The world inside a patch of blue paint

Around the corner from the apartment we will be leaving, someone painted a Georgian flag, surrounded by random graffiti as most walls are here. Above it, an EU flag appeared some time ago, slathered against the crumbling concrete. Today, I passed one of our neighbors - an old man with a bitter face, painting over the EU flag, leaving nothing but a blue rectangle. He scowled at the sky in the distance as I craned my head, waiting for me to climb the hill so he could finish covering it in peace.

The wet blue rectangle could be half the Ukrainian flag, but instead it adds up to a scribble, a scratch-out, an empty blue space. Is it obvious what was there before? To anyone that thinks for a moment, yes.

I climb the steep hill and then make my way to the hardware store. I need a long, thin Phillips head screwdriver. Somehow, between collections of pliers, drill bits, scrapers and razors, silicon guns and the rest there is not a single screwdriver in the dimly-lit basement. A man is waiting for me at the new place to take away some leftover furniture there - all beige and fake crocodile upholstered, heavy and bland. I have to keep going.

I walk on Barnovi, the artery that leads from the old apartment to the new one.

A scrawny young Russian man is walking towards me on the crooked sidewalk. I recognize his pimply face and glasses. He is wearing a long black dress. I think of the protests that burned for nights a few blocks from here, as Georgians spoke up, got arrested, and came back in droves to chant and stand together, unflinching in their desire to be in the EU, to detour the path that leads to a Russian puppet state. I think of the neighbor painting over the EU flag, wanting nothing to do with this. I think of this Russian, who by all probability was far from the protests that, among many things, protected his right to walk down the street in a black dress.

A man in a security uniform runs out in the street, brushing right past him. People are shouting. The Russian in the black dress is practically skipping along, ignoring everything going on around him. I see a woman on the ground, her knees up, as people tuck a backpack under her head, as people lean down and talk to her in low tones. I see one of her hands moving around, so at least she is conscious. The Russian kid is in his bubble, the only person in the universe as he passes me on the narrow sidewalk.

More people arrive from doorways to help the woman on the ground, and they are all speaking Georgian. I stand there, understanding they have already called an ambulance, seeing her hands flipping around, knowing there is nothing I can do that is not already being done. All the same, I wait for some sign, some sense that she will be alright. I hold my hand up in the air, making a little wish for her. The man is waiting for me, and I keep going.

On a corner by the new apartment that is strewn with plastic on the floors, where gaping holes in the walls slowly become smooth, where everything smells of fresh paint and primer, I pass another Ukrainian flag painted on one more wall. A few weeks ago, someone scratched a swastika into the blue part of the flag. You have to wonder what kind of shitty, bitter resentful person would do something like this. The only answer is some miserable Russian refugee. Everywhere you look the walls say “Ruzzians go home” and “Putin is a war criminal” and far more brutal things.

The swastika scratched into the blue stared back at me every day I went to work on the new apartment, and then when I make my way back on Barnovi - in the cool Spring rain, in the hot Georgian sun. How many saw it? Tens? Hundreds? And then, thankfully someone painted back over it. But I know it is there, skin-deep below that layer of blue. I will not forget what was hidden.

On Larsi, where we will live soon, there are men in great machines rolling out a fresh layer of asphalt. The sidewalks smile back, all glistening black, the tar in them sticking to the bottoms of everyone’s shoes. The man is waiting with helpers to take the old furniture. They greet me with open faces and shake my hand. I did not make them wait too long. Upstairs they argue about how to take things apart, borrow a hammer, borrow a wrench, as I run my hands along the walls and fill cracks with spackle.

Eventually they leave, pressing some lari into my hands. I try to tell them that our V liked to hide in one cabinet, and maybe they have children or grandchildren that will do the same. I am not sure they understood me. Learning to speak Georgian does not come easily to me, but I try.

In the quiet of the empty place, I start to pull down the last bits of wallpaper. They smell like cherry cough drops, forgotten in the pocket of an old coat.