Shemariah’s Last Word

Long before anyone can remember, a small plot of land was enclosed by a fence. Along the length of this fence, which has long been rusted, sour plum trees were planted here and there. At some point, a wag from the upper class mockingly named the place the Boulevard, and the moniker stuck. Two telegraph poles connected by a jumble of wires stood as sentinels at both ends of the Boulevard, marking its boundaries.

Lining the Boulevard were people of various “professions,” whose shouts were heard even before dawn:

“Shoeshine! Get your shoes shined!” 

“Churchkhela! Churchkhela!” *

“Ice cold, straight from the mountains!”

“Mineral water, right here!”

“Shoelaces! Strong shoelaces!”

“Chestnuts, hot roasted chestnuts!”

“Plums, damsons, wild plums, fruit candies!”

And so on, endlessly. Their voices blended into one another, often making it difficult to distinguish any meaning. Yet the shouting continued. The small town had few customers, making their cries even more desperate and frenzied.

Two people were particularly interested in the fate of these voices: Sergo Iashvili and Shemariah Shaptoshvili. These two men had nothing in common. At the beginning of the story, they did not even know of each other. Sergo Iashvili had recently been sent from the center as the chairman of the Raikom, the local administrative body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while Shemariah Shaptoshvili was a well-known, longtime resident and a very wealthy man.

Shemariah was still tossing in his bed and imagined that the shouting outside was weaker than usual. Sergo, on his way to work, could not help but stop. The shouts struck his heart like a sharp dagger. “Wretched creatures,” Sergo thought, observing the impoverished figures who wove all their pain, misfortune, and deep sorrow into their cries. Was this merely shouting? No—it was the fear of starvation, the wild and desperate cry of those unable to adapt to a new world order, the last convulsions of the dying. 

With an aching heart, Sergo saw that all three generations were present: children,...