Messiah is late - L. Khachatrian

“Then why is this man reading a prayer?” the question was addressed more to the black-dressed man, who tightly squeezed the torn Bible in his hands.

“So they keep silent,” whispered Ani with trembling voice.

“They?”

“The Dragons,” there was horror in Ani’s eyes.

Tremor went through Arshak’s body. He looked again at the priest, barely kept himself from hitting him. They will make this child crazy.

“What Dragons, my dear Ani?”

“Under the ground. They are complaining. Crawling. They are annoyed by the noise, by the trains… they don’t like that clickety-clack, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.”

The girl’s eyes were in tears.

Arshak tightly hugged his sister. Looked at the priest.

“Don’t worry. I will kick the dragon out right away.”

Chapter 2

The Priest

And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her, and saide vnto her, Weepe not.

And hee came and touched the beere; and they that bare him, stood still. And he said, Yong man, I say vnto thee, Arise.

And he that was dead, sate vp, and began to speake…

The priest looked at the believers. They showed indifference. They were deep in thoughts. Some were asleep. Even the old neighbor’s eyes were closed. Boredom. The priest closed the book. His breath faltered. He failed the “Bible Readings” again.

…

The ears of the big dog lying at the porch were swaying along the noise. His nostrils widened from the sigh of the wind. His eyes followed the passers-by.

It was quite hot summer. When walking, people kept their mouths open. The dog’s muzzle was always closed. People’s clothes changed the color from sweat and dust. The dog was always as white as snow. His skin was so soft that when touching it you would fall asleep. It was beautiful.

Gampr has been living in that small town for already a year. None of the locals had heard him bark yet. As large and muscled as a lion the dog spent the whole day lying at the porch. The dog was always wearing a white sleeveless shirt made of thick fabric. His owner dressed him. But why, no one understood. But the neighbors were ashamed to ask, as Gampr’s owner was the priest.

A year ago, on one rainy day, the almost-forty-years-old man entered the yard with his dog. Everyone respected him, but tried not to attend his sermons. The priest was not able to talk persuasively. It was irritating people. And as a rule, people became more demanding at church.

Unlike the priest, Gampr interested everyone, especially children. Many of them would come to the priest’s place with different excuses to see the dog. Gampr was indifferent. He was neither barking, nor licking. Ani, the neighbor’s daughter, also loved the dog very much. With the other neighbor, papa Torgom, she came every week to help with the priest’s garden work. The neighbor papa was snowy-haired and silent like Gampr. While he checked the priest’s saplings, the girl sat in front of Gampr on the ground and watched him.

Suddenly Gampr raised his snout. He saw the master.

“Ani, have you come to see your friend again?” asked the priest. Passing by Ani, he gently stroked her head and went into the house. It was hot. He was tired. He would sleep.

The girl understood, that papa Torgom had finished his work and was waiting for her outside. Keeping her eyes on the dog, she put a step back, ran out and took papa’s hand.

…

In the evening the old neighbor came again to help the priest. He was silent during working. He was silent during the dinner as well. Then he decided to speak. He was nervous and worried.

The whole night he was thinking what to say, how to say. But now the words were fleeing and the thoughts were scattering.

“Father,” he stammered. “I have been thinking a lot… I think, you must give up the dog.”

The neighbor looked at Gampr with fear. The dog was indifferent.

“You were telling that you have found him in the mountains. Let’s take him back. What do you think, Father?”

The priest sighed.

“I have neither a wife, nor a child. Without the dog I will stay alone…”

“You won’t,” the old man got excited. “The priest will never stay alone. God is always with you.”

The priest looked strayed at the dog sitting at the corner. He wanted someone other than God to be with him.

Gampr liked his muzzle self-complacently. The priest was looking at his blue, crystal eyes and as if in the mirror could see a strange man. He was reserved and silent, he could hide Gampr’s secret under the knitted woolen shirt. He was able to rescue what he did not understand. The priest had never seen such reflection of his own merits. He knew that in general whoever the man looked at, whatever he looked at and wherever he looked at, he saw himself. Previously, the priest looked at his son and could see the father. But then, the father-priest reflection diminished. It then disappeared.

The priest constantly repeated in mind, “The world is a mirror for men.” And the simplest mirror is the pain. Here, everyone’s reflection is beautiful. Even the most villainous person is weak in front of the pain. The bigger the pain-mirror, the weaker and more helpless is the man. And the pain of the weak becomes smaller; it is easy to forgive the weak and it is difficult to judge the weak. He came to his senses. He understood that his thoughts had begun to progress in a wrong, apocryphal direction. He took a breath. He looked at the dog sitting under the window guarding the silence like Sphinx. He restrained.

Gampr’s eyes were as peaceful as the battlefield after the war; a moment when nothing matters; when the interests, heroism and even gods are retreating. And the sweaty tiredness wins.

Gampr yawned.

Yeghishe

Usually the things you avoid are the things you get confronted with. Yeghishe knew this absurd formula well. In his entire conscious life he had strived for an honest, you can say spotless patriotism. He was always against various movements, groups and especially political parties splitting the nation. Yeghishe’s father was not Christian, but had fought against the extremist groups of One God for the sake of Church. His father liked repeating that when patriotism was mixed with politics everything started to smell like gangrene. That smell had also flushed into Yeghishe’s childhood.

Before dying Yeghishe’s father lost his two legs; one then the other. He left only his opinion about the national values and pure patriotism to his sons. As a result, Yeghise was now sitting in one of the city pubs with his two friends of the same political party.

“Have you read the book,” Andok asked excitedly. He was about twenty years old, with sun-parched skin, freckled, skinny boy.

“Sorry?” Yeghishe woke back to life.

“Where have you been, brother,” smiled the dark-skinned, short-heighted Khoren. “How many times should we repeat the question?”

“I was thinking,” answered Yeghishe indifferently. “So, what book?”

“The one written by that idiot, Abel Gichunts,” said Khoren.

“He has definitely made up his name… coward,” Andok interrupted.

“Right,” agreed Khoren. “But the fact is that his books deprave the society.”

“What does he write?” Yeghishe emptied his beer and with a gesture asked the waiter to repeat.

“Well, first he talks too much about Christianity, as if it is the foundation of our identity…”

“In some sense it is true,” smiled Yeghishe looking at the empty bottom of his beer glass. “Like paganism, Christianity was a part of our history, thus also of our identity…”

“Yes, but it was,” protested Andok. When he was angry, his skin became more flushed. “The times have changed now. Besides, the Christianity has been distorted in his books as well. That idiot quotes from some false gospels…”

“The priest used to say ‘a-po-cry-phal’, ” interrupted Khoren with a serious look.

“Yes… right,” continued Andok. “Moreover, the priest also joins our strife. He says that because of the writers like Gichunts, the world has wrong impression about Christianity.

Sneer appeared on Khoren’s face.

“I would argue about it with the priest. After all, Chritianity was barbarism. Good that it no longer exists…”

“My grandmother was Christian but not barbarian,” suddenly roared Yeghishe with his gruff voice.

“Well, of course,” sobered up Khoren. “I am not talking about individuals. We all know that because of that ancient inhuman religions millions of people have been killed. And this would continue till today if there was no true prophecy.”

“And the government,” winked Andok.

“Glory to One God,” agreed Khoren.

Yeghishe emptied another glass of beer.

“Guys, we have got off the subject. Let’s discuss grandparents’ faith later. We have another problem; Gichunts depraves national and social values with his texts…”

“Which you have definitely read from the beginning to the end,” with indifferent gesture Yeghishe ordered another glass of beer. Andok and Khoren looked at each other.

“I have lightly looked through it,” stammered Andok. “Nonsense.”

“The cover of the book is enough for you to understand that it is not worth reading,” continued Khoren.

“Narek has read it,” suddenly remembered Andok.

“Right,” rejoiced his friend.

“I know,” Khoren admitted grimly.

He really did know and understood far more than those two scatterbrained. Narek was the one to start the youth party movement against Abel Gichunts. He was the one that did not like the ideas of the town’s famous ostentatious writer. In fact, Yeghishe thought, that though there was nothing to like in his texts, only stupidity of the literature would not force Narek to shake off the city. He had other far-reaching objectives. Gichunts was scandalous and famous writer. The protest movement started against him would keep the lost town’s youth wing of the National Party, especially Narek, in the center of attention of press. He would declare that he was fighting against scabrous people like Gichunts, but in fact he would be in the center of media. Everyone would get to recognize him. Then, he would be noticed by the head office of the National Party, especially by the party leaders, who were also members of the big Parliament.

“They have mentioned several times that they want to renew the party, give it a new breath.” Narek had told Yeghishe a few days before. “They are looking for new faces, new names. If they notice us, they will definitely ask us to go to the capital; me, with my small team, where you also will certainly be included, brother.”

“I don’t think that the noise raised against a writer will be enough for it,” Yeghishe had objected.

“Those are details. Do you remember one of the leaders of the party, Mr Isaiah, who visited our town last summer?”

“The one that promised to rebuilt the Christian church?”

“Yes.”

“And he didn’t…”

“Not Yet. He will definitely. He liked me very much. He said, that the Big Parliament needed true patriots like us. Isaiah is considered to be the second person in the party. He promised when the time comes he himself will introduce our names to the leader. We just need to make some ‘noise’ here. You know, he needs a reason to talk about us…”

Yeghishe did not say anything that day. He was silent this evening as well.

While half-drunk Andok and Khoren were disputing about who would be the first to break Abel Gichunts’s fingers, Yeghishe emptied another glass of beer. The broad-shouldered, big-eyed boy with a heavy sight did not look his age, but older. Feeling light dizziness, he stood up, without looking the check he threw money on the table and went out of the pub.

In the evening the town air had become sort of sweet. The light wind brought pieces of an old liberal song sung by a beggar in the far. The inflections of his odd voice were increasing Yeghishe’s dizziness.

“Damn,” he muttered. “The beer was disgusting.”

Yeghishe staggered home. The beggar’s voice was slowly receding; from the veer of the wind the voice was abrading, becoming subtle and turning into a soft voice coming from the lattice of cradle. In his head, Yeghishe could hear his grandmother’s sole song sung in an early sunny day.

…God with us, revealed in us,And heard was the sound of peace,And gave command of holy greet…

Collision

In the morning, after looking for five minutes at the breakfast, Arshak, with an empty stomach, with the newspaper page titled “job vacancies’ folded in his hand ran out to the street. He took a deep breath; it seemed to him if he stayed at home for a few more seconds he would suffocate. His lungs swelled up from the smell of the ancient town. With his head looking down he went up the narrow street of the Christian district. His eyes followed the straight steps of his feet. He did not raise his head up; he wanted to see nothing in between the craggy houses. If he was lucky he would not see anyone who would stop him and start asking about university life for hours.

But suddenly he stopped. He heard the bells of the sole dilapidated church of the town. He raised up his head, smiled. This trick would work even millennia later. The bells call for the men; does not matter when and whom. Arshak entered the church. He felt the smell of the incense. He approached the grimed saint image that had almost merged with the wall. He took his folded notebook and the pencil that was smaller than his little finger from his coat pocket and started to draw. The boy was thinking that the image would soon disappear, at least the copy would be kept, for only a few dozen saint images were left in the world, while there was a time….

“Hello, Arshak.”

The boy was caught off balance. It was as though the priest appeared from nowhere. It was the same thin man whom Arshak had driven out of the house a few days ago. Arshak noticed that the priest looked as exhausted as his church. He too will soon disappear.

“Good afternoon,” uttered Arshak indifferently. He continued drawing.

“Son,” the priest addressed to him.

“I am not your son,” answered Arshak without taking his eyes away from the paper.

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