The Ficuses in the Open

(…it seems she unconsciously believes that if he were down here and not in Yerevan (where he, actually, is for a month or so), everything would get all right somehow. He's so big and solid looking…)

Yesterday I—perhaps, with unnecessary audacity—ate a somewhat stale bit of bread and today it was keeping me if not running then, at least, striding hurriedly.

(…no-one to blame though—you've got your five wits, pal. Look before you pick a thing up…)

After the lunch an irresistible spell of sleep felled me.

No Joyce. No yoga.

Sashic brought a pail of barleycorn.

In the evening we had a regular (once in a blue moon) treat of the all-in family supper.

I played the pencil game with Sahtik and Roozahna.

At eight pm I escorted them to the Underground. Steady bluish effulgence of the full-moon flooded all the world, delineating finely our shadows gliding along the sidewalk.

Now, I'm setting off for water.

Be the night as good as this day was.

February 18

It turned out a still and peaceful day as warm as a day in late spring.

And in the preceding night dream

…it was summer with Sahtik and me having a quarrel in the Ukrainian town of Konotop and I left for the neighboring Bakhmuch town but because of a blockade and the disrupted railroad communication I had to travel in a truck whose dump was packed up with a flock of civilians and only I was wearing sea-bee's uniform and when we arrived to Bakhmuch the trucker demanded fifty monets and I searched through my pockets only to find a handful of motley nickels some of them blackened and some brand new but obviously not enough to pay the fare and I agonizing from the humiliation started to bum money from the passers-by until an unknown girl entered the room where Sahtik and I still kept quarreling and said it's merely a dream and nothing else…

Till noon I was at the Club.

Shamir, the porter, and I discussed whether or not the Russians were going to sent troops down here.

'Not a chance!' was our unanimous conclusion.

After the lunch one page from Joyce translated.

On the landlord's advice, I took out a certain spare part from the gas oven after which modification my mother-in-law baked breads in thrice shorter time than ever before.

In the twilight getting more and more dense, I went to the downhill town carrying breads. It looked like a meek springtime evening when nice souls feel inexplicable languor, and young women and girls have a sad and dismayed look about them.

After supper the mother-in-law reached her turn to take water from the water-spring she had been queuing to from seven in the morning. I brought the water in.

Then, she and Roozahna took off to the Underground.

It must be a good night…

February 19

By Sahtik's calculations, three years ago this night we married. So, it was our wedding night celebration lit by the full moon light flooding in through the three immensely wide windows to mingle with the glimmer of a flickering candle.

Having a loose tooth dangling all over your mouth curbs an over-ardent voluptuousness all right, and yet it was a good night.

And with her gorgeous bottom and mature bosom contrasting to her maidenish arms and incredulously tiny hands Sahtik does look lovely when naked.

In the morning nobody attended the Club, obviously kept away by the detonation of consecutive GRAD volleys.

(…some mighty thing this GRAD is, faith, a real masterpiece of human genius…)

This time I didn't switch on chanting of the Maha-Mantra. My mind got stuck in the chewing gum of Azimov's novel while the walls leaped from the nearby explosions and the pane glasses were breaking up and coming down to the floor with dismal high-pitched tinkle. Rendering midst explosions doesn't mean braveness; I do it just because I have nothing else to do.

The Club's lavatory window was also smashed, however, the whitely icicled (or rather mildew crusted) spiders were still hanging from the ceiling.

Leaving at noon, I observed the hillock of masonry stones where it was the TV Studio Block swept away while I was idling in the Club. Grad bursts leave after themselves a sticky stink of burned rubber in the air.

Up-till-now unchecked fires are on in the town under the missile attacks being repeated over and over again.

After the lonesome lunch, one page from Joyce. Then, I took up reading of The Arabian Nights in Armenian to tone up my command of the language.

Yoga. Supper.

A water-walk's ahead. (Just for the fitness' sake, right now there is no actual need of water in the household.)

Good night.

February 20

In dreams I witnessed

…a peace-making meeting held in Hojalu Village by horny-palmed workmen from both sides gathering—one by one—in a shabby shack lit with a miraculously bright electric bulb above the three Azeries and three Armenians and me and two village women exchanging horny jokes and speaking some common rough language while waiting for some more participants to come…

They say that TV news VESTI said that the town's yesterday's portion of the GRAD missiles was 240 (forty and two hundred).

At the club I saw only Shamir, the porter.

After lunch I replaced the rubber pipe from the gas stove in the kitchen to the gassier in the room with a newer one because yesterday there was an unmistakable smell of gas in the room.

The mother-in-law baked breads and sent me to the downhill town. A willing errand boy I am!

Pictures of destruction met only but too often. The most impressive are those of the smashed down TV Center and the ruins of the huge Trade Unions Block near the Upper Round Road. Just sooty walls remained there with all the inside toppled into the still smoldering heaps.

Sounds of hammering all along Kirov Street—folks mend the staved-in windows and ruined flats. Life on the edge of a live volcano goes on.

Carina's place survived intact in the yesterday's bombardment. Orliana's block-of-flats was hit by half a dozen of missiles. One of them exploded in the basement, fortunately, causing no casualties.

Sashic proposed to take all the children and their mothers to his native village. The idea sounds quite reasonable.

Upon returning, half-page from Joyce.

There were problems with my yoga: yesterday when in the Lotus, some spare part in my left knee slipped out of its place. I clicked it in, but the pain from the dislocation had been felt ever since. That's why my today's yoga was far from perfect.

Supper.

The mother-in-law and Roozahna went to the Underground. Ahshaut and Sahtik are still home.

The day was quite quiet; she wants to stay home tonight, but feels afraid.

The water-walk awaits me. So – Good night.

P.S.: Two minutes after the "Good night" a few separate bursts scared Sahtik away. I saw them to the Underground. Shelling never subsided during all the water-walk. When I was back home, two massive GRAD volleys hit the night town.

February 21

The winter is back again. It snows for two days at a stretch.

The Club was locked, but—with a glowing pride—I took the duplicate key out of my coat pocket… I locked myself away in the building and for an hour or so worked alone until I heard someone pulling at the front door.

(Alyosha, the Hoouse Manager, urged me to keep it latched when alone in the building: there are typewriters in the rooms, you know.)

I thought it was Lenic with his competitional coat of arms but it turned out to be Rita. I, conversationally, told her about my mistake and she instantly burst out, 'Idiots! The coat of arms! What for? The communal tomb?'

She leaned against the wooden partition put along the first flight of stairs, half of her face hidden behind the partion edge, and gazed at me with her left eye full of sorrow or pain or something of the sort.

'Are you alive?' she asked wearily. Then, she broke the news, "There is no town. It doesn't exist any more. Why do they keep me here?'

And, after a pause, she added almost in whisper, 'I've seen them. The wounded.'

She asked if anyone else was in, and if Boss had returned.

My answers were in the negative. She went away.

Five minutes later Aida, a typist, came. They told her the Editorial House had been set ablaze. It, actually, was not, but she, all the same, decided to take home her slippers and the box of tea she was keeping at her work place.

Arcadic appeared and then Guegham, a journalist. For an entire half-hour, the Renderers' turned into a chatter room with four of us talking about nothing in particular. Then Rafic, one more journalist, joined in and finally—once again—Rita.

Arcadic asked her if the windows in her flat were still broken and letting the wind in. Her answer was in the affirmative.

Then, he gave an account of his talk on her behalf with some big-shot from the new Government.

'I could give her an official pass-bill, but all the same they wouldn't take her on the helicopter.' confessed the big-(but powerless)-shot.

'Why?' looking at Arcadic asked she—a small irreversibly aging girl without any close relative in this extinct town awfully far away from her Ma and with the cold winter wind sweeping over her one-room flat.

She was not crying but the tears rang all too distinctly in her voice. 'Why—they—I—why—…'

It was almost 12 am and I remembered those two sizable sheets of vinyl I had hammered from inside to the two non-communicational windows in our one-but-spacious-room flat and proposed them to her.

All of us left, and I locked the Club. Together with Rita, I went uphill towards our place.

Suddenly, she baulked and announced it unseemly to go there without being acquainted with my wife. So, I promised her to bring the vinyl tomorrow to the Club, forgetful that tomorrow was Saturday—a day-off.

At lunch there came a canon bang from the Soviet Army garrison, and Sahtik, taking it for a signal of a nearing missile attack, rushed off with the children to the Underground.

Sashic appeared hurriedly and drove away having left a halfsackful of flour.

A page-and-a-half from Joyce translated.

At three pm I went to the downhill town to see Sashic and Valyo and discuss Sashic's proposal to evacuate our women and kids.

Sashic said he had a loft-house in the Siznic village with a supply of fire-wood there. Together we went to Valyo and on our way met Edo—Valyo's cousin—who also hankered to find a quiet place for his family and was also going to Valyo to discuss the matter.

However, Valyo was not fit for talking business. Shortly before our arrival, he battered his twelve-year-old son, Sego. The boy had been out with his friends for too long. His father got too worked up with anxiety about his dear son and beat him on his return. He beat him in the underground, severely as if fighting an adult, using the boy as an outlet to dump this constant nervous tension; and during our visit he was in profound prostration, hardly speaking a word, shocked by his own deed.

Our unstarted discussion was interrupted by a prolonged GRAD hail. All ran downstairs. I lingered behind to make a piss (I noticed more than once that sudden volleys loosen my bladder) and to switch off the gas in the kitchen (Orliana was making tea for us).

Valyo came back, somewhat ashamed, to switch off the gas already switched off.

I was heading home up Kirov Street. At some places the sidewalks were totally covered with the rubble and debris. A desultory shelling was going on.

Along the entire street, I encountered no more than a dozen people—three of them astray soldiers from the local garrison roaming midst the dead town with no comprehensible aim: one more species of poor boys. What for?

I came back too late for my yoga.

Supper.

Then, I washed the plates they left behind scared by the GRAD bursts.

Another hail of missiles hit the destroyed town.

Now, it's calm. Twenty-past-nine pm.

The water-walk is ahead after which I'll have the privilege to call it a day.

Good night.

February 22

At 9 am I was at the Club. An hour later somebody pulled at the entrance door latched from within. I went to open it. Today, on a Saturday, no one from the staff was supposed to come; so it could be only Rita after the vinyl I had promised to give her.

However, my guess was not correct. There stood Arcadic. We had a beard-to-beard talk on the broad one-step porch: he—spectacled, making leather-gloved gestures in front of me; and I—bareheaded, holding the solid pad-lock in my hand.

He said that his pal, an MP, agreed to sign a passbill for Rita's departure, only she had to have a certificate signed by a physician (say, by the Boss' wife) about her being subject to some urgent medical treatment unavailable in this here Republic.

The right eye of this Arcadic boy looked quite good, perhaps, a bit shifty yet good.

(…I don't care to look into people's sinister one, except when I'm left with no other choice…)

He went away. There was another pull at the door. This time it was Rafic, the consort of the paper's queen in disguise. He left in less than five minutes without mentioning a reason for his turning up. Did he come to check if I keep promises?

Then, finally, Rita came in (I, at long last, was smart enough to leave the entrance door open).

On seeing me in the Renderers' alone, she was obviously disappointed. 'Nobody's here?' asked she. (A good question on a Saturday!)

She tried to ask it in a smarter way, 'Has anyone been here?'

I knew she meant Arcadic and answered, 'Yeah, there was,' I made a sadistic pause and ended, 'Rafic was here and he's just left.'

Then, I gave her those sheets of vinyl and a handful of wrapped up nails, apologizing that they were second-hand ones. I made it a special point to inquire if she had a reliable neighbor to drive them in.

And, after all this procrastination when she collected and absently put the things into her bag, I dropped playing suspension games and broke the news she was so eager to know about the pass-bill promised for her.

She happily rushed out of the Renderers' and down the corridor, and down the half-dozen worn-out wooden stairs, but was stopped by the metal entrance door, and—forgetful to turn its handle down—she was only squeaking and ramming at the door with all her light body, vainly and desperately, like a caged bird…

After lunch I went to the downhill town with two additional loaves of breads the mother-in-law had baked in the morning.

Carina pensively sat next to her children doing their nap time in the underground.

She said that Sashic went to Valyo at ten am, but the latter was not home and now Sashic also was somewhere in the town.

I went to Valyo. Near their block-of-flats I met his father—vet Simon— making for his son's.

Orliana repeated Carina's account that Valyo left early in the morning. She gave us the key of their flat to wait for Valyo up there… We were sitting and waiting. At times just sitting.

Simon complained of the hard times we were having and related about his mode of survival. Then, he retold me the joke he made in the late thirties. Valyo never came. When Simon stretched out on the sofa, I left.

Down in the underground, Orliana said Valyo had not told her a word about moving to Sashic's village.

I went uphill and near the Bus Station visited Ruben, a driver from that pipeline constructing firm. He said his truck-bus was out of order after an accident.

Sashic was knocking around their apartment block. We had a talk sitting in his car. He outlined his plan to use an ambulance. At the moment the roads outside the town are impassable for an ordinary car – only an ambulance can get through. He could fuel an ambulance vehicle—all of them stopped operating long ago because of petrol absence.

When I came back, Roozahna was not at home. Her aunt Susanna suggested taking her to their village, not far from the Sashic's one, and they had already taken off.

Then, Sashic and Carina came without their children (a good neighbor was asked to look after them in their underground), and we planned details of the would-be evacuation and discussed what things were to be taken to the village.

When the assembly was over, they went home. My mother-in-law stepped out and I dived into the ULYSSES translation until Sahtik asked how much was left of the today's portion.

' Half a page. Why?'

' Mother went to her place for an hour or so.'

' Really?'

' Exactly!'

Well, it was a grand one—a piece of pride for any male. If not only for the carping thought at the back of my mind: so what? gonna apply for the Noble’s Prize? But it came afterwards.

Ahshaut got up at five pm. An hour later a shell burst sent them to the Underground.

No yoga. (The Omni-monitoring Parathma knows better if that was because of my sloth or the aching knee.)

At supper Sahtik related about sixty traitors arrested for espionage and signaling for the enemy artillery. Reiterating of the stale news clearly indicated tendencies of stagnation in the underground mass media.

The water-walk is ahead and then a try at having a – good night.

February 23

(I was on the brink of writing 'December' once again.)

Two missile-volleys at night: of forty-rockets each. They, reportedly, hit Sashic-Carina's quarter.

After breakfast, I went down there. At times I was walking along stretches of sidewalks not covered with crashed rubble and boughs hacked by explosions off the trees in the streets. In one of the trees—some thirty-feet above the ground—there hung out a yellow half-burned armchair.

When I entered the underground in Sashic-Carina's apartment block (there are no compartments there, just two huge halls in the basement), someone near the door recognized me in the flickering of the gas jet and called out for Sashic.

'There will be no trip to the village,' announced Sashic. The evacuation plans were canceled because Valyo had promised him places on board of a helicopter to Yerevan within a couple of days.

Their apartment block was not damaged in the last night bombardment except for lots of shattered windowpanes.

As for my family, there is no prospect of getting them on that helicopter. Valyo has got numerous and much closer relatives. Besides, with Roozahna packed off to her aunt's village, moving anywhere beyond this Republic is out of question.

And, it's a good luck she was not in the town when three GRAD volleys hit our block today.

The first hail exploded when I was on my way back from the downhill town and at a five-minute walk from our flat. Actually, I was passing by the Club and—when the volley was over—used my key to drop in for a piss. Then, I went to the epicenter.

The former Military Commissioner Building, now the phedayee headquarters, had lost half of its roof and two or three office rooms in the upper floor of its left wing. Two ambulances parked at the entrance turned into useless riddled tins—all chips and holes.

Phedayees were carrying armfuls of AK assault rifles from the damaged wing of the building to a nearby cottage. Obviously, no-one was killed. I caught a glimpse of a shell-shocked civilian youth rinsing his pallid face with the white snow, his thick-lipped mouth agape. All the street was littered with branches and twigs slashed off from the trees.

Lydia's house, opposite to the MC Building, was intact behind its locked gate. But the one-storied houses leaned against each other in a cluster down the street were almost falling apart, their walls furrowed with cracks and fissures.

Armen, my mate on the pipe insulation team of 5 at the gas pipeline construction firm, called out my name. He was in the khaki uniform now.

We entered the yard of the cracked up houses to shut the vent-cocks on the riddled gas pipes hissing with the leaking gas. Then, we went away.

Walking along the street, he picked up from the ground a huge pipe-like fragment of an exploded missile and asked me what it was made of. Then, probingly, he tap-tapped with the fragment on his hatless head. I asked him not to.

The second volley thundered an hour later. It hit the phedayee barracks (a former kindergarten) and the row of houses along the long and winding road I tread at my water-walks.

The third one exploded in the evening and caught me literally pants down, even more than that—stark naked—when I was taking a tub in the washing outhouse in the yard of our flat. The thin brick walls jiggled and quaked from the close explosions. The nearest one had blown up a house some twenty-meters from the washing hut. The furthest swept away the house wall-to-wall with the mother-in-law's one.

After rinsing the suds off and putting on my clothes (observing closely if the fingers were not trembling), I went up there to see whether Aram, my brother-in-law, was OK. The house door locked, all the panes smashed; Aram obviously was out at the time of the bombardment.

The Soviet regiment answered with their artillery. They say, there were casualties among the soldiers. Twenty-year-old boys not even being paid for getting killed.

All day long my family kept to the Underground. I shipped there both lunch and supper, ferried a mattress with a pillow, cut up and brought some wood for the tin stove from the supply stored at the mother-in-law's.

One page from Joyce translated. Yoga. (The slipped knee still pains, but what else do I have to do to pass the time?)

The water-walk is ahead after which this day-off will be over and succeeded by a (hopefully) good night.

February 24

Yesterday's water-walk turned into something weird and uncanny.

In all the streets and lanes along my water-trail there disappeared even those scanty windows lit with the ghostly shimmer of gas jet torches. The thickest fog imaginable and solid opaque darkness turned the way just invisible. I—with my eyes full open but seeing nothing—instinctively navigated amidst the familiar ruts, puddles and holes in the road and was gradually loosing touch with the reality and at some moment trespassed the borderline of an anti-Utopian dream where I plodded on along an endless way from nowhere-to-nowhere pulling at a juggernaut growlingly rolling after me. My "I" grew smaller and smaller in its dimensions and functions engulfed by this all-embracing darkness, and that diminished "i" was only feeling mechanical efforts of my body engaged in that plodding and hauling. I was taken out of myself, and it was strangely pleasant too. All thoughts and desires dried up. I didn't even want that endless road to be over or that going-pulling to be ended. It was like dissolution in Silence, Solitude, Freedom.

After breakfast the mother-in-law sent me to Carina with two breads she had baked the day before yesterday and with the oral message that both she and her house were all right with only window panes broken up.

The winter is still here. It snowed all night, and in the morning people were gathering the newly fallen snow from the streets into washing-tubs and pails to melt it and dodge their daily water-walks. The raw smell of pine tar from the hacked off branches hung all along Kirov Street.

Passing by the caved-in glass walls in the halls of the saving bank branch office and the nearby drug store, I spotted and pitied their interior pot-plants—the poor frost-bitten ficuses with their fleshy leaves turned brown, withered and warped.

Carina sent her old spare glasses for my mother-in-law who had lost hers.

At the Club two more women from the staff made flying visits to take home their belongings.

At five-minutes-to-twelve, Lenic dropped in on his way to the uphill town with the drawing of the coat-of-arms he had designed for the competition in progress. The creation presented a gloomy eagle with the sword and shield (the KGB motif?) and mountains in the background encircled by filleted wheat and grapes.

(…a real thing to be tattooed on any mobster's forearm…)

The picture was accomplished in an astoundingly meticulous and fine technique.

Nay, smoking is not so healthy a preoccupation as Lenic once happened to advertise it. Two-weeks ago, half a dozen men were killed when a missile exploded in a line of smokers queuing after raw tobacco leaves.