The Ficuses in the Open - страница 4
All the day long the crowd, queuing at the Twin Bakeries, buzzed and shrieked just opposite the three windows of our one-but-spacious-room flat.
Already at dusk, Valyo tapped from the sidewalk onto the pane in our communicational window to hand in the jar which I left at the Milk Factory. Full of milk now.
It's five past eight pm and quiet so far.
December 7.
At 3 am the whopping detonations in the lower parts of the town frightened Roozahna out of her bed and into a fit of uncontrollable tremor. Sahtik could hardly talk her into keeping calm. Before six in the morning two more Alazan
volleys ripped up the night. Ahshaut slept soundly through everything.
At dawn roaring monsters get back to their lairs replaced by screaming humans as those in the two noisy crowds scrambling at the Twin Bakeries just opposite the three inadmissibly large windows of our one-but-spacious-room flat. All day long the fluctuations in their squash-and-shout made kinda sea roll background to our domestic affairs.
Carina and Orliana, Valyo's wife, called in to leave their children at our place. Sahtik joined her two sisters and they went out to pay the last tribute to the demised first headmistress of them all (at the respective intervals, of course). The old lady lived next door to their mother's and died of natural causes.
I visited the Building Site of our future house to collect a bagful of apples and an armful of tree roots chopped off at digging foundation trenches before I started laying walls. Since August, they got dry enough for the tomorrow's barbecue.
On my way there I saw a pair of Soviet Army armor-vehicles bowling busily along, each one decked with a squad of 5 to 7 soldiers. The braves had black warpaint on their mugs, the combat smear applied in quantities reflecting their personal preferences—from a finger-thick mud masks over the whole visage up to a soft touch or two at the cheekbones. Tastes differ. Yet, no one escaped the pre-mission swarzenneggerization, not even their captain in a civilian knitted hat. On they rolled past the gazing sidewalks, obviously wallowing in the public attention.
If some complete stranger to here and now saw us dawdling along or going about our daily chores amid the ever-present din of assault rifles in Krkjan he'd take us for a town of deaf. Yet, don't be fooled by our out-of-place looks, Mr. Stranger, we do hear the enraged rounds and each of us has some kind of their inner funny feeling…
By 9 pm it turned completely quiet. Some creepy quietness.
May it be, I'm too strict to Roozahna?
December 8
Yesterday at 11 pm, Sahtik had to bring Ahshaut back home: he couldn't sleep in the Shelter because of another babe crying in the same room. She left him with me and went back to Roozahna who gets funky when in a strange crowd alone.
From midnight till one am, I again was bringing water from the Three Taps: Sahtik's capital washing is still in progress.
My legs got used to navigating on their own over the serrations in the sidewalk terrain, letting me enjoy the quietude of the night. No shooting at all. How sweet the peace is!
(…as sweet as a piss after six cans of bitter beer…)
At dawn two mighty explosions in Armenavan – another uphill neighborhood next to Krkjan. The bangs did not disturb Ahshaut, he slept on bravely… Later in the morning, the two of us had a walk to the Bazaar to buy some herbs for the today's feast – synchronized celebration of Roozahna's (almost a week after the proper date) and Ahshaut's (upcoming in a fortnight) birthdays.
The usual feasting team of sisters-with-husbands-with-children turned up for the event as well as our landlord and lady, Armo and Nasic, respectively, and three their children.
The mother-in-law was not present, attending the funeral of the late neighbor – headmistress of all of her three daughters.
Now, it's half-past-eleven. Sahtik and Roozahna have gone to the Shelter. Ahshaut is left to sleep home tonight.
Silence outdoors.
December 9
The night was shattered by bombardments: seven volleys of six to ten Alazan