<table> </table> BEIJING | Every so often, the walls come down for just a moment, and you see what&#8217;s really there. You just don&#8217;t expect it to happen at beach volleyball.</p><p>Saturday, a couple of men who call themselves Geor and Gia competed in their first Olympic beach volleyball match. They call themselves Geor and Gia to honor their new country, Georgia, where they moved from Brazil two years ago. Their real names are Renato Gomes and Jorge Terceiro, but under those names they were not good enough to make the Brazilian Olympic teams. So they moved to Georgia and changed their names. In this new sports world without borders, it&#8217;s a pretty common story.</p><p>Anyway, they played beach volleyball under their adopted Georgian flag on Saturday. And, at that same time, bombs were exploding about 35 miles away from their homes in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Georgia and Russia had begun bombing raids over the separatist South Ossetia region &#8212; Georgia would soon declare it a state of war. There were reports of 1,500 dead. The Georgia president declared martial law. President Bush called for an immediate end to the fighting.</p><p>The people who run the Olympics, especially these Olympics, make every effort to keep the Games above politics, separate from war, apart from protests, but at moments like these it seems impossible. Here were Geor and Gia playing volleyball on an impossibly muggy day, on imported sand, under a smog-filled sky, in a stadium with perhaps 300 people all while Men At Work&#8217;s &#8220;Down Under&#8221; played and a few young Chinese women in bikinis filled the spare moments with interpretive dance. And, back in Georgia, a state of emergency was being declared.</p><p>When the match ended &#8212; Geor and Gia lost to a team from Australia &#8212; they answered a few volleyball questions. They were disappointed in their play. The humidity overwhelmed them. They were nervous, too, because this was their first Games. And so on. Someone asked about their new names and their new country, and Gia said through the interpreter, &#8220;Not too many people know which continent Georgia is in. Not too many people know that there is a country called Georgia.&#8221;</p><p>And Geor said: &#8220;We defend the colors of Georgia.&#8221;</p><p>But when a reporter asked if they found it hard to compete, knowing what was happening in their country, something odd happened. The interpreter said he did not understand the question. There did not seem anything especially confusing about it. And when the question was asked again, the interpreter paused, then asked something in Georgian. Gia responded. The translated answer was only a very edgy, &#8220;We were able to focus.&#8221;</p><p>Strange. When the press conference ended, we wandered over to Geor and Gia. And I asked this: &#8220;Have you spoken with any family or anyone back at home?&#8221; It did not feel like a particularly controversial question.</p><p>And here&#8217;s what happened: The interpreter started to laugh. It is hard to describe the laughter &#8212; maybe it was nervous laughter, maybe frightened laughter, maybe angry laughter &#8212; but it was charged and different from anything I&#8217;ve ever heard before.</p><p>&#8220;This is political question,&#8221; he told me. &#8220;I do not want to ask this.&#8221;</p><p>He stared at me. Then he said, in what sounded like a plea: &#8220;Do you insist?&#8221;</p><p>I wasn&#8217;t quite sure what to say. It was pretty tense. I told him that it wasn&#8217;t a political question to ask someone if they talked to friends and family back home. I wasn&#8217;t looking for him to make a statement about the fighting or to offer his opinions about the political climate in Georgia.</p><p>The interpreter kept staring. He seemed unconvinced. Then, he began that strange laugh again. There has been so much talk leading up to the Games about how China would handle press freedoms, how the country would deal with the inevitable criticisms and the difficult questions.</p><p>This week, there had been many conflicting signs. People have been so warm and friendly, and also soldiers have been standing at attention on practically every corner. Everyone seems eager to help in any way they can, and yet many internet Web sites are blocked and even seemingly minor rules, such as where you walk, are enforced insistently. It is like China let the world in. But not all the way in.</p><p>The interpreter turned back to Geor and asked something. Geor shook his head and said a few words. And a Georgian official shook his head and said, &#8220;No comment.&#8221;</p><p>The interpreter nodded and looked hard at me. Then he smiled and said with a touch of triumph in his voice: &#8220;Any other questions?&#8221;