This small southern town had only two streets.

The first bustled through the center of town and was considered its main street.

The second began at the foot of the mountain and curved along the fast-flowing river.

It was this quiet street that the townspeople loved most. It also served as an embankment, lined with old-fashioned lampposts.

Cars hurried along the main street to and from the sea.

This stretch of road was home to the town's finest bakeries, filling the air with the aroma of freshly baked khachapuri and baklava. There were cafés, small shops that never closed...

On weekends, traffic grew even heavier.

Visitors would look around in confusion.

"Where is the town?"

But the town had never disappeared. Beyond the town center, houses climbed higher and higher into the mountains, disappearing into emerald-green slopes.

The park, the museum, and the theater all owed their existence to one man—Chinka's great-grandfather.

In the local folklore, household spirits were called "chinkas." Before long, the nickname had completely replaced the man's given name.

His great-grandfather, a renowned nineteenth-century marble magnate, loved nature with all his heart and revered art.

Without hesitation, he paid for a plot of land at the edge of the village in gold.

On that "golden" ground, he built a magnificent theater.

Four stories. Towering vaulted ceilings.

Inside, white marble, limestone, and other gifts of this land, caressed by rivers and sunshine.

Here, legends intertwined with history.

Beneath the high mountains, among fragrant mandarin and pomegranate trees, people believed in legends more readily than in reality itself.

The newborn theater gleamed with the beauty and grandeur of its architecture.

People came from the most distant villages just to see the remarkable building.

"What can I say?" the locals would remark with their familiar ironic squint. "For our little village, this theater is like promoting a private straight to general."

Others would proudly reply:

"Why not? They've already built the railway to Borjomi. They've built a residence for the Tsar. Who knows? Perhaps Nicholas II himself might even come to see a performance".

Beside the theater, he built a two-story house. Its façade echoed the theater itself: the same ivory walls, arched windows, and an ornate cornice beneath the roof.

The house was divided into two wings. One housed the theater's workshops and storage rooms. The other welcomed visiting actors, directors, and artists.

A hotel was built for guests. Then came a restaurant.

A circular park took shape. The marble magnate ordered trees from seemingly every corner of the world.

Among the native magnolias, pines, and cypresses grew Himalayan cedars, giant sequoias, and other rare trees whose names were long forgotten.

The park was fragrant all year round. Some plants even bloomed in winter.

The sturdy railway station, with its columns and broad staircase, welcomed guests from Tiflis, Kutaisi, and even Saint Petersburg.

Long before the locomotive came into view, its shrill whistle would ring out. The sound would echo through the mountain gorges.

The gendarmes would straighten to attention.

The ground would begin to tremble with a distant rumble.

Then the red-hot iron giant would burst into the station.

The brakes would shriek. Ladies would cover their ears. The gendarmes would respectfully stroke their mustaches.

Boys would squeal with delight.

With a deafening hiss, clouds of scalding white steam would burst from the valves, cascading over everyone gathered for the day's great spectacle.

Time had other plans. During the Revolution, his great-grandfather's three-story house at the foot of the mountain burned to the ground.

People said someone had set it on fire. The ashes didn't care.

As children, Chinka's classmates would often tease him.

"Bow your heads. The heir to the throne is coming."

The theater, the park, the hotel, the apartment house, and the restaurant—by rights, all were Chinka's family inheritance.

Just not on paper.

As a child, Chinka was strikingly handsome: large blue eyes, fair hair, and a smile unlike anyone else's.

His uncle Vano, a photographer with a tiny basement studio, loved his craft.

He photographed young Chinka again and again, covering the signboard outside with portraits of his nephew.

Then Chinka grew up. His friends shot up in height. He didn't.

The years passed. Chinka turned forty. Fine lines appeared around his eyes. Yet from behind, people still mistook him for a twelve-year-old boy.

He always dressed neatly, but wore nothing except denim.

"It's the most human kind of clothing," he liked to say.

The old circular dance floor had become the town market.

Everyone at the market loved Chinka. One day, a vendor remarked that if Chinka stopped by—even without buying anything, just to chat—it always turned into a lucky day.

From then on, whenever Chinka appeared with his ever-present basket and radiant smile, the market came alive. Every vendor would call out to him.

Shy as he was, Chinka could never refuse their gifts. Before long, his basket would be full of food.

There was something genuine about him, something unchanging—as if he were a touchstone.

Chinka loved everyone without conditions. He never compared people, never judged them, never gossiped.

To the townspeople, he was almost a local saint.

The priests of the town churches carried themselves with the dignity and solemnity expected of them. Their very presence reminded people of the majesty of the Heavenly Father—and of how difficult it was to reach Him.

But there were others who were like Chinka.  They loved people.

They shared in people's suffering.

They helped not out of duty, but out of love. But over time, it was precisely these priests who would leave for hermitages high in the mountains.

Reaching their hermitages was almost impossible.

Yet there were people in the town who despised Chinka.

He lived outside the rules of their world—a world ruled by struggle and the relentless pursuit of material security. Those important people never returned his greetings.

Chinka understood. Their lives were lived like a boxing match, without a single moment free from tension or vigilance.

The theater was Chinka's true home.

He had no gift for acting, directing, or playwriting, so he became the theater's Keeper.

He knew every crack, every troublesome corner of the place under his care.

His family home stood high in the mountains. It had been built by relatives after the fire.

Once noisy and welcoming, the house had fallen silent. Time had erased every member of the family.

The journey to the theater was too long to make every day.

So, as the theater's Keeper, Chinka was given a room in the former actors' residence, now the town museum.

It meant he was always within his own little kingdom. He spent his days in the theater. He lived in the museum. He wandered through the park, talking to the great green strangers from distant lands.

The museum was staffed by four elderly schoolteachers.

This lively, talkative quartet knew everything about everyone in town.

They had watched Chinka grow up. They still fussed over their former pupil—feeding him, scolding him, and simply loving him.

"Our dear Chinka," even the teachers called him by his nickname, "it's a good thing you don't have a car. Otherwise everyone would be riding on your kindness—and on your gasoline. You simply don't know how to say no. That's no longer kindness. It's a flaw."

Chinka only smiled.

"And then there's your smile. That's another problem in this town. Educated people understand that such a smile belongs to a gentle, cultured man. Everyone else mistakes it for weakness. To them, you look as though you owe them something—or have done something wrong."

But Chinka kept smiling.

Everyone said the real director of the theater was Chinka.

Quietly but persistently, he raised the issues that needed attention.

He repaired small things himself. There was always good paint in the storeroom, along with boxes of nails and everything else needed to keep the place running.

Chinka never threw anything away. Old window frames and discarded fabric found new life as stage props. His keeper's eye could always see something new in ordinary things.

But Chinka had one constant worry, one old ache: the theater roof.

Of course, the entire theater was crying out for major repairs.

The director, however, lived by one rule—do nothing.

Why worry? Chinka was there. Everything was under control.

So the director often left for "symposiums" and returned suntanned, smelling of the sea.

He and Chinka had been classmates.

Even in school, his friend had a curious habit: he would often smack his lips, as though he were always savoring a tiny piece of something delicious.

Tall, handsome, with the looks of a Hollywood star, he had always been popular with women.

"A commanding presence, a velvet voice, and complete confidence in himself—that's exactly how a theater director should look," Chinka would think, smiling to himself.

His former classmate adored the sea. Later, he discovered another passion—hunting.

Chinka adored the theater. And his sacred place—the roof.

Everyone had their own special place in life.

But the roof was deteriorating rapidly.

Chinka had run out of words to persuade the director.

From the heights—almost from the sky itself—the whole town lay spread below.

A comforting patchwork quilt of colorful rooftops seemed to shelter the town from every sorrow.

The winding river impatiently carried its freshwater heart toward the salty might of the sea.

The mountain peaks shyly revealed their pristine beauty.

This was Chinka's time. Tender rays would rise above the mountains. The town would still be finishing its dreams.

Up here, Chinka's height no longer mattered.

Centimeters? Comparisons?

His boundless soul would find its freedom and soar in the hidden sorrow of the duduk.

There was one thing Chinka could never tell anyone: above the clouds, there was a second sky.

Not even Medea.

It was a love kept at a distance—tender, silent. Her name was Medea.

She was unlike any of the town's other beauties. Her eyes were calm and deep, almost familiar.

Now and then they would meet in town or at the theater. Medea was an actress.

Chinka would greet her. Medea would answer.

He never attended her performances. He treasured the natural sincerity that lived in everything about her—in her smile, her gaze, the quiet grace of her movements.

On stage, other lives came between them. She lived each role with such truth that he could no longer see his own Medea.

Chinka knew his love was destined to remain unanswered. His heart was filled with both sweetness and sorrow.

On the rooftop, the duduk sang of that sorrowful happiness. Only it could understand him and share his sorrow.

The trees on the mountainsides swayed to its melody, while the birds fell silent, listening to the voice of a heart in love.

Several years earlier, Uncle Vano had given Chinka a camera.

The old master knew such things well.

Chinka never thought his photographs were anything remarkable. Everyone else did.

One day, Medea came up to Chinka and asked if he would photograph her.

"It's for something very important. The dream of my life," she said softly, as though entrusting him with a secret.

For several years, Medea had cared for someone dear to her—her mother had been gravely ill. She turned down invitations to audition for films in the capital. This year, her mother was gone.

Chinka knew at once. Medea's beautiful face could only be photographed in one place: on the rooftop, as the first light rose above the mountains.

He did not sleep that night. He left before dawn.

Medea was already waiting by the theater. They would have time before the first rays of sunlight.

She stood almost without breathing, spellbound by the town, the river, and the endless mountains. Tears welled in her eyes.

"You spend your whole life in a place like this," she whispered, "and somehow never truly see its beauty."

"The higher you climb, the closer you are to your own heart," Chinka replied.

He asked Medea to turn slowly.

"The angle decides everything," he repeated quietly.

With her eyes closed, she moved as though dancing, peaceful and lost in her own thoughts.

"Whatever you do, don't pose," Chinka said firmly. "Otherwise, nothing will come of it."

Medea looked at him with new respect. Beautiful women are drawn to quiet confidence.

When it came to his work, Chinka was confident, free, and demanding. Even meticulous.

If anyone had told him he was already a professional, he would never have believed it. Yet it was true.

More than that—Chinka had long since become an artist.

"Hold this for a moment," he said, handing Medea the camera.

She reached out her hands, and Chinka froze.

Her delicate wrists gave way to hands unlike anything he had ever seen—large, weathered, like a peasant's, with wrinkles, knotted joints, and swollen veins. Giant hands.

He could not move.

He stood there, bewildered, holding those phantasmagorical hands in his own.

The hands of a titan, as though they had been mistakenly fastened to such fragile wrists.

"Yes," Medea said quietly. "You've never seen them before. I've hidden them all my life."

"Long sleeves. Gloves. Pockets."

Still holding her hands, Chinka spoke with quiet emotion.

"They are a greeting from your ancestors. Those are your forefather's hands. He lived on this land. He plowed it. He loved it. Be proud of them. You are a child of this earth."

Medea was offered a role in a film. Chinka's powerful portraits outweighed her unphotogenic hands.

She passed the audition and won a small part. But it was the first step—from a dream into reality.

Strangely enough, the secret he now shared with Medea freed Chinka from the torment of thinking about his own small stature. He simply stopped thinking about it.

Chinka suddenly felt something new within him—a quiet weight, almost like self-confidence.

The unfamiliar feeling cautiously explored the space within him, as though asking, May I belong here?

One day, an acquaintance—and who in town didn't know Chinka?—asked him to help find four oxen.

Chinka quickly found their owner. In one of the nearby villages, a man would occasionally rent out his oxen and cart for a modest fee.

Many fields in these parts lay on steep hillsides where even small tractors could not plow the land.

The owner's name was Petre.

He brought the team to the field, mentioned that he had urgent business, and drove away.

Chinka's acquaintance looked at him helplessly.

"All right," Chinka finally gave in. "I'll plow the field."

He felt too embarrassed to ask about payment.

The enormous oxen, gray with a faint lilac hue, still dusted with flour from their previous day's work, looked anything but pleased.

The whole team stared at Chinka in bewilderment. Who is this little fellow who thinks he's going to command us?

The great animals snorted impatiently and tossed their heads. The oldest of them struck the ground with his hoof in warning.

Chinka walked over calmly. He spoke to them in a quiet voice.

The oxen listened. Then they lowered their heads and took the first step.

They knew their work.

Chinka began to sing an ancient drovers' song— the Meureme.

The eternal mountains knew that song. Had they been able, they would have sung along.

Chinka's voice carried the melody of his ancestors across the hills—sad and unhurried, as long as the Meureme trails through the mountain passes.

Someone far away on a hillside caught the tune and paused.

"Must have imagined it... No. It's only the wind singing."

When the work was done, Petre swept his arm proudly across the freshly plowed field.

"Choose," he said grandly. "Either dinner at a restaurant with music, or a new set of denim clothes."

Chinka chose the restaurant.

A celebration was important. At least once in a while.

"But," Chinka said, "I only passed over that part of the field once. It isn't good enough. Don't take the oxen away. I'll come back tomorrow and plow it again."

The next morning, Chinka led the oxen back into the field.

As he pressed down on the plow with all his strength, something suddenly groaned beneath the earth, then rang out with a metallic voice.

Chinka saw the neck of a clay jar.

The buried treasure turned out to be the largest cache of ancient gold ever discovered in the region.

No one was surprised. Treasures were often found in these mountains. The ancient land was full of such burials.

Television crews arrived. Reporters followed.

Gathering his courage, Chinka turned to the beaming Petre.

"Would you be able to spare something for the theater roof?"

Petre thought carefully. His head slowly tilted first one way, then the other. At that moment, he looked remarkably like one of his oxen.

Still calculating the fortune that awaited him, he finally answered:

"No. I can't. I'm sorry. I've decided to build a new house."

Petre booked the restaurant. The celebration went on for nearly a week.

Relatives kept arriving from villages all over the country, one after another, only to be swept into Petre's bear hugs.

The town's two hotels were filled to capacity with Petre's guests.

Soon they had to arrange rooms in mountain guesthouses as well.

Petre shook his head in amazement.

"Who would have thought I had so many relatives? I don't even know half of them."

"A man ought to have a celebration once in his life," Chinka replied quietly.

Petre fell silent.

Then he suddenly lifted Chinka into the air and spun him around.

"Everyone, look!" he shouted across the room. "This man found the treasure! Yes, the land was mine—but without him, there would have been no treasure!"

The relatives rushed over, hugging Chinka, inviting him to visit, even urging him to come and live in their village.

"And now," Petre continued, "let us honor one remarkable man—the great-grandfather of my friend—for everything he did for our region. Do you know who his great-grandfather was?"

Then Petre spoke Chinka's family name aloud.

For a moment, the room fell silent. Then it erupted in cheers.

"And now," Petre declared solemnly, "whatever you can spare—for the roof of our great theater!"

That night, Chinka walked home with a backpack full of money.

By morning, it became clear that even this would not be enough to repair the entire roof.

The museum preserved the theater's first playbills, yellowed with age and carrying the sharp scent of another century.

Large folio albums held the earliest photographs of the newly built theater.

For many years, Chinka had photographed his beloved theater in every season and every kind of weather.

He carefully arranged the photographs so they told the story of its entire life.

Then he shared that story online.

Messages began arriving from different countries. People were curious. They asked questions.

One day, a message came from a small town in Europe.

It turned out that their town had a theater identical to Chinka's—its exact twin, only ten years younger.

It, too, had been built by his great-grandfather.

The story of his great-grandfather's love for a local actress had long since become part of the town's legends.

Chinka's head was spinning with happiness.

That morning was the happiest of Chinka's life.

He stood on his rooftop, playing the duduk.

Today its song was no longer sorrowful. It proclaimed the triumph of life.

Warm streams of rain poured through the sunlight.

Even the rain seemed joyful today.

Chinka thought: If only I could catch hold of those watery threads, lift myself from the earth, and rise to that place where there is no pain—only happiness...

The roof glistened with rain. Sunlight played upon the drops, and for a moment its wounds were almost invisible.

Something cracked beneath Chinka's foot.

The roof gave way.

The world fell with a terrible roar.

The theater took Chinka into its embrace.

As the sea keeps the swimmer who has loved it faithfully.

As the mountains keep the climber.

As the desert gathers the traveler beneath its sands.

Forever.***