Age 13; Russia, Moscow.

Arseny.  He is my son.  He is my son, and I do not wish to speak of him in the past tense…

It is a hot June day when you come into the world, June 15th, 1989.  You are big – 4 kg 50 grams (8 lbs 15 oz)!  A serious boy with knit brows.  The image of your grandfather, my father, Igor Saslavsky.

What a great happiness it is to get up at 5 a.m., to don a white hospital scarf and carefully hide my hair under it, to wash my breast and then wait for them to bring in my little miracle for his feeding!  You already know that I am your mama, a mama who loves you more than anyone else in the world, a mama who will put her whole soul into you, and all her strength, a mother who will never let you get hurt.  You are under my wing and under my protection!

Do you remember the first time you went on stage?  You are four years old, the show is ‘Hambrinus’ at the Nikitsky Gates Theater, and the scene is ‘The Jewish Pogrom’.  It is a scary scene, and you are terribly frightened and tell me that you do not want to act anymore.  Later you think it all over and decide that you can cope with your worries and fear and it all turns out all right.  Everything always turns out all right for you: you make friends with everyone, with boys and girls, with the large and the small, and you get along in any company, not scorning anyone or discriminating.

It turns out that all by yourself, without anyone’s help, you get into the troupe of the musical ‘Nord-Ost’.  To the surprise of the physician from the Botkin Hospital, you rid yourself of the growths on your vocal chords, and end up playing the lead child role in the musical, the role of Sanya Grigorev as a boy.  And how you played it!  I tell you after the show that I am so proud of you!  I am so happy that I was able to do this.  Your father, however, cannot say a word after the show, because there is no word to express it.  He is simply stunned; he never expected such a thing.  He is also proud of you, my dear son!

Everything turns out all right for you, except that you do not manage to stay alive, to leave the captivity that fetters your body and holds you hostage there.  But one cannot take the soul prisoner, it is impossible, it is Freedom, Love, and it takes flight, your soul frees itself, my dear, my darling, my innocent baby.

You and Kristina leave this world together, a world where your life was but small change for those who pursue their interests at this awful “show”.  You both leave a world where the most valuable thing that can ever be, Life, God’s gift to us, is now devalued and destroyed.

Kristina is the girl you tell me about the last time we speak, the girl you buy earrings for but decide not to give them to her without a reason, and so you keep them as a surprise for her birthday.  All these expectations, hopes, and dreams, all of life… is in the past now.

And I am crying bitterly, and the tears dim my eyes.  There is a lump in my throat, but I know that there is no such thing as death, because you cannot kill something so beautiful, so cherished, so dear, and so priceless!

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