Valyo was intact. A banquet of five males was in progress in their underground compartment brightly lit with a merry gas jet.
I sat at the table on his invitation but only drank a cup of tea. When going to leave I threw my coat over my shoulders, the supply of pens from the inside pocket spilled out onto the shingled ground. Sego, Valyo's sun, picked up and gave them back to me.
'So many!' remarked Valyo in surprise.
'Eight of them,' replied I, 'want some or any?'
He rejected and went out to see me off. Out in the yard, he asked if I/we/ours needed any food or money. I said nothing was needed but then asked him to find me a guitar if possible.
He looked a little baffled then started to explain me his standpoint concerning the evacuation. Either all or nobody should be saved. Consequently, one of these days he's gonna get a helicopter for all of his fifty-sixty kinsmen to fly away from down here and get at least a month's rest.
On my way back the first barrage of missiles exploded. The second one occurred when I was home at ULYSSES. It was followed up with beastly shrieks of a female in the street. However, it was not her who got wounded but her husband and fairly slightly too.
The third volley of the day took place during my yoga. This one set ablaze a number of two-storied wooden lodges for the regiment officers just outside the garrison wall.
On the women's prompting I found and fixed up an additional section to the outer part in the smoke-pipe from the Underground's woodburner.
Supper.
Once in a story by W. S. Maugham I ran across Joyce's collocation "infinite varieties". The fact doesn't exclude the possibility of Joyce borrowing it from Shakespeare who—in his turn—stole it from another guy.
My point is – Maugham angled the phrase bit from ULYSSES, you can bet on it.
The water-walk's ahead – Good night.
February 27
Yesterday, Orliana sent her mother a pint of cream. I did not know what was in the bag she asked me to deliver to my mother-in-law.
(…in Armenian, the word for cream has two meanings: firstly, "cream" and, secondly, "love" or, maybe, vice-versa…)
Uninformed about the contents of the bag, I hung the unknown love on a nail in the wall of our hall-aka-kitchen. Perhaps, that hanged love influenced my dreams and tonight I saw the girl who I had my first necking sessions with.
At the Club, Arcadic came to the Renderers' room. I asked for news, and he said that there was a cease-fire declared because Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs is coming to the region on a peace-making mission. About 12 am there also appeared Guegham, and I left them to each other.
At noon, on the basis of the news from Arcadic, I persuaded Sahtik to leave the Underground.
Lunch for two, because the mother-in-law went to the downhill town to see her daughters-with-their-families.
One page.
A walk with Sahtik and Ahshaut through a slow, serene, snowfall.
Yoga. Supper. Water-walk.
In times of peace there is almost nothing to write about, so – Good night.
February 28
In the morning I went to Rooshtic, Valyo's brother-in-law, who, according to the lead from Valyo, had a guitar.
Aye, the information was true to life but Rooshtic plays his guitar 25 hours a day. However, he promised to find some other one for me no later than March 4.
At the Club a minor VIP from the paper's staff paid a flying visit – the situation is surely getting better. Soon after, Arcadic appeared and asked about Rita.
One page after lunch.
Then Sahtik came home from the Underground (she doesn't trust in no truce), and took me over there to participate in providing their room with a gas jet. At that moment the gas pressure was frightfully weak, and I got scared that it would be cut off. So, on coming back home from the Underground, I boiled some water and washed up the dishes and then myself.
Scarcely had I commenced my yoga, when Sahtik came in with Ahshaut declaring that we had not had supper together for ages. Thus, today's yoga was sacrificed to the family gods.
Among the civilian Azeri prisoners captured in Hojalu, there was a pregnant woman. They brought her to the Hospital (presently in the basement of the Government Block—the former CPSU DC Building next to the Editorial House) where she gave birth to a twin of boys.
Arthur, the landlord's son, became an errand boy at the phedayee
headquarters; he told that today Hojalu was bombed with the GRAD missiles from the Azeri controlled Janhassan village – to spoil the lost. He also said that no looting was allowed in Hojalu so as to distribute houses there to those whose flats and belongings were destroyed by the bombardments.
(…"Hey, Robin Hood! Not only you were full of noble intentions!"..)
A few minutes ago, Sahtik brought Ahshaut home to wash up his bottom, today seems to be an all-out washing day. However, by now it is over.
The water-walk's ahead. Then there will be one more Good night.
P.S.: The truce, in fact, is over: right now I can hear din of a distant Grad bombardment of villages. The war goes on.
February 29
A day-off. In the morning one page from Joyce.
The mother-in-law baked breads and sent me to the downhill town. I made only a quarter of the way and then was stopped by Sashic honking from his car. He took responsibility for the bread delivery to both his wife and Orliana.
I took Sahtik and Ahshaut from the Underground for a walk. At the crossroads of Martuni Street and Upper Park Street, we had a quarrel. I proposed walking a few hundred meters farther up Martuni Street to have a wider view of the mountains, but Sahtik baulked fearing to get too far from the Underground. We bantered silly words back at each other. Then I stubbornly led Ahshaut on, she stayed behind.
On our way uphill, Ahshaut was delighted with a flock of white doves on the sidewalk. The keeper, a man in his prime, was feeding them on the sun-flooded sidewalk next to the columbary thrown together of roof-tin sheets. Ahshaut took to the birds at the first sight, calling them with the same word he uses to name the hens in the landlady's yard: "Coh-coh!"
The sun shone brightly making the road issue faint vapors thinning away in the dazzle. However, on the roadside there still remained patches of hard, granulated, snow. Ahshaut started to avidly scoop it and load—handful after handful—into the right pocket of his red coat (an unthinkable pleasure were his Ma nearby at the moment).
On our way back, I spotted Sahtik chatting with Lydia at the latter's gate. Getting a fresh audience in my person, Lydia once again mustered inventory of the things in their verandah perforated by fragments from a close Grad explosion. Then, she brought out from that same verandah a handful of candies for Ahshaut.
Her generosity brought to light the fact of his pocket being already filled up to the brim. The snow was thrown out. Ahshaut's protesting howl was pleasantly silenced with a piece of candy. I got it in the neck for standing by when he risked his dear health in that dirty awful snow.
(…real stoics are hammered out in marriage, you know…)
After lunch we had a nap: all three of us. There was no gas. Its absence gives me creepers of mortifying terror. All were trying to comfort and convince everybody else that the cut was caused by some maintenance work in the gas system. Well, this time it turned out to be something of the kind.
Sashic visited our place with his family, bringing fifty-kilos of potatoes as well. The local regiment of the Soviet Army was ordered to withdraw from the region. One of the officers—packing up for the pull-out—sold Sashic all his food supply and some pieces of furniture.
No yoga.
I played some of backgammon with Sahtik.
At supper there were four of us. Then I escorted them to the Underground. The gas jet down there lightens the room OK.