, you know! You don’t need to worry, though. I’ll give you Schwarzenegger’s number – you can tell him I said to call.’ She laughs.

  ‘Can you take me over to use the phone?’

  Lela stops. She stares at Irakli through the wisps of smoke.

  ‘One more time, all right?’ Irakli says cautiously.

  ‘What is wrong with you? Why can’t you just let it go?’ Lela sits down at the table by the window. ‘She’s really got her claws into you, hasn’t she? What good will calling do? You don’t even know where to call!’

  ‘Still… She might be coming back,’ Irakli says calmly.

  ‘She’s never coming back! Why can’t you get it into your thick head?’ says Lela. She wants to say more, but stops.

  Irakli sits in silence. His face seems especially thin and pale and Lela remembers what the Americans said about how kind and gentle he looked.

  *

  Mzia’s daughter opens the door and Lela is struck once again by how much the girl’s beauty spot looks like a tiny beetle. As soon as the girl sees who it is, her face clouds over and she shuts the door without a word. Lela and Irakli look at each other in surprise. Lela rings the bell again. This time Mzia opens the door. Her smile has vanished. She fixes the pair with a cold, penetrating stare.

  ‘Hello,’ says Lela. ‘Sorry to bother you, but can we use your phone?’

  The woman looks at them with her eyes brimming.

  ‘Bravo!’ she says suddenly. ‘Bravo. Thank you so much for letting me do this for you!’ Her voice trembles. ‘I welcome you into my house and ask for nothing in return, and you come along and you use my phone whenever you want… But no, thank you for calling abroad and thank you for doing it at peak rates and getting our phone cut off. You know my husband’s had to go down there to sort it all out? The poor man’s just got in from work. I mean, why would you do that? Why would you take advantage like that when all I was doing was trying to help?’

  Mzia is close to tears. Lela sees the beetle-girl hiding behind her mother’s legs, stroking her hip and peering at Lela with one eye.

  Lela and Irakli stand there in shock. Mzia shuts the door. Irakli walks back to the stairs with his head down, but Lela just stands there dumbfounded.

  The door opens again, just a crack, and the beetle-girl pokes her head out and stares at them. Lela hears Mzia’s voice from inside.

  ‘Shut the door and come back inside!’

  ‘They’re still out there, Mum…’

  ‘I said shut the door and come back in. Now!’

  Lela thinks for a moment and then, to Irakli’s surprise, walks over to the flat opposite, where a new family has just moved in. She rings the bell. A girl of about twelve opens the door.

  ‘Excuse me,’ says Lela, ‘could we possibly use your phone for a minute? We’re from the residential school. It’s really important.’

  The girl pulls an exaggerated glum face.

  ‘It’s not connected yet,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, OK… Sorry,’ says Lela. The girl shuts the door.

  Irakli sets off down the stairs but Lela rings again and when the girl opens the door she says, ‘The man from the phone company’s just been, you know. He was fiddling in the box downstairs. Go and have a look – he might have done yours!’

  The girl goes back inside leaving the door open, walks across the hallway to a small shelf with a phone standing on it and puts the receiver to her ear.

  ‘Oh yeah, it’s working now,’ she says hesitantly, as if she can’t figure out who’s come out on top.

  Lela and Irakli go inside. The girl disappears into one of the rooms.

  ‘Who was it?’ Lela hears a woman ask.

  ‘Kids from the special school, come to use the phone.’

  Compared to Mzia’s flat, this one is messy, disorganized and dark. There are no baking smells wafting from the kitchen. There’s not even a chair to sit on. Irakli unfolds a small piece of paper with a phone number on it in Lela’s handwriting. He dials. An old lady answers in Greek. After a few minutes, unable to make herself understood, she shouts down the phone, ‘No Inga! No Inga! Inga no live here any more!’

  Irakli rings Ivlita. Ivlita doesn’t know anything. Inga hasn’t called her. Ivlita assumes she’s moved house.

  Irakli walks back beside Lela with his head down. Lela feels deflated too. The look of betrayal on Mzia’s face has left a bad taste in her mouth.

  ‘You go ahead,’ Lela says suddenly. ‘I’ll be back in a bit.’

  ‘Where are you going? Can I come?’

  ‘No. You go ahead and I’ll be along in a bit.’

  ‘Fine.’

  Irakli shrugs and carries on walking towards the school with his hands in his pockets.

  Lela heads back to the tower block but this time to a different floor. She rings a doorbell and Marika answers. She smiles, surprised to see Lela.

  ‘Hey. How are you?’

  ‘Can I talk to you for a sec?’

  ‘What is it?’

  Lela takes the same small piece of paper out of her pocket and reads out something scribbled on it in her handwriting.

  ‘Inga no live here any more. What does that mean?’

  Marika stares at Lela for a moment, then looks at the piece of paper and tells her.

  ‘You know Irakli? He’s being adopted by an American couple. They’re coming to get him in September. What I wanted to ask you is whether you could teach him a bit of English. You speak English, right?’

  ‘Well, I have lessons, but I’m not very good. He’d be better off with a proper teacher.’

  ‘You can be his teacher. I’ll pay. How much do you pay for yours?’

  ‘Um, I pay monthly and I go twice a week…’

  ‘We’ll pay monthly too and come twice a week. Or you can come to us twice a week. I’ve got my own room so that’s all fine, and you can just teach him a few bits and bobs so he’s not completely clueless when he gets there.’

  ‘I dunno… I’ve got exams coming up and I’m really busy. I’m applying to university soon…’

  ‘We’ll pay. How much do you pay a month?’

  Marika doesn’t answer.

  ‘We’ve got money,’ Lela says. ‘I’ve got a job, haven’t I, looking after the cars. It’s not much, but it might be enough.’

  ‘OK, fine. I pay forty lari. She’s a friend of the family… How about half that?’

  ‘Twenty?’ Lela asks.

  The girls fall silent. Marika stares at Lela, and Lela stares back and thinks how strange it is that they once put their hands inside each other’s knickers. She can still recall the scent it left on her fingers.

  Marika takes a deep breath as if she’s had enough of haggling and asks, ‘Does that work for you?’

  ‘Yeah, twenty’s fine.’

  ‘Good. I’ll come twice a week, but it’ll have to be early afternoon cos I’ve got tutors every evening.’

  ‘How much per lesso
n, then? So we can pay as we go along.’

  ‘Twenty divided by two, that’s ten lari for two weeks, so one week’ll be five. Look, let’s make it just once a week, that suits me better,’ says Marika.

  ‘You’re the best. When can you come?’

  ‘Tomorrow at two?’

  ‘OK,’ says Lela. She starts running down the stairs.

  ‘Wait!’ Marika calls after her. She stands at the top looking down at Lela. ‘Will he do the work?’

  Lela thinks for a moment, then shouts back, ‘He’ll do it!’

  The next day Lela and Irakli meet Marika in the gatehouse. Irakli is sitting at the table with a thin notebook and a pen laid out in front of him. Marika sits down opposite him.

  ‘Hello,’ says Marika, and looks expectantly at Irakli.

  Irakli looks at Lela. Lela shrugs.

  ‘Hello is like gamarjoba. It’s what you say to greet someone. Let’s practise. I’ll greet you and you greet me back.’

  Irakli nods.

  ‘Hello,’ says Marika.

  ‘Hello,’ Irakli parrots back at her.

  ‘Perfect,’ says Marika, and translates that too.

  Lela stays for the lesson. Irakli learns a few English words and then writes them in his notebook. It soon becomes apparent that Irakli has either forgotten, can’t write or simply never knew several letters of the Georgian alphabet. Marika changes tack, deciding that Irakli needs to practise this first. Lela objects, but Marika convinces her that he’ll never learn another language if he can’t write his own.

  ‘If he tries to learn everything by heart, teaching him will be a nightmare,’ says Marika, scratching her nose. ‘How can he write stuff down if he doesn’t know his letters?’