He had buried her beneath a wild fig tree. Since then, he had searched every monastery from Vardzia to Shatili.

She unwrapped the bundle. Inside was a single wooden cover, blackened by fire, no larger than a passport. On it, carved so faintly it was almost a shadow, was a butterfly whose wings were shaped like the letter ფ (the Georgian phar ).

"It was in my grandfather’s chicken coop," the girl whispered. "He used it to press tobacco. Last week, he died. He told me, 'Take this to the crying man on Asatiani Street.'"