Maya Tsulaya:
Short Stories
THE ARTIST
To Valeri Arcania
The enemy was penetrating the town. People were fleeing, trying to save their
lives and the lives of their kids. Whole neighborhoods were devoured by the
fire. Crash... explosions… howling of aircraft engines…
In a tiny room inside a small apartment of a huge building there was a man
sitting in front of an easel. He was looking at
an unfinished landscape:
From the street he could hear, cries, gnashing of wheels of armoured personnel-carriers and tread of running feet.
The artist looked around. Pictures on the walls, the pile of canvas in the
corner… All the results of his hard work, products of
his talent. All his life he had worked on them. In them he had put his
soul, his skills, his creative ideas.
Outside the racket increased. Loud explosions made windows tremble. The whole
building seemed to shiver.
The worried artist glanced at the window, then at the door.
”I should run! But where should I run?”
...The door was kicked open, and two soldiers with green bands around their
heads broke into the smoke filled apartment.
A huge pile of canvaswas smoking in the middle of the
living room, and over that weird bonfire was the
creator’s corpse rocking quietly in the air...
September 1, 1994
Translated into English by Andrew Andersen
