4. the slough. at the apartment on karzhaneuski st.

Mother left me with the awarenness of the fact of the upcoming monthly separation for her, like I was a child tossed into the childless family. She never left me alone for more than two weeks. And this time without her took place in the same Minsk, in the same apartment of the thirteenth house on Karzhaneuski Street. The year was different - summer of 2009. I was leaving home at some June morning for courses at the architectural college, I was a milksop, was driving past Kupalauski Park, yet did not know that it was Kupalauski Park. I knew premonition. It drew me into the deep, along the path barely visible through the foliage, forced me to swear that I would return anyway, would go in and out of the park along this path, wander in secret channels. This feeling absorbed all my illusory views of the future. All two years of high school Kupalauski Park arose from nowhere. Emerald thick foliage appealed to me with a call - I submitted. Between me and the park there was no barrier of misunderstanding. Only the warm wind before the storm raged in the foliage of my dream of Minsk. 

Now it is 2011. I'm here. Kupalauski Park is two hundred meters from the Alexander Square, the Faculty of History. I will forget about it. I will come there for the first time only in three years after this day. I will drink, find money, kiss Ilya for the first time without being ashamed of the street, throw out unfinished vodka into the bushes, scream the verses at silence at the feet of Janka Kupala at one o'clock, embrace his bronze leg. 

It began. 

To say that I had a premonition about something is impossible. It was a release. The chains broke up into particles. But the release was such as if I deliberately pulled myself the threads of guilt for not grabbing eight points. I wanted to forget - it came out badly. I hated my parents and, having deliberately thought it over, was ready to “go into revelry”. My nature screamed, boiled, splashing boiling bubbles to the surface. Greedily swallowed with the bottomless mouth the outstretched distances of opportunities. In this way, the worthlessness and the Jewish blood, which I promised to nurture and grow from that time to unprecedented size, got along inside me. 

I was sitting in the kitchen of the fifth floor of a brezhnevka which had nine floors in total. The kitchen was painted in blue pastel that wrapped the diffused light from the window and the crackling of a Belarusian radio station, carefully tuned by a ninety-years-old mistress of a three-room apartment. 

Everything will start tomorrow. The bed will absorb me for a period of eight hours - I will slip out, enter the holes of a mustard 

turtleneck, blame for my disgust for myself a rich breakfast and hatred that cannot be suppressed. 

Nevertheless, hatred is my support, which at random found itself in the bins of my prenatal particles. Spraying it on all living things, I hoped one day to suffocate in its miasms. But the miasms were imaginary, and my helpless, frail self was hiding behind the plentiful breakfasts that overwhelmed the perception. 

So. It was. Thirty-third room at the Faculty. The walls are contoured, cut into two parts, the floor beige paint glitters, diffuses dust in the air, sweaty bodies, stale underwear, the stench of provincial spirits. It must have been like that. I remember only my fear, reaching hysteria. If someone approached me at that moment, then I would have swayed in the streams of a nervous breakdown. No one approached. 

The first desk was occupied by me. I came one of the last, did not dare to look at the people, did not dare to inhale their life-spraying smell. The bell. Introductory word of the woman. Subject is Belarusian language. I hear the sound behind. It answers the question from the last desk, pulls me to itself. The power of voice, the power of omniscience. Something is hidden behind it. I want to look at it, bare. The Voice. Tear and clarity of the language. It was somewhere already. From time immemorial. Inside me. In my fantasies about the Human. The refined style slides along the audience, along the painted walls, without touching - everywhere, trying not to suppress; there is only silence in response. Everyone is listening with suppressed breath. I know. The lost language of the Source. I will not be able to connect it with anybody else. In a rush, because of the excessive audacity that the Voice uttered in passing, I dare to look back - something terracotta with a sticky dark brown bang on the forehead gives me a look. I'm afraid to judge him, although I was not previously afraid to judge others in a hurry. He seems to be interested. Cold. So much that you never want to look again or shake his shoulders until the first signs of warming. Usually I don’t care, but there was a premonition, a conspiracy. And this plot was ours. 

I then was asked what I would do after graduation from the University. "Lie on the couch", I answered, thus canceling out the long-playing snoberry plans of my fellows. The latter stunned me with laughter. Not mocking, but somewhat encouraging, “Why did not I think about something like that myself?” No one understood my seriousness and the gloominess of a phrase thrown at random, but with all the naivety of my non-conformist nature. 

The Voice thinks of me at that moment. For I want it so much. He also wants. He thinks: "This is already something." The answer was focused on a terracotta voice away from me. A voice saturated with something prenatal. I wanted to devour it. Gradually, slowly, by my thoughts. But my body trembled, and the gaze of the carrier of this voice every day became more and more omnipresent, looking at me. Not having time to reach the history department, he took me into his power. Sometimes I had time to reach the door. Then it was even worse. The closeness of the stained-glass windows, the darkening and a glance at the entrance, the supposed voice in the depths of the body shell intensified dizziness to the level intolerance. I was guided by a silent encouragement of supposedly correct actions. Correct according to the Voice. 

On the first day we were told about the need to prepare for Anusino. There, in the forest, according to all the rules of exacerbating of the solemn initiation, there should have been groups of freshmen, each with their own presentation and idea. Our group. Number One. 

In the corridor of the third floor of the Faculty of History someone said that he would write the script. Will try to. The confusion of voices made me distracted, reinforced the desire not to delve into the essence of what was said, which was easily possible. It was possible not to distinguish that voice. I understood only that we need to meet regularly, rehearse. It is strange, but I did not feel disgust for this, which I could expect from myself. On the contrary, the rural school where I studied last year destroyed the negative feeling that is usually associated with collective work. Besides, I wanted to take a step more quickly, to cross the stage of acquaintance, when it is embarrassing to even breathe the air that the interlocutor breathes, being in the same room with you. Even this, the most natural thing, you cannot do with full confidence, at ease, therefore, you inhale deeply, gradually, sigh, trying to say something, halfway out of your way, blocking exit for yourself, opening your silent mouth, hating yourself. I also knew that I could drink. Drink a lot and smoke also. Until I run out of money. I wanted this. To discharge, not to constrain myself, others, by others presence, by my presence. 

I do not remember what happened later that day. I only remember what I did every day for almost the whole autumn - I went to the store, bought glazed curds, cookies, soda. I could not do anything else, shame didn't allow me to. The discomfort and fear did not allow me to stand near the cashier’s office, without blushing. It seemed that everyone knew. Knew what? I had no idea about this. I must have wished to delve even more into the awareness of my total humiliation. Deeper and deeper. It seemed that there would be no end to it. And I stood, shaking with fear. The voice inside (not terracotta one, other) tirelessly sang the praises of me-nothingness. Soon it will be tired. Soon I will tire of blushing, settle down. I will look at the store shelves for three hours without taking my eyes off of one place, indifferently grinning in the face of customers, packing a large pack of condoms into my stuffed bag. In the meantime, a new day was coming.