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A year later, influenced by the mutual spirit of turbulent times, I married and migrated to Stepanakert to weave the family nest atop of the stirred up volcano.
The job of an isolation-tape man at the construction of gas pipelines to far-off parts of Karabakh was an extensively outdoors and far-off employment so the son was born in my absence.
About a half-year later, in August, they attempted at the SCES putsch in Moscow. The Central TV news program Vremya presented a dozen of bureaucratic pans in a consolidated row behind the wide desk of the State Committee for the Emergency Situation (SCES) reading up to the population their orders – the democracy announced null and void, we were to live as before, as we had always been trained, and follow the five-year plans approved by them at the Congresses of their Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU).
In the morning, to demonstrate my discontent, disgust, and disagreement, I did not board the truck starting off to carry my co-workers to remote villages but handed in my resignation letter to the personnel department of the Building-Montage Management (BMM) #8:
“…because this here organization is a state firm, and I have no desire to work for the state of SCES, please fire me of my own accord”.
The BMM-8 Chief, Samvel Hakopian, amusedly chortled and signed his approval to satisfy my plea.
Next morning that SCES putsch went kaput and I, having lost the job along with their lost cause, concentrated on building up our family house in the lot allocated by the Stepanakert City Council on the ravine slope behind the Maternity Hospital…
When the walls were raised 1 meter tall, there started bombardments of Stepanakert City with Alazans from Sushi City and the Village of Khodjalu, yet in the following 2 months I still laid the walls to the level for spanning them with the concrete slabs because sand and cement had been acquired already and the construction of the running water of iron-pipe line (cross-section 0.5”) accomplished.
The money for the slabs had been paid too but the Building Materials Plant never delivered them because of the unfavorable situation.
For about a month I stayed unemployed because the city enterprises were coming to a halt one after another and there appeared a slot to make a dent in Ulysses in earnest.
My mother-in-law spotted that I could write for stretches longer than normal, and fixed me up with a job at the editorial house of the regional newspaper The Soviet Karabakh where she had the position of a janitor and the Head Editor thereof originated from the same village as her, and, as luck would have it, their family names coincided too.
My job was to translate articles from Armenian to Russian because The Soviet Karabakh daily, published in Armenian, had the Saturday supplement – a Russian digest, for Big Brother to conveniently check the stuff brought up in the previous 7 days by the paper.
My position of a translator did not fall under the category of the mother-in-law-backed nepotism. Nothing of the kind! In the two years at village school I studied all the curriculum textbooks in Armenian Language and Literature from the school library, starting off with the ABC Primer.
Learning a language by textbooks is way easier than thru communing with the native speakers because texts allow you more time to get it, and cancels the strain of tries at catching serendipitous shreds in the over-fluent-non-stop twitter of those who use it from their crib…
However, my month of work at the newspaper remained unpaid because the city got blockaded and bombarded on a regular basis with heavy artillery pieces, and the population switched over to dwelling in the basements under the five-story buildings, for the most part. Often blackouts worsened the situation, before the electricity was cut off for good. In the basements, they used oil-lamps or candles. When a candle melted away completely, the wax drippings were used for production of a new one, though of lesser size, of course.
The gas supplying was not stopped because the gas trunk-line, after reaching Stepanakert, climbed farther up to the Shushi City, whose population in the aftermath of the massacre in March 1920 became ethnic Azerbaijanis who you couldn't left without heating in winter.
The most forceful report on the ravages in the spring of 1920 was left by Osip Mandelstam in his poem “Here in Mountainous Karabakh, in the ancient Shushi City…”
He didn’t eye-witnessed the carnage but ten years later roamed about mute lanes in the demolished Armenian blocks in Shushi.
However, poets can see thru not only into the future…
* * *
Bottle #6: ~ The Clover To Roll In ~
Where the screwball popped up from I couldn’t even say. Nix, not a damn chance.
More so, that I was not as high yet as in my regular nirvana and only a sec back scanned the street with the enlightened gaze and stuff ‘cause of no ticker on me, nope, never, which reason makes me recon out the current hour's figures by only the upcurve in the bustling or, on the contrary, by the slant towards smoothness in the observable flow of street life. Quite a simple trick and does not take too much of practicing to read it, the time of day.
It’s hard to say or recollect the street’s name though ‘cause of them names keep replacing each other way too often, depending on who’s in power right now, the Reds or the Whites, but in our neighborhood I’d find it blindfold by mere groping, yep, with both hands tied.
Verily decent neighborhood, the ours. No harassment from cops, nopes, no patrol car will ever take risks to get in if alone. It’s only in the all-out posse, with the sirens a-wailing so as to uphold their own courage. But there’s always a chance to run into an M2 if not into some of cheap machine guns made in China. The question of karma and stuff, you know.
Not much of industries in the hood either. A score or there about of Northern Koreans day and night rattling their sewing machines in the basement opposite the bar You’ll Get It. A no never mind production line. Samely dispensable as those posterity of the Jamaican delegation to the International Forum of Youth and Students Organizations of the World, on the sixth floor in the tower-block where they keep packing coke for Don. Completely quiet, decent, and no trouble at all society members.
No, yeah, though, last week one of their team took a dive from the window. Exactly as I was passing by at the lunch break, he plummeted a-singing his parting aria of the Lonesome Swan if you know what I’m about. High alt up to B-flat in the second octave, full and steady, and no shit.
In the right chosen moment too. No one got damaged, of those uninvolved. With quite a tolerable precision value, in the sidewalk – sh-plumps! And keeps the classical supine position, the eyes plumb-up into the sky. Maybe, with the pinch of reproach, a kind of.
You’d never think the dude was a Jamaican brat. Sooner might be taken for a native from some state in southern India, by his looks.
And those two brothels too, under Thai Massage signboards, yet the nurses in the business are not so too tiny after all, same pod’s peas, each and every from the Middle Russia regions, not for nothing we've scrambled so frantically to join the lined crowd of chip implanting globalization.
Not even a regular slot machine hall around, just a couple of underground rat holes for local gamblers in Three-Card Brag and Black Jack. Stagnating backwater, in short.
As regards those sporadic reports at night, it’s just youngsters trifling with their handguns. All in all, the hood's weekly output rarely overshoots a couple of farting-bags with stiffs, on average.
And as for my nirvana where could it be from a couple of minutes before the second slim?
Moderation and consideration, in keeping with good homeopathic manners, that’s my approach to pot. Two slims in the morning and two in the afternoon, after the lunch.
Not that I need much really, politely landed in the corner will graze a package of chips, I, or maybe a hot-dog, two at most. Cutie critters them those doggies, do not bite back. Then the spill of a cup of something from coff-or-coa line, atop – that’s my lunch in a whole day, and back I goes to my bench to watch the pulse of the business activities, while enjoying my third slim, and the full-fledged blunt's turn comes at night, code-named “night-cap gasper”.
So, no way I would omit him any moment back but—here you are!—out of nowhere appeared this feathered wonder. Pelage a-bristle, hair style in the vogue of 60’s when children of flowers kept a-stirring their cultural revolution in the sands of Californian beaches.
The jeans severed at knee-length to make them into shorts, yes, you could see it at a glance – not cut but severed, when he had put them on a boulder and chiseled off with a flat tool stone like an inadequate Neanderthal man. And that befuddled glare, you know, from his bugged-out eyes in all directions. In short, the famous lost-and-found picture by Rembrandt “A Hick at the Fare or the New Mark to Fuck Up”.
Then, naturally, I lit up to enjoying the free show in full.
After gaping for awhile he veers to my side.
"Where am I?" sez the wacko.
And it’s quite OK by me, shortly after a fresh slim I’m always ready for a chat.
"Welcome back to the planet of your likes, alien," sez I. "And since getting the answer to your 'where?' you'll certainly go over to testing the waters about your squadron's landing spot, why not to contact Dr. Serafimovich then, with your rickety questions directly?"
"And it's winter or summer now?" sez he. He did soar high that fucking hippie.
"It depends," sez I, "on the Tropic you are in. And where are you from?"
"Island of Freedom."
"Wow! Amigo marijuanisto! Cuba – si! Yanks – no! How is compa?ero Fidel over there? When is his exhumation scheduled for?"
To which he pinched his beard under the lower lip, jerked his head sideways and landed on the bench next to me:
"Most likely on Friday," sez he, and plumbed into a deep meditation.
That moment Mulatto Maya strolled along the sidewalk, a cherry babe in her sweet 16.
Paraded herself, in fact, and in an unmistakably motivated way, it’s not a walk but embellished writing. The chick performed a nice version of stylish striding at which they write the eternity sign with their buttocks, you know, outlining a direct hint and promise, Maya was, and well addressed too. I wonder what’s that hairy yobbo touched her soft spot with, eh? She never attempts at such calligraphy when passing by two of us, the bench and me.
The addressee gave her a dimmed look.
"Well, well," thought I to myself, "the case is not quite hopeless, the unconditioned reflex is in its place, nimble and spritely."
"Take my friendly advice, tanned paleface, you'd better not horse around that young squaw whose Daddy earns his living at the You’ll Get It bar embracing the position of a bouncer. And if you’re looking for a place to stable your erection in, why, choose a ripe lady from the Thai Salon across the street."
"Like I were saying or doing a thing at all," answers he and falls back into his thoughtfulness, like a kinda model for Rodin’s Thinker sporting a mountaineer beard to his naked abdomen.
This moment, quite western-like, a sharp shadow drops across our communication. And no need to look up, I know whose it is. A nigga’s from the young blades in the neighborhood, that’s whose.
They are Don’s hands, not directly 2Bsure. His henchmen pass them dope, they push it and get some commission percentage. And all of them keep calling each other “nigga”.
Fucking Hollywood has fucking spoiled all fucking kids.
So there he stands demonstrating his skills at chewing the gum with his mouth open for three-quarters, in the process, and never less. 'Cause of his being so fucking cool! 'Cause the other day he spotted some downy growth in his soft scrotum!
Those niggas, they don’t hang out together in the street. Each one has the areal of his own, and his own retinue – small fry errand boys to push the goods in retail trade in the school yards and rest rooms. Yet, they keep a peeled eye on each other and seeing the next one leaves his anchorage in obviously cruising speed, they also cast off to follow.
It’s like those vultures in the Nevada desert who congregate on the same carrion from ten miles around. When my tube was alive The Wild Life As Is was my favorite.
Ha! See what I mean? One more is nearing, and now there are two serrated shadows cast together upon our bench. And what for? This here hippie hick is a barren ground, in toto, no need for a spyglass to see there’s nothing to rip off. Just his beard and the mutilated jeans. While targeting me is out of the question, the street is fully aware that I’m a nasty mastermind, you push me around and soon enough there happens an accident, and if it’s just a brick from the roof onto your dummy dome be thankful to your lucky star 'cause a quarrel with coot Chris goes for a bad omen, unopposed, about this here neighborhood.
"Hey, nigga," sez I, "what’s the message in your What’s up? If there are doubts about my interlocutor then his papers are clean, the guy’s on the AWOL from Santa-Monica."
He only moves the cud from his left molars to the right and goes on to slurp, playing for time to let the clue sink into his gray matter.
One more lost generation for you, they are unable to process human speech without “fuck!” slotted after every pair of words. No wonder he stared at his buddy to kinda signal his need in a synchronous interpretation.
"Wow! Look who we’re having here!" sez I to the second comer. "I do know you, nigga, you are the only sonny of Andy Crinolog, the bookmaker! What are the odds, by the bye, in the soon-to-be match of the Russian National and the high school soccer aficionados from Burkina Faso? And here is another fucking “wow!” for you, man! Some fucking nice rags you have today. Mighty fucking, yeah.
God knows how he’s not boiled yet in that airtight shellac latex which goes for a uniform by them, along with a ruddy ingot chain.
In ancient Rome they put a dog collar on slaves to mark them from free citizens but these spiffy puppies stuck their necks in of their own accord…
But now he tugs the glinting shit of his waistcoat up to flash, like in the genre boilerplate from fucking Hollywood, the handle of a Makar or, maybe, Luger 'cause for a Magnum the kouros’ balls are not hairy enough, stuck under the belt in his pants.
That’s when my range of vision widens up to the next door porch steps and—lo!—would you please observe the reason for the scene of discontent around my bench. Who but Mulatto Maya sits there emanating the youthful beauty of her pliant thighs wrapped in the on-looker-friendly loin cloth! And how not to mention her stuck up tits under nothing more but a short T-shirt inviting to admire her navel?.
How could I miss that she had stopped to tarry there? Yeah, Chris bro, your knee-jerks certainly grow dull 'cause of this fucking entropy…
"O, fuck!" the hippie sez, and fiercely scratches he his left armpit.
The jaws of both muggers go loose and drop on their hinges all way down to the yellow neck-chains in the show of their mouth caves, and tonsils, and all. Next moment the big style tango of their act turns abruptly into a gallop to opposite destinations 'cause the flee-hunter's move had pushed his beard aside exposing a bandolier hung on his bare chest, loaded with a kinda sawed-off blunderbuss in 'Welcome to the Caribbeans!' style.
However, the Treasure Island got abandoned way too soon, and only Maya on the nearby steps ran her sweet tongue over her abundant lips and switched the posture of her thighs to even more liberal position.
That’s only when the hairy yobbo falls out of his meditative mood again:
"I say, bud, where’s the bush here to take a leak?" sez he and scratches his other oxter…
* * *
Bottle #7: ~ Land is paid for with blood (Ayaz Niyazi oglu Mutalibov) ~
Almost all of the winter 1991 – 1992 Stepanakert spent in the cross-fire from 4 directions. At the cross’ top was positioned the artillery shelling from Sushi City, from the pillar-root in flew the missiles launched at Khojalu Village, the left-hand side filled the howitzers positioned in Malubalu Village, the battery deployed in Janhasan Village added their part into bombardments from the right. And all of that does not bespeak over-large size of the besieged city – a rough circle of no more than 2 km in diameter, so that those batteries could barrage each other, technically, which they did not do though…
Machine gun and automatic weapon fire from Krkjan (the uppermost, Azerbaijani populated part of the Stepanakert City itself) did not reach farther/deeper than the Region Theater's building.
We rented a one-(but-wide)-room apartment in Tumanian Street and in the basement of the nearest 5-story apartment block—50 meters off the house we dwelt in—I had to empty out the space for sheltering my family in between the walls of bulky, cold concrete-blocks forming the block's foundation below the ground level.
At the outset of the movement for the independence of Mountainous Karabakh, while there still existed communications with Armenia, they shipped from up there some relief including garments, deficit food products, and booklets of the Holy Bible adaptation for kids, in Armenian.
Conceivably, certain undeclared goods arrived in as well, which is better known to the members of the Special Committee formed then in Stepanakert for supervising the mentioned relief and things among the local population, after a short-term storing the goods away in the basement of the said 5-story apartment block.
As a result, in one of the basement sections, there grew a huge heap of smashed craters, emptied containers, broken bottles and other vestiges of clandestine orgies of those rats, the Committee members. Nobody of the aboriginal tenants in the apartment block had vigor enough to undertake such a whale of cleansing job, when they moved to live underground, and the wasted section had to wait for the liberation by my hands, following the lead from my mother-in-law.
However, even I could perform only half of the job, which half allowed though for the accommodation of my wife and our kids—the 2-year-old son and 7-year-old daughter from her first marriage—plus two unknown females who failed to find room for themselves in other sections of the overcrowded basement-shelter.
My mother-in-law, among a dozen of other ladies from the surrounding neighborhood of predominantly private houses, sheltered in a tailor’s workshop (who had successfully taken away everything but the walls) in the nearby 2-story block of flats in a fairly dilapidated state, and I dead refused leaving the one-but-wide room in the first floor of our renters’ house, which was equipped with a cast pig-iron stove for gas-heating, the room was…
The ultimate condition of survival in Stepanakert that winter was water. Having water for drinking, food-processing, laundry, and toilet flashing (if not blessed with an outhouse in the yard) was the foremost challenge because of its all-pervading deficit.
The trunk pipeline supplying water from the river over a dozen of kilometers away had been sabotaged, and the employees at the city water-supplying services guessed (quite understandably) that being engaged in renovating works in the terrain open to pinpoint shooting by snipers would not be much different from an out-and-out suicidal action, and they would blow it up the very next day all the same.
In difference to the Leningrad population blockaded in WWII, Stepanakerters did not prepossess the Neva River by their side and had to rely on too few street taps of water running from springs in the nearby slopes… Multimeter noisy queues snaked to those taps to put their pail under a thumb-thick leak of water, to scatter and/or press themselves into the walls of the nearest buildings in another artillery/missile attack…
I, personally, preferred to go after water at night not because late or small hours prevented shelling—artillery men worked round the clock—but in the dark the queues seemed shorter, a sort of.
In the morning I went to work though the newspaper, naturally, ceased circulating and no one proposed me to translate an editorial or stuff any more. However, I possessed a skeleton key to the translators' room furnished with three desks bearing scars left by the raw facts of life and two hard chairs.
So, at the rare days of relative calm and no shelling (because, say, of another peace-broker team arrival in the region) those of my colleagues who dropped in, yielding to the too deeply rooted habit of theirs or because of having nothing better to do, were pleasantly surprised to find that there was someone in the building, after all.
The seedy 2-story editorial office building (a couple of blocks off the printing house) was lost in the deep shadow from the right wing in the gray, 4-story, mighty parallelepiped of the Regional Committee of the CPSU, a kinda towboat by an ironclad battleship. And when the editorial House Keeper tried to introduce locking the entrance door with a heavy padlock as soon as in an hour after opening it or so, I—thanks to being on friendly terms with Rashid, the watchman at the editorial office—managed to obtain the entrance key imprint in a piece of molding clay our kids used to play with.
The duplicate key turned out okay because of my skills of a locksmith of the third category acquired at the Konotop Steam-Engine-And-Railroad-Car-Renovating Plant, though in absence of a vice it was not a trivial task.
(For the ethnography lovers.
No, yeah, “Rashid” is not a typical Armenian name, but then, playing with names is a deep-rooted tradition within the Armenian ethos. The parents feel at liberty to use any name as long as it sounds lovely (by their ear estimation) or would be correct politically, or both. Hence these slews of Arthurs, Hamlets, Ophelias, Jameses, Johnics (diminutive-affectionate from Johnny), Lolitas and so on, and so forth among otherwise Armenian people.
A teacher of Geography from School 7 was named Argentina (which is not a household-between-us-kids moniker but her legitimate ID-verified handle). Or how about “Chapaev”? Who cares it’s the Civil War and innumerable jokes’ personage’s name, Daddy just liked the sound.
And admire please the ingenuity at constructing the following, rather wide-spread in Armenia name from V. I. Len(in) – eliminating dots and brackets you get "Vilen".
A woman named “Electrification” all her life had to respond to the shortened form: “Ele”. A lucky strike if you consider the base, right?
Or take, for instance, the story behind the name of my sister-in-law? Her mother’s mother-in-law (the mother-in-law of my mother-in-law), while on a visit to her relatives in Moscow, was impressed by something she heard in a radio-play about Jean D’Ark from Orleans. (Radio-play is an audio soap-opera broadcast over the radio because it was in 50’s when the USSR hadn’t got television yet, and the fact of TV’s entering the Americans’ life in 30’s serves another proof that the West started to rot before us.)
Now, she asked her Moscow relatives to scribble something she had heard and liked from the radio on a paper slip, my mother’s-in-law mother-in-law did.
