I had never believed a piece of art could be able to affect one’s life. And then one day my young teacher assigned me with such a strange question for my ESL school essay.

         It made me remember and review my own life. I reflected on it and discovered quite unexpectedly for myself: indeed… That was just in my life; that just changed it; that happened several times. So I was confused: which chance should I tell him?

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        To tell him how I surprised my schoolteachers?

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         …After my high school graduation, suddenly, I went to study at the Philological Faculty! Why? …Yeah, although I was absolutely perfect in languages, in grammar, but at literature lessons, I could never tie two words together and my essays were always wrong: “irregular” and “irrelevant”! I was expected to go to some science faculty: I was great in chemistry, math and especially in drawing.

         In the last grade (I was 16), I read a novel written by Ivan Melesh 'Liudzi na balotse' (The People Among the Marshes). Obviously, it wasn’t my first reading in Belarusan, but something about it affected me as never before. I don’t remember what. But I said then: “I am going to study Belarusan. My grandma spoke it. It’s the language of my ancestors”. My mother was in a panic, she nearly cried. She knew I had become really interested in general linguistics at that time. She was working at the Philology Faculty and knew its policy: “Students of the Belarusan Course are never accepted to The Department of General and Slavonic Linguistics for the post of university studying. Only those of the Russian Course are accepted”. I knew that, but I was stubborn. I don’t know why.

It seemed that the Belarusan language was neither a brother of the “Slavonic brotherhood” nor a member of the worldwide association of languages at all.

          Really, for years and centuries on our own land, we had been brainwashed, that Belarusan was not a real language. It was not entirely clear what it was, but it was not for high society, it was some kind of 'mushytskaya mova' (peasant tongue): rude, hard, ugly – phewy…There was no room on the earth for such mumbo-jumbo. Especially “enlightened” minds said it was a “dead language”.

          After my first lecture at the University, though, I came out as a formed nationalist.

          Ah, really, I was talented (I’m not afraid to seem immodest. What was – was.) I still studied the General and Slavonic Linguistics, though in Russian, and showed my wonderful abilities in it, amazing my teachers. At the same time, I was a member of the National Kayak Team. It was quite funny: I was absent for 20 days every month, but I rushed back from my sport adventures, passed exams easily, coached my classmates and even students of older grades, helped them to pass their exams and write their quizzes and then I flew away again… I loved linguistic so much, and that love was mutual: it seemed no one was as gifted as me at the time of my studying. My mother was so proud.

          I was persuaded by my teachers and professors to remain at the Faculty …but at any other department, not of the General Linguistics.

          But, but, but…

All my education finished with my spitting finally on all this “science” – I left for sport (before my last grade, I was invited to work as a coach and I worked and studied at the same time).

My mother was upset. She never forgave me that.

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          But, maybe, to tell him an almost mysterious story?

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          As a student, I was reading a newly published novel by U.Karatkevich 'The Black Castle Aľshanski'. It was an amazing historic mystical detective story. An interesting thing: the character of the novel, our contemporary, investigated a story (a murder) connected to an old legend (which turned out to be a real event). His clues and discoveries came to him in strange dreams as a kind of foresight. He saw the events as they had been. I was reading one of the dreams – it was a scene of a pursuit in the night forest – and suddenly, I saw the same forest, the horses, the people and the clothing. It was so vivid, I heard the breath of the horses, the rattle of the harness and arms and the spiteful voice: “So what, Valiushinich? Was your plot successful?”

          I understood – I was there! That was me, I was riding that horse, wearing that clothing, fighting with the swords…             

          So, my genetic memory was woken.

          10 years later, when our different national “rukh”s (movements) began, there were our real national symbols appearing all around. I couldn’t ever see them in my life before. But I remember and wonder now: I looked at them and wasn’t surprised then. I didn’t ask like the others: what flag? Why Litva? What is “Pahonia”? Who is Vitaŭt? * – I didn’t learn, I recognized and remembered. I had known them at some time. That was me, at some time, I had ridden to the battles and died beneath this flags with these songs.

          So, the seeds of memory, sown by the generations, sprouted up, anyway.

Seeds… they have a grand power in their nature.

          These seeds are that, which have kept me in touch with my ancestors. This genetic memory helped me to reveal an amazing story of one ancient song many years later.

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         Perhaps, I would join in the national movements.

But Life tied me up in a knot and stepped on my throat with a boot. It set up such a lasting experiment in moral and physical survival for me. “Perestroika” threw me out to the verge of life as well. I only succeeded in a count of my losses: my job, money, health, friends, love, confidence, hope…My relatives passed away one by one, leaving behind my envy for them: when a soul with all its components together leaves a body, the body strives to follow it…

         10 years (which are supposed to be the best) were torn from my life and thrown out.

         We haven’t learned how to live in this world anyway.

         And my lovely fatherland squeezed me out like paste from a tube.

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* Litva – the historic name of Belarus.

“Pahonia” – the historic emblem of Litva.

Vitaǔt – the most outstanding ruler of The Grand Principality of Litva -- "The Grand Kniaź (Prince) of Litva and Ruś".

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         When we were leaving for Canada, I came to my friend – a painter, who taught my son the batik – to say goodbye. There was a classroom replete with pictures of her pupils. I examined them and my attention was attracted by one picture. Usually, batik pictures are bright, full of colors, joyful: their theme is flowers, butterflies etc. A tree stump was on this one, however. It wasn’t old, but it was felled. It was dead in all its cut shoots. Its cut branches were spread like hands in a crucifixion. If something alive was there, it was only its face frozen in suffering. “The tree, which doesn’t give fruit, is felled and thrown into a fire”, remembered I... “And grass doesn’t grow on bare truth, leaves don’t grow on a prophetic stake…” **

          “Why are you gazing so long? – My friend approached me. – Are you wondering? Yes, sometimes, it can be with the batik. Strange, not pleasant, but a good job.”

          “That’s me”, I said.

          She didn’t understand:

          “Are you crazy? You are a young beautiful woman and …bla, bla, bla”

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          How many times, later, I asked my son to copy this work. He doesn’t understand me, either: “Mama, come on! Leave me alone! Don’t you see? It’s ugliness! You don’t have taste.” (Perhaps, it’s my kind of masochism)

Some time ago, when I was preparing this essay, I fetched a photo of this work to glance at it again… Yeah, the stump is old and hunched. One won’t go far with such disability. The worn out eyes take a last look through me longer …where? …in the sky?.. The cut branches are spread freely like wings…

          And then I noticed a small flower wasted away, growing from one side. I hadn’t seen it before.

          Why?

          And you? Do you know why flowers grow on old stumps?

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The flowers, which come towards roads,

perish earlier than others.

They’re trampled by pitiless feet,

and hands tear them off.

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But anyway, at that time,

when the sun and warmth come,

see how stubbornly far

flowers come towards roads.

A.Varabei.

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Toronto,

2002