You’re no good, you’re pitiful my child, my son, my firstborn, my hope, my precious, you’re no good, you hold no vengeance. Your grandpa, my papa Ishkhan had a small blood-red horse: it was so small, he says, that wasn’t taken to army and burned with fury whenever any other horse outran it. It puffed, its lungs shook up and down, flashes of fire burst out of its muzzle, it exploded with fury although so small. Your grandpa’s dog should be the same too, and his child, and the plant on the hedge, and the snake on the wall should be the same too. You’re no good. Whoever knows you praises and smiles when asked about you as though you’re good, as though you’re full of pity, and that smile hits my heart like a knife, my child, my child. My papa, your grandpa Ishkhan didn’t say smart things, nor did he have time to do thinking: he was a man of action, the ground burned under his feet, but once he said in a half breath as if throwing money for bread to my stepmom over his shoulder, and I tell you too – one should neither be so sweet as to be swallowed, nor so bitter as to be spit out. They swallowed you and they praise you, my child, you are being swallowed. You call it pity: but do you know when pity is beautiful? When resides inside a beast. You are not full of pity, you are pitiful. The entire Vanker was as grateful to Ishkhan as to god: do you know why? Because he could harm anyone. He could! Like a thunder, a thunder would his danger burst and echo from Vanker to Borchalou and from Borchalou to Ghazakh upon everyone and every second it could turn into lightning and explode upon any weakling you like. For everyone his favor was that he didn’t explode, he did no favor to anyone other than that. Your grandpa and my patron Avedik did favors to all – honey, vaccine, an axe haft for others, a cart for others, service in army instead of married brother, corvée work instead of his brother’s jailed son: he was the god’s bliss upon this village, but do you know what his younger brother Gikor said once? “How is that fair that he did corvée work for Sargis but he feels too lazy to make a cart for me?” (the forester had asked for a cart to give him the right to cut an oak tree). That is an appropriate response to your grandpa and my patron Avedik: don’t you think that his behavior should be responded differently. Who said “thank you” to his horse? No one. They would take the load off of it and whip on its back as they left keeping the load to themselves and leaving the sweat smell to the owner – YA!
Pity, pity on pity, pity on pity, pity inside, pity outside – is it pity or a doll from rag? My child, my child, my bother, my torture, my worry, my torment, my load… When seeing a girl you stop and watch and your eyes fill with tears, when seeing a man you stare with open mouths, you weep for a sick sheep, you weep for a lovely calf – is it a man’s heart in your chest or an ashugh with a saz?
Your grandpa Avedik – a sleepyhead, slow, kind, though I’m not sure whether kind or coward…How could the blood of Ishkhan ferment from his barely existing drop of blood: that wild, flooding blood, incessant, deceitful, flattering, brave, sleepless, vengeful, that ringing-cheering-ravaging blood of an Arnaoot man…how on earth did it ferment just from one blood drop of sleepyhead Avedik? Is it so pleasing to place your knees before the hearth, to drowse with a smile on your face hoping and trusting that the world is kind, the goat is a shrub and the wolf is a goat? Are you the goat or the shrub, the wolf or the goat? Which one are you? Either or… Or else, go ahead, wait for your heaven, so that the church bells ring in the nightfall, so that the church spring sings in the nightfall, so that they carry you through the weary nightfall, so that they take over your load in the Christ’s nightfall and the gratitude swells up in the throats and strangles, – “thank you, horse, you brought my children food for the whole winter all the way down from Borchalou, we’re so indebted, horse.”
Man and cattle differ from each other by memory. Memory is what lies between man and cattle. If you have memory you are burning, you are man, you have dues, you are restless. If not – there you go, the cow is grazing on the open meadow without memory, while the calf was slaughtered yesterday.
Translated by Arevik Simonyan
