Gilgamesh by Joan London

Author:Joan London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Grove Atlantic
Published: 2001-02-14T16:00:00+00:00

ARMENIA

Everybody said that war was coming, it was only a matter of days.

Zakian Street was short and quiet, lined on one side by five-storey apartment blocks and on the other by a grove of slender yellowing poplars, the Twenty-Six Commissars Park. At night it was so still you could hear the clock strike a few blocks away in Lenin Square. At six when the early morning traffic started up it seemed to set the air moving. Curtains stirred at the balconies. Light flickered in the long windows. In Tati’s room, Edith woke.

She had trained herself to rise at once. She dressed where she stood, in the clothes she had taken off the night before. With minute turns of the key she let herself out and left the tiny boy and the old woman in their separate worlds of sleep. She shut the door on the smell of the room, musty old books, cigarette smoke, brimming chamber pot. She was still half asleep herself, but nothing was more important than leaving that room on her own. This was the time when she bought the bread, when she moved free in the city.

Nevart’s wheelchair was parked in the corridor. Nevart had lost the use of her legs in the same explosion at the music school that had injured Hagop. The stage on which she had been singing had collapsed. She was a wonderful singer, the most promising the school had ever produced, Hagop said. With scholarships she had studied in Moscow and spoke many foreign languages. Three students had been killed by the bomb. Afterwards she and Hagop had married. That way they could share an apartment. Nevart needed constant help.

Edith tiptoed past their door. Nevart had sharp hearing: she was no patient invalid and did not hesitate to call out. More and more, Hagop depended on Edith to help look after her.

Edith splashed her face in the sink in the communal kitchen, taking care not to turn the tap on too hard so the pipes did not shudder and wail. She used the privy at the bottom of the stairs.

A little girl came running as Edith crossed the courtyard. She stopped short when she saw that Edith was not carrying Jim.

Bari lous, Nora.

Lous bari, the little girl said gravely. She had black hair cut into a fringe, serious black brows. Her pigtails were tightly plaited, and she trailed a satchel, ready for school. Dmitri?

Edith mimed sleep, laying her cheek on her clasped hands. Even with Nora she was careful to avoid talking, to draw attention to her foreignness. Of course it was known she was odar, a stranger, but Hagop had set off a rumour in the block that she was Tati’s goddaughter. This wasn’t impossible, as Tati had lived abroad when she was young for many years. Tati meant grandmother, and everyone called her that. For some reason, although she never left her room, Tati was known to all, respected and beloved. Her neighbours were glad that Edith was here to look after her.

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