The Ficuses in the Open. Сергей Николаевич Оголцов

second day-off. Till four pm I was doing my hard labors time on our Site.

      The layout improvement is a choice pastime; breaking up frost-tightened clay and shoveling it down into the bottomless gorge that serves the natural border to the Site.

      On my way home I stopped for a chat with Goorgan, the only neighbor we have on our side of the gorge. He shared that all the truck-drivers at their state-owned firm work for phedayees now. He also has to transport the arms flown in from Armenia to the Kolatac village.

      Going under the pine trees that line the sidewalk opposite the Children Hospital, I picked up a big bough chopped off by a shell fragment. There's enough material to make a decent X-mass tree.

      At supper Roozahna went off her rocker. To restrain my choler, I left the table and munched the meal sitting at the sideboard.

      Nine pm.

      After Roozahna and my mother-in-law left for the Underground, Sahtik stayed home knitting yet five-minutes ago a solitary shell-blast made her flee.

      Now, only Ahshaut and I am here. He sleeps undisturbed.

      Outdoors all is quiet again.

      December 23

      The pallid moon up in the morning sky resembles a fugitive piece of dull, ungleaming, snow over the distant mountains…

      Wagrum came dolled up in a spiffy outfit with a red-and-white scarf loosely thrown around his neck, smart gray suit and a pair of black gloves.

      'The reds are on the run' declared he resting his buttocks on his desktop with we'll-beat-everybody puffs at his cigarette.

      Soviet Army soldiers were leaving the gray huge Block of the CPSU District Committee—cheek by jowl with the drab Editorial House. On the wide square in front of the CPSU Block loomed a phedayee

      CAMAZ-truck with no number plates, as is their custom. A pensive lad in a black sheepskin coat hanged around with a sub-machine gun in his arms. Three more phedayees, unarmed but in combat fatigues, stood apart in a businesslike jaw-jaw. Beno, a crony of Sashic's, was among them looking very brave in his khaki cap.

      A cagey drove of old women and shifty youngsters neared the District Committee Block from the rear. They penetrated it through a ground floor window and embarked on looting the quarters left by the troops stationed there since spring.

      A dozen iron cots floated out of the window and up the lane – one wooden chair and three empty cognac bottles diversified the spoil.

      A small group of Soviet Army soldiers did their best to look another way, waiting, between the Block's and Editorial House' corners, for a vehicle to pick them up. At last an army jeep pulled up in the lane separating the Editorial House from the Hotel. A helmeted officer got out and staggered to the awaiting group strangely resembling by his motions a khakied automaton, inhumane and eyeless.

      Becoming aware of the civilian looters, he leveled at them his sub-machine gun, clicked it and, slightly rolling from his toes to heels, barked out, 'Get away with you!'

      At this point a squad of native policemen arrived to the scene wearing black sheepskin coats, armed with Kalashnikov guns, and only their commander in the uniform greatcoat carried no visible weapon. The looting dried up, a policeman posted at the broken window. The army jeep whizzed away.