Author: Mariam Mebuke
Cities in fiction reflect a range of associations, capturing the personal, cultural, and historical dimensions that define each era. Just as Maupassant’s Paris in the 19th century requires context to fully understand the significance of a woman smiling from her balcony, so does Rezo Gabriadze’s 20th-century Kutaisi. In his story “White Bridge,” Gabriadze illuminates the unique, often humorous, character of his hometown, blending its historical, social, and emotional contours into a tale that embodies the warmth and complexities of Kutaisi life.
The story begins with Gabriadze humorously introducing himself as a child who “can easily get kicked in the head,” using self-deprecation to set a playful tone. With vivid, nostalgic humor, he recounts his youthful attempts to enter the city’s library—a place of forbidden allure for an avid reader like himself. Visiting the library, possibly the Ilia Chavchavadze Library founded in 1873, involved a humorous ritual: “I would walk past the library nonchalantly, spit off the bridge with feigned indifference, and then, when no one was watching, slip inside.” Gabriadze’s clandestine entry mirrors the societal expectations of the time, where libraries were spaces often viewed as the domain of the serious-minded, particularly for a young boy who might be teased for his literary enthusiasm.
Inside, Gabriadze encounters “two unmarried women” behind the desk, whose characterization as such humorously reflects Kutaisi’s worldview of the time. These women, he notes, “had already said everything to each other,” suggesting that the library is as much a space for community gossip as for literature. In this way, Gabriadze conveys the Kutaisi mindset, where even a library becomes a lively center of social exchange. One might imagine Jorge Luis Borges laughing at this contrast between the lively Kutaisi library and the somber, contemplative “Library of Babel” he famously wrote about.
As Gabriadze recalls his trips to the library, he introduces another character, “Ippolite,” a local rat who has achieved near-mythic status in the city. Ippolite, famously scalded by the “actress Khvichiya” with boiling water, nevertheless roams the city with resilience, frequenting shops, the pawn store, and the bustling market. He even finds his way into the library itself, where Gabriadze humorously observes that, aside from Ippolite, “only I visited the library in those days.” Despite Kutaisi’s hardships and post-war struggles, Gabriadze’s wit fills these memories with warmth and nostalgia, as if to say that even a rat with a “long, green tail” is part of the city’s enduring character.
Gabriadze’s Kutaisi also carries echoes of celebrated writers like Vladimir Mayakovsky, who once studied at the Kutaisi Classical Gymnasium. Standing on the White Bridge, Mayakovsky’s presence lends a poetic gravitas to the cityscape. Gabriadze’s ability to blend such figures into his storytelling creates a layered sense of time, where Kutaisi’s history and present coexist.
The story takes a reflective turn with the introduction of Adrakhnia, described as an “alone man” with “only a profile.” Adrakhnia requests that Gabriadze write a letter in a black notebook, a message intended for a widow named Margalita, expressing a form of love that is both private and profound. The mention of Margalita, a figure Gabriadze affectionately addresses throughout his works, recalls the hopeless love of Florentino Ariza in Gabriel García Márquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera, reinforcing the universality of such emotions. Through Adrakhnia, Gabriadze reflects on the fleeting nature of connections and unrequited love, offering a glimpse into the city’s soul, where memory and sentiment are as integral as the buildings and bridges.
As an adult, Gabriadze returns to Kutaisi, finding himself in search of the “lost connections” of his youth. He captures the sense of loss that accompanies change, the difficulty of reconnecting with a place that has grown foreign in his absence. Yet, he remarks that there is still “one movement of air in Kutaisi with its own scent,” as if the city holds onto pieces of its past, allowing him to rediscover what he thought was lost.
Gabriadze’s writing conveys the melancholy of urban alienation—the feeling that one’s city has shifted irrevocably, even as it retains fragments of its old identity. This complex relationship between city and self is brought to life through his encounters with characters like Adrakhnia, whose story of love for a widow dressed in black speaks to the enduring ties that connect people to places. The final image of Adrakhnia’s letter, “buried on the chest of a beautiful Margalita,” embodies the layered, often bittersweet relationship between memory and place.
For Kutaisi’s residents, “White Bridge” serves as a reminder of the city’s charm and spirit, much as Parisians find echoes of their own city in Maupassant’s “Two Luidores.” Gabriadze’s story becomes a testament to the endurance of urban memory, where each return is a search for that elusive connection, suspended between past and present.