set in Zeni, the Republic of Abkhazia
Father takes a break from pouring water into his mother’s mouth to look up and notice that he is not just at home, but also at the bottom of the mountains, and all around him is the beauty of Svaneti. He sees this view from the window every day, but for the first time in his life, he is astounded by the tint of the sky and the shape of the mountains. It is like the mountains are curling around him and his home. They are inverted white-powdered cones stacked together under an infinite swathe of blue. The day is just beginning. And unlike when Father was working, the mountains are no longer a nuisance for Father to drive around on the way to the hospital in the bigger town of Gali.
They are his surroundings, they are a part of his world, they are the source of his air and water.
Father sips some coffee, slowly savouring the bitter taste. The beauty of being retired is that the day is no longer a back and forth between hospital and home, a rush from one duty to another. There is time for introspection. There is time to remember who he is beyond the work he does. And there is time to consider the value of his wife, the state of his mother, the taste of food, and the beauty of nature.
His mother was once a beautiful mountain girl. Father remembers how she’d make matsoni out of milk in the early hours of the day. He remembers the barely built-up cottage he grew up in, how the sheep and goat would come harass them from outside the windows of their home, how cold he felt cuddling in his wool blankets in the winter. There was no heating in that house, and Zeni is in the lowlands unlike Chegali, but otherwise things are more or less the same.
He hasn’t visited the hospital or the town of Gali for a good forty days. He thought he’d still be visiting often after he retired for the check-ups that his mother, the Andu of family Gogia, would require.
But Andu Gogia has been doing better in the last month. Instead of making a pained or frustrated face at the wall, she smiles whenever Father walks into the room, her eyes lighting up. She doesn’t sit in her wheelchair silently and wait for the day to pass. She’s gone back to attempting communication, though her mind has forgotten how to construct the words. She blathers incoherent syllables and sounds, but the point is that it feels like a conversation.
Feeding her is still incredibly difficult. The hole in her throat has long been patched up and the feeding tube is no more, but Andu Gogia still gargles when she is supposed to be swallowing the food from Father’s spoon. Even when she drinks water she coughs longly and loudly after every sip. Many people are dying of old age in Abkhazia. Father was used to these sorts of sounds when it came from his patients. He always felt removed from them. Their problems were things to be solved like mathematical puzzles, and their deaths the results when he failed at his task or when he couldn’t do more. He never thought health problems could concern him at a spiritual level until he treated his mother. He is worried about her impending death, and admittedly this makes him feel more human.
Father feels the coffee stains on the top of his lips. He really smells them, he really tastes them.
This is what it means to be human.
The breakfast ends. Father cleans the pastry pieces that have fallen onto the floor while his mother’s coughing slows down. When she calms down, Father asks her:
« An, do you know what time it is? Do you know what we are doing? »
« Da da da… »
Andu Gogia’s eyes light up.
It is time for them to go for their walk, which is really a euphemism for what they will be doing. It is mostly Father pushing his mother in her wheelchair up and down the pothole-ridden road, passing by the cottages on both sides for several rounds, and then returning home. Had Father been told a few years ago that he would have gone from a successful and accomplished doctor to a person who pushes a wheelchair once every few hours, he would have had a panic attack. How dare he be insulted, how dare he be taken down, how dare he be told he’d be doing anything other than the important work of a doctor attempting the Hippocratic oath.
Now he sees this walk as his favourite part of the day, and he can’t believe that he spent so many years of his life without doing so.
« Come, An. We are going for our walk. Can you say walk? »
« Wa, wa, wam » Andu Gogia murmurs excitedly. « Wa ya tu, tu ra gu. »
« Yes, An, good. I am happy, too. »
They head out. The temperature is cold, but nothing compared to winter. Andu Gogia shivers with a frightened look, but as she notices the cottages on both sides and the backdrop of the mountains, her body relaxes. She lets her body be one with the wheelchair. She is ready for the ride.
Right on the steps of one of the cottages are two girls. One looks like a teenager and the other is on the cusp of her teenage years. They are both smoking cigarettes and gossiping. They usually ignore Father, but as he has become a common fixture of the street for the last month, they smile and wave and sometimes shout, « How are you, Andu? » to his mother as they pass.
Today, they say nothing. The younger girl looks worried. Father is tempted to stop and ask if something is wrong, but he knows he ought to mind his business, and it is a few degrees above the freezing point. If they pause, his mother will get cold.
The road is frozen and hard. Over many weeks of practice, Father has learned how to manage with the potholes. Still, one of the neighbours, a guy who loves to sit idly in his truck, makes the same comments whenever they come around.
« You should be careful on this road. If the wheelchair trips over, she will fall. »
« I know. »
« And then if she breaks something, what will you do? »
« I am a doctor. I will take her to the hospital. »
The man nods, as if he is satistfied, despite him saying the same thing the next day and Father responding in the exact same way.
Sometimes a smile breaks on his face, and he asks something random. Today, he feels like talking about his family.
« My daughter told me last night that she is immigrating to Russia. »
« That is good. She will make good money there. »
« I think she is going because she has found a boyfriend. She is talking to some boy online from Chechnya. I saw it in the browsing records from her computer. I do not want her to be with one of those Chechens. I see how they treat women. I know what they will do to her. »
Father smiles half-heartedly. The truth, as he has seen, is that it often backfires to meddle in the affairs of one’s children. His son was living life as a homosexual far away from them. Because Father had told him to stop, he stopped talking to them altogether. Over the last year, at least he was returning their calls or calling himself on special occasions like birthdays or to check up on his grandmother. But regardless Father knows things would be different if he had kept his mouth shut.
It’s easy to remember this advice but hard to practice when the children are there. The emotions flare up, and one sees them not as the adults they are now but as the kids they were back then. They fell because they didn’t stand when they were told to; they chose bad careers because they didn’t listen to what their parents said.
Anyways, Andu Gogia is gasping to herself. This is her way of communicating that they have stopped for long enough and she would prefer for them to move on. Father points downwards to the woman and the man nods knowingly. He says politely:
« We will talk tomorrow. Have a good day. »
« Have a good day, » Father replies and waves. The man reciprocates. As he turns back to make sure that nothing fell off the wheelchair onto the road, he observes the man rolling up his window but smiling widely. Father can tell he is actually excited to continue his complaining tomorrow. Father will have to be sterner about how he is only out to spend time with his mother or the man will continue to absorb his time.
As they continue on the road, Father sees a woman feeding the birds and another going to milk her cow. They wave fondly at them both. There are some boys getting into a car to be taken to school. There are some women walking in a group on the way to another’s home.
Whenever Mother talks about these neighbours, it is to complain, as if they are the worst humans she has ever met. She’s been the subject of a lot of their gossip, and Father has been tainted by those experiences. But over the last month, Father has gotten to know a lot of them better through these small talks, and he’s finding everyone quite pleasant and warm. He thinks he would enjoy these interactions even without his mother there. He’d probably go out of his way to talk with them, too.
Actually, he does have the free time. He’s no longer rushing about. Why should he not stop to chat with them or invite himself over if he so chooses? Father has gone back to being another one of the villagers. He’s just another man of the mountains. He’s just another one of the neighbours, a community member, a person who lives on this road.
He notices his mother is shivering. He puts the blanket firmly over her. He whispers softly in her ear to provide some of the warmth of his breath, and also some of the warmth of what he is thinking.
« There are good people all around us. We are truly blessed. »
Andu Gogia smiles and says triumphantly, « Ah ga ga! »
The walk is over, and he turns the wheelchair back homewards, excited for the warmth of the heater as well as the achma Mother will have made for lunch. And he feels warmer yet thinking about the fact that, in a way, he is like achma. He is not just one piece of food wasting idly on the side of a plate. He and all of his people are like the melded cheese, singular and firm in consistency, but melded under the spread of the layers of dough.
