Excerpt
The bombardment is horrific. The windowpanes are blown to smithereens. Burning bits of steel tear through the air. The walls tremble. The doors fly open of their own accord. During the attack, Iakha goes imperturbably about her household tasks, sweeping up the splintered window glass, putting the kettle on for tea. Her grandmother is lying against the wall in an adjoining room. I know that the old woman is a little deaf, but she can't fail to hear what is happening around us. During a moment's pause, she shouts out suddenly, in a hoarse, tense voice, "Is there anyone still alive?"
A powerful blast blows me right off the sofa, where I was sitting, bolt upright, cottonmouthed, staring vacantly into space. Near the stove, I discover, the floor is warm. I decide to stay there on the ground: it's all the same, really. I contemplate my black skirt spread out around my drawn-up legs like the petals of a flower. I suddenly realize that if we were hit, I would be the first to be burnt alive. The stove's shards of steel would go straight through me. But its yellow glow calms me, and I stay there, preferring the proximity of heat to my cold spot on the sofa
We speak little. Everyone is alone with his own thoughts. No shouting, no crying. Young Anzor strikes a match and smokes. Vakha is unmoving, one hand held over his heart. Iakha is the most natural. I admire her: She sits there, with her rosy cheeks, her dimples just ready to break out in a sweet smile, and her ample bosom rising and falling with each normal breath. A hundred times I ask her, mechanically, if it will all be over soon, when the planes will go away--all questions to which she, like me, has no response. A hundred times she reassures me, sweetly, that yes, it will all be over soon, everything will be fine in just a little while. And a hundred times I believe what she says, at least for a few seconds, before I ask the same questions all over again.
The dive-bombing of the planes is deafening; the metallic slam of the shells incessant. It's only two in the afternoon. There are a still hundreds of occasions to die before dusk.