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- Herausgeber: Edit Print
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
One of the pivots of the second book of the Trilogy, Sentence is Shahan Natali’s idea of the Holy Criminal. In the first book, Cassandra passes on the warning of the Circumcised and in the second book, she knells or maybe heralds their sentence. The mystical succession of names Vrezh and Harutyun is revealed. An Armenian freedom fighter saves an Azeri child thus depriving himself of the possibility to become a member of the Circumcised. The Angel of Revelation sounds the trumpet of Wormwood Star. The Turkish Vengeance Union seizes the Armenian churches on April 24th to discover and neutralize the Circumcised and hold a referendum to deny the Armenian Genocide. A Nameless character takes vengeance for his circumcised friend, his family and kin. Grigor the Scribe writes an earthshaking unfinished line on the canvas of heaven. The plot develops with an unavertable flow of events and the conflict works up to a climax. The power of the Circumcised extends to a mythical degree and they can already take vengeance, kill by thought and wish. The son of the eternal mother Mariam, Vrezh neutralizes the energetic stroke aimed at Gyul, as he is still a child. Mahtesyan and Gyul, Hajji and Sevan make great efforts to overcome the barrier constantly rising between them and, through catharsis-purification, to achieve the ability to repent, forgive and love, which being so personal, at the same time is even more general and symbolical. And the problem is still the same; to save the Turks from being massacred and the Armenians from perpetrating Genocide. And not only that...
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Hakob Soghomonyan
THE CIRCUMCISED
A book for two
Trilogy
The second book
Sentence
One of the pivots of the second book of the Trilogy, Sentence is Shahan Natali’s idea of the Holy Criminal.
In the first book, Cassandra passes on the warning of the Circumcised and in the second book, she knells or maybe heralds their sentence.
The mystical succession of names Vrezh and Harutyun is revealed. An Armenian freedom fighter saves an Azeri child thus depriving himself of the possibility to become a member of the Circumcised. The Angel of Revelation sounds the trumpet of Wormwood Star. The Turkish Vengeance Union seizes the Armenian churches on April 24th to discover and neutralize the Circumcised and hold a referendum to deny the Armenian Genocide. A Nameless character takes vengeance for his circumcised friend, his family and kin. Grigor the Scribe writes an earthshaking unfinished line on the canvas of heaven. The plot develops with an unavertable flow of events and the conflict works up to a climax. The power of the Circumcised extends to a mythical degree and they can already take vengeance, kill by thought and wish. The son of the eternal mother Mariam, Vrezh neutralizes the energetic stroke aimed at Gyul, as he is still a child. Mahtesyan and Gyul, Hajji and Sevan make great efforts to overcome the barrier constantly rising between them and, through catharsis-purification, to achieve the ability to repent, forgive and love, which being so personal, at the same time is even more general and symbolical. And the problem is still the same; to save the Turks from being massacred and the Armenians from perpetrating Genocide.
And not only that...
An Allegory about Mohammed and Ali
Mohammed and Ali met a man whom Ali had once treated dishonestly. As the man considered Ali his enemy, he started cursing and insulting him.
Ali listened to him patiently and silently for some time but then he could stand it no more and desiring to show himself fair in the eyes of Mohammed
he started answering the man’s insults even more rudely.
At that time, Mohammed went away from him.
Ali went up to him and asked.
“Why did you leave me alone to face the insults and curses of that insolent man?”
“When he was cursing you and you kept silent, I saw ten angels around you and those angels protected you.” Mohammed answered. “But when you started cursing him, too, the angels forsook you. So I had to leave you, too.”
The Skylight
The moment when Sevan, Hajji and Mustafa were looking at the blood red message, A Chance Is Given, on Mustafa’s computer screen paralyzed with fear, Gyul woke up and looked up with half-open unblinking eyes.
At first, she couldn’t understand where she was. Instead of her sweet chubby teddy bear whom she usually saw the first every morning, a stone ceiling stood before her eyes. Light was gushing in from somewhere. She opened her eyes wider and saw that the light was coming from the opening in the dome-shaped ceiling. It was just amazing; the sun was seen in the opening. The hexahedral opening enframing the sun-disc seemed to be a symbolical image. And the sun’s eye was watching her from that image. And it seemed the sun was looking at her kindly as the sunbeams didn’t prick her eyes as it usually happens when you look directly at the sun but they just slightly tickled her eyes. She closed them but the tickle penetrated under her eyelids. A gold-yellow light spread in her closed eyes. Her heart wrung with a weird feeling of love. She had a sudden desire to be a goddess and spread that unbelievable light all over the world illuminating everything around. But suddenly she found herself in a shroud of darkness. Everything was dark under her eyelids. Gyul was scared; she opened her eyes wide in panic. The sun was gone. But the sudden darkness was delusive; an illusion produced by the ordinary daylight following a too bright light, and the illusion immediately vanished after she winked for a few times and began seeing again, getting used to the light.
Now a blue scrap was seen in the opening but it seemed infinite. Now the sky’s blue eye was watching Gyul. And suddenly it seemed to her she saw a strange image deep in the sky eye.
And she was amazed.
‘It turns out the skylight on the stone ceiling is not only a window but also an eye slit. If it were intended only to let in light, this nation, that irrefutably has a great constructional talent, would make the opening in the wall and not in the ceiling. They could put one stone less and make a window that would not only let light in and provide a lookout but would also serve as an embrasure. And they would be able to shoot arrows or bullets at the attacking enemy from there. But if a window is not only to provide a light and lookout but also serves as an embrasure then why can’t a skylight have the same function? And these people have intentionally made the opening in the ceiling. And if it is not only to provide light and lookout but also an embrasure, then at whom could the man lying in her place, most probably a clergyman, shoot? And at whom would the Circumcised shoot if they appeared here?’ And she shuddered. ‘Is shooting at something equal to shooting at the skylight for them? Equal to shooting at the sun, the blue sky with a vague image looming in the skylight? So that’s why they don’t shoot at a man for shooting at a man is equal to shooting at the image.’ Gyul shivered giving the name of the image. ‘That’s why they’ve placed the eye slit and the embrasure up towards the sky so that before shooting they see and realize at what they’re really shooting when they are shooting at a man.’
She looked around. Her gaze settled on a cross hanging on the wall. It was a strange cross – equal-winged, beam-shaped and it looked like the German Iron Cross. However, it was totally different. She realized that despite the outward similarity it wasn’t like the Iron Cross at all but couldn’t understand why. Though, she didn’t even think about it. The thought just flashed and died out almost instantly and was followed by the idea that every symbol was simply what was ascribed to it but this thought also died out as quickly as it had occurred. She ran her eyes over the room. It was simply furnished; there was an ottoman she was lying on, a table with a jug on it near the wall, a chair made of ordinary wood, and in the niche in front of the table, there was a half-burnt candle. The place looked like a hermit’s hut.
She sat up. She was even more perplexed when she noticed that instead of a nightgown she was wearing a clergyman’s cassock. Unwillingly she touched the sleeves almost reaching to her knees; her fingers felt strangely rough. She recalled that the previous night before going to bed she had put out the candles with her fingers and then had long been rubbing her waxy fingers against one another. And then, the evening events immediately leapt into her mind.
When Gyul got out of the water where as it seemed to Mahtesyan she was being baptized, she felt like a mermaid. The water was cold and gave her goose bumps, she stood there in the water trembling with cold, her wet shirt had clung to her body becoming transparent and she felt that her small and tight quivering breasts giving off steam from cold water were now outlined before Mahtesyan’s eyes full of fear and admiration, and she blushed unwillingly. She wanted to run away from his gaze, dive into the water again and become a mermaid to swim far away and get rid of not only her naked body, Mahtesyan’s eyes that he couldn’t take off her breasts but also of all earthly, mundane and human emotions and, most importantly, of the necessity to look for the Circumcised, to find the answers to the questions arisen because of them.
But she neither dived nor disappeared. She was just standing there and looking at Mahtesyan who was watching the water running down her body. She was standing open to his sight.
Mahtesyan’s confusion didn’t last long. Though Gyul was standing in front of him like a vision, she was more real than she had been before diving into the water. She was real, as she needed his help. Mahtesyan quickly got off the bridge, went into the water and rejecting Gyul’s seeming resistance he took her in his arms and made a step to the bank. The step seemed to be the beginning of an eternal journey. Gyul unwittingly curled up in Mahtesyan’s arms comfortably and rested her head on his chest.
But that movement aroused a strange feeling in Gyul. It was like the feeling she had had before the vision in Tsitsernakaberd when she wanted to go down the stairs of the Temple of Eternity but couldn’t, as she met with an invisible, elastic resistance and was overwhelmed with fear. Now that fear was more acute and painful brimming with the sorrow of a purely personal loss. Her head seemed to not be resting on Mahtesyan’s chest but facing a similar resistance again, which, as she already guessed, was going to become her inseparable life companion, her pain and suffering. There was an invisible barrier between Gyul and Mahtesyan. Gyul unwittingly remembered about energy fields around human bodies, the doctrines of those energy fields according to which the human nature revealed itself through those fields. Apparently, her head had come upon those very fields and, virtually, Mahtesyan’s nature repelled hers or, as commonly cited, his aura repelled her aura; his aura was alien, incompatible with her aura; they were incompatible with each other.
But was the negative energy coming from Mahtesyan only or was she emitting a similar energy too? And it was not just an assumption but an almost real feeling, conviction for as much Gyul wanted to rest her head on Mahtesyan’s chest as much or maybe even more she didn’t want to do it and she felt that subconsciously she repelled him too. To put it another way, what is the energy field or the so-called aura if not a subconscious thought, subconscious thinking, a man’s real self?
Gyul thought that if it were possible to depict their energy fields in a painting or a photo, the picture would clearly show her and Mahtesyan’s real selves that repelled each other.
In an ordinary picture, they would be just a couple where the man was tightly holding the woman who had wound her arms round his neck, her head clasped to his chest. While in an energy picture, two incompatible human outlines would be depicted.
In fact, the whole suffering she had had to bear didn’t provide an opportunity to overcome the incompatibility, even the presumed baptizing couldn’t afford such an opportunity, which means that baptizing is not only about diving into the water and coming out of it or being anointed with chrism; in order to be baptized you should be reborn spiritually; become another person, of whom quite another thing is required and expected.
The last feeling was so strong that Gyul abruptly tore herself away from Mahtesyan’s arms and got down. Mahtesyan who had easily and instinctively overcome Gyul’s seeming resistance in the water, now seemed to be craving for that too and even with pleasure he let Gyul break away from his arms and get down.
But they had already gone into the church yard and perhaps the thousand-year stones of the church had never witnessed such a scene; a man standing hesitatingly in the yard, holding a soaked woman in his arms. The streams running down the woman’s body formed pools in the tile floor holes. The feeling of baptism was entirely gone.
All the ceremonies were over long ago and the celebrant abbot was sitting on a bench melting into the colors of the church and was reading a book.
Seeing the strange couple, he stood up in astonishment and gave them a puzzled but obliging look.
Mahtesyan explained the situation in a few words but didn’t tell him what had really happened; he depicted the case as an unpleasant incident; saying that Gyul had just slipped on the slippery rocks and fallen into the water. And then Mahtesyan asked the abbot to give Gyul dry clothes.
The abbot kindly agreed. He led Gyul to one of the annexes then disappeared. Hardly had Gyul gone in when an elderly woman appeared, she was probably one of the monastery workers. She greeted Gyul in Armenian, said something tenderly and putting a light blue sweats over the back of the chair, went out. Gyul didn’t know why but put on the cassock lying on the edge of an ottoman instead of the sweats. A little later the same woman came again and now she didn’t look at her tenderly but with pain. She took Gyul’s clothes and with a movement of her hand, asked Gyul to follow her.
They came out into the yard. The woman led her to a door and left. Gyul opened the door and appeared in a large dining-room where six people – Mahtesyan, the ethno-psychologist, the abbot, the priest and two strangers were sitting at a long table and deep in a wall recess of the room she saw a woman with a child in her arms. Gyul cast a glance at them and was stunned; it seemed to her that she had seen her before; the woman with a child in her arms in the arched recess reminded her of some image. But where could she have seen it? Gyul unwillingly headed towards the woman but something made her change the direction and go up to the table. The plate of matagh[1] was steaming on the table.
A Chance Is Given
When Gyul was looking with superstitious awe at the matagh that she had refused to taste and which seemed to be haunting her, appearing in front of her again as a trial, Hajji finally came to his senses and suggested Sevan to sit down on the sofa, then he gave his brother a sign to sit down too. He himself sat on the swivel chair in front of the computer and not taking his eyes off the red letters on the screen he typed recover in the command-line.
In his youth when computer had just come into use, Hajji who had been one of the first people in his surroundings to buy a computer was greatly amazed at the possibilities the device provided. And what mostly amazed Hajji in the device, many people thought to be just as great breakthrough as the invention of letters, was its possibility to recover the old files, that is the past. Computer time had no past. Sometimes it seemed to Hajji that computer was like a magical device by which you could travel in time and he thought that one day its capabilities would go beyond the scope of computer time and would apply to real time. So now when Hajji was typing recover in the command-line, he unwittingly remembered the feeling he had had in his younger years and shivered; and what if not the computer but real past was recovered by his command and he again appeared in the times of his vision where he committed a suicide, seeing the crime perpetrated by his nation. The thought about the Circumcised had changed a lot in his conception and the possibility of returning to the past, which until then seemed to be a fantastic journey, now he viewed in a totally different light.
The ultramodern computer humbly obeyed Hajji’s command and not only undid the last actions preceding the message A Chance Is Given but also recovered what had been filmed during all that time
So the time was restored before Hajji’s, Sevan’s and Mustafa’s eyes.
Mustafa was sitting in front of the computer. He wanted to play. The ultramodern device functioned by his thought waves, did everything he wanted and ordered in his mind. So the game list appeared on the screen. Mustafa chose the new game “The Creation of Empire”. He was going to play the game for the first time. A message appeared on the screen: Warning. This is a very hard and dangerous game. It can go out of control. It can have an unpredictable end. And there may come a time when it would be impossible to go back or change anything. The game characters may turn into real people and bring the game into reality. Bellow you can read the details about the game. You can also refuse to play the game. As you like.
And Mustafa gave the command to play in his mind. But as it was uninteresting to him to play silently, he changed the control settings extending its functionality. Now the computer responded not only to his thought signals but also to his speech, exclamations. There was an option of direct control through the keyboard as well. Now the game proceeded with his loud commands. His silent, secret wishes were also fulfilled - even the wishes he still hesitated over and didn’t dare say them aloud. And in sheer ecstasy, Mustafa turned to the keyboard, combined the secret thoughts and loud commands with physical actions. In fact, he was not just a player sitting in front of the computer but an immediate participant in the actions happening in the computer.
Country names appeared on the screen.
Mustafa chose his country: Turkey.
An electronic world map appeared on the screen. It was the first centuries of the second millennium. A nomadic crowd came out of Altai Territory, passed through the Central Asia, the Plateau of Iran and stopped at Asia Minor peninsula where the name of the Byzantine Empire was written. On its eastern and Iran’s western part was a territory that geographically differed greatly from the surroundings; it was called the Armenian Highlands.
It was a very impressive and pitiful sight. Ragged, dirty children resembling wolf cubs, gaunt, exhausted and enraged old men and women were standing next to the ferocious, butcherly and beastly warriors. And around them, there were towns and villages quite well-off for their time, plowed fields and people busy with their everyday work.
The game offered three options: Coexistence. Assimilation. Conquest.
Mustafa chose the Conquest.
The crowd of warriors, submitting to his will, gathered round a flag made of a wolf tail and launched an attack with hue and cry. The other members of the tribe that had already turned into a plundering, destroying and looting horde, followed hard after the troops.
The troops came across a village surrounded with well-groomed fields and gardens on their way. The village had no defensive constructions. Perhaps that function was ascribed to the church, and partially to the school, which rose on the hill in the center of the village and probably, such a mission was attributed to tilled fields, too, but neither the inhabitants of the village, nor Mustafa had any idea about it. And I don’t think it has ever occurred to any of our readers.
It was early morning; the village was slowly coming out of slumber. The first peasants hurrying to the field fell down slain by a sword and were trampled under the hooves. The horde robbed the dead men. A mass killing and plunder started. Many people were slaughtered in bed. Who rushed out of the house armed with farming tools and few weapons in desperate resistance were shot by arrows or slain by swords sooner or later. So, the army met very little resistance and had a sweeping victory.
Game rules had numerous sub-options. For example, you could invade the country without ravages, plunder and slaughter, defeating the army, subjecting the rulers, making them taxpayers. But Mustafa preferred the total conquest and the game went on accordingly; men were killed, women were raped, children were enslaved. And they treated those who tried to resist with extreme atrocity. They just tore them to pieces. The priest that was trying to toll the church bells, to call for help, was shot by an arrow. The ruler of the village, who was trying to call his soldiers to arms, was shot in the back.
The invading troops rushed forward. The plunderers followed them. They robbed the dead people, trampled the wounded and dying people, and occupied their houses.
The power scale on the screen showed how the conquerors’ power had increased.
Encouraged by the first success, Mustafa continued the attack. A new settlement rose before the crowd of invaders. This new settlement was bigger and richer. And the greater was the wealth, the greater was the plunderers’ greed, and the fiercer were the warriors. So this settlement suffered the previous one’s destiny. The whole scene recurred, this time on a larger scale and even more dreadfully.
It was almost the same, with only a slight difference, during the whole beginning of the game. Armies appeared and were destroyed by the newcomers, lords and kings bowed their necks to them, walled cities and impregnable fortress surrendered and were taken. The newcomers quickly grew rich, multiplied and became stronger at the cost of conquered countries. New nomadic tribes joined them again and again. They no longer killed all the slaves unexceptionally; they forced them to abjure their religion, made them working animals or ruthless soldiers, and imposed high taxes on the people, sent the young boys to military camps and the girls and women were involved in harems.
The power of the invaders constantly increased on the scale.
Mustafa didn’t pay much attention, or rather ignored and skipped the parts relating to state-building and diplomacy. His attention was mainly fixed on invasive actions. He was a good player. The game went on almost the same way but with newer details and on a larger scale. New victories over already armed troops and armies succeeded the attacks on defenseless population. And again fortresses, castles, cities and countries, princedoms and states fell before them.
The game prompted and Mustafa went on acting by the same scenario killing and destroying, invading and plundering, taking captives and assimilating, growing bigger, multiplying and becoming stronger at the expense of defeated countries. Corresponding structures were formed to regulate Mustafa’s actions. And the latter who had been ignoring their role up to that moment, attaching little importance to them, having laid the emphasis on warfare and plunder, now began to realize that it was impossible to implement the main goal without those inner structures so he began paying more attention to them, created administrative, diplomatic, economic infrastructures for military purposes. He also subdivided the conquered people into groups according to their ethnicity and religion. A sharp differentiation was made between the people groups. The disobedient and rebellious people were severely punished. The subdued people suffered privations and discrimination, they toiled for the conquerors and the army.
A powerful military-feudal structure was created where the ruling element was famous for its special cruelty and bloodthirstiness. And the subjects appeared in a situation when the major priority was to escape death and keep physical existence. Those who managed to survive considered themselves lucky and even happy.
Finally, it was time to conquer the main city of the country. Mustafa solved that problem excellently, too.
The world map appeared on the screen showing the expanded borders of Ottoman Empire. There also appeared warning messages: “Danger: too high power.” “Necessity of Coexistence.” “Underdevelopment.”
But Mustafa continued to play the same way. Anyway, the new level of the game imposed new preconditions. States with more advanced military mechanisms, more modernly armed troops, more perfect government systems and developed economy arose before Mustafa’s army. The times of gaining victories with swords and horses, slaughters and cruelty were irretrievably gone.
The Empire created by Mustafa was shattered. The conquered nations began winning independence. The losers became winners. And suddenly the ruling newcomers found themselves in an uncertain situation; they had neither homeland nor a country. In fact, the whole game had been just a conquest and though Mustafa had created a powerful conquering empire, he had failed to create a country, homeland for his people. So when the empire was shattered, they remained without a country and homeland and had to return to the place where they had come from under the flag of wolf tail.
But the game was going on.
A new select-an-action tab appeared on the screen: Destruction. Submission. Coexistence. Annihilation.
After some hesitation, Mustafa chose Annihilation.
Another warning repeatedly appeared on the screen: “There is a danger of retribution and unavoidability of remorse. It is fraught with unpredictable consequences.”
“Annihilation,” Mustafa commanded now without hesitation. The computer humbly obeyed to his command. Soon an opportunity turned up - World War started. A genocide was perpetrated on the screen. The command “Annihilation” was put into action. It was a horrible sight even for a computer game. It seemed to be a screen version of the Book of Nightmares Hajji had recently read. Or the book was written on the base of the game. Or their author was the same.
Mustafa won that level of the game too. Though he lost many conquered territories, population, wealth and power, anyway, he reached a relatively stable state and the game seemed to be over. A relative peace was established. And there seemed to be nothing else left to do. Though deep in the further almost invisible end of the screen some actions were going on which reminded the situation following the Annihilation command with other participants and different manifestations but Mustafa thought it no longer concerned him and his game was really over.
“The End,” he commanded.
But amazingly the computer didn’t obey his command. Moreover, a new message appeared on the screen: “А new level begins. It is called Retribution.”
“But I don’t want to play any more,” Mustafa cried out. “Stop the game!”
“It’s impossible. New participants and new terms have appeared.” The computer responded. “It is impossible to stop the game without their agreement.”
“Who are they? What terms?” Mustafa asked in surprise.
The answer appeared on the computer screen.
“Fundamental changes have occurred in the game. It is no longer a game but а reality. The same reality as were the past actions happening in the game. To be clearer: everything that has happened in the game has happened in reality and, as a consequence, everything that is going to happen in the game will happen in reality too. Such are the times nowadays. The borders of real and imaginary, the past and the future have become blurred. The physical world, the mental world and the spirit world have become the identical. Now one of your primary tasks is to discover and know the new participants of the game. The game goes on against your will. It has come out of your control. Now they dictate terms. If you don’t want to be destroyed completely and preserve at least something of what you’ve conquered you should discover them and find a solution. You can use a Hint.”
“Hint.” Mustafa commanded after some hesitation.
A message appeared on the screen: “You must believe even the unbelievable and realize that nothing in life comes without consequence. Everyone answers for his deeds sooner or later. The kind is rewarded and the evil is punished. There is no time and space. Universal moral laws come in force as inevitably as nature laws. Everybody is responsible for everybody. The past is responsible for the present. The present is responsible for the future. Just as the past creates the present, so the present creates the future. You can divide the new participants of the game into several groups. You can consider them, for instance, warriors guarding the future that have come through the gates of time to prevent the wrong future proceeding from the wrong past, they have come to protect and create the right future. You can also assume that the new participants of the game are the descendants of the people killed by the command Annihilation. You can assume that they are people who have gone into the spirit world from the physical world; specifically, your victims. While you were winning in the physical world, they were making a new, super-powerful weapon to damage and destroy the physical world from the world of spirits. That’s a genetic weapon. Imagine and believe that it finds and destroys everyone who carries the gene of those who have given and carried out the command of Annihilation. It does no harm to the others. You can combine those groups, draw a general conclusion and look for a way out. But it means nothing; it isn’t going to change anything. The problem is inside you. The game goes on.
Cassandra.”
“But that’s impossible!” Mustafa cried out in disbelief. And Hajji and Sevan saw in the video how the boy’s face was distorted with disbelief and fear. “It’s nonsense! A load of rubbish! You’re raving! And who are you, Cassandra?”
“It’s not a raving,” the computer answered, “human inner potential is boundless, the possibilities of science are unlimited and your ideas about life and death, existence and non-existence, time and eternity, morals, responsibility and requital, are incomplete. Speak to your conscience. Look for the way out there. The game goes on. You will take the first blow as you have made them. Then your relatives will follow. But you still have a chance to be saved. There is still a way of salvation. You should find it. The new terms of the game are regret, repentance, atonement and recompense. Try to win their forgiveness. Do everything to make them forgive you. It requires a superhuman effort as from you and even more from them. Try to achieve it. A chance is given. Otherwise, this will happen:
And the scene from Mahtesyan’s vision appeared with a slight difference on the computer screen; Hajji and Mustafa, and their friends and relatives were clearly seen among the victims.
Then all the images disappeared from the screen. Only the words A Chance Is Given remained on the screen in front of which Sevan, Hajji and Mustafa were standing in utter perplexity.
“This is almost what Cassandra was warning,” Hajji murmured thoughtfully. “The same thing she was telling about the Circumcised.”
“The Circumcised?” Mustafa cried out suddenly. “We’re going to win them.”
“How do you know about them?” Hajji asked in surprise. “Who’s told you we’re going to win them? And who do you mean by saying we?”
Mustafa looked at Sevan significantly but the swankiness so common for teenagers triumphed over him and wanting to prove to his elder brother that he was already big and knew a lot and perhaps also to attract Sevan’s attention, he said,
“My friend’s brother is a member of the Turkish Vengeance Union. And he says that they are going to find and destroy the Circumcised.”
Hajji and Sevan looked at each other.
Matagh
The appearance of matagh left a strange impression on Gyul and the first thing she felt the moment when Sevan and Hajji looked at each other was the regret that she had put on the cassock instead of the sweats. Now she was in such a state of mind that it seemed the last events hadn’t occurred, there hadn’t arisen an invisible barrier between her and Mahtesyan and she hadn’t felt the painful urge to overcome the invisible resistance. She still seemed to be the Gyul who hadn’t spoken to the image of an eagle imprinted on the bosom of Mount Ararat yet, and hadn’t realized that looking through Charents’ Arch she had seen the border depriving of mission. As if she hadn’t been baptized in the cool mountain water and hadn’t been flooded with gold-yellow light and hadn’t looked at the image looming in the blue eye.
But her appearance was so weird that nobody noticed the abrupt change of the expression on her face. Only Mahtesyan seemed to notice a shadow pass over Gyul’s face. And he felt pain. But what pain was that? Was that the pain of regret that Gyul’s emotional experience hadn’t yielded fruits and had dried up like a seed sown in a wrong land? Or was it the pain of the barrier between them that again made itself felt? Or did he just feel pain for someone who was confined within the bounds set by her own self and couldn’t, didn’t want to come out of those bounds and dissolve, merge into the wreath striving for universality or find a link uniting her and others’ bounds and so she couldn’t prevent the arrival of the Circumcised.
Mahtesyan shrugged off the flood of thoughts rushing into his mind and by force of reason he ascribed the shadow over Gyul’s face to confusion. He stood up and introduced her to the people sitting at the table. So Gyul learnt that the priest sitting next to Mahtesyan was the one who had performed the christening, the man sitting at the head of the table was the abbot she had seen in the churchyard. In front of the abbot, next to the ethno-psychologist was sitting the godfather (Mahtesyan didn’t give his name or surname; he just introduced him as Godfather). Harutyun Araqelyan - the father of the child christened Vrezh, was sitting next to Godfather and the woman in the arched recess reminding Gyul of some image, was the child’s mother; her name was Mariam. Naturally, the child in her arms was the boy that had just been christened Vrezh.
Gyul sat on the chair Mahtesyan offered her and shivered again. Vrezh’s father’s name had shocked her. So all she had expressed her indignation about, as a form of revolt, during the christening was a reality but with quite another implication. Gyul clearly saw that Harutyun’s father’s name had also been Vrezh, and the son of the child that had just been christened Vrezh, was also to be named Harutyun. And those two names would eternally follow one another. Gyul shivered again and again.
“So if Vrezh means vengeance in Armenian and Harutyun means resurrection, does it mean that vengeance is in resurrection and resurrection is in vengeance? Does that mystic, incessantly repeating succession of names mean destiny, hint the destiny and impose a mission?”
Gyul shivered even more when Mahtesyan told her the meaning of the surname Araqelyan – missionary. “So here is the answer to the question; they think that vengeance is the mission of resurrection and resurrection is the mission of vengeance predestined from above, consequently each of them can be a Circumcised.”
“You know, Vrezh’s father Harutyun Araqelyan,” suddenly began the ethno-psychologist who was watching the changes of Gyul’s countenance and had basically guessed her thoughts and worries; after some hesitation she went on, “was the commander of Shahan Natalie dare regiment, and participated in the liberation of Khodgalou. I thought it might interest you as you are a journalist.”
As it turned out a little later, the ethno-psychologist had begun the conversation with certain deliberation and Harutyun Araqelyan who had just nodded in respond to Mahtesyan’s introduction to Gyul, got up from his seat this time and bowed his head politely but coldly.
And Gyul saw that his right hand was artificial and the left hand firmly rested on a walking stick. Apparently, one of his legs was missing too.
“Khodgalou?” Taking her eyes off the freedom fighter with difficulty and clearly imagining what could have led to that, Gyul said dryly. “Isn’t it the settlement where the Armenians massacred the Azerbaijani civilians?”
Gyul was amazed to see that her words seemed to have mortally insulted everybody. Godfather shook his head sternly looking at Gyul. And she felt, saw and realized that Mahtesyan who had strained up, stretched like a drawn bow, drifted too far from her, became totally alienated and the barrier that up to the moment had just seemed invisible or insuperable but had only been a barrier now turned into an unfathomable abyss. Mariam who had been nursing her child oblivious of her surroundings, seemed to stand up and walk bare-bosomed to the arch of the sanctuary and o rise over Gyul’s head and for a moment, it even seemed to Gyul she was going to wind around her like a Fury. The priest and the abbot crossed themselves and a weird pain came over Harutyun Araqelyan’s face. “Do his closed up wounds under the prostheses hurt or has the feeling of guilt locked away in his breast awoken?” Gyul couldn’t find the answer to the thoughts flooding her mind but the expression on Harutyun Araqelyan’s face gave her deep satisfaction. “So if these people feel remorse, it means they have committed a sin and are conscious of it. But is the sin and crime the same?”
But before Gyul could find the answer to the question in her mind, when Harutyun Araqelyan sat down slowly (probably, it was very difficult for him to stand on one leg and in addition, the pain inflicted by Gyul’s words had perhaps made it even harder), the priest, either to clear away the effect caused by Gyul’s words or by some ritual urge, turned to the abbot: “Please bless, Holy Father.”
The abbot stood up. The others stood up too. He said a short prayer, blessed the table and concluded his speech with these words.
“Let this matagh be acceptable to God.”
Everyone drank and sat back. Gyul waited for everyone to drink and sit down and only then she raised her glass and said: “Let this matagh be acceptable to God.” And she added, “I wish that nobody ever names his son Vrezh again.” She drank, sat down and began eating the matagh as ordinary meat.
