I was in love then and I wanted to think that I was the only one in the whole village who understood my Little Uncle. He came to Tiflis after five years of service in the army, he had already been in the village for three months and was not busy. He sat on the railings of the office, smoked, stood at the doors of their house with his hands in his pockets, kicked a fallen apple in the garden and bent down to wipe the toe of his boot. He quickly changed his collar, straightened his belt and returned to the village with his hands in his pockets. Abgar, the head of the economy, thought that my little uncle was an excellent gunner and a couple of other badges, and Abgar pinned the Order of the Red Banner to his shirt. And threw and caught the round seal. My little uncle was much taller than Abgar, he had bulging eyelids, he looked down at Abgar with narrow eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
"I am a man with one arm broken," Abgar said and moved his hand with thin, straight fingers.
"What?" said my little uncle.
- And if necessary, Abgar said, looking around and gathering encouragement from the surrounding, - if necessary, I will dry my other arm as well.
"Well, dry it," said my Little Uncle, completely unperturbed.
- And I will dry it, - said Abgar loudly. - I will take out the eyes of all the citizens and dry them.
It was already everyone's favorite. No one had clean boots and solid army cloth clothing. And then, everyone had learned gerandi and they were waiting to get bread from the warehouse, they expected meat, honey, and butter, they thought that the president would now turn away from that soft Tiflisian and write out a prey for their gerandi people, because they are drawing gerandi, if they don't harvest one day, the city will starve there - that's how important they are and that corporal is just as free-spirited as the general thinks is
- We have seen that army too, - Abgar sneered from the balcony of the second floor and took the ringing phone in the office and boasted from the open window. Hello... Columbus found America, Abgar came and surprised.
All the men laughed because all of them had been in the army, had boasted after coming and still remembered with enthusiasm the women who were or could be heard from those days. And all the reapers frowned at the men, because in the army, the women were convinced, pleasant shamelessness happens.
At that time, my little uncle lit a cigarette and said bam-bam.
- Zahla for a year.
- Hamme?
"You are a big man, take care of yourself," said my little uncle calmly.
It was a case of the kolkhoz, the president was always scolded, but now he showed that he heard such an answer for the first time, he stood weakly by the phone.
"It's your business, you know," he murmured.
Above, Lusik stood with his arms around a balcony pillar, looking into the distance. He thought that he and my little uncle would get married, because he was the only one who came from the army, he was the only adult in the village, and he wanted to fall in love with my little uncle, because it is written in the books that a girl and a boy fall in love before marriage, but he couldn't. he had solid muscles and blue eyes as empty as water, which he wanted to fill with fire and tears, but he couldn't. That girl grew up hard. with full breasts and shoulders, she seemed to be a woman, but the fool also jumped on the donkey's back and laughed wildly. At parties, he would fall in front of the school girls and shake his head and freeze on the stage.
- Hovhannes Tumanyan. Maro. Our village is the one that is proud...
Everyone applauded, everyone said that she had an excellent pronunciation, there was no mistaking that she was a good, working girl, but no one thought of making her a wife, a brother-in-law or a daughter-in-law.
That Lusik was standing there hugging the pillar, looking at my little uncle, almost falling in love, but suddenly he uttered in a shrill voice:
Don't work in the summer
Tell me, what was the reason?
It is fragrant in the grass
You sang with us
You sang very well
Now hold up
Let the wind clap, you dance!
You could laugh out loud. Then everyone was silent and waited to see what would happen next. And when everyone was silent, the muttering of my little uncle was heard.
- Stupid son of a bitch... - and an incomprehensible long word with the word made in it.
"Uh, it's German, it's German, it's German," said Hamo, who captured Berlin, and looked at this and that with lively eyes.
And that Lusik didn't care about my little uncle's German, he stretched out his hand and rang again.
- Nothing human is bad for our soul.
Now my Little Uncle was descending on the school with his hands in his pockets and his back wide. There we sat down to study geography, Rima was staring at the map, she wanted to give up and sit down, but I suggested the next sentence. Our tribe's Jahel teacher was reading the newspaper and constantly smiling with his lips closed. held the fart every second. One could think that the journalist was telling a very funny long story column by column, but the journalist had no business there. Our clansman Jahel the teacher thought that I am not in love with that Rima.
"I will tell my father, I will give you a crown, if you are embarrassed," he said once secretly.
Everyone thought it necessary to tell me about something secret! The boys of army age asked me seriously.
- Do you play house-to-house or is there something in it?
I was leaving and they took me in.
- Son of a dog, if they ask you something, answer it.
Then I think they said that there is no decent girl in the village, and she owns what she has... There was a Seno among them, an athlete and a snake, with the eyes of a snake, he brought me, grabbed my nose with a handkerchief and shook it: "What?" I was afraid of him, but I hit him. They didn't hit me. This pushed me to him, he to that, he to this, I don't know where... Someone held me so that I wouldn't fall... No, he held my arms from behind, they undid my belt, lowered my pants and spat on me. And they laughed sharply. i-hihihihi... Then I was lying down and crying, and they were saying:
- It's a shame, man, you're a man in love, get up and tie your pants.
...Ah, the smell of that devil's spread chalk, the smell of that worn map, the teacher's smile behind the newspaper and those Rima's pouty lips. And behind the bench, with his hands on his knees, that child who is prompting. By the Ural Mountains... by the Ural River... down... by the Caspian Sea... that's right... Kuma-Manich... to the left...
My little uncle stood by the spinning pole with his hands in his pockets, his back wide, Rima was answering a lesson, he wanted to give up, I was suggesting the next sentence, and the teacher was pretending to be reading a newspaper.
We also saw my little uncle standing upside down on the spinning pole and motionless.
"Attention," said the teacher.
We also saw my little uncle, he had momentum, let go and caught the spinning rod again, let it go again and caught it. He left and caught again. And Rima tells stories quickly.
- Your eyes to the narrator.
We also saw Seno immobilized on the spinning rod. Then Seno went bent over on his back, came, let go and grabbed the spinning rod. He went, came, left and caught the rod. Then he bowed his head and stood next to my Little Uncle.
My little uncle gave the belt to Seno, he hung straight from the pole like a stick, stayed for a moment and lowered the pole to his thighs... no, he suddenly rose straight up like that. Then he took the body slowly, stood upside down, carefully detached one hand, held it with the other until... Yes, the bell rang.
Seno gave the belt to one of my students, hung from the pole, bent a little, but repeated what my Little Uncle did, stood on his hands, then on one hand, then only on his head. And so he winked at the group of girls. Rima.
"You can't, your head will hurt," said my little uncle.
- Do you have any pains? - the voice of the manager Ruben was heard, and our students left the spinning pole and looked from afar.
My little uncle took off his shirt, immediately got up and started doing circles. we counted ten circles. Seno did the same thing, even more so, cackling with the spinners and his shirt full of wind, spilling from his pockets a knife, a photo of the actress Makarova, a smokebox and a tobacco.
Makarova's photo passed from Seno's hand to the manager Ruben's hand, in the minds of my students, the manager would now pull Seno's ears with a smile. Seno was yesterday's student, and the leader, in the minds of my students, had the right to pull the ears of everyone in the village, but that leader neither took nor brought, he said to my little uncle.
- What did they teach in the army?
"Be careful," my little uncle said, fastening his belt.
- Then?
- Be alert.
- That's what you said, another one.
- Another...?
We perceived it as a serious conversation, but now I see that my Little Uncle wanted to punch the manager in the face, who had created a life in the village for him. he received a salary, then he received a pension for some reason, as a farmer he kept cows and sheep, as a teacher he was not forced to do them. the wife also received a salary at school, she received a pension for a weak heart, she made a life for herself with soft, clean, harmonious days and from time to time she asked how the villagers were doing from the second floor of her house and gave penny wise advice. "Why are you wet? - I got wet while crossing the river. - The river has to be crossed by a bridge."
"Otherwise," said my Little Uncle, "if necessary, to punch the Yankees in the face."
- What are you saying? - the leader was surprised - now the conventional enemy are the Yankees?
"That's right," answered my little uncle.
- And - suddenly asked the manager - will your girl from Tiflis be like Makarova?
"Let me see," said my Little Uncle, approaching.
- That's not what I was asking, - said the manager, - they say, do you want to go to Tiflis? It's a good city, isn't it? Rustaveli street, the old building of the municipality, the funicular, ice cream, zoo, sidewalk... Ah, Kur, the driver suddenly remembered.
My little uncle was looking over his shoulder at the photo of actress Makarova and said along with the manager's words:
- That's right, yes, that's right. Only, the eyes are a little small, the ears are a little big, the mouth is a little big, the nose is a little sitting, a monkey, he is fat, a pig with three chins. He is also a little weak in heart, I think he also receives a pension.
"It's good, again," said the manager, "you'll get it, eat it." There will be bread, there will be tea. White bread.
And my little uncle continued.
- No, why? It's better here than Tiflis. Be it an organizer, the Tbilisi resident has given his head to the stone. House, place, gramophone, gramophone... Egg, sugar, salt, sheep. Pension, salary. Sheep's head cheese, raising children.
"Of course," said the manager, "cabbage, potatoes, beans, oil, pickles, the eye of the unwilling, twenty sheep...
- Children's education, - My little uncle suddenly hit Seno's neck with a force and cursed audibly in the manager's ear. - The education you gave...
That stupid Seno stood by them and was proud that he had already graduated from school and had the right to stand next to the manager, hiding his cigarette in sight, smiling and smoking, and especially proud that his photo was in the hands of serious people like them. Seno ran away, then suddenly remembered that he was an adult.
- Why are you hitting?
My little uncle hit the driver again while talking.
- Why are you hitting? - With sparks from his eyes, Seno came under my little uncle's nose. At that moment, my little uncle was saying to the manager.
- The audit committee is a good thing, but it is not possible to have both a manager and a committee...- And with one hand on the manager's shoulder, with the other my little uncle pushed Seno back and hit him with the heel of his boot. While throwing his leg back, my little uncle must have squeezed the driver's shoulder hard. the driver leaned to one side. Seno was looking for a stone while crying, he went looking for it, he found the stone stuck in the ground in the distance, he wanted to take it out, but it didn't come out. Seno sat down on a rock, cursed and cried.
"Don't curse," said my Little Uncle. Seno cut in and that's when we all realized that my uncle's hand was heavy. Seno was looking at my little uncle with tired red eyes, then he asked a surprising question.
- What, I have to be beaten, but I don't have the right to curse?
- You have, but when I come, I will beat you for real.
"I will run away," said Seno.
"That's another question," smiled my Little Uncle.
- What, I can't?
- Can you?- My little uncle changed his foot, Seno jumped up. He jumped up, cursed and ran away. Then he stood up, cursed again and ran away. Then he ran around cursing all the time and all my students laughed. The driver was also laughing, then he called.
- Hey, boy, come and take Makarovad.
Seno stood at the top of the mound and said loudly to the school and the teacher, as if he was giving an answer during an exam.
- ... Makarova!
He cursed, that fool really cursed and it was something to be proud of. one foot still in the school, we, gathered there like that, we, almost ignorant of what Makarova meant, he had already reached her denial, was something to be proud of. I was dying of envy, but here was my Little Uncle trampling on the spot, then suddenly bursting to Senon.
"What have I done, what have I done, what have I done?" Seno raised his paws, curled up like a rabbit, but realized that this was not a rescue. Seno ran away.
"Hovik... Hovhannes..." called the manager.
My little uncle was waddling through the potato field, and Seno was already jumping over the fence below. Seno was on the other side of the valley, My little uncle stepped on the fence and jumped. Long after he had passed, when Uncle Little was on the other side of the ravine and Senon at the top of the hill, the fence collapsed.
- Hovik, I will call the regional militia, an honest party member.
Someone rang the class bell and it was too hard for us to sit for chemistry. And even for that weak-hearted teacher, it was difficult to sit in chemistry, to increase the calculation of her ignorance and ridiculousness every hour. If the driving husband managed to get the salary without those formal trainings. He hated us and we hated him because we felt like he was ruining something in our future every hour. In the middle of the training, in the silence inside and outside, noise of women and barking of dogs rose. Hovik and Seno. We spilled out, ran through the potato field, jumped over a broken fence, down a ravine, up a hill, and in the ravine on the other side of the hill the women were fighting over Seno, and my Uncle Little was walking slowly into the woods. He was sometimes seen, sometimes lost, among the bushes, and his broad back was incommunicado with the restless clamor of the women.
"Look at Tiflis! Tiflis people have learned to kill," all the women said one by one. And they did it well. With his nose planted, my little uncle did not see a woman in the village, but there were women. They lit a fire, put out a fire, kneaded dough, gave birth to a child, did laundry, cooked dinner. Tiflis found...
In my mind, I was the one who beat Seno, I was from Tiflis, I happened to be in the village, and I had nothing to do with my unshaven father, the rude Great Uncle, the president who thought he was the representative of the big world in that small village, the manager who knew the difficulties of the big world and found it convenient to make his life worthy of the big world away from it. I wrote a play in those days, and my play, rather than their medal and blue railing, was a bid for respect to the great world. And the president called the play peisa. The driver was laughing at the president, but he was also saying peisa.
In the direction my little uncle went, a valley and a hill away, the reserve began. It was the hunting ground of the Viceroy of the Caucasus. Viceroy Vorontsov-Dashkov came here from Tbilisi to hunt. That's what they said. Someone had said it and they were repeating it because they wanted to be part of the gilded halls. And I, behold, will ever come here to rest and hunt. And I will ask the health of the head of the school indifferently. "How are you?" And I will ask the president with boredom and anxiety. "What's up, what's up?" And I will ask my father. "Don't you need help?" And I will fix the connection to my procrastinating urban hunting. "Relax, Rex!"
- Hovik... Hovhannes...
It was a clear September day. If there was no one, nothing to disturb you, you would lie down and die. The sun was shining overhead, and under it everything seemed meaningful and serene. And who invented that bread fight? And why shouldn't a person be able to relax his nerves? We stand apart like trees, each for himself, each taking his share of the sun and casting his own shadow. So how does it happen that the world, silent as a forest, becomes a kennel? Goes to Tiflis - let him go to Tiflis. Curses his Makarova, let him curse.
"What a world this is," I said to my little uncle.
"Are your classes over?" he said. He was lying on his stomach in the thicket, the calls of the village did not reach us, and our being there was like our ancestor being there. I lay down next to him, like him, and my height was probably his height, and my quietly rising back was probably as wide as his. And I told him in a metallic voice.
- Lessons...
The earth smelled under my nose, there was silence, and in the silence and in my memory, the telegraph poles made a low noise. And, to be honest, the ground was cold, I wanted to lie down on the mattress. And I wanted not to be cursed and not to feel the hard look of my Little Uncle in my ears.
- I sent my play to "Avangard" newspaper - I said hastily.
My earlobe slowly eased, and now again two bodies, of equal height and the same width of the back, were clinging to the ground, breathing the earth.
- They answered that they will print, - I said calmly.
- Did they answer that they would print?
- I think.
- Who thinks?
- Me.
- Are you ten years old?
- I am fourteen years old, I am in my fifteenth year.
- Go study your lessons.
- I have always learned my lessons.
- Who took off your pants?
- That's why Seno ate.
"Are you happy?" my Little Uncle grinned.
- Is Karine prettier, Makarova or Rima?
"Don't go into my pocket next time," said my Little Uncle, putting his head down.
- I don't deal with someone else's pocket.
- And who is Karine?
- Who wants to be? I don't even care who it is.
- Why are you listening to someone else's conversation?
- It's my ear, I'm hanging it.
- You are a talkative puppy.
- I did not harm anyone.
- Have you written a play? They replied that they would print. The money has already been sent, go get it. One hundred thousand rubles. Playwright. Go to Exercise Houses.
Leaving, I muttered: "No, Tiflis," and at the same moment, a shiver ran down my spine from my uncle's scream.
What is...
"He's not doing anything," I said to my great uncle, "he's lying down in the forest for himself. I tell him to go home, but he doesn't even raise his head." I left too.
- How did he beat you?
- Seno cursed Makarova, and Hovik beat her.
- What Makarova?
- The actor.
- Has he come to the theater?
- Makarova's photo was with Seno, she fell while playing on the spinning pole, and the manager said take Makarova, and he said... He cursed Makarova, and Hovik beat her.
- So he didn't come to the theater.
- Sea.
- How did it happen that there was a fight?
- Then he called us.
- You received a letter from the newspaper. They praised.
They did not praise. It was plainly stated that drama is a difficult genre and I must now learn my lessons well. But my name in typescript, almost printed letters, the words dramaturgy and genre in the letter addressed to me, my Great Uncle took as a compliment, and so did I. It made me kind.
- He is going to Tiflis: let him go, why don't you let him go, uncle?
He drove a cart for the collective farm. Either the ax did not cut well, or the wood was hard, or the axor was few and empty - it was hard work. It was bad, the cart driver cursed, and often the cart driver was himself cursing his poorness. It was good to make, it took ten days. And the forester was fighting with him as if he were the collective farm.
"You started with a play," said my great uncle, "you did well." A cart that will pull. He will be jealous and even. Did you attend your classes? Neither you, nor I, nor your father will take care of the old women. They have been waiting for Hovik for five years, and Hovik wants Tiflis. I want too.
It was dark. They sat down to dinner. It was a calm conversation about the world, the weather, what he had heard and seen, and one could not believe that the chairman of the village council and the party secretary had come to arrest Hovik. Their country clothes and the general fact that they were mixed with us, people like us, made their purpose in coming to our house ridiculous. The chairman of the village council had cut his hand with a cleaver while harvesting that day, he muttered and was afraid of blood infection, while the party secretary was sleeping and said that he had a lot of work to do tomorrow.
My little uncle sat on the other side of the barn.
"What's the matter?" asked my father.
My mother had already run out of patience and answered with a simple scream.
- Your tribe will be divided!
- I know that, I say, what is he doing?
My mother, like my little uncle, said heavily.
- In La-tsem-li. "Si ru mem!" U-zu-mem to go to Tiflis. It's tribal," my mother scoffed, "someone else will take care of your puppies, you fell in love in your mahachkalas.
Love was a city, it was a city product, my mother was a girl from a village close to the city, almost a city girl, love was hers, she and love were compatible with each other, and here they were, those fat lazy people who fell in love in Tiflis, Poland, and my father in Makhachkala during the war.
- Relatives are calling.
His arched back breathed quietly in the moonlight, and the silhouette of his face faded in a puffy bronze glow. A lone cricket sang of the world chilling from its cold crack. Low in the forest sang the big-mouthed lover, the teacher of geography, beneath his deep voice the girl's bosom song sometimes slipped out, and if you strained your hearing you would miss their unison step on the path, and if you strained your eyes you would make out their silhouettes in the shadows.
- Relatives are calling.
In the moon rocked and my father's glow.
- Hovik, Hovo, Hovhannes...
Brother hugged brother and head to head they rocked slowly.
- Whoo!, Hovhannes, tintl!, huff, huff...- It was the language of their old home, they didn't speak that language with us, my mother, me and others who came later, it was the language of their united old family. And then my father called to the song of the forest: - Boy, won't we crown you with a female, leave us alone?
- You crown your son!
There was silence, then the girl's laughter rang out under the moon. My father was saying something again, but he didn't say it. he looked at the forest like an idiot. Hovik sobbed audibly. and I fell in love and missed at once. And one could cry, and it was worth crying.
Brother's hand was on his brother's back. the two of them were looking at a point, that point was inside them, and so shoulder to shoulder, they looked a lot like an old family photo. I was not there for my father at that time, I was taking care of him, he was with their old family. My mother, my great-uncle's wife, me and all my grandchildren were not there, twenty-thirty incomprehensible people who don't know what they want to change in this world. there had been one family, with its jokes, its loves and friendships, the respect of the elder, the care of the younger, and then care had torn the laces of its love and delicate friendship.
- It happens or it doesn't happen, what, Hovo... It happens or it doesn't happen... Oh green brother, oh familiar brother, Come, bring with you the rays of the Sun, Karkachu tributary, Blue sky, Bring fragrant shoots, flowers and grass, May of lambs, Play, joy, Oh green brother, Oh familiar brother...
"Why don't they recite poetry?" I said to my mother. "They do well to recite." If you knew, you would recite it too.
- I was raising you, I didn't have time.
- Don't make it bigger.
- You are right.
Then outside, one of the brothers coughed like a cold, and that was a good reason for that woman to go, interrupt them, tell her. The three of them came in, my little uncle stood under the door like a stranger, my father was looking at the photo close to the lamp, and my mother wanted to take it from my father's hand. The slightly hungover eyes of the girl in the photo, in that rural house, under the red light of oil, looked at everyone as if inattentively, as if attentively and with a desire to be liked, they were loved, but they didn't love anyone in that hut. That Karine must have learned about our hard walls and my father's big hands while taking pictures. That Karine told us from afar. "I'm good, but here you are not so good." We were not offended by that. we would sell all our cows and carpets for him without expecting a slight smile. Her scent still quivered on Little Uncle's cheeks, her hair still thick on his chin. And those skinny calves and those high heels and that slight sway in the tight skirt... And away from the bars of the barracks, away from the flashlight, her fading steps.
"Let's go get it," said my father in our red-lit room.
"Bring it, milk the cow," my mother turned around from the door.
World, world. My mother wanted somehow, by any means, begging, secretly or fighting, to keep four cows instead of the two allowed. He had lost hope of the city once and for all and wanted to be a proper villager after being. But the precious memories of the city were spared for that girl with dark brown eyebrows. She was my mother's daughter, they wanted to deceive her, beg her, drag her to this nipple, this dark mask, hang puppies from her skirts and not even love her - think of Makhachkala!
- Do you have a cow? Bring the kolkhoz to dump the dung. Hand the rake, hand the child the sledgehammer. Give the child the slap, the rotting bucket - the hand.
"You bark like a dog," scolded my father.
- Close your mouth so he doesn't bark. "Let's get them."
- Go ahead.
My mother became my uncle.
- Don't listen to them, even if you are one of them. tell them to do it. do and wait for you to put something new. they have no intelligence of their own, and you are one of them. your army clothes will wear out, what will you wear? What am I saying, why don't you tie your bag and go to Tiflis? Don't leave the girl, make a cross on Tiflis and your daughter.
- He is right. We will look after the old women, said my father.
My mother was going out to get tea, she closed the door behind her, suddenly she realized that she took a burden on herself, and her husband, he is a pack horse and a pack horse, instead of correcting the mistake of his wife, he just confirmed it. He ran into the room without tea and said through the doors.
- What! Will I look after the old women? the rake, the dung, the laundry, you, the children, the cow, the pig, you and the old women? Where is your conscience, man of God, am I not guilty? - My mother aged line by line in a minute and bags hung under her eyes. - Pig and chicken, lunch and laundry, rake and collective farm - let her come. The head is buried, the kolkhoz is the kolkhoz, the state is the state, who is from Tbilisi?
That or the other fall, when I was in love and thought only I understood him, my little uncle chose for himself a four-year-old horse from the herd. It was fifty-three four-year-olds like him running around mixed up, drinking water, grazing, snorting, munching - it was not visible among them. After catching and catching it, it turned out to be a red-hot coal. They knocked him down, twisted his neck, burned his stomach with a whip, brought blood from his nose, crushed him, made him sweat, turned him into dead coal. He was so poor that Little Uncle begged him to get up, and we had no hope that he would ever get up, and Little Uncle was kissing him. And he, lying down, mustered the strength to disobey. My little uncle would drag him home, talk to him, promise to be a brother to him, put sugar in his mouth, and that fool would drag him to the mountains, coming looking back and forth. My little uncle said that he will not let the children suffer him, he will not let others bring wheat from far away hot villages, he will water him as soon as possible, feed him from the bank, he will not lose his horse, and his saddle will be the best of all the saddles in the village, and that incomprehensible man pulled back, pulled back, it became a tree, it hung in the air and the tree turned towards the herd. It wouldn't be like that, it wouldn't be like that... it couldn't be done like that. He fell, the shin crushed under the skin, and the hoof was not his.
- Stupid, stupid head...
He was shivering and, still warm, he couldn't feel it, he wanted to stand. He would stand, his leg would bend and run away from under him, and he would stamp his nipple in the grass. The herd played on the shoulders of the mountains, beckoned him to fall, and he whirled in place, wearing himself and the ground. And was swimming in sweat.
- Stupid useless...
My little uncle sat next to him, turned with his wheelbarrow and saw that the televans were swaying, the televans were turning over the televans in the fog. My little uncle smoked and left. For a couple of days, he was constantly thinking, wanted to tell something to my great uncle, and sat down to pray with his back bent. And the voice was hoarse. My great uncle demanded with his eyes not to smoke in his presence, and he forgot that he did not smoke in his presence. The mind was somewhere else entirely. Blowing the smoke from his eyes, he stammered something: - He was sweating, he was swimming in sweat. It was blue and white, wasn't it? darkened almost to black with sweat.
My great-uncle was carrying a cart, put down his ax, shuffled his feet in half-boots and took the cigarette from him. And rubbing it said:
- You gave the foal five hundred rubles. What is five hundred rubles, you will not be happy if you find it. You were bringing the foal, the leg was broken. Isn't that what happened?
And manager Levon gave his hand from the top of the hill.
- Tell that child the gelgrav is spinning, he will die because it will ruin the skin, he will die because the gelgrav will ruin the leather!... Did you know?
"Did you hear that?" said my Great Uncle to the Little One. And Levon called once more from the top of the hill so that we could hear better.
- It will kill, it will spoil the skin!
"What should I do now?" My little uncle asked my great uncle. Before the elder had answered, Levon's voice was heard. Levon had finished what he had to say to us and turned to the top of the hill to say something else to someone else, but apparently what Little Uncle had done was too extraordinary for him and one call did not settle accounts with it, and Levon was still thinking about it. And because Levon thought out loud, the wind carried his opinion about us;
- Open-mouthed dogs, Mantashov's naked grandsons. Poetic, cheerful, stupid...
- Did you hear that? - My great uncle asked the little one.
- I heard. What should I do?
- Go and peel.
"How?" My little uncle was confused.
- What how?
- He didn't die.
- Yes! - Mets thought. - Well, take the ax with you.
- What should I do if I take the ax?
- Wow... - said my great uncle. He was a man of few words. He was in captivity for four years, he was taken out of the camp and exiled to Altai, where he stayed for three years, and all he said about his seven-year life was: "Germans are a very thrifty people."
"Should I take the ax and do it?" asked my little uncle.
- Wow... - the Big One got angry.
- You say take the ax.
The big one didn't speak, but only looked at the little one, and so the little one continued: - You say cut it, I say it's not dead, you say take the ax.
At that time, my great uncle said a long word: - Don't make me talk about everything.
- Man, you say take the ax. Should I take the ax, what should I do? - My little uncle missed laughter those two days and many days. Now the slow blinking of the Big Man's eyes and his hot-cold anger of the little talker seemed to him as worthy of laughter as what happened on the mountain was worthy of sadness.
- Ha! - my great uncle thought, - take it, kill it and scratch it.
My little uncle watched with his fat mouth hanging loosely, then threw his hands to the side and then nodded.
- Kat... are you kidding...
The big one took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, smashed it in his palm, found a match, put it in his pocket, stuck the ax in his belt, even though the belt was tight, and pushed. And the word was wasted.
- Go!
He moved his muscles in a narrow army galife and went out into the mountains. And deaf as he was not to hear the song of the larks, and blinded as he was not to see the flight of the larks, and dull as he was not to feel the whistling of the wind in the deep mountain air, My little uncle went to the horse. And the brain was rustling under the temples. And hit the horse's head with an ax socket. And he scored for the second time. And cutting the mounds with an ax, roasting in the heat, he pushed the earth out of the hole with his hands, feet and nose-mouth. And after burying, he went down to the village with his jaw wide open.
- You didn't bring the leather, you spoiled the mouth of the axe. Leather, well, I won't force you, said my great uncle, and you will take the ax to the blacksmith.
- I won't take it.- And Small bent down to pick up some of the broken cigarettes. My great-uncle put the heavy half-boot on the crumpled box and, chin on his chest, took out five rubles from his shirt pocket, stepped on his fist, ran the ax through his arm, bending his arm at the elbow.
- The blacksmith is at home, go get it, go beat the mouth. Be careful not to drop the steel. And don't be hard.
The little one looked like he wanted to dope the ground like a beaten child, but in fact he was running on the blacksmith's house. It kind of happened that he was dopdoping like a kid and running like a true stormtrooper at the same time. He had returned from serving in the army, Tiflis, a year ago. He had become a white, plump, handsome boy, and there was a slight darkness in his eyes. He had a girlfriend there who did not want to come to the village. "He is not for the village," said my Little Uncle. He wanted to go to Tiflis himself, but my great uncle said: "Year". My great uncle wanted to say, take your parents with you. The old man and the old woman would not go, and my little uncle bowed his neck in front of his brothers: - Let them stay with you, again... - "You are the little one," said the Big One and was looking for a girl for him. And he was putting names on his fingers, but Little was silently shaking his head. And the Big one was bending his neck and really begging, and at that moment he was really going to feel sorry: - Well, it's not my fault, I'll hurt you, whoever you want, why are you torturing me... - but the Little one was shaking his head and standing up.
- I will go to Tiflis.
My great-uncle would stick out his elbow and say: "Karine," and at that time Little would close his eyes and rock, and tears would slowly drip from between his bulging eyelids. My great uncle hesitated, then shouted.
- Puppy!
And he didn't open his eyes and was rocking. My great uncle was approaching to hit, but he couldn't. standing next to him, he shouted again.
- Puppy! - And waiting for that word to come, now he said another word: - Child!... - He was looking for words for him in his mind and couldn't find them, and from that he spoke with pauses: - Palas! - He kept talking like that until my little uncle's thick lips were twisted like softening metal and, with a tearful curse, completely deformed.
- I'm your puppy...- My great uncle would enter the house and suddenly find himself fighting with a woman, and dealing with women's language was not his language, and haunted by her words and the hoarse cry of a cradle child, he would go out and see Little Brother from the balcony. And at that moment, my Great Uncle loved Little Brother very much because he was not a woman and did not have the nimble tongue of a woman. And standing on the balcony, like a peaceful conversation, he said to my little uncle: Last year, Vardan Lusik had eight hundred and thirty days, I, a man, had five hundred and seventy-five. And with that, Hovhannes Tumanyan's Maro recites from the podium. What doesn't he say, Hovhannes Tumanyan's Maro, Loretsi Sako, Dzmra one night, Dzmra one night there was a wedding... Abulala Mahari... - My uncle was counting by bending his fingers, reaching the flexible finger and smiling, - Karine.
To me he was a violent man. I often thought that the Germans must have loaded him with dime-size rocks while he was in captivity. There was frost and an open field, and they were only in one shirt, and the shirts were unbuttoned, and in the open field they came across a sty and drove the sleepy pigs out of the sty and piled themselves on top of each other in the pigsty. And all the lice in the piggery were drawn to them. You just had to scrape it off.
When he took the cigarette from my Uncle Little, I thought that the pigsty was the place for him and his ilk. I asked my little uncle.
- Karine is a beautiful girl, isn't she?
He didn't answer, but I waited a lot for his words, and he said: - Are you fourteen or fifteen?
- When you were fifteen, - I used to say, - Vardani Lusik was your favorite. you lied about going to the club, he lied about coming to the club, but neither of you were in the club.
- We didn't happen, we didn't happen.
- Karine is beautiful.
"You went into my pocket," he said.
- No, I imagine.
- What do you imagine?
"He's thin and tall," I said, and I wanted him to have blond hair, white teeth, dimples on his cheeks that were full of smiles, and when you saw him, say Beethoven, ice skating, Cheops, palm tree, Pechorin, Maupassant, talk to him about the best things you know, tell him you're a peasant, it's true, but you're worthy. to the city and you happen to be a villager, and that rude uncle and that unshaven father have nothing to do with you.
"It's from my shoulders," said my little uncle, "his head is a little, very little higher than my shoulders." who wears high heels...- and my Little Uncle would close his eyes and forget to speak. And as tangible as a presence, he could feel the touch of her cheek on his arm, the tuft of her hair on his chin, and his scent lingered in my uncle's skin, the scent trembled in his skin. "It's black," said my uncle, "it's black."
"What a world this is," I said, touching my uncle. I wanted to please my uncle.
My little uncle beat the ax with the blacksmith, taking care not to weaken or harden the steel of the ax, and left the forge for the mountains. And there were not for him the chirping of the wind, the soaring of the larks, the song of the larks. And kicking back the ground like a carrion-eating hyena, he scratched the horse. And with the skin wrapped under his arm, he came with tight steps and, having brought Russian words from the army, one of them said:
- Scared, scarred, scarred?
...My little uncle is one of the good workers in the village. He is a good reaper, a good waterer, whatever work is given to him, he can do it. And it has some cruelty in it. as if he takes hold of others himself, but turns pale when the ridiculous word jumps around him. As if he is working with his head down, but when he suspected that he was underpaid by a penny, he hisses low. "I'll hit you, your head will go into your shed, drink colt." His wife Lusik became the second president of the economy and manages so well that you almost take over the reins of your family, and the meetings go so well that there is talk of moving her to the regional center. - You have no business, - my great uncle tells her, - they lift, lift and throw you from above. keep your feet firmly planted here.
Recently, after fifteen years, I asked my Little Uncle.
- Do you remember the blue colt?
- Which one?
He stood in the herd with his jaw on the club and watched the four-year-old bull buck with his head down, tear down the anthills, and provoke the hill-measure bull standing on the hill above to battle; "Don't be stupid, you bastard," muttered my Uncle Little.
- The blue colt? Ah...- smiled my little uncle, - you were a colt at that time too. I was a colt too. Senoooo, keep your bull, or I'll take the poses.
- You're a stripper, take off your kanka poses!
"Do you see the teacher?" smiled my little uncle. "I came!" cried my little uncle, sitting down.
- I will run away!