There's a guitar shop under my apartment and—like all the other shops in my neighborhood—I've never seen a single person inside of it. Katya likes to point out that no country is more prepared to be discovered by rich people than Georgia. Any day now they are going to show up itching to unload laris on gourmet macarons and BMWs by the truckload.
But where a jewelry store wears its emptiness gracefully and a deserted "crypto services office" feels right, a lonesome guitar shop breaks my heart. All those guitars, just hanging in silence. Who can stand it?
I'd love to buy a guitar from this shop but sadly, I already have one. When I knew I'd be in Tbilisi a while, I bought the cheapest guitar I could find. Sort of like how some very successful people acquire property all over the world, I buy junky acoustic guitars—at least 9 that I can think of, worth, all told, over $300.
When we had to go to Germany two months ago, I left my guitar with a Russian DJ/busker/activist with a wet-sounding name like Lyosha or Yasha or Zhenya who promised to take care of it. You never know who you can trust, but I liked that one of my guitars might be used to make someone a little money for once.
After returning—to Batumi this time—I thought of buying the guitar a bus ticket and having it sent over, the way orphaned kids use to be sent to live with aunts. Three days later, we were waiting at the station.
"Do you think she'll remember us?" I wondered aloud. “It’s been so long.”
The bus emptied—no guitar. I ran aboard to see if maybe she'd fallen asleep in her seat. Nothing. Finally, I asked the driver if he remembered seeing a guitar get on—about yay high, black. He opened the luggage compartment below and there she was, lovingly wrapped in a filthy blanket by Lyosha/Yasha/Zhenya.
Last week, I walked by the guitar shop downstairs and the windows were papered over, the sign flipped to closed. But I could have sworn I heard a guitar playing—some heinous gained-up keening, but a guitar nonetheless. And since I knew no one was in there, I could only assume the guitars had finally given up waiting, plugged themselves in, and set about shredding into the silence on their own.