Skip to main content

‘Call Me George’


You know you’ve failed to adjust to a place when you start viewing daily trifles as culturally anomalous.


Riding the bus from Freedom Square to the university on Chavchavadze Avenue: a trip of a few kilometers.  Easy enough.

But at each stop the denizens pile themselves in.  Stop after stop, a distressing number of people are insisting on getting on the No. 140.  At one point the doors cannot be shut.  The driver shouts testily, “There's another bus coming, eh!  Why don’t you wait for it?”

It doesn’t work.  More people get on.  Strap-hanging, I can no longer move.  Stuck between university students and a couple of older guys, I realize that I no longer have to hold on.  Jolts from the road or otherwise, I’m not going anywhere.

We arrive at my stop.  “Excuse me,” I say.

No one looks at me, no one moves.  I can see the light pouring in from the door.  Fresh air and personal space.  I gently nudge those unresponsive ones around me to show that I need to alight.

A second Excuse me, this time louder.  No response.  A third.  Nothing.  The doors are closing. . .

I start shoving.

vai me!” say the ladies.  “Woe is me” or “Oh my”, and, in this instance, “How dare you push me, you insolent brute!”  vai me!

The men are no better.  “bich’o, ra iq’o!” one says as I step on his toes — Man, what are you doing? and/or Can’t you just wait till the next stop?  I’ve interrupted his mobile “thinking” session, his birzha in transit.

I’ve climbed over four people and I’m still not there.

More Woe is me’s.  More What are you doing, Man’s.  Visibly distressed, nearly frothing at the mouth, I’m looking every inch the part of the typical Westerner, always in a hurry.

Then, blinding sunlight.  Free at last!  But I’m furious.  I spit in disgust.  I kick some wooden planks under some scaffolding.  I swear up and down that I have to get out of this place.

Tbilisi, you win.  You can have the bus; I’m getting off.

Select Enlightenment:
M. Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being (NY: Harper & Row, 1984).

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Portland Flashback

“Put this under your tongue,” Josh said, handing me three small circles of thin white paper. The club’s owner, a dubious character, not because of his whittled-away teeth or the stringy, wet hair plastered to the sides of his head, but because of the sheen over his dark pupils, had offered the goods to Josh. I hesitated, but then this sickly looking man gave me a friendly salute. And so, already three sheets to the wind, I placed not one but all three under my tongue. They were tasteless and dissolved in seconds. While I waited for the fun to kick in I scanned the room. Halloween: goth kids dressed up as vampires. Or — wait a minute — were they vampires disguised as humans? The room was changing. I looked over at Josh to make sure he was still there. The pudgy motherfucker, with a serene grin on his face, was lost in the screeching music. All of a sudden I caught the hungry gaze of a vampire, its eyes comically wide open. Don’t look at me! Averting my eyes I watched as the wal...

Dála

Intense summer heat makes my sweaty feet itchy.  This is mostly because I will forever associate the most aesthetically pleasing walk I’ve ever taken with the midday heat in one of the hottest places on earth.  Dála (in Greek ντάλα) is when the sun has warmed the land so much that it then commands it.  The heat dances riotously over the pavements, and brows become sore from squinting.  But try not to wilt on me.  This is the best time to strike out to collect the dust from the streets on your face and clothes.  My best dála goes like this: As we walk down the quiet main strip, the vineyards come into view.  Their vines have crept up and over the trellises of the open-plan dwellings, giving families a precious defense, even if it is perforated here and there by arrogant rays of sunlight. The dust indeed collects, and we sweat even while strolling leisurely.  But we are impressed, delighted and alone.  Cold white water rushes ...

Character

I first met the Bear on an unseasonably warm November afternoon. We sat on his balcony and were supposed to be discussing a job. But I squinted against the warm sun, and the Bear puffed a thin cigarette as we drank coffee from exquisite tea cups. A lively little jazz number reached us from inside his den. The Bear’s paws drummed the tune in time. This large omnivorous epicure smoked only hand-rolled cigarettes, which smelled like rain-kissed earth. He sipped only the darkest Turkish coffee, laced with just a touch of sugar. Naturally, he also listened to only the smoothest jazz, the transitions of which, he said, were made as flawlessly as can be done on any instrument in this world. He got quiet, closed his eyes and lifted his paw as if to command me to wait in silence for the next one. . . . Later the conversation turned to a mix of language and politics. Growing up in Belgium with one parent from the UK and one from Austria left him speaking three languages, and he’s a...