“Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain where they could be alone. There in their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as white as the snow” (Matthew 17: 1–2).
Which of these golden rays, scattered on one of the tables, are part of this sun? Which of these white particles, lying on one of the chests, are fragments of the clothes that became white as the snow?
“But anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith in me would be better drowned in the depths of the sea with a great millstone round his neck” (Matthew 18:6).
Do these chips of waves, which someone here is just now carefully inspecting under a light, symbolize these dangerous depths of the sea, or, rather, are they part of the painting of the sea upon which Christ is walking with dry feet toward his disciples?
“Tell me. Suppose a man has a hundred sheep and one of them strays; will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hillside and go in search of the stray?” (Matthew 18:13).
Does this lock of wool, the drawing of which has been preserved on this bit of plaster, belong to one of the ninety-nine well-behaved and obedient sheep, or is it a remnant of the reckless and unruly sheep, for whom the patient Shepherd searches over the hillsides?
And thus observing how from thousands of particles, bits, and crumbs, from dust, molecules, and pebbles, the professor and his students have been for years piecing together portraits of saints, sinners, and legends, I feel as though I were a witness, in this cold and dusty underground, to the birth of the sky and of the earth, of all the colors and shapes, angels and kings, light and darkness, good and evil.
FROM NOVGOROD to Minsk, for the congress of the National Front of Belorussia. Their great writer, Vasili Bykau, took me there. Bykau is a big, tall man, taciturn, even largely silent, but silent in a kind, amicable way. The hero of one of his novels Agieyev, in appearance and behavior very much resembles Vasili himself. Agieyev visits his hometown, searching for remnants of the past:
He looked around. The square had changed so much as to become unrecognizable, but the church remained, and that is what helped him get his bearings. One had to turn into the alley now and follow the street downward. Trying to control his anxiety, Agieyev set off at a rapid pace toward the outskirts of town, first toward Zielona, a street well known to him, lined with typical wooden houses with tiny orchards and gardens that stretched toward a deep ravine with a stream along its bottom and old trees along the sides. (Vasili Bykau, The Quarry)
Belorussia is a level country, flat as a tranquil sea — in the summer green and sapphire from bluebottles, in the winter white and black from snow and crows — where there are countless little towns such as the one Agieyev visits. Belorussia is an agricultural country, a peasant country, and it is in the villages that the Belorussian language was preserved. This is evident too during the sessions of the congress. Many delegates from the towns say a few sentences in Belorussian, then apologize and switch to Russian — it is easier for them to speak in Russian. Delegates from the villages do not have these difficulties. Belorussia’s strategically important location led the czars and the Bolsheviks to conduct a methodical, brutal, and bitter campaign of Russification there. In the thirties, almost the entire Belorussian intelligentsia was either shot or deported. The massacres were organized by Beria’s confidant and friend Canava, who was a Georgian. Those who were being executed were accused of being Polish agents. Moscow was anxious that Belorussia be inhabited by a Russian-speaking population — not even necessarily ethnic Russians, just Russian speakers.
At the congress there is much discussion of the consequences of the catastrophe at Chernobyl. The wave of radioactivity from the electrical plant struck Belorussia first and foremost. The monthly Neman, published in Minsk, ran a photograph of a Belorussian boy born after the Chernobyl explosion. He is white as porcelain, has enormous, sad, black eyes, and, instead of hair, a pale down all over his head.
I am all ears as one of the delegates ponders: Which domination is more dangerous for Belorussia — the Russian or the Polish? And he concludes that it is the Polish, because Poland is more attractive.
ALL DAY by bus from Minsk to my hometown, Pińsk. The same landscape from morning to night, as if one were standing still. In some ports only the shallow and winding bed of the Neman River. In some ports the straight line of the Oginski Canal.
Pińsk. I feel like Agieyev:
Trying to control his anxiety, Agieyev set off at a rapid pace toward the outskirts of town, first toward Zielona, a street well known to him, lined with typical, wooden houses with tiny orchards and gardens that stretched toward a deep ravine with a stream along its bottom and old trees along the sides.
At noon I went to the church. After the mass, as people were dispersing, I walked up to them and asked if anyone remembered my parents, who had taught in the school here. And I told them my name. It turned out that those leaving the church were my mother’s and father’s students, older now by fifty years.
I had returned to my childhood home.
THE SEQUEL CONTINUES (1992–1993)
THE SEQUEL CONTINUES
RUSSIA OPENED its twentieth-century history with the Revolution of 1905 and is closing it with the revolution that resulted in the breakup of the USSR in 1991.
HISTORY IN this country is an active volcano, continually churning, and there is no sign of its wanting to calm down, to be dormant.
THE RUSSIAN WRITER Yurii Boriev compared the history of the USSR to a train in motion:
The train is speeding into a luminous future. Lenin is at the controls. Suddenly — stop, the tracks come to an end. Lenin calls on the people for additional, Saturday work, tracks are laid down, and the train moves on. Now Stalin is driving it. Again the tracks end. Stalin orders half the conductors and passengers shot, and the rest he forces to lay down new tracks. The train starts again. Khrushchev replaces Stalin, and when the tracks come to an end, he orders that the ones over which the train has already passed be dismantled and laid down before the locomotive. Brezhnev takes Khrushchev’s place. When the tracks end again, Brezhnev decides to pull down the window blinds and rock the cars in such a way that the passengers will think the train is still moving forward. (Yurii Boriev, Staliniad, 1990)
And thus we come to the Epoch of the Three Funerals (Brezhnev’s, Andropov’s, Chernenko’s), during which the passengers of the train do not even have the illusion that they are going anywhere. But then, in April 1985, the train starts to move again. This is its last journey, however. It will last six and a half years. This time Gorbachev is the engineer, and the slogan GLASNOST — PERESTROIKA is painted on the locomotive.
THE MORE ABSTRACT a meaning one gives to the appellation “Russia,” the easier it is to speak about it. “Russia seeks a path,” “Russia says — no,” “Russia goes to the right,” and so on. At such a high level of generality, many problems lose their significance, cease being relevant, vanish. The ideological and national macroscale marginalizes and invalidates the difficult, vexing microscale of everyday life. Will Russia remain a superpower? When juxtaposed against such a monumental question, of what import is the one that so perturbs Anna Andreyevna from Novgorod — when will they let her live normally for a while? The language of the ubiquitous political discourse forces out, from the mass media and, what is worse, from our memory, the vocabulary with which one can express his private problems, personal drama, individual pain. They do not have a roof over their heads? This is no longer of concern to us; it is a matter for the Salvation Army or the Red Cross.