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?