Yeva

by Sondra Wolferman

Overview

The story of a woman who survives a natural disaster-the Armenian earthquake of December, 1988-and, after losing her entire family to the disaster goes on to build a new life for herself in the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781601455154
Publisher:	Booklocker.com, Incorporated
Publication date:	05/28/2008
Pages:	342
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.71(d)

Read an Excerpt

Caucasian Mountains, Northern Armenia, December, 1988
The workers gathered for breakfast at a modest restaurant just off the main highway leading north from the city of Gyumri toward the border with Soviet Georgia. After warming themselves over foaming cups of the thick, sweetened coffee of the region, they boarded buses and traveled northeast through an arid landscape to the end of the paved road. There, jeeps waited to carry them further, on a frozen dirt track along the rim of a gorge high above the Akhurian River-and when that route too became impassable, they climbed onto the backs of mules for the last few kilometers to their destination.
Their journey ended near the edge of a cliff overlooking a steep gorge, where lay the sprawling ruins of a medieval monastery that had been twice destroyed-once by Muslim invaders, and then again by earthquake in the Seventeenth Century-and twice rebuilt, only to be abandoned and forgotten for the greater part of the modern era.
The workers who disembarked at this site belonged to a team of craftsmen-skilled carpenters, masons, and stonecutters-who were entrusted with the mission of restoring this vast complex of broken churches and fortifications to some semblance of its former glory. To what purpose this colossal mission was undertaken, the workers neither knew nor cared. They were well-paid, and they were happy to be working as skilled laborers in their chosen fields while so many of their compatriots, of equal talent, languished in government-sponsored jobs that consisted of little more than 'busy-work' designed to fulfill the Communist ideal of full employment in a 'classless society'.
Many an average Armenian citizenconsidered the government plan to rebuild the ancient monasteries-some of which dated back to the time before Christ-to be little more than an extravagant Soviet plot to show the world what their system could accomplish. Most tried to ignore the irony that, while millions of her citizens were crammed into substandard housing, two and three families to a unit, the Soviets chose to rebuild not the nation's crumbling infrastructure but rather some antiquities which, while undeniably awesome, were of no use to anybody other than some foreign tourists who would go home with a benevolent view of a regime that went to such great lengths to honor its past.
The ruins were situated on the south-facing slope of a three-thousand-foot mountain ridge. The southern exposure not only protected the site from the fiercest mountain winds, but also kept it free of snow until well into the month of December, so that the restoration work could continue uninterrupted until the New Year. At the end of each work day, around four o'clock when the early winter twilight set in, the workers retired to a base camp that was set up on a plateau about half a mile away from the worksite. This was no rough-and-tumble outfit but a comfortable encampment with heated tents, army-style cots, hot showers, and a dining hall where professional chefs prepared meals for the crew. There was always plenty of vodka to go around, as well as cigarettes, snacks, and magazines-of the pornographic persuasion-for sale at reduced prices to keep the workers happy.
The workers were encouraged to go home to their families on staggered weekends, but many chose to remain here in the hills, for reasons of their own. Some of them enjoyed this line of work precisely because it gave them the opportunity to stay away from home for extended periods. For those who didn't go home on leave-the unmarried, the unhappily married, the adventurers-there were excursions into the nearest sizeable town where they would carouse and spend their ample salaries in taverns and brothels.
Harout Karayan had joined the crew only lately, when he was hired to replace another stonemason who had fallen ill. He was thrilled to be working at this time of year-which was normally a fallow time in the construction industry-although he missed his children terribly. Harout was never among the carousers, not because he shunned the company of women-on the contrary, he was an amiable man with an easygoing charm that was very attractive to the ladies-but rather because he had sown his wild oats early in life and had since turned into a solid family man with a shrewd, practical wife and two children he adored. His wife Yeva was a strong-willed woman who kept a tight rein on her family, so much so that during the early years of their marriage she had been known to fetch her mate out of taverns and to scare off women who flirted with her husband. While Yeva had mellowed a great deal over the years, Harout's colleagues continued to joke with him about his family life, calling him 'pussy-whipped' and other such expletives.
Harout-although he would never admit it out loud-actually valued his wife's take-charge attitude. He had no use for shrinking violets or cloying, dependent women-didn't even enjoy them in bed-no matter how good-looking they were. His marriage to Yeva was an equal partnership in which she contributed to the family finances with her horticultural skills and her frugality, and he was comfortable knowing that should anything happen to him, his children were in good hands with a resourceful woman who could make her own way in the world.
While his friends taunted him about his marriage, nobody ever joked about Harout's professional skills. He had earned a reputation as one of the most skilled artisans in the region, known for his ability to carve intricate designs into the most resistant of stones-tedious work that required a steady hand, an appreciation for finely-wrought detail, and infinite patience. Those who were acquainted with Harout marveled that a man of his volatile temperament, not to mention a tendency to over-indulge in food and drink, was able to accomplish this type of work.
When he was working at his craft, Harout often seemed transfixed by the task at hand and the stone before him, in a way that was the envy of any artist. Indeed, Harout had dabbled in sculpture as a young man, but gave it up because he was unwilling to accept the poverty and indignity that were the lot of most aspiring artists in a Communist regime that seemed intent upon crushing all creative endeavors among its citizens.
He then devoted his talents instead to the lucrative building trade. He had worked on many historic renovations in the past, but never before had he been as impressed as with this remote monastery in the Caucasus Mountains. While the compound of ruins was currently in shambles-the entire eastern end of the complex had long ago tumbled into the gorge-what remained standing filled Harout with a sense of awe and mystery, and he welcomed the challenge that lay before him.
Harout was assigned to work on the khatchkar-ornate stone crosses carved into the walls and ceilings of the main church of the compound. He spent entire days perched high above the ground upon a wooden scaffold just inches below the domed ceiling, enjoying the solitude and the sweeping views that this position offered while he worked. Massive stone columns supported the ceiling, while heavy rounded arches divided it into compartments, each compartment with its own richly decorated khatchkar, most of which were heavily damaged or eroded beyond recognition.
Working from sketches and blueprints prepared for him by archeologists and historians, Harout labored to restore these decorative crosses as much as possible to their original beauty. Using a steam hose, he first blasted away the centuries of soot and grime that were slowly eating away at the decorative panels like acid rain. Afterwards, balanced dozens of feet above the ground with a miner's lamp around his head, he worked with hammer and chisel, chipping away at the damaged areas to deepen the lines and crevices that would make the detail of the khatchkar emerge once again.
It was slow, painstaking work. While absorbed in his task, Harout felt little discomfort, but by the end of the day his arms and shoulders ached with the effort of constantly reaching upward with his heavy tools, and his eyes felt gritty and inflamed from the strain of working in dim light. He welcomed his fatigue at night and collapsed into a heavy sleep after eating a meal of curried lamb stew with chickpeas-while his colleagues stayed up late gossiping and playing cards for money.
Towards the end of the first week of December, the weather turned sharply colder. The taste of winter was in the air, and it appeared that the deepening snows that already blanketed the northern slopes of these rugged mountains would soon begin creeping down the southern slopes as well. While their sleeping quarters were warm and comfortable, the compound where the men labored by day was a cold and inhospitable place, and they were all feeling the strain. Harout could no longer work without wearing clumsy, government-issue gloves that hampered him in his intricate task. He looked forward to the snows coming so he could go home to his family.
Harout often worked with two partners-Helmi, a seasoned craftsman approaching retirement age, and Aram, a young apprentice with a promising future-who stood on different platforms of the same wooden scaffold. All three were in high spirits on the morning of December Eighth, for they had been told they would soon be going home, and an easy banter passed between them as they worked.
"When you get to be my age," said Helmi, "you won't be in such a hurry to go back to your families..."
The other two men were accustomed to Helmi's constant griping about his home life. "Oh? Why is that?" Aram responded with a wink.
"My wife nags me day and night..." Helmi complained. "She wants us to move to the city now that our children have all grown up and married and left the house. She's dying of boredom in our rural village, she says, and wants to be near the restaurants and the movies and department stores..." Helmi continued to paint as he babbled on. "Me? I love the countryside...milking the goats, puttering in the vegetable garden... If my wife wants to live in the city, she'll have to live there by herself!" he said.
"I would gladly trade places with you," said Aram. "My wife spends money faster than I can make it. And with two daughters to raise, I can barely keep up... I wish we lived in the countryside where there are no overpriced department stores!"
"Why don't you put your foot down?" said Helmi. "Don't give them the money to spend..."
"I can see you are not raising daughters... It is hard to resist a six-year old who says she will die if she can't have the latest book bag or ballet lessons!"
Harout listened to his partners with amusement and chimed in. "My wife has her own bank account," he boasted. "She works almost as hard as I do..."
"I've seen your wife..." said Helmi. "With a face like hers...she'd better bring something to the table!"
"Ha ha. I've seen your wife," Harout shot back. "And from what I've heard...a lot of other men have seen her too, if you catch my drift..."
"Why don't you two bozos quit insulting each others' spouses and get back to work," said Aram. "I'm tired of carrying the load for the both of you..."
"What do you care? We all get paid the same wages, regardless of who does what... The longer it takes us to finish this project, the longer we will continue to bring home a paycheck."
"There's an attitude for you... Before the Socialists took over this country, a man took pride in his work, and now...he just wants to get by with the least amount of effort!"
"What do you suppose we're doing this for, anyway? Not that I'm complaining-it sure beats driving a taxi!"
"Don't you get it? We're doing this so the Soviets can bring busloads of tourists to our historic monuments and show the world how they are striving to preserve the traditions of the ethnic republics..."
Harout had just put down his chisel and stepped back to admire his work when a large raven-there were dozens of the raucous birds roosting within the nooks and crannies of the vaulted ceiling-dove down from its roost as though aiming straight for Harout's head. "Damn those pesky birds!" Harout muttered, and then a thunderous whoosh echoed through the cavernous building as the entire flock of ravens alit from their perches en masse, beating their wings wildly as they flew upwards and out through a wide opening in the ceiling.
"What the hell was that!" exclaimed Aram.
Harout perceived a slight lateral swaying of the scaffold. All three men realized at once what was happening. Harout and Helmi dropped their tools and began scrambling down the rungs of the ladder that was built into one side of the scaffold, but the youthful Aram stood petrified as the scaffold swayed again, creaking ominously on its brittle supports. A deep rumbling noise rolled over them.
"Get down!" Harout shouted to the motionless Aram. "Earthquake!"
Chunks of masonry fell from the walls and ceilings of the embattled structure. The monastery had withstood many earthquakes since the Middle Ages, but the men could not have known that this time the quake was centered almost directly beneath them. With a sickening crack, the scaffold broke apart. Helmi, spry as a mountain goat despite his age, hit the ground running, searching blindly for an exit in the dust-choked darkness. Harout, having hesitated out of concern for the youngster, was still on the ladder about twenty feet from the ground when he saw the body of the apprentice fall through the air and strike the ground In the swirling dust and darkness Harout knew not what lay below, but he knew instinctively he had to either jump now or go down with the scaffold. In an instant, he chose to be master of his own fate and, with a powerful thrust of his legs kicked himself free of the ladder. A flash of blinding pain exploded from the small of his back, shooting upwards to his neck, and then...nothing.