The Ficuses in the Open

On the whole, the war wasn't too butting in today. Thank you, December 17!

December 18

The alarm clock awoke me at 2 am. I dressed and went out for water. Dash it! I am not the only wise guy in this here neck of the woods. However, two or three water-carriers cannot be called 'a queue'.

On route in my pendular to-and-fros I watched a night missile attack—the languid flaming streaks of yellow gliding silently overhead to crash someplace in the town. In the heights beyond Armenavan, half of the night sky shimmered with ghostly crimson radiance of the giant gas torch there, the main pipeline set ablaze.

At twenty-to-four in the morning my water-carrying was done.

From 9 to 12 am I rendered one article at work. Lenic came after the midday break. He narrated of his vigil in the Bread Factory, queuing for three-and-half night hours just to buy the regular quota of three loaves.

Arcadic, the Head of Russian Section, asked me—just as a personal favor, you know—to render the manifesto of a newly stewed political party. Sure, I was only happy to oblige my immediate boss but…

Oh, brother! What a mess! The toil of making some sense from burbling gibberish of ultra-patriotic students tripping up at pompous words without rhyme or reason in their mental diarrhea!

And only the concluding paragraph in the manifesto was a plain and clear threat of ruthless punishment to any would-be dissents as well as doing away with all the members lacking in strength.

(…a promise to purge the infiltrated impotents?…)

The local radio announced the gas supplying would be stopped to repair the blown up pipeline. After the work, I collected our heater from under my desk in the Renderers'. I took it over to the Underground because, according to Sahtik, the heater from the recent distribution belied its mighty looks by poor performance.

In the Underground, I picked and brought home a masonry block-stone to make a substitute heater for my work place. Fortunately, I happened to have a second-hand heating element.

Until my supper at seven pm, I was carving ruts in the stone to insert the glow spiral. The job gave me an excuse for not having yoga today but, to tell the truth, I skipped it too readily. My eternal sloth.

It's ten past ten pm, Ahshaut sleeps at home.

The complete quietude outdoors lit by the giant gas torch mutely flaring in the distant hills over Armenavan.

December 19

Inexplicably peaceful night it was and the hush extended till noon.

Before the midday break, I finished rendering the Declaration of the Anti-Impotent Party (AIP). Wagrum remarked, whenever three Armenians settle down somewhere the place sees a political bum and creation of at least seven parties. Well, that was a good one from his kit.

Boss and his Secretary Rita dropped in, in turn, and were obviously impressed by my block-stone heating device. I dared a slight dispute with Boss when he proclaimed laziness as a distinctive feature of oriental man while I argued that the quality in question belongs to all of the human race.

In the morning Sahtik with our children and Carina with hers went to the Orliana's. So, I had a lunch all by my own.

After the break two missile attacks hit the town. Lenic, sheltering in the doorway of the Renderers', tried to talk me into leaving the room: what if a missile bursts in right through the window opposite my desk, eh?

'I'll never be aware of the fact', was my reply.

His advise to at least move over into the corner was also turned down—should a missile dash in I am rather for instant death than any wounds.

About four pm, I finished a rendering and phoned to the Orliana's. Sahtik was just setting off back home. I waited for her and the kids in the desolate emptiness of the Editorial House.

When on our last leg towards the Underground we were passing the Three Taps (Sahtik rather wound-up by the earlier attacks in the day), I detected the pale flame of Alazans

flying on our left.

'Now it'll …' I thought just that much before off went the crash of blasts.

Roozahna—all mad shrieks—bolted towards the flock of water-queuers that froze like a line of wax figures next to the Three Taps. Sahtik followed the suit.

(…it's just so human – to seek safety in a thicker mass of fellow beings: let someone else from the herd be snatched, not me!.)

Ahshaut and I were walking on, hand in hand. Lagging, in fact. He was fairly tired after doing it all the way uphill from the Orliana's.

The crowd shouted at me to grab the child and hare off, lest it got frightened. Defiantly, I kept walking on. In my opinion, Ahshaut would sure get scared if I followed the advise.

Still, I'm not a daredevil—far from it!—that funny feeling of mine never fades away and most of my waking hours I'm busy fighting the willies down. That tiny tearful whimper squeezed in my throat behind the Adam's apple.

At today's yoga my left knee protested painfully when in the Lotus.

Sahtik, on a flying visit from the Underground announced proudly that by Orliana's scales, she's three kilos lighter than before… O, women, not frailty, but vanity is your name. Even the war can't straighten them out.

It's half-past-nine pm, I am alone.

A tranquil night smirks outdoors.

December 20

A nasty night it was, but I stubbornly slept it through. In dreams

…I tilled a kitchen garden on a too boggy mountain slope and then rode a bicycle along a wide path of sand getting finer and deeper and turning the trail into a hopelessly impassable dusthole…

At the workplace I toiled at rendering four articles distracted shortly by a small talk with Rita on her visit to the Renderers' to get warm at the block-stone heater partly jutting from under my desk.

After the final period, I sat back and suggested Wagrum to write an article with practical instructions what to do when a missile attack catches you on the street. Nope. He found the subject too shallow when compared to the life in shelters which he was going to describe in a masterpiece of an article one of these days.

Arcadic also dropped in. Running for an MP in the upcoming parliamentary elections, he could speak only about his chances—too slim in his opinion because his rival's too mighty popular with all the criminals and gamblers in their constituency.

Sahtik had visitors today. Yana, a friend of hers, came to share most sad accounts of her maimed married life with a KGB officer.

(…men are pigs, all of us, as W. S. Maugham vividly exposed in his masterpiece story, and a pig invested with power is the most horrid beast of all…)

In the afternoon, Robic, a PE teacher at School 8, brought Sahtik's salary for last September paid only now. So, even among the pigs you can occasionally stumble on a suave knight.

After the working day was over, I went to the Printing House, three blocks southward. Once a month as any other employee at the editorial staff I have to oversee the paper through the press. Arcadic, whose turn it was today, explained me the supervisor's duties and moves before you give the go-ahead for printing it. After two hours of step-by-step instructing, we parted with a handshake, the first one since we had met.

When I came home, it was too late for yoga. I suppered and then took a bath in the washing-tub.

It's half-past-ten pm. Routine shooting outdoors.

Ahshaut's fast asleep.

December 21

This goodly day-off Ahshaut became two years old. What a tall guy: 92 cm!

In the morning he and I jaunted to the Site to collect the last bagful of apples from the cellar. On our way back I bought three bottles of wine at the shop by the Shooshva Corner.

Carina and Sashic, with their children, came to congratulate.

After lunch, the scheduled sexual intercourse (the only suitable time during the whole week while Roozahna is on a visit to her relatives, Ahshaut napping, the mother-in-law tactfully gone to her place: all fixed and fitted).

(…frankly, I am anything but fond of fucking with your eye on the ticking clock and no matter if it's before, at, or after the action…)

Past 4 pm, Lydia came to our place bringing some grapes and roses. The feast got a fresh start.

It's ten past ten pm.

Five minutes ago I saw Sahtik and Roozahna off. Ahshaut sleeps home.

The full moon outdoors and the first shell-burst of the day, I wish it were also the last.

December 22

The second day-off. Till four pm I was doing my hard labors time on our Site.

The layout improvement is a choice pastime; breaking up frost-tightened clay and shoveling it down into the bottomless gorge that serves the natural border to the Site.

On my way home I stopped for a chat with Goorgan, the only neighbor we have on our side of the gorge. He shared that all the truck-drivers at their state-owned firm work for phedayees now. He also has to transport the arms flown in from Armenia to the Kolatac village.

Going under the pine trees that line the sidewalk opposite the Children Hospital, I picked up a big bough chopped off by a shell fragment. There's enough material to make a decent X-mass tree.

At supper Roozahna went off her rocker. To restrain my choler, I left the table and munched the meal sitting at the sideboard.

Nine pm.

After Roozahna and my mother-in-law left for the Underground, Sahtik stayed home knitting yet five-minutes ago a solitary shell-blast made her flee.

Now, only Ahshaut and I am here. He sleeps undisturbed.

Outdoors all is quiet again.

December 23

The pallid moon up in the morning sky resembles a fugitive piece of dull, ungleaming, snow over the distant mountains…

Wagrum came dolled up in a spiffy outfit with a red-and-white scarf loosely thrown around his neck, smart gray suit and a pair of black gloves.

'The reds are on the run' declared he resting his buttocks on his desktop with we'll-beat-everybody puffs at his cigarette.

Soviet Army soldiers were leaving the gray huge Block of the CPSU District Committee—cheek by jowl with the drab Editorial House. On the wide square in front of the CPSU Block loomed a phedayee

CAMAZ-truck with no number plates, as is their custom. A pensive lad in a black sheepskin coat hanged around with a sub-machine gun in his arms. Three more phedayees, unarmed but in combat fatigues, stood apart in a businesslike jaw-jaw. Beno, a crony of Sashic's, was among them looking very brave in his khaki cap.

A cagey drove of old women and shifty youngsters neared the District Committee Block from the rear. They penetrated it through a ground floor window and embarked on looting the quarters left by the troops stationed there since spring.

A dozen iron cots floated out of the window and up the lane – one wooden chair and three empty cognac bottles diversified the spoil.

A small group of Soviet Army soldiers did their best to look another way, waiting, between the Block's and Editorial House' corners, for a vehicle to pick them up. At last an army jeep pulled up in the lane separating the Editorial House from the Hotel. A helmeted officer got out and staggered to the awaiting group strangely resembling by his motions a khakied automaton, inhumane and eyeless.

Becoming aware of the civilian looters, he leveled at them his sub-machine gun, clicked it and, slightly rolling from his toes to heels, barked out, 'Get away with you!'

At this point a squad of native policemen arrived to the scene wearing black sheepskin coats, armed with Kalashnikov guns, and only their commander in the uniform greatcoat carried no visible weapon. The looting dried up, a policeman posted at the broken window. The army jeep whizzed away.

A couple of minutes later the unarmed police officer came to the Renderers', took off his greatcoat and got seated at Lenic's desk (who was out dictating his renderings at the Typing Pool).

The man drank tea with jam laid on by Ms. Stella both for him and Arcadic and Wagrum (I, as a shitty mixer, declined the treat).

And he heartily laughed flashing the rows of gold teeth in his mouth at Arcadic's story about his and his contender's joint meeting with the electorate of their constituency.

They presented both candidates. Arcadic's sitting modestly, like a well-bred bridegroom, while his silver-tongued sidekick pours forth about the exellent unsurpassable qualities of everyone's dearest friend – Arcadic. It's the uniquest opportunity to vote for the best of best!

The fine oration over, the brazen yokel of Arcadic's rival gets on his feet to declares 'Well, bros, you know as well as I do, so just for the record, all you've heard now is the very picture of me.'

At that tea party, I had an acute stretch of the second sight feeling as they call it in the Highlands… Then, I rendered three articles, mended Ms. Stella's heater and attended a general meeting at the Boss'. According to Boss:

the Soviet Army's troops (except for the primordial regiment) got orders to pull out from the region;

our self-proclaimed Republic starts general mobilization (men up to forty);

the day before phedayees unexpectedly laid hands on the armory of the withdrawing troops;

our paper changes its name to The Free Artsakh.

At home I whetted the hand saw from the tool-kit recently bought at the Department Store for the tomorrow's manufacturing of X-Tree.

Sashic brought a sack of flour to our place. Soon, Valyo followed the suit with four bottles of milk.

It's a quarter-to-eleven pm. The females of the family gone to the Underground. Ahshaut is sleeping home.

The hangfire shooting outdoors ticks over in the ominously raw moonlight.

December 24

The sable dark of the night speckled randomly with the warm glitter of bulbs in the houses climbing the steep hillsides… all that background charged with a clothes-line tout 'a bend' (though sagging a bit under the gross weight of the hung out washing)… The view is available at nights from the queue at the "Suicide's Waterhead", looks like the most fit coat of arms for this here town.

About ten in the morning, the homely glow from the blockstone heater next to my desk in the Renderer's was cut off by another blackout. Poor me, cold is a thing I fear most badly. Rendering of an article full of heated patrioticy made me no warmer.

During the break, to start my spree of X-shopping I bought a book of science fiction for Sahtik.

A small crowd gathered near the Mayor Hall to admire a light tank manned with a native crew loading up an oblong box with, presumably, ammunition. Someone in the crowd called me by my name. It was Gago of the Sarushen village. Surprised to see me. He thought I had left long ago.

'Are you a resident spy, after all?' asked he with a grin.

I updated him on my getting a job and inquired if he had risen to the rank of Major among phedayees . We parted with a handshake.

At the Renderers', Ahlya the Typist came to share her bleakest, terror-dripping, apprehensions. She had never sinned, nor breached any law, nor participated in the movement for Karabakh independence. And now, irrespective of so cautious a lifestyle, both she and her children were gravely endangered. Deadly. Constantly. What a horrible nondiscrimination! It's so unfair. Who would defend them now without the Soviet Army down here?

I tried to comfort her with a piece of Persian history.

At four pm the personnel was sent home and the Editorial House locked. My intention to go on with the X-mas shopping fell short in view of huge padlocks on all of the shops. Yet, the tiny shop next door to our place happened to be open. There I bought a black belt for Roozahna, which luxiery item knocked me back for 27 monets.

The evening was spent assembling the X-mass tree. The pine limb I picked up yesterday yielded enough spare parts for the construction. Now it's decorated and placed upon the bookcase partitioning our one-but-spacious room into two.

There are two socks under the the tree left by Roozahna and Ahshaut. The sock from Ahshaut contains three walnuts wrapped in silver paper while he himself sleeps in his cot.

The other sock is crammed with the black belt for Roozahna to find it in the morning when she comes back from the Underground.

It's ten past ten pm. An artillery blast banged in the upper part of the town.

Merry Christmas to all.

December 25

No electricity. One article rendered. While at it, I had a theosophical talk with Wagrum and Lenic.

(…the Master I've lately subscribed to should be pleased with me duly following His instructions – discuss such things whenever and whoever with it's possible…)

It sounded more like a sermon though than a trilateral talk. All they did was just listening to my palaver and making no comment because such subjects had been completely absent from the ideas-inoculation-kit used throughout our mutually vast SOVIET HOMELAND. In the end something started to dawn upon them and Lenic asked cautiously if I was a God believer.

'No fear,' said I, 'my believing faculty is gone for good like the chopped off appendix.'

At home Valyo was awaiting for me to start drinking the X-mass in. Then, he left taking home his family's share of bread baked by our mutual mother-in-law.

Soon after Valyo's departure, Slavic, a Muscovite compo, knocked on the door and the alcoholiday flowed on under the yarn of his front-line stories.

(A jobless ex-sportsman without what you call 'immaculate records' he joined a phedayee group as a sharpshooter).

After a while my mother-in-law and Roozahna left for the Underground giving the opportunity for Sahtik and me to have it. However, we were still at the table when a massive missile round hit the town. The moment the last bangs' echo died away, Ahshaut woke up crying.

(…I had a strong suspicion though that Sahtik did the trick to shun an unremitting sex with the drunken pig of me…)

Under the circumstances I only had to take crying Ahshaut and taciturn Sahtik over to the Underground.

Then, I returned and saw Slavic off. He was quite tight.

At a quarter-past-ten pm, the electricity came on in. I'm alone.

Good night.

December 26

In the morning I decided to give up spirits for good, be it even the consumption of beer…

One missile attack in the morning didn't shoo the electricity out. The Renderers' was warm and teeming with guests and visitors, even Boss among the others.

I rendered two articles, then Arcadic sent me upstairs to ask Mrs. Nvard, the paper's queen in disguise, if she had any remarks about my one-week-old rendering of her mawkish essay on the life in basement shelters.

She was in her office room shedding tears and complaints over the phone about her younger son enlisting a phedayee group. She rang off and bestowed my rendering with the highest appraisal.

On coming back to the Renderers', I started one more spiritual talk with Wagrum. He retaliated it with a political one.

Veelen, a reporter, presented me with two booklets he had picked up from the floor in the CPSU District Committee Block after it was left by the Soviet troops. The glossy artifact produced in the Azeri capital presented the Karabakh conflict and the snakes in the grass nation of Armenians in terms of hate conforming to the international standards of printability.

At home I was again visited by Slavic. We had a supper for two, however, drinking was exclusively his concern. Meanwhile, a water-tank truck pulled up in the street bringing water to the Twin Bakeries. People from the immediate neighborhood instantly swarmed around. My mother-in-law was not among the last in the queue filling up all the flask-and-cask from our household. Slavic helped me to drag them in. At that point the electricity was cut off anew.

It's half-past-nine pm, I'm writing by a candle because the oil lamp was taken over to the Underground. Ahshaut sleeps home.

Placid darkness outdoors. Good night to all.

December 27

A day in a cold room and no work at all is surely a dismal day. Lenic is definitely a guy you can rub along. Linguistic niceties are quite exceptable for an esoteric shoptalk.

The 20-meter-long queue of empty pails waiting for their turn to get filled up by a small-finger-thick dribble of water from any of the Three Taps is clearly a somber view.

The folks marauding the grounds by the CPSU Block and taking home the coils of barber-wire left behind by the pulled out Soviet troops are far and away constructive-minded people.

At home the gas-heater was giving out its final sighs. The mother-in-law ordered construction of an ojakh in the yard.

Firstly, put a pair of stones on the ground.

Secondly, make sure the stones are not too wide apart and the bottom of your casserole rests on each of the two.

Thirdly, build a fire between the stones.

She started cooking on the open fire in the newly erected ojakh in the yard. I retired to our one-but-spacious-room flat to lick the wounds in my male pride pricked by the excessiveness of her instructions. At times, her aspirations to have her finger in every pie on earth do exasperate me. I closely control myself but she is too shrewd not to smell a rat.

Actually, I am vexed not so much by my mother-in-law as by this here situation. So my gravest objective is not to let her feel nor even suspect herself an outlet for my irritation which would mean the direst collapse of my self-esteem.

After a missile attack, I helped Sahtik to take the kids over to the Underground. She also transferred the oil lamp there. Half an hour later the electricity appeared! All of them came back together. A very pleasant family evening evolved.

It's ten-to-ten in the evening. Ahshaut is sleeping in his cot. The mother-in-law and Roozahna are in the Underground. Sahtik stayed home knitting.

I am freshly washed in the tub and utterly hurt by the fact that watching TV (the popular quiz 'The Field of Miracles') was preferred to my most natural suggestion.

December 28

From 6.30 till 8.30 am, massive missile attacks and artillery shelling raged all over the town. I was ordered to take Ahshaut to the Underground. So as to keep me down there, they found some pressing maintenance work.

While going to and fro (ferrying tools, hot water, clothes etc.), I saw a missile blast some 100-meters away – like a jet of pale brown smoke leaped from a building's wall. Did not look like Alazan explosions. Till now thick black smoke hovers over the houses on fire in Krkjan.

Missile salvos kept hitting the town all day long. In a bubble of calm around the noon, Sahtik and I went out to the Theater to vote in the local parliamentary elections. Normally, I keep away from politics, but after such a massive pressure to bulldoze me out of participation, I could do nothing else but go out and vote.

The weather was mild and warm. However, its meekness could not bribe me into assuming a less rigorous attitude and I crossed out all the candidates in my vote slip because I didn't know a single one of them.

Roozahna's aunt took the girl but very soon had to bring her back—Roozahna got too hysterical after one more missile attack.

Most reluctantly, Sahtik conceded to my plea for Ahshaut to have his day nap at home while she, Roozahna and my mother-in-law kept to the Underground. At something past 4 pm, another missile attack made me take even him over there – by the compromise agreement between Sahtik and me he might stay home only as long as it's calm and the very first explosion be the signal for taking him over to the Underground.

I was doing my yoga when the last gas in the heater gave out. Yet, like a real yogi, I kept my cool and pretended being too much taken up with asanas to let so earthly trifles impair my listless tranquility. And the trick worked! For a few blissful moments, I felt a complete indifference to anything. However, the chill in the room grew too nasty and my make-believe bliss evaporated. Besides, it's not an easy task to see the Parathma inside your heart when they kick up such a hell of noise outdoors.

It's five-to-ten pm. Thick fog outside mixed with oppressive silence.