There was a Samad in our class, a Madat, an Amrkhan, but it was Artavazd we called Turk. I did not know why we called him Turk, but we called him Turk. Now I know. His brothers would turn one and die. The brothers born before him would reach the age of one and die, and the old women had advised his mother to give her children a foreign name, a Turkish or Kurdish one. Death, they said, would not realise that an Armenian boy was hiding under a foreign name, and would go away empty-handed. That was how it was. His father and mother took the old women’s advice, gave the child the foreign Turkish or Kurdish name Artavazd, and waited. A passer-by, leaning on their fence, asked his mother for a glass of water and wished the boy in her arms a long life. His mother smiled sadly and said they had given him a foreign name so that... The passer-by smiled brightly and said it was not a foreign name at all, but a true Armenian name. His mother froze in terror; his father smiled hopelessly and sat down under the apple tree. That was how it was.
His name was Armenian, yet the child had not died; he was alive, and the class called him Turk. Then the headmaster came in, made the class stand, and stood silently before us, weighty, solemn, solid, for so long that our respect became something like fear. As though issuing a military order, he announced that each of us had a name, and he was never again to hear a nickname in that school. Slowly we turned our heads towards Turk, and then the headmaster whispered, ‘Attention! Look to yourselves.’ We held our breath to hear his whisper, and our breath caught. With his green eyes solemn he stood before the class until he saw military obedience in every one of us and in us all, and only then went out. And by the time he went out we had already given Turk the name Stranger.
Stranger’s mother was the library cleaner: she swept, fetched water, wiped away the dust, and put books back upside down because she could not read. She had taken an old library banner home, a vivid red banner on which DOWN WITH FOREIGN INVADERS had been painted in a mixture of chalk and glue, washed it, and made a shirt for her son.
Stranger’s father had a bad heart: he moaned and did not die, moaned and moaned and did not die. He moaned and did not go to the front; he was at home beside his son, not beside us, beside his own son. He was the village’s only man... He was ashamed of being the only man in the village. He would take the axe from our mothers’ hands to do the man’s work of splitting wood himself, strike the log a couple of times, then grimace and clutch his heart. He moaned and did not die, moaned and did not die. Moaning, he was there, a father, the father of his Stranger son; he helped his own son solve arithmetic problems, while our fathers were at the front. The early dawn frost had cracked my hands: I could barely feed the cows, barely hold the shovel handle to clean the byre, but I could not hold a pen—under the pen, thorns awoke in my fingers with a sharp stabbing pain. All our hands were cracked. Why do I say ‘my hands’, ‘my fingers’? Because I remember my own pain. My body remembers only its own pain.
When Stranger came into the classroom in his red shirt, we all thought a girl had come in. Then we saw it was Stranger, wearing a red shirt, and saw that all of us boys were brown, that our homespun woollen clothes were nothing but brown. We walked down the frozen stream as far as the Sawmills and carried oak bark back on our backs so our mothers could dye the wool brown with it, while Stranger, here he was in a red shirt. For a minute we were silent, silently thinking that Stranger’s father moaned and did not die, and Stranger’s mother had stolen the library’s red banner and made a red shirt. I swallowed and did not say that his mother, then, had stolen the red...
‘You’re wearing a girl’s dress,’ they said.
Stranger lowered his long girlish eyelashes and swallowed; I saw his Adam’s apple move slowly up and down his slender neck. I went and sat in my place to be away from them and not make a joke about him. But I could not keep from looking at his red shirt.
‘You’re a banner,’ they said.
‘You’re a banner of heroism,’ they said. Then I heard Madat’s very dry voice:
‘You’re a banner of your father’s heroism.’
Stranger stood with his eyes lowered and did not move away from them. The history teacher came, everyone went to their places, and Stranger stood before the class in his red shirt with his gaze cast down.
‘Why don’t you go to your place?’ the history teacher asked.
‘He’s wearing a red shirt,’ they said.
‘Yes,’ said the history teacher. Slowly, as though through clay mud, beneath our stares, he came and sat in front of me, in his place.
‘He’s wearing a red shirt,’ they told the natural science teacher.
‘Yes,’ said the natural science teacher, ‘he’s wearing a red shirt. So what?’
‘It’s the banner of his father’s heroism,’ they said.
‘No,’ said the natural science teacher, ‘it’s the banner of your envy.’
However much his mother had washed it, the chalk mixture had not come off the red, had not properly come off: there was no soap, only hot water... I should never have begun this story: you do not know how there could be no soap, how washing could be done with ash water, how you could be bathed in ash water; you do not know what scabies is, why we carried oak bark on our backs from the Sawmills to the village, what a louse is, why we were not allowed to grow our hair. You do not know the constant presence of coarse wool against your naked body, or that we could not take off and throw away that prickly fabric, always itching and pricking—our mothers called it, in their dialect, ‘gortsk’, ‘gorts’. You do not know what war is, and how good it is that you do not.
So Stranger sat in front of me. His red back was now in my sight, whether I wanted it there or not. However much his mother had washed it, the mixture of glue and chalk had not washed out of the banner. Looking more closely, I saw the complete trace of an old Armenian letter: Տ. Right beside the Տ was an Օ. I saw it as a zero, but beside the zero was not a numeral but an Ա. That made ՏԱՕ... I began looking for another letter. There was a Զ on the left sleeve. That made ԱԶՕՏ. So what? It was not witty at all, but I was smiling because it was almost witty. On his thin shoulder was half an Ն. He must have felt my gaze with his back, because he kept shrinking and shrinking. I felt ashamed and told myself I would not look at his back, his hunched back, his thin shoulders, his slender neck and the hollow at his nape, but he had frozen and put before my eyes, right beside the Ա, a Ր. ՕՏԱՐ—STRANGER.
‘Stranger,’ I said in my mind. ‘Stranger,’ I whispered, so as to have said it and not said it at the same time.
‘He’s wearing a red shirt,’ they told the geography teacher.
‘When the war ends, you’ll all wear one,’ the teacher said.
‘STRANGER is written on Stranger’s back,’ I said in my mind, so as not to say it aloud.
At break Madat and I fought. It was not a fight, of course, but how was it not a fight when Madat was sitting on my chest, stuffing a dirty snowball into my mouth? I kept my mouth clenched shut and turned my head away, while he grew furious and tried again and again to force the dirty snowball into my mouth. My lying on my back with him sitting firmly on my chest was no victory for him: he kept pressing his dirty snowball against my mouth, furious that it would not open, still would not open.
Then the headmaster and the military training teacher came.
We formed a line, turned left, and waited beneath her steely gaze. For a minute we waited like that, while the liveliness of break slowly faded from our faces and its jokes died within us. So it faded, so they died, leaving our very solemn, slightly frightened line of pale children. Her brother had been killed at the front, and before her we all felt guilty for her dead brother, though we were not to blame. Along with respect we feared her, because whenever she looked at us, every time she looked, it seemed to us that we had killed her brother. From week to week and lesson to lesson, even within a single day, from the maths lesson to the military training lesson, the sternness on her face hardened, and we understood how good her brother had been to her, how deeply her love for him ran, and how great her grief was.
I swallowed and thought how good it would be if she were my mother instead of my illiterate mother; then I would not be afraid of her mathematics, and I was not afraid of her military training.
‘What is it?’ she whispered.
I had only swallowed and thought how good it would be... ‘Nothing,’ I said, so quietly it was as though I had not spoken, stood to attention, and regretted my thought.
The girls stepped out of line: that meant she had whispered, or merely looked, and the girls had understood they were ordered to step out. In that dirty interval between winter and spring, all the village’s red, orange and green was on them. They gathered noiselessly and looked at our brown line with a little mockery and a little affection. To this day I remember the cluster of their light-coloured eyes. A cluster, that is, a group, that is, when girls gather and all look at you together. You can speak of a cluster of stars, a cluster of daisies, a cluster of asters; you can speak, when their gaze is clear and they look at you with a little mockery and a little affection, of a cluster of girls’ light-coloured eyes.
She drew her brows together, and our line of boys closed up.
She slowly raised her face and carried the solemn gaze of her green eyes from one end of the line to the other, across us all and each of us. The line understood that... For a moment, before counting itself off, the line froze; then I heard, very dryly, like stone striking stone:
‘One!’
‘Two!’ I threw my number to the boy on my left. With half a glance I caught all the brownness of our line and, at its very end, one solitary red shirt.
‘Eight!’
‘Nine!’
‘Ten!’
‘Eleven!’
‘Twelve!’
The end? No.
‘Thirtee...’ came Stranger’s timid voice. Something like a smile appeared in the girls’ eyes, while the teacher once again carried the stern gaze of her green eyes from one end of the line to the other. There was a deep silence; we held our breath, and the girls’ eyes sparkled in that silence. I could hear my heart beating, and could even hear what No. 1 was thinking in his mind about No. 13. It seemed to me that my heartbeat was No. 1’s heartbeat, and that I was thinking his thoughts about No. 13.
‘Hurraaaah...’ the eighth-graders’ cry was born, took hold on distant Sharp Hill, and spread over the snows of the Great Valley as far as the village, ‘aaa-aaah...’
They were on military exercises. Even from our distance their rifles looked real; the youthful ring of their voices was drowned in the collective shout, and it seemed a real charge down the slopes of Sharp Hill, through the Great Valley towards Snowdrop Hill. Their black dots could no longer be seen, only the white hillside, but their shouting could be heard: so they were in the valley, charging Snowdrop Hill. Yet Snowdrop Hill was silent. My eyes watered from straining, but Snowdrop Hill was nothing but pure white, nothing moved there, and it was silent. We were all looking at Snowdrop Hill. ‘Can the enemy be wearing white?’ we thought, staring hard. Meanwhile the enemy had appeared behind them, on the slope of that same Sharp Hill, descending silently and swiftly, already entering the valley at their backs. The eighth-graders were still only shouting hurrah, had filled their ears with their own heroic cries, and did not know it was a sad and foolish hurrah.
Disgust flickered across the teacher’s face at the eighth-graders’ naïveté. And as though we were the innocents charging an empty hill, she ordered us with disgust:
‘Attention! Now count off from one to the end!’
Beside my ear it sounded like stone striking stone:
‘One!’
‘Two!’ I threw my number to the boy on my left.
‘Three!’
Now she would divide us into two groups: odd numbers in the first, us even numbers in the second. Was Stranger odd or even, I wondered? I hoped he was odd. ‘Thirteen’ trembled in Stranger’s timid voice.
‘Fourteen!’
But they were all her pupils—both the defeated eighth-graders and the victorious seventh-graders whose voices at that moment flared up powerfully in the snow-covered Great Valley; and this No. 1, Madat, was her dead brother’s son; and Stranger’s voice was frightened; and the shouting in the valley died away; and in our narrow homespun trousers we looked like European knights, while the boys in the valley had probably flopped down, exhausted, and were eating snow. For all these reasons, or for just one of them—or perhaps she had noticed the Տ on Stranger—the teacher smiled a little, almost imperceptibly, and I thought again how good it would be if she were my mother. That was how it was: one smile from her meant more to us than our mothers bathing us, bathing us in warm water in that winter.
‘Form two ranks! One, two, three!’
With the soft steps of our rawhide-shod feet, we even numbers took two steps forward and one to the side. I found I liked standing at the head of a line, however small, however much a line of only seven.
‘First rank, up the river to Warm Spring—at the run! There’s a willow in blossom there; each of you brings back a little branch of the flowering willow. Repeat!’
My heart fluttered, from the longing to run, from the cluster of light-coloured eyes beside us, and from the thought that the soft yellow-green spring was already coming.
‘I don’t want him. Take Stranger out of my group,’ Madat said dryly, like stone striking stone.
She slowly raised her face and whispered, far more with her eyes than with her mouth:
‘What stranger?’
We all half-turned and looked at Stranger. He stood to attention, but it seemed to me that once again he had shrunk beneath his name Stranger, his father’s moaning and his mother’s innocent theft. The Adam’s apple on his slender neck slowly rose, stayed, and slowly fell. We were all looking at him; the teacher was looking at him and waiting to hear what her brother’s son would say.
‘Arto,’ Madat muttered.
‘What Arto?’ The teacher was waiting for him to say the name in full and aloud. It was just the moment to say, ‘If his name weren’t Stranger, it wouldn’t be written on him.’ That would have been the sharpest joke in the whole school all year. But at that moment, when I was a group leader, and the girls were watching, and the yellow-green spring was just about to come, at that moment I liked Stranger, and said nothing about his red shirt.
‘Artavazd,’ Madat muttered; he still did not agree with Stranger’s new name. ‘Artavazd,’ he said dryly, like stone striking stone. ‘Let him be Artavazd, but take him out of my group all the same.’
The teacher fixed her steely gaze on him, simply laid her heavy gaze upon him and said nothing, but what she was saying was perfectly clear: here she was not his father’s sister, here she was the mathematics and military training teacher.
Madat grew embarrassed but went on looking at the teacher’s face: after all, she was his aunt, and besides, Madat was a bold boy.
‘Please take him out,’ Madat corrected himself, addressing her formally. ‘But take him out of my group all the same.’
‘Excuse me,’ the teacher said mockingly, ‘but who told you that you are the group leader?’
Madat looked at the group, looked at himself; the group looked at him, and that was how it was: he was the group’s commander. He looked at the teacher, looked stubbornly at the teacher and did not say ‘I said so’, but did not say ‘sorry’ either. The teacher looked at him, he looked at the teacher, and no pincers could have drawn the word ‘sorry’ from his mouth. And the teacher saw that this was how it was: he was the commander and would not take Stranger into his group.
The teacher slowly lowered her heavy lids and remained for a little while with her eyes closed and her face raised. When she slowly lifted those heavy lids, she was an aunt full of tears, and it was very plain that she saw her dead brother in his son. We understood that well, because at that moment we ourselves saw a commander and a hero in that boy. He was a good commander: he wanted a squad in which every fighter would be a dependable runner. She was a good teacher: she wanted to combine within herself the love of all of us and each of us with military discipline. But how does it happen that I am good, he is good, you are good, we are all good, and yet something bad still happens?
With his head tilted a little, his neck slender and his large eyes shining, Stranger looked towards the distant mountains and seemed not to breathe. ‘He can’t run, he’ll fall behind on the way, take him out of my group,’ I heard. Stranger blinked. He only blinked. ‘He can’t run, let him stay with the girls,’ I heard. Stranger waited without moving. Only a lamb allows talk of its slaughter like that, water allows its taste to be praised or disliked, a bright sunflower waits to be plucked or spared. The red glow of his shirt had made him beautiful. Amid the commander and teacher’s discussion of him, our gazes and that red glow, he waited silently, and it seemed to me that he was better than the teacher, better than that heroic commander, better than the girls, and that the lowest of all was I, who had let them surround him like a colt and discuss his unfitness for running, and was myself inventing suitable letters on his back. He swallowed; the Adam’s apple on his slender neck rose, stayed and slowly fell. My throat tightened too, and I saw that I was choking in his place. Choking because here my father moaned and moaned and did not die, because here my mother had been given an old banner and it looked like theft, because chance had stamped my name Stranger on my back of all backs, because in this strong world only my strength was too little.
‘Let Madat come to the second squad, and I’ll go to the first,’ I said.
The teacher pretended not to hear.
‘Let Madat come to the sec...’
The teacher looked sharply at me. ‘If you don’t want it, I won’t...’ I thought, but at that same moment I understood that she required a form of address befitting military training and herself.
‘Permission to speak!’ I took a step forward, stood to attention and proposed, ‘Allow Madat to move to the second squad and me to the first.’
She asked in a whisper:
‘How?’
I repeated:
‘Order me to move to the first squad, and Madat to the second.’ And I told Madat, ‘Since you don’t want to be in the same group as Artavazd, let’s exchange groups.’
He looked at me coldly, somehow without seeing me, and turned his gaze away. I grew embarrassed. I understood the reason for his coldness and grew more embarrassed still: he, No. 1, was taller than I, No. 2; his three, five, seven, nine, eleven and thirteen were taller than my four, six, eight, ten, twelve and fourteen. His, then, was the group of tall boys, and I had offered him my group of short ones. He was a good general, truly. ‘Hannibal,’ I thought, ‘Suvorov... Kutuzov... Hasan Khan... If I don’t name you Hasan Khan...’ Yet his name was already on him: Madatov, Colonel General Madatov. ‘If your name doesn’t become Major General Madatov...’
‘There will be no changes,’ the teacher said. ‘First rank, up the river to Warm Spring and back—at the run!’
‘No,’ he said dryly, like stone striking stone, ‘take Stranger out of my squad.’
‘What stranger?’ the teacher shrieked.
‘You know!’ he said.
‘And who said the squad is yours?’ the teacher shrieked.
‘It is,’ he said.
‘What if I put you in the woodshed and lock you in?’ the teacher shrieked.
He swayed for a moment, stepped out of line and walked towards the woodshed.
‘Come back!’ the teacher shrieked.
He did not look back. ‘Put me in the woodshed and lock me in,’ his voice came. He was walking, moving away, already descending the cellar steps; half of him was already in the dark. That was how his father, the teacher’s brother, had gone away, had gone to his death, and would not return, would never return again.
‘Come back!’ the teacher pleaded. He had stopped on the steps; only his head could be seen, but he was not coming back. He would go down or come up. He would go down. Only his head could be seen. His aunt turned her gaze away so as not to see him descend, disappear.
‘It’s all because of you,’ I heard.
Everyone was looking reproachfully at Stranger. Now that everyone was looking at him reproachfully, he did not dare keep his gaze on the distance and think that he was not to blame. He had huddled up just like someone guilty, and was afraid to show the single pitiable sign of his protest: his Adam’s apple moving up and down. Meanwhile Madat had turned round and was climbing the cellar steps: one step, two steps, stopped, three steps, slowly ascending towards generalship, towards General-Madatovship. I disliked him intensely, and now, when everyone was looking reproachfully at Stranger and Stranger himself believed he was guilty, simply because I disliked Madat I could understand that Stranger was not to blame, that if a rabbit cowers before a dog it does not mean the rabbit is guilty.
Without remorse, without anything, he came back, free and independent, stood in his place at the head of the line, and said calmly:
‘Please take him out.’
‘Why?’
‘He doesn’t run well.’
‘Yes,’ the teacher said.
‘Yes—so take him out. He can’t run with us; the squad will fall behind because of him. We can’t go as slowly as he does.’
That was how it was, and only how it was. But I do not understand, cannot understand at all, how you can stand before a person and say that he is weak, that his knees buckle, that he is not fit to run.
‘You don’t want to go as slowly as he does, he can’t run with you, that’s clear,’ the teacher said, ‘but what am I to do with him if I take him out?’
Madat did not answer; he cast an imperious sideways look at the group and pinned Stranger with a contemptuous gaze, almost simply ordering him out of line. I did not like that.
‘You still insist on having your way?’ the teacher asked. I did not like that either: the teacher seemed pleased that this Madat had an opinion of his own and stood firmly by it. The teacher turned to me. ‘And you?’
The wind rushes, the eagle soars, the waterfall leaps from the cliff, a sound flies, a calf races with the wind... What could be lighter than running? I wanted to say, ‘Exchange Artavazd for my seventh boy.’ I was just about to say it, but saw that this was exactly what Madat wanted. And he did not conceal that it was what he wanted. His gaze and stance said with open shamelessness that he would beat me, his squad would beat mine, that he would thus force the class’s weakest runner upon me, and thus, like stuffing dirty snow into my mouth, stuff his victory into my mouth.
‘What about me?’ I said.
‘What if we put Artavazd in your group?’
‘Why change things, for instance?’ I grumbled. ‘Let them stay the way they are.’
She whispered:
‘Attention! This is not your home, and I am not your mother.’
‘Nor your aunt,’ I thought, while she waited for a fuller, more definite answer from me.
‘He’s weak, he can’t run,’ I said.
That was vile, of course, but how could I be both vengeful and innocent at once?
‘A moment ago you agreed,’ the teacher said.
How was I to explain to her why I had agreed a moment ago and did not agree now?
‘Now I don’t agree,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘That’s how it is,’ I said, and did not like myself. It is a heavy thing not to be loved; I turned my gaze away.
They all rounded the bend in the road beside the teacher’s house and fence and came wearily towards us: the supposedly victorious seventh-graders, the supposedly defeated eighth-graders. Like old men, they were all somehow bent. They dragged their wooden rifles. Some were licking snow. They could not be bothered to speak. At any moment they might fall down and sleep.
‘Or, if you want,’ I said, ‘let Artavazd come to our group.’
‘And now you agree,’ the teacher said.
I lowered my head.
‘Why do you agree?’
‘He agrees,’ Madat said.
‘You haven’t been asked to speak. Be quiet,’ the teacher whispered. ‘Why do you agree?’
‘I agree because—what could be easier than running?’
She grew sad.
‘Yes,’ she whispered pensively, ‘what could be easier than running...’
The torrent races, the wind rushes, the falcon soars, the mullein’s froth drifts, the linden seed spreads its wings and flies, flies with the wind—everything moves, everything soars... What could be easier than running.
‘Artavazd,’ she said sadly, ‘change places with the last boy.’
Our rawhide-shod feet made at least a little sound when we walked, but he changed places so noiselessly that I thought he had not heard the teacher’s order. I turned to tell him that yes, that was how it was, I was inviting him as a friend, but his quiet existence was already in my line.
‘First rank, up the river to Warm Spring—at the run! There’s a willow in blossom there; each of you brings back a branch of the flowering willow. Second rank...’
While she thought up our assignment, they crossed the little ravine and came out onto the steep slope of Lone Oak. My calves tightened and began to tremble. If only she would let us run the same way, catch them in an instant, pass them, all the way to the flowering willow.
‘Second rank, down the river to the Sawmills and back—at the run! Each of you brings back a handful of sawdust.’
I was still thinking of running up the river to the flowering willow; I could not recall a sawmill anywhere along the route we were to take.
‘Repeat the order.’
But before repeating it I had to understand the order. I looked at her like an idiot. ‘Sawdust?’ I asked.
‘Sawdust.’
I still did not understand. But I was not so much to blame: the girls were standing there, and it seemed to me that whatever we brought back we would give to the girls. Their group would bring flowering willow branches, and we—sawdust?
‘Sawdust?’ I said.
‘Second rank, down the river,’ she said, word by word, ‘to the Sawmills and back, at the run. Each of you brings a handful of sawdust!’
This time it seemed to me that I would carry oak bark on my back, that my lower back would be rubbed sore, that is, scraped, and the scraped skin would be scraped again and sting with sweat.
‘Yes, ma’am. Down the river to the Sawmills at the run, and back at the run. Permission to carry out the order.’
‘Bringing back a handful of sawdust each from the Sawmills.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Repeat.’
To tell the truth, it was like having your mouth forcibly stuffed with sawdust. Unhappily I repeated:
‘We must each bring a handful of sawdust from the Sawmills.’
‘Yes. At the run.’
We sprang away. We flew, but my name was called. The teacher called me back. They were spoiling my run; I came back, hurt now by more than just the sawdust. The teacher was coming towards me, examining me carefully, somehow very carefully.
‘Don’t wear yourselves out, and don’t wear each other out,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
She smiled:
‘Listen, this isn’t an order,’ she said quietly. ‘Don’t go fast. Go gently, come back gently.’
‘Madat and the others went fast.’
‘They went fast,’ she said. ‘You go gently.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
Taking the short way, through the snow, through the school garden, jumping the fence, I caught up with my group.
‘Boys...’ I was going to tell them who General Madatov had been and what I had named Madat, but Stranger fell at that moment, just as I caught up with them. There was no ice underfoot; his legs somehow tangled, and he fell. I wanted to complain, but he lowered his head like someone guilty.
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘Quite the opposite,’ someone joked.
‘There wasn’t any ice under your feet,’ I said.
‘There wasn’t,’ he said softly, in an ant’s voice.
‘Don’t talk,’ I said. ‘Only breathe through your nose.’
‘I am breathing through my nose,’ he said softly, in an ant’s voice, that is, the way ants talk to one another.
‘What could be easier than running,’ I said.
‘I’ll run it,’ he whispered.
‘I know you’ll run it,’ I said. ‘Only breathe through your nose. If you don’t, your throat will dry up and your mouth will taste bitter.’
‘My mouth isn’t... bitter now,’ he whispered.
We came out onto the straight road beside the river and rushed along. The wind began whistling in my ears. Stranger’s red shirt appeared and disappeared, appeared and disappeared over my shoulder in the corner of my eye. It entered the corner of my eye, came with me a little way and vanished behind my shoulder. I understood that he was straining, struggling out of himself to get ahead or run shoulder to shoulder with me. I saw his strained face and his clenched, exposed teeth. Yes, he wanted to leap out of his own body, but I enjoyed being ahead of him, if only by two steps, if only by half a step.
‘Hey, boys, hey, boys, hey, boys!’ someone called. ‘Hey, boys, what are you doing?’ a worn old voice called. It was Grandpa Sarkis the Biter, my grandfather’s brother; he had brought his cow to drink. The cow was skinny, too weak to be frightened of us. Holding her tail so she would not fall—or so he would not fall?—Grandpa laughed at our running. ‘What are you doing, eh? Thumping along like that, you’ll suddenly frighten Germany and she’ll fall into the gorge.’ Grandpa barred our way with his walking stick, as though he would not let us frighten Germany like that, and caught me. I let myself be caught, because Grandpa was weak and if I struggled he would fall. He tried and tried to bite my cheek, but there was no flesh on my face, and Grandpa’s only tooth could not get a grip.
‘Grandpa the Biter’s lost his fang, can’t bite any more,’ he said in his old man’s murky voice.
I slipped out of his bony embrace and wiped my face once I was away. But throughout that run I remembered that I had been loved, that I was loved, that Grandpa had drawn love for me out of his dry, weak body. My face remembered the softness of his beard; his murky voice remained in my ear. I remembered him calling himself, as though speaking for us children, Grandpa the Biter, and calling his one lone tooth a fang, his ‘little fang’.
At Lone Khachkar I caught up with my group, ran a little way shoulder to shoulder with Stranger, and began gradually leaving him behind. He did not want to fall behind me; he wanted to come shoulder to shoulder, always shoulder to shoulder, and so he thrust his thin chest forward as sprinters do, contracted into himself and sprang out of himself again, his face stretched and his half-exposed teeth clenched. But he fell behind; his red shirt slowly slipped back out of the corner of my eye, over my shoulder.
Now I was in the middle of the group. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump, thudda-thudda-thudda-thudda-thudda-thudda... My body was full of delight, my heart leapt out with joy, I wanted to shriek. Running was my body’s need, as soaring is the need of wings. I could keep gathering speed like that, faster, faster, lift off the earth and... With a shriek I left another boy behind. At my shriek the boy ahead looked back. I drew level with him and we went shoulder to shoulder. ‘Sorry, but I’m going to leave you behind.’ I sped up, sped up, sped up; I thought I had already left him behind, thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump, thudda-thudda-thudda; I told myself I could already hear his footfalls behind me. Yet he came shoulder to shoulder with me, and even a little ahead; I could see his back at an angle. Then his back was directly before me and began moving away, slowly, centimetre by centimetre, but without stopping. He was one of my four-six-eight-ten-twelves, an ordinary number; why should he leave me behind? I contracted, went into myself and burst out of myself; I ran as the final strides of a sprint fly, contracting and opening, contracting and opening, feeling I would split apart, but still he moved farther and farther away. And for a moment it seemed to me that I was the one moving away in his place, while in mine Artavazd strained, split and failed to catch up, strained and fell behind; beneath my chest it was his heart being squeezed, and beneath me his knees were buckling.
I slowed down. ‘The group leader can go at the rear too, so as not to leave anyone stranded on the way.’ I let one boy ahead, a second,
a third,
a fourth,
let the red shirt draw level and come shoulder to shoulder with me, and asked:
‘How are you?’
He whispered:
‘I’m all right.’
‘We’ll bring sawdust,’ I said.
He whispered:
‘We’ll bring sawdust.’
‘You don’t feel strange, do you?’ I asked.
He did not answer; then he whispered:
‘When we go side by side, I don’t feel strange any more.’
‘How far have we come, halfway?’ I said.
‘Not much farther,’ he whispered.
‘Not much? Don’t you know where the Sawmills are?’
‘Mum was sending me there once,’ he whispered, ‘but Dad wouldn’t let me.’
‘We haven’t even come halfway,’ I said.
He whispered:
‘I tell myself... not much farther... we’re almost there.’
‘No, there’s still a long way, from the Sawmills the oak...’ I understood and asked, ‘Do you feel ill?’
His throat must have been drying up; he swallowed and whispered:
‘When we go together...’
‘I’ve named Madat General Madatov,’ I said. ‘Let’s go a little faster.’
Then it seemed to me that I wanted to say something very important, something moving, but kept forgetting. He drew level with me, and I understood what I was forgetting.
‘We’ll always be together,’ I said.
But that was impossible. I slowed down, he slowed down; I sped up, he fell behind, and I slowed down again. Our boys were already passing the bend at Hollow Oak. However much I slowed, he would slow too, until we stopped altogether. Yes, the waterfall leaps from the rock, yes, the eagle soars, yes, the green field moves with the breeze, everything moves, everything rejoices, the snow sparkles and plays in the sun... But Grandpa Sarkis could barely stand, and his cow could not be bothered to take fright.
‘What is this?’ he whispered. ‘I can’t see well.’
‘Snow and sun.’
‘What sun,’ he whispered.
‘Narrow your eyes.’
He had thrown his beautiful head back and was coming along with his face held up to the sun.
‘Are you playing?’ I said. ‘You’re not a sunflower.’
He drew level with me.
‘It’s sunny, but we’re not running well,’ I said.
He whispered:
‘Not much farther, is it?’
‘Oh, oh, oh, oh!’ I heard.
Women, our mothers, were sitting on the roadside stones in the sun, flushed, like a cluster of sunflowers, all turning their faces towards us together. ‘Why is that girl making these children run?’ they said.
And why were they themselves being made to run? One of them had not taken off her gas mask. Their faces had reddened like that from the tight rubber of the masks and the heat of walking; otherwise they were paler than we were.
‘For sawdust,’ I tossed back.
‘I’ll give you my sawdust, go back,’ they said.
We passed them.
‘May earth cover that sawdust head of hers—doesn’t she pity these children...’
Yet they were the ones to be pitied: they would wash our feet with water; they would rub our knees with warm water, and afterwards we would not rub their swollen feet with warm water.
‘Close your mouth,’ I said. ‘Breathe through your nose.’
He closed it, but a little later, when I looked, he was breathing with his mouth wide open.
‘Breathe through your nose.’
‘When I breathe through my nose, the air...’ he whispered.
‘What about the air?’
‘It’s bitter.’ He came close, touched me and fell behind again.
‘You should wash that shirt again,’ I said.
‘She’s washed it. The letters won’t come off.’
‘I’ve named Madat Tur... I’ve named Madat General Madatov,’ I said.
‘It’s hard for them now, they’re going uphill,’ he whispered. ‘They’ve stopped now, they can’t do it.’
‘It’ll be hard for us on the way back.’
‘It’s hard for them now,’ he whispered.
‘They’ll bring flowering willow branches.’
‘It’s hard for them now,’ he whispered. ‘Madat feels sick now.’
‘Do you feel sick?’
‘Our way is level, we’re going down,’ he whispered. ‘They’re going uphill now.’
‘They’re coming back now,’ I said, ‘bringing flowering willow branches, and we’ll be taking sawdust.’
‘We’ll be taking sawdust.’
‘Do you know why we’re taking sawdust?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The teacher said to bring some.’
‘So she can see we reached the Sawmills. That’s what the sawdust is for. To make sure we run all the way to the Sawmills. The flowering branches are for that too.’
‘Their air is bitter now,’ he said. ‘Madat feels sick now.’ He came up, touched me with his head as though wanting to cling to me, but fell behind again.
‘You should have taken some of the women’s sawdust and gone back,’ I said. ‘Listen, go back, get some sawdust from the women and go on, we’ll catch up.’
He moved sideways, strayed off the road and came against me, as though a calf were butting me.
‘Go back, get sawdust from the women, go on. We’ll catch up, don’t you hear?’
It seemed not to be he who was coming, but someone else inside him, someone who would not obey him. That someone else kept pushing him off the road, while he forcibly pushed that someone else back towards it.
‘Stop. Go back.’
I stopped and turned round; he stopped and swayed. Slowly he raised his beautiful head. His eyes were clouded.
‘Go back, get sawdust from the women...’
His gaze was unfocused; it was as though a sick calf looked out from inside him, not understanding what they wanted of it or why they would not let it die in peace.
‘It’s muffled,’ he whispered, ‘muffled, muffled, as though under water.’
I waited for him to turn, but he only swayed and looked with clouded eyes. I turned him round and pushed him towards the village. He did not resist; I thought he agreed, that he was going back.
‘Are we going to school now?’ he whispered.
‘You’re going. I’m running to the Sawmills. I’ll bring sawdust for you.’
‘You’re all running,’ he whispered.
My throat tightened with anger and tears.
‘I’m late,’ I said, ‘I’m late, I’m late because of you. The boys are at the Sawmills now.’
‘You’re all running...’ His face crumpled. He had no strength to sob; he began to cry silently. ‘You’re all running, you’re running...’
Tears began choking me.
‘Are you crying for me?’ I exploded. ‘I’m so late because of you.’
‘Let’s go back together,’ he whispered, muffled, the way fish speak under water. ‘You and me, let’s go back together.’
‘Why should I go back? I can run, so I’m running.’
‘You’re all running...’
‘Am I your father and mother? Why are you crying to me? Go and cry to your father and mother.’ I was pushing him towards the village, while he whispered:
‘Let’s go back together... the two of us... you and me...’
‘The road won’t eat you. There’s no wolf on the road. Go.’
‘No,’ he said sharply.
‘Then what?’
He slowly raised his beautiful head and fixed his large, clouded eyes on me.
‘What are you saying?’ I repeated. ‘You know there’s no wolf. Why won’t you go back alone?’
The Adam’s apple on his slender neck slowly rose, stayed and slowly fell. ‘They’ll say...’ He lowered his gaze.
‘What will they say?’
‘They’ll say,’ he whispered, ‘they’ll say, “Everyone got there, only Stranger came back halfway.” Everyone, everyone runs, only I don’t...’
‘You want...’ But my throat closed. And so as not to cry, and because he was right, and because I was late, late, second after second late, and because there was nothing, nothing I could do, I pushed him. ‘Just go!’
He fell, and I ran.
‘Stay sitting there,’ I threw over my shoulder. ‘I’ll bring your handful of sawdust.’
But he had got up and was coming, swaying. I stopped so that when he reached me I could beat him, but he did not reach me: his legs tangled and he fell. ‘Idiot!’ I shrieked. He was on all fours, and on all fours slowly raised his beautiful calf’s head. That is how he imprinted himself within me.
I ran away. I was afraid to look back. Afraid to see his swaying progress and his fall again. I moved farther and farther away. I told myself we had covered a great distance and that was why running was hard now; that I was going alone and my run was heavy with loneliness. I deceived myself that running was not hard at all, that I was almost flying, that the wind was almost roaring in my ears. I felt that something unpleasant had happened and thought my running was carrying me away from it. I told myself: faster, faster, faster... the teacher has given you an assignment, you are going for sawdust... you have no other assignment, your task is sawdust, faster, faster, faster... yes, something unpleasant has happened, but it has already happened, far away, far away, far away... and whoever cannot run should not run.
I slowed down. I had slowed with the intention of going back, but begrudged the distance I had run with such difficulty and told myself I had slowed because of the uphill stretch. After the rise the road descended; all you had to do was not fall, and the road carried you down by itself, yet my running grew heavier, heavier...
...And now I have stopped and am telling you the story of my aching conscience. Twenty-five years have passed. The judge says to the criminal: for these crimes of yours, what do you ask of the court—death or twenty-five years in prison? And the criminal thinks and says, ‘Death or twenty-five years?.. But aren’t they the same thing?’
No, I committed no crime; no, I was not asked such a question in court. I simply wanted to say that twenty-five years is a span equal to death: it kills everything, wears everything out, changes everything. The once stern teacher narrows her eyes, narrows them again and says, ‘No, I didn’t recognise you... I don’t have my glasses... I’ve lost my glasses, forgive me, I didn’t recognise you.’ You look and look and cannot understand why you spoke of these women’s dimmed eyes as a ‘cluster of light-coloured eyes’. That light, then, looked out of their eyes for only a day, then flew off to look out of other girls’ eyes. Everything fades, everything changes... Only what happened to you in childhood, what you yourself did, does not change, is not forgotten, does not fade within you. And if you happened to run with the group, the pounding of your feet will flutter within you for ever like the beating wings of an alarmed bird at night—thump-thump-thump-thump-thump, thudda-thudda-thudda-thudda... And if you exchanged your friend for sawdust—yes, exchanged your running companion for sawdust, that is, left him on all fours looking after you—do not think you will pass this rise, your running will grow easier, you will no longer look back and see him on all fours raising the unfocused gaze of his large eyes. You will not look back, but he will be before you; you will go fast, but your running will be heavy and wingless. Like a bird soaked in fuel oil, your conscience will moan and moan and be unable to soar.
A cart was bringing boards from the Sawmills. The carter was Bitter Grandpa of the Badal family. I stepped aside to let the cart pass and brightened a little.
‘Grandpa Avag’s,’ I said, ‘Grandpa Arsen Darbinyan’s grandson couldn’t make it, he’s been left on the road. Persuade him, take him back with you, won’t you?’
‘Whose boy are you?’ he asked.
He was so old he would not have known my father either.
‘Grandpa Avetik’s grandson,’ I said.
The oxen were skinny, the boards fresh and heavy; the oxen struggled to pull the cart. A wheel struck a stone.
‘You son of a dog,’ he said to me, whipping the ox. ‘You left your friend on the road yourself, and you tell me to take him back?’
At the stroke the ox strained and pulled the wheel over the stone. The cart passed.
The cart passed, the road was clear again, but I could not move from where I stood. My heartbeat grew muffled, and now there was a deep silence. The stumps were motionless, the snow glimmered peacefully, and I was motionless amid the snows. I felt the presence of something familiar, and it seemed there was oak bark on my back and beneath the load I was stewing in the snow and within myself. A whip cracked; somewhere an ox strained, a wheel revolved around itself, feet pounded, while I stood among the stumps. I stepped into the road and realised I had been standing all that time in the smell of boards and sawdust, as though I were going to shoulder bark again.
I was already running, but at first did not understand where. Towards the Sawmills, of course; I told myself I was running towards the Sawmills, but it seemed I was running towards the village, and Artavazd lay before me, raising his clouded gaze. Yet I was not running towards the village; I was running to the Sawmills, for sawdust.
Above the Sawmills, at the bend in the road, the boys’ slender black figures appeared. I could have taken a shortcut through the snow, across the frozen river, and reached the Sawmills a little before them, but I wanted to mingle with them, lose myself among them, be one of them. Near the Sawmills I caught up and went among them.
‘Stranger couldn’t make it?’ they asked.
‘He couldn’t,’ I said. I did not dare say, ‘You’re the stranger.’ I only answered, ‘He couldn’t.’
‘Hitler kaput,’ they said to the Romanian prisoners.
‘Hitler kaput,’ I said, as one of them, to the Romanian prisoners who were bandaging their companion’s leg. They had turned and were watching with sad smiles those skinny boys who greeted them with the only foreign word they knew, ‘kaput’, bent down, took sawdust in their bony hands and ran back with their little bony fists tightly clenched. The prisoners’ guard, when I took a handful with my left hand after taking one with my right, mocked me:
‘Fill your shirt with it too, fill your shirt.’
I threw away the sawdust in both hands, turned to run back, but said to the guard:
‘What do you know about why I’m taking it?’
‘I don’t,’ he said.
‘Then don’t laugh if you don’t know.’
‘Your friend’s sat down on the road for a smoke and told you to bring a handful of sawdust for him too,’ he said.
‘No!’ I cried.
‘I’ll tell your teacher, she’ll check.’
‘Tell her.’ I bent down abruptly, took a full handful with my left hand for Artavazd, then a full handful with my right for myself, and ran with my fists clenched. A little later I thought I would give Artavazd the sawdust in my right hand: I would hold out my right as though greeting him—here, I brought this for you, take your sawdust.
‘How many handfuls of sawdust did you take?’ I asked among the group.
‘One. How many should I?’
‘Didn’t you take any for Artavazd?’ I asked.
‘What?’
‘Artavazd fell behind. Did you take sawdust for Artavazd?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Artavazd fell behind,’ I said.
‘I didn’t take any.’
‘I took some. I’ll give it to you and you can give it to him.’
‘Why? You took it, you give it to him.’
Why I could not hold out my right hand to Artavazd like that, as though greeting him, I could not explain to them, because I did not understand myself why I had no right to hold out my hand to him as a brother.
‘Where will they be now?’ I asked. ‘Will they be coming back already?’
‘At the flowering willow.’
‘They’ll bring willow branches,’ I said.
‘And we’re taking sawdust.’
‘I’ll give you Artavazd’s sawdust, and you can give it to him,’ I said.
‘You took it, you carry it.’
‘Will it kill you?’ I said.
‘Why don’t you give it to him yourself?’
‘No, tell me, will it kill you?’
‘Will it kill you?’
‘Let’s go a little slower,’ I said. ‘They’ll only just be reaching the willow now.’
‘They’ve been and come back already.’
‘Of course, Artavazd isn’t in their group,’ I said.
‘He isn’t in ours either.’
‘If Bitter Grandpa has picked him up...’ I said. ‘Let’s go a little slower.’
‘If you can’t, don’t run,’ they said.
I was a little late in understanding that they were not speaking about weak people in general or about Artavazd, but to me.
‘Who can’t? I can’t? Now come on, follow me...’ I strained; I was going to say ‘catch up’ once I had left them behind. I strained and strained, but could not feel the strain, nor did they fall behind so I could understand that I had strained and was leaving them behind. There was some emptiness in me, the kind you feel when you are asked, for instance, about a slide rule, and I could not strain.
‘And who was it,’ I said, ‘who fell an hour behind because of Artavazd, then caught up?’
‘You,’ they tossed back.
‘Yes, me.’
‘What’s true is true,’ they said. ‘You fell behind with Artavazd.’
‘I caught up at the Sawmills.’
‘Artavazd didn’t come, you came.’
‘I came, I caught up.’
‘You both fell behind, then you came and Artavazd didn’t.’
‘He didn’t. Am I to blame for his not coming?’
‘Who says you’re to blame?’
‘I’m not to blame.’
‘You’re not to blame.’
‘On the contrary, I took sawdust for him.’
‘What will you do with the sawdust?’
‘I’ll give him the sawdust.’
‘Why will you give it to him?’
‘I took it for him, what else should I do?’
‘What did you take for him?’
‘Sawdust,’ I said, ‘sawdust, sawdust. I took sawdust for him. Let’s go a little slower.’
‘Who fell behind because of Grandpa the Biter,’ I said, ‘and then caught up?’
They did not answer me.
‘Back there, because of Grandpa the Biter too...’
They were not listening to me. They were far away and moving farther away. In unison, silently, as though always in the same place and slowly, they moved and moved. It seemed not running but a mockery of running; without growing wings or becoming a horse, you could strain a little, give your legs a little strength and catch them... I did not believe there was emptiness in me, and did not believe their speed was anything but a mockery of running... Yet they moved farther and farther away, and with them went life, gladness, the delight of running, the cluster of light-coloured eyes, the cluster of slightly mocking, slightly laughing eyes, while with me remained the shame of being last, of being weak. I envied them, hated the harmonious rise and fall of their shoulders, hated their lifelessly stubborn progress. My empty existence was now linked to their strong group only by envy.
‘You’re leaving me alone,’ I whispered. Their backs were unresponsive to my envy; they went on, moving steadily away without slowing or speeding up, and when I raised my gaze again they were gone. There was snow and the road, and I stopped.
‘You’ve gone.’
With my head on my chest, swaying, I whispered:
‘It’s all right, the wolf won’t eat me.’
And I saw that nothing, nothing any more, connected me to them: neither envy nor the wish to be first or among them. It was good this way: I and the road, snow and silence, and on the deserted road amid the silent snows, only me. If I wanted I would lie down; if I wanted I would turn aside and carry my empty existence through the snow to where I had not been told to go, where I did not know myself.
I did not understand how it had happened that I was running again instead of lying asleep. Snow, snow and snow, and it seemed I was running in the same snow in the same place. I came to my senses, yet still did not understand: was I asleep or treading the same snow? As in twilight, running and sleep seemed to separate and seemed to weave together within me. Snow, snow and the same snow; in the snow the same snow, and in the snow’s whiteness there was nothing not white to leave behind, so I could tell myself that it had been before me, that now it was beside me, that now it had fallen behind. The run had happened, of course: we had lined up... divided into two groups... on the distant hill in the snow the older pupils had shouted hurrah... flushed women had sat and watched... then we plunged our hands into warm sawdust... The run had happened long ago, sometime, had happened and ended, and now there was the dream of the run. Stranger came, stood before me with his legs spread, looked with the clouded gaze of his large eyes, and that too seemed to have happened once, and now there was its dream.
‘Tell your mother to wash that shirt,’ I said, and realised that I too was standing before him.
He swallowed and breathed in gasps.
‘I brought sawdust for you.’
‘Sawdust,’ he whispered.
‘I brought sawdust. I took your sawdust. Didn’t I tell you I’d bring your sawdust?’
‘You’ll bring my sawdust,’ he whispered. He took his handful from my hand, said ‘sawdust’, but seemed not to understand what he was doing or saying. He pressed his fists to his chest and strained towards the Sawmills. I put my arms around him; I liked his body, a friend’s body, a weak boy’s body, and turned him back and ran beside him. But for a minute I could not understand who had turned whom back: had he turned me towards the Sawmills, or had I turned him towards the village?
‘Why are you coming with me?’ he whispered. So he thought we were running towards the Sawmills. ‘Don’t come with me,’ he whispered.
I said nothing to him, because it seemed to me too that we were running towards the Sawmills.
‘Why are you coming with me?’ he whispered. ‘Don’t come with me.’
‘Talk less,’ I said. ‘Breathe through your nose.’
‘Don’t come.’
This time it seemed to me that he did not want to run with me, the bad one. ‘I’ll go and come back,’ he whispered, ‘go and come back.’ Yet he thought I was so good that I was running towards the Sawmills again solely for his sake.
‘You’ll go and come back,’ I said.
‘I’ll go and come back,’ he whispered.
‘Close your mouth.’
He fell. Got onto all fours and fell again.
‘You’ll go and come back,’ I said. ‘That’s your going and coming back.’ I could not lift him, and I liked my struggle. I liked that I was lifting him from the ground, that my sawdust was in his hand, that my body touched his skinny sides.
‘It’s silent,’ he whispered, ‘muffled, muffled.’
‘What Sawmills, what sawdust,’ I said. ‘Who’s going to check whether we reached the Sawmills or not?’
‘You’ve been once, don’t come,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll go and come back.’
‘My mouth tastes bitter. Go a little slower,’ I said.
‘Don’t come,’ he whispered. ‘Let me go and come back.’
‘The boys brought my sawdust,’ I said.
‘The boys brought your sawdust,’ he whispered. ‘Your mouth tastes bitter,’ he whispered. ‘Noooo!’ he cried. ‘You’ve tricked me, you’re taking me to the village!’
I blocked his way.
‘The boys brought my sawdust. You’re not going to the Sawmills anyway, I won’t let you.’
‘Noooo!’
I put my arms around him and we both fell. Lying like that was as pleasant as the delight of running at the beginning of the road. We struggled to get up, because I would not let him go and he could not lift me.
‘You’re lying to me,’ he cried. ‘You reached the Sawmills.’
‘I got the sawdust from the boys.’
‘You all, all of you reached the Sawmills, only I didn’t,’ he cried.
He cried, that is, he could no longer find the strength within himself to turn towards the Sawmills; that is, he had accepted the thought that like this, with the sawdust I had given him in his fist and his fist pressed to his chest, he would run towards the village. And he kept coming, his face twisting with tears:
‘But you won’t say... you won’t say you brought my sawdust, will you?’
Again:
‘You won’t say... you won’t say I didn’t reach the Sawmills, will you?’
‘You reached the Sawmills.’ But he kept coming and choking again:
‘What if they ask what was at the Sawmills?’
‘Sawdust, there was sawdust,’ I said. ‘There was sawdust.’
Tears fell onto his fists; he did not want to cry, and his face twisted:
‘But you reached the Sawmills.’
‘You reached them too,’ I said, and he choked and sobbed.
‘But you won’t say I didn’t reach them, will you?’
‘Your sawdust is in your hand, you reached them,’ I said, but still there was no room for a lie in his body. Crying, he asked:
‘What if she asks where the sawdust came from?’
‘From the Sawmills,’ I said.
‘But I didn’t reach the Sawmills,’ he choked. ‘I didn’t reach them, but there’s sawdust in my hand. Where did it come from?’
The village appeared. I straightened up and said:
‘You run better than I do.’
From the hills the village watched. With their roofs pulled down over their brows, the village houses watched. The village watched and saw two of its sons, Grandpa Arsen’s grandson and Grandpa Avetik’s grandson, returning companionably together. One would of course be a little stronger, the other a little weaker, but neither went ahead or fell behind; they came companionably, shoulder to shoulder. Among the village houses the school looked at us with the sunset glitter of its windows. From the school doorway the green-red-orange cluster of girls was probably watching our return... The girls dressed in orange, with flowering willow branches in their hands, watched and saw how pitiful, how weak, how heart-breakingly slow was our progress, the progress of the very last.
‘They’re watching from the school doorway now,’ he whispered.
‘You run better than I do,’ I said. ‘Go faster.’
He strained, his face twisted, but he was falling behind. From within the strain he strained again, drew level with me for a moment, went far enough ahead for his red back to show at an angle, but even in that instant it was plain he had drawn level only for a fleeting moment. And on his face there flared and faded that pitiable smile which appears on people’s faces when they accept defeat. He whispered:
‘You go.’
‘Lone Khachkar,’ I said.
‘Are you saying something?’ he whispered. ‘You go.’
‘Lone Khachkar.’
What else could I say? Surely I could not simply break away from him, saying nothing, feeling nothing for him, as though no one beside me were bearing the torment of his run, and carry my triumphant existence through the girls’ gazes into the schoolyard.
Below the school, at the bend beside the garden, I looked back: he was coming painfully slowly, still where I had left him. Amid the snows in their hollow there were he and the khachkar, almost motionless.
I straightened and came into the schoolyard, and the schoolyard was empty. There was no sound, only the rustling in my ears. The schoolyard was deserted. There was no one in the classroom; the blackboard was black and wiped clean. There was no one in the staffroom; the clock’s weight swung in the silence, the flowering willow branches faded soundlessly on the desk. The yard was deserted; there was a little sawdust on the staffroom threshold.
‘No,’ I whispered, ‘no, no...’
I opened my hand, and my throat tightened; the sawdust in my fist had become a ball. I swallowed, and my Adam’s apple rose, choked me and slowly fell. That too seemed to have happened once, and now there was its dream. I dropped the ball of sawdust. The ball broke and scattered, and there was still only a little sawdust on the threshold: if you had not brought it yourself, you would not have noticed.
I bent down, gathered in both hands the sawdust all of us had brought, and all the sawdust amounted to a handful of rubbish, and I ran to the teacher’s house. She was carrying hay into the byre for the cows. With a flowering willow branch in his hand, Madat stood between the cows and the byre, keeping them from entering until his aunt filled the mangers with hay. He arched his brow, looked at me sideways and spat with a hiss between his teeth, meaning that was how he would stuff my defeat into my mouth. The teacher, with hay under her arm, saw me, adjusted the hay; now there was silence, and she looked at me. Only at me. I opened my hand and heard the sawdust falling. Something like love or tenderness could be felt in her gaze, and with a slight tremor of her lips she asked in a whisper, ‘And where is Artavazd?’ I felt that she wanted to hear me say, ‘He’s come, he’s at school.’ But he had not come, was not at school; alone in the depths of his hollow, veering aside and falling back, he was struggling against his own run. ‘He’s coming,’ I said, and her gaze became as though she saw her brother’s killer in me.
‘Yes.’ She turned and carried the hay inside for her cows.