The Ficuses in the Open

Presently the most endemic figure in the streets is that of a man with pails carrying water or else in search of a not-too-long water queue.

After lunch I equipped our one-but-spacious room with a kind of gas-torch by constructing a thin-gum pipeline running from the gas range in the hall-aka-kitchen all the way up to the top of the bookcase. I hope it won't convert the room into a gas chamber.

Why did Azeri side not cut off gas for the town? Very siple. We are on the trunk-line pipe reaching the town of Shushi with its considerable population (presently only Azeries) depending on this same gas.

One page from ULYSSES. Yoga. Supper. Water.

Most good night to all.

December 11

Tonight in my flashback dreams not of lions was dreaming I but of

…night trains and unloyal friends…

In my wake hours, till noon I, poetically speaking, was converting swords into plowshares, which, practically, looked like one more avid peasant horsing around the baling wire (that served the core string in the barber-wire coils left behind by the pulled out Red Army troops) by the CPSU District Committee Block grounds.

I was not the first in the undertaking, folks had been collecting the wire for at least a couple of weeks. However, if you're not particularly interested in the barbs you can still find a considerable amount of scrap wire there.

(…look out though! The damn thing is pricky!..)

I stripped a length of bale wire free of barbs and coiled it into a few sizable balls to be taken to our Site.

After lunch I went out and bought a big lamp-shade of matte glass (30 monets) from the Department Store. Then till dark I was consorting the shade with the gas torch made yesterday.

Right now the burning gas hisses inside the bellshaped shade fixed up the bookcase. However, the light from this clapped up gassier is too flickery that's why I opted for writing the today's entry under the candle.

When a candle is burnt up we scrape together the remnants of its molten paraffin to mold them into a new—much smaller—candle. Shrinking reproduction.

Yoga. Supper. A pencil game with Sahtik and Roozahna.

Now the mother-in-law is preparing the stuff for baking bread. It's high time for me to get away from the table and go out after water.

Good night to the wide world and all of its diverse inhabitants.

December 12

In the morning I schlepped the baling wire to the Site and there caught a band of neighbors from the opposite side of the gorge with their pants down—stealing water from the Site's huge water container. At first they seemed a bit abashed but then, quite reasonably, asked why I had popped up at so improper time.

Till three pm I was breaking, digging, and shoveling clay at the Site layout.

About five pm, I got over to the Orliana's to discuss with Valyo possibilities of getting reinforced concrete slabs to bridge the still ceilingless walls of the unfinished house at our Site. He pointed out that he felt ashamed to approach people with such trifles at the wartime.

All the hopes for getting electricity expired. The mother-in-law conducted an operation aimed at rescuing the fridge contents. She cooked them at a short notice. The food products were saved from wasting. We had a nice feast. Regrettably, my stomach was not up to the relish. All the evening I was retracing my trot to the outhouse lavatory in the yard.

I dismantled the gas torch. Its flickering is fretting for the eye. We use candles recycled by Sahtik over and over again.

It's half past ten in the evening. All are asleep.

I am going out after water. Hope there won't be too much people at this dark hour.

Good night, sleep tight, everybody.

December 13

Till noon I was still running in the aftermath of my partaking in the rescue operation of the ungrateful delicatessen but then a pill from Sahtik fixed me up.

At the work place I carried on my diligent study of THE BHAGAVAT-GITA.

After lunch Carina came with her children and presented us with two intact factory-made candles – a timely and invaluable gift. She took Roozahna over to her place.

I got down to the ULYSSES translation but then Sat took off her earrings in a knocking down hint that today I'd better cut out roaming the city of Dublin. However, Chief shortened our version of the Simplest Game by waking up too soon.

At something to eight pm the boom of a shell-burst put an end to the week-long lull in the bombardments.

We got over to the Underground already full of the flickering candle and burning match lights, of troubled calls, of people rushing in with their mattresses and pillows.

I suppered alone. (Earlier in the day Orliana sent us a pound of cheese and half-dozen eggs by a relative who failed to determine her kinship degree and had no time to muster for me all the aunts and grandfolks responsible for the affinity.)

To dodge the endless hanging on in the common water queue, I ascended to the hillfoot part of Krkjan. The higher hillsides dinned with agitated fire-exchange. Random bullets kept whistling overhead missing too high though.

By the spring, there was only one old man on his haunches behind a low stone hedge. The intrepid moonlight shimmered in his gray hair and spectacles as well as in the water jet gushing from the pipe into his pail. When in Krkjan do as Krkjanese do. I squatted next to him.

On my way back along Uzbegstan Street two bullets were shot at me personally. Those sharp-shooters must have what-you'd-call-them devices for night vision. I went over to the lee side of the street.

It's a quarter past ten pm.

Good night to all my counterparts in this Maya, however close or remote were they.

December 14

They say, the local radio reported the town was hit by well over thirty missiles tonight. I heard nothing watching video dreams in my sleep:

…a thug with bald head and thick whiskers gets cornered by a squad of plainclothes agents and he runs round and round and round their cars gleaming listlessly in the dark of night and desperately shoots at them a hail of notably slow bullets from his handgun lacking power to pierce the motionless disdain of his hunters and eventually they fell and pinion him face down on the ground and one of the hunters straddles over his back and forces the barrel of his pistol into the chase's mouth and shoots making me to turn away from the ugly scene and to drift on in the flow of the next dreamstream where I meet Samvel who bossed over the gas pipeline constructing firm in which I worked before the war but everything changes with the time and in this dream he is rigged out as a spic and span guerrilla commander and I shamelessly bum of him concrete slabs for our Site but his answer was suspended till the following episode in the serial…

It was a foreshadowing dream because today during my wake hours I met and saluted three of my former colleagues from that very firm: Silva, Ararat and Razmic, respectively.

In the morning Ahshaut on his way home from the Underground called out "papa!" when passing hand in hand with Sahtik under the three windows of our one-but-spacious-room flat. O, Krishna, I'm still too weak to keep indifferent to all the calls from this here Maya.

Till noon I was at my work place. Today Ahlya the Typist kept to strictly practical items – tips and tricks you have to master to survive in this here situation.

Rita, the Secretary, was tuned to higher subjects. She tried to bring it across to me that only nuts believe in God or else some philosophers who are a no better bunch of crackpots.

Then Lenic came and we swapped our impressions, his visual ones—the yellow flashes of the canons shooting at us from the hills, for my auditive ones—zipping wheeze of bullets in Krkjan. In the end he advised me to find a safer place to take water from.

After lunch I picked up ULYSSES. The output was less than a page.

When Ahshaut got up after his day nap I repaired his second-hand cot which I had brought from the Carina's. It missed one of its grated sides. To fix it I made a mesh along the side using the line-rope bought for the purpose from the Department Store. Ahshaut got wildly delighted with the innovation.

At the pencil game Sahtik simply whipped me. Then they went over to the Underground.

Yoga. Supper. Then I washed up in the tub the most stinking parts of mine.

When I visited my family in the Underground, all were in bed—to keep warm—and asleep already.

I'm back to our one-but-spacious-room flat and I am not alone—there are distinct sounds of rats frisking in our kitchen-aka-hall. Deep in each of their hearts there dwells a particle of the Parathma. These individual particles, outstationed in each and every living creature, compose the mutual Parathma Omniscient Monitor. One and the same Parathma for all of us can see everything viewing it from all perspectives, for instance, watching a murder the Parathma does it simultaneously from inside both the killer's and his victim's heart.

(…some truly unprejudiced perspective…)

Good night to all the Parathma fellows.

December 15

A good deal of the night I spent bringing water for another of Sahtik's unfathomable washings.

In the morning, at one more general meeting of the personnel, Maxim, the Chief Editor, legitimized two-hour working day. Though we are deprived of possibility to do our work normally, emphasized he, we'd better keep in touch by getting together on daily basis just to swap news, thoughts, ideas and other treasures of comradely communication. It sounded like a kinda inauguration speech at opening of some boozeless speak-easy or a free-chat bench.

The mother-in-law went to Carina to lend a helping hand in meat rescuing operation there and took Roozahna with her. The linen was boiling; Chief sleeping. To let such a chance fly by would be a sin. We properly proved our sinlessness.

Then Sat went back to the washing, I worked out one page from ULYSSES.

Roozahna returned home too wound up and utterly unruly. Sahtik had to yell at her. No pencil game.

Yoga. Supper. Water.

In the queue to a water-spring I met a pair of neighbors to our Site. They informed me that even the ice had been already scooped out of the big water container there. Whatever is is right.

It's half past nine pm, Chief's sleeping home. The rest of the family went over to the Underground. No shooting in Krkjan. That's good.

And good let this night be for all and everybody.

December 16

In the morning Carina visited us bringing her kids with her. We had a session of paper dove making in our one-but-spacious room.

From 10 am till noon, I attended the Chat Club of Frozen Hearts. No one cared to come and see a gossip like me. I just sat tight in the cold Renderers' reading THE BHAGAVAT-GITA.

After lunch, Sahtik, the kids, and me ventured out for a walk in the Upper Park.

One page from ULYSSES.

Roozahna, Sahtik, and I brought home eight pails of non-drinking water from a newly discovered (so not yet exhausted) underground reservoir nearby the Theater. Then the mother-in-law took me out to introduce one more water-spring in the neighborhood. When following her I heard booms of rather distant explosions—some two or more miles out of the town.

Hopefully, I managed to keep my outward looks composed and my pace steady following my mother-in-law. Yet, inwardly those faraway bangs just shattered my heart. It was a fit of flat panic. Some scared and miserable thing shrieked and sobbed within me in blind unbearable dread.

(…I wonder if there is any psychological formula to reflect ratio between the danger's remoteness and the intensity of fright…)

Yoga. Supper.

Sahtik and Roozahna went to the Underground but returned at once. They saw rats in the beds. The mother-in-law is also here, preparing to bake breads. Earlier in the day, Valyo brought a sack of flour.

I am going out after water. So, good night to each and all.

December 17

Till noon I was at Jaw-Jaw Club (the former Editorial House). THE BHAGAVATA readings. A chat with Rita, the Secretary.

Then I went downhill to the Orliana's where Sahtik and the kids were on a visit. It took us one hour and a half to come back home. The weather was just lovely. Kirov Street densely peopled.

One page from ULYSSES after lunch.

Near six pm a shell explosion scared Sahtik, she was about to rush to the Underground. I talked her into staying. We began to mold candles together then played the usual pencil game when using the letters from one word you compose as many other words as possible. The player who produced more words in five minutes wins.

No time for my yoga.

We had supper together.

As for the water-bringing, I decided to introduce certain amendments to my mode of life. From tonight on I'll try to establish and follow the habit of going after water at 3 am. The project implementation can be secured by the use of our alarm clock.

It's 9 pm. The mother-in-law has gone home. Ahshaut is sleeping. Roozahna stubbornly insists on taking her over to the Underground. I've tried to persuade them to stay home.

Sahtik is not sure what to do. I don't wait for her final decision and just go to bed.

Wishes of the most good night to all.

December 18

At three in the morning there was a queue (still or, perhaps, already) by the Three Taps. I went to another water spring. There also was a queue but shorter – about ten to fifteen men. I brought home four pails.

After lunch I whetted our kitchen knives with the hand-mill borrowed from Sashic. Sahtik was helping me.

Reading from Montaigne proved that there is nothing new under the moon of this loony world. Here's a literal quotation:

"The war was raging around. Going to bed at night we didn't know if we were to wake up alive next morning."

The passage was written four and a half centuries ago and up till now hasn't lost a single grain of its actual applicability.

Supper.

We had no pencil game to punish Roozahna for her unruliness. I played backgammon with Sahtik.

It's half past eight pm. The kids are sent to their cots.

Good night to babes and adults alike.

December 19

'The moon is so big,' said Sahtik yesterday night standing against the dull-glassed panes in our immensely wide communicational window. Her hint was more than clear: when a woman looks up don't let her down. I was in the bed already–ready and willing.

She went out into the kitchen-aka-hall. And listening to the sounds of the preliminary splashing I was appalled at the extravagance with which she used the water.

(…I do have to get up at the unnatural hour of 3 in the morning to fetch this bloody water, do I?…)

However, the overwhelming readiness quenched the shallow thoughts of the kind… The alarm clock had been alerted but I knew all too well that Sahtik would defuse it. Did she know that I knew it? During the night I awoke repeatedly because of the frustrating thought: what if she had forgotten to stop the shrill sound of the alarm clock?.

Meanwhile, my dreams were peopled with

…brave soldiers in brand new uniform with brightly shining green (sic!) boots and then all images and views coalesced into one miraculous vision of an electric bulb issuing its homely light…

I got up at six in the morning. My new mode of life was over. The alarm clock never sounded that night.

From nine till two pm, I was at our Site doing hard labor on improving the layout.

At home after a late lunch, I started assembling a handcart. Actually, it was just re-adjusting of a discarded pram. I had found it in the realm of dust, behind the rugs and blankets screening off the habitable part in the Underground compartment.

Putting a 40-liter milk-flask on it I'd be able to bring water from far off water-heads. I hope the queues over there are not so endless.

Mila, a dear friend of Sahtik's, came on a visit. Her husband, Samvel, had enlisted a phedayee group. The day before he returned home after a night in Krkjan with a bullet slash in his wedding trousers. 'And he never brings home a pennyworth of looting' said Mila with the inseparable mixture of pride and sorrow in her voice.

Earlier, in one of the water-queues I heard a story about some phedayee who, after a lucky combat operation, sent home to his father ten sheep, a shotgun and a couple of tooth gold-cases. Loving son is a lump of pride for any father.

(…was that father's pride really unalloyed? If so he's even luckier than his son…)

It's ten past nine p.m. All of my family went to the Underground while I was out after the water. The shakedown test of the handcart proved it's OK.

On finishing this entry, I'll visit them in the Underground and then – to bed.

Therefore, good night to all and everything.

December 20

Tonight well over seventy shells and missiles hit the town, so the local radio. This day saw the final breakdown of the inner telephone service in the town and Krkjan was captured once again by the phedayees.

In the morning I took the whetting hand-mill back to the Carina's. From there I walked to the new headquarters of the gas pipeline constructing firm and talked to Samvel, the head of the firm, asking to lend me nine slabs of reinforced concrete.

As a guarantee for the transaction, I offered a paid-up and endorsed bill from the local manufacturing firm, SMU-12, for 18 such slabs that I had bought but didn't manage to ship over to our Site when the war broke out. As long as I have paid the money, then in a brighter future they'll have to supply the goods. Right now no enterprise operates down here. Neither does Samvel's organization. The slabs are idly stockpiled at his firm grounds. Of course, lending me those nine slabs he wins nothing. Yet, nothing is lost, ain't it? Just a deal of good will on his part, backed up with the bill I'll leave with him.

The answer was in the negative. (Though he did wear that combat fatigue from my dream awhile ago.)

I went uphill and from ten am till noon stayed at the Club of Frozen Hearts. Ahlya the Typist disclosed her major wish—to escape from down here by a helicopter. Rita the Secretary talked botany. 'Even trees in the woods have nationality,' shared she melancholically, 'as for those growing on the borderlines betwixt states, they are mere half-castes.'

(…why, privately, I also have certain daydreams of a quiet place in some peaceful country for the entire family but:

Krishna doesn't recommend anyone to care too much of one's family;

three years ago, in a private talk, I promised to stay in Karabakh till my death; and

I'd rather die of a bullet than in the wake of some ecological disaster…)

At lunch the mother-in-law (Voice of the People and Transmitter of the Local Radio New) voiced the public shock caused by the murder of a dentist last night.

(…silly indeed – to perish by hand of a gold-seeking criminal compatriot at the time of struggle for national liberation....)

One page from ULYSSES.

The mother-in-law baked lavash breads and I was sent with a share of them to the Carina's. (Orliana had received a supply from her mother-in-law.)

Soon after my return, Anichka rushed in with the invitation from the landlord and landlady to come to their balcony and marvel the view of the great fire in Krkjan. All hurried out and upstairs.

A few minutes later Roozahna ran back dancing and chanting hilariously, 'Turk's house is on fire!'

(…poor imp, she thinks houses have nationality…)

Yoga. Supper.

All have gone over to the Underground. I am reading from Montaigne by the candlelight.

A long and winding road to a far-off water-spring is still ahead.

So long, all and everything, and—in the way of incantation—Good night.

December 21

Yester night in the middle of that long and winding road of water-bringing I viewed a splendid wartime fireworks. Against the background of the full moon floating in the starry skies—three languid fireballs of yellowish-tailed Alazans shimmered in their flight among the red-lit sequences of tracing bullets that dashed in hurried stitches across the missiles' trajectory in vain tries to make them burst while in the air.

There also was some shelling in the night. Though I can't tell how much of it.

Yesterday in my talk with Samvel, the head of the pipeline construction firm, he was looking at me from the eyes of Valyo, a bricklayer from that same firm. While marshaling my arguments, I couldn't get rid of the thought that he had not only the same color but—most oddly—the very same expression in his optics.

Today a nineteen-year-old girl was killed by a missile hitting their flat; her mother and a younger sister got heavily wounded.

(…who's in luck?…)

In the morning I spent about two hours in the empty Club.

After lunch one page from ULYSSES. Then, on Roozahna's request, I taught her playing "The Sea Battle".

After today's yoga I had a rare and delightful feeling of well oiled joints and cartilages in my lower extremities.

Supper.

Sahtik and the kids went over to the Underground. The mother-in-law stayed to bake bread.

I have already brought water from the nearby Three Taps. No one there. Every fifteen-twenty minutes, missiles are coming in twos or threes to hit the town with crashing bangs. It is cloudy today, no fanciful views.

The mother-in-law finished baking and I accompanied her to the Underground's entrance.

At home I heated half a bucket of water and washed up all the parts of mine within my reach.

It's high time (11 pm) to say – Good night.

December 22

And even in dreams

…missile attacks went on though with much gaudier rainbow colors until an Azeri paratrooper entered the room and put a razor against my beard…

Deafening silence and feeling that something was fatally wrong awakened me.

At the Club only Veelen, a reporter, dropped in. We had a small talk about the local parliament.

I finished reading of THE BHAGAVAT-GITA. The real thing.

At home Ahshaut was sleeping, the mother-in-law and Roozahna gone to some close relatives in the downhill town. Sahtik was on top of the situation and really perfect in performing. I, for my part, rather dutiful than ravished.

Then I took THE BHAGAVAT-GITA back to Lydia and exemplary paid for it by playing along with her twenty minutes' monologue on the local politics. After unfurling her opinions as to who was guilty of bringing the current situation down here and whose faults and mistakes still hamper the proper handling of it, she produced and read to me her letter to the three Presidents—Armenian, Azeri, and Russian—asking why they're doing nothing about it.

(…thanks to yoga, I haven't got a crick in the neck after half an hour of nodding along sympathetically…)

One page from ULYSSES. Yoga. The pencil game (I was humiliatingly defeated). Supper.

Now all are safely over in the Underground. The water-walk is ahead.

It might seem a dull routine but these water-walks are virtually filled to the brim by confluent stream of fantasies. For instance, the day before yesterday while taking water, in proud solitude, from a spring almost beyond the town I was shot dead by a sharp-shooter from the nearby hill and collapsed into the mud on the brooklet bank mingling my blood with its running waters. And quite often in the course of fantasies at my water-walks, I bury one or another member of my family before fleeing with all of them alive to a secure place in some peaceful state.

By THE BHAGAVAT-GITA's caste classification, Samvel, the head of that firm, is a Kshatri (knight). What right did he have to look at me from a Sudra's (Valyo's) eyes?

Anyway, I wish good night to all the members of any caste.

December 23

The din in the second half of the night grew rather fretting. And those two close explosions at breakfast time were not a fair play at all. However, the day was calm.

At the Club (in the Renderers') Arcadic made an invective speech before the audience of two (Rita and me) in detail disparaging the dirty tricks his rival referred to during the elections. Then Ahlya came in and took the floor to share her hopes to escape from here by a chopper. The audience shrunk to one (me). She also departed.