The Gates of «Moments» Part One

Edward Nemirovsky

The Gates of "Moments" Part One

Chapter 1

– "What are you thinking about?" someone asked Mark. But Mark didn't answer; he was staring at a point that was growing into a large black hole, surrounded by a raging ocean that filled the remaining space, the darkening sky. "Here they are, the gates!" thought Mark. "The name is written above: 'Moment.' Here, two paths collide – the past and the future."

Again, he heard the voice:

– "Enter these gates, my friend, and the question of everything: 'Do you want this again and again, countless times?' will weigh heavily on all your actions. If you say 'yes' to joy, then you must also say 'yes' to all sorrows. Everything is connected and intertwined…"

Mark entered this space. He winced from pain – not physical, but emotional shock. His memory began to crumble into unorganized details. Visions flashed before him: lacy stockings, young plump behinds, feasts with abundant food and envious faces. Luxurious cars with proud owners, people rushing to work with unclear purpose, passionate business faces glued to mobile phones; restaurant tables with people dazed by their own existence. Quarrels, scandals, doll-like women's legs, and a sick sexual passion turning into hatred. Endless black men's suits and constant meetings. Amidst it all, the passion for creativity that hunted him all his life, like an addict.

"Again! It's probably just frayed nerves," Mark thought and looked around. There was no one around. Only a gentle wind caressed his forehead and hair like a mother's hands in the distant world when he was born.

When he was born, the great sadist Joseph Stalin was still alive. The war with another tyrant, Adolf Hitler, had ended a few years earlier. Incidentally, Mark's father was also named Joseph. Likewise, the respected stepfather of Jesus Christ was named Joseph, and both were Jews.

But Mark was ashamed of his Jewish heritage in that distant world where he once lived. Perhaps he was shamed for it. But here, now, he found it interesting and smirked, feeling close to the truth.

However, he was only half-Jewish. His mother was Orthodox and met his father, a young man returning from the front after Germany's defeat. Those were romantic postwar years when people sincerely believed in the invincibility of communism and its leaders. When the air was filled with the sound of beautiful tango, young people full of hopes and dreams fell in love, went to concerts, built families, fought for truth, sacrificed their youth for something important, and believed.

The country "came alive and bubbled with spring bloom." Yet people understood these were just slogans but believed "that's how it should be." Perhaps it was true: flowers, tango, and love; but the whole spring garden grew only on the surface – like the last hair sprouting on a smoldering corpse. The smell and stench were felt by all, but they refused to believe love could be shattered by poverty, faith broken by sadistic communists, and some never returned from the front. Somewhere, a ruined fate, or arrest, or execution. Applause for the communist messiah didn't help. The "hair" of official happiness thinned and fell out.

The country collapsed! It knelt! Then, with pain and shame, it began building a new, supposedly humane society. But all this was yet to come!

In those postwar times, his young parents decided whether Mark should be. Despite their higher education, they were in need, like the mighty Soviet people. The decision was "not to be," meaning to poison him with quinine. But neither they nor Hamlet could control this. From above, it was decided otherwise. His soul entered the body they lovingly nurtured.

Here he was, a two-year-old, running around a school's courtyard in a small provincial town they then lived in. It was autumn; he collected golden and red maple leaves. For this newly awakened sense of beauty, he paid immediately. A large German shepherd roamed nearby, glancing at him with displeasure. Absorbed in his creativity, he ignored her. As he bent for another leaf, there was a growl and bark. The rainy weather had spoiled her mood, or she disliked his plump rear turned toward her. She was of high pedigree. The shepherd lunged at him, biting his buttocks and reaching for his throat. Mark lay silently on the wet ground, surrendering to God and her. Feeling sharp pain, he screamed. The owner rushed out, initially unaware of the situation, as her body, twice Mark's size, covered him entirely. The owner pulled the dog away, leaving Mark only frightened.

"What did I do to her?" he pondered. "Perhaps I got carried away with my high ideas, forgetting others, the unfortunate and oppressed." In any case, he doubted the saying "a dog is man's friend." Perhaps people felt a lack of human friends. Everything depends on how one treats another being.

His mother once brought home a two-month-old puppy just separated from a shepherd's teats. It whimpered all night, and she rocked it in her arms like an infant, wrapped in baby clothes. Mark asked why it cried. She said it missed its mother. Soon they ran around the schoolyard together. Little Mark ran, and the puppy playfully bit his heels. Meanwhile, his mother made pancakes, and the aroma drew them both to the pan. After eating, they ran back to their games. At night, when Mark was usually bathed, the puppy sat nearby, grinning as Mark splashed displeasedly. In the morning, they ran to the yard, where a large apricot tree grew, barking and yelling for the stout neighbor to shake it. Sweet fruits fell like hail, breaking on their heads.

Once, before bed, his mother read Nosov's humorous stories to Mark. He laughed so hard he fell off the bed. It was his first encounter with real humor. The puppy was startled and jumped to a distant corner, usually sleeping under the bed. More surprised than scared: what was Mark so happy about, even without him?

Years later, when they lived in another city, Mark's father visited Andijan, where they once lived, to see friends. In a yard, he saw Barsik – Mark's beloved puppy. (They had to leave him behind when relocating.) But now he was a formidable wolfhound. The father didn’t recognize him. The dog lived with Joseph’s friends. Bars looked at the father and barked threateningly. Then he fell silent, looked again with sad eyes, turned, and left. That day, he didn't return.

Bars, with his mischievous face and smiling eyes, remained in Mark's memory as his first loyal friend. He had no other friends in that small town. Though there were peers he fought with, misbehaved, and spent the only happy days of his life.

Andijan, where they lived, was a green, sunny city with fertile land. The locals said if you ate a fruit and threw the seed on the ground, a tree would grow. It was true. Uzbek land was incredibly generous. Behind the city walls stretched vast fields growing watermelons and melons, their sweetness and aroma dissolving in the hot air. Around the fields were ravines and ditches with cool water. Beyond lay fruit orchards and small clay huts. The children roamed these fields all day, smashing watermelons with their feet and washing faces with sweet nectar, or diving into the cool ditch waters with squeals like a troop of monkeys.

Aside from its sunny hospitality and rich land, Andijan wasn’t much different from other provincial towns in the Soviet Union, with its endless local committees and party offices. These party offices systematically purged Soviet communists and resolved vital issues of the decaying state. Mark's father, like other party members, hysterically feared these purges, reminiscent of the chemical cleansings by Soviet-Jewish underground traders. In such offices, they could cleanse all spiritual and physical aspects of a communist, sometimes leaving no trace.

Though the country was dotted with these party cells, youth, love, art, humor, dreams, and hopes flowed like a honey river, and no one could turn it back. Educated, young, beautiful people came from all over the vast country in search of a fresh, new life. The run-down province turned into an international town blooming with children and beautiful women. This was stimulated (as was everything else) by communist party policy, which, surprisingly, sometimes bore healthy fruit. Not everything was bad, especially since all communist morality consisted of commandments given to the prophet Moses, albeit with a small amendment: the prohibition on believing in the one who gave him those commandments.

This minor amendment perhaps destroyed communist dreams. However, communism might someday come to the world, but not as a dream crowned with blood-red roses, rather as a law of being, not set by us. "But does it matter what social formation we should live in?" Mark wondered. "Nietzsche is right – 'values'! – the eternal world lies in them."

Each detail from his past life cut his memory like a razor. "These 'values,'" Mark reasoned, "in whose environment I lived, gradually drowned and suffocated me, like in a swamp where one doesn't sink for minutes but for a lifetime."

Mark now saw his whole life in a moment. He was stirred by the novelty and freshness of these new feelings. His memory, recently wandering in strange mists, betraying him like a frivolous woman, now became clear and strict, diving into the past or future – hard to say, for "all things eternally return, and we with them," as Nietzsche claims. In any case, Mark saw everything, all details of his birth. No talk of schizophrenia. He sighed with relief.

He saw the tiny town and the house they lived in. A couch stood by the porch, where he lay, watching snow-white clouds gracefully float in the sunny sky. His mother, as always, cried; he asked why, and she admired his observance instead of answering. The reason was the same. The young father was carried away by some "very interesting woman," as he always put it, believing this love should be noted in heaven. What would reach there first – his love or her tears – was unknown. But intrigues and love adventures flowed in this small town. The communist dream was distant, but beautiful young women and tall witty men were near. Generous eastern sun rays aroused their curiosity, and southern nature wrapped all mysteries in a romantic veil.