Сергей Огольцов - The Ficuses in the Open

Suddenly, the all-out gasp of cheer echoed throughout the Underground. The electricity appeared! Thanks be to Edison and his bulbs!.

I was doing yoga at home when Sahtik and Ahshaut came back. He inquenchably disagrees to keep to the Underground longer than it can't be helped…

Earlier in the day, the Twin Bakeries offered their dough for sale (their electrical ovens are useless during blackouts). My mother-in-law didn't miss out on the opportunity.

In the evening she started bread baking but felt all in and repaired to the Underground to keep Roozahna's company. Sahtik continued the baking.

It's half-past-ten pm, I'm alone. The relative calmness outside couldn't sway Sahtik to staying home.

December 17

Just a model day. At the work place, I knocked off two renderings and had a talk with my roommates.

Lenic was keen on my background and professional preferences. Then even Wagrum had for a while to keep his volatility in check and perch up surprised by a proposed short discussion of a Hellenistic subject.

I wouldn't call Wagrum a dream gossip—rejecting any novel thought, too ready to substitute chords for brains, chanting the corny parrot-cries from the inbred set of ideas they had formatted his mind with (as well as anybody else's among us for that matter). True, the guy is fairly young, yet his hustle and bustle won't let him grow wiser when older.

At home, I basked in as happy family life as any wise man could reasonably expect. The life of down-to-earth problems when finishing the repair of the favorite tumble-toy of your kids you are sent to the Underground where the shelter door needs a finer adjustment.

Today I plan to do my yoga about six pm. And then I'll have a supper and a shot of vodka and go to bed at once because I have to get up at 2 am and bring water for the washing scheduled by Sahtik for tomorrow… Right now, the waterqueue at the Three Taps is way too long, and the needed lots of water can't be fetched at one go.

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…