It was as if I had lost it, as if I had not received it - the 140 rubles of the student pension dried up in a week. Every time I received 3 rubles for a kilogram of bread, I multiplied it by 30 days of the month, it made 90 rubles, 50 rubles was an extravagant, confusing addition that could be given to candy, theater and cinema, but some monstrously powerful monsters secretly stole my accounts every time, and every time I said to myself: "This time it was a mistake - another pension."
The school rented a room for us, put a stove in the room, sometimes gave us wood for one or two laps, or three stoves - like a pension, the wood was ignited once, heated and burned. Back in August, when they were going to bring me to school, my father and our villager who lived in Kirovakan, under the yellow light of oil, calculated in our house how I would live on 140 rubles, my father for some reason used a calculator to divide the pension rubles by the price of bread, the grains were not eaten, our villager said "I will live", but he didn't know how I would live, he said "I can live that much" with money, but my father did not believe him and did not object, because what would he do if he objected? They, the elders, and my father and our villager, and the management of the school, knew that that pension was small and that wood was small, but they could not be generous in any way and they were hoping for a miracle. That miracle was that we were born to live, we were children and we had to live.
With my thin backs bent, the books under my arms, the group of white people and I almost ran home, the white people picked up two weeks' worth of textbooks, filled their backpacks and jumped out to run to the station. And it turned out that I was rushing with them in vain, because they were in a hurry to get to the train, and I had nowhere to go. Their villages were close, they went to live around the farmer's oven for at least one Sunday and return on Monday with bread and provisions. There was bread in their villages - from my distance in Kirovakan, I could feel the poverty sweeping our village. I was left alone in the cold, deserted room. In front of the white cabinet, there was a small crumb of lavash - that was the cold stove. Hunger looked from a dead stove, from a cold bed, from a broken radio, and from the book "White Fang" by Zeke London. Swallowing saliva, one could hold one's breath and hear how the coal stove was burning in the landlord's great room, how his daughter was on the couch, her legs covered with a shawl, turning the page of a book, and how the bread on their table smelled.
I went to our villager's house. They were good people, their daughter was my friend in the village school, their daughter-in-law was blonde, lovely and a warm creature, but they had finished dinner, my father's friend had laid down to take a nap after dinner, and there was silence in the house. I was restrained in that silence, and they did not understand that my pension money had run out. They remembered our poverty in the village - I could not ask for money on behalf of my father. I was still very much a child - I could not borrow money for my future. I thought that their daughter is stupid, she will hardly ever enter the university, and I left.
The gates of my pedagogical school were closed, until Monday I had no one there. Our uncle Sedrak's big house, wide yard and beautiful railings were enveloped in that winter with the smell of hot food, their stove burned so peacefully that not even smoke came from the roof... but for the only time last time they did not understand that I was theirs. Uncle Sedrak moved from the village a long time ago, he saw my father when he was a child, he thought I was my father, he said. "Does Uncle Avetik have such a small son?"
Turning sharply, I went through the door of our uncle Sedrak once more, so that their landlady, who was collecting the rug from the railing, watching me pass by, would recognize me and call me in, but the balcony was now deserted and the doors were closed, the music of the gramophone was muffled in the distance. Crying and anger choked me.
That's how I got there and pushed the door of our dormitory. It was closed, the key was hanging on a nail in its place, no one had come, there was no one in the room - it was the same silent radio, an open book and a crumb of lavash.
I undid the seam of the mattress given to me by the school, I took out from among the dirty, covered cottons that were always there, which no one in that town of Kirovakan knew about - my trekhs, the trekhs made by my father. Katane shoes got wet every time, they shriveled and squeezed my feet. Locking the door from the inside, I shoved my boots into the mattress, stayed in my socks for a second, and the floor was cold, put on my trousers, stretched, stood ready at the door, waited until the landlord's footsteps left the balcony, and flew out of that room, the balcony, and the yard faster than the landlords could see through their curtains.
Through the moon and the ice, accompanied by the cold barking of dogs, I went from Vanadzor to the station, ran past the goods train, left all the wagons in front of me with an ostostatal between the supports, jumped and held on to the last wagon with my knees and fingers. My palms were closed on the wet handle, and I thought that was a good thing, otherwise I would have been torn from the handle while looking for a place for my foot. My hat was falling off, my knees were scratched, but there was no blood because it was cold. "I'm going to Georgia, I'm going to Shulaver," I lied to the guide, "my grandmother is dead." He took me under his wing, because of that tenderness I got a little excited inside, but I didn't say that I would get off three stations later, so that he would expect the money he wanted near Shulaver. After passing my station, when the course had not yet quickened, I jumped down from his coach and carriage. It was a little embarrassing to feel his gaze, but the train left. So everything went well. and not being afraid of the dogs of Dsegh village, and the snowy wind, and not being afraid of the dead. At dawn, I pushed back the door of our warm half-dark house and said with a smile. "I'm here." "Are you ready?" my father sat on the bed.
Mother was blowing the stove.
"Wow, I'm going blind, my child's money has run out, I'm going blind."
Mom's soft lap and neck were hot!
"Akhper Jan?" my father sat on the bed in the semi-darkness.
"I'll be blind, I'll be blind, I'll be blind, I won't see... The light of the lamp went up." Hrayr appeared on a wide wooden throne, with a thin neck, a big head almost in his legs and an open mouth. Nanarik woke up with a thump, sat on the bed, opened his eyes: "You turned on the lamp," then his pink cheeks went back, his eyes filled with a smile, his lips stretched and lengthened.
- I'm going blind, your money is gone...
The stove crackled, almost jumped and then filled with warmth, love, family.
"Aita, have you come?" Hrayr had taken his head out from between his legs. it is what it is: the nose is hot, the palate is cold.
"You greet your brother with good things," said the father, putting on his trousers.
- What did he bring from the city for me?
"Hungry, thirsty, at someone else's door... I will go blind." Dad went to feed the cows. The chickens spilled out of the barn, feet on the bars, the goat was waiting for grass. Nakhshun cow was looking at me with her neck bent and was mooing. She had nursed and softened, she was going to give birth soon. Satik was going to give birth at the end of May.
"This year is the hardest," said father, "if you are patient this year, I will give you Nakhshun's money in November."
I didn't want any changes in that house, and I didn't want anything missing from that house.
"Don't sell the dog," I said.
"It will be sold," said father, "for you, it will be sold."
- I won't take it. If you don't sell it, I won't take it.
He smiled softly, pressed my head to his chest as he passed. I quickly cleaned the barn, fixed the hay in the stall, felt the place of the calf - the calf was playing happily in its mother's belly.
- Your grandfather Avetik, - my mother entered the barn, - he understood cows as well as a doctor, but he did not see bread for a full stomach, you have nothing to do with cattle.
We ate fried potatoes with beech oil and drank dried pear tea. For lunch we ate potatoes boiled with salt and sauerkraut. Hrayr suddenly showed Nanari a wolf on the wall and threw away one of his potatoes. There was no lying wolf on the wall, and one of his potatoes was lost.
"Armik, is it four or five after three?"
- Four.
"Is my potato not five pieces?"
"Count to ten, it will be ten," said Hrayr.
- How can I count four to ten?
- One, two, three, four, five... ten. - And Hrayr opened the trap, spanked him, took him to catch a fox, he had seen a fox track in the snow near our poor neighborhood. And the father was still not there.
"I'm going blind, dear Armik, are you cold?"
- When I come home from class, I go to Hasmik's house, Hasmik and I sit next to the stove until their housemates come. Then I go to bed and read.
- What about the mornings?
— We go jogging in the mornings, and after we go jogging, we don't get cold.
- Well, if you study in the field, you will study fiction, but when do you study your lessons?
- I went to the theater once more.
- Don't be shy, go to Uncle Sedrak's house once in a while.
"I don't need it."
- There will be a hot meal.
Dad came in, embarrassed, as if he was entering someone else's house. he took a bag of wheat to grind, the mills were frozen, he did not bring flour, he brought the wheat back. Those coming from below the river said that all the mills of our river up to Big Debed are frozen, they don't work, if they work, what mill?
"I will go blind." So that we can make porridge together, can you cook like a man? There will be a hot meal, dear Armik, you will live for another month, there is no bread that will spoil. Let's make some cereal.
"I'd drink, but there's no money." We light the firewood that the school gives us in two days.
- Who is Hasmik? Will you give Hasmik to roast on their fire?
"It is possible," said father.
But it was not possible, because Hasmik would know that I only eat water and cereal.
"You can't," Hrayr said from the book. Father and mother became him.
- Why can't that be done, you fool?
— Armik is in love with Hasmik.
- Is that written in your book?
I managed not to blush.
"Armik, they fall in love, how do they fall in love?" Nanarik shouted. Dad and mom laughed and that was a salvation for me.
"Like you to your father," said mother.
— I'm falling in love with my father, but I'm also falling in love with Armik.
"What about your brother Hrayr?"
"Hrayr stole my potato."
Mom and dad got into a corner and talking to each other, they realized that it would be good for me to make semolina from that wheat, but I would be ashamed of the owner's daughter, because there would only be water and semolina. The sky rolled in lively, swinging his big head on his thin neck, Hrayr turned the sky, Nanarik was roasting half of the wheat for the harvest. After sifting the ground flour, there was hard flour underneath, and we ground the coarse flour again. Then we ground Nanarik's roasted wheat, but so that Hrayr wouldn't suddenly steal a goat, Nanarik drove him away from the sky and hung himself from the sky's tail. There was small grain, flour, wheat. The flour became dough and the dough was almost real, the semolina was tied in a separate bag, and the rice was separate. That thief Hrayr at least managed to steal a handful from me. because of mother's guilt.
"All because of you," cried Nanar, "all because of your guilt."
Smiling with her lips closed, at that moment mother wished her green, cloudless days, a good boy, a good friend, begged for Goodbye the concertmaster's tashton in bright warm rooms, saw me in a white shirt explaining a lesson to the students against the class... and the world was so clean, and the voices were so bright, and happiness was ringing so that mother laid herself under the silent stones of the green cemetery, and her heart leaped with joy. and from takhits.
"Hrayr to learn the lessons, Nanar to the corner, Armen to the trough, quickly," instructed the mother.
- What a trough!
- Armik is bathing.
- I fill the water.
- You are a girl, Armik is a boy, put your face to the wall.
- Armik is a brother, not a boy.
- I took a bath yesterday.
- Who rubbed your back, I'm going blind, who rubbed your head, who trampled your feet?
"Hasmik," Hrayr read in the textbook.
Mom threw me into the tub, I saw me naked again, I don't let her completely undress, she pulls me down, I pull her up. He laughed and slapped my hands, I wanted to cry, one more hot water poured into my mouth, it set my head on fire. I was coughing, another piece of soap caught my eyes and closed my mouth. From the soap, Hrayr was smiling, Nanar was doing serious business in his corner. Then, when I was already in Kirova, I realized what serious work Nanar was doing in his corner. I thought my hands were holding my underwear down - I wasn't wearing underwear. It was already something to howl in protest, but the water turned on, and my hands flew to hold my head. - Hot! - My mouth filled with water, the soap covered my eyes and the cold bit my shoulder. Strong, friendly fingers grabbed my nose: "Khinch do... one more time" and the soft tzam hugged my head like a breast.
In the stupor, Nanar was covering my shoulder, a hairy chin kissed my forehead, neither pain nor pain played in my heel, I jumped from the train and fell into soft cotton. This is our house. We will take the sledge with Hrayr, we will go to the forest, we will use the sledge to bring wood that crumbles due to dryness. The sled will run away on the frozen road, we will face the frozen tracks, the ice will not hold. The sled will fly off the top of the rock. When we get cold, we will give water and grass to the cows and run to the stove. We will spread potato slices on the stove, put salt on it, read "Jean Christophe" near the stove. If we get sick, someone will kiss our forehead muttering words of prayer and love, an aunt will come from their house in the middle of the village, in the fog, we will see her worried smile, an apple, and the aroma of the apple will seem like a fog.
- I'm not going to Kirovakan.
"Little one, little one - it's not yet nine."
"It's cold, everyone has a coat... I'm not taking your bread."
- Now I will catch and beat the dog.
- You will do a lot... let your bread be yours, I will not take your bread.
- Sahak owes your father, he gave it, we will buy a coat.
- In May!
- We will not drown that person.
- What's my business, drown me.
- You are my cute Armen, you are my hope, you are my future, you are your poor father's assistant, you will become the first person of Kirovakan city.
- I will not become.
- You will turn around and say that the right thing was mine.
In the evening we ate potatoes boiled with salt and drank tea with honey. Ten loaves of bread were placed on the windowsill to be dried and tied. Then I would receive a pension of one hundred and forty rubles. Nanarik was smiling, but his heart gave back. He was smiling in bed again with his mouth closed, his cheeks red, his lips stretched. Dad came from the barn, what did he bring, what did he bring, what did he bring - he brought a white egg for Nanar in that deep winter. Who did it, who did it, who did it...
— The golden year!
- Who will eat, who will eat, who will eat...
"Let's spread it... let's spread it, let's spread it," stammered Nanarik, "let's spread it on the bread and make it gatha."
Mom secretly cried a couple of drops.
"It will not live," cried the mother, "it is so good that it has no right to live." How will it live in this world? - mother choked.
Then, the family was sleeping. Hrayr was laying his head on the pillow, his head between his legs. Nanar put her knee on Armik's chest and was smiling in her sleep. Armen's arm was under his sister's head, he was breathing with the healthy capacity of pink clean lungs and he was pushing an inch every ten minutes. Hrayr lied in a dream that the trap had caught a fox, the size of a wolf, almost like a wolf, with five hundred rubles for its fur. Dad was walking through the softness of the green fields. In the dark room, the stove was cooling down, mother, with her eyes open, could see the cold Kirovakan under the moon, a brown honey-scented summer, Armen wearing a white shirt, a full chest of a goat and a blushing tomato.
— That Sahak should pay the debt...
It was already on the way.
— For Sahak to pay the debt, send me to buy a hat with ears for Hrayr, a coat for Nanar.
- Nanar stays at home, Hrayr goes to class for lunch, he doesn't need a coat, nor does he need a hat.
— The vacation pension is four hundred and twenty rubles. Three times a hundred and forty.
- And speak, and come. What is the price of a boy's coat?
- Once I went to look, the store was closed, it was cold, I ran to the hostel.
- How are you walking?
- I don't know if my leg hurts or itches.
- It's okay, it's a leg, not a head. You will become a good person and go from place to place by car and horse. You will say on the phone: "It's me, send a horse, I'll come."
"Should I come in March or not?"
- Look at your convenience.
"If everyone goes to their homes, what will I do alone?"
- You are not everyone, you are Armen, you must remember this day.
- When I come in the summer, I will forget, we will take Dilija and sell it.
- It's good, find a light job in Kirova, instead of a guard.
"Is it summer?"
- Come soon. Your leg hurts.
- I don't know if it hurts or itches. Well, it's money, I forget, there will be a lot of money from guarding, again.
- Take your mind off this poverty, this crumbling village.
"Is it summer?"
- Summer and always.
When I looked back from Honut Hill, he was kneeling against the chapel of Saint Sargis. He was not a believer, he became a believer for me now. From the bend of crosses, he was still kneeling against the chapel. I stopped at the snow flower hill. as if I was straightening my hair, I secretly looked back over my shoulder: he was standing under the chapel, in the white snow, and was saying with his hand: go, go, go. In the cold silence I seemed to hear his voice as thin as the song of a winch.
"Go, go, go..."
I sat down in the park to rest, my heel started to crack. I thought he was numb, I took off my trex, stockings, and rubbed. With rubbing, the prickles joined, became a round needle, then the pain softened and rounded like a cooked apple. My heel had taken the cold. When I jumped off the train, my heel broke the ice in the puddle, got wet, and then froze on the way. The pain swelled and hit the walls of the bone with small bumps - towards me, towards me. I took snow, rubbed that heel with snow until the pain went away. The pain stopped. "Well, go now..." I cursed the pain as one would curse a living enemy. As I rubbed my heel and the pain curled up into its lair, I felt someone watching me secretly. I felt that side eye and felt that he admires me, he says. "Your father is blessed to have a son like you," and I considered myself worthy of his admiration. I deserved such praise.
I put on a sock, a thong, tied a thong and when I went out, when I raised my head, a dog was lying in the snow and was looking at me. "Enough?" I asked with sick intimacy, but he didn't accept my intimacy because he was a wolf. He backed away, but not like running away, but enough to make it clear that he was a wolf. "What do you want, animal," I screamed, but he didn't fight back and stuck to his place.
"You were less, I was yours..." With his spine bent like an oak tree, with his fingers hooked, that child took steps one by one, getting harder and bigger with each step, and pushed towards the wolf. His tail went between his legs, he winced. Nanar was smiling in his sleep, his father was tiredly leaning on the throne, in the old days, the Japanese took out grandfather Simon's knee and put it in the knee of their general, they said to him, "You go." I heard that when I was little, my thin children, in the cold classroom, we told terrible things and we huddled and pressed ourselves against the cold stove because of someone else's pain.
Pale eyes at the mindless look of that beast, the child went to strangle him. The child muttered words of self-empowerment through a dry throat and pushed himself straight into the wolf's eyes. The wolf tore his eyes from her pale eyes, bent his head and kicked the snow with his feet. he fooled the child into jumping, but the child knew that he was being fooled and went to meet the wolf slowly and as hard as a club, the wolf forgot that he was a wolf, jumped back with a claw.
The child was now standing in the place he had crushed, he had corrected himself, grown up, won - now he was a twenty-twenty-five-year-old peasant. Come, come," he said sarcastically. And the wolf turned back and forth, turned around with a jump, went back and made snow dust with its tail and legs. "We know that," said the child. And again he went back and forth with a clutch, jumped forward, turned and ran away a little. He quickly came back and fled as he was persecuted. Something like a conscious plan was noticed in his action, the intelligent enemy seemed to have entered the wolf's fur and was looking from inside the wolf. An unknown edge of horror was opening. Was it a wolf, a hyena, or death itself? The child's tendons began to be paralyzed. The child was dying before the wolf attacked. "Daddy!" But he felt that his voice had already died. As seen in the dream, the wolf was still dancing while approaching and leaving. he was going back and forth, circling with jumps, coming forward a little and running away a couple of jumps as if he were being chased. The child saw that he was getting up from the sitting place, standing up, his mother was walking through the snow with her hat in her hand. Another close person appeared on the white snow. very familiar, relative, from their family, he approached him and realized that he had approached the bag. "Dear bag," he said and cried, "he wanted to eat me." And the wolf was still dancing, approaching and leaving. The child told the bag that the wolf wanted to deceive him. To deceive himself, as they deceive donkeys.
The wolf wanted me to chase him, as if he were a coward, to a hidden place away from the road, and I turned around and slapped the bag of wheat-grain-bread. The wolf stopped and thought about what was happening and what to do, but without giving the strange prey time to think, it left. The wolf reluctantly followed him, hoping to find something to do on the way. The hunt stopped, the wolf was waiting, the hunt was rushing, the wolf was also rushing. Now the dictator was the hunt and the subordinate was the wolf. The hunt turned around and said: "What do you want, animal?" The wolf also stood up and, not understanding something, looked anyway. The hunt fixed the sack on his back and left, leaving no room for the wolf, and the wolf followed him as a regular friend on the road. Near the ridge, he straightened his coat and said: "Come, come, I'll give you the mouth of the Dsegha dogs," but the wolf lightly looked at the muscle jumping in the snow and waited.
Once they got too close in a curve, the wolf got scared and thought he was going to jump, but at that moment the plane rumbled on the ground and died, then he heard something like the howling of a dog, and Dsegh was flashing from the top of the hill. The wolf did not turn back. he thought for a moment and went along with him. The village was wrapped in the barking of dogs, the lights were shining upwards, his eyes were peeking from behind the roofs, and that boy invited him to the village with a smile.
"Well, since you came all this way, why don't you come here for a while?"
And their paths slowly diverged. his road entered the village, and his horse went as if in a circle of barks, but as soon as the horse touched the forest, he folded back his sled and cut a short way to Aygetak, where, in his stupid opinion, I was still trampling my feet sitting in the snow.
Until Dsegh the wolf, the memory of the wolf from Dsegh to the station did not leave my leg aching. The hall of the station was bright and warm. with her head on her husband's lap, the huge wife of the Russian captain fell asleep. the group of army men, ashamed of the captain and themselves of their true feelings, secretly made fun of the Stepanavan woman. a man very similar to my father broke boiled chicken and stuck his foot in my fist, his child salted the meat of his hand, salted his father's piece, pinched salt and slid down from the seat, came to stand in front of me. A mother and a woman were looking at me and the child with their arms crossed under their big breasts... and in that warm caress my leg exploded with a howl. He found pain sympathetic and wanted to be pampered. With the meat in my mouth, I was twisting to the point of breaking, people were already gathering on my head... but the train arrived.
"Now if I cut off your ears, what do you say?" asked the guard of the mail wagon calmly.
- If they are unnecessary, cut them, if they are not, why are you cutting them?
- Your tongue is long, let's cut it.
"Why are you cutting?"
"Do you know where you went?"
— A mail car.
- Why?
- Not to give money.
- How can you not give that?
- like that.
- Do you know that it is forbidden?
- I know.
"Why did you go up?"
- I came up specifically to steal your mail, to take it and read the letters.
"There is no way, I will cut out your tongue."
- How will I teach a lesson?
- Are you a student?
— In pedagogy.
- You will become a teacher. Where are you from?
- I am our villager.
- You are also an innkeeper. What is Toprakind?
"It's a buffalo. I stole it. Shall I give you half of it?"
"Now, let me stop the train and drop you off."
- Stop it.
"What is Toprakind?"
- Whatever is for me, not for you.
— If you were to sit in a real carriage, how much would you pay?
- I wouldn't give it.
- How could you not give that to your father?
- Yes, it's my father's cell, it's my father's cell.
"If I take you down now."
"And if I take you down?"
"Get down, get down, get down of your own free will, or I'll make you fly."
- Are you a pigeon keeper?
Until Kirovakan, he ate my soul, I could not remember a single second of pain in disgust.
The bread was salty, like sand, not chewable. When I was being bathed, Nanarik went to the corner, added salt to the dough and added water, but there was no flour. I wanted to get mad at him, but I missed his cheekbones from afar when he smiled with his mouth closed. No matter how hungry I was, the bread was not eaten. I lied to myself that I couldn't eat, because I secretly ate myself every once in a while, I hid my fear from myself, but I still couldn't chew the bread.
The Stitaktsi finished their lavash, spent their rubles, secretly listening to my bread while reading, but the bread was salty, it was a shame to take their share of that bread.
Hasmik of the host knocked on the door, put her beautiful head in, came to ask the location of the Iberian Peninsula and look at my face, but I didn't have time, I didn't know the location of the peninsula, let them leave me alone in my worries, I was reading carefully. "Wait, really," Hasmik stirred and went away, her ears turned pink from the hurt, her thick braid tied tightly at the root with a white ribbon swayed and wrapped around her neck with the slamming of the door... but the bread was salty, no one should know that my mother baked salty bread.
My throat became inflamed from the very cold water, and the white people smiled sarcastically, because I had not taken pity on them and had not given them a piece of bread. Hasmik's mother brought tea, but I wasn't sick, I didn't need their tea and... I loved my wolf on the road and the postman's guard more than those who felt sorry for me, that pity was killing me.
Literature teacher Mamikonian, they said, asked about me and is coming to see me... I put on my clothes, locked the closet and ran away from the dormitory. The towers of "Arev" sanatorium swayed under the cold crow's crow, an orange peel or an apple appeared and disappeared in the snow, the dog's barking was a distant memory, but the dog hit me and jumped back with a claw. Uncle Sedrak's palace was almost clean and spacious, and now the aroma of watery food wafted in the hot kitchen, but his daughter-in-law was always angry and never smiled. Dormitory, was I going to go back through Bricklayers Street or School Street? Mother...
At night, they took me to Hasmikent's house. My father held a soaker on my forehead, my mother was heating up lunch. While studying in Yerevan, his father fell ill with my illness, his father was treated by the owner's daughter, and I behaved rudely with Hasmik. he would not let me get sick, he is almost a ready doctor. "You ate salted fish and drank cold water? Why did you drink cold water over salted fish? It's okay, you ate salted fish, you will be cured in two days." He squeezed open my mouth and filled me with food. "You are the size of my child, now I will beat you." He filled my tears, my hot meal, my pus. "We are friends," he said. He left for the morning shift, I left and entered our room, my cold bed.
- I brought tea for you, I put lemon in it.
- No one asks you for a lemon.
- Do you want it without lemon?
- No one asks you for tea.
- Wait!
- Get out of here.
- I'm not going.
- They tell you to leave this room.
Father came from work. He came and sat on my bed tiredly. He didn't know whether to talk or sleep. Everything about him, and knocking on the door, and sitting down as if collapsing, and getting up and talking, everything was completely slow and unstoppable. He said:
"Now what are you saying, am I a good boy or you?"
He said:
- It hurts, nothing, don't talk.
He said:
"But you and I will eat together."
I looked at my closet and froze.
"Let's put your bread," he said, "let's put mine and eat bread together like male friends." I have grape juice from Shulaver, we live, he said, we already live.
I shook my head. He said:
"I'm not asking for you, I'm saying it for myself." I can't eat alone. The army has trained a solid company.
He was deceiving me.
"You're cheating," I said.
"I'm cheating," he said, "whether I'm cheating or not, I'm the biggest one."
He bent down heavily, from my closet, as if he was removing a heavy stone, took out a piece of bread, smelled it with all his lungs and said in a way that I still remember.
- It is the smell of our hard bread. Get up.
From their balcony to the dining room, I sweated and dried off ten times. His heavy back was against me and my salty, dry bread was in his hand. I was ashamed to look at Hasmik because she could see that I was losing. The bread baked by my mother and sister, the wheat bread that my father had taken under his arm to the mill of Hovti and carried up to the village, sweating from speed and heartache... he put that bread next to their light, white, fragrant bread from the city and sat down leaning on his elbows. He supported a family, there was vodka on his table, their tablecloth was pure white, their house was warm, he brought a sick boy to feed him, he was calm... he did not understand that that boy's throat was blocked from crying. He sipped, slowly drank the vodka, extended his heavy hand, broke the bread with one hand, broke it again, smelled it and chewed it.
He continued to chew and winked at me.
"It's okay," he said, "you're a boy, but we're boys too." Have you ever eaten mustard, just mustard, garchitsa?
He chewed my salty, heavy bread and told me. He did not let his wife and daughter touch that bread. took it, put it against him and told him while chewing slowly, as if grinding a stone.
— Mustard, pure mustard, only mustard, garchitsa. You get honors in history, you know what the siege of Leningrad is, but you don't know anything. That they squeeze your throat, squeeze again, constantly squeeze and at least you don't dream of waking up to be freed - looking into your eyes they squeeze to suffocate you, that's the siege of Leningrad. There was a collapsed building under the snow, he demolished the snow, demolished, demolished, gave the snow back... no, why like a dog, who is a dog to endure... but we are human, right?... he demolished the snow, gave it back, demolished, found a box of mustard: garchitsa, mustard flour. In a white time, white all over the world - a box of mustard. He mixed it with snow, made mustard mud, mixed it with difficulty, because there was no heat in his hands, the snow did not melt, and he drank the mustard mud. The intestines started to burn, he would have bet that he could see the flames of the intestines. He grabbed his stomach with both hands, went between his legs and fell. He was lying like that in the snow, he had no strength, no memory, but he knew that the mustard was inside him, it was his, he was going to live by killing. "Eat your bread," he said, "to whom are you boasting?"