Read Online Waiting for the Electricity by Christina Nichol - Free Book Online

get him drunk, disarm him, and then ask him for a visa invitation.
    “Nope, it would never work,” Anthony told me. “To get a work visa you need a business organization to sponsor you. I’m a private contractor. The only kind of visa a private individual can get for you is a fiancé visa.” And then he winked at me.
    “I’m not gay!” I cried out. And then I realized he had been winking at Juliet.
    “Well. Do you have a sister?” I asked him.
    Anthony shook his head.
    “A cousin?” I asked.
    He shook his head again.
    “Your country is very rich but poor in virility,” I said.
    I filled up the drinking horn again, handed it back to him, and said, “If you can’t get me the visa, then at least you can allow me to poke a hole in the pipeline!” I pointed to our gas canister. “For heat, that only lasts for three days. That pipeline is going to run through my mother’s village. I can pay you in roses. Our village is famous for its roses. We can’t sell them anywhere anymore because of our transportation problem. But if you provide the petrol, I can arrange to send you a lifetime supply of roses.”
    Anthony stood up. He was still holding the drinking horn but it looked like he was ready to depart. Malkhazi yelled at Juliet. “Tell him he must drink to the drinking horn he is holding. It’s older than his country!”
    “Don’t insult his country,” Juliet said.
    “I just meant he should not set it down. It’s not time for him to leave.”
     
    “How about a mother? Do you have a mother?” I asked him. “Even Armenians have mothers. I can send her a lifetime supply of roses.”
    “Let me tell you something,” Anthony said. “No one will ever invest in your country if your people continue to poke holes in the pipeline.”
    “I think you underestimate the power of the rose,” I said.
    Suddenly the electricity came on.
    “Ah,” everyone at the table said in unison, pointing to the lit-up chandelier.
    “A sign,” Malkhazi said.
    At that moment, Shalva, Batumi’s most popular policeman, kicked in the door with his boot. Behind him was a crew of cameramen from our local television station. While the cameramen filmed a close-up of Shalva’s boot, Shalva told us in Georgian, “Sorry about the door.” He then perused the table and finding Anthony awkwardly holding his drinking horn, ran to him and shouted in English, “Are you fine!” It was more of an announcement than a question.
    Perhaps Shalva would have pretended to handcuff Malkhazi. The television cameras were already directed at him, but at that moment my grandfather forged through the door. “An Englishman?” my grandfather was shouting. “An Englishman in this home? I have this cherry liquor. See here? For three years it’s been sitting on my shelf waiting for a special occasion.”
    Even though Shalva longed for his mighty deed of saving a foreign pipeline worker from a kidnapping to be written up in the newspaper, custom dictated that he listen to my grandfather’s toast first.
    “Why didn’t anyone tell me we were going to have an English guest? I would have caught a fish,” my grandfather said as he poured cherry liquor into tiny crystal glasses and distributed them around the table. “Oh, we’re so lucky to have an English guest!” he said to Irakli. He raised his glass to Anthony. “This is to you,” he said. “May everything be good for you. May you marry a good woman. May your life be full of happiness. This next toast is to your family, your brothers and sisters and parents. And to your ancestors. Let’s never forget our ancestors.Christopher Columbus. You remember him? Why did he have to bring us the corn! Fuck you, Christopher Columbus! I hate working in these damn cornfields. Why couldn’t he bring us cocoa or coffee beans or some more interesting crop? Oh, why didn’t anyone tell me earlier that an Englishman was coming? I would have killed a sheep!”

5.
    A S WE SAY IN G EORGIA , “W HEN THE GUEST VISITS