Since Grammatik keeps telling me that my texts are suitable for six-to-eight graders, I decided not be insulted anymore by the fact, but accept it. I have a couple years before my daughter will be in eighth, and my son in sixth grade....
I want to be forgotten. No grave stone, grave or even
funeral. The unknown, non-identified body for city workers to deal
with. (I missed the Stalin's times when one could have a
privilege of being an enemy of the people and every memory of the
lucky one being alive or lived could be completely erased). I
won't be able to collect my writings, photos and video tapes; I
only hope that time would take care of erasing memory of me
lived. I know that would inflict pain on you who loved me, but I
want you to know me for what I am -- the enemy of all people.
Nothing changed since I was born. Both times. Forty seven
years ago (physically), and thirty (spiritually). I didn't like
life. I tried hard to fall in love with life, to connect myself,
because I had nothing else but life. I had no choice. Brought to
life without asking am I granted with a "free will"? (And is it
"free" will? Is any will "free" by definition? Or we are not so
sure about it?)
From the start I had no chance. My presence and existence
wasn't my (first) choice). The rest was to follow. Parents,
country, culture, history, "their" past -- everything was given
(imposed on) to me as "mine." Before I knew how I was (or want to
be) I was formed (marxism) according to what I should be. I
wasn't free even to reject "their" choice (in turn, their choices
weren't really theirs). It was "kingdom of necessity."
I fought my way to (social) freedom -- my right to choice.
And how! (I questioned and I still do the meaning of "love" which
conflicts with notion of freedom). I didn't want to give up
because I believed (I want to believe) that one day I would be
free to do what I want to do. To work. (What is that?)
Oh, I never liked myself. It comes "with the territory" --
how could I reject life without refusing to accept myself. I
didn't like my looks (when I grew up enough to notice it). Now I
understand why I constantly have to check my reflections in
mirrors. Now I know why I have to find "my face" (the one I
could, compromising, to select as the "best" out worse the rest,
did I have a choice?). In subway windows it was most obvious that
I'm facing a stranger. I knew it was me. But every time I saw
myself it was a shock. I had to force myself to accept it. Later
it got better, for a short while during my twenties suddenly
people began to like me (and I liked them, I was in love with
life; that's how I began to write). Whatever I wrote, said, did
-- they noticed me, and I lived off their interest. It looked as
if I was about to get free. I guess, I was lucky, my illusion
lasted almost a decade. No matter how low would I fall, there was
tomorrow. All what I had to do was to get there, one more step,
another push...
They say "to love and to loved" is a pleasant feeling. What
about desperation, pain, sorrow?
It takes many years to realize that you are dead. You can't
believe that it happened. How could it be? But you know that
there is "before" and "after." It doesn't go away. The fact. The
transition from the childhood is gradual and the death of a child
replaced by an adult doesn't seam tragic -- growing up. But how
you forget him, you remember. The accident is more merciful.
I always thought about suicide. Maybe even when I was a child.
REFUGEE. A chapter (or permanent state, according to theory
of pomo nomads) in my life.
[IMAGE] Latina, Italy, Summer 1980. (Defector)
"Bless the one who hadn't live in interesting times" (Who
else but Chinese). For outsiders, even for a friend, even for,
children, it was a travel, time of changes and exitment. I'm glad
that I too believed in it, never thinking about our moves from
place to place as an escape but a journey. Ulysses wasn't a
refugee in search for his new home, he tried to find his way back
home. Was I running away from "home" or never had one? From the
outside my life could look like an interesting adventure, and I
was an outsider to myself. I denied that I'm a refugee. I always
preferred to call myself a defector, the one who initiates the
escape. I like to have a choice/will. Met in NY by the
International Rescue Committee, I smirked at them; they were to
be rescue from the communism and stupidity and I was the one to
do it. I wanted to have my last word -- I choose to leave the
Soviet Union, it was my decision! (I knew it wasn't much of the
choice). In Italy (in a refugee [!] camp) I saw others who run
for their lives but I was different! How different was my story
from the boat people's fate?
I was with them at the end no matter how much I tried to
convince myself of my different, high motivations. They have
their stories no less exotic and tragic to tell. Most of them
spoke Russian (they ran from the same), and I worked in the
office for little money translating and filing their first
western papers. Once again, I, a Russian, was in a power
position, as if they were back to their recent past they tried to
escape. We all were in aftershock state of mind, numbed, we all
were alive and the danger was behind. You have to relive the fact
of survival, the realization that the choice was make, that you
changed your life forever. The Vietnamese boy, fast in English,
the only one out of the whole big family, who survived at the
open sea, Rumanian mother and her daughter, who swam across
Danube, the younger daughter had drawn -- they never talk about
the past. The future was unknown and therefore more threatening.
Why did I think that I was different?
I was a writer, or I was a part of the Soviet establishment,
I was a true traitor... But my life was behind, and here in
Latina (where are my dairies of that time, letters, notes?) we
were the same. We all lost our "home," we were "stateless." "I
never had home!" I would say to myself. Neither they, I add now.
I feel that my act was important, it was a statement, and I
wanted it to be my statement...
As far as our personal existence were concerned, we were
equal; we were lost. Western mind would never understand the
drama of leaving the old world. Europeans did it many centuries
ago. For the East European soul leaving your country is a
catastrophe, an non-acceptable event. It's not leaving your world
but leaving life, the only world you knew. We all knew that we
are traitors and we were agree that we betrayed our gods. After
all we left not the totalitarian regime or authoritarian
government, we left us behind. We were guilty.
We ran.
"Political," "economical" refugees? Legal, illegal
immigrants? We are always illegal, we are criminals.
THE WALL and THE DOOR
[IMAGE] Berlin, 1976.
America: country of immigrants? Not for long. Twenty years
ago the US government fought for dissidents who wanted to leave
the USSR. Now any and every US consular division fights to keep
them from coming to USA. I don't close the door behind me, I was
lucky to enter before it was closed. I don't say that the door
has to be closed (do I?), it will be shot. There will be borders
around America, and the wall. The Chinese Wall was build to keep
enemies out, the Berlin Wall -- to keep the citizens in. They do
look differently. Walls of Jerusalem, or Kremlin walls.
[IMAGE]
Roads in America. Not to seperate but to connect?
And this is the world of "private" property?
What would happen when America closes its borders? American
iron curtain? What a nonsense!
The Invisible Walls. Glass walls. I missed windows in New York.
Even more striking -- glass doors!
Don't be fooled -- the wall is stile there. It's an illusion
of unstructured space, pretended absolute freedom. Optical
illusion, for looking only, not for being in actual space. No
wonder the next to appear was the TV screen -- the most secure of
all walls. The replacement of reality. Guess what? Virtual
reality is the next. Live it! Enjoy! As long as you motionless.
"NEW AMERICAN"
[IMAGE] New York, Jersey City, mid eighties.
"The New American" was the name of the Russian language
weekly in NYC.
I thought that I'm a better American than Americans.
What "new Americans" bring in? "Old Americans" or "Native
Americans," the majority.
FAMILY ALBUM
Connections between big history and my family story: news. Afghanistan, Carter's stand on human rights, revolution in
Ethiopia, Reagan's crack on "evil empire."
200 years of American constitution, my lecturing in VA. My
citizenship story.
What I did to America: nine people, including myself.
I look back at those years when it took place and I try to
understand. I leave aside (or try to do it) my personal
relations; they ("we"?) are here. Even Esther; I made her
American.
QUESTIONS TO ANSWER:
STRUCTURE: topical, chronological. News, notes, documents,
letters, dairies. It's the style: testimonies, chronicles,
pictures (images). Children book, comics. Would my kids
understand it? Children who are not adults yet, the teens. The
book isn't about Russia, Ethiopia, or me; its' about America.
Critical? Analysis asks for a critical look, or a new, fresh
view. What I don't understand about America? Trying to know, to
learn. What I don't accept.
American history, past, recent and not so recent -- it's my
life now. The thought which crosses my mind so often after our
return from Africa.
What Americans do not know about America, Americans, world?
Russian feelings, Ethiopian, American emotions. Like a taste
-- that's a true nationality.
AMERICAN PASSPORT
[IMAGE] Russia, Africa, the customs.
What do I want my children to know and to remember?
They are not only born in America, they are Americans. What
kind? America is changing faster than any other country today or
in history. America is the changes.
"I'm a quoter American, quoter Russian, quoter of Ethiopian
and quoter of English."
"English? Why English?"
"Because I speak English."
My daughter was four or five. She didn't want to be black.
She liked to think of herself as white. Identity is a step to
meet yourself.
NOTES
I am dead but anything I wrote and haven't is copyrighted and the
money belong to the children.
