the widow's offering

I watched the embers light up brighter as Dato pulled a drag from his cigarette, the wrinkles around his mouth tightening as he formed a perfect circle around the black, crusty cigarette holder. As he lowered the cigarette, his hands shook. They always shook. When he tapped the cigarette against the ashtray, his hands shook even more. I saw a small Soviet military tattoo between his thumb and index finger, a green faded tiger roaring at nothing.

"My son, you know, he's in prison," Dato said to me in Russian. His eyes were narrow, weathered, looking as if they were about to cave in from some unseen pressure. "He's been there for three years now. Seven more to go."

He poured the white wine from a large glass jar. One glass for me, one glass for him. He looked at me, his eyes steadier than his hands. Unnaturally steady.

"I am sorry, this is all the wine I have. I am so sorry," he said. He brought his free hand to his cheeks that were shadowed with stubble. A look of worry on his face. Worry that I'd be disappointed and that I'd leave.

"No worries, it's nothing, really. I just came to wish you a happy birthday, not to drink your wine."

"But really, no, I should have wine for you. It's been a hard year. Still I don't have a job. I was police chief and now this. My son is in prison. I couldn't even buy enough wood for the winter." Another drag from his cigarette, his hands still violently shaking.

"Don't worry about all that." There was no sink in the kitchen, only a faucet that came from the wall with a plastic bucket underneath. Between the short spurts of our conversation, I could hear it drip. "Let's make a toast. To you, for your birthday." I didn't have the ability to make vast elaborations in my toasts, not like Georgians did. My best toasts were spin offs of jokes. I haven't had one Georgian understand why I make toasts with jokes. They just give me a funny look, like perhaps a dog would give his owner when they do something inexplicable, with the head a little cocked to the side, an eyebrow raised.

"Thank you, thank you." We drunk. The walls were caked in dirt. The floor was solid concrete. In the living room, it was covered in a vinyl copy of a parquet floor. The wood stove burning, giving off the only heat in the house.

We set the empty glasses down. The jar was empty. The perpetual look of worry was only growing on my host's face. He looked nearly on the verge of tears. It was the first time I truly understood the importance of a Georgian to be a good host. It was life. Even though the man had next to nothing in possessions, he ached to give me something. He ached to fill me up with his wine, his food. Yet, there was nothing. No wine and only half a moldy loaf of bread sitting on the table between us. "Let's sit down next to the pechka," I told him. I stood and pulled up a stool next to the solid iron oven.

Dato gave a heavy sigh, glad that I was staying for a bit longer. He went next to me and bent down to the wood stash under the pechka. Those stashes are usually full, but not with his shortage. There were only three logs sitting there. He put an extra piece of wood into the fire, worried that I'd be too cold.

"That's not necessary," I told him.

"But it is," he said. "But it is."