# пот героя

Цхакая Коба

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Koba Tskhakaia


Hero's sweat


(The art biography)


The plot narrates about a woman (Baya) , a single mother who lost her husband ( Guram) in the Abkhazian war. Guram is Abkhazian by origin, he fought on Georgians' side and perished as a hero. (Baya) is an actress by profession and works at a refugees theatre which due to the absence of technical base is placed in the building for the blind. Due to the difficult economic conditions of the theatre the performances are not staged , but jubilees , holidays and presentations are conducted by powerful (corrupted) people. At these parties they pay rather well to the admirers (actors) who give shocking items on the program. (Baya) never appears among them as she, a spouse of a hero of war, is not allowed to take part in the actions of such kind. After many false promises and privileges she was at last given the job of a language teacher at courses for blind actors. She is 34 and has got 2 children, Saba ( 12) and Medea (13).

(Baya) and Guram gave the name of Medea their daughter after the performance "Me-dea. Kolchi legend and Greek myth" , which was not staged because of the sudden war. Medea is a strange child. It is a consequence of the psychological trauma experi-enced by her family on the day when Sukhumi was lost and they hardly escaped death. In order to distract the children's attention from the frozen dead people on the roads the mother told them , hungry and cold, the wonderful stories about sea and sea world. The brother and sister often recall mother's answer to Medea's question -" What are these uncles, aunts and children lying on the roads doing" - " They are learning to swim. If they fail to learn to swim they will never return".

The children barely remember sea. They were 2-3 years old when they became refu-ge-es, but in spite of that their cherished desires are connected with it. " The father who solves any problem. The mother who will never be poor and angry. The house with ro-oms for all of them. "Secretly from their mother at night or early in the morning they sneak into a swimming pool as they have no money to enter it and try to learn to swim. They think if they learn to swim they will be brought back to the sea. Saba sometimes hesitates about the rightness of this thought but he does not argue with his elder sister, sometimes he only grumbles though very soon he becomes silent and together with Me-dea makes a plan of future swimming home.

In spite of the privileges enjoyed by a widow of a hero Baya is hard up as all these privileges hardly last her family for 2-3 days. 4-5 days in a month she in beggar's clot-hes and make-up begs in one of the church's yards. She ironically calls it "the collec-ti-on of the thirst". She never tells anybody about this way of earning money. She is asha-med of it. Once when Baya was returning from the usual " collection of thirst" somebo-dy atta----c-ked and raped her. She does not tell anybody about it, for she will not be able to explain it -"I was begging then somebody attacked and raped me". She will be laug-hed at by everybody and Baya can't bear this. In spite of all her mishaps she is a proud woman.

Some time later Baya understands that she is pregnant. She is not going to make an abortion. ( She has seen quite a lot of death and that's why she cannot deprive an-ybody of life whatever unwanted this child is) but she does not want to keep the child as she can't explain to anybody his existence and it can spoil her reputation and she will become an object of mockery. She will never bear it. That's why she decides to give a birth to the child secretly and then to give him to somebody. At this very time Baya gets a letter from which she learns that her husband is alive.

The Director of the theatre for the blind Jacob ( a former military man) is a character who by his life principles and way of thinking resembles Homer. He suggests that Baya should stage "Medea" as there appeared a fund which would finance the performance of the theatre for the blind. He says : "Without thinking much we decided to suggest your conception and they liked it. Medea is a legendary Kolchi woman, her life history inspi-red the noble Greeks but they distorted and changed the end of it despite the original. It is necessary to restore justice, to realize precise motivation and intonation. But they will pay only after the performance has been staged." Baya is happy to hear it.

Baya has got a friend and an admirer, an actor of the theatre for the blind, Paatawho before the war and loss of eyesight worked as a painter at the theatre. Baya , Guram and Paata were going to stage " Medea". But where Guram perished, Paata got hea-vily wounded and lost his eyesight. It's he to whom Baya turns for help. Embarrassed and dumbfounded Paata promises to help.

In this story much attention is given to Kita ( unable Jacob's son, with whom he does not have any relations), Paata's and Guram's comrade-in-arms. In the battle where Paata lost his eyesight and Guram his life, Kita according to his own words" lost his sole". He is ruined by playing the other man's ( his father's ) role and by reckless heroism un-d-er the cover of which a coward and weak man is hidden. In reality the sudden battle and great casualties were the consequence of his cowardness and thus his treachery. All this Kita told his father Jacob when he got terribly drunk at Paata's anniversary. Jacob said nothing, he dropped the only words : " Go and wash your hands!" and left the ro-om to smoke a cigarette. He was smoking the whole night. They, the father and son, ha-ve never had a word on this subject since then. No censure, no hint. This silence drove Kita mad, made him an evil drunkard and deprived of everything. In his misfortune he condemned his father, Jacob, and the leader of the group, Guramwho, according to his words was guilty of his friends death. Kita wants to restore "justice" and to unmask " the false hero". But only Paata , whose heroism was ascribed to Guram, could prove this , but he is against it. Kita doubts his innocence (" Everybody is to blame for my crime"). He l earns Baya's address and is going to revenge if not on him, but on Ba-y-a-.

Guram, Baya's husband, who is considered dead, is alive. He was taken prisoner, but could escape. Guram is looking for his family for a long time, but when he finds them, he dares not to return. There are some reasons for it : first, Guram is sure he is to blame for the death of his comrades-in-arms. His appearance will reveal the truth which can inflict great spiritual trauma and then Guram will lose his family both physically and spiritually. Second. He is so crippled and disfigured because of his wounds that he will become a burden for his poor family and besides, his appearance will deprive his children of those minor benefits which they are receiving. Finally, In Guram as in every man awakens an egoistic-adventurous desire to know what's going on after his death. What are they doing. What are your folks thinking about Was it all worth the price paid Besides, sometimes Guram himself makes corrections into the life of his folks ( for example, he frees Baya from the hands of the violator ( Kita), but in the end he himself commits violation because of jealousy).

The story on which the future the novel will be based is the following : Baya, a widow of a war hero, is attacked and raped. The organizer of the attack is a drunkard and a beg--gar Kita, a former comrade-in-arms of Guram. Baya is pregnant and she wants to sell or to give somebody this unwanted child. Her admirer Paata helps her in this.But he-re appears Baya's husband, Guram (due to the mistake made at war time, he has to hi-de under a borrowed name),he prevents Kita from realization of his plan, but because of his faint-heartedness he himself becomes the culprit of the crime. In the end Baya and Guram meet and in spite of their mistakes they try to remain human beings.

P.S


The genre of the novel The art biography) about people who became immigrants in their own country will be clear after the work on the script, though I think that by expression with cinematographic means it will be a sad comedy, which narrates about humiliated oppressed people who became refugees in their own country. Sometimes they have to be cowards and villains as they think it makes them strong at least from the outside. At the background of all good and evil they grip to or create myths as with the help of these myths their growing children will do what they are not able to.