The Loony's Royalties. By Iza Chkadua Translator Ekaterine Machitidze

Iza Chkadua
                                          
                                           It’s your ghost

                                      (Based upon real facts)

In the yard of a tiny house built right in the thickness of the forest an old woman carrying a candle was looking at the Sun and senselessly gazed around herself. One might think that the woman was looking for someone there. Having had already got used with the loneliness she bustled silently as if she was angry. The sixty-seven-years-old woman could neither read nor write. She had never gone to school. She had had problems with the eyesight since her childhood and could not see clearly, though she new each corner perfectly and could do the housework even with the eyes closed.
You’d quite often see her with a candle in her hand. It was somewhat of a rite accompanied by the traces of childhood and the thirst. Her ancestors often lighted candles. Several times each day she took a candle and walked hither and thither with it. Sometimes she burnt the tapers. 
Two or three times a month she visited her neighbor living on the slope. She used to sit down on a stump there and God knows which time told about the past in short phrases so very habitual for her. 
The significance of the past days had made her loose the sense of the present time. Yes, she had nothing to think about the present that had totally disappeared from the consciousness. She did not even have an idea of the fact that her village was the highest settlement from the sea level in Europe.
Kesso and Kato were twin sisters. There was a long, long century left before the civilization reached the part of Georgia where they lived. The Great Patriotic War had marked families much wealthier  than their own one. They were three years old when the twins suffered from German measles. The aftereffects of the illness took Kato’s life. Kesso recovered from the disease comparatively easily. The parents mourned over the dead child, though the flow of time and the care taken after Kesso made them pick up from the grief.
She was beautiful but she knew nothing about her beauty. People talked much about her appearance. If they caught a sight of her, they started the endless talks about the girl.    She was the most beautiful woman in whole Svanetia. When she got 28 unexpectedly died her father. Soon afterwards departed her mother too.
Kesso was left alone. Years passed fast in silence and the old age sneaked up to her. The youth and the years of loneliness were dim and faded out.
Her visits to the neighbor got more frequent. Every other day she set in her yard. The neighbor feeling pity for Kesso, treated her, talked with her and saw her off through the road.
Kesso, who had never gone to school and never took part in the gatherings held in the village, hurried to Mariam with an expression that seemed to be so very businesslike.
She had never seen a TV set and had never been to the local club where a silent film was shown. The neighbor used to be her own TV, the lightship of her partially blinded eyes, the mirror and the radio. She had never experienced happiness greater than the visits and she could never imagine the beatitude of life greater than the latter.
It was in May. Kesso put on her grey summer dress. Her face was shone with joy of meeting the neighbor. Her perfect face had turned pink. The thirty-eight-years-old woman had hid the graceful oval of her face. She went up the rise. A sunny smile was covering her features. 
The neighbor saw Kesso from the balcony of the first floor. “Wait for a moment”, - said the woman and pointed to the chair standing on the balcony. When she approached the door she took a glance of a stranger through the curtain of her weak eyesight. She had never seen the person. Kesso grew torpid. She took her hand to the face and turned her back to the unknown woman. Then she stealthily looked towards the stranger again. The staring woman woke up her curiosity. She could not understand who the stranger might be.
Kesso stepped back and looked aside. The ghost did not seem to have any intention to move from there. It was looking right into her face. Kesso was rather perplexed. She fell down of the chair…but it was curiosity again that rose questions in her mind about the stranger and about the reasons that the ghost had for looking at her so fixedly.
Suddenly she put her hand on the forehead as if something has reminded her about itself. She smiled and thought that the stranger could have been her twin’s ghost. In her imagination the ghost wore the same grey frock and the same shoes. She remembered her mother’s words about her  twins always dressed equally. Even their hair was plated identically then.
Mother told her that Kato was as beautiful as her sister. And now the twin sister was standing in the depth of the room slightly aloof from her. Because of her eyesight she could not realize whether it was an apparition or a silhouette of a real being standing there in the door opening.
The appearance of her own ghost made Kesso happy and full of odd thoughts. In confusion she was not able to understand what were the things going on, though she was obviously willing to get nearer. Still experiencing some fear she preferred to sit silent and keep observing the image.  
Mariam’s voice made her sober up. Mariam sat by her side and started to talk. Kesso answered her in a manner that was quite confused. She wondered why the woman did not notice the ghost of her twin sister and why she said nothing about it. She looked at her sister again. Kato’s look was just a copy of her own one. Kesso waiting for the phantom to talk to her kept silent on the chair. She could not catch the essence of what the presage was about.
Mariam was amazed by Kesso’s strange gaze and gestures but she decided to make no sign.
Grandma told Kesso that embodied souls of relatives can really come to a person. But why in the very house…There was no one to tell about the anxiety troubling Kesso so much.
When she came home she did not stop thinking about Kato. She could not forget the amazed face looking at her like a ghost. She was eager to go to the neighbor again, wanted to see the image and ascertain whether it was a soul, an embodied angel or just a shook.
She spent a year visiting her neighbor from time to time. She used to sit down right there where it was easier to see the ghost, though she did not dare to say anything. She also could not understand why the twin sister observing her on the sly stood up and took her leave simultaneously with Kesso.
The New Year came. Kesso made up her mind to go to the neighbor again. She put on some special clothes. From the old wardrobe she took the warm fur coat not yet worn. It had been hung there for years. She put the dark kerchief knitted by her mother on too. In the mountainous village it was rather cold. That day she decided to touch the image at any price. Full of joy and decision she went to Mariam.
A countrywoman met her. Astonished Lili had never seen Kesso so prettily dressed. Kesso hurried up to avoid questions. Lili followed Kesso with her eyes and said: “poor, poor Kesso, she has gone maid”. The woman shook her head with regret and went on.
Kesso hurried to Mariam’s yard. It was not easy to hide the impatience. Sometimes it was impossible even to understand what she was talking about. Finally the petulance revealed itself. She could not stand the moment of waiting before talking with the ghost. 
Mariam went up to the first floor to see the sleeping grand-child. Kesso leapt the opportunity and stood up in another heartbeat with the heart beating too roughly. Feelings of fear and joy were mixed together. Just a meter, just two steps and they’ll be side by side… she heard some crashing noise and felt a pain in her legs that she had never suffered before. She almost stopped breathing and glancing around the room fell down as if she had steeped into a deep slumber. When she recovered she saw that the ghost had already disappeared. There was just a grey wall instead of the image. Her small, skinny legs were aching.
Mariam who had heard the noise had readily come. Kesso was lying down on the floor and the pieces of the tocher mirror were scattered at her legs.
Marian looked down at Kesso uttering some words with a vacant stare. “Where, why, Kato”,-repeated the woman with her eyes closed. She seemed to be even angry with the sister’s ghost who had refused to be with her.
Many years passed and many things changed in the every-day life of the village. Kesso who is seventy-seven years old now neither sits in the yard nor visits Mariam. She just sometimes comes out from the yard, shades her hand over the face and looks towards some unknown direction.
The most beautiful face has already turned into wrinkles. Her eyes partially able to see things around her look at the path leading to the neighbor’s house built on the hill. The state of mind shall never let her go up the slope again.
The thing is that Kesso had never seen a mirror before.

    Iza Chkadua