Alkho

— But I was going up to the mountains, I had work there too, eh…
— You were going to the mountains? Gikor pretended to be at a loss. “Then what shall we do?” He remained at a loss, stood there, then suddenly brightened as though he had found the answer. “Take mine, go with mine. You’re taking him for firewood, aren’t you? He’s strong, load him as much as you like. But he does shy, I’m afraid,” Gikor added doubtfully.
— He’s seven or eight years old. Why should he shy? He’s not a foal born yesterday, Andro laughed in irritation.
— There’s some stallion left in him; it goes to his head now and then. I gelded him late, the fox Gikor explained. And because he explained it so seriously, Andro became seriously interested too:
— Does it make a difference?
— They say not, but it did with mine. The other day the old woman was coming down from the mountains, he shied and smashed everything up.
— The saddle’s in the barn porch, Andro said, offended. “He’s down in the gorge, by the slabs. Don’t load him too much, Gikor, I know your idea of a pood very well.”
Gikor went towards the barn door slowly and lightly, like an old man. And like a true horse owner he cursed Andro: “Spineless son of a bitch, if you know my pood so well, why do you give him to me? Just look at his saddle; what do you know about horses!”
But Andro thought he had offended the old man, and because the latter came out of the barn porch looking somewhat indignant, he wanted to soften his unseemly words:
— I’m joking, man, joking. Gikor! Andro laughed. “When you go into the gorge, don’t be frightened: there’s a white buffalo in the water.”
— No, no, Gikor disbelieved him eagerly. “Have you seen it?”
— I went down to move him…
— You’re young, you’ll see things. He disliked the position of his beehives, disliked his being home on a summer day; the pears were spoiling, and at that he became thoroughly angry. “Man!… You look at buffaloes while your pears slip out of your hands.” And from beneath the pear tree, his neck tilted with mockery and entreaty, he spoke rapidly as he had when he was chairman: “Soak a barrel today, the water channel’s right there; tomorrow let there be not one of these pears left on it. May your house prosper, a thousand is slipping through your hands and you’re sleeping in broad daylight.”
When he was at the edge of the gorge, Andro called:
— Uncle Gikor!… Are you going by the mountains?
— We’ll see.
— If you go by the mountains, tell Ashkhen he’ll come in the next day or two for wood, for wood.
— Andranik…
— What is it, Mother?
— Who are you giving the horse to?
— Gikor.
— What’s he doing?
— “Ask her, what business is it of yours?”
— Eh, dear?
— Taking him to Qazakh.
— Isn’t the poor beast to be pitied?
— Will he break his back?
— Yes, my darling.
In the gorge, among the stones, the river murmured; the girls’ mother, her head on her knees, was either dozing or grieving over the waters and her white feet. One girl sulked, her thin back curved, arms around her knees; the other pushed grass into her ear and laughed hoarsely and muffled, while her sister, lips puffed out, twisted in her seat. The enormous horsefly made its gentle circuits in the sunshine, while Alkho stood melancholy. And all of it was extinguished and pointless, like water at an idle mill, a tree rotting on its feet, sunshine with no field spread beneath it. The stream should have been divided among garden beds; the girls’ mother sat in a proper wool-washer’s posture; the girls should have been gathering raspberries, wild pears, grass, carrying water to a mower; the giant should have stood beside a haystack handing hay to the stacker, or else… Gikor stopped, looked and looked, then went towards Alkho, smiling and shaking his head.
— You’re dying of idleness, Gikor told Alkho. “Do you remember the road to Qazakh?”
Alkho, half asleep, accepted the saddle, took the crupper beneath his tail, put on the breastplate, girths and bridle, took the bit into his mouth a little resentfully, unfeelingly shouldered the rider and swayed like an old horse through the stones. A stone slipped beneath his foot on the sand, and Alkho struck his belly against the ground.
— Hup… And there the bit tore the old calluses, the supple switch found an unscarred place beneath his belly, and Alkho recognised the fox Gikor. This was a load pressing his flanks, a constriction of his lungs, and the false coaxing of a sweet tongue.
Alkho sighed and wanted to amble, but the bit battered his mouth, demanding tautness and a slow pace. “Remember?…” The bit was right to demand it, for there the steep slope suddenly rose: had he come at an amble, his forelegs would have folded, his hindlegs slipped from beneath him, and his lips been crushed between his teeth and the dry ground.
But Gikor, turning in the saddle, nevertheless told the girls:
— You’re grown girls, the raspberries are rotting; raspberries are nothing, they’re a pleasure. Go and pick them, you’ll have jam in winter. Your father will be pleased, Gikor added.
The giant sighed and turned his navel to the sun, while the girls laughed warmly and muffled.
— Sister, I’m speaking to you, Gikor pointed his chin at the older woman.
The girls’ mother looked over her knees with summer’s lazy melancholy, while the giant settled himself. The giant settled himself, and then Gikor understood that no… that no, he was too good for that, not for stacking hay.
— Are these shameless women? Gikor muttered, looked, understood nothing, told himself the world had grown corrupt and complicated, and pressed his heels into Alkho.
They climbed the steep slope and reached the road; the path to Andro’s house branched from it. Alkho naively wanted to deceive the fox Gikor, wanted to show that this was an ordinary day, that he had climbed the slope from the gorge and was now going along road and path to his own door. Alkho let his pace slacken, then suddenly turned towards the path, but there the other rein tightened, turned his head, and the stirrups hardened against the old scars.
— Look at the fox, the fox! Gikor said, and took him along the village road.
The sharp-muzzled red bitch darted out of the beans. Alkho kicked wearily and disgustedly and understood that this was the road, the hot endlessness of the oppressive load and the constriction in his lungs, and flung out his kick with disgust and weariness. He felt his hoof go into the dog and come out.
— Can’t you take your horse along the road to your own house? Manager Ruben turned blue on his balcony.
— This is the road to my house; keep your bitch tied up.
— Rides someone else’s horse and kills someone else’s dog.
— Run to the village council, Gikor told Ruben, but scorched Alkho’s belly with the switch.
The sharp-muzzled bitch was eternally vicious; she had to rush at him, and it was understandable that after the kick her breath would stop for a minute and after her yelp people would talk. But Alkho had not expected that switching at all. That was why the human world seemed endlessly incomprehensible to him. For twenty years now he had carried people and their load, for twenty years thought about them beneath their hundredweights, yet understood nothing, not because he was a horse but because they were inconsistent.
He took him to the smithy door. The sharp smell of burning iron was familiar to Alkho together with the strong, gentle farrier of the old days, who now did not come out to meet him and stroke the horse’s eyes. A young man wearing a coal-stained apron, cigarette in his mouth, approached, bent the leg, clack, clack, and went back into the smithy. On roads opened by these people, their horseshoe endures more or less; Alkho was grateful for shoeing, the roads were hard, but the nail had gone crooked, entered the nerves, and on the other foot the shoe itself pinched. Alkho was deeply hurt.
— Man, I think you’ve driven it crooked, Gikor said, listening to the smithy’s sounds.
— It’s hot, hot! they said from inside and laughed. “A labour-day credit, a labour-day! What you pay isn’t gold.”
Alkho went on limping on both legs and cautiously, like a sick creature; his nerves hurt.
— All right, don’t die, the rider said. “Walk and it’ll ease.”
From pain Alkho forgot who the rider was, the switch, the unpleasant red dog, and that this was a road, he was saddled and must go. Alkho stopped, but the reins shook his head and the switch curled round his belly again. “Hup!” And Alkho understood again that this rider, so heartless, so nervous and so slovenly, was the fox Gikor. “Where will he take me?”
The barred fence opened before them and closed behind them; a hen with her chicks crossed the path—“where will he take me?”—and Alkho heard a chain jingle and saw the black dog losing its hair. It was a mangy dog, irritable from mange, always tied up, running beneath the wire from barn door to house door, house door to barn door, barn door to house door, house door… It stopped and, scattering spit, barked, barked, barked… And there Alkho understood fully that he had fallen into the fox Gikor’s hands, remembered the hot road, the gadflies, the disgusting water, the short, sinewy, very treacherous snake that had crawled and hidden round him for an hour until for a moment it made him forget its presence and struck, bit. His leg was pierced sharply, then it was as though nothing had happened, but later the leg grew warm and numb, his heart felt sweetly sick, and his head too grew warm and numb. And they loaded and loaded him, half deaf in stupor. He wanted nothing: in the warm sweetness memories and desires melted, and that was pleasant; the gadflies were gone, the load was gone, Gikor was gone, and it would be good if they did not exist at all, if the snake bit him in some lost field and he quietly lived his death. But they understood him.
— A snake has bitten him, Gikor. Your horse wants to die.
— Will he die? If he dies, we’ll be disgraced before Andro.
— No, they said. “Make him sweat, don’t let him stop.”
With a dry, agile, braided whip they restored him to the tenderness of his belly, the load, the road. To mountain grass and the cold spring. To the heaviness of beginning and the lightness of finishing. To the disgust of going to the station and the joy of returning. To the shudder of shoeing and the naive pride of being shod. To longing for the mare and fear of the stallion. To the mare’s almighty desire and the stallion’s devilish fury. To the sickness of the mare and indifference to load, water, going to the station, Gikor and the pinching shoe. They made him reclaim his knotted bones and his nights and days and roads that have no end, no end, begin broad, narrow, grow thin, curve and widen again, have no end. The self-satisfied god called the father of the father of the father of Alkho’s father, said: “Here, Alkho’s ancestor, I created you shapely and wise, spread the green meadow for you, invented the wolf so that you would run and remain shapely, and man to guard you. Here, horse, how many years of life do you want?” And Alkho’s grandfather’s grandfather thought, and because god considered him intelligent, thought again and answered thoughtfully: “Twenty years of life, Lord.” And god liked his answer and gave him twenty years of life. But what for, Grandfather, twenty years, what did you need twenty years for, what do I need them for…
— Why is this horse sad, Gikor?
— You tell me where the sacks are, old woman. Where are the sacks?
— You’re going to Qazakh with a sick horse, Gikor.
— He won’t die, may you be well.
— This horse has been pricked by a shoeing nail, Gikor.
— Oh… Well, if you understand that much, bring the pincers from the barn porch.
Through the hole left by the removed nail, pain flowed from the nerves slowly like honey, and the tiny glimmering pain was pleasant, the load growing heavier pood by pood, the stirrup’s touch, the rein’s hardness, the mangy dog’s wet barking.
The road was the one leading to the mountains… the cool breeze whistling in his ears and endlessly delicious grass… And Alkho went briskly. The climb was a matter of an hour, a single breath… then endlessly delicious grass.
— You think so? Gikor said, turned him off the road and took him along the orchard path. “Householder!” he called.
The watchman, in his shirt, was mowing grass beneath the trees. He came to meet them, tied up the dog; leading the horse, Gikor went on, they talked, the watchman seemed displeased, but the load grew heavier with pears and apples.
— Haven’t you any cucumbers?… All right, if it’s difficult, no need… What shall I bring you from Qazakh?
The watchman wanted nothing from Qazakh, while the cucumbers were heavier than pears and apples.
— Hup, you abandoned carcass, haven’t you seen a load before?… A general’s horse… You’re Andro’s horse, after all.
He led him back along the path to the road, took him on until the watchdog’s barking could no longer be heard, then unexpectedly pulled the right rein. Alkho turned: yes, of course, on the right was the ripe, hot field. The stirrups demanded he go, the voice quietly ordered him to go, but there was a field ahead. Alkho backed away, and stirrups, voice and switch together drove them into the field, took them across it. People are strange, Alkho thought: at one time a thing is forbidden, at another time that same thing is allowed. Alone he does not enter a field, because the big-moustached field guard shouts, they take him away and shut him in a muddy barn for days; he does not want to be shut in a muddy barn, and now they beat him for that. Go in, they beat you; don’t go in, they beat you. But when Gikor, silently pressing with his stirrups, took him over the channel, entered the forest and skirted the mown clearing, Alkho understood he was being taken stealing. They came out of the forest: potato plantings. He will steal potatoes, Alkho decided, and stopped.
— Well done, Andro! the fox Gikor marvelled. “Graze,” Gikor flattered softly. “You’ll have the grazing too.”
There was nothing to graze, nor was the load light; Alkho stood and waited. The trees did not sway, the stems did not move, the flowers had finished blooming; everything in the sun awaited its silent waiting, like the horse, without rancour, calm, in an indefinite sadness. Then among them, beneath the sun, someone moved, and all saw it, and Alkho. The horse waited with ears pricked to see what would happen. At the very top of the plantings crouched the hut like a dog, and stood the watchman with the shovel beneath his chin. Then the hut remained motionless, while the watchman, holding the shovel midway, ran softly, softly into the forest. Gikor, close to the ground, was digging potatoes. Alkho looked at the forest, looked at Gikor, waited to see what else would happen.
— Well, have you seen someone? Gikor turned, close to the ground. “Can’t you keep still?”
Then, right in the corner of Alkho’s eye, the watchman detached himself from a tree, holding the shovel midway. Alkho knew him, had carried the potatoes earned on his labour-days to his house. He was a quiet little old man who did not hit, did not speak, let him go his own road at his own pace. Alkho announced his pleasure at seeing him, and the man put a finger to his mouth—shh—and stood still. Then Gikor, close to the earth, dug up potatoes, the fox dug out a mouse hole, while the little old man and Alkho watched uncomprehendingly the back that was the only moving thing in that silent world, which had grown numb and did not feel the horse’s and old man’s eyes. He left the ground when the sack was full to the brim; he stood, straightened his back, and then saw the old man. “Ha, ha-ha-ha-ha!” And his laughter was very like a horse’s laughter.
— What are you doing? the old man asked.
— Ha-ha-ha-ha, I thought I’d see if he noticed…
— What would my job be called if I didn’t notice?
— It’s August, I thought Adam would be cutting grass in the clearings. Your hay ran out early this winter, didn’t it?
— It wasn’t my fault; go and tell Sanasar.
— Sanasar’s job is to refuse permission, yours to mow.
— I haven’t the tongue to wrangle with a dog.
— That’s true too. It would have been difficult alone, Gikor said. “Help me throw it onto him.”
— Isn’t the poor beast to be pitied?
— He’s a horse, after all, what else do you call work?
— Going? the old man looked sadly after them. “You could have stayed, we’d have talked a little.”
— I’m going to Qazakh tonight; let me reach the mountains by daylight. What shall I bring you from Qazakh?
— Your safe return.
Then the mountains breathed lightness and coolness. The mountain wind whispered in his ears, tickled his groin, entered beneath load and saddle, dried the sweat, played in his nostrils and rippled his sun-scorched mane. In the sunset, along the mountains’ shoulder lines, the orange herds shed flames; the breeze played with their neighing, and they seemed now very near, now far, far away. Alkho neighed with his head high to announce that he was there, had not forgotten them or their free gallop, nor his own gallop with them, and that the load had nothing to do with him, it was Gikor’s load… Alkho went fast to be rid of the load sooner, and then that Gikor smirked—“Well done!”—led him below a rock and found himself a place among the bundles. “Now go…”
On the little distant plateau the shepherds’ encampment smoked. The road wound round the hills several times, losing the encampment from sight, rose and fell, rose and fell, and when it rose again the camp was before them. The shepherd fires swayed silently and coldly, the flocks were penned, the dogs had found their places round them, the reclining cows suffered from fullness. In the herd a young foal neighed without cause or care, and hoarse, knotted Alkho wanted to announce his entry into the wet mountains of wandering mists, but Gikor jerked the rein, and the neigh remained unfinished.
— Andro? Someone was smoking in the dark.
— Mesrop?
— Gikor, is it you? That was Andro’s horse’s voice.
— It’s Alkho, yes.
— What a load you’ve put on him!
On the path stood Andro’s Ashkhen, hands beneath her apron, head tilted. Meek, mute, obedient…
— Uncle Gikor?… she said.
— Hello, Ashkhen.
— Is that our horse?
— Yes, it’s Alkho, Ashkhen.
— Uncle Gikor, Andro was supposed to come; why didn’t he?
— He said he’d come in the next day or two, Ashkhen.
— This butter’s spoiling here, Uncle Gikor; why didn’t he come today?
— Well, he’ll know that, Ashkhen. How should I know why he didn’t come?
— Yes, Ashkhen agreed. “What a load you’ve put on him!”
— What have I loaded, Ashkhen? Two kilos of potatoes, a few apples and such.
— Never mind…
Ashkhen merely records it. Ashkhen turned her way towards her tent. Ashkhen is a woman; the man of the house is Andro. Ashkhen does not interfere in men’s affairs. They know their own accounts. Ashkhen is a woman, milks cows, milks sheep, waits for Andro to bring wood… the horse belongs to Andro’s sphere. Andro brings no wood: Ashkhen will wait with her head tilted. The butter is spoiling here while the horse is sent to Qazakh: Ashkhen will endure, she is patient.
— How much is there in a sack of potatoes?
Gikor glanced back slightly: Ashkhen stood with her arms akimbo. Gikor silently scorned her: the barker was a tethered dog.
— You fox!… A whole village wasn’t enough for you, the shop wasn’t enough; now you’re ruining people’s homes too?… Found a mouse hole?… You shameless man, your own horse beneath you, and you work someone else’s?… Speak, don’t crawl into a hole.
— Don’t bother me, Gikor said, undoing the loads. “You’re a woman, keep to being a woman.”
— You ruin my home and I’m not even to open my mouth?
— Oh… Gikor smiled. “Other men’s women are ruining your home.”
Gikor lowered the loads, said something to his old woman, carried the bundles inside, while Ashkhen was still speaking, and then Gikor grew angry:
— Stop spouting such nonsense.
— I think a little about myself and I’ve become a fool?
Then Gikor spoke not to Ashkhen, not to the encampment, not to his old woman, but to himself; yet because the camp was compact, it was the silence of night and the felt walls were thin, he spoke to everyone:
— It’s because of her tongue that poor Andro’s taken a wife down there, and I keep wondering why he has.
His old woman remained with her hand at her mouth, remained, then asked with feigned fear, feigned surprise and the curiosity of old days:
— What wife, Gikor?
— I’m going to Qazakh, have you prepared the loads? Gikor shouted. “Mariam or whatever plague she is. Tie up the hens.”
Then it was silent again; in the darkness the horse herder smoked, the cows groaned, the shepherd fires smouldered, the shepherds remembered Mariam and remembered that there was nothing much to her, or, who knows the world, perhaps there was. And Alkho rested with one leg folded, while in the tent Ashkhen seethed silently.
In the starlight, in the enclosure, the warm mares dreamed; above the rumps pressed against one another rose the stallion’s watchful high head. Hens shrieked in the dark, then hens were tied to Alkho’s saddle, wet bags of matsun hung from Alkho’s saddle. “She’s known for a week I’m going to Qazakh, and still hasn’t strained the matsun.” “It’ll strain by the time you get there, man; why are you raging?” Then wet bags of cheese were hung from Alkho’s saddle; whey ran in streams down his flanks, the hens fouled Alkho and stirred sleepily, then a tarpaulin was spread over hens, matsun, cheese and droppings, and Gikor sat on the tarpaulin.
And in half sleep the night swayed before him, and life was well arranged, because his red wheat awaited him in Qazakh, while the hens scratched and dirtied, the matsun strained, the cheese dripped brine beneath the tarpaulin onto Alkho, but his elderly backside would remain dry.
“I’ve brought mountain cheese for you.” “I’ve brought mountain matsun for you.” “I’ve brought a mountain hen for you.” It is hot in the valley; the valley people think a mountain hen is the mountains’ coolness. Say you have brought them a hen: fifty peck and crowd at their own doors. A mountain hen! Gikor knows these things well. In the village they say he bribed the pension commission with who knows how many thousands of roubles. His old woman thinks so too. Both neighbours and old woman are fools. The commission’s chairman was an old native of Tsaghkut; he took a bag of matsun and said, “I’ve brought Tsaghkut matsun for you; Tsaghkut’s mountains and ours are one.” Stifling heat had settled over the city; in streets, trees, entrances, every crevice of the houses, it had thickened in every detail, and fans stirred the burning air. “Tsaghkut’s mountains and ours are one, up there beneath the clouds. I’ve brought mountain matsun for you.”
The Kechut spring babbled in the starlight; they passed the hill, then the path would fork. A bird shrieked in the nearby bushes, then there were the horse’s steps, then it fluttered and grew quiet. Something crossed the path, perhaps a wolf, perhaps a hare, perhaps the devil. In nineteen… eighteen?… nineteen, in autumn, they found Neso’s Arshak here. Someone had seen Neso’s Arshak’s dark chestnut mare in Kirovakan five years later. Kirovakan was Gharakilisa then. The horse’s new owner had said, “I bought her at Qazakh market.” And when he had asked again, the new owner had said, “Quiet.”
They reached the fork. The path turning left was the mountain path, winding over the whole plateau, linking spring to spring, encampment to encampment, herd to herd, clouded peaks and windless shelters. Alkho slackened his step for a minute and, faster than himself, flung himself left.
— Hup!
The bit tore his mouth, twisted his neck and turned his head, and now Alkho strained like that along the mountain path. The bit set his head back upon his spine; Alkho could not see ahead, but his legs carried him along the mountain path.
— Rrrr… Has the abandoned beast gone mad?
He had pressed his head against the rider, his breath struck towards the sky; Alkho flew beneath the stars, while his legs splayed over the pathless ground. His legs sought a precipice in the earth to smash those knotted bones that endured and endured for no known reason. Then the rider gave him his head for a moment, then pulled only one rein. With his neck bent he turned, turned, turned the horse beneath him, then whipped him and let the reins go. The horse went along the slope of pathless hillsides, being torn by breastplate and girths, swimming out of the packhorse’s hardened skin towards the lungs’ unhampered panting and leaving those coarsened lungs behind as well.
— In old age the fool has become a foal.
Now they stood at the head of the descent, the hard ribs had caught the lungs in their constriction, the hens were settling beneath the tarpaulin, the matsun gave whey and the cheese brine to new swellings and old wounds, and ahead, above the town in the gorge, a haze of light swayed silently. It was old Alkho, the old crupper, the familiar descent and a new pain beneath his tail.
— Well done.
And when a young horse carrying its first load trembled at the town’s entrance, at the end of the bridge, and braced all four legs, “Come,” Alkho said, “don’t be needlessly foolish.”
Beneath their feet the hollow, falsely hard asphalt clattered; cars roared increasingly loud and vanished, sometimes the river hissed, which was familiar. But they did not take the young horse down to the river, across it; they pulled and pushed the youngster towards an abyss. They did not understand that it was an abyss, while the youngster that had bounded over soft, full mountains saw the abyss towards which people pleaded, beat and tricked it into going.
Alkho went near, stood still, made his horseness known and told the horse with its first load:
— It isn’t an abyss, it’s a bridge; they haven’t made it so you can die. Come… It’s hollow but strong, you won’t die. Come… Even if you die, you won’t lose much. Come…
The horse with its first load pressed against him, entered into him and crossed the bridge within him. He himself was indifferent to the emptiness beneath, the cars, the noise, because he was half blind and half deaf, and seven other hides had been tanned upon his own. At the market gate they separated it from Alkho, who was to go downriver, and tied it at the gate alone before its disgust and terror, amid noise and dust, in the sun, until they sold the butter gram by gram and bought printed cotton, bread, sugar, tea, and became bewildered by the price of shoes.
Cars flew past Alkho; a group of cheerful cyclists teased Gikor: “Uncle, pedal and we’ll pedal.” “We’re old, dear boy, you go on.” The cycling group swept past the horse with a rustle; one who had lagged behind joked harmlessly, “Your bicycle isn’t working, Uncle?… Mine isn’t either.” But he passed too; from a cheerful excursion bus they threw bouquets to Alkho and guffawed, then in the sun, on the asphalt, Alkho remained alone.
By the spring Gikor dismounted to eat. “Rest,” he told Alkho. The young group of cyclists was coming back; together they “barked” at Alkho, while the last one flung at Gikor, “Oiling it?”
Their movement on the asphalt was light, light; the ground did not hold them, they glided past. Everything was somehow well oiled, both bicycles and athletes. They were very healthy, their shorts were bursting with tightness; they ought to be mowing grass, yet here they played with toys, and Gikor thought after them, “Let me load ten poods on you, then glide…”
The bread went well with sheep’s cheese, and the spring was not bad, good cold water; tomorrow that wheat would be at home and Gikor would have some four years’ supply. “They say, on account of China, America told the Soviets…” And Gikor told Alkho, “Had a good rest? Let’s go.”
Then the highway grew white, the forest became scrub, even the bushes fell behind, the river slowed, widened and grew muddy, the gorge became a valley, the last spring bubbled silt, warm and tasteless. Branching from the highway, the tawny, deaf, sultry road groaned in the sunshine and went on and on.
If only there were a green valley, with a single spring in it. Andro would not know where that valley was. In that green valley, near the spring, a chestnut horse would graze. No one would know the horse was Alkho, but it would be Alkho. He would wander grazing through the valley, drink water, sweep away a fly or two with his tail, feel melancholy, lie in the sun in the green valley as though dead. The fox would come and squat far off, doubting and not doubting, lick its lips, and then Alkho would snort with his broad nostrils so hard the fox’s gall would burst. Alkho would stand briskly in the green meadow, while at the valley’s end grazed the broad-rumped dark chestnut mare. Alkho would graze in the green valley, lie amid green fragrance, white clouds floating above, be sad and beautiful. Then wolves would appear: full and kind, Alkho would not torment them or himself; he would give himself to them to eat, let them eat.
Towards evening, half an hour from the village, the road came alive. In the reaped fields a quail arced up with a muffled flutter; the red stone in the field became a red dog, barked once and stretched in short leaps towards horse and rider. Their dogs are as vicious as their snakes. Gikor dismounted and coaxed the dog; nothing came of it, it flew at his face. Then Gikor slapped it with the whip and laughed falsely so that its owner, if nearby, would not be offended. The dog fell behind and, when horse and Gikor had become unsuspecting, silently caught the horse’s tail. It held the tail and dragged beside him; the kick missed. The kicks missed. Alkho shied, broke away and ran.
Alkho burst off the road, flung himself this way and that across the reaped fields; there was no escape: the red patch hopped beneath his muzzle. Kept appearing beneath his muzzle. Their wolves are shameless too. Last winter the poor film projectionist spent the night atop a telegraph pole.
Gikor first found the matsun bag, then the tarpaulin. In a little hollow the red dog whined and crawled, but the horse was gone. An old woman going the opposite way, bundle on her back, said she had seen a blue horse entering the village. “Yes, there were hens on it.” But it turned out she had seen it in the morning, or yesterday evening? Gikor came to pick up the trail near the dog; the ground was dry and had held no tracks. The dog crawled closer. It moved its tail, as though dying, imploring pity, but a snake looked from its eyes. They were young lads, twenty-three to twenty-six, coming to these villages to buy wheat; dawn broke. They said, let us rest the horses. They had barely dismounted when Hakob shrieked, “Snake!” Gikor’s foot was still in the stirrup, and their snakes… Gikor dug his heels into the horse and shot away. Then he looked back: the lads had their mouths wide open. Hakob had tricked him, then. They named Gikor the rider, then the wedding fox, and later, during the war, when he managed not to send his son to the front, the women christened him the fox.
Gikor looked into the distance from the little hills: dusk was already there. And all the time it seemed to Gikor that the red dog was crawling beside him in the reaped field. Spinning song like a spinning wheel, then scattering noise, then spinning song again, the white aeroplane came, roared, passed amid rays of light. They say it gets from Yerevan to Moscow in a couple of hours. In nineteen thirty-nine he and Levon had travelled and travelled for six days, and he remembered as though today: in the Kremlin Levon looked at the bell, looked at the shining domes. “A week ago we were in Tsmakut, Gikor,” he said, “now we’re here in Moscow.”
Gikor turned with the aeroplane, then let it out of sight and wanted to go and see whether what swayed in the distance was Alkho or a heap of stones. After the white sky, the dusk upon the fields was true darkness; Gikor did not go. It would turn out to be a heap of stones, while on his way back, in the dark, Gikor might stumble over the red dog.
Gikor decided: he would sell one cow, the sheep and the horse, add it to what was in the savings bank, thirty-five thousand, give it to his son Henrik: you build the house in a year, and in a year I move to you in Kirovakan. “To hell with the village.” Gikor found the cheese bag too. The cheese had broken, broken well. And when he found the bag, again he wanted to go back to see whether what swayed was stones or the horse. And then someone exclaimed and clapped: Simon stood in the reaped field laughing.
— Man!… Man, I thought he’d shied and smashed you up. Were you asleep?
— Has the horse come?
— Long ago.
— To your door?
— Yes, he came and stood at the door. At first we asked whose horse it was, then saw he was standing firm and remembered you had come with that horse once.
— The abandoned beast shied, a dog rushed at him, tore him from my hands… the cheese is broken. Were the hens on him?
— Yes, there were hens.
— I’ve brought mountain hens for you. Your grain, I see, has done well this year.
— Yes, we’re well stocked.
— I’ve brought mountain matsun for you. So you say he came and stood at the door.
— Stood? He rooted himself there.
— He had to, Gikor laughed. “Load ten or twelve poods and let him go: he’ll go to Tsmakut alone, to my door. If Andro loaded him, to Andro’s door.”
During the war, in the first winter, Gikor kept Simon’s five children and wife in the barn, feeding them potatoes, and in the cellar another family, now moved to Yerevan. There, they say, they hold high posts; their daughter, they say, is a doctor, an associate professor. It would be worth having dealings with them sometime.
Above the village, in the darkness, the radio talked and was not switched off. And Gikor saw he was not in Tsmakut and missed Tsmakut. They had put such loudspeakers in Tsmakut too; for a day or two it talked and sang, then the boys, drunk, took aim with stones to see who would hit it first.
Their men know how to mow, but seldom happen to mow. They dress cleanly and stand at the club door. The chairman does not shout at them, because shouting belongs within a household, and this village is too large to be one household.
They have neither the city’s order nor the homely abundance of small villages. Here is what they lack: something like a factory and a beer kiosk; they play backgammon, there are fat men, meaning they never see a scythe, and when rain begins they take the backgammon inside. In Tsmakut rain begins with alarm for hay that will spoil. Gikor decided: no, he would not move to the city. A drunken cobbler with a knife in his hand; at night people sing and curse at your door, and in the morning one hears that in the next street the shop watchman has been slaughtered. There are some ten or fifteen years of life left; Gikor will live in Tsmakut, be buried in Tsmakut’s green cemetery beside Adam, Movses, Grandfather Gikor, Sahak and Lado.
The loudspeaker still sang: one finished, another began.
— You have good, peaceful people, Gikor said.
— What would they do if they weren’t peaceful?
— That’s not what I mean, Gikor stopped. “You play backgammon.”
At the office, club and shop doors were so many people that one could not tell who the important ones would be, who the shepherds and such. They had dressed and stood.
The loudspeaker was nailed to the office cornice. Say they were listening to the song: they were not. Say they were thinking: these were not thinking people, he had tested them well during the war. They boiled potatoes and ate, then lay down and slept. If there were potatoes, they boiled them; if not, they waited for some to appear. Where they would come from was not their business. God is great, God will provide.
— Simon… Gikor said. “Do you really have grain, or are you joking?”
— I’ve got some three tonnes myself.
— Man, who reaped your fields, then?
— The combine.
Gikor walked and walked, then smirked:
— Well done, combine, well done!
A motorcycle passed noisily, a group of important, gloomy lads on its saddle, three or four of them.
— Life has become easier, Gikor said. “Once ten poods of wheat were ten poods of wheat: you couldn’t give them away, nor would you take them if given. But…” Gikor muttered, “our place isn’t a grain-growing place, and your bread is bread… After your bread you can’t eat any other.”
An adolescent girl was coming, serious, urban and smooth, making a man ashamed of the tarpaulin under his arm and the sack as well. The lads’ motorcycle caught up; passing, the one seated at the back leaned from the saddle and slapped the girl’s backside, and the dog’s daughter did not rage, and the dog’s whelp was not ashamed. A village as large as a city: they do not know whose daughter is whose, whose son is whose, and feel no shame before one another.
— Man, Gikor said, “Simon, there are more and more who don’t work. It seems grain ought to grow scarce, yet living gets easier. Aren’t you surprised?”
A second storey had sprouted over Simon’s house, with two rooms. Outside, stairs rose to a balcony whose railing was painted.
— Look, look, look, Gikor muttered.
It was dark by the barn. Alkho stood in the darkness. He was not eating; something like grass lay before him. He seemed sad, seemed to be thinking. Simon’s youngest boy, about thirteen, stood by the barn switching the torch in his hand off and on. The loudspeaker sang and no one switched it off. The motorcycle passed with a clatter. The dog must have bitten Alkho.
— What do you work at? Gikor asked Simon.
— Whatever comes along. A machine operator.
— Tractor driver?
— That sort of thing, tractor driver, combine operator…
— No, no…
Simon shrugged. And the boy by the barn switched the torch on and off.
— Have you got a cow?
— What do I need one for?
— Of course… An unnecessary worry. “What do you know about cows!” What about butter, cheese?
— You find some, after all.
— Yes, if you find some… “Slovenly son of a bitch.”
Why did they waste so many potatoes on you, so that now, tractor driver, combine operator, “what do I need a cow for?” During the war they became cats: “tractor driver, combine operator.” Remember the climb to Tsmakut?…
— Boy, don’t spoil that light, Gikor said.
The child looked indifferently for a moment, then looked elsewhere and again switched the torch on and off.
— Have you beaten him and he’s sulking? Gikor asked.
— I haven’t beaten him, no.
— Looks like he’s sulking.
— No, it’s a habit. Mine turned out that way, each for himself.
— It isn’t good, Gikor said.
— Ah, they don’t ask me for bread.
— They don’t?
— Well, they do, but they know their own affairs.
The dog had bitten Alkho’s neck; he asked for water to be boiled.
His son Henrik was with other women in the city. He knew when it began: when he started smoking, they must already have been there. Yes, of course: eight hours, five hours, he supposedly works, gets on with the bosses, drinks with the bosses, and what does he do with the rest of his time? And where does that habit of dressing so urbanely come from? A tie is a tie, but sometimes people wear one and it does not suit them: simply a herdsman in a tie. There is another woman’s hand here. And when he comes to the village… knows neither shovel nor pitchfork. Comes, says hello, then already begins yawning. Goes to the village centre, comes back: goodbye. Where? I’m off. Where, boy? I’m at work tomorrow. He needs potatoes, cabbage, butter, cheese, fruit, by the tonne and truckload. He does not object, he needs all of it, only, please, he is not the one to take it. “If there’s a vehicle coming, send it.” The serf will send it. Bow his neck to the driver, quarrel with the old woman over missing sacks, strike his head on the cellar door, hee-hee-hee, laugh for the driver: “Boy, wait, the cabbage, the cabbage is still here.” Bring the cabbage sacks too, put them with the pears, butter, cheese and potatoes, and rejoice, rejoice that everything ended so well. Then with every letter and every traveller ask them to send the sacks, return the empty sacks. And they will not listen, know nothing. He is occupied with great work: debauchery.
When the water ought already to have boiled, it turned out he had not asked for water. He asked again, and then Simon said:
— Ah, he’s a horse, after all.
And he understood that his only intimate there was Alkho. And by the right of having supported them during the war he sneered:
— Of course, a horse, not a tractor. And explained so the man would not suspect mockery: “It’s someone else’s horse, Simon; I’m afraid the dog might have been rabid.”
— If there’s iodine, will that do? the tractor driver needled him. A man of fifty-five, and no shame: stained with fuel oil, mingled with the whelps. But he pretended not to notice the mockery:
— Bring it, have it brought… What sort of man was he to have it brought? The child stood beside him, torch in hand, and of course he would go for the iodine himself.
As cotton was pushed into the wound, the horse trembled and sweated, pressing against Gikor. And for a moment Gikor thought he would buy that packhorse from Andro at whatever price Andro wanted, keep him under his own care until the end of both their lives. Then he took off the saddle, wiped him, “How will we get out of that gorge, horse?” rubbed the places of the straps, “I’m old, you’re old,” cursed Andro for being so weak and giving the village’s best packhorse to any heartless dog, wiped between his legs with the tarpaulin, and wanted to lead him to water.
— The child will take him, Simon said. “Macbeth!”
He put the reins into the child’s hands. “Yes, of course, he knows the spring better than we do.” He even laughed, but he did not like that boy’s cold blue eyes. And that torch, the torch that went through the gate switching on and off, went up the brightly lit street switching on and off. They were only just climbing to the stair landing when the motorcycle crackled and fell silent.
— Macbeth, ride and we’ll ride.
They sat down to tea; their red bread had the sun’s strength and scent as before, there was fig jam, the red bread with mountain cheese was very tasty. They promised to give as much as the horse could carry. “Well, he’s an old horse, it’s a long road.” Gikor said he had brought money too and laughed, for some twelve poods. They laughed too: “We’ve received three tonnes, what do we need it for, two thousand seven hundred.” “Everything’s good in Tsmakut, the potatoes, the potatoes!” “I wanted to bring some, knew you’d be missing them, but it’s so far.” “Only Tsmakut’s bread is lacking. The state bread? State bread, well, true, it’s wheat, flour, but I don’t know if it’s wheat, flour.” The old woman was well too, the good soul had grown quite old, wanted to send them butter, but none had been churned, and then the hot road, asphalt… And all the time Gikor’s attention was outside.
— Your boy hasn’t come.
— No, he’s not a fruit that gets lost, Simon reassured him.
— Does he do well at school?
— Yes, well, but his mind’s on the tractor.
— He looked… he looked somehow to me, Gikor laughed.
— You’re right, right!… They set up a telephone in the exam, prompted one another by telephone.
— Well done, well done.
They did not beat Alkho. They took him to water, marvelled that he drank so much, his belly stretching as he drank, asked each other if so much drinking would harm him, decided it would and pulled him back. Then one of them said the horse drank with his mouth closed, lips together. They tested it: so it was, in the torchlight they could clearly see him drinking with his lips firmly pressed. “So sand doesn’t go in with the water.” Then they took him out of the village, onto the level field road…
Accusing each other of ignorance, they snatched the reins from one another. Alkho threw his head up because he did not understand what they wanted. Then they led him below a bank; two left the motorcycle and mounted Alkho with Simon’s boy. Alkho went at a heavy run. Never mind, it was possible. But then the motorcycle crackled and caught up. However much Alkho fled, however much he strained, the motorcycle did not leave him. It roared in his ears, thrust between his legs, came alongside, passed ahead, fell back, and there was no escape, no escape. And then Alkho stopped and waited for a beating. A beating was familiar, not frightening, but they did not beat him.
— All right, he’s tired, let him rest.
Two dismounted, got onto the motorcycle and sent it towards the edge of the dark field. Simon’s boy sat on Alkho, first astride, then with both legs hanging to one side, and so switched the torch on and off.
— Macbeth!… The petrol’s run out, bring some, they called from the other end of the field.
Switching the torch on and off, he took the horse as though riding a bicycle. There they argued over which was better, motorcycle or horse. The motorcycle’s petrol ran out, but the horse went slowly too. Then the motorcycle vanished from sight, they played with the tail, then one pulled the reins and three mounted: “Horse!” He went, but the tail did not come. The tail tore, did not tear, came, did not come. They lit the torch so he could see the road. Then they stopped, lowered his head and tied the lit torch to his forehead. One pulled the reins, another held the motorcycle upright, while three rode a bicycle upon Alkho. The one holding the motorcycle tired. “All right,” he said, “the horse is tired, get off.” They did not object, dismounted, detached the motorcycle from the tail; the tail grew light, they turned off the road into the field and said:
— Now graze.
— Graze, they pulled his head, pressed it to the grass. “Eat grass, eat grass.”
One found a flower, held it against his muzzle:
— It’s a flower, eat.
— He doesn’t understand.
— It’s dark, he can’t see.
They untied the torch from his forehead and held its light on the flower:
— Look, it’s a flower, eat.
— He’s ill.
— Do horses get ill?
— Have you got a fever? they asked Alkho.
One held the reins, the others went behind him.
— Will he kick?
— We’re taking your temperature, don’t kick.
They took out the torch, switched it on, inserted it lit. The tail covered the torchlight; they bent the tail aside, wrapped it round his leg and tied it so. It still interfered, but they did not cut off the tail. They looked from far away and close by; it was all right, convenient.
The moon’s great quiet sphere sifted milky light, the stars flickered; half the stars are stars, half planets like Earth. Perhaps there are people on the planets. The planets’ people now looked at Earth through a powerful telescope, saw Earth, the reaped field, the children, the horse, the torchlight.
When Gikor and Simon came, milky light rippled through the whole space between heaven and earth, all the stars and planets smouldered soundlessly, falling stars silently turned to ash; low over the reaped fields, the crickets sang the song of stars turning to ash, the quiet shadows of children and horse swayed in the milky light. And beneath the horse’s tail the torch emitted a harmless, wise, melancholy and comic light mingled with the crickets’ song. Simon’s boy knelt and, eyes on the horse, slowly stroked the milky mist. The others looked at him, at the horse, with the gleam of dark eyes looked at him, at the horse that stood before them with the fading lustre of a statue.
— We’re making magic.
Gikor did not beat them because they were not from Tsmakut; Simon did not grow angry because they did not run away, so they had not done it maliciously. Gikor quietly took out the torch and put it in his pocket: either he would give it to Andro or, why not, keep it himself. Only that torch would certainly go to Tsmakut, because they would not dare take it back.
They tied three sacks. Their granary was full and they had more in the storehouse; the sacks need not be weighed. But Gikor knew gram for gram that it was not one grain short of twelve poods. Two sacks were made side packs; he tightened the horse’s girths to the end, turned to lift the packs with Simon, and then felt the horse tremble. He felt the trembling and saw that he too was afraid.
— Hup!
Perhaps he should not put on that accursed middle pack, eh?… Close his eyes and not put it on, to hell with it, no one on the face of the earth had ever died of hunger. The horse accepted the load and fell silent. Simply went out. He sighed later, much later, when the pack ties had been secured. That combine, that Simon, stood with his hands in his pockets and understood nothing of horse or load, born into a professor’s home. He did not say two sacks were enough, the road long; or did he not want to seem stingy? The combine had reaped it, why should he be stingy? He grasped the middle pack’s corners, remembered his son’s soft lips and grew troubled:
— Man, it may be too much.
They put on the middle pack; the horse remained unresponsive, they put it directly onto stone. And from that Gikor felt a bad foreboding: the abandoned beast would break all at once. Where?
— Alkho?…
He was passing the rope beneath the belly and wished he would collapse now, upon him. At least there would be someone to drag out the dead body.
— Alkho…
And he heard that secret groan which belongs not to lungs but is the throbbing of bone: it is the groan of an ox yoke, a house’s foundation stone, a beam, which engineers and peasants hear.
— He’s electric, he’ll carry it…
The load and horse were one body. That horse had been born with that rump, that load, that head and that colour. The ropes were reasoned and taut, and with the sinews bound that old bone to those twelve and a half poods. He tied the rein short to the saddle, turned back to fetch his jacket and whip. “Well, goodbye, man… Stay prosperous, man… If I find someone coming, I’ll send butter… Stay prosperous, man; a person is a person through another person…” And heard the horse’s cautious shifting of feet. The horse went out through the gate, turned right, went on, turned left, took the road out of the village. The fences fell behind, the road was silent, the horse struggled against load and life with a muffled groan. Why had they killed Neso’s Arshak? He was a harmless man, going his own road. Why had they killed him? They said he had a little money on him, had sold butter, was coming back from Dilijan.
Might the dog have crawled onto the road? Perhaps it was dead already. “He’s electric, he’ll carry it.” Who’s electric? Why electric? Ah yes, they had inserted the torch… Donkey’s foal! What do you know about bread, what wheat is bread to you? In his mind Gikor passed along the road, the highway, the town, the bridge, reached the climb.
— What shall we do, Alkho?
And understood that he had grown old and that much road would break him too. And felt that the hard saddle had rubbed his groin raw and it burned. And heard the groan of his old legs, remembered the morning’s cheerful bus, heard their merry laughter and cursed:
— You frivolous…
The bus passed quickly from his mind, like laughter brought by the wind, while Andro stood firmly by the cart, donkey-faced.
— Rag, a woman’s slave…
And he remembered Andro’s Ashkhen but did not curse her. It seemed to him Ashkhen had been defending him, Gikor. And he remembered his son’s red lips with disgust. And saw himself on the riverbank, Alkho in the sun, the girls sprouting among the stones, and cursed the giant turning his numb back this way and that. And saw his son Henrik lying on the sand beside the naked giant, and his son Henrik was slender and delicate, and he disliked it intensely, because the giant would seize his white nose and cut off his breath. “Smoke less, donkey’s foal.” And he remembered the smoke in the district committee bureau when they were expelling him from the party and removing him as chairman, remembered that even then, horses beneath him, a car beneath him, so many people under him, he was a packhorse, because even in the bureau his thoughts were with the drying grass, the ripening potatoes, the haystack drawing in water, though neither potatoes nor stack were his. He remembered the granary wheat and the field on the mountain road and understood that he, like that Alkho nailed to that load, was nailed to the Qazakh road; the anxiety of all future rains was within him, and of all future droughts and locusts. And he cursed Vaho the baker, as though he did not bake the bread well and that was why he took this road. But that was unjust, and he forced himself to think he was selling the cows, building a house in the city, raising a fence and sitting beneath a tree with hands in his pockets. He smiled, but could not keep his hands in his pockets; his heart simply burst. And for the first time noticed the ring on his son Henrik’s finger, his son Henrik’s hand at his soft lips. It was his son Henrik’s photograph. “What does it cost?” “I don’t know, they gave it to me.” “Good of them to give it, what would it cost?” “One and a half.” “A thousand five hundred?” “That much.” And his mind again met the climb, and the former chairman wanted to know how far from the bottom of the gorge to the plateau’s edge. He decided three kilometres, from one end of Tsmakut to the other, and protested, because it was not a matter of measurement: it was old bone, load and lack of air.
— Alkho?… Dear Alkho?…
And what had his son Henrik done that time? He had taken a sheep and aragh; his daughter-in-law called the workplace: “Henrik, Father’s come.” And he said, “Put the lamb in marinade.” He had distilled the aragh four times, pure blue aragh it was. They came with colleagues and a secretary with long bare legs, ate, smashed things up, laughed, sang and left. He was outside grilling meat and passing skewer after skewer inside with his daughter-in-law. He came and saw they had eaten, were full, hiccupped. “We didn’t wait for you,” they said. “Barbecue has to be eaten hot,” they said. “Forgive us, Father,” they said. “Drink to us,” they said. He was foolishly happy, wanted to make a speech: he was Gikor, Henrik the boy was his son, in nineteen thirty-nine he had gone to Moscow, and he understood them; on the return journey in the same compartment there had been a Russian or Armenian actress, the Black Sea… But they did not listen. One bald, good-natured fellow suddenly wanted to drink to the secretary with bare legs, so suddenly that he had no time to pour aragh into his own glass, took Gikor’s from his hand… and did not even apologise, did not even notice he was taking it from a person’s hand. And what was his son Henrik doing? Telling his wife to make coffee, bring water, telling her to give a new glass to the secretary with bare legs. His son Henrik rolled his eyes at his wife and was ashamed, the mangy son of a bitch was ashamed of his wife and of his father too. And in the kitchen he saw his daughter-in-law’s neck swell with hidden anger.
And another time: they had crowded into soft cars, taken meat and drink, battered the state cars coming to eat and drink below Tsmakut. They had to drink water from the Blue Spring; in their city one could neither eat nor drink. Look at the shameless ones, the shameless ones… They had eaten and drunk below the village and gone back. They had swollen the postman with leftovers, sent Father a greeting through the postman: “Tell him not to worry about us, we’re well.”
May I be the one who wishes you ill, boy!… But this state too deserves pity, doesn’t it? From all sides, you do not work and you eat. And muddy the blood. There, a mower sharpens his scythe above the spring; women stack hay below it. Is that all right? You’ve come and sat among them, clap and dance. The postman told him: the bald, good-natured fellow had run laughing, his son Henrik chased and caught him, the bare-legged secretary rubbed cheese over the bald man’s head.
As day was breaking they passed through the town. One lone old woman swept the market doors; the night policeman looked yawning at horse and Gikor through half dreams and distant village memories, and their load and progress were like his grandfather’s tale. With great importance a roaming band of town dogs ran from place to place, having lost amid the smells of canned food the alarm of a wolf, the sense of a shepherd’s death, the instinct for earthquake upon that thick asphalt, and the pride of guarding a flock. They stopped and barked a word or two at the packhorse, then went importantly about their business. And they were foolish and ridiculous.
— Dear Alkho?…
— No, I wasn’t saying anything. Since you’ve stopped, let’s straighten your middle pack.
They crossed the bridge; the river splashed coldness and weariness. That year it had swept Yesayi away. They wondered how that thin water had drowned so strong a man. Perhaps he had been tired, too weary to struggle. He had been bringing wine for his son’s wedding from Shulaver in Georgia: crossed Borchalu’s scorched plain, climbed the Archesh mountains, descended to the Debed gorge, wound and wound, climbed the Sanahin mountains, risen and fallen, risen and fallen, risen and risen to Difficult Mountain and nearer home still, in one night.
They crossed the little wooden bridge too; the path smelled of Tsmakut. The mist, the mountains’ rises and falls, Ashkhen’s quarrel, one bear in a great forest and that bear’s fear throughout the forest. In the sanatoriums’ well-kept avenues a little bird chirped. A wave of mountain breeze struck Alkho and Gikor, went to lose itself at the market doors, around the cleaner’s broom. Warmth and softness came from the sanatoriums’ dark windows. They say people are fed five times a day there and put to sleep for ten hours. Gikor wanted to sleep, remembered Tsmakut’s green cemetery, wanted to die and sleep long, long… A fat man in a shirt smoked in an open window. Gikor wanted to sleep, sleep… And when he yawned and his eyes cleared, it was light: daisies whitened in the green hayfield at the forest’s edge, a bumblebee had just alighted on a tall honey-flower and the flower swayed, the horse stood and watched. Coming calmly towards them along the path was a woman with her head high, seeming offended, her jacket hanging from her hand; a little behind, a man was lighting a cigarette. In the blue forest a blackbird chattered, starlings patterned the silence ten ways, and a woodpecker drummed its hollow. The woman was a neighbour’s wife, a daughter-in-law; Gikor wanted to greet her with familiar casualness, but she was entirely a stranger. She stood before Alkho on the path and, showing the tip of her tongue, said to him, “Boo,” gave him way and struck his rump with her jacket. And Gikor saw that his daughter-in-law, Henrik’s wife, was very much a peasant, unbending. In the sanatorium thickets a nightingale began singing; they passed Gikor and the horse. In their minds that peasant with his horse went into the Middle Ages, and in Gikor’s mind they went and became entangled in rare dreams.
They entered the forest: in the half-light, to the woodpecker’s drumming, the stumps swayed, lurked like bears or forest guards, drew near, became stumps and shadows, fell behind. In nineteen twenty-one and nineteen twenty-nine he had decided to move to the city; Kirovakan was not a city then, he had decided to move to Tiflis or Leninakan. What prevented it? To whom, he wondered, did the bare-legged secretary belong, Henrik or the bald man? Gikor smiled: during the war a cow had died in the mountain winter quarters; he shouted at the milkmaid while she laughed. Then she became pregnant and still laughed, threatened laughing in her village of Marts’s dialect: “I’ll have it… I’ll have it and say it’s yours, they’ll throw you out of the party…” Foolishly, jokingly, the worthless woman had almost disgraced him. Now her youngest child, by her husband, was eleven, and she said laughing to Gikor, “If I’d had it then, now he’d be a fine fifteen-year-old man. And they’d have thrown you out of the party sooner; it would have been a great benefit to the people.”
His daughter-in-law, Henrik’s wife, ought precisely to be unbending and a peasant: she had borne three children, there was not a crooked place upon her children, her house was polished, obedient, even if not loved she loved submissively. She was a woman of the home, while loose women were of a particular kind.
From the forest the white clearing ahead sparkled with a thousand eyes. Who needed the clearing’s spring? Cold, hungry, tired…
Yes, sixty years ago, not in a story or by hearsay, exactly fifty-five years ago, the Karans’ daughter-in-law had stood on the path just so, straight, head high, mouth obstinate, shawl hanging from her hand. The child Gikor was on the horse, his father walking ahead; the young wife stood on the path before his father, shawl hanging from her hand, looking stubbornly at him. The horse went on, laid its head on Father’s shoulder, and Father said, “What is it, Zare?” while the young wife looked with closed mouth. True: he sat on the horse, Father walked ahead, the young wife stood before them on the path; Father stopped, the young wife looked with full lips pressed together, the horse caught up, laid its head on Father’s shoulder. “What is it, Zare?” Father stammered. Afterwards? Where were they coming from? It was below the encampment, so they were coming from the village. Father said, “What is it, Zare?” But afterwards? “She became a domestic servant in Tiflis.” No, that was already hearsay. Her husband brought a new wife from Shamut, that is the old woman of the Karans; but what happened that day when Zare stood before them on the path among the flowers?
— Ah, dear Father, ah, Gikor sighed and yawned. His ears opened with a rustle, his gaze cleared: they had come into the clearing, smoke was rising there, someone crouched by the fire; round the spring a great group of young townspeople crowded, guffawed and washed. The tent was pitched at the path’s edge, where the path broke; from there the steep climb rose, which told them nothing. By the tent stood a young man in a sweater, looking through dark glasses at Gikor and the horse, and that load told him nothing. They washed in the spring, laughed, held someone’s head down under the water while a girl ran shrieking around them: “He’s drowned in a handful of water, drowned in a handful of water!” One spent a long time settling a ball beneath his foot; another, watch in hand, counted how many seconds his nose had been in the water. Then the ball flew and knocked the watch from his hand. The radio in the clearing caught and released a song, another song, Arabic, piano, Turkey’s anthem, a speech, a song, silence, the sea’s noise: there, what they wanted… And a person’s heart burst with envy and the world’s ease and joy.
— Uncle, Uncle, Uncle! As though the fire had burned the one crouching by the smoke, he ran towards Gikor, knife in hand. “Slaughter the sheep in a minute, we’ve been waiting for you a whole day.”
For a minute he resembled his son Henrik, and Gikor wanted to say he was coming from far away, had been coming all night, was tired, tired; for sixty years he had wanted one good sleep.
— What is it suited for, Uncle, shall we grill it or boil it? And secretly prompted him: “Say boil it, this isn’t meat for grilling.” And announced loudly: “He’s a countryman, he knows, says it isn’t for grilling.”
— Well then, Gikor said, “you don’t know how to slaughter it; if I hadn’t been here, how would you have done it?”
— We’d have eaten it without slaughtering it, dear Uncle…
Gikor glanced sideways at him:
— Are you from Yerevan or Kirovakan?
— Yerevan.
Gikor said:
— My people are in Kirovakan. And, breaking the sheep’s neck, looked at him proudly. Looked: beside him a girl in tight trousers had knelt and was watching the spurting blood. Zare. That day or another, she was milking sheep, looking at Gikor’s father and her own husband, silently thinking of running away. “She became a domestic servant in Tiflis.” Gikor shut his eyes tightly, opened them, and it was fully light, he was fully awake. “Henrik. Sahakyan. He’s an engineer in Kirovakan. He’s often in Yerevan…”
When the load slipped back a little and the breastplates entered the flesh, Alkho understood the climb had begun. Alkho held his breath and went. “Now we’ll curse this climb’s father.” He should breathe again only at the plateau’s edge; every next step would bring him to the summit, but the lungs’ air melted, ran out, while the load still pulled down. Alkho understood that the great climb had begun; Alkho took fresh air and went with fresh breath, but this time the air was soon exhausted while the path still crawled up, up. Alkho took new air and understood that stubbornness would achieve nothing here. Alkho stopped, waited to see what would happen: peeling the skin off him, the load pulled down, while before him the slope stood up, dull, heartless and indifferent to his lungs’ constriction. And Alkho decided to deceive the slope. Alkho turned, breathed, went slantwise, circled, came back, breathed; turned, went along the hillside, circled, came back, breathed; turned, went along the hillside, circled, came back, breathed. Thirty-five times Alkho carried, turned, brought the two hundred kilos of saddle and wheat and twenty years of life up the hillside, folded the climb into pleats, put it beneath his feet and for a moment stood like a statue at the edge of his plateau, on the path whose lower end was threaded into old Gikor and drew and drew him upwards towards his wheat and Alkho. Victorious, Alkho stood for a minute at the edge of his plateau, then went through the coolness, through longing for encampments and herds, towards his Kechut spring, fear of the stallion, the brief resting place. “The load is mine; I am beneath it.” Alkho did not wait for the fox Gikor, drank water, filled his lungs and spine with cold and went.
— Put the tarpaulin over those sacks so they don’t get damp, Gikor told his wife. “Dry that horse well, put felt over him so he doesn’t get cold. Drive those pigs away, I’m sleeping. Stop that noise of your pots!” Gikor shouted. “Your matsun on your head, I’m coming from Qazakh, you should wash my feet, your hot water…” Gikor said in his sleep. “Cover me.”
Then a shred of cloud wore away above the lower waters, the breeze touched peak after peak, Manager Levon and horse herder Mesrop quarrelled a minute and quietened, the sheep came for milking and flowed through the milking women like an hourglass and were finished. The dogs were crazed with hunger and almost tore the Turks’ bull apart; on the distant flatland the orange herd shied at the breeze and fled, Gikor’s wife slaughtered a hen, and Alkho lay dozing.
The sheep flocks were moved, the lamb flocks lowered towards the gorges, the full dogs were too lazy to follow the shepherd; on the hilltop the Turks’ bull darkened and grew enormous with its bellow. On the lower level a three-year-old young bull detached itself from the cattle and stood in the bull’s way. On the distant flatland the horses shied again; the dogs stretched into a line, linked hills to hills, slopes to hills, the fox on the distant hillside to the camp, while Alkho rested standing.
Gikor came out of the tent, sat at its door, yawned and remained gloomy. Ashkhen came and asked Gikor how much he had loaded; Gikor said not to bother him. Below, the cattle herder beat and drove back the Turk’s bull; twenty times the fox appeared before the dogs’ muzzles and twenty times disappeared with the dogs behind the hills. Gikor went down into the gorge to urinate; on the distant flatland the herd stirred again. Seven hills away the dogs piled upon one another, strangling the fox, but the fox sat on the hill by the camp, laughing as it watched the dogs strangle it. Manager Levon chopped wood for the farm, Mesrop went towards the herd, while Alkho had begun to graze. No one in that mountain knew how to graze properly: Alkho stripped the ground.
— Graze, Gikor said.
Then there was an argument in the camp that the boundary question with the Turks’ camp had not been properly settled: their field guard had wanted to drive this flock out of a gorge whose ownership had not been properly determined. Then they quietened; with dusk the flocks returned, the shepherd fires gleamed, with a pounding and playing, playing, the herd came and settled in the enclosure. Mesrop wanted to take the boundary dispute to Moscow, the Kremlin, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet; over that he and Levon had a slight quarrel. Gikor dragged the wheat inside, while Alkho grazed.
— Since you’re Alkho, graze, Gikor said.
— Still grazing? he said in the morning. “You’re doing well; graze.”
A shred of cloud wore away above the lower waters, the sheep came for milking, flowed slowly between the women; on the distant flatland the orange herd shied at the breeze and fled, and Alkho raised his head and looked at the herd. Head high, Alkho took a step towards the herd: there the mares smelled of warmth and flowers. Alkho neighed towards the herd with his head high: the broad-rumped mares there smelled of the blood’s frenzy and weariness. Alkho neighed low and went; the stallion was flung from the herd, looked for a moment and came as though tearing himself apart. He came with his breast spread broad, came clattering like a demon, flung Alkho with his chest and went back with a rattle in his throat. From beside the herd he looked: where was that gelding that had neighed?
Alkho sat, stood, shook himself, looked at the herd: the mares smelled of the blood’s rage and depth. Alkho neighed, and then the stallion circled the herd, gathered it, circled the gathered herd, circled and fell out of the circle. Vicious as a snake, light as wind and heavy as a bull, he came growing greater, struck and shattered Alkho, and went back shaking his head.
A wisp of cloud floated in the sky, the lark sang, the full herd supposedly grazed; dogs crazed with hunger did not know what to tear apart. For the stallion Alkho had been a century ago. Alkho rose, trembled on his legs, steadied himself on his legs, raised his head: the broad-rumped mares smelled of warmth and flowers. Alkho neighed and moved towards the herd; the stallion broke away.
— Gikor!… He’s eating that poor horse, Gikor…
— Gikor!… Don’t be foolish, Gikor, he’ll trample you, kill you.
Pitchfork in hand, Gikor stood upon the line of his trampling.
— I’ll spill your guts, curse your speechless father…
The dogs saved Gikor: surrounded by dogs, the stallion arced away from Gikor and Alkho and went in a wide circle into the herd. But Alkho kept pressing towards the orange mares and did not see Gikor, passed trampling over Gikor.
Then the stallion flew out of the herd, came with the encircling dogs, left the dogs behind, came growing greater, struck, felled, bit and trampled at once. And, waving his copper mane in the sunshine of that green world, went towards the herd. From there he looked back: Alkho had risen again, was following Gikor to the camp, where the loads were and the beginning of the road to the village and through the village to the station.
— Bless you, they told Andro, when Gikor had tied the horse in the gorge and taken the saddle to Andro’s door, “bless you, the child has come, is at the station… Has been at the station two days, bless you…”
— Andranik… the old woman called.
— What’s happened to you, Mother?
— Your brother’s child is at the station, Andranik.
— Is that horse to blame for his being at the station, Mother?…
— Eh, dear?…