itle>© Katia Sapieva, 2015
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The Muslim cemetery waslocated in a most picturesque area at the top of a hill from where the towncould be seen. It seems sometimes that no one comes to the place for it emergesthat the visitors, family and friends, appear any time. The visits lastendlessly because a conditional division of time into the day and night are soimperceptible here that you even never notice it.
The cemetery onceconsisted of only five or six graves but nowadays it extended much. Expandingalong all the time it increased significantly. Everybody died, the old, theyoung and the children. With all the variety of design of the graves, there wasone thing in common among them: the half moon and two stones at the head andfeet of the dead and that was generally all.
However, there was onegrave in the fifth line of the sixth section that no one visited. The grass wasmowed and cut down only when the neighbouring graves were cleaned up. On theMuslim holidays, it was done by the deceased people’s relatives nearby but mostoften, on weekdays, somebody did it out of pity. The grave was plain and noteven clearly signed. Only a man’s oriental name and the dates of life werecarved by an army knife on a worn plate from steel. No other information of wholoved him and who mourned for him.
The cemetery was fencedin a low brick fencing. The visitors had no sense of nuisance and felt no pityfor the deceased who lay there. Still a sense of discomfort is somewhat notwanted when you have a pain of your own loss in your heart. Why experience anextra emotional loading?
Special facilities, i.e. the watch’s house and a memorial hall were located in an asphalted squarewhere the men present headed by the effendi prayed before every burial. Thewatch’s house consisted of only two rooms. One was both a kitchen and abedroom, the other was used for storage of catafalques and spades. It wasalways cooler in the second room which with every square centimeter reminded ofthe end and at the same time of infinity of our existence but in another world.
Sergey first feltuneasy, he lost his appetite realizing that there were some extraordinarythings in the next room, evidently, not for idle use. Though, it depended ontheir functions and for whom they were meant. On getting fixed up in this jobhe avoided having meals in his watch’s house, then he got used and developed aphilosophical approach to things.
At the age of twentyseven, he already had a negative life experience. His parents moved to thatrepublic from Saratov on assignment yet in the eighties. His normal childhoodlasted until his parents got divorced.
Money spoils anyrelationship in the family. Sergey made certain of that hearing his mother’sreproaches and seeing his father’s constant grumbling about his salary. Sergeynever knew whether he had it at all. His father’s desperate attempts to get themoney he earned at his enterprise fell on the “raucous” 1990s when no one inthe country saw one’s money. Practically no one.
His mother made bothends meet by odd jobs working as a cleaner. Sometimes she repaired richpeople’s flats in order to buy good things for her sons Grisha and Sergey. Sergey did not understand why get a higher education if he would have to workwhere they ordered him all the same. His mother was an illustrative example forhim in this respect. He realized in theory that he should study but decided towait a little with getting knowledge and joined the army after school.
The young man was in aconflict zone during his military service. Half a year seemed absolute hell tohim, still he was grateful to fortune for showing him some other things whichlater helped him revise his view of life. Sometimes his brain refused tofunction from the nightmare he saw but getting used to that he realized thatlife was not based upon the simple standard: one was just born, grew up, gotmarried and died. Two people perished in front of his very eyes, two who sharedfood, drank vodka and carried out their duty with him.
Forever Sergeyremembered an old man’s eyes in one of the settlements where the battle lastedfour days and nights running. Strange feelings got mixed in these fathomlessblue and brown eyes: pain, courage and estrangement. The old man lost hisfamily, only his daughter-in-law survived who went out to fetch water from thewell at the moment. The shells never choose place and time, so, the old man’sunderage grandchildren remained in his house. So it happened: the woman had nofamily, children and future and the old man had no family, no children or thepast.
Sergey saw a lot ofinjustice. However, he learned for sure for there was no justice in the war forthe people’s actions did not depend on logic but on the situation only. Hiscolleague committed a suicide in front of his very eyes. Slavka was a nice andnaughty guy. Remembering him Sergey realized that one should be able to copewith one’s mistakes and correct them. Slavka was a sniper, killed upon acommand calmly thinking that he was liquidating bad fellows. But once he killeda woman by error. He executed an order again. He got a short explanation thatthe woman was the enemy’s informer, sniper or something like that. Then Slavka realizedthat he left orphans two little children whose mother he killed by error. Butit was already too late. He either lost his nerve or it was conscience that hemaintained somehow but Slavka could not stand it. The third orphan appeared. Itwas little Anna, Slavka’s daughter.
“I wonder for whom itwas said: à la guerre comme à la guerre”, Sergey thought every time rememberinghis comrade with sorrow.
Sergey himself was alsoinjured by his service: he got contused. On coming back home yesterday’ssoldier realized that lameness did not eliminate the necessity to earn hisliving. His mother whose hair went grey was evidently weakened after waitingfirst for one son, then for the other and was distressed that God gave her nodaughters.
Sergey wished to helphis mother and adapt himself to normal life as soon as possible. But there wasno such luck. It turned out that there were no jobs in the town at all. Theonly income he could have was poor earnings for selling vegetables at themarket or getting a vacancy of a specialist in some Technical Inventory Bureauthrough the buddy system. But his family did not grow tomatoes, neither had he anynecessary contacts in a Bureau.
Two months later heincidentally saw an ad in a newspaper that a watch was wanted, though withoutspecifying the exact place. Sergey called and found out that it was not alivepeople and not even values he would have to guard.
But after all, oneshould be afraid of the alive, not the dead. Cases when life makes a choiceinstead of you occur more often and it happens not at the best moment, as a rule. So, Sergey agreed.
He did not go intodetails with his mother. Anna Valerievna knew that he got a job but had even noidea where exactly. There are a lot of food stores in the town. In addition, her son would be at home much for his working schedule would be 24 hours afterthree days-off. Learning about his brother’s unusual job Grisha only grinnedand said that he would be able to have a good sleep during his working day forthere would be no thieves there.
This is how Sergey’slabour activities began. His work is calm, he has a TV, a sofa, an electric teakettle, a dinner table and a fridge. Just a hotel, in fact. Though behind thewall one can shoot a film about ghosts. But this is not the most terrible thingSergey saw in his life. At war everything was real, without ghosts.
His working days werenot onerous. Sometimes Sergey took care of the graves and watched for beggarsdoing their business not to approach the wicket or the gates during the Muslimholidays. The believers often gave them a bit of money that later became quitea good profit. Sergey considered this business sacrilegious. He thought thatdistribution of alms because of a person’s grief was no charity. He certainlycould not turn the beggars out at all for that might not be approved by localMuslim clergy or the administration of the cemetery. Though, he could resort toa trick opening the gates wide to give relatives an opportunity to come andvisit the graves freely. But that was no problem.
Every duty made Sergeyget
