Georgia (The true story)

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part 5

He said to me – Be very careful my friend, this is the only life you will get. Do not be lied to. They told us for more than fifty years that the accumulation of money was evil and that the essence of beauty lie in the concept of universal equality. It sounded good, it was nice to say, and yet the beauty slowly drained from our lives. Money is not evil. To a real man, money is everything.

I walked into the heat of the day. As I walked I thought that if beauty had ever really gone from this old city, it had easily returned. Then I chided myself for thinking like a tourist, walked a few more steps and accepted that I was a tourist, despite having flown, for once, in business class.

How strange and lucky you might think. The first person Eliam met in Georgia, spoke better English than he does, and was a petty philosopher on top of it.

I assure you it is not strange at all.

Of course, none of it ever happened. I never went to Tbilisi. The movie deal fell through. The heiress (sure thing!) investor got cold feet. Her lawyers convinced her that to spend money on movies about the struggles of far-flung places was to simply throw money away. If she had her heart set on film there were more sensible opportunities out there. It took them three weeks to succeed in convincing her of this. They may not have been right but they were probably correct. Three lawyers, three weeks, I wonder how much it cost her to come to this realization.

Georgia ( part 5)

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After a moment he rose from the table and made another call, he spoke in low tones in a language that is beyond foreign to me. Not one word of what he spoke was accessible.
He then came back to the table and cleared my mostly full cup and my plate of crumbs. He went behind the counter where he busied himself with the maintenance of the espresso machine.

After a minute I asked if his daughter was still coming.

He said – No.

I waited for further explanation but none was forthcoming. We were both saddened and relieved.

I stood up and took a wad of bills from my pocket, I asked how much, and he told me, and I paid. I did not know if I paid for a single cup of coffee, or ten, or fifty, as I would have no idea what the going price of a cup of coffee might be or for that matter what the bills were worth.

As I opened the glass door he called to me by my nationality.

American? – He said.

Yes. – I said.

Why did you lie?

About what?

You said that you were a businessman.

Oh, well, what I said was that I was here on business.

His expression conveyed that if there was a difference he did not see it.

I tried again.

Writing is my business.

He shook his head.

No friend, writing is to make from words, sentences and from sentences paragraphs, and even from paragraphs stories. Business is to make money.

Yeah – I said – you’re right, it’s not much of a business. I guess money isn’t that important to me.

At this he flipped up the counter, crossed the threshold between us and came all the way to the doorway in which I stood.

Georgia (part 4 )

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At this point I felt that I had to protest. I said that it was true that the Irish climate did leave much to be desired. However if climate was indeed a factor in the creation of beauty, then a general lack of sunshine might be the key meteorological ingredient. I said that I had been there more than once, and I had seen a great many fare and fiery beauties and that I was engaged to the most fair and fiery of all that I had met.

He laughed, and said that he could see I was delusional.

You are an American – he said – and as an American you know a great deal about money and business and indeed of risk, that the evidence of this was to be seen everywhere, that we dominated the world in this respect and that no man could dispute that, but… also, as an American I would surely know nothing of beauty, and that this was not my fault but a sort of ill side effect of a commendable success.

He said that he would help me. He made me a third cup of bitter coffee. He consulted his watch.

Finally he asked.

What kind of business are you in?

I just smiled.

It’s fine, -he said- I hate communism. Greed is good. It’s real, and human and can produce happiness as easily as brotherhood, or kindness, or even love.

He forwarded a hopeful guess.

Oil?

No, I said.

Genetic crops? Do you sell guns? Medications?

No

Or do you sell money itself? Leverage capital, buy low, sell high!

And he smiled genuinely at the thought of it.

No.

That is too bad -he said- It is a very good American business.

No, none of these things.

So what is it? What can you squeeze out of the dried rind the soviet criminals left behind?

A story I said.

You are with C-N-N. He said with finality but also with disappointment.

No, just a story, I’m a writer.

A writer of what?

Plays mostly. A play really, I’ve been trying to write some other ones, but well mostly, it was just the one.

Plays? Pageants you mean?

I don’t really think of them as pageants – I said.

I managed a smile, but he didn’t return my smile as forcing a smile would be alien to him. An oddly transparent form of lying.

Georgia (part 3.5)

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He assured me that my case was neither terminal or for that matter important in light of the pressing practical considerations of the age.

These are not soft times. – He said.

He told me that a business man, such as myself, should have a very strict set of criteria when choosing a wife and that beauty was in no way the least of them. He told me that successful businessmen were always adorned with beautiful wives as it is a necessary indicator to other businessmen that he is a man worthy of taking a risk on. The importance of this could not be overestimated.

He told me that although he had nothing but respect for the Irish (in particular he held in high regard their great capacity for drink), but that no matter how beautiful my Irish fiancé was, she could not be as beautiful as his daughter. It was not possible. He went on to explain that beauty is for the most part a function of climate, and that Ireland simply did not have the altitude to produce beauties such as could be found in the most common Georgian village.

Georgia ( part 3)

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It was not long before they had their daughter on the phone.

The woman disappeared into the kitchen. The man made me a second cup of coffee, and insisted I stay on at least long enough to meet his daughter. She was to be there shortly and very much wanted to meet me.

The old woman returned from the kitchen, she was peeling an egg and she began to list the virtues of her eldest daughter.

She is as beautiful and rare as an orchid… but also smart, she had finished her schooling and had been accepted into the university… good with children… She could easily run a house with twelve servants… but knows the value of hard work and saving money.

I told them that I was sure their daughter was a rare beauty indeed, but that I had to be careful as I was already engaged to a lovely Irish girl and that there was nothing to be done, as I was in love, and that love was not a choice so much as a condition and in my case I believed that although I may live a long time yet, the condition was terminal.

The man laughed and assured me that that was not the case at all. He insisted that love was neither a choice or a condition but the result of a biological trick played on human beings so as to completely distort the undesirable aspects of the opposite sex.

His wife nodded in agreement.

Georgia ( part 2)

part 1

This morning I wandered the streets near the hotel, shy to venture to far a field on my first outing. I stopped into a local café for a coffee and pastry. The coffee was pure demon urine but the pastry was nice. The old couple who ran “The Cafe Santa Barbra” were friendly as well as eager to practice their English. We talked very generally of world politics and found, at least generally, we could agree.

America good… Bush bad.

After a time, the man asked what had brought me to Tbilisi and I mumbled the word “business”. He flashed a broad smile and said that he was very pleased that I was a business man, that I should not be ashamed, that business was a good thing, and that I was welcome.

It was not long before they had their daughter on the phone.

My trip to Georgia (The Country)

Tbilisi is hot! Ninety degrees, and by 10:00 AM my illusions about the place are already showing cracks. Luckily the air conditioning at the Hilton is first rate. The service here is not exactly what one would hope for, but perhaps that is to be expected. “Customer care” had no place in The Communist Soviet Union and has made little headway in The Post-Communist former Soviet Union. Maybe, a generation from now they will learn to smile at the Hilton, and tell you to come back, and to have a nice day, even when they don’t mean it.

A Few stops in Reseda with my mother ( FIN)

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I say goodnight to my mother in front of the barbeques galore emporium. Drive a little way down Ventura Blvd past the Adult Super Store and I am again on the 101 freeway this time headed south. Tom Sawyer by Rush plays on Jack FM as I drive over the hill into Hollywood, and I know all the words and I sing them as loud as I can and it feels both good and wrong. Had I misjudged the valley? Have I once again been guilty of moronically repeating what has been said to me as if it were a fact. The Valley is lame. Urban sprawl to be sure, but it is also pure in its melting pot Americanness and authentic in its commitment to what it is.

Manifest destiny. The White man brought progress in all of its forms West. It seems to me that Reseda like Los Angeles and San Francisco is also the creation of the relentless drive West, but instead of being one of the last stops on the way to the sea they are one of the first stops on the way back. Fifteen miles from the edge of the world, culture seems to have bounced backward and fallen into itself. Reseda is a place lacking in pretense. Nostalgia is the coin of the realm. Reseda maybe ahead of the rest of Los Angeles as they are already living in a post ironic era.

A few stops (part 6)

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The martini has made my mother tired, and she wants a decaf coffee to get her over the hill and home. We try Starbucks but they were mopping the floors already, and so we go back to my car and we are about to go our separate ways when we notice that we are right in front of the electric café and that the life saving cup of coffee she seeks may not elude us after all.

There are about twenty patrons inside not including the band which are four. They play a slow version of an Abba hit, and the patrons sway or mouth the words or close their eyes and let the sadness of the story sink in. The singer/guitar player is in his early fifties as is the rest of the band. He’s kept himself in good shape and plays competently although he sings slightly off key. The Cafe doesn’t have any decaf brewed but it will only take a couple of minutes if I want to wait and so we sit down and the keyboard player sings Smooth Operator and she also sings slightly off key and the old man playing the spoons holds it down with ease. The patrons look glazed by the music. They’re neither happy or sad but content to listen to songs they know by heart. It might as well be a campfire or a singsong in an Irish bar after hours. The man sitting directly to my right is older than most of the rest and so he has bigger ears, and in his large ear he has a Bluetooth transmitter which blinks. An employee brings us the fresh brewed decaf and I pay her, and the band leader is negotiating with the manager of the Electric café and it is agreed that they can play one more. We decide to stay for it. I’m predicting Bye Bye American Pie by Don Mclean but in the end it is a Pete Segar song and he sings it like it is the last song of the night. He puts everything he has left into it and lets his voice growl and strums his guitar a bit harder and the band keeps up and if their skills can be questioned their sincerity can not be. When the song is finished the patrons show their appreciation and it is commiserate to the effort that had been spent on their behalf and it is also sincere.

A Few Stops (Part 5)

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My mother and I agree that a drink is in order. The first bar we see is called O2. The place is empty, save for the bar tender. When we walk in he looks at us as if perhaps we’re lost. Perhaps we are. It is more eighties than element themed. Everything about it is eighties, the music, the furniture, the ashtrays with no legal use left to them. Everything glows blue and is defiantly plastic. The mixed drinks described on the dry-erase board all have the word hurricane in them and are drawn in electric blue.
Are you open? I ask
Yes of course. He says in a thick Russian accent and turns the fluorescent lights overhead off and raises is hands in a gesture that is a question. Is that better? Is that more what you had in mind?
My mother orders a Grey goose martini and I have a Johnny walker black and we spend a couple of hours talking about good and bad relationships, and about my fathers death and the surprising sharpness of it after a year of looking at it from the corner of my eye. We talk about my up coming wedding and my Irish in-laws to be and we are both a little careful because we can recognize that the stakes are high for both of us and also that they are not the same stakes.

When we leave there are still no other customers. It’s almost nine. The owner is, by now, sitting out front. He is half way through a bottle of Coppola red wine and most of the way through a fifty-cent-thick cigar.

I hope it picks up, I say as we pass and he looks at me with cold eyes and not even a hint of a smile. He shrugs as if to say that he does not care what my hopes are, that he’s glad I’m leaving as Jewish playwrights and their mothers are not exactly the clientele he built this empire for. His slight snarl implies that he is in a different business anyway. And what ever business that is, he makes it clear in a glance that it is none of my business. It shakes me a little.