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

That evening my uncle had already decided to sell my farm, even though I first learned about it when a representative of a foreign company came to the gate to see me.

“Marika, don’t complicate matters,” Vakhtang told me, leaning against the car door. “We’re talking about two hectares. To you, it’s still just a swamp.”

He was holding a yellowish folder. On its surface, my land’s cadastral number was written in red pen. I looked at that number every day, because each digit reminded me of the price of those years when I got up at four in the morning, prepared breakfast in the dining room, and walked buried in mud through my little greenhouse at night.

That morning, after the rain, the land smelled of wet leaves and warm compost. Above, toward the hill, enormous malanga leaves swayed in the wind. It was precisely those leaves that had made me decide at nineteen that the place everyone called a swamp would become my future.

“I didn’t sign anything,” I told Vakhtang.

“Your mother will talk to you.”

My mother, Teresa, stood several steps away. She held an old kitchen towel and wrung it as if she wanted to squeeze an answer out of it.

“Mother, what is he saying?”

She lowered her eyes.

“Your uncle sent the company a preliminary agreement. He said you had agreed to sell two hectares.”

I felt coldness in my stomach.

“On my behalf?”

Vakhtang shrugged.

“I only told them what had been obvious for years. If it weren’t for that loan, you wouldn’t have this farm at all.”

“We repaid the loan in full.”

“One hundred and twenty thousand pesos?” he laughed. “You were a child then. I gave you the money, I took the risk, and now you’re telling me that giving up two hectares is unfair?”

The lawyer standing beside him, Lado Kavtaradze, silently looked through the papers. He had a dark-brown leather bag whose clasp clicked with every movement. That clicking irritated me. It was as if my life were being locked inside someone else’s folder.

“Marika,” he said calmly, “this offer is advantageous for you. The company plans to build an agricultural warehouse. The money will be transferred to you quickly.”

“What will they build by the spring?”

Lado fell silent.

Vakhtang immediately joined in:

“The spring is on your land, but water belongs to everyone. Don’t play at being an expert.”

I looked into the car. On the back seat lay pipes made with the company’s logo. Beside them lay a new plan in which the boundary of my plot was outlined in red. The spring, the irrigation channel, and the only access road to my greenhouses fell exactly within those two hectares.

“If I sell this part, I won’t be able to reach the rest of my land,” I said.

“Make another way,” Vakhtang told me.

At that moment I realized that he did not want a sale. He wanted me to be forced to abandon everything.

In the evening I went to the small office where my accountant, Nino, was waiting for me. I laid out on the table bank statements, handwritten receipts, and the messages Vakhtang had accidentally sent me. One said: “Marika will agree anyway. I’ll talk to her mother.”

Nino stared at the screen for a long time.

“This is not your consent.”

“I know.”

“But there is something more dangerous here. Look at the date.”

The message was dated the day I was in the city at a harvest exhibition. On that same day, Vakhtang had sent the company a preliminary consent signed in my name.

When I returned home, I found a new padlock on the gate. Vakhtang stood beside it, talking to someone on the phone.

“We’ll meet tomorrow morning,” he said and ended the call. “Your lawyer has already arrived.”

Lado Kavtaradze stood by the stairs. He held the folder intended for my case, while Vakhtang smiled behind him with such confidence, as if he already knew the answer.

Lado came toward me, put the folder on the table, and slowly opened it. He placed a finger on the first document, opened his mouth, and said:

“Before you sign, Mrs. Marika, there is one thing you absolutely must know……”

“There is one thing you absolutely must know,” Lado repeated and turned the paper toward me, “this agreement is not an attempt to sell the land, but an attempt to forcibly re-register the land.”

Silence fell over the room. Outside, rainwater dripped from the roof into a plastic bucket. Each drop sounded so clearly, as if someone behind the wall were counting the seconds.

Vakhtang chuckled irritably.

“Don’t exaggerate, Lado. Marika is my niece. It’s a family agreement.”

“A family agreement is not what a document signed in someone else’s name is called,” Lado replied.

I sat down at the table. There were old knife scratches on the wooden surface, whose number I had counted since childhood. Now each scratch reminded me how many times I had felt guilty in this house simply because I wanted something of my own.

“This signature is not mine,” I said.

Lado nodded.

“I knew.”

Vakhtang suddenly came closer to me.

“Speak carefully. Ten years ago your mother borrowed one hundred and twenty thousand pesos from me. The first payment on this farm was made with that money. If I prove that you did not repay the debt, the bank will make everything difficult for you.”

My mother appeared in the doorway. Her face had gone pale.

“Vakhtang, we repaid you.”

“Do you have a receipt?”

“I do.”

“Then bring it.”

Mother brought an old metal box from the room. Its lid no longer closed completely, and the papers inside smelled of cinnamon and dampness. She took out three folded receipts and placed them on the table.

Vakhtang looked at the very first sheet.

“This means nothing. It has only my signature.”

“It has your signature, and it says that the money was received,” I told him.

“Not the full amount.”

Nino took a thick folder from her bag.

“The full amount is also recorded through bank transfers. Four payments, thirty thousand pesos each. The last digits of the recipient’s account match your account.”

The smile disappeared from Vakhtang’s face.

“Don’t interfere in this.”

“I am your accountant,” Nino told him calmly. “If the matter reaches court, I will submit all the transfers.”

Lado moved to the last page of the agreement.

“There is another problem here. The company wants to buy only two hectares of land, but the right of passage and the right to use water on this section serve your entire farm. By selling the boundary, the company is controlling not only the land, but also the spring and the road.”

“Exactly,” I said. “That is why he told me nothing.”

Vakhtang struck the table with his hand. The metal box fell over, and the receipts scattered across the floor.

“If it weren’t for me, not one greenhouse would be standing here!”

“You helped me,” I answered. “That does not mean you bought my life.”

For the first time Mother raised her head.

“Vakhtang, why did you send the company consent in her name?”

He was silent for several seconds. Then he looked at Lado.

“Because you don’t understand what you are losing. The company is paying because of the spring. But if Marika resists, I will open that old debt myself.”

Lado slowly crossed his arms.

“The old debt is already closed.”

“You can’t prove it.”

“I can’t. The bank archive can.”

At that moment my phone rang. The number of the company director, Irakli Menabde, appeared on the screen. He had never contacted me before.

“Mrs. Marika,” he said as soon as I answered, “we want you to come to a meeting tomorrow morning. Your uncle told us that you had already agreed, but now we have received different information.”

“What information?”

Irakli sighed.

“We received an audio recording in which your uncle says that soon we will take the rest of the land too. If this recording is genuine, we must stop the deal from the beginning.”

Vakhtang reached for the phone, but I stepped back.

“Where is this recording?” I asked.

Irakli was silent for several seconds.

“Our lawyer already has it. And one more thing: your uncle is no longer represented in this matter even by his own lawyer, because he found a signature in the documents that he is sending for examination tomorrow……”

“He is sending it for examination,” Lado repeated and looked directly at Vakhtang. “The signature on the consent page you presented has been forged.”

Vakhtang looked first at Lado, then at me. The air in the room seemed to thicken. Rain streaks ran down the windowpane, while the old receipts on the table gathered wet fingerprints.

“This is absurd,” he said. “Marika herself gave me permission.”

“Then why isn’t her signature there?” I asked.

“Because the document was technically prepared by the company.”

“But here it is your statement that I confirmed the sale.”

Lado took another sheet from the folder.

“This document was submitted to the notary on Wednesday. On the same day Marika was not in the city. We have the registration of her exhibition, the hotel record, and two witnesses.”

Vakhtang pressed his lips together.

Nino opened the computer and played the audio recording. For several seconds there was only the sound of a car engine. Then Vakhtang’s voice was heard, clear and irritated:

“I’ll finish the girl over the two hectares. The spring will be in our hands, the road will be blocked, and she’ll sell us the remaining eleven herself. If she doesn’t agree, I’ll remind her of her mother’s old debt.”

The recording stopped.

My mother covered her mouth with her hand.

“How was this recorded?” she asked quietly.

“In the company car,” I said. “That day Nino and I were supposed to meet their representative. Probably the driver left the conversation switched on.”

Vakhtang jumped up from his chair.

“This is a stolen recording! You don’t know the context!”

Lado shook his head.

“The recording is only the beginning. The bank archive confirmed that one hundred and twenty thousand pesos were returned to you in four parts. Your account number is on the statements, and your signature is on three receipts.”

He laid my mother’s receipts in front of him.

“The debt was closed ten years ago.”

Vakhtang’s face changed. For the first time I saw him lose the firmness of his own voice.

“Teresa, you kept all this?”

My mother’s eyes filled with tears.

“I kept it because I knew that one day you would say we had returned nothing to you.”

I looked at Vakhtang. In my childhood he had been the man who helped neighbors in difficult times, knew everyone in the village, and always repeated that family should be a support for one another. Now before him lay his signature, his words, and his plan, which no one could hide anymore.

“What does the company want?” I asked Irakli over the phone.

“We are stopping the deal,” he answered. “Your land boundaries and water rights turned out to be much more important to us than we initially thought. Besides, if your consent was forged, we are also the injured party.”

Vakhtang slapped the phone.

“Marika, this is a family matter. Don’t you dare bring me down.”

“I am not bringing you down,” I told him. “I am simply no longer going to help you hide what you yourself were doing.”

Lado placed the recording and documents in a separate envelope. His hands moved calmly, but his voice was tense.

“Tomorrow morning we will file a report concerning forgery and attempted fraud. You, Marika, will also request temporary protection so that no one can enter your territory without permission.”

Vakhtang opened the door and went outside. After several steps he stopped.

“You don’t know whom you are fighting,” he said.

“For the first time, I know exactly.”

He left.

At night, when we were all silent, my phone lit up again. This time a message came from an unknown number: “If you file a report tomorrow, the spring will be contaminated and you will no longer be able to use the farm.”

Nino looked at the screen and her face darkened.

“Marika, this is already a threat.”

I went to the window. Far away, by the spring, a small light was moving. Someone was on my land.

And then I realized that Vakhtang was not afraid of losing the documents. He was afraid of the evidence that was still hidden beneath the ground……