I rendered two articles, then Arcadic sent me upstairs to ask Mrs. Nvard, the paper's queen in disguise, if she had any remarks about my one-week-old rendering of her mawkish essay on the life in basement shelters.
She was in her office room shedding tears and complaints over the phone about her younger son enlisting a phedayee group. She rang off and bestowed my rendering with the highest appraisal.
On coming back to the Renderers', I started one more spiritual talk with Wagrum. He retaliated it with a political one.
Veelen, a reporter, presented me with two booklets he had picked up from the floor in the CPSU District Committee Block after it was left by the Soviet troops. The glossy artifact produced in the Azeri capital presented the Karabakh conflict and the snakes in the grass nation of Armenians in terms of hate conforming to the international standards of printability.
At home I was again visited by Slavic. We had a supper for two, however, drinking was exclusively his concern. Meanwhile, a water-tank truck pulled up in the street bringing water to the Twin Bakeries. People from the immediate neighborhood instantly swarmed around. My mother-in-law was not among the last in the queue filling up all the flask-and-cask from our household. Slavic helped me to drag them in. At that point the electricity was cut off anew.
It's half-past-nine pm, I'm writing by a candle because the oil lamp was taken over to the Underground. Ahshaut sleeps home.
Placid darkness outdoors. Good night to all.
December 27
A day in a cold room and no work at all is surely a dismal day. Lenic is definitely a guy you can rub along. Linguistic niceties are quite exceptable for an esoteric shoptalk.
The 20-meter-long queue of empty pails waiting for their turn to get filled up by a small-finger-thick dribble of water from any of the Three Taps is clearly a somber view.
The folks marauding the grounds by the CPSU Block and taking home the coils of barber-wire left behind by the pulled out Soviet troops are far and away constructive-minded people.
At home the gas-heater was giving out its final sighs. The mother-in-law ordered construction of an ojakh in the yard.
Firstly, put a pair of stones on the ground.
Secondly, make sure the stones are not too wide apart and the bottom of your casserole rests on each of the two.
Thirdly, build a fire between the stones.
She started cooking on the open fire in the newly erected
