Russia & The City with the Golden Sheen – Part 2

Konrad Sundlo: "The City with the Golden Sheen" – Book 2

Munk and the Cat

It had barely managed to drag itself up to me. I took charge of it at once: carried it to the kitchen, washed it with warm water, then fetched the boric solution and the bandages and set to work. And from that day forward, Munk was my friend. It followed me wherever I went, and defended my garden against pigs and strange dogs with a ferocity entirely disproportionate to its size. We had found each other.

The cat was a different matter. It belonged to Regina Antonovna, and it was from her that I received it. "You will be kind to it, Konrad Ivanovitch, won't you? It is so sweet, and one day it will be a grown and clever little 'mons'." And so I accepted the cat. I had nothing against the gift, for I am fond of cats, and for several days there was nothing but warm friendship between myself and the kitten — which was perhaps half a year old. We sat by the window catching flies together, and 'mons' would stroll about on my shoulders, purring into my ears, perfectly at ease.

But then one day it stopped catching flies. It simply sat and looked at them. It crouched and stared — at the flies, at Munk, at me.

"The kitten is unwell," I told my housekeeper.

She had a look: "It's eaten something nasty, but it'll recover soon enough."

A few days passed and the cat became something of a problem. There was by now a peculiar, wild expression in its eyes; if I remember correctly, the pupils were large even in bright sunlight, when they ought to have been as small as pinheads. My housekeeper too began to wonder what ailed 'mons'. And then, perhaps a week after Faye had departed, we received our explanation: I had been out in the city, and came home to find a terrified housekeeper. "Quickly! Quickly! You must do something about the cat! It has gone mad!" "Mad? The cat has gone mad?" "Yes. It has hydrophobia. It flew at Vasja and tore him up..."

I went and found the cat. There was no longer any doubt — it was a case of hydrophobia, and there was only one thing to be done. I fetched the pistol and put an end to it.

Then I began to recall certain moments during the cat's illness when it had scratched or bitten me. None of the wounds had seemed serious at the time, but the matter now appeared in a rather different light. I consulted a doctor, who was of the opinion that I ought, without delay, to undergo the Pasteur treatment in Tiflis.

Tiflis it was, then. The treatment consisted of thirty daily injections, each administered into the stomach with a needle of considerable enthusiasm. It was not, one might say, a pleasant procedure, but it was a thorough one. I submitted myself to it with what I hope was reasonable composure, and thirty days later was declared fit to return to Kutais.

The Klåp, and the Tiflis Fly

Since I find myself on the subject of insects, I should record two further encounters with the fauna of the region. There is a creature known and feared by every Russian, and this creature is called "klåp" — which corresponds to the Norwegian "veggelus," or bedbug. A Russian may perhaps sleep during the day, but at night the klåp ensures that sleep becomes a purely theoretical ambition. Madame Chotjakovskaja's establishment in Tiflis was home to a population of klåp whose numbers and determination were, in their way, rather impressive. Various remedies were tried. The klåp regarded all of them as minor inconveniences.

The Tiflis fly was a separate matter entirely. I was standing one day talking with my landlady when something that resembled a blowfly came hurtling past and settled on my hand. I attempted, in the normal European fashion, to brush it away. It did not move. I attempted again. Still nothing. The fly appeared to consider itself a permanent resident of my person and regarded my efforts to dislodge it with the calm indifference of one who knows he is in the right. The Tiflis fly does not merely land upon one; it takes up residence. Subsequent inquiry confirmed that this was perfectly characteristic behaviour.

Engineer Gurski

Faye had mentioned that engineer Gurski — whom I had met during my first visit to Tiflis — was a man our firm might find useful. And so, on my return to Tiflis, I sought him out at his lodgings.

Gurski was a Pole of the old noble class, which is to say that he had a past of some complexity and a philosophical attitude towards it that one could only admire. He had been involved in the Macedonian independence movement in his youth — which had not ended well, as such movements generally do not — and had subsequently found himself in the Caucasus by a route that encompassed exile, a failed business venture, and several years of geological prospecting in the mountains. On Christmas Eve, his wife had died in childbirth; the midwife, he told me without evident rancour, had made a miscalculation. "These things happen," said Gurski. "One must proceed."

He had prospered, in his fashion, and now lived as a local authority on matters geological and economic. He spoke five languages, none of them perfectly, all of them fluently. I found him extremely good company.

At the Ministry

One day I presented myself at the government building to enquire how matters stood with our concessions, and was received by the Minister of Agriculture. He looked remarkably Norwegian — so Norwegian, in fact, that I caught myself thinking: you look exactly like a man I know from home. I did not share this observation with him.

On my way back from the minister, having passed the theatre, I heard a loud bang and saw people running. I followed the crowd and came upon an overturned cart that appeared to have had a rather eventful afternoon. A minor explosion, or perhaps an accident — the Caucasus drew no particular distinction between the two.

I had asked my housekeeper to forward any post from Faye when she returned to Kutais — he was to write immediately upon reaching Batum. No letter came. I began to be uneasy.

Soldier's Luck

When Gurski and I sat down to dinner, I mentioned that I planned to take the eight o'clock train that evening.

"Out of the question!" said my friend. "You are staying this evening! We shall be together and enjoy ourselves!"

I was not unwilling to be persuaded. We had an excellent evening.

In Kutais I learned that there was still no news of Faye, and now I was genuinely alarmed. I telegraphed to the offices of the steamship lines serving Constantinople and received the reply that they knew nothing of a Monsieur and Madame Faye. I then went to the police chief in Kutais, whose jurisdiction extended down to Batum.

What I subsequently learned — though I did not learn it until the summer of 1920 — was this: three naked bodies had been found on the Batum quay that summer. One of them was Faye. He and two companions had been murdered. The reasons for this, as they eventually emerged, are perhaps best left to the final chapter of this account.

I return now to what I knew at the time, which was nothing, and to the activities of someone whose luck appeared, on examination, to have been rather better than he deserved. On several occasions that winter I found myself, having been detained or persuaded to delay, missing trains that subsequently proved to have been ambushed by bandits. Gurski's insistence on the later departure was only one instance. I began to develop a private theory that an abundance of sociable acquaintances, and the inability to leave a good dinner at the promised hour, constituted a serviceable form of military strategy.

The Norwegian Vice-Consulate

On returning from Batum, I set about establishing myself as consul. I found a carpenter who planed up a handsome flagpole — not one to stand upright, but one to project from a window or balcony — fitted with a pulley, cord, and all proper accessories, nailed fast beneath the window. From it flew the Norwegian flag on appropriate occasions. To the door I attached a polished brass plate reading "Norsk Vicekonsulat." The plate, I was told, caused considerable local discussion, as no one in Kutais had been aware that such a thing existed.

I had never heard mention of a mayor. The police chief appeared to be the significant man in the city, and so I paid him a formal call and invited him to luncheon the following day. He accepted with apparent pleasure and arrived at the gallop in a four-wheeled carriage, which he drove himself. We ate well. I cannot be sure what we discussed with greatest animation, but I recall that by the end of the meal he pronounced me quite charming on the subject of Grusinian girls. "Charming" seemed to cover a satisfactory range of possibilities.

Firewood, Livestock, and Other Domestic Concerns

While I had been away, my housekeeper had managed by breaking apart packing cases and snapping dry twigs. When this supply ran out, I purchased a cartload of firewood — substantial pieces that were not amenable to being pulled apart by hand. I watched, one afternoon, as a neighbour set about the same problem by laying a log across the road and simply driving a cart over it. The wood was thus split into pieces of an irregular size and the splinters distributed across the street in a pattern that seemed to satisfy him entirely. No one attempted to stack anything. In Grusian domestic economy, the stack is apparently a concept for which no particular use has been found.

One afternoon, while I was chopping wood, two women appeared who wished to speak with me. The younger one, who was pretty, said: "We have come from Muri. I am Alexej's wife and would very much like to know where he is." Muri is a small village at the foot of the Caucasus, some ninety kilometres from Kutais. I knew nothing of Alexej's whereabouts and was obliged to say so, which seemed to satisfy neither of us.

After Faye's departure I inherited two geese and five hens. I gave Gdselief an old pair of trousers as working capital and asked him to procure more poultry. He returned with ten additional hens and a rooster, who took command of the henhouse at once and with evident satisfaction. One of the hens appearing to be of an irregular disposition, I tied a light chain to her leg by way of encouragement towards reform.

Among Faye's last acts in Kutais was to stand with me before the house and speak with the housekeeper's eldest son, who had received his call-up notice. He was conscripted into the White Russian army under General Denikin — who died in Michigan, USA, in the summer of 1947, which is perhaps not the end one would have predicted for him in 1919. The young man departed a few days later. I did not see him again.

The winter of 1918–19 had been, I am told, quite extraordinary in Oslo — almost no snow, merely sleet. I had not been there to witness it, having left at the end of January, and in any case I subsequently received my full ration of winter: it grew colder and colder the further south I travelled. In Germany the temperature was extreme, and further south it remained severe.

A Visit to the Countryside

One day I told Gdselief that he must take me out of the city and show me something of rural life. And off we went.

The first creature we encountered was a pig wearing a square wooden frame around its head. It had the appearance of having charged through a window and found the frame lodged permanently around its neck — which, as it turned out, was more or less what had happened. The frame was a device to prevent the animal from forcing its way through fences. Whether the pig found it inconvenient I cannot say; it moved with an air of philosophical resignation.

We came presently to a farm, where I witnessed the live-plucking of a goose. This operation, which involves removing the breast feathers from a living bird in order to obtain the down, is performed with a speed and technique that one can admire while simultaneously finding it rather hard to watch. The goose expressed its views on the matter, which were not favourable, but was otherwise unharmed and subsequently waddled off to reconsider its relationship with humanity.

The shoeing of a buffalo presented its own particular interest. The shoes are not like ours: they consist simply of a thick iron plate nailed to the hoof with six nails. The plate has neither the heel-calks nor the toe-clips that we are accustomed to seeing, but the necessary friction is provided by the roughness of the iron — at any rate in theory. To shoe a buffalo, one lays the animal on its side, which requires several men, considerable rope, and a willingness to participate in events that may develop in unexpected directions. I observed all of this with the attention it deserved.

This part of the Caucasus has a deep historical resonance that I felt more keenly as I learned more about it. The River Rion, which flows through Kutais, was in ancient times called the Phasis — and it was along this river, according to classical tradition, that Jason and the Argonauts sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. The Colchians, it is said, used sheepskins spread in the riverbed to catch the gold dust that washed down from the mountains: the Golden Fleece. The region answers to the description rather well. I found myself pleased to be walking ground that had been trodden, however indirectly, by mythology.

Dark Evenings and Long Books

The Caucasus lies sufficiently far south that one does not enjoy the long bright summer nights of Norway. The evenings were dark, as dark as a Norwegian winter evening — unless the moon was up, in which case it was brilliant enough to read by. I used these dark evenings to work through a number of books about Georgia and the Caucasus, which served to give the daily life around me a pleasing depth of context. Understanding a little of a country's history makes the country itself rather more comprehensible, a discovery that I recommend to anyone who finds foreign places confusing.

The June Journey to Tiflis

In June I made another journey to Tiflis to enquire after progress on our concessions. There was no progress. I was given extensive assurances that the government was working on the matter and that I could be quite certain all would be arranged to my satisfaction within the month. I did not experience, on this occasion, a sensation of certainty.

The Grusinians are, I believe, the most beautiful people in the Caucasus, but the Armenians are not far behind. And if the Armenians are not quite so handsome as the Grusinians, they are by common consent considerably more astute. This is expressed in a local saying that runs, approximately: it takes five Jews to outwit a Greek, and five Greeks to outwit an Armenian. I neither endorse nor contest the arithmetic, but the general direction of the observation seemed borne out by my experience.

The Train and the Bandit Problem

When the time came to leave that evening, my soldier's luck was again in operation. There were two trains westward, one departing at eight o'clock and one at midnight, and Gurski said:

"Now we shall have an agreeable time! For naturally you are taking the midnight train?"

"No, my dear fellow," I said. "That is precisely what I am not doing. I am taking the eight o'clock."

"You are not taking the eight o'clock," said Gurski firmly. "We are having dinner."

I took the eight o'clock.

Some time later I heard that the midnight train had been attacked by bandits. This was the third or fourth occasion on which I had, by various means, found myself on an earlier train than the one subsequently found to have encountered difficulties. I began to regard my disinclination to linger over dinner as having saved my life on multiple occasions — which is perhaps a lesson about the dangers of sociability, or perhaps its opposite.

The journey from Tiflis to Kutais passes through a remarkable landscape. The wide, dry plateau on which Tiflis sits, bounded far to the west by the mountain chain connecting the Caucasus with the ranges of Asia Minor — this plateau gives way, as one descends, to an entirely different world. The security arrangements along the railway in those years were, in their way, systematic: a guard post every half-kilometre, the men waving flags by day and lanterns by night to signal the line was clear. It was a form of reassurance that one found both comforting and, given what it implied about the alternative, slightly unnerving.

Margrethe's City Parade

I returned to find that the hens had hatched chicks, and was welcomed by a cheerful household that showed me a multiplicity of poultry, a sprightly Munk, and a fat Margrethe on a long line eating grass contentedly.

Then the chicken plague arrived.

It came one day and took a significant portion of the henhouse. I came home one afternoon to find the casualties laid out in a row, which was not a welcome sight.

The following morning I heard the sound of galloping and saw a rider dismounting at Noa's house. Vasja came in and reported: it was Noa's nephew, and he had come to slaughter the pigs. This event took place in the street, in the open, with all the neighbourhood's children as audience — it being generally understood that the young should be educated in the practical arts. The technique was demonstrated with thoroughness.

That afternoon I encountered Noa, who was round and cheerful and satisfied with events.

"It went very well, the slaughtering," I said.

"Yes," he agreed. "I've been down to the market and sold them."

"Sold them? But they were sick! You ought to have buried them!"

Noa was unmoved. The market had received them. The matter was settled.

As for Margrethe: she had been accustomed to her long line and her grazing. One day the line was not sufficiently secured, or Margrethe's opinions about the line had undergone revision — in any case, she departed. I subsequently learned that she had been discovered making her way through the city centre, and that a very substantial portion of the neighbourhood had followed her procession for some distance, with every appearance of being thoroughly entertained. She was eventually recaptured and returned, showing signs of having thoroughly enjoyed her excursion.

The Rains

There had been unbroken sunshine for several weeks, and then the rain arrived. Not politely, in the Norwegian manner, but as a cloudburst: I was soaked through simply running the five metres across to the kitchen building. The lightning was remarkable — I counted sixty-five bolts in a single minute at one point, after which I stopped counting and began to take the matter more seriously. The thunder, when it came, shook everything that was not nailed down, and several things that were.

Learning Georgian

I had considered it my duty to make some attempt at learning Georgian, and had accordingly gone into training while still in Norway, acquiring the Georgian alphabet — which is written in its own beautiful characters, entirely distinct from the Russian — and mastering the rudiments of the grammar. In Kutais I hired a teacher, a Georgian major who came each evening and put me through my paces.

Progress was modest but genuine. Georgian is not an accommodating language for speakers of European tongues; its consonant clusters are formidable and its grammatical structure unlike anything one has previously encountered. Nevertheless, one persevered.

While Vasja and I were thus engaged in our respective Georgian studies — each by his own method — I was invited to dinner at an acquaintance's on the other side of the city. It was a small party: our business contact the substantial Dateschidse; our lawyer, the small round Madjavariani; a Georgian major in uniform; and Mademoiselle Muller, a French governess employed by the family of Prince Murat for the education of his children. She was a woman of considerable composure, which is perhaps a professional requirement in the circumstance of governing a prince's children in the Caucasus in 1919.

An Unexpected Visitor

While I was most thoroughly occupied with Georgian language and drinking customs, I received an unexpected visit. A handsome man in his mid-fifties presented himself and introduced himself as engineer Tanner. He had come to me, he said, because in northern Russia he had worked with Edvard Hansen, who had told him, "When you get to the Caucasus, you must look up Konrad Sundlo." So he had looked me up. We had some interesting conversations.

Gdselief's Daughter, and Margrethe Again

I was invited by Gdselief to come and see his newborn daughter, and set off one morning in the sunshine hoping for a little variety after several weeks of business negotiations. As I passed the church in the lower town I met an enormous pig standing in the middle of the road — a pig I recognised. It was Margrethe. And behind Margrethe, because Margrethe was not a creature who moved without attracting attention, came a procession of some length: children, idlers, a couple of market traders, several dogs, and a goat who appeared to have joined entirely on its own initiative. The whole ensemble was proceeding through the city with the cheerful purposelessness of an unofficial festival. I joined the procession briefly, then thought better of it and continued to Gdselief's.

Back to Tiflis

Yet another journey to Tiflis became necessary. The concessions required purring, as they always had. It went as before: I met a very agreeable minister who told me that matters would not now be long in resolving themselves, and asked whether I could not come back in a month's time. I said I could.

In an attempt to change the subject, I asked about something else — anything else — and we discussed matters of general interest, which is to say matters of no particular relevance to either of our positions. The minister was charming throughout. The concessions remained exactly where they had always been.

Whilst the Grusinians reminded one in many respects of small boys playing at commerce, the Armenians were an entirely different type. The following day a tall, powerfully-built Armenian sought me out and intimated a range of possibilities for A/S Elektrokemisk in Armenia. There was no doubt that the possibilities existed. I had heard as much from others. But possibilities in the Caucasus had a way of remaining possibilities.

In a café, a handsome young woman had settled at a side table and was drinking a cup of chocolate. I happened to glance at her collar. A large louse was promenading along it. This is not offered as a criticism of the woman — who could defend themselves against vermin in the Caucasus? I mention it only as an illustration of the general conditions of the time and place, and of the equanimity with which one learned to regard them.

Return to Batum, and the Heifer

Travelling back to Batum on this occasion, we stood for a long time waiting for a crossing at a small station. On the other train there was a military escort, and one of the soldiers standing alone on a carriage was a notably fine figure of a man. On the platform, meanwhile, there stood a cart harnessed to a young heifer — a cart that appeared to have been rather unwillingly donated to the war effort, or some similar purpose. A wager was proposed and accepted: could the fine soldier ride the heifer? It emerged that he could. The performance lasted for some time and attracted a large audience, including the heifer, who formed her own views on the matter.

The Craftsmen of Kutais, and the Svans

Back in Kutais, I wanted to see something of working life, and so I recruited Gdselief once more and asked him to show me around. First we went to a blacksmith, where I had thought to purchase a "kinsjal" — the traditional Caucasian dagger of considerable beauty and workmanship. In the end I did not buy one, but instead watched the smith at work, which was in its way more educational.

We went on to the tanners, where leather was worked in the traditional manner using methods of considerable antiquity and efficiency. And then to the market, where among the traders I noticed a group of men quite unlike any of the others — dressed differently, moving differently, and regarding the entire city with an air of polite bafflement. These were Svans.

The Svans are a hunting people who inhabit a remote valley high in the Caucasian mountains. Through this valley, in ancient and medieval times, ran the great trade route between Europe and Asia, and the Svans had both profited from this and been shaped by it. They came down to the city for salt — salt being one of the things that their valley does not naturally provide — and having obtained their salt, they returned to their mountains with some promptness. Some authorities had proposed, on the basis of linguistic and physical observations, a possible Germanic origin for the Svan people. I cannot assess the scholarly merits of this theory, but I noted that certain of the men had a distinctly northern European appearance, which was striking in that company.

The Two German Sisters

Empress Catherine the Great of Russia was German by birth and endeavoured throughout her reign to attract Germans to settle in her Empire. In the eighteenth century, accordingly, a considerable migration of Germans took place — some settling in their own communities, of which perhaps the most famous is the German Volga colony. There was also a German colony near Kutais, established under these circumstances and maintained, with notable persistence, ever since.

Two elderly German sisters from this colony visited me and asked whether I could help them. They wished, they explained, to leave the Caucasus and return — or rather go, since they had been born there — to Germany. Travel documents were the difficulty. They asked whether I might provide them with Norwegian passports.

I gave them Norwegian passports. Whether this was strictly within my powers as a newly appointed vice-consul is a question I leave to the legal authorities; it was certainly within my inclinations. They were two elderly women in a difficult position, and Norway was not at war with anyone.

The Letter Home

In November — for the first, last, and only time — I received a letter from Norway. It was a communication from A/S Elektrokemisk informing me that Faye had not arrived in Norway. The plans could not proceed. The firm was not in a position to undertake operations in the Caucasus under the present circumstances. I was to return.

So I made my preparations.

Departure

I departed one day in December 1919, and many came to see me off at the station. Gdselief expressed his feelings in the speech he had prepared:

"We cry when you leave, for you have been like a father to us! We believe you will come back — we are certain of it — and therefore little Tschitunja shall not be baptised until you can be present. For it will be a great occasion and you must be here."

Little Tschitunja was his newborn daughter. Whether she was eventually baptised in my absence or waited indefinitely for a return visit that never materialised, I am not in a position to say.

The vessel was Italian, and I was given a delightful journey along the route Constantinople–Corinth–the Corinth Canal–Taranto. At Corinth there is a railway bridge across the canal, and as we passed beneath it a train crossed overhead. The canal is, in this respect, rather deep. Taranto is a beautiful city with a harbour of remarkable whiteness — the limestone quays and the clear southern light combine to produce an effect that stays in the memory.

From Taranto by train: through Italy, through the Mont Cenis tunnel, through Switzerland, through Germany. I arrived in Oslo on New Year's Eve 1919, with a year that had provided sufficient variety to last a man some considerable time.

Two Postscripts of Some Interest

I may appropriately record here something of "major political interest." In the summer of 1918, I had written to Bjørn Bjørnson — the writer's son, who was then living in Germany — asking whether he might help me obtain permission to visit the front and observe something of the war at first hand. I received a very encouraging reply: the Germans, it appeared, would be willing to give permission for such a visit. But I hesitated. I was afraid that if I began the process of obtaining permission, the war would end before the permission arrived. This is precisely what happened: the armistice came in November 1918. I have since reflected that my hesitation may have been, on the whole, a reasonable instinct.

The second postscript concerns Faye, and the truth of what happened to him. Shortly after my return from the Caucasus, the director of A/S Elektrokemisk, Christian Christansen, told me the following story:

"You had barely got away," he said, "when I was called up to the British legation. There I was shown a bundle of papers — documents from Russians who had worked with Faye — in which it was stated that Faye was a British agent operating in the Caucasus. He was Norwegian, but he worked for the British. That is why he was murdered."

This explanation had a certain satisfying logic to it, in the way that explanations which arrive too late to be of any use often do. Faye had not been travelling purely for the benefit of A/S Elektrokemisk. Whether he himself had been fully aware of the risks attendant upon his double position, I cannot say. Three naked bodies on the Batum quay in the summer of 1920: one of them his. The Caucasus, in those years, was not a place that extended much patience to those whose allegiances were difficult to determine.