Step On Knife

We're still here.

Yesterday, Facebook planted a memory – on September 19, 2020, Alena Lazarchyk comes out with her son Artsiom from the gate of the orphanage of the Frunzensky district, and hundreds of people standing near the orphanage applaud and chant "Long Live Belarus!". The boy is given toys, his mother thanks people, and everyone is happy. It seems that we have reached the finish line: we have freed one child by the force of our solidarity, which means that we will soon release all political prisoners. People do not go under houses, but to the women's march to the center of Minsk.

I look at the photo and think back to that day. Women's march, flags, smiles. Then there were paddy wagons, beaten women, batons. I remember that it was on that day that the Swiss citizen Natallia Hershe was detained for ripping off a balaclava from a riot policeman. On that day, however, more than 300 women participants in the march were detained. I remember well even the name of that "victim": Konchyk. Don't ask me why I keep this garbage in my head, it's just that in Novaya Gazeta the story of Natallia Hershe was published under the headline The Dictatorship's Konchuk Is Comming [Konchyk stands for the end - Ed.]. So I remembered.

Memories are like a giant unwinding clew. Pull the thread – and it begins to unwind at supersonic speed, and the thread wraps around the neck, and suffocates, and does not allow you to breathe. And then they cling to each other, and it becomes even more difficult to breathe.

On September 19, we repulsed Alena Lazarchyk's son with the whole country. And when was she detained, the day before, or what?.. Oh, of course, it was September 17 – how can you forget, because on this day Marfa Rabkova was arrested. Yes, Marfa from the Viasna HRC, who was sentenced to 15 years out of the blue. I still do not understand how she managed to drag sandwiches to her court hearings to treat her "accomplices" – she worried about the boys, her cellmates later told.

And Alena Lazarchyk was lucky then – she was kept until late in the evening in the police and released even without an administrative case. Alena remained free for a whole year, but she knew perfectly well that sooner or later they would come for her. They came, of course, what else. They came and took her away – for eight years.

Again, I look at those shots where the first-grader Artsiom Lazarchyk is given to her mother. He is already in the fourth grade, and Alena is in prison. And only from the few testimonies coming out of there you can find out that she sees almost nothing, and the administration is trying hard to put her at the sewing machine. Alena refuses – even if she wanted to, she would not have coped with sewing, her eyesight does not allow it – and goes to a punishment cell. From an AdSeg to a punishment cell. She returns from the punishment cell to the squad literally for a day, because she is immediately put behind a sewing machine, she says "no" - and all over again, in a circle. AdSeg-punishment cell-workshop-SHIZO, again and again.

Memories cling to each other. Isn't this the sewing machine at which Palina Sharenda-Panasiuk sat for a short time? It was Palina who, when in the Homel prison political prisoners began to be distributed specifically for the tailoring of police uniforms, uttered the bitter phrase "they desecrate us". And together with other political women, she came up with a witty way out: they sewed and "spoke" to the police uniform. They scribbled and muttered, turning to the pants they made: “You will be a good cop. You will go over to the side of the people and help us liberate the country. As soon as you put on this uniform, you will immediately shout "Long Live Belarus!", and you will be supported by the same ones, in the form sewn by us." Where are you, cops in Palina-spelled uniform? Where is your "Long Live Belarus!"? Or maybe you, wearing this conspiratorial uniform, immediately fled abroad?

You know, but social media with their cleverly flipped memories have absolutely nothing to do with it. Without any Facebooks, we stumble upon them like sharp stakes. Women were beaten on this corner. From that balcony, Katsia Andreeva led her last stream that autumn. Around the corner is the courthouse where a friend was taken away for ten years. And in that village, a cousin works as a cattleman on "chemistry". The country is filled with memories, like knives. Take a step and you will die. From despair, melancholy, hopelessness.

Don't remember. Just forget. Leave social media. Throw out the damn calendar so that you do not mock with your numbers, reminding and tearing your soul. Become calm and confident in the future. Turn the page, as one ghoul said.

And forget about Palina. About Alena. About thousands. Then there's a chance. But this chance is not ours.

We step on a knife sticking out of the ground, so as not to forget. We are drowning in pain, but we are moving on. The next knife. It hurts, which means we're still here.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org

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