Maybe it's best to never know

Ordinarily I have to get out the atlas when cities the other side of the world are featured in the headlines. I didn't have to do it, though, when recent news came of problems occurring in Tbilisi on one side of Russia and in Azerbaidzhan on the other side. I can picture the terrain clearly, for I have gone over that mountainous route in a bus driven by a very young woman who had the sole responsibility for her passengers. Whether she was adept at changing a tire we were fortunate not to have had to find out. Nor, thank goodness, did the groaning engine choke on a steep climb and send us careening backwards down the crooked road to the flatlands below.

What I still try not to think about was the total absence of a guard rail - or, for that matter, any other safety device as we went ever higher up the mountain road until we could look down at all six levels of it visible through the windows on one side of the bus.

An overnight stay in Tbilisi was a highlight of our trip across Russia, for it was there that I met Asmati, a lovely young woman who paused beside me to look, as I was doing, at a particularly interesting window display. I pointed to an item and asked her, in English, or course, if it were a coffee pot. "Not necessarily," she answered in very clear English, and a brief chat followed.

We made plans to meet the next day so she could show me places she knew I wouldn't see otherwise, and she insisted on treating me to a doughy blintz for lunch. She asked me to write to her from North Carolina and tell her about my family. And she told me about her work at Tbilisi's broadcasting station where she interviewed prominent citizens of her country.

Our letters went back and forth for a couple of years, then suddenly hers stopped with no explanation. I knew trouble had broken out in Tbilisi and she was a public figure. But I never heard from her again and I don't want to think about what may have happened to her.

I like to remember, though, what a pretty city Tbilisi was with apple trees growing along some of the avenues. I did wish the trees had been sprayed so the ripe apples would be more inviting for people walking by to reach up and pick an apple to munch on while they went their way.

Asmati dashed ahead of me where any cost was involved. She adamantly refused to let me pay even our bus fare. I could sense the pride she had in showing me many points of interest her city had to offer and I wished so much that she could visit me and see our countryside. She did send me a photograph of herself and judging by the various markings on the parcel I realized far more information was required when mailing something from Tbilisi than we in America must provide when sending packages overseas. But Asmati and I were friends although a world lay between us.

Then suddenly Asmati's letters stopped coming and not long afterward a letter I mailed to her was returned unclaimed. Broadcasts told of trouble brewing in Tbilisi and it was not a good time to try to reach someone who had held a position such as the one Asmati had told me she had.

I never heard from her again. It may be best that I've never really known why.

Louise Bailey is a native of Henderson County and lives in Flat Rock. She is the author of several historical books on the people of Henderson County and writes from a lifelong interest in the history of the area.