Soon, however, all we could see was the overthrown stone of the valleys. Nothing remained of the Christian myth, expressed through the stone of churches, about a future happiness in the Kingdom of Heaven, nor did anything remain of the stone quarries and mines developed in the name of a future terrestrial bliss.
And when it became clear that before us lay nothing but the stone bones of long-dead mountains, we drove into the village where a young driver was getting married to a pretty young girl who worked in the village shop.
I had been told that the villages around Aragats were the poorest in Armenia, that they had languished until only recently under a heavy burden of senseless taxes. Bureaucrats had expected the collective farms to produce large quantities of meat, wool, and grapes from the thousands of stone fields around these farms. But you can’t press wine from stone; you can’t turn basalt into good mutton. These taxes had been lifted. Now the collective farms were responsible only for their small patches of fertile land. Life was a little less difficult, but people were still far from rich.
Our glassy coach drove slowly down the stone street of a stone village, amid stone hovels that had not only grown up out of the stone but also grown down into it. Stone walls stretched from one hovel to another. Long channels for watering the animals had been gouged out of huge stone slabs. Near the huts stood basalt water barrels, basalt laundry tubs, basalt troughs for feeding the sheep.
Hearths were carved out of stone. Stairs, porches—everything was stone. Both people’s homes and their household utensils were basalt. Here, we were still in the Stone Age. Even the dust being blown down the street seemed stony.
But music from a radio reminded us that the age of electricity had, in fact, dawned. Along the stone streets stood stone pillars, carrying wires to the Stone Age hovels, bringing them electric lighting. And we could hear the heartrending voices of wedding flutes: Yes, people were living amid these stones.
We drove up to some little houses, standing above a stone precipice, that looked particularly poor. We were expected. A drum was beating, and there was the sound of flutes.
The groom’s mother, a tall old woman with an emaciated face, hugged Martirosyan. They kissed and began to weep. They were weeping not because a young man was marrying and leaving his mother but because of the incalculable loss and suffering that Armenians have endured, because they couldn’t not weep for relatives of theirs who had perished during the massacres of 1915, because no joy in the world could make them forget their nation’s grief and their homeland on the other side of Mount Ararat. But the drum went on thundering deafeningly and victoriously. The expression on the face of the large-nosed drummer was implacably merry: In spite of everything, life would go on, the life of a nation making its way through a land of stone.
A crowd of peasants gathered around us. Martirosyan introduced me to his sister and her husband—a thin old man in a green tunic; his soldier’s belt was fastened by a brass buckle and a five-pointed star. He had sad eyes and his dress indicated real poverty. But the buckle and star shone in the sun; they must have just been polished. I shook dozens of hands, everyone wanted to meet the friend of Martirosyan the writer.
There was a table outside. We were led out and offered food and drink.
Unfamiliar customs and rituals demand respect. I always feel fear, even terror at the thought that I might offend people by failing to honor some custom of theirs. What would the villagers think if I refused food and drink offered to me by the groom’s parents?
I drank a glass of grape vodka and ate some green pepper and a piece of mutton. Anxious not to offend, I drank a second glass of vodka and ate some pickled green tomato. This was so fiery that I immediately needed another swig of vodka. This is how people drink in Armenia—they extinguish the fire of vodka with the fire of pepper; they extinguish the fire of pepper with the fire of vodka.
After my stomach troubles during the night, the vodka had an unaccustomed but wonderful effect. A sculptor, I imagine, can achieve something similar with a piece of stone: everything superfluous splits off and falls away. His chisel releases a life that had been hidden.
My perception of the world became altogether different and more wonderful. I made a great leap forward; I saw faces lit not only by the light of the sun but also by their own inner glow. I could read people’s true characters. My love and trust in people increased exponentially. I had moved from the auditorium to the stage. No longer did anything seem banal or merely habitual. I seemed to be taking part for the first time in a splendid and solemn, perfectly structured one-act drama—the drama of life. I was full of excitement and surprise: The sky above me was such a deep blue, the air so cool and clean, the snow on the mountaintops so brilliant! And there was such joy—and such sorrow—in the wedding music! The people gathered around the house of the groom’s parents entered unhindered into my soul; there was a place for them in its innermost depths. I could feel their immense labor, the poverty of their clothes and shoes, their wrinkles, their gray hair, the youthful mocking curiosity of the beautiful—and not so beautiful—young women, the mighty souls and wonderful straightforwardness of the laborers. I sensed their honesty; I understood the hardship of their lives, their kindness, how well disposed they were towards me. I was at home; I was among my own kind. We entered a stone room—what stern poverty! How good to be honest and poor! The walls, ceiling, and floor were all made from large stones. The ancient utensils had barely even been touched by the Iron Age; the jugs and dishes, the containers for grain, oil, and wine, the hearth itself—all seemed the very image of the Stone Age.
We went out again into the yard. Straight in front of me, shining in the sun, was the snowy peak of Greater Ararat. My feelings and thoughts became still more acute.
Humanity’s most important mountain—the mountain of faith
—called up innumerable associations in my mind. The Bible and the present day came together with astonishing ease, and I saw Mount Ararat through the eyes of people who lived on these mountain slopes before the birth of Christ. I saw the swift black waters of the great flood. I saw drowning sheep and donkeys. I saw a blunt-nosed boat, floating heavily on the water. I saw the animals saved by Noah and the bloody slaughterhouses where Noah’s descendants killed the descendants of these animals. But I did not only think about the biblical mountain; I also, without thinking, delighted in its beauty. The mountain was shining in its full glory; it was not obscured by the buildings of Yerevan, by the smoke of its factory chimneys or the clouds and mist of the Ararat valley. From its stone foot to its white head it was lit by the morning sun. It belonged to today and to the life of past millennia. It brought together today’s wedding and the flutes of three thousand years ago. Everything passes; nothing passes. . . .
What power lies in wine!
People hurried us on: We still had to go and fetch the bride, and it was eighteen kilometers to her village. The wedding procession consisted of two trucks and our glassy coach. The young stood in the back of the trucks. They danced, sang, and waved roasted chickens in the air—as well as round loaves of wheat and skewers of lamb shashlyk. Gleaming in some of their hands were captured German daggers; their blades, on which could be seen the words “Alles für Deutschland,” had been plunged into fresh apples.
The flutes sang out shrilly and the drums drummed on, but there was no one to admire the splendor of the wedding convoy—around us was only stone, flat, blind, and deaf. This wilderness of sullen stone was a challenge; it lent a particular power to our merriment. The human race was going to continue—our wedding flutes and drums were making fun of the sullen stone.
But about halfway between the groom’s village and the bride’s, just as on my first day in Yerevan, I was hurled down to earth from the heights of contemplation.
This time, however, things were a great deal worse. This time, I was not alone; I was a guest at a wedding. I knew I was being watched, albeit in the friendliest of ways, by the other people in the coach; they noticed every mov
ement I made. And in the bride’s village they would be waiting impatiently: We were running very late. The tables would have been set long ago, and I knew that the moment we drew up outside the bride’s house, we would be surrounded by a huge crowd of her friends and relatives, and we would be ushered solemnly inside, to the sound of wedding music.
I was not going to reach the bride’s village without mishap. A terrible force was raging in my bowels; it was no longer subject to my pitiful will. A tiger with iron claws was determined to burst out of his cage, and it was impossible to resist this enraged beast. The pickled tomatoes and cucumbers had done their work. I was powerless, as powerless as if I had been trying to bridle my heart or my lungs or to prevent the eruption of a volcano. I was gripped, O God, by a terrible despair, by a wild, animal terror. A cold deathly sweat covered me from head to foot. My mind was working with insane speed. Should I stop the coach? It would be very awkward to make such a request—and anyway, what good would it do me? All around was a wilderness of stone, flat as an executioner’s block. And the coach was all windows, and behind us were two trucks full of young people, all singing away.
I have experienced horror and terror more than once in my life, not to mention fear and confusion. I took part in the war. I crossed the Volga under German fire, several times. I have experienced both massive bombing raids and barrages of mortar and artillery fire.
And yet, even though both during the war and at other times I have experienced my fill of fear, I have never—strange as this may seem—felt such utter horror as on that wedding coach. Dear God—and all to the accompaniment of continual music! And in the company of dozens of kind, friendly, respectable people, all so very proud that the Moscow friend of Martirosyan the writer was attending this wedding. If only I’d had a gun. . . . But no. In spite of everything, I probably wouldn’t have shot myself. I would have gone on living with the burning, unprecedented shame of it all. I would have become a figure of fun, a hero of the folklore of filth—but I wouldn’t have shot myself. Years later, a decrepit and gray-haired old man, remembering the horrible, pathetic, humiliating details of that day, I would have cried out in shame. In the middle of the night I would once again have been drenched in cold sweat; I would have groaned; I would have clutched my head in my hands. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t have killed myself. Dear God, and all to the sound of wedding drums and ancient flutes, and at the foot of the biblical Mount Ararat! Could I have ever imagined such torment?
My companions evidently noticed my tense face. I had probably gone deathly pale; probably they could see the sweat on my forehead and cheeks. Someone asked me in broken Russian: Was I comfortable? Was it too hot for me? Would I prefer to sit in front? In reply, I mumbled something inarticulate—I don’t remember what.
And then, turning to the passengers, Volodya the driver said something in Armenian. Someone interpreted: We would have to turn off the road for a moment. We needed to stop at a garage for oil. How we reached the gates of this garage I do not remember. I got out of the coach and the first thing I saw was a little building, a tin shack—a cubicle, a water closet, a WC, a lavatory, a latrine, my sweet savior, my sunshine. And I managed to make my way to this booth with a slow and stately gait.
It was, of course, all rather unfortunate. No one got out except me. Volodya’s mates brought him his can of oil with lightning speed —he was, after all, getting married, and he was a driver, one of them. Then, mischievously, Volodya twice sounded his horn. What on earth could have happened to me? Had I fallen into a swoon? Had I even died there in the tin palace? Martirosyan got off the coach and set off in search of me. Just as he reached the palace with a single seat, I emerged. Both of us rather embarrassed, we made our way quietly and thoughtfully back to the coach.
My respectable fellow passengers—the chairman of the collective farm, a dear, rather stout old pensioner who was a Party member, two supervisors from the district centers and their intelligent and elderly wives—greeted me with compassionate silence. When I disappeared into the little palace, they had, no doubt, joked, laughed, and exchanged knowing looks. But never mind—things could have been a great deal worse.
I did not feel the happiness I had felt after my troubles that first day in Yerevan. My ordeal had left me exhausted. Damp with sweat, barely breathing, I was like someone who has just been carried out of an operating room. I had no thoughts, no feelings, only a vague consciousness of having been saved.
We were back on the main road, halfway between the two villages. I had been lucky, very lucky indeed. Glancing shyly at my companions, listening to their quiet conversations, I realized that I had managed to avoid disgrace.
I remembered a Moscow writer who disliked me. He had once said that he thought losers were a pathetic breed and that, in his opinion, I was a typical loser—a typical example of the eternal literary loser. He must have been wrong, I thought. After all, what had just saved me from catastrophe was a stroke of extraordinary good fortune. This was true, of course. But then, if each of us is allotted a limited quantity of luck and good fortune, could it not be said that I had squandered my share in the most pitiful of ways? Today’s success, after all, had hardly brought me wealth and glitter; it had hardly brought me worldwide fame. . . .
We drive into the bride’s village. Little boys straight from the paintings of Murillo—little boys with black eyes and black curls—are running after our vehicles. The young men and women in the trucks behind us are now making more noise than ever. This is a ritual wedding merriment, the counterpart of the ritual tears at a funeral. There are moments when the merry faces look gloomy and preoccupied. These people’s merriment, like their daily labor, is excessive; it is an effort for them.
Now, from a distance, we see a large crowd blocking the street; we are approaching the bride’s home. Music is playing. All we need are cameramen and press photographers—then we would look like a delegation from a friendly country arriving in Moscow by plane. Old men greet us warmly; they seize us by the hand, clasping our hands between their own. The tom-toms beat on.
And now we enter the bride’s home. It is a very poor house. Walls, windows, everything here bears the signature of poverty. It is a particular kind of poverty—a village poverty, an Armenian poverty, a pure mountain poverty. And this background of poverty lends a particularly festive look to the tables placed along the walls and zigzagging out into the spacious room. On the tables are dozens of bottles and decanters full of cloudy white wine and yellowish grape vodka. On the tables are vegetables, fish, roast lamb, spicy breads, and nuts.
But here, in the bride’s home, I break with custom—I do not eat or drink. The respectable people sitting next to me look at me with sad surprise and mild reproach: Everyone is drinking to the health of the bride’s mother, to the health of the bride’s father, to the young couple—and I am not. I am not drinking because I have known a greater fear than that of violating customs and rituals. I do not want to approach the edge of the abyss a second time.
The bride and groom are sitting side by side. They rise to their feet for every toast. The groom is wearing a new checkered coat and checkered cap. He has a large nose and his face is red and weather-beaten, rather coarse. On one sleeve he has the red armband of a volunteer assistant policeman.
The bride is very pretty. Her long eyelashes half cover her eyes, which are looking down at the ground. When someone addresses her, she says nothing and continues to look down at the ground. On her head sits a crown with a white veil. Like the groom, she is wearing a coat. Her coat is new and light blue, and she is holding a light-blue handbag.
After each toast, the guests casually throw ruble notes into a dish beside the musicians. Some throw green or blue notes; I even saw a few red tens. And all this at a time of what is being called “a reorganization of prices.”[54] Such competitive generosity allows musicians to earn thousands of rubles. There have been articles in Yerevan newspapers about villagers falling deep into debt as a result of these musical extravaganzas. The
musicians try not to look at the growing pile of notes. But this isn’t easy for them, and from time to time the flutes and the drum dart alert, lively glances at the precious dish.
A wedding feast clearly shows us the relationships between people, their professional and other hierarchies, their family ties.
There are men in their nineties, drinking and laughing like youngsters. They are from the village of Sasun, famous for its dancers and singers; they are descendants of David of Sasun.[55] There are peasants in soldiers’ tunics, in jackets of all kinds; their wives are all wearing black calico. There are two district bosses, red-faced and confident, wearing suits from the Moscow Tailoring Combine;[56] their buxom wives are wearing identical bright-blue dresses. There are Yerevan dandies in drainpipe trousers and slim, fashionable young girls in coats of artificial fur; they too are from Yerevan, and they are students, postgraduates, and members of staff at scientific research institutes. There is an official from the Party Central Committee; he has broad shoulders and he wears a blue jacket and a red tie. There is Martirosyan, the famous Armenian writer, together with his wife. There are mechanics, drivers, tractor drivers, stonemasons, and carpenters from state farms; most of them are young and powerfully built.
All these people are closely and durably linked by ties of kinship and community. These ties are eternal; their strength has been tested over millennia. Not even the wrath of Stalin could destroy them.
The celebration was not free of anxiety and tension. The best man was constantly getting to his feet and crossly, almost rudely, demanding that the bride be allowed to leave the house and set off for the groom’s village; she should have been there long ago. The bride’s relatives would then shout angry retorts. To some extent, this dispute was part of the ritual. But everything was taking a lot longer than it should have, and so the best man—the commander in chief of the wedding—really did have something to be angry about.
An Armenian Sketchbook Page 12
