Perpetual Humor; the Aftermath of Gyumri

Fanto Aslan
faslanyan@ucla.edu

"Mother would you like to hear a new poem I have learned in school by Avetik Issahakyan?" asked 6-year-old Lucy who was unaware that both of her legs were crushed, due to the numbness of the winter cold. Her mother could barely hear her as the screams of the city intercepted the young girl’s deliverance of the poem. Lucy’s mother was struggling to caress her daughter’s hand, but was limited as her hand was trapped between the wreckage. The inexorable pain she felt prevented her thoughts from venturing more than 58 seconds into the past. She was breast-feeding Lucy’s youngest brother when the walls caved in on them, piercing thru the baby’s crib.

It took three earth trembles each 14 seconds apart, to destroy a city containing thousands of years of ancient history, to deteriorate the formidable joy and humor of thousands of people, and to render insolvent the soul of all Armenians. The inhabitants of Gyumri (Leninakan) were deceived. What wrong had they committed to deserve such calamity and unmitigated affliction?

The suffering was unbearable. It is impossible to imagine what a mother felt as she was searching in the remains of a kindergarten for her children’s shoes, what a teacher felt as he witnessed the only staircase in the school collapse while embracing the students who were trying to escape, or how my grandfather felt as he grabbed me, before the wall collapsed a second later.

Time had stopped indefinitely in Leninakan, and it was 11:41am. As far as the residents are concerned, it is always December 7, 1988. No one is in need of time anymore. As for the progeny of the earthquake, the calendar contains only 11 months. Hence, there are two distinct Gyumris. Gyumri before 1988, and Gyumri after 1988. The former has disappeared into oblivion, but the latter is perpetuated with every blemished joke and anecdote masking the bankruptcy and emptiness of the spirit of every inhabitant of Gyumri. Laughter is no longer a nutrient, but rather a fortification to preclude the emergence of wretchedness and precedent misery. This wave of departure from the past is similar to the concrete waves caused by the earthquake in which 10,000 people fell. Eighty-five percent of the metropolitan city was erased by Mother Nature as well as any hope for contentment which tended to reside in every Nurturing Mother.

Twenty years has passed since last time the earthquake was mentioned around our table. It is a taboo to speak about December 7, 1988 around most people from Gyumri. It is in a way implicitly forbidden due the fact that no one has yet gotten over the ruins. Many things over there still remind those who try to repress the past. The most beautiful and striking scenery in Gyumri is the cemetery which harbor all of the relatives who were engulfed by the earthquake. Furthermore, it took nearly 20 years for my grandfather to speak about the earthquake in great detail. For example he explained that when the city was flattened, all of the prisoners were released from prison to go and dig up their loved ones from the ruins; they, in turn, pledged to return to confinement. It will probably take many years for me to grasp and understand what my grandfather, and others involved in this circumstance, understood from this particular circumstance.