Part 4 — My uncle told me that my land was worth nothing, but I put the documents on the table and his lawyer immediately stopped smiling

“Don’t go to the spring,” Lado told me the next morning as we were going down the office stairs. “That person may still be there.”

“If they are doing something there, I need to know.”

“The police are already coming.”

The word “police” fell into my stomach like a heavy stone. I had not slept all night. From the window I watched the distant light, which appeared and disappeared. The spring was the heart of my farm. I had started everything around it; its water saved the second malanga harvest, and it was precisely there that the old metal pipe was located, the one Vakhtang had told no one about for years.

Nino stood beside me.

“You have the camera in the car, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then everything will be recorded.”

Ten minutes later the police car stopped at the gate. The light seen at night had already disappeared, but fresh footprints were visible on the ground. When we reached the spring, we found a broken pipe, a scattered bag of chemical powder, and a small plastic container with a sharp, metallic smell.

The man who was hiding there among the bushes tried to escape.

The police officer caught him.

“Who sent you?”

“No one.”

“Then why are you on private land?”

He was silent.

We found a phone in his pocket. The last call was from Vakhtang’s number.

That same morning Vakhtang called me nine times.

I did not answer the first one.

Nor the second.

On the third I heard his lawyer’s voice.

“Mrs. Marika, I advise you to think about the agreement. Your uncle can delay the process.”

“Are you still his lawyer?”

A pause fell.

“At this stage, no.”

“Why?”

“Because he hid important information from me. And because I already had doubts about the authenticity of the signature on the document when I first saw it.”

Shame could be felt in his voice.

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you would settle the family dispute. I was wrong.”

Soon Vakhtang’s calls stopped. Instead, the company called me. Irakli Menabde came to the farm, sat down on the stairs, and looked at the spring for a long time.

“We believed him,” he said. “He told us you were an emotional girl and that in the end you would still give up the land.”

“I am emotional. But I am not stupid.”

“We have already understood that.”

A week later a meeting was held. It was not court yet, but everyone necessary was sitting in the room: a bank representative, the notary, the company lawyer, the police investigator, me, my mother, and Vakhtang.

The second hand on the clock hanging on the wall followed the seconds loudly.

The investigator played the recording.

Vakhtang’s own voice sounded in the room:

“The spring will be in our hands, the road will be blocked, and she will sell us the remaining eleven herself.”

Vakhtang lowered his head.

For several seconds only the recording could be heard.

Then, instead of his lawyer, the bank representative spoke.

“After these words, do you still deny that the debt was paid?”

Vakhtang could not answer.

The notary compared the forged signature with samples of my genuine signature.

“The difference is obvious,” he said. “This document cannot remain in the registry.”

The company lawyer closed the folder.

“We are terminating the deal. In addition, the company waives every claim against Vakhtang and will provide the investigation with all the messages.”

Vakhtang heard his own words for the first time as others heard them. In the recording he was confident, mocking, and cruel. In the room sat a man who could no longer control either the land, the company, or his own lie.

He looked toward me.

“Marika, I only wanted something good to happen for you.”

“What was decided for me without me was never good for me.”

“You won’t forgive this to the family?”

“Forgiveness and trust are not the same thing.”

In the following months the case officially continued. The investigation confirmed the forgery of documents, the threats, and the attempt to intentionally contaminate the spring. The court sentenced Vakhtang and ordered him to return the money received in exchange for the deal with the company. I did not need to humiliate him. His own words were enough.

The hardest day was still the day when I opened the door of his house together with my mother. We wanted to take the remaining documents. We found the living room almost empty. Only one photograph remained on the wall: me at fourteen, with muddy hands, holding a small green leaf.

Below the photograph lay my old copper whistle, which I wore while working on the farm. When I called the workers in the wind, it produced a sharp, double sound. In childhood Vakhtang mocked me, saying that with this whistle I was apparently the head of the whole village.

I put the whistle in my pocket.

Mother looked at the empty room.

“Did you ever think it would end this way?”

“No,” I told her. “I thought he would simply understand one day.”

“Sometimes people begin to understand only when there is nothing left to lose.”

Three months later we built a new greenhouse on the farm. After returning from the city, I hired two young agronomists. In the morning I first checked the spring, then the malanga leaves, and finally the order book. My little farm began to grow again, except that now not a single decision was made over my head.

The first snow came to the village at the beginning of December. The wet smell of the land was covered by white cold. Children ran by the greenhouse door, while Mother prepared spicy soup in the kitchen.

My little cousin Luka drew me on paper. There were enormous green leaves in the drawing, and above them a yellow sun. He drew my hands so large that they barely fit on the sheet.

“Why is this?” I asked.

“Because you do everything yourself,” he answered.

I smiled at him.

“No, Luka. Now I also accept help.”

Several weeks later I received a letter from Vakhtang. It was short.

“If you are ever ready, I want to talk to you. I am not asking you for anything. I just want you to know that I regret it.”

I held the letter in my hand for a long time. Before, I would have answered such words immediately. I would have tried to explain, comfort him, and convince him that everything would get better.

But now I wrote only one sentence:

“Let your regret remain with you. I am continuing my life.”

No answer came.

That evening I locked the greenhouse door. Snow was falling outside. A new pipe shone by the spring, and beside it we attached a small wooden sign: “This water gives us all drink, but this land belongs to its owner.”

When the wind rose, the copper whistle in my pocket lightly touched my hand.

I blew it sharply once.

This time the whole farm answered me.