The Searcher (22 page)

T
he next time he woke, the night was over and a cheerful light was coming through the flimsy checked curtain in his room. He splashed cold water on his face in the bathroom, skipped shaving for the first time in perhaps ten years, dressed quickly, and went downstairs, seeing on the way that Koba was still out cold, on his front now and making less noise.

Irine was busying herself with breakfast in the one big room where food was cooked and eaten, which smelled faintly of sour milk and last night's smoke. She had a round face and the wind-browned look of a sailor. Three large nylon bags were lined up on the floor, and she had filled them with pans and plates and bowls, the contents of a tall dresser by the window. Hammer greeted her, exchanged smiles, and headed outside into the cold sun of the morning.

No messages, so with no great purpose beyond needing to wake up, Hammer walked. Irine's was one of the neater houses: some looked spruce, some shabby, some uninhabited and standing on the verge of ruin. In between them, any ground that hadn't been trodden into a path was thick with grass and wildflowers. He met cows grazing and a sheep tied up, saw horses in the pasture in the distance and a 4 x 4 speeding by on the road, wandered down the hill to a meadow where the bones of two rusted jeeps sat neatly in a corner, all their parts plucked for further use.

But there were no people. On his way back up, feeling the extra exertion in the thin air, he peered through the window of an abandoned house and saw inside a blackened room where a cloth still covered the kitchen table and empty bottles, perhaps from one last celebration, lined up neatly against one of the walls, covered in dust. The road had been built only thirty
years earlier, Koba had told him, and before that the only way down to the plain had been on horseback. Already it seemed to have taken many people with it.

“It's quiet out there,” he said to Irine on his return. But she didn't understand him, and rather than try to explain he smiled and let her serve him his breakfast of fried eggs and tea and slices of an enormous, pitted cheese that tasted of farmyards. Hammer's appetite surprised him, and he was on his third egg when Koba made his entrance, slow and bear-headed, and took his place at the table with a heavy sort of grunt. The sour smell about him announced that he'd already smoked a cigarette in his room. Irine gave him tea, which he acknowledged with the smallest nod.

“Morning, Koba,” said Hammer, his tone warm enough but firm. He needed his driver alert up here. “How you doing?”

Koba's eyes were red and a little swollen. He nodded a greeting.

“In mountains feel not so good,” he said. “Air is . . .” He rubbed his thumb and forefingers together, as if testing its quality.

“Thin,” said Hammer.

“Ya. Thin,” said Koba, rolling his head from side to side to stretch out some discomfort in his neck and failing to meet Hammer's eye.

“It sure is. But we have an easy day. We drive round, ask some questions. That's it. No mountains to climb.”

Koba raised one eyebrow as he sipped at his tea.

Irine brought Koba his eggs and cheese, and without thanking her he started forking one of the eggs round the plate.

“Tell her breakfast was delicious. And ask her why there are so few people in the village. Please.”

With another raised eyebrow Koba put the question to Irine, who turned from the sink and gave a nod and with it a short answer.

“All people left,” said Koba, fixing another piece of egg with his fork. He seemed to be leaving the cheese. “Summer ended. In week, two weeks, first snow fall, road closed. No way down.”

“Does everyone go?”

Koba asked.

“All go, except sheep people. Crazy people.”

Irine said something and for a moment she and Koba went back and forth in Georgian. Hammer wanted to apologize for the brusqueness of his interpreter's manner, but she seemed not to mind.

“She goes today,” said Koba.

“Today?”

“Is smart. Smart for us also.”

“Is there anywhere else we can stay?”

“No.”

Hammer didn't pursue it. Unless there was a miracle there was no way he could leave today.

“Ask her if there have been many visitors in the past week. Since last Tuesday. Foreigners.”

Irine shook her head.

“She says none,” said Koba. “Wrong time. Is too late.”

Hammer thought for a moment, hesitating to ask his next question. Two days ago he would have been happy for Koba to hear it but now something gave him pause. He asked another instead.

“Where is Diklo?”

“Diklo?” said Koba. “What is Diklo?”

“Just ask her, please.”

Irine knew it; she illustrated her directions with her hands.

“She say is six miles. That way. First Shenako, then Diklo. Is on Russian border. Right next.”

“Only one road?”

Koba nodded.

“The road is good?”

“Good road.”

“Then that's where we'll go.”

Koba looked crestfallen.

“Koba, it's fine. If you don't want to stay up here just drive me to Diklo and get back down the mountain. I don't want to stop you.”

Koba coughed and shook his head, without conviction.

“Is OK. We go. I tell my wife.” He pulled a phone—the older of the two—from his top pocket, and asked something of Irine, who pointed out of the window, up the hill. Muttering about the terrible signal, Koba left the room.

 • • • 

T
hey saw no one before Shenako, a rough, pretty village that sat on two spurs of land—at the end of one, a grand house, at the end of the other a weathered church, both built from slate. Here, too, there was a sense of quiet, of emptiness. Mountains stared down on the place. Two men repairing a roof with old pieces of rust-red corrugated iron were the only people in the scene. The city, all that noise and scheming, seemed impossibly far away.

Hammer told Koba to stop and for once Koba did not object. He hadn't been able to make his call earlier—“fucking mountains”—and was becoming restless about it, checking his phone for a signal every two minutes. As they drew up he checked it again, and Hammer told him he should get out, stretch his legs, find a place to make the call, and get it out of the way, and as he did so thought he'd take the opportunity to see how far he'd get on his own. They wandered over to the men on the low roof, who directed Koba to a piece of high ground beyond the church. Hammer watched him go, and when he was out of earshot gave the roofers one of his best gamarjobats. He smiled up at them, and they stopped work to look down at him with faces that were neither friendly, nor unfriendly, nor curious.

“Gamarjobat,” he said again. “Beautiful day. Forgive me, but I'm wondering whether you gentlemen might have seen this man.” He passed up his phone. “He's a friend. I'm looking for him.”

The first man studied the face and handed the phone to his friend, who after a minute reached down to return it to Hammer. Neither said a word, or showed any response. It was hopeless. Hammer smiled at them, thanked them in Georgian, and looked around him. In among the three dozen houses smoke was coming from two of the chimneys. Colorful washing blew on a line. A hundred yards from the village Koba was struggling up a steep slope with his phone in his hand. This is it, Hammer thought. There's me, my angry driver, and a small collection of people who don't speak my language or have any reason to care what I say.

 • • • 

C
louds had crept in from the east and now moved across the sun, bringing a new chill to the air. Hammer rubbed his hands together, raised a hand in good-bye to the men on the roof, and walked up to the church, keeping one eye on Koba and his call. When he was finished they would try the two houses that seemed inhabited, and then move on to Diklo.

He was peering in through one of the church's tiny windows when a voice addressed him, deep and startling.

“Gamarjobat,” it said, and as Hammer turned to greet it he saw a man in a simple black robe with a chain across his chest and a domed black cap on his head. He was tall, young behind the mass of blond beard, and his eyes were an innocent, serious blue. There was something of the explorer about his face.

Hammer gave a respectful bow of his head in reply, and the priest asked him something in Georgian.

“Sorry,” said Hammer. “I'm American. English. I can't speak Georgian.”

The priest gave a little nod himself, and when he spoke again it was in good English and a European accent that Hammer couldn't immediately place. He didn't smile, but his face was mild.

“Welcome,” he said. “I am sorry that the church is locked.”

“That's no problem, Father. Is Father OK?”

“If you like.”

“I'm Isaac Hammer.”

The priest shook the hand that Hammer offered, but didn't give his name.

“I was just having a look around. I'm on my way to Diklo.”

“You seem to be going the wrong way.”

Hammer looked confused. “I thought it was up the valley.”

“I meant that everyone else is leaving.”

“Aren't they just. I think I am the tourism industry right now.” Now the priest smiled. “You're a little out of place yourself, Father, if I may say.”

“Sometimes I feel that. There are not so many German priests here.”

“German?”

“I came with a group from my seminary and stayed. Here it is like the Early Church.”

Hammer nodded. This was not so hard to imagine.

“So what do they do for priests up here when it snows?”

“They manage without. Possibly they could manage without in the summer, too.”

Hammer grinned. Over the priest's shoulder he could see Koba beginning a slippery descent from his perch, phone still in hand.

“Say, Father, do you know of anywhere round here I could spend the night? Here or Diklo.”

“You're staying?”

“Just a day or two. The thing is, I'm looking for a friend.”

Hammer described his mission, not the full version. His friend had been traveling in Georgia and hadn't been heard from for days. The trail had led here, to this unlikely place.

The priest had not seen anyone up here, nor heard of anyone, but then he had been busy preparing for his own departure to the low ground. Such a person would almost certainly be noticed, especially now, at the end of the season—Tusheti was a huge place, but a small one—and he knew who would know, if anyone did.

“Vano and Eka. They live in Diklo. Vano is the head man in the village. Their son is a ranger in the national park. Everyone knows them. Tell them I sent you. For money, they may help.”

“Can they put me up?”

“Maybe. You can ask.”

“They speak English?”

The priest shook his head. Behind him Koba was scrambling down the last of the bank.

“Too bad. I don't suppose you want to introduce us? I'd make a big contribution to your church.” The priest smiled. “I'm serious.”

“I will be there later. After lunch. You can say that I sent you.”

“Thank you, Father. That's kind. Listen.” Koba would soon be with them. “One last thing. Do you happen to know where they found that truck? The one that was involved in the bomb in Gori?”

The priest looked at him with a new kind of concern.

“My friend's a journalist. I think he was chasing a story.”

“Then your friend was chasing trouble.” Before, the priest had been welcoming, in an august, almost ceremonial way; now he was wary. He looked at Hammer as if evaluating a changed proposition. “Are you a journalist also?”

“Not anymore.”

“These people are innocent. The world doesn't come here. They don't need stories.”

“No story, Father. I just want to find my friend and go. Quietly as I can.”

The priest breathed out slowly, with the air of a man considering an offer he doesn't trust, and for a moment kept his eyes steadily on Hammer's.

“Are you here to make trouble, Mr. Hammer?”

“I think it may be here already.”

“What happened to your nose?”

Hammer brought his hand up to the plaster that now ran across its bridge. It no longer needed a bandage.

“This? I wandered into a riot. It wasn't my idea.”

The priest didn't smile, but he seemed to finish his appraisal.

“You seem a good man.”

He did. He seemed it. But a good man would be here to rescue Ben, not to save himself by dragging him back home. A good man would do it without thought of being proved right.

“I don't feel like one, Father.”

“No good man does.”

Koba was by them now. He stopped with his legs planted and his arms crossed, blankly eyeing the priest, who nodded to both men and then touched Hammer on the arm.

“Do not make trouble for my friends.”

And with a final look into Hammer's eyes he walked away.

T
o Diklo, at the end of the road. Two miles short of Russia. For a moment, Hammer saw himself as a pinprick on the globe, slowly heading for its remotest corner, beyond it miles of mountains and thousands of miles of steppe and desert, with only the Caspian and a few lonely, dusty cities for relief. As if to emphasize the point, a flatbed truck piled high with assorted possessions—suitcases, a mattress, two wooden chairs tied back-to-back—passed them on its way out.

Here the landscape flattened out, but ahead the mountains seemed to grow in number and in size. Hammer wondered whether this was a psychological effect, and whether Ben had had the chance to register it, too. Without doubt it was wilder here. On the way, Koba had to stop to let a herd of horses cross in front of them, and Hammer could see hawks, or what looked like hawks, circling in the sky above. By now the dark forests that edged closer to the road were surely full of wolves, and bears, and heaven knew what. As they arrived at the edge of the village a huge white dog barked madly at them from its wooden pen.

The priest was right. The first person that Koba asked was able to direct them to Vano's house, which was notably more substantial than its neighbors. There was an air of tidiness and activity and general upkeep that was missing elsewhere: chickens strutted about, herbs and flowers hung drying, pans and pails sat ready for fresh milk, firewood lay stacked and dry.

Koba knocked on the door, waited a while, knocked hard again, and, after another half a minute, just as they were turning away, it opened. This was Vano. There was no doubt even before he confirmed it. Like the landscape in which he lived, he gave the impression of wildness more or less
tamed, and of peace won only with great vigilance. He was utterly calm and utterly watchful at once. Though he might have been ten years out, Hammer put his age at sixty: there were decades of healthy work in that face, but whether they had aged it or kept it young was hard to say. Regardless, it was handsome, and narrow, in a way that wasn't like other Georgians, and his skin was the color of oiled oak, made deeper by the white of his hair—all of which, Hammer noted with a certain envy, he still had. He wore an old black anorak and black trousers and a cap pushed up at the peak.

Hammer talked and Koba translated while Vano listened without saying a word. When they were done, he moved inside the house and they followed, Koba giving Hammer a glance that said these mountain people are crazy. Hammer wasn't so sure.

The back of the house opened into a neat yard where more chickens roamed and muslin bags full of curds dripped into buckets. Vano gestured for them to sit at a table in the middle of a large, low room whose walls were lined with dark wood, and finally, when they were all seated, he spoke in short, contained sentences. Koba fished a cigarette from his pocket and lit it.

“He no see your friend. Irodi, his son, he can help.”

Hammer looked at Vano and nodded his thanks.

“Tell him that would be great. I'll pay him well. Ask him if there's anywhere for me to stay.”

There was; twenty dollars a night. They would feed him. But there was room only for one. Vano glanced at Koba with a fixed sternness as he said it, and Hammer heard him with a sort of relief.

“OK,” he said, glancing at Koba. “We'll sort something out. When can we start?”

His son would be back at lunchtime.

Hammer checked his watch. It was eleven. He thanked Vano and asked Koba if he would talk to him outside. Head hung, he came, like a dog in disgrace, cigarette in hand.

“Koba,” said Hammer, his expression as sincere as he could make it, “I want to thank you for everything you've done for me. Really. You've been great.”

“I find different place. To stay.”

“You should get down the mountain, before the snow. To your wife. It's not fair to keep you here.”

“How you get out?”

“Push comes to shove I'll get a helicopter.”

Koba shook his head. “No. Not right, leave you with this idiots. I stay. I cook.”

Hammer took his wallet from his back pocket. “I'm going to pay you through Thursday. We had an agreement for that. You take the food.”

“Who say to you what they say, in English?”

“The priest.”

“The priest leave.”

“Not straightaway.”

Koba took his cigarettes from the pocket of his shirt and lit one.

“Look,” said Hammer. “I feel bad about this. Probably this whole trip is for nothing, and I don't want to risk you and your car getting stuck up here because of my wild-goose chase.” Koba frowned at the phrase. “Mrs. Koba would never forgive me. Also, anything happens here I'm going to need someone in Tbilisi to help. OK? That's you. I don't have anyone else.”

Koba nodded and Hammer, thinking he was about to relent, felt an unacknowledged weight lift.

“I stay. I find room. Is not safe for you, with this people. Quiet, yes. Safe, no.”

Koba stubbed his cigarette out on the ground with a determined finality, and clasped Hammer by the shoulder.

“Money later. These people, they look simple. But they are not.”

 • • • 

O
n his way to find lodgings Koba dropped Hammer at the only spot with a signal anywhere nearby, halfway along the road back to Shenako, and with a great resolve told Isaac that he would see him later, for sure. By wandering around with his arm stretched up Hammer eventually found a little patch where his phone worked long enough to show him there was no word. He tried Natela's number but the line was dead. With his thoughts half in
the city and half on his afternoon's work—half desperate, half hopeful—he walked back to his new hosts.

While he waited for Irodi he watched his mother make lunch and busy herself in the kitchen, and as he did so he slowly became enchanted by the spareness of the house and the sureness of her touch around it. Eka seemed sanctified, somehow, whether by the air or the work he couldn't say, and when she looked up occasionally to smile at him he felt his heart lighten, as if it had received a blessing. This lifted him, but there was regret in it, too. How natural were her routines, and how artificial his own. Everything he had ever accomplished had been communication—finding stories, checking them, telling them. Words upon words, endlessly; here in the mountains, next to Eka's quiet activity, they felt like not much more than noise.

They ate in silence together, or near silence; Hammer couldn't prevent himself from thanking her, in Georgian, or telling her as best he could that the food was good. Her hair was thick and fair, her skin an even brown from the sun and the wind, and she served the food with rough, calloused hands. When Hammer was done she offered him chacha and he declined.

Irodi came shortly afterward and greeted the stranger in his house with a noncommittal nod that was again neither friendly nor unfriendly. Eka's short explanation drew another nod as he sat down to eat. Like all the villagers Hammer had met he was dressed in well-worn Western clothes—a sweatshirt and baggy trousers—and throughout his lunch he kept an old white sun hat on his head. Under it were the sharp eyes of his father and the softer face of his mother and the golden brown skin of them both. There was no hurry about him. He ate and drank with appetite but no haste, and from time to time his eyes rested on Hammer as they might on a bird or a dog or some other beast under his charge: calmly, with the curiosity one creature might show another. Twenty-five, Hammer guessed, not much older, but despite the round face and the patchy stubble and the boyish clothes there was little of the boy left in him.

Hammer checked his impatience—here it would get him nowhere—until eventually the priest came, and the three men agreed to a plan. This afternoon Irodi would take Hammer around the eastern side of Tusheti.
Where they saw people, Irodi would ask them if they had seen a foreigner who matched Webster's description, or a car of the kind he had been using. Along the way they would stop at the place where the truck had been left by the bombers, a prospect that seemed to alarm Irodi much less than it did the priest, who argued with Irodi about it in Georgian but eventually held his hands up in concession. This would take all afternoon, probably longer. The light would fail before six.

Because it was detective work and not tourism, Hammer agreed to pay double Irodi's usual rate. Irodi signaled their departure by simply getting up and walking outside, where he told Hammer to wait. Hammer looked to the priest for an explanation but received none, and for a while they stood by the house, warm in the sunshine, not saying anything.

“You are in good hands,” said the priest, after a time.

“I won't abuse it, Father. Your trust.”

The priest looked up at the sun and then back along the road.

“Here is your friend.”

Hammer followed his gaze and saw the distinctive white shirt and heavy urban tread of Koba just rounding a house at the end of the village. Twenty yards off, he raised his hand and bellowed a greeting.

“Isaac! I find room. In Shenako. Old man, he has place, not so good, but one night, two nights, is OK.”

He was pleased with himself, but not happy. With a cigarette burning in his fingers and his arms crossed he came and stood next to the priest, reasserting his primacy.

“So. Now we look.”

Irodi and Koba would not get on well. That was clear, and would make at best for a tedious afternoon and at worst a pointless one. What was less straightforward was why Koba insisted on staying. The more time Hammer spent with him, the less he knew this man.

“That's great, Koba. Now we look.” Hammer managed a stiff smile, failing to come up with an idea that might get rid of him.

At that moment Irodi returned, sitting on a horse and leading another by a rope. Both were chestnuts and compact, with slightly bandy legs that
seemed shaped by the mountain slopes, and Irodi rode his slightly askew in the saddle, like a cap set at a jaunty angle. He had an old rifle slung across his back. Laughing at the alarm he saw in Hammer's face, he said something to the priest and jumped down.

“He says it is the only way. By car you will not see anything. He needs to look.”

Hammer's first thought was that it would take weeks to cover this vast landscape on these two. Neither looked quick.

“Really?”

“He knows this country,” said the priest.

Koba said something in Georgian, in the blunt tone he used to address his countrymen, and for a minute he and Irodi argued.

“There are only two horses,” said the priest to Hammer while they went at it.

“Thank heaven for that.”

Koba, realizing that his opponent was at least as stubborn as he was, with great reluctance was backing down.

“I no ride horse,” he said, drawing firmly on his cigarette. “Dangerous. You go on this, Isaac?”

Hammer tried to look resolute and said yes, he was.

“Be careful. Cannot know what horse will do. Has own mind. Like these people.”

“I'll be careful. What I need you to do is go back to Omalo, and then take the road west from there. In case Ben went that way. Can you do that for me? Ask people, sniff around.”

Koba let his cigarette drop to the ground and rubbed his mustache.

“It would be very helpful to me,” said Hammer.

With a slow, churlish nod Koba agreed, and turned away.

 • • • 

H
ammer hadn't ridden for twenty years, and then only once, but without allowing himself to voice his countless objections he stepped forward, took the reins of the horse, put his foot in the stirrup as Irodi showed him,
and hoisted himself into the saddle. Irodi made sure he was holding the reins properly and then gave Hammer his briefing: kick the heels to go, hold the reins firmly but not tight, pull them back to slow and stop.

“He says you will be fine,” said the priest, smiling at Hammer's attempts to settle. “She is called Shakari. There are two rules. Be firm with her . . . And if you see dogs, stop.”

“What's wrong with the dogs?”

“They are sheepdogs. Bred to kill wolves. Or men who come to steal.”

Before getting back onto his horse Irodi collected four good stones, each the size of a baseball, and put them in his pockets.

“For the dogs,” said the priest.

Hammer patted his coat. “What if you don't have stones?”

“Then you lie down and submit. Show you are not a threat.”

Hammer raised an eyebrow and waited for the priest to smile.

“You're serious?”

“Vano does this. I have seen him.”

“I like the stones better.”

The priest patted Shakari's flank and reached up to shake Hammer's hand.

“Thank you, Father. Will I see you again?”

“Eka has asked me to eat this evening. The last time before the winter. I will bless the house.”

“I'm delighted to hear it.”

“Do you think your friend will attend?”

Hammer smiled. “I'll think of something. Don't worry.”