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me with a guilty smile. I jumped towards her, looked at her
fingers and noticed a small red drop of blood. I looked at
her, and then I put her little finger into my mouth and
tasted my blood. Bibi laughed, and I smiled with her little
finger still in my mouth.
“It was the thorn, but it doesn’t hurt any more.”
“Are you tired?”
“Yes, let’s go.”
“Run, Bibi. Don’t wait for me.”
She ran ahead, I followed her. We were getting closer to the
village where my mother’s mother, my mother and her
mother were waiting for us. I could picture the scene – they
were waiting, annoyed, excited and displeased . . . I had
taken the little one to the forest with me. They don’t trust
fathers, and perhaps that fear is not groundless. The path
merged with the motorway with rows of gardens on both
sides. I felt as though the rows of bean bushes were
following me from behind the huge walnut trees. I reached
my grandma’s garden, took a knife out of my pocket and
approached the fence. There was a big pomegranate tree
surrounded with small sprouts, as if guarding the garden. I
saw a sprout outside the fence and thought it was a good
one, so I started to dig around it to pull it up by its roots. I
wanted to have a pomegranate tree in Yerevan. I finished