Waiting for the Electricity Read Online Free Page A

warmth into the water, the warmth, in turn, churning up the dormant radioactive material beneath.
    A breeze blew, some water arced up, and a thin layer of crude oil spattered onto Malkhazi’s jeans. He tried to wipe it off with his handkerchief but only smeared the stain. I thought about the Black Sea spiny dogfish population and how it was going extinct because of this crude oil, which congregates on top of the sea like a municipal meeting of politicians. I dug my hand into the beach stones and extracted one, rolled it around, gritted up my palm. “What about the Italian ship captain?” I asked Malkhazi. “Have you heard back from him?”
    At the end of June, an Italian ship captain had told Malkhazi to send him a letter detailing all of his job experience. Malkhazi had written, “barn builder, farmer, toastmaster at village weddings, bodyguard, casino employee.” He also included his height, age, and zodiac sign (192 cm. 27 years old Libra); his personality type (choleric); his favorite qualities in a person (woman: intelligence, honor, spiritual force; man: bravery, sociability, good physical protector); his most harmful habit (caught between two fires); his favorite country(Georgia); his education (no formal education); his language abilities (Georgian, Russian, a little English).
    But no, Malkhazi hadn’t heard back and now when he told me he acted annoyed as if he wanted me to shut up about it. I realized that Malkhazi, the mountain dreamer, was turning into one of those typical Georgian men who huddle together on the street near the busdrivers, forming their own private junta, making too many deals with Gocha on the boulevard.
    “The Italian probably tried to call but the telephone didn’t work,” I told him. “Did you give it to the postman yourself, or put it in the postbox? They haven’t been emptying the postboxes.”
    “I e-mailed it,” he said.
    “Oh,” I said and threw the stone I was holding, aiming for the middle of a jellyfish. “Do you know the Koreans eat those?”
    “Blexh,” he said and threw his stone, avoiding the jellyfish.
    “What if you had the chance,” I asked, “to leave Georgia, to work on a ship, but you could never come back?”
    Malkhazi didn’t answer. He only became more village-heavy, gloomily glaring at the sea. Under his breath, Malkhazi quoted our poet Alexander Gomiashvili:
    Among these mountains I was born ,
    Their songs and legends made me strong .
    After that we just sat silently and stared at the sea.
    “I don’t think I could leave Georgia forever,” Malkhazi said finally. “It’s better to see what will happen here.”
    “But what is this place? It’s practically destroyed,” I said.
    “Only Georgia can destroy Georgia,” he said. “Two Georgians together can make a country. Three Georgians united make a world.”
    “The only problem is,” I said, “these days, it’s almost impossible to unite three Georgians.”
    “Unless it’s you, me, and Shalva,” Malkhazi said.
    “Shalva. Which Shalva? The optician or the policeman?”
    “The policeman,” he said. “Listen Slims, today I met a foreigner, an Englishman who is working at the port. He’s a geologist, a pipeline specialist. I think he’s a very valuable man.”
    “And what do you want to do with him? Kidnap him?”
    “I am not afraid of the electric chair. We have no electricity.” It was an old joke.
    “Don’t be a donkey,” I told him. “You can’t get any money fromthe English government. Someone already tried that last year when they kidnapped the soccer player.”
    “Not money from the government. From Shalva. He said he’d give me his car.”
    “There’s a chicken living in his car.”
    “We can eat the chicken and fix the car. You know how our police don’t have any respect? People just use them to borrow a light? Shalva said he’d give me his car if I kidnap this English man so he can rescue him with television cameras, so that people view the police more