A Russian Journal (22 page)

Chmarsky screwed up his face. He was the only one at the table who could see her. "No," he said, "she is very ugly."

We said, "We think she should be abolished. We think she is a social evil. We think that an ugly public woman is a threat to the whole structure of society, a threat to the home, and security, and mother love, and all things like that."

And Chmarsky nodded his head gloomily and agreed with us. It was practically the first time we had agreed on anything.

And we said, "If, on the other hand, she were pretty, there might be extenuating circumstances. There might be some social injustice involved. If she were pretty, we would advocate investigating her background, to find out what social difficulty has caused her to be a public woman, and to try, perhaps, to induce her to return to private enterprise."

Chmarsky began to regard us with a suspicious, inquisitive eye. He did not trust us very much.

Our backs were to the public woman, but eventually we stole a look, and he was right, she was not pretty, and we don't know whether they abolished her or not.

The summer nights were wonderful in Tiflis; the air soft, and light, and dry. Young men and girls walked aimlessly in the streets, enjoying themselves. And the costumes of the young men were rather nice: tunics, sometimes of heavy white silk, belted at the waist, and long narrow trousers, and soft black boots. They are a very handsome breed, the Georgian men.

From the high balconies of the old houses we could hear in the night soft singing of strange music, accompanied by a picked instrument that sounded like a mandolin, and occasionally a flute played in a dark street.

The people of Georgia seemed to us more relaxed than any we had seen so far, relaxed, and fierce, and full of joy. And perhaps this is why the Russians admire them so. Perhaps this is the way they would like to be.

There was a huge moon over the western mountains, and it made the city seem even more mysterious and old, and the great black castle on the ridge stood out in front of the moon. And if there are ghosts anyplace in the world, they must be here, and if there is a ghost of Queen Tamara, she must have been walking the ridge in the moonlight that night.

THE TIFLIS WRITERS' UNION had asked us to come to a little reception. And it must be admitted that we were frightened, for these meetings have a habit of becoming extremely literary, and we are not very literary people. Besides, we knew by now that the Georgians take their literature very seriously: poetry and music are their great contributions to world culture, and their poetry is very ancient. Their poetry is not read by a few people; it is read by everyone. In their burial places on the hill we had seen that their poets were buried on an equal footing with their kings, and in many cases a poet has been remembered where a king has been forgotten. And one ancient poet, Rust'hveli, who wrote a long epic poem called
The Knight in the Tiger Skin,
is honored almost as a national hero in Georgia, and his verses are read and are memorized even by children, and his picture is everywhere.

We were afraid that the meeting of the writers might be a little rugged for us, but we went. About twenty men and three women received us. And we sat in chairs around a large room and regarded one another. There was a speech of welcome to us, and without transition our welcomer said, "And now Mr. So-and-so will read a short summary of Georgian literature."

A man on my right opened a sheaf of papers, and I could see that it was typewritten and single-spaced. He began to read, and I waited for the translation. A paragraph later I suddenly realized that he was reading in English. I became fascinated, because I could only understand about one word in ten. His pronunciation was so curious that although the words were English all right, they did not sound remotely like English when he said them. And he read twenty typewritten pages.

I got the manuscript later and read it, and it was a concise, compact history of literature in Georgia, from earliest times to the present.

Since most of the people in the room did not speak English at all, they sat and smiled benignly, for to them he was reading in perfect English. When he had finished, the man who had first spoken said, "Have you any questions now?"

And since I had understood very little of what had gone on, I had to admit that I had no questions.

It was quite hot in the room, and both Capa and I had developed a little trouble in the stomach, so that we were not comfortable.

Now a lady stood up, and she too had a sheaf of papers, and she said, "I will now read some translations into English of Georgian poetry."

Her English was good, but because I had a bad cramp in the stomach, I had to protest. I told her, which is true, that I much prefer to read poetry to myself, that I get more out of it that way, and I begged her to let me have the poetry to read when I was alone, so that I could appreciate it more. I think it hurt her feelings, but I hope not. It was true and I was miserable. She was a trifle curt. She said that this was the only copy in existence, that she did not dare let it out of her hands.

Again, as before, there came the questions about American writing. And, as usual, we felt terribly unprepared. If we had known we were going to be asked questions like this before we left America, we might have studied a little bit. We were asked about new writers emerging, and we mumbled a little about John Hersey, and John Home Burns, who wrote
The Gallery,
and Bill Mauldin, who draws like a novelist. We were dreadfully inadequate at this sort of thing, but the truth of the matter is we had not read very much of modern fiction lately. Then one of the men asked us what Georgians were well known in America. And the only ones we could remember, outside of the choreographer George Balanchine, were the three brothers who collectively had married many million dollars' worth of American women. The name Mdvani did not seem to bring out great enthusiasm among the present-day Georgian writers.

They are very stern and devoted, these Georgian writers, and it is very hard to tell them that although Stalin may say that the writer is the architect of the soul, in America the writer is not considered the architect of anything, and is only barely tolerated at all after he is dead and carefully put away for about twenty-five years.

In nothing is the difference between the Americans and the Soviets so marked as in the attitude, not only toward writers, but of writers toward their system. For in the Soviet Union the writer's job is to encourage, to celebrate, to explain, and in every way to carry forward the Soviet system. Whereas in America, and in England, a good writer is the watch-dog of society. His job is to satirize its silliness, to attack its injustices, to stigmatize its faults. And this is the reason that in America neither society nor government is very fond of writers. The two are completely opposite approaches toward literature. And it must be said that in the time of the great Russian writers, of Tolstoy, of Dostoevski, of Turgenev, of Chekhov, and of the early Gorki, the same was true of the Russians. And only time can tell whether the architect of the soul approach to writing can produce as great a literature as the watch-dog of society approach. So far, it must be admitted, the architect school has not produced a great piece of writing.

The room was very hot by the time our meeting with the writers was over, and we shook hands all around, wiping our palms on our trousers between handshakes, for we were perspiring very freely.

There had been one question they had asked that we wanted to think about further. It had been, "Do Americans like poetry?"

And we had had to reply that the only check we have on the liking or disliking of any form of literature in America is whether the people buy it, and certainly the people do not buy very much poetry. So we had been forced to say that perhaps Americans do not like poetry.

And then they had asked, "Is it that American poets are not very close to the people?"

And this was not true either, because American poets are just as close to the people as American novelists are. Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg are certainly not very far from the people, but the people just do not read very much poetry. We do not think it makes very much difference whether Americans like poetry or not. But to the Georgians, whose love for poetry is traditional, the lack of love for poetry is almost a crime.

Old as Tiflis is, it is the new capital. Fifteen hundred years ago the seat of power was about thirty kilometers to the north, and in the afternoon we got in the jeep and our cavalry driver drove us out there. It was a good macadam road, and it was crowded with little wagons pulled by donkeys, and by army trucks, and by soldiers on German motorcycles with side-cars. On the hills on either side were castles and ancient churches, almost inaccessible of approach. And the feeling of ancientness was in these passes which had been guarded against invasions for three thousand years. The road followed the river, and there were two hydroelectric dams, but when Capa wanted to photograph them, the refusal was instant. And just above the dams we came to a bridge that was built by Pompey when the Romans came through this pass, and one of the central supports is still standing in the river.

The name of the ancient capital is Mtskhet, and I cannot pronounce it yet. There is a fifth-century church high up on the peak above the city, half ruinous and very impressive. And to get to it you must climb a goat trail. In the town itself there was a beautiful church, inside high walls. And the walls were castellated and built for defense.

The huge courtyard inside the walls was grass-grown and the walls themselves were stepped, so that in the old days the fighting men could guard the church. The door of the church was of iron, and it was locked with a gigantic padlock. And inside the porch there were many little candles, stuck against the stone of the wall. The method seems to be to light the wrong end of the candle, and when it is burning to press it against the stone so that it sticks, and then to light the other end, so that the burning candle adheres to the stone of the church itself.

A dry hot wind howled through the pass in which the old town stands, and cried against the corners of the church. Off in one corner of the churchyard there was a curious parody. A long, lean, stringy man, dressed in rags, was dancing about. He was of the breed we used to call "touched." In his bony right hand he held a big feather, and with it he gestured while he made a loud speech to three goats who stood watching him and chewing rapidly. He waved his feather, stopped in his speech, and charged at the goats, and they disdainfully stepped aside, like boxers, and then stood and watched again while he spoke to them.

Eventually the caretaker of the church arrived-a dark woman, with a strong aquiline face. She was dressed in a black costume, with a black headcloth that wrapped around her throat, so that only her face showed. Her eyes were dark and brooding. She seemed to be some kind of secular nun. She carried a big key for the padlock. She opened the church, and we went inside the dusky ancient place.

The wall paintings were stiff, and old, and primitive, and their colors were faded. The more recent icons were dark in their gold frames and under their gold filigree. The stern woman began to tell us about the origin of the church.

Now there developed what we were later to call the Tinker to Evers to Chmarsky translation. Chmarsky did not understand the Georgian language. The words had to be spoken to a Georgian, who translated into Russian, and Chmarsky translated the Russian to us. This took a lot longer than normal conversation.

The dark woman told us that this church had been finished in the fifth century, but it had been started long before. And she told us a curious story about its founding, one of the incredible eastern stories one hears so often.

There were two brothers and a sister. And they had heard from the sky, or from the winds, that Jesus Christ had been born and had grown to manhood. There were portents and dreams that told them about him. Finally the two brothers started for Jerusalem, leaving their sister at home in this place. And they arrived on the day of the crucifixion, so they only saw him dead. And these two brothers from this pass in the Georgian mountains were heartbroken, and they begged a piece of the body-cloth of Jesus, and they brought it home to their sister. She was grief-stricken by the crucifixion, and she clutched the cloth, and fell sick and died of sorrow, and her dead hand held the cloth against her heart. Then the brothers tried to release the cloth, but her hand held firm and they could not get it away from her. And so she was buried with the cloth still held in her hand. She was buried right in this place where the church now stands. And almost immediately a plant grew out of the grave and became a giant tree. After a number of years it was desired to build a church in this place to commemorate the event. And woodsmen came and tried to cut the tree, but their axes flew to pieces against its trunk. Everyone tried to cut the tree, and they couldn't make a dent in it. Finally two angels came and cut the tree, and the church was built over the spot. The dark woman pointed to a curious tent-like structure of clay

inside the church, and this is where the grave was, she said, and this is where the tree stood. And under the clay tent undoubtedly was the body of the holy woman, still clutching the piece of the cloth that had been worn by Jesus.

She told other stories in her austere dry voice, but this was the best story, this was the origin of the church.

The wind whined in through the creaking iron door while she talked. And she said that although the place was deserted now, at various times of the year many thousands of people gather at this church and the courtyard is so crowded that one cannot even sit down or move about. There are people who even climb up on the walls. And during these feasts the service is celebrated in the ancient church. And people come from many, many miles on pilgrimages for these ceremonies, and the church is surrounded by little candles stuck against the walls and burning in the night.