The Unfortunate Club

If you are looking for stories that end well, you would be better served by Instagram. This one concerns a misfortune that began two days before I flew to Dubai.

The decision to stick with the life I have chosen has been paying off. Things are getting clearer, doors are appearing. It is the fourth of May 2023, and in two days I leave Georgia for a week. I have an invitation to a birthday party in the SLS Tower, high above the city, in the company of extremely successful people. I am beginning to work out what that could mean.

So naturally, two days before the flight, my friends insist on going to a club, and out of curiosity I agree. Perhaps this time there will be pleasant people in it. Perhaps it will be a good evening.

Understand me: Kutaisi is a lovely small city and it is genuinely difficult to find a miserable place here. This club is one of the few. Terrible music and people you never see in daylight.

We take seats on a podium. I try to see the best in the establishment and its creatures. In front of the bar a bald man with a matted beard and a great deal of muscle waves his arms at what is being called music, asking to be looked at. Two women beside him have covered their faces in a white powder. A person with a hunched back moves through the room as though searching for something. A thin man with large earrings and grey skin sits down next to me and tries to start a conversation.

We drink. We dance among the shadows. The chemistry does its work and for a while I forget myself, which with the right attitude is possible almost anywhere.

If only I had listened to the voice that said stay at home and sleep before Dubai.

When I reach for my phone, it is gone.

Was it the thin man with the earrings? The person with the hunched back, who was so clearly looking for something?

Two days before Dubai, with no phone: no contacts, no banking, no German SIM, no messages, no notes, no calendar, none of the small machinery a man uses to move through a foreign city.

I am sorry to leave you there. As I write this I have looked at the clock and realised I am late for a dance lesson with Ivan.