Coming home from my Georgian lesson, I got a second one for free, on individual responsibility. On Chavchavadze Avenue again, in the Vake neighborhood, I’m busy furtively checking myself out in the shop windows when all of a sudden I see a beast of a man shove his petite wife, a shove such as two men do just before they throw punches at each other. She stops, drops her head and waits for the man, presumably her significant other, to grab her by the throat with his left hand. He holds her thus, screaming at the top of his lungs into her ear. I have a big choice to make . . . and I decide, gutlessly, to keep walking and pretend that it doesn’t concern me. Taking a punch from some swarthy-souled cretin in the name of chivalry? — Ferekeeko, do not put the blame on me! But another man walking towards me makes the right choice. In his sixties, of a slight build compared with the cretin, he seems to be on his way home from the shop. As soon as his eyes hit the couple, he acts.
Excerpts from bygone days abroad