TESTIMONY
EMILY MAITLIS
‘I’m not a communist”, the heavily bearded BA steward on the flight to Vienna tells us. “But I do love communist countries”. It is an eccentric start to the most extraordinary trip. He has seen our guide-book and gleaned that we are on our way to Tbilisi, in Georgia, my mum and I. My mother has not seen it since Soviet days, when she quietly fell in love with the country. I am going to see the work that World Jewish Relief does, helping elderly, disabled, displaced and lonely people in parts of the world where communities are shrinking and poverty is rising. The steward, Tony, declares Tbilisi is fabulous and he writes down restaurants tips for us. It will be two days before I realise who he — and his beard — remind me of.
When we land, we are greeted by a bear of a man, Gorim. He is warmth, hugs, and common sense. He speaks about seven languages but English is not one of them. The trip will become this babble of Georgian, Russian, Hebrew and Armenian — not to mention pointing, vigorous nodding and endless confusion. He is to be our driver and his white van will become a curious refuge from many of the most painful things we are taken to see.
We drive through the city as dusk is settling, past President George W. Bush Street — for anyone in any doubt about Georgia’s approach to the West. Past the gleaming steel-and-glass structure nicknamed the “Always” bridge, for its uncanny resemblance to a sanitary towel. Past the Sephardi synagogue, still open and inviting. It is irresistible and we stop to have a look.
The caretaker shows us the synagogue downstairs — the ordinary one, he tells us. And then takes us up a flight of stairs to show us ANOTHER double-height room — the synagogue for High Days and Holy Days. It reminds me too much of that Jewish joke about the guy who washes up on the desert island and builds himself two temples — “one I use, the other I never set foot in”. Except here it seems both are used, pretty much every night. All the same, the total numbers have diminished. Many have gone abroad, some have made aliyah to Israel. What was once a community of 150,000 has now shrunk to just 13,000.
We dine locally on the first night — pomegranates and walnut, kachapuri — a fabulous bread stuffed with different fillings, rich Georgian red wine and the local hooch — chacha — which my mother has taken to with the dedication befitting a brand new hobby. The next morning, we make our first home visit. We leave a bright-blue, sunny Tbilisi, and arrive at the foothills of the Caucasus in Gori. It is Stalin’s birthplace, and it is snowing. Horizontally. I suddenly feel like we have re-entered the Soviet Union.
Beyond Gori, at the end of a narrow track alongside an abandoned factory, we find Koba’s house. Koba is a retired doctor of 67 — a man who has spent his life in phytology — the study of herbal medicine. Now, he lives alone, in a shack, with no running water or electricity. Alone that is, except for the rats which periodically cross his living space. It is as cold inside his house as it is outside. But he is a scholar, and a deeply religious man. He quotes Rabbi Hillel and shows us the books he’s written. What makes a man who has dedicated his life to studying end up alone and in such extreme poverty? I know my question makes no sense but I need an explanation. He tells us he can still diagnose someone from their pulse so I give him my hand and he leads me to the edge of his makeshift single bed. Holding my wrist intensely, he tells me I have blurred vision and back pain, headaches and thyroid problems, digestion and heartburn. By the time he’s finished, it is a miracle I can even get up. It is less a diagnosis, more a cry for help. Perhaps these are his ailments; this is the closest human contact he’s had for weeks.
He is as grateful for the hugs we bestow and the conversation as he is for the material things we bring. He cannot thank WJR enough for all it is doing for him. What it is doing, more than anything else, is remembering him in a world which otherwise seems to have abandoned him.
I need to pee but I suddenly remember he has no bathroom. ‘‘Where do you go?’’ I ask. ‘‘Outside’’— he points. ‘‘In the summer here there are snakes. But,’’ he pauses with a twinkle in his eye ‘‘I’m not afraid of snakes, only of mistakes before God’’. I, however, am afraid of snakes. I run down the dirt path, crouch outside, not sure whether to worry about reptiles or frostbite first. It’s a momentary, minuscule entry into Koba’s world and I am rather ashamed of myself.
The day ends in the Stalin museum with a tour-de-force guide called Olga. She looks like the outer case of one of those Russian Dolls. Immense, rotund and unsmiling. It will become an unspoken challenge among us to make her giggle. We don’t. She has a pointy baton that she waves to make us follow and has rote-learned all of Stalin’s life, but when we ask her what she and her friends think of him now, she is flustered, red-cheeked and deeply uncomfortable. She cannot muster an opinion. If she has one, we will never know it. As I look at portrait after portrait of Russia’s most infamous leader, I suddenly recall Tony, the BA steward, who has channeled his facial hair but luckily not his leadership approach.
The next day takes us to Rustavi, a place bleak enough to make Gori look like Chipping Norton. It is a town dedicated to petro-chemicals, but the factories have long closed and unemployment is high. Now, it’s where they bring their refugees — those displaced by the separatist wars in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And it is here, in conditions barely suitable for a donkey, we meet Asida and her two children, Nona and Sandro, aged four and five. The children welcome us into a concrete room, literally a roof over their heads but little more. There is no window so the door must be open, despite the cold, as it offers the only source of light. There is electricity here, but the cabling is a spaghetti mesh of dangling loose wires and naked bulbs. It does not take a giant leap to imagine little hands and tripping feet getting into trouble up here.
Asida has a husband who has a drink problem. And his drink problem often turns to abuse. He has irregular work and is not there when we visit. But Asida has a new bed purchased for her by funds raised through WJR and she beams as she shows it off. The work of WJR puts money raised into vital home repairs and food packets. They help families like Asida’s to register the children for nursery and care for them in after-school activities. It is properly a lifeline. And she explains with care and pride all the things they have helped to do, just getting her feet on the ground and her children to smile when everything else seems to be working against her.
The last visit of the day, still in Rustavi, is to see Svetlana and her grandson Dima. They live in a ground-floor shack, not even their own. Part of the roof recently collapsed so one of the two bedrooms is open to the elements. Dima, a delightful little chap of seven, shows us his drawings. His great grandfather was a famous engineer in Georgia and he has captured the fine neat mechanical lines in his sketches. ‘‘You will be following in his footsteps’’ we exclaim, laughing. And yet it seems hard to know how he will ever find a way out of this. He has talent. And in different circumstances he could be anything. I am praying he will get enough education to escape this poverty.
There is a train-set and a badminton-set but both are still packaged up in pristine boxes. They look like ornaments rather than toys. My mum gives Dima a pair of magic gloves, they look tiny but they grow with your hand. He is enchanted. I catch him when he doesn’t realise I’m looking, wiggling his multicoloured fingers. He cannot stop examining them and enjoying them against the cold.
Those gloves on those little fingers will become a symbol of what I remember so clearly about this trip. The ability to transform, to create smiles and hope with just the tiniest of gestures or most practical of gifts.
We stop for lunch before we leave Rustavi. It is strangely silent and no one has any appetite. I have leapt back into Gorim’s warm white comfortable van, huddled against the window to try and make sense of what I’ve seen. I am shattered.
That evening in Tbilisi is our last. We have a fabulous meal in Gabrieledze, a charming restaurant in the old quarter brimming with character and chacha. We discuss what we’ve seen and don’t know yet what to make of it all. It sounds odd but I know my mind will struggle. I relive the conversations, the faces, the gaping poverty, the gaps in the roof. I do not want to turn it into a narrative just yet as that will normalise it. I am not ready for that.
Two days after I return, I suddenly see how I have been affected. I shout at my children over breakfast, and then suddenly, cry. They have done nothing wrong. Or at least nothing unusually wrong, but I shout because they have such normal lucky lives.
I shout because I have seen kids with nothing and they are kids with everything. I shout because I don’t want to tell them but nor do I want to hide it from them. I shout because with a different passport, born in a different place, I could have been visiting them.
On the way to school, my youngest son reaches into his coat and pulls out a pair of his own magic gloves, multicoloured fingers wiggling. And I realise as I think back to Dima that they have so little and yet so much in common. And as we walk to school, that blustery morning, I begin my story. I tell Max about the little boy some 4,000 miles away, who has exactly the same gloves as him.
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