Loveless and Pigeons

Nationally elected astronauts, fly to space.

Still, Lukashenka and Yermoshina had their silver wedding. She was ready for being banished from the CEC office already last year. She did not expect miracles. She said it was her last election, and then she would retire and wait for the end of her life. But a miracle happened.

Lukashenka came as a kindly Father Frost and allowed Yermoshina to reach her twenty-fifth birthday. On 14 November 1996, he appointed her to the position of Viktor Gonchar. It was only a month after she had been sitting in that chair for twenty-five years that he waved and said "talaq" three times. There might have been a party on the silver anniversary. Somewhere in Tsal Dir Bie, away from human eyes. Or even in the Drozdy. Lots of vodka and laughter. As guests, there were a lot of wiped-out, eyeless faces, which Yermoshina could not remember for a quarter of a century. And, of course, Karayev, Karpenkov and Kubrakov. They have probably been invited to entertain the public with hunting stories about the breaks-in into the flats of the Belarusians. In the break between meals, there was a film session with a screening of Azarenok. And any, either senior or junior. And, of course, toasts to the prosperity of the union of Lukashenka and Yermoshina. And his oaths, as if everything will last forever, he will never leave or betray. A month later, sorry, my friend, but it is time for you to retire. Karpenko is younger.

It's all in the past. Now Yermoshina is going to buy a newspaper with a TV programme and encircle soap operas to watch. She has nothing else to do. Pay attention, whenever she gave interviews to state media and they tried to ask about her private life and loved ones, it always came down to mentioning two mythical female friends in Kaliningrad. And now just imagine, a person has lived in Belarus for more than thirty years and hasn't made a single friend here. Thirty years in one country, twenty five years in one city. And there's nothing around. Only two distant friends, who remained in this status only in the imagination of Lidia Yermoshina. She simply has nobody else to mention. She remembers that she used to have female friends in her student years. But here, in Belarus, there is no one at all. She cannot blame either outrageous fortune or fateful coincidence, or a plague or an epidemic. She built such a life on her own, with her own hands, one brick at a time.

Perhaps she was once just a good girl Lida. Born in the year of Stalin's death. She saw people coming back from the labour camps. And when she was in first grade, Yuri Gagarin flew into space. All the children of that time dreamed of being astronauts. Sometimes, though, girls wanted to be ballerinas. The schoolgirl Lida, when her friends were dreaming about the space or the Bolshoi Theatre stage, used to say, "I dream of living my life so that when I retire I'll be afraid to go outdoors, and no one will say hello to me," then she was a very stupid, but also a very determined girl. Because she fulfilled that dream brilliantly. She can't feed pigeons in the park after her retirement. They will shower her with contempt, poop on her head and fly away. She should try to get to the park. One won't need any pigeons.

When one meets Stanislav Shushkevich in the street, one cannot stand and talk to him. Every minute people come up just to shake his hand. And if he wants to feed pigeons, a crowd will gather with loaves, the pigeons will gluttonize and fall asleep, and the quiet promenade of the pensioner Shushkevich will turn into an improvised press conference. Stanislav Stanislavovich will be answering questions and telling stories, while other passers-by will be stopping because it's interesting. And of course, shaking hands and taking selfies "me and the first head of independent Belarus".

One just needed to love the country and live guided by the conscience and reason, not by the primitive absolute reflexes, such as "to eat, shoot and hide in the cabin". And it has nothing to do with childish dreams. After all, Lukashenka and Yermoshina are of the same age. He must have dreamt of becoming Gagarin when he was a child. And that's what happened in the end. It is not Gagarin's fault. Although, if Lukashenka wanted to become an elected astronaut and fly to a distant galaxy, the Belarusians would have probably not minded. He would have won the astronaut election for sure.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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