Belgium-based,
Belarus-born writer Aleksandr Skorobogatov

Your letter made me very glad, it meant that you were not angry, that, not knowing the reasons for my leaving ten years ago, you forgave and perhaps believed there had been reasons, that the reasons were serious enough, that they had nothing to do with you, that I loved you, loved you ten years ago and love you now, and always will. "Made me very glad," of course, is a hopelessly weak phrase, even with the "very." Your letter shook me. All at once it lifted from my soul the burden of guilt before you — too heavy to bear, guilt that for ten years had seemed impossible to atone for and was now, suddenly, just like that, forgiven by you with a single letter, my boy, the good son of the bad father.

Very little remains in my memory. Not only because of that first shock, but simply because twenty years have passed since I received that first letter from you, and much has been erased by time, the father and executioner of memories. I did everything I could to stay sane, to reduce the pain to proportions the heart could hold and the mind could bear, not to burn to ashes, to survive in the most literal, not allegorical, sense.

You wrote that, with your natural magnetism, you had charmed your teacher and, out of the blue, passed the hardest exam with top marks. It stayed with me because, even in that moment of strain, I laughed: that was exactly how I too, your father, had gone through life — by the inexplicable workings of natural magnetism, a straight-A student who session after session came away with top marks, but in reality a hopeless, chronic, passionate loafer and ignoramus. The resemblance both made me laugh and warmed me: my flesh and blood, my kindred soul…

And perhaps this was what you were truly proud of, though you mentioned it almost in passing: you were already driving pretty well, my strong, my brave son, though, out of modesty, you added: but reverse parking still isn't quite working out.

Ah, never mind, I thought as I read: just a matter of time, you'll learn. And time, as it turned out, you had none left, not only to get better at parking a car, but to breathe, to laugh, to push your hair back, to love, to drink water, to be loved, to lie in the grass at night and watch the emeralds pulsing in the black sky.

Life as a series of defeats. Can a father imagine a defeat more grave, more criminal, than the violent death of his own child — a child he did not protect, for whom he did not give his life?

My proud, my pure boy, how alone you were, how defenceless, how monstrous was the horror you had no choice but to endure, how beautiful you were and are and always will be in that surge of your astonishing, brilliant courage beyond reason: a defenceless boy who cherished his honour too much, who loved his friends too much. You managed to save them, your beloved friends; occupied with you, the three killers did not run after them.

When I am unbearably lonely and unbearably afraid, when I have no strength left to live, you know who I turn to for help? Yes. Exactly. To you. And you, my generous, my fearless boy, smile your beautiful, your tender, slightly shy childlike smile and hold out a hand to me: don't be afraid, Dad, if I could do it, so can you.

That is how you and I met again. When I walked away from you that last day, I promised you I would be back in a couple of hours and take you to the zoo. And I came back ten years later — taking you to the cemetery.

I kiss the forehead, I kiss the forehead, I kiss the icy forehead. My tender, my trusting boy, my defenceless son. The Fiery Lion would not bite the dead boy who closed his little eyes forever. My gentle, my endlessly good, my trusting son.