David's Revenge
Hans Werner Kettenbach
Translated by Anthea Bell
A visitor from Georgia, a country torn apart by civil war, ends the peaceful existence of a school teacher's family in Germany. Christian Kestner has all but forgotten his stay in Tbilisi seven years before. He begins to worry when he receives a letter from David Ninochvili announcing his visit to Germany. Why is David coming? To seek revenge from Christian, guilty of flirting at the time with David's wife? What are the ties of this unwelcome guest to the different factions now vying for the control of Georgia? Christian becomes intensely suspicious of David's secretive ways, of his attraction to Christian's wife and even to his teenage son. Fear turns into panic, so corrosive that it can transform even the most rational individual into a monster.