The spring that followed generously brought me a job at the Supreme Council of the Republic of Mountainous Karabakh and again, by the bye, by protection. You swiftly make a habit of accepting things to be conveniently arranged by your mother-in-law or thru some other channels.

This time it was Guegham, who I’d seen a couple of times at all-out briefing-meetings in the office of the Head Editor of the paper where Guegham had a job of journalist. He came to our rented apartment in between bombardments, when Satenic was there, and said I had to visit the Reception Office of the Chairman of the Supreme Council on the second floor in the "White House" (which previously accommodated the Regional Executive Committee). Of course and sure enough, I went there, you just can’t spurn such openings.

In the ante-room to the Reception Office there was sitting Vera, the Chairman's Secretary, fairly advanced into the venerable age, yet the vestiges of her former fairness still traceable, who told me to wait because Arthur was busy at the moment.

And at the long desk next to hers there sat two phedais, opposite each other, playing Scrabble with a pencil in a ruled sheet of paper as a fix for having neither board nor letter chips. They also had to kill time in any way till Arthur becomes available.

But what shocked me, personally, was their sloppiness regarding the fair sex. Now, he’s taken his AK off his shoulder and dropped it on the desk by his side, to sharpen his skills at Scramble comfortably, and pays no attention that the weapon’s barrel got directed smack bang at Vera’s belly. Some tactless jerk, I swear.

So, I got up, as if tired of sitting, and that AK quite unobtrusively I turned 90 degrees for the barrel to watch the view thru the window. And all the present played along as if nobody saw nothing. Except for Vera because, when some geezer left Arthur’s Room, she dropped in, went out and invited me to enter although those two phedais had been waiting there before I came.

Arthur, a squat guy in his glasses, asked if I would like to take the position of a translator-analytic at the Press-Center by the Supreme Council of the RMK headed by Guegham, who had visited our rented apartment. How could I turn down the proposal with my diploma of a Teacher of English, from the Nezhin Pedagogical Institute? Letting down the people who had wasted their time and energy on me 4 years at a stretch? I'm not that kind of a guy.

Thus we came to a consensus and Arthur undertook to carry out all the formalities…

And I parted the paper with no regrets, almost, moreover that Isaac Asimov’s grand nothing was over and, besides, I felt kinda hurt by the attitude regarding me displayed recently on the part of the paper employees by a certain part of the editorial office staff. Well, just a fraction of them…

The matter is that after the fall of Khojalu the airport started to operate and JAK-40 jets began landing there. 150 rubles for a ticket and you become unreachable by the theater of militarized hostilities.

And one morning I indicated some unaccustomed vivacity and noise outside the Translators Room, in the corridor, and quite naturally I went out to see what’s up.

As it turned out, the reason for the paper’s staff's get-together was their not being paid the salary for two months and, in the same breath, they knew about presence of some money in the editorial office’s safe although not aware how much exactly.

In the wake of the mutual elation, I also visited the room where it was installed, the safe. And, as anticipated, there it was in the corner by the window.

No, yeah, naming the item a safe would call for a certain stretch of imagination. Just a wardrobe of sheet iron, but the padlock was a really weighty thing. Also of iron.

The only hindrance for going over to a payday routine stood the absence of the Head Editor, Maxim, who more than a month ago went to Yerevan to participate in all kinds of meetings and TV interviews about the ill luck of Mountainous Karabakh and the bad break for its Armenian population.

Yet, The Soviet Karabakh newspaper staff did know a trick or two. And before you say knife they procured a long iron breaker, some really mighty tool in my professional estimation, and did not miss on bringing along the Head Accountant too. Breaking that wardrobe with that breaker was a matter of a couple of moments without turning for my help although I wielded the tool for 2 years at a construction battalion in the Soviet Army.

Of course, I felt offended.

The head accountant, surrounded by half a dozen of eager witnesses, counted the burglarized sum and gauged without any calculator and – guess what? – it turned exactly 150 rubles per a paper staff member!

But she only warned me beforehand to bridle my expectations because my name was not listed in the payroll, and the Head Editor not around but in Yerevan.

The whole state of affairs seemed kinda sad but I kept myself in hands, thanked her for the information, and went out retaining the overall composure and make-believe indifference.

Later on, Rashid, the Watchman, came to the Translators Room to express his disagreement with the occurrence, unjust from his standpoint, which did not console me too much though…

So, without any scruples, I crossed the main square named after V. I. Lenin and entered the "White House", second floor, the first door in the corridor to the right – the Press-Center by the Supreme Council of the RMK, where there was a pretty long desk and one window behind Guegham’s, the PC boss’ back, and along each wall (except for those with the door and the window) lined up a row of chairs (backs to the wall) – all their seats cloth-lined, grab any one to your liking, move closer to the long desk and break in the critter.

Guegham forked me out a tiny black receiver capable of picking up short waves, and explained my official duties: listening and taking notes of everything blurted out by the BBC about the Karabakh conflict or by any other radio station for that matter, if they choose to pop up in any range, and then, on the basis of whatever was angled out by the receiver, I had to roll out a monthly analytical report for the Supreme Council's consideration, beside my responsibility for the synchronous translation of the visitors who knew neither Armenian nor Russian.

On the PC of the SC of the RMK payroll, beside me and Guegham, there was also Benic, the operator of his professional video camera (he liked to take the panoramic views of the fields filled with ripening wheat ears but the must was filming the busted military equipment and other war-time horrors),and the Niva driver Rafic, as well as Aghavni, Guegham’s secretary.

I’ve never chanced to cooperate with Arthur Mkrtchian because in a week there happened his murder in the disguise of suicide.

Well, show me a suicide who puts a bullet thru his head then cleans his handpiece and hides the shot cartridge too cunningly for the investigator to find it. Not even under the bed.

Was I born a day ago or what?.

For me it was clear at once who the job was done for, yet in my monthly report for the Acting Chairman of the Supreme Council (some Zhoric it was, right? They were so too many to step into each other’s shoes there) I didn’t not expostulate my interpretations that only Big Brother could be so much aggravated by the Arthur’s plan to break the communications blockade by establishing the Road of Life through Iran.

Don’t you ever dare to even think in that direction! Russia's for centuries been tearing the Caucasus from under the Persian domination…

The cushy job exhausted me by regular nicotine OD’s conditioned by the PC room small size. All those representatives of foreign mass-media, who arrived by the nigh choppers because JAK-40’s had enough load to fetch in besides them, produced quite a bellyful of smarting smoke to faint in it, notwithstanding my 12 years of non-stop smoking before giving it up…

And then, taking advantage of my official position, I decided to evacuate my family from the surrounding war because I stopped liking the look in Satenic's eyes. The eyes themselves were as beautiful as ever yet that expression of staring at something a thousand miles away was not quite the thing. Although what else could be expected after the months in the basement and more than a couple bombardments per day, on average?

Guegham led me to the room of Marcel, the head of some committee or another, on the same floor, who produced the needed paper. He only warned that in the airport they might pay no attention to a paper from the SC of the RMK, albeit signed and stamped.

Rafic took us in the PC’s Niva to the airport, 15 km in the direction of Askeran, right before Khojalu Village, where there was a kilometer-long line to the one-story airport but no one to show that paper from the Supreme Council to. The jet engines buzz coming over from behind the building but no way to get in because of all that crowd and the locked gate in the fence around the airfield.

That’s how we spent the whole day there. Satenic was looking after the kids while I kept looking for who to show the paper to. Good news in the evening one of my brothers-in-law, Sashic, came by his Volga vehicle and brought us back to Stepanakert.

Next morning my leave was over so no way to count on Rafic’s Niva and we started off to the airport on foot. At least Ruzanna was walking herself but Ashot had to be carried and piggybacked all the way, in turns.

And along the broken road tramped the crowd of fellow travelers like it was some Soviet holiday demonstration if not for the shell holes and blasted pillars along the road.

On reaching the airport the same rigmarole started anew. At times random GRAD missiles flew in without hitting the takeoff run though because of being fired from a too big distance. It would burst in Khojalu, for the crowd to disperse and then collect back into the line. And so until dark.

Satenic decided to spent the night at the airport because carrying Ashot up-hill for 15 km was a long haul indeed.

So, early in the morning I iterated to Stepanakert and back alone – the kids had to eat something, we were not prepared for so lengthy a delay.

Then, gradually, I wore a path for infiltration the airport field thru the gate and when some or another phedai wanted to kick up surplus dust I surprised them with the paper from Marcel and did my best at snow job to establish favorable relations with all and any single one around.

And then I saw a JAK-40 coming in to land and some geezer, not a phedai but who was seeing to the refueling and stuff, said, “It’s Murad, he takes out more people than allowed by the jet’s technical characteristics”.

I rushed back through the gate to gather Satenic and kids, and bags, and on the way I saw a Niva at the entrance with a woman sitting inside in a state of complete indifference to the surroundings.

To make it short, I brought the family in by the flank maneuver, and next to the run there's a crowd already screaming agitatedly but no one being let any farther and we too were cordoned off.

The phedai commander, a guy in his mid-thirties, tried to calm everybody down announcing that it was Murad who had just arrived and he would surely take away all of the present, filtered thru the airport building.

The jet ran nearer and dropped stairs from under its tail for a couple of men in khaki to descend. A khakied jeep took them away, and there was a pause with the phedai commander often glancing in the gate direction until from there, at last, appeared that woman from the Niva looking neither to the left nor to the right and walked to the jet with her companion. Some elite, to be sure, yet not in the SC of the RMK line, otherwise I would recognize them.

The commander started to let people in small groups to board the aircraft. One group. Another. The rest could not restrain themselves any more, they broke the cordon line and ran out into the airfield.

The pilot waving hotly from the window in his cabin, some guy who had seen his passengers off in the previous groups tried to defend their departure and stop the rush of the running crowd by demonstrating postures from one or another Eastern martial-arts exercises. The phedais raced to help him out and pushed the elements back. The jet slammed its stairs up and escaped to the takeoff run while the phedai commander was yelling, "What a bad lot you are! Even Murad did not want to take you away!"

And I grew sad that we were so wicked people. But then that servicing geezer neared me and told under his breath that Murad had brought some phedais’ big shot and there would be another jet to take him back later in the day.

Everybody were pressed out again into the airport building to the rest of the crowd there. And I was stalking about and worrying how to stake off a place in the pending jet. The phedais got accustomed to my mug and did not paid much attention but I could not even look at them anymore, at their dummy visages. The snotty teenagers were handed assault-rifles to and—here you are!—meet another bunch of phedais! Phooey!

Yet, I still tried to find a way to reach that big shot. Deputy of the Defense Minister of Armenia or something. But they explained to me that he was dead drunk with Karabakh tutovka in the meteorologists' hut and it’s hard to tell whether he’d be in condition for flying back at all. The flight after him might very easily be canceled, postponed for a day…

And again the twilight was thickening and Satenic, planning to spent another night at the airport, sent me to Stepanakert after some or other things. And I started off, although not as briskly as in the morning.

After plodding for a kilometer, I came up to the crossroads where there were people standing in hope for a chance vehicle to the city and somebody from among them called out, ‘Look! What a pretty aircraft!’. I turned around and saw a tiny JAK-40 jet mutely coming in to land in the parting sun rays of the day.

I say, some dash it was in the counter direction!

As it turned out, during my absence the jet got landed, the crowd stirred up but the phedai commander kept the door to the airfield wisely shut, the Deputy Minister slept off his drunkenness and stood aloof in the middle of the airport hall, within the thick circle of the phedai cordon, devastated pitifully by the severest hangover imaginable, him, not the phedai kids.

However, I still managed to press thru to the sufferer and, waving the paper, went off chanting that by the International Law no families should be separated.

Fortunately, he had certain command of Russian, "And what’s all that about?"

And I claimed the right of my family to evacuation to the place of my birth, in Ukraine, where I originated from.

He beaconed to the commander who opened the door, and phedais took those bags with Satenic and kid’s things to the jet. I also saw them off into the overcrowded aircraft, yet old ladies there found vacant laps for our kids and I moved to the exit, running into the Deputy Minister.

And I watch him – buddies, but it's our man! Hair as long as was sported by Nestor Makhno, the leader of the Peasant Army in the Civil War times. He’s still unsteady on his pins after the tutovka OD but capable, none the less, of making for the pilots’ cabin thru the thick crowd in the aisle.

"Where to?", says he.

"Well, still have some unfinished business around here."

I climbed down the stairs and ran off. The jet roared up and moved to the takeoff run. Some of the phedais nearby plugged the ears turning their backs to the machine and sat on their haunches, kinda it’s an American aircraft carrier deck around here, others confronted the gusts from the jet’s turbines with their faces of squinted eyes and jitterbugging hair above their foreheads…

And I watched and saw—wow!—how beautiful was each and every form in that sculptured group portrait of the Hellos young demigods!.

The very moment off the run, the jet turned over to its side along the invisible banking so as not to fly over the ridge by the Noragiugh Village where from they could launch a thermal rocket…

While I’d been stomping to Stepanakert, it got completely dark. Nearing our rented one-room apartment, I heard some toddler kids twittered in the darkness of a nearby yard. And it shot thru me somehow too sharply that merely a couple of hours since we had parted but I was missing them already…

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