From Garden House to the Red House (tseteli sakhli)
On Abashidze Avenue, at the corner of pickles and puri,* I stand juggling sacks and parcels containing everything from cleaning products and new toilet brushes to a kilo of Georgian sweet cherries, which appeared in the markets just this morning. I flag two taxis in quick succession, but both already carry passengers. My arms are tired and I am impatient to get up the hill to our new place, to start scrubbing and mopping and moving in. A third taxi passes, also already engaged, but this driver taps his horn twice, signaling to another driver across the street. Who executes a neat 180-degree turn across traffic and stops his dark Mercedes on a dime, inches from me. Tom Waits blasting from the radio, a dapper gent with neatly trimmed beard and full head of white hair (think Edmund Gwynne in Miracle on 34th Street) is at my service. The route to our new home involves several climbing turns; I give directions in Georgian and the driver replies cheerfully in Russian. We arrive at my door, agree on a fare, and part ways happy for the chance meeting with a pleasant stranger.
On a fresh, sunny morning the day after May Day, we moved house in Tbilisi, exchanging cozy/funky for dramatic/contempo. Our downstairs neighbors recently bought the little garden house where we’ve lived since November, and we found a fabulous apartment several streets above, with a panoramic view from its vast terrace. The apartment building, painted a bright salmon color and set among smaller family dwellings, is exceedingly noticeable and widely known as the Red House. The address is 20B Tskhvedadze Street, but up this high street signs and numbers are few.
The movers arrived promptly at ten: Shalva, the young foreman, and three others neatly dressed in jeans, polo shirts, and sneakers; they looked like well-muscled gym rats, but maybe moving furniture for a living will do that for you. While I showed Shalva through the house, the three changed their clothes for jumpsuits and sturdy boots and began packing. While they worked they sang, quietly and un-self-consciously.
Pavel stopped in, wearing yet another hat (maybe we’ve already turned the corner into summer?) to say goodbye and leave his mobile number, in case we should need him. (Recently he washed our truck and tinkered under the hood; immediately afterward the truck’s battery died and had to be replaced. But throughout the whole ordeal, which took several days and a bit of money to resolve, Pavel was so good-natured and helpful that we actually felt guilty for suspecting him of having caused the problem.)
The small moving truck was loaded by noon; I piled into a rattletrap Lada with Shalva and two of his colleagues and led the way to the Red House. By two o’clock our bed stood fully assembled in the master bedroom and I was alone, at home in Georgia once again.
Six days later now, I still have a few cartons to unpack and most of our clothes remain in suitcases while we wait for delivery of some new furniture. I have not taken out the small ornaments and family photos, and we have yet to hang all our framed prints and posters, but we feel at home here already. Sunday we grilled hamburgers on the terrace for dinner, which we ate as twilight overtook the day and lights twinkled on across the city below.
* a corner on Abashidze Avenue where a vegetable market that sells great pickles stands opposite a traditional baker’s shop where we buy hot, crisp loaves of Georgian bread, called puri.