Ahlya the Typist, came to the Renderers' to pick up her staple topic: why us? Today, she prayed to tell her why on Earth one has to suffer horrors at a nationalistic war without even knowing their own nationality. Her progenitor grandpa was a foundling of undiscovered origin.
At that point, Rita, the Secretary, entered the room and responded to the cue by the declaration that nationality is a toy for fools, while all sage men choose to become shoemakers. Even if in somewhat obscured way, her statement, on the whole, did sound profound, I can tell you.
Another Rita, of indistinct position among the staff but of homely-abundant proportions, joined our half-frozen company and, while her nickname stepped out for a second, she dropped her finger-ring on the floor. Was it a test of my gallantry or some esoteric sign for the enlightened?
One hour of the verbal 'amour de quatrein' in that ice-cold fridge of a room followed. I was delivered from my mixing services by Arcadic's return from the Printing House to announce a layoff till Monday.
After lunch, so as to avoid staying in the cold house, we took the kids and their sledge and went out. Sahtik, in a newly knitted white hat, looked a teenager.
The street got turned into a merrymaking hillside. Joyous yells from turbulent strings of kids bob-sleighing in helter-skelter past the Twin Bakeries between the sparse posts of their too bashful parents.
After an hour of that Bruegel-wise winter frolicking, all were shooed off by a succession of missile blasts. They sounded somehow strange and distanced, as if exploding beyond the town though not too far. Sahtik took the kids to the Underground.
Yoga. Supper. Water-bringing.
Now, I am alone.
Icy roads and the domesticated noise of machine-guns outdoors.
Half-past-nine pm is a bit too early, yet… Good night to all.
December 4
The local radio announced thirteen missiles hit the town tonight.
I can neither back nor refute the dope because I was asleep and heard nothing.
Before the war some of Underground compartments were a night bar basement premises. The owner had even installed a mighty electrical oven there. Today in the morning my mother-in-law in a group of other shelterers baked bread in that oven. Then I was sent to Carina and Orliana with their families' bread shares.
At noon the electricity was cut off. It's cold in the house. It's cold in the Underground. Ahshaut began to cough. Sahtik's troubled.
