Mortal Happiness: Chapter Four

It was getting dark when Perotti left the two-room, brieze-block house he shared with Enna. Westward the sky was still bright, the flat horizon lined with flaming cloud. The sun’s warmth, trapped in soil and stone, lapped at his ankles as he walked.

He wondered at his own unease about the evening ahead. Gutenberg, naturally, had taken an instant dislike to the celebration plans while not actually forbidding them. So the women had come to him, to Mr. Perotti, their friend and ally.

‘Some of us have been here many years,’ the spokeswoman had said, ‘and that is bad. It is many years now since our enemy took our homes from us. But we are alive and must celebrate the good and try to forget the bad.’

Perotti didn’t believe the old woman’s pious words for a moment, he’d seen tough old ones like her before, all around the world. Hard-nosed victims; sharks in skirts. She had no intention of forgetting anything that had ever happened to her, or her country. And who could blame her, he thought, as he walked, hands in pockets, through the fading light. He remembered the maps she’d drawn in the dust to illustrate the true nature of geopolitics for Perotti before lecturing him for half an hour. One time she’d dragged out an old atlas, found, only the Virgin knew where, and opening it in front of him had banged the point of one finger on the faded outline of her homeland shrieking ‘This is ours! They killed us for it and they would kill the rest of us if they could. They want to kill us all!’ Perotti had felt his blood pressure give the usual, upward lurch at the glee in her voice and the clacking approval of her gang of elderly widows. ‘Kill us all!’ she’d repeated, ending on a dramatic, wailing screech familiar to Perotti. ‘But God is with us,’ she’d concluded piously. ‘God and Mr Perotti.’ She had all but winked at him, her eyes rodent-bright in their net of wrinkles. But it had worked; he’d given her his support against Gutenberg, argued that the ten years of the camp’s existence should be honoured even though he privately disliked everything about the idea. Later he’d wondered that she could read a map.

Entering the usually empty space that served as the central meeting place in the camp, Perotti walked straight into the noise and bustle of a large, sweating crowd. Involved in his thoughts as he walked he hadn’t prepared himself for what he would find here. Now he stared at a whole cow being spit-roasted over a bed of coals by a stringy-looking man using the crank handle of a long-dead truck to turn the carcass. Perotti recognised the man, a profiteer he’d already twice confronted over faulty propane canisters. The man seized a roasting leg, cut a chunk off the dripping, shiny flesh and handed it to someone beside him. Perotti knew this man too, a bulky figure wearing a headband and camouflage. The local militia chief. Looking around Perotti felt himself winding up tight against something not yet fully understood. Something opaque and partly formed that might eat him, if he let it

Enna’s thoughts drifted from drug records on the hospital’s elderly computer to the young patient with Familial Fever. She would be fine despite the Canadian boy’s anxieties; these intense, short-lived episodes were common enough in a place like this. But something about the girl, her physical frailty and lost air had been particularly touching. Glancing at her watch Enna decided to check in on her before joining Tomaso. She didn’t move. Instead she thought about pyrin, the Familial Fever gene. She’d read enough research to know that the gene was traceable to a time when there was only a single race, a common ancestry, in this region. Yet today, many of the affected nations called it their disease, claiming a monopoly on suffering. She felt strongly, though couldn’t have said why, that the gene was a kind of deep proof that any division based on ethnicity was not only wrong, but unscientific.

Enna shivered though her little office was warm, even stuffy. Distant shouts and laughter told her that the celebration had started. The sounds seemed near and very far away, or at least that was how she perceived them. Her mind was strangely active tonight, as if the general anticipation of the anniversary were affecting her, stimulating her. There was a tightness in her body too, that reminded her of something old, something all but forgotten.

She tried to focus on getting up, walking out of the hospital and meeting Tomaso; but instead her thoughts touched her own origins. Her mother’s people, Svans from north-west Georgia, probably originated, somewhere in pre-history, between the Tigris and Euphrates. Was the pyrin gene buried in her own DNA? Did even a Russian-Svan hybrid like herself share a common ancestor with the patient lying a corridor away? Did it matter?

‘Our land is what really matters, Mr Perotti. Not men and women. What are men and women in all this? They come, they go. The war may have ‘displaced’ us as you call it. There may be no homes for us there now, but in our hearts it is still our true place. It is everything to us. If you don’t understand this you have never understood us at all.’

Perotti was angry. The old woman had tricked him, lied to him about the purpose of this so-called celebration. He couldn’t believe he’d been so gullible. She had grey hair under that scarf for Christ’s sake. He’d honoured this woman’s determination since he arrived in this camp, humoured her weaknesses, and this is where it had led.

‘You deceived me,’ he said, his voice harsh even to his own ears. ‘You told me that you and the other women would arrange this, but I see the militia are in charge here, not you.’

Her face showed no regret or shame. ‘You think things end because we live here, thanking you for everything and living on the charity of strangers? The enemy has forced us from our home but he cannot force us from our memories.’

Perotti felt the pressure of blood in his arteries and a pulse beating hard and fast in his throat. ‘You live in the past, with the dead, old woman. You talk of war, but you don’t even know who your enemies are now, today. ’

‘We have always had enemies Mr Perotti.’

‘I’m not surprised,’ he said under his breath.

She drew herself up, as if she could stand eye to eye with Perotti.

‘My grandson will go with the militia. I have promised this. He wishes it and his father would have wished it … the militia are our connection to freedom and to our land.’

‘Freedom?’ Perotti pointed to where the big, steroid-freak in the camo outfit and black headband had stood beside the charring cow. He wasn’t there now, Perotti noted. ‘That man is a terrorist. His men aren’t soldiers. They don’t care about your country or about anyone in this camp. They’re criminals making money from your misfortune.’

She shakes her head as if shaking off his words. ‘It is the tradition Mr. Perotti. In the past our leaders gave a party for each boy when it was time for him to leave home. No one can do such a thing in these days, so I thought, why not ask our protector and his men to give one big party for all the boys when they leave.’

‘All the older boys?’ He was horrified. ‘They’re all leaving?’

‘She answered him more gently. ‘There’s nothing here for them, you know that as well as I. It is our way and it is for our homeland.’

‘Fuck your homeland!’ Perotti’s hands sliced the air involuntarily as he pictures the old witch’s quiet, shy grandson toting an AK-47. ‘It won’t be your enemies that Tural learns to fight, it will be the local police. What will you feel the day they tell you your grandson is dead, killed in a drug raid?’

She turned pale. ‘God will protect him and if He does not, then it is His will.’

Perotti made a growling sound in his throat, both hands spread as if to grasp his own frustration. ‘The boy is sixteen - his head’s stuffed full of your vicious stories. You’ve given your home, your husband and your sons for a piece of land. Must you give everything away?’

Hands on her shoulders he was shaking her slowly, backward and forward. Realising what he was doing he stopped abruptly, dropping his arms to his sides. ‘Do you know how those terrorists, those criminals, raise money? Surely you do,’ he said bitterly, ‘you seem to know everything else. He buys drugs, millions of dollars worth of drugs and sells them to anyone who will buy … to Russians, to Greeks, to boys like your grandson, boys who want a life and don’t know where to get one.’

She was trembling now. Feeling old and tired suddenly Perotti unclenched hands and looked around; there was no sign of the militia leader or his thugs.

‘If any boy leaves this camp I shall hold you responsible and you will leave too. Do you understand me?’

She held both hands over her mouth and made a sound behind them.

‘If the militia think they’ve bought themselves new recruits with a roast cow, tell that man to come to me and we’ll discuss heroin.’

The woman scuttled away.

Perotti slumped on a rock, exhausted. He’d forgotten he could be so angry. Glancing at his watch he realised it was after eight. Christ! On legs that felt surprisingly weak he walked to where the crowd was thickest, looking for his wife.

Half-way along the shadowed corridor Enna realised that her legs no longer did what they should. The noise of the distant celebration fell like blows on her head, which made no sense. The sound had a stark, urgent quality, like drumming, though she was sure there were no drums anywhere. She fought to keep her eyes open, but they closed anyway and yielding she felt the dark coming up in front and around her. Immediately she resisted again; trying to grasp at what she could see, at the thin wooden walls of her hospital, at anything that might be solid. But it was too late. She didn’t feel the floor rise to meet her as she fell.

Perotti heard the whispering then saw the new Canadian medic, whose name he didn’t know, turn towards him from out of a knot of people pointing in his direction.

He pushed forward, shoving bodies aside without apology. ‘What’s happening?’ He sounded strained and irritable, even to himself.

‘Mr. Perotti, sir, I’ve been looking for you.’ The man looked pale, scared even. ‘Come quickly … it’s Dr. Serpukhova.’

‘What?’ Perotti felt stupid with sudden fear as he walked forward into the whispers.

She’s standing in dense forest. Light filters only patchily through dark sweeping branches. She knows this place as well as her own face but it feels unfamiliar. There’s a narrow path, silenced by pine needles. She follows knowing where it will lead. The path ends and she stands at the edge of a clearing looking at the rear of the house where she was born, at the big yard behind the kitchen. This is her mother’s yard where her sister feeds the chickens and goats. Everything is the same yet different, smaller and shabbier. There’s noise suddenly, shouting and screams and movement everywhere as armed men appear out of the forest. Looking down there’s a gun in her own hands; she feels its weight and this too is familiar. Yet nothing she sees has ever happened. Outside the back door her mother is lying on her side arms thrown out, legs skewed at the hip. The old black skirt is rucked up above her knees. Her face is bruised and bloody, eyes and mouth open wide open, like some familiar image of horror. Looking around at these things she feels nothing. It’s like watching a vicious cartoon where everyone gets up and lives happily ever after at the end and somehow this nothingness is almost worse than what’s happening in front of her. A few feet away a younger woman – it’s Tamar - is on her back, absolutely still. Her legs are spread unnaturally wide. Her flowered headscarf has slipped down and covers her eyes like a blindfold. Then she feels hands grasping her own long hair. Hands twisting, dragging her …

Perotti yelled at the handful of people standing around her to get back and give her air. The unease he’d felt all evening and assumed was about work peaked now into an inexplicable sense of dread. Ignoring it he dropped to his knees beside his wife and said,

‘Enna! Enna darling, I’m here. Please, Enna …’ the words were rubbish, meaningless, but he didn’t know what else to say. He must get her away from this place and the corral of staring faces. Angry, he turned to the medic, ‘Why is she still lying on the floor? Why isn’t she in a bed?’

‘We tried … it’s not a good idea to move her right now.’

Perotti lifted her head to put a hand under her shoulders.

‘Sir, be careful, she’s kinda, uh, not herself …’

She feels one hand over her mouth, the other is using her hair to choke her, wrapping it over and over around her neck until she’s fighting for breathe…

She screamed, a throat-ripping scream and turned on the killing hands, her fingers clawing. Perotti moved in time to save his eyes but hot pain flashed down one cheek. Someone above him started to laugh then cut off abruptly.

‘Help me someone for Christ’s sake, my wife is sick.’ Desperate, he looked up and saw fear of things not understood in the faces overhanging him. Even the new medic held back, uncertain.

‘Please. Someone.’

A pair of big, camouflaged knees appeared beside him. Powerful red brown hands, far larger than his own, grasped his wife by the shoulders and under her knees and lifted her gently.

‘Do not worry friend,’ the militia leader whispered in his ear, ‘your wife will be very well now.’

Alone together later each knew something shocking had happened, though whether to them or between them was unclear. Enna lay against the pillows of the bed looking pale and tired. Perotti faced her, one knee drawn up on the bed. He struggled to compose his expression into mere anxiety, masking the terror that was churning his stomach.

‘It wasn’t a fit.’

‘Then what was it En? Why were you on the ground? Why do I have these nail marks on my face?’

‘I thought you were attacking me.’

He looked at her, astonished, wondering for a moment if his grasp of English had failed him. ‘Me?’

‘No, not you Tomaso. Not you. Someone.’

His mouth opened but he paused before saying gently, ‘En, I’m worried. It was frightening.’

She looked calm, which Perotti found disturbing. ‘If I tell you what happened you must promise to take me seriously.’

‘Christ, Enna,’ his shoulders sagged, ‘when did I ever do anything else?’ He wanted desperately to understand and believe whatever he was about to hear, but he knew what he saw. If he closed his eyes he could still see the militiaman holding Enna, small and frail, in his thick arms. He remembered that he hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours and that by tomorrow morning most of the camp’s young men would be gone, vanished like the anniversary itself.

‘It wasn’t a fit. I know that because it’s not the first time this happened to me.’ She looked down at her hands, brown against the white cotton sheet and told him what she’d seen as she lay on the ground. Before he could say a word she continued, ‘When I was young it happened often – my mother’s people had a name for it’.

He waited for the name, grasping at its potential, as if knowing it would help him to understand.

She breathed out slowly and looked at him as if trying to see something in him that she’d never seen before. ‘In the remote areas of Svaneti it was considered a good thing.’

He was staring intently, needing to not be separate from her on this. His expression was painful for her and for a brief moment she wanted to agree with whatever it was he believed: that it was a fit, it was nothing, it would never happen again. When he remained motionless she filled the silence between them.

‘My mother’s people followed the Georgian Orthodox religion … but in the mountains where we lived the Church seemed very far away and Nature was everywhere, all around us, always close.’ She stared at him almost accusingly. ‘You’re from Rome so I don’t expect you to really understand what I’m saying.’ She looked away. ‘To be honest I don’t think I understand anymore. I’ve been away a very long time.’

He said, ‘I don’t even know what you’re talking about yet.’

She clasped her hands together. ‘Look, when I was a girl people thought I had some sort of - ability. It suited people to think I saw the future in dreams. Sometimes the dreams came when I was asleep, sometimes when I was awake. If I was awake I’d just faint. That’s what happened tonight. OK?’ The ‘OK?’ was like a challenge and she waited for him to laugh or shake his head but he sat silent, staring at her hands still resting on the sheet. She knew he knew that there was more.

‘Something’s going to happen, Toma, something terrible. I saw … I saw my mother and my sister, at our farmhouse, they’d been … murdered.’ She examined the fingernails of her left hand, seeing traces of blood and skin under them. ‘That’s why I scratched you. I thought I was being attacked too. But it was you, come to save me.’ She smiled at him, feeling his need of reassurance and anticipating rebuke.

‘Why did you never tell me?’ Enna was watching him and he realised he was making the extravagant, Italian, gestures she usually laughed at. He dropped his hands onto the bed.

She shrugged. ‘Why would I tell you? When we met it hadn’t happened in more than twelve years, I forgot it could happen. I thought it had left me. I wanted to think that. Don’t you see, Toma? I didn’t want to be that person. I still don’t … it isn’t who I am.’

‘But it must be,’ he said, ‘or it couldn’t have happened.’

She snapped, ‘I’m a doctor, Tomaso, a scientist. Do you think it’s easy for me to rationalise this shit?’

He shook his head and looking at him she felt her heart contract. He looked so tired, almost old.

‘I’m sorry my darling,’ she said. ‘What can I say? It is strange. But it didn’t seem strange when I was a growing up, maybe because it was acceptable, or maybe I was just too young to know any different.’ She took his hand and squeezed it.

He closed his eyes and felt a sudden urge to pull his hand away. Instead, he let it rest in hers and forced himself to relax.

She said. ‘You have to understand that for my mother’s folk, many things normal people, people like you my darling,‘ she smiled, ‘would consider weird or even frightening were just … usual.’ She half-laughed, rocking his hand back and forth in hers. ‘Shall I tell you a story?’

He nodded, too tired to do anything else.

‘A cousin of my mother’s had a son who died in a car accident when he was about twenty-two. I don’t remember his name.’ She looked down at her hand holding his. ‘His parents wanted to keep him with them, so they bought all the stock of honey in their village. Then they had a glass coffin made. They dressed their son in his best suit, laid his body in the coffin and filled it, completely filled it, with honey.’

Perotti stared.

‘If those old people are still alive then that coffin is still beside the front door of the house.’ She looked away from him and towards the small, high window of their room. ‘I used to sit for hours staring into the honey, waiting for my mother to finish talking to her relatives.’ She looked at him and grinned. ‘It was like looking at a great big fly, trapped in amber. Except for the suit.’

The grin disconcerted Perotti. Nothing seemed entirely real, not the bed, nor the floor, and Enna was like someone he’d never met before.

‘Sounds mad, doesn’t it?’ She continued talking and though the strain was clear on his face, she ignored it, wanting to be understood. ‘But all the village went along with it - took food and drink for the son when they visited. No-one seemed to notice that his head was crushed from the accident, or that he was slowly changing colour.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘So you see that a dream, even during a faint, could seem quite ordinary in that place.’

Though afraid of her answer he couldn’t evade the question any longer. ‘But do you believe it? Do you believe that what you saw will happen?’

She folded her hands before her on the sheet again and didn’t reply. Perotti felt sweat trickle down his face and neck, burning the deep scratches on his cheek. Waiting for her to respond, the same vague sense of dread that he’d felt earlier returned; again he pushed it away.

‘I can’t pretend it didn’t happen,’ she said finally. ‘It will happen unless I do something to prevent it.’ She swung her legs to the ground and started to get up.

‘What are you doing?’, he almost shouted.

‘Something,’ she said, ‘I’m doing something. I have to.’

‘Rest. Please.’ He restrained her gently. ‘I’m trying to understand what you’ve told me, but whatever you want to call it you’ve had a bad experience. Please, just rest now.’ One hand still held her arm, the other rubbed across his forehead. He said, ‘It’s been a very difficult night En. I learnt things - mostly about my own stupidity.’ He took her hand in his, lifted it to his damaged cheek. ‘I believe everything you’ve said to me I just don’t know what you can do about it.’

She looked at him with surprise. ‘I have to go there of course. I have to make them leave, or at least warn them.’

Her eyes were hot and looking into them Perotti felt the same momentary prickling along the back of his neck as when the sun touched her face up on the ridge earlier in the day. That moment seemed a long time ago.

‘I left everything I knew to get away from them - from a life without reason, without logic. They are not who I am, but they are who I was.’ She moved closer to him and squeezed his hand again, hard. ‘I feel them,’ she whispered, her hand on her stomach, ‘here.’ She sat back and released his hand. ‘I don’t want to go. I can think of nothing worse than to go back there, to go back alone. Come with me. Please.’

Her face looked stripped, pared down. He’d never seen that look before and he felt himself shrink from it, as from a stranger. This was not how he’d expected her revelation to end. He stared, bewildered by her and afraid for her.

‘But what about here? We can’t just walk away as if we had no life here, no responsibilities. There are people in this camp who need us every single day.’ He looked at his wife and thought of the broad back and forceps smile of the militia leader, of the boys leaving the camp with their small bags and big hopes. ‘Really bad things are happening as we speak En and I’m completely fucking powerless to stop them.’

She wanted to hold him and ask, ‘What bad things and why are you powerless?’ Instead, overwhelmed by a desperate, longing need of him she said, ‘I have never asked you for anything.’

This was true. It was one of the things he most admired and was most irritated by in his wife. He took her face in both his hands, moved closer until their legs touched on the bed. ‘Listen to me Enna. You are my family and this camp and our work here is a part of that family. I’ve never met your parents, your sister. I don’t know where they live. I don’t care about them. I care about you. If you truly believe that what you saw will happen, how could you think I would help you put yourself in such danger?’ His hands were no longer touching her face but gesturing, palms up, fingers spread, through the warm air between their bodies. ‘Do you want us to risk you and me and everything we’ve worked for, to help people you’ve told me you don’t like and hardly remember? Is that really what you want?’

‘No.’ She moved away from him. ‘No. That isn’t what I want.’