Our mothers harvested and wept. The horses had been taken to war; they worked with oxen and wept. They knitted socks and wept. Then they wept silently, then they wept singing. They wept singing, and in their weeping said, “Shakro-o!” “Martiros,” “Shakro,” “Pion,” “Gikor.” We had barely seen them, we did not remember them. Our mothers sang through their tears, “Shakro-o!” and our hearts filled with a kind of sad joy, a kind of sorrowful strength, some heavy hope. In the yellow, rustling fields the dark, bare young men had been harvesting; they had been taken to war, against German tanks. The bare herds of horses from the gentle mountains had been driven to war, against German tanks. Not one horse returned from that bare herd. One or two of the young men came back, and our mothers wept and through their weeping said, “Andranik has come back, Shakro-o-o!”
But… Ti Zaven could not laugh; instead of laughter he went “ti”: “Ti… ti-ti-ti.” Uncle Artem of Danel’s family had a pipe. He had played before the war; now he did not play, but the pipe existed, bare and beautiful, and we knew it existed. Sometimes there was kerosene and the bright light of kerosene; sometimes there was a piece of bread… Yes, the war had ended, and for the bones already rotting in the distant unknown Russias and Germanys, already turning to memory, earth and flowers, it was no longer possible to weep and weep again through the weeping. In our green, clean mountains, thread by little thread, a new smile was being woven. As flowers become a bouquet, that joy was woven from a gauzy scent of bread, a single plum, a piece of rock salt, a bright kerosene lamp, and the memory that the good had died, the good had returned, and those who had not gone to war were good as well. Vani of Kar’s family, a little lame, a little red-haired, a little pockmarked, his open mouth always full of bubbling laughter like porridge, a little snuffling, a little clownish, the pupil of his eye turned white…
I shall give no advice; read, do not be afraid. Vani of Kar’s family narrowed his eye and twisted his mouth. Standing at the edge of the flock in the twilight:
“Vaska, ha-ach-chi!” shrieked Vani of Kar’s family. The reddish, long-haired lead goat stirred within the flock; the flock stirred within itself. He came out and slowly drew the flock behind him towards Garnakar. That was how the shepherds put it. They said, “He draws the flock.” They said, “Pull,” and the goat drew the heavy flock of sheep slowly, heavily, solemnly, as one draws a full net.
“Vanka, ha-ach-chi!” shrieked Vani of Kar’s family, looking with his dark eye narrowed. In the twilight the flame-coloured lead goat frisked, fluttered and sprang out of the flock, dancing towards Shishtap—Sharp Hill in Armenian. The flock flowed after him.
Yes, he is the leader goat. The male, the boy, the man goat. As kids they are gelded, that is, castrated, so that the boy and the goat will not awaken within them, but the leader, the puller, the slow one will grow weighty within them. Then, with very hot bread, their horns are softened, raised and curled upwards, and they draw the flock. Yes, very hot bread had existed before us and before the war, and they had long been the leaders of two different flocks. The shepherds had been taken to war, against German tanks, and the flocks had been mixed. Now Vani of Kar’s family shifted from foot to foot in the twilight, narrowed his dark eye and shrieked, “Vaska, pull… Vanka, pull!” The flock divided, and they led their flocks to their old Shishtap and Garnakar.
In the twilight the old dog slipped towards Shishtap, but over there the Garnakar flock was left untended; she swayed towards Garnakar, but over there the Shishtap flock was left untended. In the twilight the old dog remained bewildered, stayed, then dragged herself towards Vani’s feet. She was so old she no longer gave birth. She had no teeth. She saw poorly, did not see. She was so much a sheepdog that she had long ceased giving birth. She dragged herself after the flock, around the flock, within the flock. When for a moment the flock’s existence faded beneath her dark eyes, her dried-up sense of smell, her dying hearing, in the inner folds of her sheepdog being, she howled and complained dully, as one does in thought, and it was a pitiful lament for her death and the lost flock. Then she found the flock, and her joy in living again was once more dull and silent, within herself. She would lose the flock in reality or from the hidden folds of her sheepdog being, see her existence as pointless and take herself away, disappear herself; that was how she would die. She rubbed against Vani’s legs and cried for the divided flock and her loneliness.
“What is it?” said Vani. “Why are you crying? Asatur has come back,” said Vani. “Your major has come back,” Vani laughed. “He’s brought you Berlin. Why are you whimpering? Major!” Vani called.
“Go,” said Vani. “Where are your sheep? Go to Garnakar. You’re not dead yet; go and find your sheep.”
Why am I telling this? I read in the newspaper that the average age of shepherds in the village of Dsegh, in the Tumanyan district, is seventy. That means that if one shepherd happens to be twenty, there must also be an old man of a hundred and twenty among them. If such an old man existed, the whole world would know he existed. He does not. So the twenty-year-old does not exist either. So they are all seventy, or approximately seventy. Their own bodies are already a burden, yet they still drag themselves after the sheep. Still drag themselves. Tomorrow they will not be able to.
“Never mind,” said the chief specialist. “The old men are sturdy old men; they’ll manage another five or ten years, until we think of something.”
“And the young?” I asked. He adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles and said:
“The young are looking into space.”
“But they like grilled meat.”
“Yes, they like grilled meat,” said the Chief Specialist. “You like grilled meat too. I like grilled meat too. That is why we will use England’s experience…”