This is what happened in the fall of ninth grade. we had grown up in a hot, sweet and rough summer, and Davtyan, the manager and geography teacher, half-asleep from the softness of long work and safe life, unconnected with our good and bad studies, the teachers' secret laughter, said to us from his slumber:
- Cut your legs, monkeys!
In the haystack, at night, the lame and shameless Spandar left from under the scythe with his socks, then, in the moonlight, he got out, the tall Lena waited anxiously for a moment, and took a step, the step of her long and strong leg, and with that step, the sleepy widow Gino sat down. It happened in the summer, I had read the Decameron, last year's clothes were tight on the girls, Ignatius Jema threw the bag at me on the way to school, "You will give it to our house," and went with the driver from Kirovakan to become his wife. The skinny Garush from Shamout had seen the bra of the new teacher spread out, Anahit with gray-green eyes was resting his head on his palms and looking and looking at me - and here that Davtyan said with the roar of age and soft life.
- Cut your legs, lazy monkeys!
I will say: let me see if he is fully asleep, or if he is a little asleep, a little awake. I said.
- We are not the monkey.
It turned out that he was not asleep. said:
- Who was it?
Last year's skirts were tight on the girls, we saw the new teacher's bra spread out, in the summer Gino disturbed the magnificent Lena and the lame Spandar, that Anahit's woolen clothes and skin were torn by the relief of the breasts, - I came out bending, stood and, tilting my head sarcastically, waited. He said:
- You are not the monkey, but who is the monkey?
Garush's thin sister leaned back in fear from the front seat, Anahit's gray eyes filled my back with shivers, I leaned on the seat with both hands, my shoulders rose and said:
- Some.- And I looked at him blankly.
- What some?
"Look," I said.
He kicked me out of the class.
- Go and become a pig.
With my work that summer, I bought myself shoes, pants, shirt, jacket, watch, swimming trunks, gravity pen, a shoulder bag for my mother, and candy for the children. that September, the French teacher, the squad leader, all the girls of the eighth, ninth, and tenth grades vibrated with warmth and secrets, those girls didn't fit in themselves, and I said:
- Think.
So that the teachers and students would respect him not only when talking to him, but also when eating, reading, walking, he removed me from school. - Monkey, he finished, I did not tell him "you are the monkey" and there was hope that if he asked me well, he would accept me back, my father sent me to a vocational school. Seven children were making noise at home and destroying bread and potatoes.
- Boxing...
- Stop. On the left. Left only. You don't have a right hand. On the left. Boxing. Left, left, left, left. Live!
In the first round, I crushed Karapet Karapetyan's nose. he had come down to study from Aparan, had the mass of a bull and rode like a bull. In fourteen of our fifteen meetings that year I crushed his broad face; I was already bored with him, he tired me with continuous beatings, his presence no longer bothered me and did not stress me, and just then, in the fifteenth meeting, he landed on my jaw with a displacing force. he gave me a lick of dust on the floor mixed with the anal taste of my blood.
- Your left, your left, your left! - the coach was jumping around us. - Where did you forget your left, sleepy?
In the autumn of that year, we were taken to competitions in Moscow. What is called an opponent was not an opponent because there was none. There was one victory and one defeat on the platform in the rope cage. they gave the victory to Bashkir Makanin, the defeat to me, so he and I had fought in boxing. But I did not see him in front of me, my hand did not find him. Apparently he was somewhere nearby because he was applauded, but he was gone, gone. I fought against the air, against the ropes, I confused the referee with Makanin, "Left, left, left," my coach whispered, I saw Makanin's cat eyes a couple of times behind the gloves, then he was gone again, he was gone. left, knee and head, his dexterity to break to pieces, to make him an athlete, an opponent, to put him against me - and he was gone again, I fell to the ropes from my momentum. And it was a shame to look up, to see laughing mouths in the warm humidity and semi-darkness.
"Well, screw it, again, with your left, left, left," I shouted to the coach with my hands down.
And the bread was not eaten, and the softness of the bed was a pity, and the girls did not spy on the man in me.
That year I got a big review in the paper. The story about the boxers was not printed. They said: this is the platform, these are the ropes, these are the opponents, this is the judge. everyone is there, is anyone missing - no? They said, here the athletes are driving their victory out of obscurity with their strength. How come "there was one victory and one defeat in the rope cage?" An essay on builders won first prize. In the spring of the eighteenth year, I saw a woman. I remembered the village school and Davtyan that day, in the bathroom of the hotel. and I grinned, because it was like this. Davtyan guessed a riddle for me, I turned back to say "think", and Meruzhan from Shamut raised his hand and really wanted to tell the lesson, because he understood the lesson of that day. There, in my mind, he was still begging me to ask him a lesson, but here I was in Moscow, I won, I lost, now I'm already in the hotel, taking a bath. I finished high school in the evening school. when people from Chamout and Tsmakoutes came with their collars buttoned, hot, sleepless and afraid of the unknown future and the monstrous severity of the examiners, at the doors of the university, everyone was talking about an essay that had the value of a diploma work and the brilliance of a classic story. That was my writing. I told the people of Shamut and Tsmakut, how is Davtyan? And I added benevolently: he is a tired man, again, for himself. And I said to the residents of Tsmakkuts, what is your opinion about bitterness?
"Apero, did you learn your lesson?" I said to Meruzhan in our dialect, "did you want to be admitted to the university?"
That year there was another attempt to get me into boxing and it didn't work, but I had enough success to be crushed; three essays and a short story were published one after the other, I opened a big meeting with a poet, everyone would have gone to Tbilisi to participate in the scientific session of their students, but I refused. During the interview with the world-famous Saryan, in a moment of inattention, he missed something, I said, maybe it's not so, and he immediately agreed and corrected the mistake according to my opinion. in the political economy lecture, I wrote a long essay for the newspaper, sometimes I objected to the lecturer, he would go out of his way, and I would write the essay, wink at Vergine, blow on Beersheba's flat neck, and say over my shoulder to Suren, who was humming my back every minute: - Dog boy, we're going to drink together, let me finish.
At the time when the horse Alkho was bringing the fox Gikor and his cargo from Kazakh to the village of Tsmakut, I was at that time on the Yerevan-Moscow high-speed train, in a soft carriage, imagining myself as a successful, beautiful, beloved and God's punishment on the women's heads. "Oh, that Karyan Hrant..." Father Dumas enjoyed glory and women - that was me, Kutuzov fell asleep at the time of the battle - that was me, our Artavazd king went to kneel in front of Cleopatra with his crowned head held high - that was me. Nobel prize, Toro-toreador, Garson, two bottles of brandy on the third table, Female cat Brigid Bardot, "The girl on the regiment" - I tell you. "The emperor is waiting for you." - "Tell the emperor that I will be late for an hour."
"- Again?... Again...
- It's late, it's already late.
- Get up...
- Four years... from the first day... At home, on the tram, at the lecture, in the camp, at the excavations... Four years... where were you...
- Again...
- It's late.
"Well, Vergin... happy housewifery!"
This is how it happened. Vergine married an engineer, came running to the state exam, sweaty, jumped out of the exam to breastfeed the child, and someday the newest star of French cinema would come to Yerevan or Hrant would go to Paris. My mother's cricketing admiration for me, our ten children's surprised look at me, my father's secret pride, docent Akhverdyan's recommendation in the hallway: "Stay for graduate school" were my pillars. And the fact that it was the Yerevan-Moscow train, it was an express train and it was mine. I could walk slowly backwards and forwards in the corridor of the carriage, feeling my ironed trousers. open the window - it's hot. to smoke - there are ashtrays, whose place I know. to lie on my feet, that's my place. The fox Gikor and two milkmen went to Moscow in 1939, perhaps by express, but they did not feel its comfort. they were taken in a group, in a kind of box, - This is the Kremlin, this is the Moscow River, this is the tomb - and sent back. And here in the corridor of the carriage, the Georgian woman in trousers had cast her eyes as big as eggs on me and was looking and looking, but I noticed or did not notice the poor girl. And the third passenger in the compartment is short-sighted and half-bald, and I am so lucky, beautiful, my gray striped trousers are ironed, my black shoes are clean, my dark tie is loose on my white shirt, this is how I have folded tiredly after winning a big argument, the poor Georgian woman also has her eyes on the door of my compartment, and the second passenger in the compartment, probably the wife of the man with glasses, has her fingers stuck in gold hair in and wants not to look at me but can't. and Byron caught a glimpse of her sorrowful eyes, her magnificent forehead, and her long fingers in her golden hair, and her long legs under the table, and beating his mouth, Byron yawned. "Will you stay for graduate school? Stay in graduate school." And those semi-literate professors and that semi-literate docent e. the origin of the verb, Maye says, Acharyan says, Vvedenski says, Aghayan says. And my sharp retort, what about you, and the girls' scared look at me.
On a white day in July, Verginen in the park, covered by her husband, breastfeeds the child, and it's already her turn, her turn will have passed, and she hasn't practiced well, "The origin of money, money as...", well, loathe it, eat it... And here, away from the blue shadows, in the July sun, slowly passed Hrant Karyan, tall, straight, clean... Son of a dog, walking what's up, he's walking - he's beautiful, he came to the lecture hall - he's beautiful, at the November parade, on the street, he danced rock-and-roll with Karine from the Polytechnic - it was beautiful, he danced the Kurdish kochari with a light smile on the excursion - it was beautiful again... Karine from the Polytechnic was slapped and came to the university beaten, with blue eyes and swollen lips - Nothing. they knocked... Nothing, there were three of them, they came up against the wall, a child... and the dog's son was beautiful again.
- Kirovakan, station Kirovakan...
And that Kirovakan... The plump housewives in robes, blushing and sweating, cook the twenty-third kind of jam, "- Did you see? - What? - Didn't you see? - What? - Hrach's black car of the City Council. - When did he change it? - It's the seventeenth of the month, it's five days. - It's a boy. - Uh!" and the ensemble suite of the chemical plant: "Kirovakan, my praise! You enchant your guests with magical form, City of song, city of praise, my Kirovakan!" And my father: "Come to Kirovakan, teacher, let's build a house, live in Kirovakan." Uh, let's go to the villages, eat sheep, take a business trip on our way to Yerevan... Let's go to the station, among the shepherds getting off the Tbilisi-Yerevan train, are there any suitable ones who are fresh and don't have a husband... " - Did you succeed? - Let's see, she's not doing anything. - It's their habit, don't worry. "I know."
He looked from the window for a second, barely a second, and the small Pambak station was left behind. Poor Pambak little station - there was a red hat, a green lantern and a bell. How many arrogant speedboats have passed by, and here you are left in this valley with a green lantern, a red hat and a bell. And that third passenger. he lives once, and he is short-sighted and bald. And that passenger. it's a woman and it's sadness, it's true, but here the door of the compartment is silently moving back, and Brigid Bardot is standing in the doorway - the poor thing would be ashamed that she stuck her fingers in her hair in a foreign style and that her legs were bare and until now she thought she was beautiful.
- Is the young man going to Moscow for an exam?
"The young man has finished university," I said, folded, my tie loose, and I was told that our conversation was going on a Parisian level.
- Yes?
- It's getting light, you didn't sleep.
- And where is the young man going?
- Tsmakut. It's Czechoslovakia, I said and stood up. The sleepy conductor came to say that the train would now stop at Colagera in a minute.
- Tsmakut, - I said, taking the suitcases and bags into the corridor. And I felt that the village of Tsmakut is becoming famous. And they thought that injustice was being done. the young man deserved Paris, but here comes a certain Colagera, for a certain Tsmakut. The train moved slowly, and Hrant Karyan watched its slow progress with his hands in his pockets, his legs wide apart. And the pile of suitcases and suitcases on the sidewalk had no owner, because Hrant had nothing to do with them. Collagen was becoming prominent. Hrant Karyan, his tie loose on his white shirt, stood on the only sidewalk in Kolageran. It stopped until the last carriage passed, there was silence, and in the silence the rooster crowed from its dark nest. Hrant Karyan smiled, caressed the cock with a slight caress, as in a mixed street, they caress the head of someone else's child, then he yawned and, tall and tall, one by one, he went to the telephone exchange, which was soaked with the warm impurity of the bedroom in the morning. The sleepy and crumpled telephone operator woman, still asleep, said gloomily: "What do you want?" and Hrant Karyan realized that she had children at home and thought: poor mothers, poor wives!
- What time is it?
- Five. Turn on Tsmakut.
- What Tsmakut?
- Tsmakut village. It is my birthplace.
He broke his sleep for a minute and smiled.
- Aren't you the cool Yeghish Hrant?
- Well, yes, - I was confused.
With his head heavy on his palms, his eyes closed, he said in a sleepy mumble.
- Hey... aren't you crazy... Tsmakout... Hey, the people of your village are a little crazy, huh...
In the semi-darkness, next to the chairs, sat the policeman on duty.
"Why?" I said to the operator, and she told me that I love the innocent smile of our people.
- Come on, who was going to wait for you at five o'clock?
The militiaman on duty looked with red eyes, looked with a sleepy sigh, then said very suddenly:
- Is that our cool Yeghish boy?
"The guard," I said to the operator, and I was embarrassed because there was hardly a guard in the office that August.
He was upset with his head on the table.
- Yes, they will rob your president's millions, they have posted a guard, and they have a machine gun in hand.
- Were you ready to go? asked the policeman.
- Tsmakut.
- On those sides, Irikun went to the car, if you came in the evening, you would go.
- Five.
"Yes," he said and yawned. "Irikun is gone." It was twelve o'clock. How many kilometers is it?
- Twenty five.
"Yes," he said and lay down on the chairs. "Irikun is gone." Tsmakut did not go, but de Chamut did. How far apart are they?
- Seven kilometers.
"Yes," he said. "The manager of your farm was also in it." Is Levon your farm manager?
- I think.
- Is the name Levon?
"I don't know," I said.
The station is narrow. The extreme necessity forced the Russian engineers to build the station in an impossible place. two lane widths of rock had receded. The pier is a narrow sidewalk, and the building was already located at the expense of the river. Children are born here, go to school until the seventh grade, then board a train and leave the canyon, never to return. Then they see their parents' house from the windows of the Alaverdi-Leninaka labor train, the Tbilisi-Yerevan mixed train, and the important Moscow-Yerevan express train. Perhaps for a moment they are saddened to see the geese of childhood swaying in the lane and the tracks, and the yellow streak of the sun sliding down the gorge, for a moment caressing the brown river in the bottom, the oil between the lines, and the slow climb up the other slope, to the plateau, breadth and pastures and woods and silence. Hrant Karyan went along the only narrow sidewalk, drank water from the fountain-monument, came and thought. my poor station. Then he entered the hall, which was swept and smelled of dust and water, and yawned in the empty hall and said:
- My poor Kolagera.
Hrant Karyan sat down, lay down, and he liked his tall height, and the fact that his white shirt was going to get a little dirty, he liked it and thought: here we are at the Kolageran station.
They tapped him on the head and pulled his leg down from the bench. Hrant Karyan woke up, the policeman seemed to be smiling, as if he was angry.
- Even when you are developed, you look human, you can't lie down.
Hrant Karyan, clean-shaven, broad-shouldered, said to the policeman from the bottom up.
- Huh? - And he lay down again with his hands in his pockets.
- I'm telling you something.- And Hrant Karyan immediately sat down on the same bench as before the university. They said it is not allowed, it is not allowed.
"Okay, okay, don't be angry," said Hrant Karyan and left the hall. And with shame he remembered that he did not dance any rock-and-roll with Karine from the polytechnic. And he saw the pile of suitcases and bags on the sidewalk and said: How are we going to get out of this valley?
The policeman had established order and was now measuring the pavement of the station. He went, reached the spring, came back, looked at me, looked at the lines and said:
- Don't stop here, collect your luggage, cross the highway, if there is a car, it will be there, don't be late.
"Is there a car?" I said.
- It happens, it doesn't happen, you know.
"Thank you," I said.
At seven o'clock the car happened. When I heard his noise, I said: Hrant Karyan has always been lucky. Then it turned out that it wasn't a truck - it's Shamut's Willys - and my hope faded, like eight years ago, when I didn't dare raise my hand to stop a soft car. The world of the sweet life rejects Hrant Karyan, Hrant Karyan rejects the world of the sweet life. With his head in his hands, he sat down with his sidekicks, with whom he is bound by recent pensions and the hope of making his mother happy. It's his burden.
- Citizen. - He whistled, and that whistle killed me. - Fellow reporter. - Dr. Meruzhan of Shamut was smiling in the car.
He whistled and the whistle killed me. That's not how a friend whistles to a friend, that's not how a master whistles to a servant, that's how those who jumped up at once whistle to those below. Starting from the ninth grade, every boy in Yerevan was their god. Then only those who had anything to do with the medical institute were already gods. His mother was secretly their servant, and already in front of the villagers, flying with her Meruj. His shepherd father would send a bag of yogurt from the mountain for them - It's unprofitable yogurt, ita, we don't have anything else good, we are shepherds - and he would smile with the foresight of a villager. Mocking-with-yogurt, crawling-with-debts, he pocketed the diploma, and now the dust in his stomach is shaking.
And I remembered the beating and that after the beating I wasn't smiling at all. And that they weren't three at all, but one, and that one wasn't a boxer at least. Vergine's cheerful husband jumped off the cement truck during the process, I was going to the library, he grabbed my arm, "Did you recognize me?", and I still didn't recognize him, he got off a couple of steps and went to his construction with his cement.
- What's up, fellow reporter, where are you?
And the reader was so well suited to that benevolent flattery that I was ashamed of a couple of my articles and something like an allusion. There are a thousand jobs in the world, was I assigned to file that paper?
- Home, Meruj, Tsmakut.
- Huh... Long live, long live! Good to remember us.
- I came, there is no car, I'm waiting for a car.- Hrant Karyan got out, his hands on his hips, under his belt, he stretched himself tall and smiled.
- Yes... What is there in Yerevan?
- It is old Yerevan, Meruzh, it is hot and dusty.
- Ha! - he said and yawned and beat his mouth. - We didn't sleep at night. It was the birth of Tokhyan's daughter.
"Didn't you take yogurt?"
- Put your suitcases, if you want, you will come with your friends.
"Did you pay your debt?" Hrant Karyan said at once.
- What debt? - Comrade Meruzhan burst out.
- Didn't you have debt from chemistry?
- No.
- Yes! - Hrant Karyan stretched, - it's good, it's good. I thought you'd have a tail in nineteen. Goodbye, goodbye.
He thought for a while and said.
- So you're not coming?
- Thank you, Meruzh.
- You are doing right, fellow reporter. There is a glass here, it will be broken, I have a business for half an hour on the way, we will stop, we will make you late, - he smiled, - you are an important person.
- Go, of course go. "You'll be spread anyway, Yogurt."
He smiled again. "Goodbye, go one by one," he waved.
And playing on my stiff legs, I remembered the corridor of the university, docent Akhverdyan. "don't you have an idea of a postgraduate course?" and I remembered that while talking with docent Akhverdyan in such a concerned manner, Bersabe, not stupid, but also full of femininity, in a tight dress, passed by, and I looked with hostility at her playful back, all the way to the end of the corridor, until she entered the dean's office. "I'm telling you," docent Akhverdyan understood why I was inattentive and said yes!
"- Think, think.
"I'll think about it." And I slid down the stairs. Then with the other one. Then with the other one. Then with the other one. On my way out, I told the janitor that he had been wearing a military jacket, boots and a hat for forty years, I said to that janitor Nikol: "It's enough to be a captain, Nikol, don't you think about your dissertation, Nikol?" Seriously Nikol thought that yes, he was the one to defend the dissertation and the university is not the place for idiots like Hrant Karyan. And I was laughing outside in the sun at that time.
With the ease of that day, now I got off the highway, crossed the swing bridge, "son of a dog, I've been rejected for a graduate degree, who are you?", I went to the telephone exchange.
"It was an empty car, why didn't he take it away?" asked the policeman. His eyes were serious, as if he was worried about what was happening, but in his mind he was smiling because he knew my true value: fifteen manet, that's the old donkey, he changed the palanquin.
"It wasn't empty, it was carrying yogurt," I said.
Maybe there was a thought in what Hrant Karyan said, maybe there wasn't, maybe he was trying to get a hold of him, the militiaman laughed cautiously.
- Hold your phone well, - said Hrant Karyan and entered the junction. - I think we can call now. Turn on Tsmakut.
- Hello, Sanasar, this is Hrant. From the station. Karyan.- He laughingly agreed that, yes, Shil Yeghish's elder.- How are you?- And that things were going so well, he winked at the operator. Tell us, from a horse or something... No, there is nothing to bring by hand. Two suitcases, two sides. Bye, I'm waiting.
Hrant Karyan took out his wallet from the back pocket of his striped pants, took out the only five-ruble bill from the bill of one hundred forty-seven thousand six hundred and fifteen rubles and handed it to the operator.
- Give me a little.
- I don't have any.
- Take a good look at your pockets.
- I don't have the habit of keeping a penny.
- How are we going to do it?
- Let it stay with you, then you will have money, you will give it.
- Yes, it's shash, huh?
"Why is it shash?" Hrant Karyan laughed.
- Come on, who's going to come here and talk so much that I'll give you a fiver?
Hrant Karyan laughed again and laughingly said.
- Well, now I will pick it up at the ticket office and bring it.
- The box office will open tomorrow.
"Well, let it stay with you," said Hrant Karyan seriously, "once I'm passing by, I'll take it."
The operator narrowed her eyes and Hrant Karyan laughed again. And the operator squinted her eyes, squinted and said:
- Ara... Ara, to shashahpart... Ara, herd shashavu, du shash, how will the condition of your family be?
"Why?" laughed Hrant Karyan.
- He is still asking, he is still asking.
- No, why?
- Yes, if I take it now, if the car comes and with God's luck you go today, why are you going to buy cigarettes, since you smoke so much?
Hrant Karyan laughed until he cried, then he started laughing again and thought that he loved that station, that junction with not a single penny of money in its shelves, that telephone operator who has four children at home, that militiaman and, God's witness, that Meruj and his father's bag of yogurt on the lecturers' parquet, and the open-hearted smiles of his compatriots and his cool father and his sarcastic mother and to his shill nine brothers and to himself that he managed to get away with it.
Then I was sitting in the hall, the policeman came and knocked, stood in front of me and said:
- You can sit down.
"Huh?" I opened my eyes, "what can be done?"
- Sleep, sleep, you probably didn't sleep at night.
After eight o'clock, the station was filled with peasants, at nine o'clock the workers' train arrived, carrying away chicken, eggs, noise, greens, butter, apples, inquiry, complaints, mutton, cheese, gloom. We were left with me, the policeman and the station building with the old bell.
- Let's go eat bread - said the militiaman.
"Thank you," I said, and immediately realized that he was saying to himself. thousands of acquaintances and strangers come down to this station a day, and he is a salaried person.
"What's there to be ashamed of?" the policeman adapted.
- I'm not hungry.
- Something else.
At ten o'clock I called Tsmakut, there was no one at the phone. At half past ten I called again, and there was a hot village center, a closed club, a closed shop, behind the glass of which a bee was suffering for five days, the closed village council, the smell of plaster was coming from the school building, the well was filling up with water, the alarm of my old grandmother was hanging in the upper grave: urur-urur-urur, hoo! the call from a meter, I saw the village with all the smells and colors, I heard the phone call through the deserted village and in a second I was sad and alarmed. There, Basar the dog slowly grows old in the sun and darkness. the chickens increase and decrease. low, monotonous, endless and soporific, the telephone lines sing. in the valley, motionless like a horse in a painting, the same red horse has been standing for twenty years. oh, the roof of the silent mill has tilted and is not collapsing - where am I going? I will mow the lawn with the boys. We will arrest Vardanyan Lavrenti. he didn't understand that the ice cream was cold, he swallowed the farmer. We will hold hands, and he will fall asleep with his hat on his eyes. We are going to harvest, we are going to harvest, we are going to harvest, we are going to harvest and we will not finish it, the harvest season will begin. Art's heat, cyst and sweaty neck. And your dry bitter mouth. "- You went to the water for two hours, you dog. - Well, keep your head together, huh..." And the corridor of the university and the hard and soft back of Beersheba. No one talks to him without smiling. And it is not stupid and not cheap.
I ate myself on the only sidewalk in the cramped station. I stood on the only sidewalk and cursed.
- Illiterate, all the girls in the group were smarter than you. Careerist, you put yourself forward with organizational work... Self-satisfied, what was your organizational work? Were you beautiful... What was your beauty? You will sell every gram of your meat for a thousand rubles.
I remembered the bad road in the village. and that my father and mother do not think how their many children will live, they just give birth to them and love them with equal love, and they are barefoot; and that for two years, in the mud and rain, I went to school half-barefoot from Tsmakut to Shamut. and that that animal Meruj was the dumbest and most cautious of the school. and that the engineer had a heavy hand. and that during the rain, my father's feet hurt, and he fetches grass, fetches wood, puts manure out of the barn, goes to the village with a limp on both legs, instead of sitting and stomping his feet. and that the station is so narrow - for all this, I cursed Bersabe Mirzakhanyan, but she was smiling again, she was beautiful again, she was cracking up in the dean's office and was very accurate, she didn't make a single hair's mistake. docent Akhverdyan smiled at him, everyone smiled, everyone accepted his intelligence. If he wants, he will become famous, if he wants, he will give and take half of Africa, and if he didn't get it, then he didn't want it. Celebrities aren't smarter than her. American President Wilson was sitting in his white house, the world was soft and pleasant, and he wanted to do something good. and thought and found a great Armenia and drew a map of Great Armenia. and the pencil went on the paper easily, easily. and the biographers looked at his archive and said: Oh, how Christian he was. And what did that Hitler do? as if he had put himself in order, now he pretended to put the world in order. And what did the Armenian officer of the Turkish army do? freed the Turkish minister Enver from captivity, who escaped from captivity, went directly and organized a great Armenian crowd, then, having the keys to the military warehouse, he took them and decorated himself with marshal's jewels. And what was that crusade of those crusaders? they said let's go and free the remains of the Lord, they went, they arrived, there was so much pepper and coriander, there was so much cinnamon and fennel... They slapped cinnamon and pepper, fennel and fennel and went to their homes. They were asked: and the remains of the Lord? they asked. What remains of the Lord? they were told. well, Lord Jesus... - and they were eating a meal with pepper, which was unheard of delicious, and they didn't have time to answer idle questions. And the Rome of those philosophers, legislators, orators, and poets, who sent Carthage such a memorandum as if there were no philosophers and legislators, orators and poets in Rome, but there were ignorant barbarians; a memorandum like this: pull the city of Carthage back thirteen leagues from the sea. And that Chinese wall, because it is long, it is the longest, and there is no other such long wall in the world, wants to find a place among the seven wonders. And that, that, that Mesrop, that horseman of Tsmakut, who did not want to be an ordinary horseman and went to see that he was a horseman and a nationalist at the same time and was imprisoned and he liked being imprisoned. And his investigators must have liked their blunt seriousness.
What a story this is!
- I'm sorry, Bersabe, hang your head and stand up for yourself, I said to Bersabe Mirzakhanyan.
And when the Tbilisi-Yerevan train came to a heavy stop, Hrant Karyan leaned his back against the railings of the narrow sidewalk and smiled. Perhaps the eyes looked cute and the smile at the corner of the lips was beautiful. And he said to the hairy uncle and his fat lady who were staring blankly from behind the window.
- Is it hot? Eat, eat, eating is good against the heat.
And said to the merchants of the other windows.
- Where are you going? The crusaders have taken the pepper and the freedom sword!
And said to the Russian girls at the other window.
- Get down, Yerevan is hot.
They pointed to the station and grimaced.
- Is everything good in your Moscow?
- And we are from Kursk - they said.
- Hang on, hang on.- And Hrant Karyan said to the elderly man in the other window, about his girl-aged wife.
- Where are you taking that child to those savages in Yerevan?
And said to the villagers of the other windows.
- Now the market is full of eggs, wait until January. Fifty kopecks!
And gave honor to the military wagon.
- Cheers, friend general.
And said to the smiling man with a mustache in the other wagon.
- Are you going to practice? Have you arrived? Can you eat jam?
And said to the poet with mixed hair in the other carriage.
- Naturalism, capitalism, pantheism, social realism.
And said to the drunkards of the other wagon.
- Shhhhhh.
And triumphantly nailed the lovers of the last wagon.
- Meow, baaaa.- The girl looked like a cat in love, the boy looked like a calf.
After that I was alone at the station for five whole hours and I seemed to be going crazy. Smiling, I was thinking and talking, but it was sad. I tried to fight with the station master, but it didn't work.
- Why is there no storage room?
- And who said there isn't?
- If there is, where is it?
- That is another question. It is closed.
- And why is it closed?
- The worker went to Yerevan.
- "He went to Yerevan", so what should I do?
- That is another question. put your head in your hands and take bayati.
I called Tsmakut again, it was still hot in the countryside and the old dog in the shed. I fell asleep. The policeman pulled my leg again and tapped my head.
- Is there a car?
- No, a plane. Special. You can't lie down.
- Be a man, bro.
- And who said that we are not human?
I didn't want to wake up because I had nothing to do. I lay back down looking at the clock.
- Get up!
I jumped up. He shoved me between the seats, took my elbow and opened the door of a room, and while I was thinking that there was a typo in the sign and that this was a theater and that it was the saddest thing in the world to be an inhabitant of a small station, he had gone behind the desk and was grinning.
"Then?" I said.
Then the phone rested on the desk, the thick glass under the phone, the desk under the glass, his boots under the desk, the worn floor under the boots, and the floor was on the basement, the basement was on the river. The river flowed for a thousand, a million, a billion years in the same banks, crashing against the same stones, and it was heart-breakingly boring. But the policeman was smiling. he was happy that he got rid of the reaper, he has a house at the station, he communicates with something as big as the Moscow-Yerevan express train, he has two pigs, the question of feed is not difficult, because he is the only pig at the station, and the station master's two piglets ran away, leaving the remains of the buffet only for his pigs. And the day can be filled with something. a train comes and goes, a car crashes, there is something like a fight in the buffet every once in a while, the goods truck is loaded with stone, coal, plywood, you can stand and look, the radio is talking, you can listen, they tell America where a puppy stole pieces of gold. What will he do? He has no money to buy clothes. Perhaps he will exchange money for clothes. They will catch. You can say to a fat passenger who has fallen into the water, "Is Yerevan hot?" and shake your head in agreement.
- Yesterday you went to the city, - he said with a smile, - today you come and we are not human? That's why they gave you the diploma to come and tell us that we are not human.
"Then?" I said.
- No, you tell me, was the diploma given for that?
- I don't have a diploma.
"That's what you lacked," he grinned.
- And if I have?
- It can be seen from your head.
My pants were wrinkled, my shirt was dirty and wrinkled, my eyes hurt, my face was probably swollen. "I didn't sleep at night," I said.
- Does it affect my salary?
- Does not affect.
He leaned back in his chair, put his hands in his pockets and smiled.
- Am I not human? Now that I close the door and break your ankles, who will say I beat you?
- It is possible, - I said, - no one will testify.
- Are you speaking as a witness? - he stood up.
No, he wasn't a beater. He was having a good time.
"I don't have Zahla," I grimaced.
- Okay!
- Oh, I don't have a spare.
He took the receiver, let the operator connect to Kirovakan. he was calling the militia of Kirovakan, - he doesn't have a zahla, - he asked for day care, he said that it was Kolageran who was bothering him. - The boy doesn't have a zahla. - He was waiting for the captain on duty, and at that time I was laughing ironically, but I was definitely crying. - The boy got his diploma, he doesn't have a zahla.
- Stop it, idiot, - I shouted.
He reported the situation to the captain in detail, did not add or subtract. I was grateful for that precision. The captain was silent there and I felt sorry for the captain for a minute. Then he added my last word.
- Comrade captain, I was calling him to order, he said to me, "Stop it, idiot."
The captain was silent and I loved him from afar, the captain and I were fighting the dullness.
- Shall I bring you to the city, friend captain?
"No," said the captain.
This was upset. - Well, what should I do, friend captain?
The captain was silent, then said: - Fine. - If I were in his place, I would say so, throw the receiver and cut the connecting line with Kolageran. But I was Hrant Karyan, I was at the station, I was waiting for a horse-car, but there was none. I would make a mess, trick my friend Reuben into getting a few more hours at school, and at home the noise of those nine kids and the smell of my father's socks.
- I don't have a penny of money, fool.
He shook his head and said.
- Should I call again now?
"Listen," I said, "if you want to go to Kirovakan, go, your desk and stationmaster won't fly away."
"Whoah, whoah, whoah," he lied surprised, "he got his diploma, he's getting angry." Herd is such a calm person, how come you were so angry? Did you mess up?
Was he joking then? He could also take Kirova away with a joke. Fines jokingly. Then he will brag in his mind. "The diploma was on its way, we stopped it, we did a little hand-holding."
- Take out your wallet.
I said, "I will take out my wallet, and do you know which editorial office I work in?" When I was working in the editorial office, I would come by car, pass by car, and I would not even notice him, and I would not even know that Kolageran station is there.
- After you work in the editorial office, what will you do to me?- And with his pale eyes, he moved his white lips silently. Then he moved again, the air was not enough. And so far I have not seen anything more disgusting than the envy of a semi-literate person.
- I will write it, you will write it out! After you wrote, what will they do to me? Will they be removed from this station, will they be promoted?... My boss came to me, he works in the editorial office. He will write: they will remove him from the militia. He doesn't have a penny in his pocket, he works in the editorial office. It's not from Tsmakutesi, it's from the editorial office.
I reached into my pocket to take out a hundred thousand rubles and hit him on the iron head, took out the last rubles he had given me in the morning for my fiver and paid the fine.
Then I stood at the narrow platform and looked at the express train going from Moscow to Yerevan, and the policeman behind me nodded to me and said to the station master: - The boy has a diploma. works in the editorial office. Don't delay the train or it will be in the newspaper. Put your hat in order or it will be in the newspaper. Her is a reporter, he is also a reporter.
I was silently crying and saying to the express: - Important, important, you come and go. Are you stopping at the Kolageran station? Thank you. Do you take it on a business trip and sign it? Do you open the bed and sleep? Are you going to the restaurant car? Are you laughing? Do you eat chicken, drink brandy? Do you wake up and yawn?
I called Tsmakut again, it was my poor village, from here, from the nearby power station, they forgot to turn on its lights, and the big moon only shone and did not flood its houses, gardens, paths, because the thick forest did not reflect any light. they had come from the harvest and slept and needed no light, no newspaper, no conversation.
There are fifty kopecks left, "Also," said the operator, "you'll call and heck, the car will come." Will come and take Yerevan. Come on, what have you become?" he said seriously and with a laugh. "Have you gone crazy? Yes, again, they cheated, they cheated the child.
"Let the writer go, I thought, they've gone and entered, no, they don't know what's in the world, no, they want to know... They mow grass, stack hay, keep cows, buy oil, cheese, meat, leather, mow more grass, stack hay... At least they could live a little closer to the line, a little better. They went, they found a place in the church."
Colageran had long since turned on his lights, looking out through the warm windows into the peace of the station. A freight forwarder came and went. He was sent to the upper station and returned by the locomotive on duty. Two line workers had been drinking beer against the booth for about five hours. After destroying the bow of the archer, the geese came down the line with a peaceful conversation, turned, crossed the bridge, crossed the road and found their safe place. Good night, until morning.
"Let the writer take it, what's missing is a station," I thought. "It's both a city and a village. nobody comes here on tour, it's true, but they can get on the train and go to Kirovakan, Tbilisi, Yerevan whenever they want. Do they keep pigs? The writer takes it, it is a city and a village, they keep a pig, but there is no question of a wolf. Even now, on the tables: red fried potatoes, sliced sausage, tea is always there, white tablecloth. the radio spins a low song and conversation. fresh white bread is available every day, the oven of the power plant is fired. They always give the light, they never forget like Tsmakut. The writer wishes my father's house was here. We would have beans, we would keep a pig, he would work as an arrowhead, a militiaman or a baker, he would bring warm loaves in the mornings."
The yellow light of the windows suggested fish and woodlice, but the dark mud of Tsmakut? And the ground fleeing under your feet, and the overflowing brook darkening, and the dog being snatched from the door by a pack of wolves? And that the technical secretary of the regional executive committee can call you to the phone at any moment and pour dog's paw on your head, and you won't feel dishonored because you were talking to a representative of that regional executive committee? He was putting you in a place, talking to you.
And I cursed Bersabe Mirzakhanyan again and then I saw that I was very powerless against her round shoulders, magnificent smile and business intelligence. And then, plain and simple, like the memory of Tsmakut village, I saw that the couch and the phone and the delicate tone of laughter and voice fit Bersabe, these ribs, this dirty shirt and red eyes suit me. Everyone was right in their place. Old ministers and professors are dying, getting old, retiring - who will replace them? we have finished the university and will slowly rise to the age of professor and minister. Which of us will be a lecturer or a minister? We were standing in the corridor when English lecturer Hamlet Taronyan came and passed. His springy gait was too charming for me not to follow him with his tannaz; and then, a while ago, I told a joke and we laughed, it was a moment of losing my mind. Hamlet Taronyan looked back, I scratched my nose and continued walking as he had caught me. as if that's how I walk. And he followed me with his eyes until I leaned against the head of the ladder. I leaned over and threw myself down laughing and red with sweat. - Come on, boy. - Well... Bersaba?... I did something stupid... Ugh. - Goodbye, goodbye, he said among others and continued to climb with old Hasratyan with grace and dignity. And then for a couple of years I was Hamlet Taronyan's psychological slave, and Bersabe didn't even notice Taronyan at all, because he was not respected among the professors, and he knew English within the limits of the textbook and did not make fun of him. Why is Bathsheba serious and not a joke? Bathsheba will become a minister, and I will tell the reapers in the mountain meadows that he was from our group, "we were friends", I will say. the reapers will look at the picture of Beersheba, at the list of honored guests at the dinner, look at me and say, "braggart, you braggart."
Colagera from the narrow station, in the middle of the night, I begged him.
- They won't be that careerist, Bersabe... Have a conscience, they won't be that careerist, Bersabe. you can, of course you can, but so powerfully beautiful, they won't be so careerist, Bersaba.
At five o'clock, twenty-four hours later, the Yerevan-Moscow express train arrived and passed over me. When he came, I looked at my watch and said he came right, he was here at the same time yesterday. I wanted to praise the punctuality of the driver for a minute, then suddenly I saw that I have been here for twenty-four hours and it was terribly absurd to come to the station in Yerevan by taxi, the suitcases, the lemonade that I took at the station, before getting into the taxi, I thought for a while before getting into the taxi, didn't I forget anything? And that I let the taxi drive along Vergineents Street: "Hrant is going to Australia for twenty-five years."
I entered the hall because I was ashamed of the rush hour. I was closing my eyes because it seemed to me that the lower station had arrived, my train from Moscow returning from yesterday was getting dressed. Of course it wasn't like that, there were still four days. He was now barely crawling near Rostov. But it was moving. It will arrive, it will be emptied, it will be washed and it will take the way back. And I'm here like this bridge, this booth, these geese, I'm here like this hall.
- Sanasar! - I shouted, - what the hell happened? I've been here for thirty hours.
Yes, he had forgotten, he was silent and asked.
- Who is that talking?
"What happened?" I said, "what happened, Sanasar?"
- Who is that talking?
- I, Sanasar, have been waiting here for thirty hours.
He thought, thought and laughed, not being able to predict the face of the incompetent, idler who had done nothing for thirty hours, but only waited for others to do.
"Who are you?" he laughed.
- Hrant, Sanasar, Karyan Hrant.
"Yes!" he rejoiced, "are you Yeghshi Hrant?" Hello, Hrant.
- Hello, Sanasar.
- I told you there is no such thing, I told you I am not the one who gives you this rain. Look at the equipped cart, look at the oxen. Hello! - Then he shouted through the office and across the village - Go! Go! Go! what are you mumbling? go, pack your things and go. Today But as long as you don't go, do what we say,' he turned around in the office and threw the receiver at the phone.
So what? So what would I have done that I hadn't done? Very well, I did not rock and roll with Karine from the Polytechnic, but in my mind I bragged that I did. Very well, I am the first monster in the world, I organized the great Armenian genocide, the Jewish slaughter, I want to somehow start a new world war and not secretly destroy the Armenian and Jewish remains in the smoke and noise and then hypocritically mourn. I find that this railway, telephone, radio, asphalt, cement, this coal, buttons, clock, this hammer, pen, stamp, this iron, chemistry, bed, smile, this piano, the hall, the chewing gum, the letter are unnecessary, man is unworthy of them, I want to start life anew from the forest, art and pestilence, very kind But why don't people prevent the birth of the monster with their kindness?
The monster Hrant Karyan was sitting on the sidelines and was saying to himself. "If you were a man, you would have gone with Meruzh." Hrant Karyan walked around the station, and then stopped by the operator.
- Turn it on again.
- I'm telling you to work as a teacher here, I'm not telling you.
- Sanasar! - I shouted, - you are a man, you. What was I going to do if you were a handful near the phone? Tell me. I mowed the grass for you for four summers.
- Do you want a medal now?
"No," I shouted, "I want a humane attitude."
- What would we do to be humane?
- I have been at the station for thirty hours.
- Huh... where are you talking about?
- Ka-ya!-ra!-ni!
- I think you were there yesterday too. Are you getting ready yet? May your house be built! Learn, learn, you are still the Yeghish tribe.
"Sanasar," I said, "my burden is heavy."
- I will let you know now.
- Sanasar, my load is heavy, because of the horse...
- No, horse, it didn't happen, I'll tell you now.
- We don't have horses, and my loads are heavy, Sanasar.
"I don't know," he said. "What should I say to you now?" Hrant is getting ready, are the loads heavy?
- Comrade President, - I explained, - we are not a monopolist. When they were making the team, they gathered the horses and said: "When you need it, you will take it."
"Is that written in your diploma?" he teased quietly.
- I think it is written in yours too.
- We are modest people, we don't need a diploma.
- And what do you think about elementary logic?
- Ours is work, not logic.
- Horse!
"Ah," he said, dropped the receiver and, when I was throwing it, said something.
- How?
"It's okay," he said, "I'm telling you, you're a house full of people, you'll get along without a horse."
- Please, - I said. - You can not even tell me. And in general, both the horse and yours... Goodbye.
... Hrant Karyan threw away the receiver and went to the polytechnic institute, tall-tall, a bit unshaven with a bit of business carelessness and with tense and slow steps, found Karine, danced rock and roll behind her, went to the university, graduate school, and there was no young, cute, smart person like her among the professors. He was the most famous in Yerevan, everywhere they said "Hrant Karyan, Hrant Karyan", they were already talking about him in Tbilisi, Kiev, they said about him in Moscow: "it's amazing, Yerevan, and you drink so much?", and at that time Hrant Karyan, so tall and handsome, twenty-eight-thirty years old, sitting behind the desk with his tie loose, took out a gun from the drawer and shot him in the mouth. "It is heavy, friends, the burden of the winner." And no one knew that his young heart was throwing away the memory of the Kolagera station every second.
I will curse the lord of American cinema. I curse the idiot of the librarian of Tsmakuti, that one piece of garbage did not fill my head until paragraph by paragraph, it did not give me any other garbage. "You must read the book you have taken."
...- Please, - I said. - You can not even tell me. And in general, both the horse and yours... Goodbye.
- Nothing, said Sanasar, - it's nothing new, my family is used to it. Goodbye.
- Goodbye, - I said. - Mine is not new either. ten times I get to this ruined station and get stuck in mold. Thank you.
- They appointed a president and they are harassing Andro, the instructor, the calf guard, the president of Shamut... the one who gets there is harassing, he will catch you one more time, curse him.
"Sorry," I said.
- Please, but I'm sorry about the horse.
- Well, - I said, - what are you, that I should be angry with you?
- But you are so arrogant!
- Your work will not progress until you are arrogant.
- Wait.
- Do you think I will wait after this?
- Goodbye.
- Goodbye. I don't have a kilo of grain at home, what should I do?
- My house is full of grain, come get a ton.
- Why are you complaining to me? I am not your storekeeper. Goodbye.
- And I am your servant that you want a horse?
- I don't want a horse from you.
- I am glad. Goodbye.
- Poor Hers harvests for you twelve months a year. Goodbye.
- Yes, your poor father's back still hurts from the harvest. Goodbye.
- That's none of your business.
- What is not my business?
- Does it hurt or not?
- Why are you telling?
- Remembering is good. Goodbye.
- Remembering is good, remember. Goodbye.
- Yes, I will remember.
- Remember.
- Do you remember that as if someone came from the regional center, as if there was nothing in your houses, they came and took away our slaughtered pig?
- I remember. that after two days we will give a fattened pig instead.
- Remember well. and understand that we needed leather. There were seven children in the house, barefoot. If we wanted to be jealous, we would be. We know envy.
- I'm jealous, you're jealous, we would be jealous, the envy, the diploma, then?
- You officially give my mother an allowance, but you call her a rabbit behind her back.
- The year brings one, so what can we say? They say he brought fire again, how many were you?
- Eleven. Is it a boy or a girl... Sanasar, is it a boy or a girl...
- There are so many of you that they don't choose whether it's a girl or a boy.
- Sanasar!
- They say he was born, mixed with others, cool Yeghish does not understand what is new.
- How is Mers, Mers...- my roaring Mers, my mother's secret smile. the false sigh and secret smile. the false anger and the secret smile. I'll tear your eyes out, unnecessary. Oh, you ate my soul. half of the egg to you, half to you. go out, Hrant is reading, shhhh...
- Get over it, - I shouted, - from the horse... I will harvest for a month.
- Is that for you?
- Sorry.
- Do you curse and then apologize?
- I have been back here since yesterday.
- Did I put you up there so that you are angry with me?
- I resent you for not giving me a horse.
- You are doing well, be upset as much as you can.
- Well, I'm not upset, Sanasar.
- You are doing well, don't be upset.
- Sanasar...
- Who will give you a horse this August? Goodbye.
- You are a man, not an animal.
- Hamme? He was shouting, I didn't hear him.
- Who was screaming?
- I don't hear.
- Do you want me to repeat?
- I don't hear!
- Why am I listening to you?
- I don't listen, you will come to the village and tell me.
- Send a horse to come.
- Yes, a horse... I said I won't give a horse. Goodbye.
- Goodbye, Sanasar, but don't forget.
- By the way, Sonosar, but don't think about it...
- Iya... ara... you were a clown, did the village trust you?
- Yes... Oro... you've been in the village, did the village trust you?
- Wow...
- We are the president, don't we have the right to joke?
- I stayed at the station for two days. It's not humanity.
- There is no such product here, bring some from the station.
- Send a horse so I can bring it...
The writer was gone, I was constantly hoping and despairing, he became for me a god-animal, a god-animal, a god-animal... and I could not understand in any way that he was neither a god nor an animal. is a person. It's raining heavily, they dozed off to play cards, dominoes, joke, read newspapers and or talk on the phone. Lightning shatters in the surrounding mountains, and while dozing they remember that that year lightning dried Lachin the buffalo at the head of the White Spring, killed Ashot's Varduhi last year or the year before, and that Ashot's new wife takes care of the children better than before and is a good wife as well. Should we complain to the ministry about blackmail or does it make no sense? They say the newspaper published an article - someone in the village read it, who read it? Of course, you can complain to the ministry and you can complain to Moscow, but where do you plant the blackmail? they say it hits the mountains. you can agree, but that time Esaiu was trying to kill the boy, under the quail.
"Look," said Sanasar, "is the river overflowing?"
The river was red and full, coming and going drowning. Geese did not swim, there were no worn-out car tires and fuel oil barrels under the bridge. The river was gassing, give it a little more power, the river would carry the outhouses of the station master, telephone operator, militiaman, storekeeper, squire, cleaner, school manager, teachers lined up in a row.
"It's overflowing, Sanasar, then?" I winked at the operator.
- What is it, fellow citizen?
"What is it overflowing with?" I repeated and winked at the operator.
- It's raining, raining!
- It's not raining, Sanasar, it's not sunny, it's cool.
- It is raining here in the village. He put hailstones in the mountains.
"Then?" I winked at the operator.
- Then we have a conversation with friend Karyan.
- Why did you ask about the Ba river?
- Yes! - laughed Sanasar. The river comes from here, remember?” He laughed again, and I was very happy for his laugh.
- Yes, is it raining... I also say why is he asking if the river has overflowed? So it's raining. So it's raining in the village, and that's why the river... Sanasar... please, yes, from the horse... - I winked at the militiaman, and he was standing and smiling. - I've come, I've been here for two days, Sanasar...
- Oh, let your house be built, are you still talking about Kolageran? To Tnashe, that water in its place in two hours, without a diploma, reached Kolagera and still passed, you couldn't reach Tsmakut in two days with a diploma?
- Well, Sanasar, damn the diploma, the important thing is that you work on the land, from a horse or something, Sanasar...
- No, why is the diploma important?
- It is important, but now the horse is more important, Sanasar.
- Of course, the horse is important, but the diploma is also important. Hres Ruben does not have a diploma, he is removed from management.
- They give their heads to the stone, what right do they have to interfere in the affairs of your village?
- No, why, it's good, you'll come and work as a manager.
- Who will give me leadership, Sanasar?
- I will talk later.
- Thank you, Sanasar.
- Goodbye, we are waiting.
- Send a horse again, Sanasar.
- You are a driver, why do you need a horse?
- I'm really burdened, Sanasar.
- Nothing, you will forget. You will become a manager and you won't even say hello.
- Do I... You don't know me well yet, Sanasar.
- That's what they always say.
- Look who says it, Sanasar.
- That's what they always say.
- Try me, then you will know.
- Ha-ha-ha-ha... that's what they say.
- Perhaps the places are cramped, they say.
- Why is your place narrow? Is it a war?
- There is no war, I have been at the station for two days.
- Get up and come.
- I'm really loaded, Sanasar.
- You are loaded, what are you loaded with?
- It has two sides, two suitcases.
- "It has two sides, two suitcases", then what is inside?
- From Desit-den, again, Sanasar.
- What is this secret secret, for example, that you are covering up like that?
- Well, I'm not covering up, Sanasar, there's nothing to say.
- You filled two bags and two suitcases, it's a burden, and you have to say it's not a burden, "there's nothing to say."
- Sugar, Sanasar.
- A hundred kilos of sugar?
- Five. Noodles, Sanasar.
- Ninety five kilos of noodles?
- Ten, Sanasar.
- Exactly ten?
- No, eight, Sanasar.
- Are eight and ten one? Then?
- Why do you need that garbage?
- Yes, well, if it's garbage, then I'm doing the right thing by not giving a horse.
- Cake for children.
- "For children", as if Yeglish can't eat. Then?
- What next?
- Is it sugar, noodles and cookies?
- No, there is one more thing, Sanasar.
- Then, then.
- Grape, the first grape.
- Long live, long live.
- My books.
- You will live.
- Shoes for children.
- Stay clean.
- A jacket for my father, cotton.
- Long live Yegish, long live. Should I wear it?
- Yes, maybe he will wear it. A headscarf for my mother, my old shoes. Lecture notes, my jacket, panties, t-shirt. Change for my father, baby underwear, baby soap, woman's panties - thick, a knife and fork, a piece of cake, an iron, a thermometer and iodine, a horse's bridle, a lock, a plow, dung, a hat, a patch, I will curse your father one day, you thief.
I put the receiver on and it was as quiet as if I was under anesthesia. A low murmur came back to me from the dark spaces far away.
"Huh?" I said to the policeman or the operator, then I grabbed the receiver. "Murderer!" and threw the receiver away.
The eyes of the telephone operator were looking at me with pity from the darkness, and the eyes of the policeman were looking at me with a smile and pity, and line by line they showed the wall, the door, the window, the alley, the piglet. "Shameless!"
- Smart... smart... smart...
"Cow! Cattle! Ignorant!" I shouted.
And then the world seemed beautiful and sad, and then I felt my brain warm, warm, warm and start to soften. All the bonds and connections in my brain softened and melted, and I had no ambition. I didn't love or hate anyone. only the floor was pulling me with an irresistible charm, I was hanging in that embrace towards the floor, and those wings were squeezing and wouldn't let go.
- OK, again... OK, again... OK, again... - I begged. - OK, again... OK, again... let, again... OK, again...
He left me, but now there was a chair under me, I sat for half a second, then threw myself on the floor, and it was already a bit of an act. I jumped and wanted to howl, but it was too loud. And I started. And the smell of dust is still in my nostrils. I was lying down and told myself that I was crying for my violated rights, my clothes got dirty because of this, I don't have a phone bill because of this, the policeman is still a person because of the policeman, my Vergine was taken from me because of this, I couldn't howl loudly and I cry silently and it's beautiful because of that - but in reality I was thinking about what occasion I will get out of the fallen place and that after all this, Sanasar will send a horse, shame and send.
From deep silence, the world was slowly returning to its voices. the hissing was the ground, the proportional shaking of the underground: the train was coming, then it screeched, then it came closer, then it came, passed and disappeared. someone's footsteps approached, the door opened, the footsteps stopped under my ear.
- Oh... is he drunk?
- No, he is lying down.
- What happened?
- He made a fuss.
- Why did you upset the child?
I would hug, lift and be my father. and to be small. And I would have lost my knife, I would bark, bark, bark... Their caress would inflame my crying and I would sob in the midst of crying. my temptation to take their apple seemed like treachery to my lost knife, and I would cry out of tears; I would remember how my knife was folded and I would remember what pictures were drawn on his butt and I would cry from crying. they would scold me and I would cry for the knife and for that rude scolding... Shameless, pure, abundant, wet-wet! I would cry a lot... And I would fall asleep in my father's arms, and wake up as innocent as milk, and smile softly, softly.
- Get up, boy... They say we have an owner of your suitcases, my owner is a mature man, he finished university. Don't say that the owner is a child, he is playing around here...
- The phone was broken here too.
- Did he spoil it?
- Yes, again, it spoiled it, they called the monster, but they don't talk.
- That he spoiled it is bad.
Hrant Karyan bent over, stood up and rocking, his eyes were red and gloomy, he said.
- Then?
The voice was husky and he liked it and he wanted them to say something to him again and to answer and hear his thick manly voice.
- You broke the phone and you don't have a penny in your hand, what will happen to us?
- I don't have it, then?
- I don't know.
"I know," said Hrant Karyan.
- What do you know?
- Take it and hang it.
- Hey!... I've been bitten... do it, keep it up, keep it up, your diploma is new, it's so cute... do it... let's take it and hang it, won't your regret come to you...?
- No, Hrant Karyan rumbled.
- Well, no... Don't touch it, do it...
The station chief and the policeman entered my arms, took me out, crossed the bridge, and took me to the policeman's house. They took fried potatoes and tea. To lay down, to put to sleep. To make me thank them. To wake up, to say that Alkho has arrived, to adjust the bags to the horse, to do what happens without doing. To indicate the location of the delineation and the mouth of the path leading to the village.
"Arayik," I said to my brother, "wasn't there a horse that you were bringing here?"
"Wow," she cried, "don't you see Andro giving?"
- What was he saying?
- He said that he came from Kazakhstan two hours ago.
- How did he give it?
- Dad was gone, he didn't give it. Mom and Dad fought. Then mom went and got it.
- How is mom?
- Well, how was it going to be?
- Did you go on the road?
- As if he could come to drive me.
The Moscow-Yerevan expressway was winding quietly below. The aroma of the coupe played in my lungs for a minute, for a minute I remembered the bare legs of a woman under the table and Hrant Karyan, carelessly folded.
"Arayik," I said, "don't you have any money?"
He kept quiet, kept quiet and was saddened.
- What's wrong, isn't there?
- Where will the money come from?
- Mom didn't give it?
- Who received the child benefit, gave one ruble. I also went to take gravity, I went and saw that I lost it. Now I don't know if it fell out of my pocket or if I left it at home.
- Nothing, Ara, I will give you money.
- What do I need the money for?
- You will take candy.
Killingly majestic, killingly concerned, he looked at me for a moment and tilted his head.
- Don't you like candy?
He almost screamed.
- I love it!
- Then?
- There is not a piece of sugar at home, you say you will buy candy.
- Arayik... Arayik, who took the horse to Kazakh?
"Gikor," he said in a flurry.
- Arayik, I will give you gravity.
He asked very clearly.
- What will you write with?
- Well, I will write.
- With a pencil?
- I will write one more thing, Araik.
- Will you give me your gravity and will you write with a pencil?
- Well, even so.
"You will live," he said.
"Your left, your left, your left, your left... live! Your left, your left, your left... You don't have a right! On the left. No! World War II is over. The tram cut off. You were born without a mother. Left, left. Live, live." After the company competition, he labeled me "a great left-hander", and when they took me to the selection competition, he thought that I would take my theory and skill to Moscow, Berlin, Rome, Melbourne, and stand on the winner's pedestal. "Left, left, left..." The commission agreed with his request. I also thought I had a great left. But the veterinarian's bull, Karapet Karapetyan, bit my muzzle at the very first second. I told myself, nothing. The committee was waiting for my sudden left. The trainer on the ropes was prompting: left, left, left. I agreed with him. I knew that now and then my unexpected left would jump. We were dressed. The committee was disbanded, Karapet Karapetyan was recognized as the winner, I was defeated, the coach had spat and left, we were on the street, it was spring, it was peaceful, and I still thought that now and then my unexpected left would jump. "What kind of fight was that, Taurus?" I said. "Me?" He raised his shoulders. Then I asked Vergine to tell her husband that Hrant is a boxer, he has a terrible left. Needless to say, he jumped out of the car during the process, slammed a couple of things and went to take his cement to his construction site.
- Is Sanasar a good person or a bad person, friend Arayik?
- Well, he is a man, again, for himself.
- Was it raining?
- I said he was coming.
- And, Arayik, why didn't the uncle want to give the horse?
- I said he had just arrived from Kazakhstan.
- Ba gives the horse to Gikor to take to Kazakh, we want it, he says did he come from Kazakh?
- Well, he had just arrived, what was he going to say, how long ago was he going to say?
- Did you know that I have been lying in the station for a week?
- He and his father are in a little trouble.
- For what?
- He said to his father, why do you need so many children?
- What is his business?
- He said: how will you take care of so many children?
- What is his job anyway?
- Father said: I will take care of it, he himself said: go find a horse for yourself, Alkhon has just arrived from Kazakhstan.
- How are we going to do it, Arayik?
- For what?
- In general, Arayik.
- I don't know. Dad said you will greet uncle coldly.