Identity Problems (2): Bread and Water

This month’s article picks up where last month’s left off. I am alone in Tbilisi, Georgia, without money or passport, wondering how I’ll survive…

Puri, tsqali, bread and water. That’s what I had to eat, delicious Georgian bread baked in an oven that looks like a well. My first day in the city, I saw, literally, a hole in a wall. I went up to it and looked inside. I saw a woman bending over what appeared to be a well. When she stood up, she had a loaf of flatbread in her hands. Seeing me, very naturally, she came to the hole in the wall, the “entrance” to her bakery, and handed it to me. I gave her a five-lari bill. She handed me back a lot of change.

That’s how Georgian bread is made, in a well where, in the place of water, very hot embers burn. On the inner walls, the baker slaps strips of dough. After five minutes, with a metal spatula, she peels off a loaf of bread.

As for water, Georgia is known for its mountain springs. Though once considered prison punishment food, a piece of warm “puri,” a glass of Georgian mountain tsqali,” bread and water, become a simple, noble meal. For me, it was my “daily bread.”

After another search of my apartment, realizing I’d really lost everything, I cancelled my credit card and called a friend in France. He told me he was immediately heading to Western Union to send me some funds.

Money problems taken care of, I moved on to the next challenge: how to get a new passport. I’d travelled to Georgia as a French national though, I’ll admit, I don’t feel very “French.” I called the French consulate and was put through to the vice-consul. She told me the procedure to follow to apply for a new one. I’d need passport photos, a statement from the Georgian police declaring the loss, and most important, 96 euros. Without the money, there’d be no new passport.

When I explained I was waiting for a Western Union transfer, she advised me to go to an agency on Rustaveli Avenue, the “Fifth Avenue” of Tbilisi. There, she assured me, I could get money without a passport. I’d just have to mention the French Consulate had sent me.

Lucky for me the bus in Tbilisi costs 20 cents, and a ticket includes transfers. I took one bus, then another. New streets, new neighborhoods were rushing before my eyes. I saw a big fountain with a statue, Shota Rustaveli, Georgia’s national poet. The vice-consul had told me the bank was nearby. I got off at the next stop.

Inside the bank, I went to the Western Union counter. I explained what I’d been told at the French Consulate. The teller left me alone. When she returned, she said, “No money without a passport.”

I protested, asked her to call the consulate, and demanded to see the manager.

All my requests were granted, but by the time the call was made, the vice-consul had left for the weekend, and her assistant was adamant: without money, no passport, and getting the money was my problem, not hers.

The bank manager, speaking perfect English, also came to talk to me. She told me she’d have to phone headquarters; she could not decide on her own. I was invited to wait; I waited for almost four hours. By that time, the manager had gone home, a new shift of tellers had come on. One was on the phone. She looked in my direction. When she hung up, she approached me and said:

No passport, no money.

That was the final answer. It was 7:30 on a Friday evening. I had less than five dollars. The weekend was about to begin. I felt very alone.

Returning home by metro, I realized my stop was next to a police station. I walked in to make my declaration. I tried to explain in English, in French, in a few garbled words in Russian. The police got the gist; they found me someone who could speak English. She told me I was in the wrong place.

I had to go to another station. I was told to wait; I’d be taken there in a patrol car. When it pulled up, I got in. A second later, we were travelling top speed, weaving in and out of traffic, running red lights—just like in a high-speed chase in the movies, and, you know what? It was a thrill.

A few hours later, I had my statement. I’d told my tale to an official translator who translated my words from French into Georgian. The document was typed, stamped and handed over to me, and I was very favorably impressed with Tbilisi’s finest.

But I still had no money. When I got back to the apartment, I tried to call my friend in France to give him an update. Except my phone did not work. I’d gone over budget; my provider had cut my service. Now I was cut off from the outside world.

It was almost midnight. I decided to go to bed. Like Scarlet O’Hara, I said to myself, “Tomorrow is another day.”

When morning came, I got up and looked out at blue sky. I breakfasted on bread and water. I counted my remaining coins. Enough for transport, more bread and water. I got dressed, headed out.

I’d come to Tbilisi to explore the city and that is what I was going to do. I climbed to the church of Mama Davidi (mama = papa in Georgian), who brought Christianity to Tbilisi in the 6th century; I visited the remains of a Zoroastrian fire temple; I wandered through streets where, in the 19th century, Russians built elegant summer palaces. I saw the opera, the city’s museums, and new glass-and-chrome shopping centers. I also got lost in the labyrinth of the city’s central market, above and underground, around the main train station. I’ve been to bazars in Istanbul and Jerusalem, but never have I visited a market as all-encompassing as this one: it contained the world.

The day of walking exhausted me. That evening, it was bread and water again. Then I was tired and fell asleep.

The next morning depression got the upper hand: I was alone, with no money, no phone. It was 6 AM; another day of bread and water was about to begin. I looked around the apartment. It was a mess. I decided to clean the place.

I started with the bed, removing the quilt. When I grabbed a corner, I felt something solid. I thrust my hand inside the quilt cover, as I thought I’d done the first day. When I pulled it out, I had my passport, my money and my bank card in hand.

Feeling faint, I had to sit down. All along, my identity and money had been nestling comfortably in my bed.

Later that morning, I went to a Western Union agency open on Sundays. I had my passport, now I could get the money, except that I’d declared my passport lost to the police. If I handed it over to a teller, would she have me arrested on the spot? Once again, my throat went dry. Behind her bullet-proof window, she looked at my passport and then made a phone call. I broke out in a sweat. An identity-check. A stolen passport. Jail.

But she returned my passport and handed me the money. I walked outside and took a deep breath. I was free and once again “me.”

In a Turkish restaurant, where I had my first real meal in Tbilisi, I mulled over what had just happened: a nightmare of my own creating, where I’d come as close to down and out as I’ve ever been.

I think it may have been the French passport, the problem of no longer knowing who I am or where I belong. Many dual nationals would understand.

I have long since returned to France, but my identity troubles have not ended. Today I hover somewhere over the Atlantic, halfway between the United States and France.