Gorbachev swore it, too, and he spoke so beautifully… it had sounded so good.

But where are these happy people? On the radio, they’d said that after the war was over, we would all be happy, and Khrushchev, I remember, promised… he said that communism would soon be upon us. Happy people don’t want to die… and those who are loved don’t want to die, either. Some die in the cradle, others live until their hair goes grey. The spirit is the spirit and everything else is just dirt. When the spirit leaves, there’s no person left, just the dirt. But when you’re alive, even if you’re unhappy, you can walk around in the breeze or stroll through the garden. Maybe he really was a devil! How can you watch? Where do you look… in what direction? After death, there is nothing. The women would shame him and chase him away: ‘Shoo, devil!’ but he’d just sit there. In our village, where I lived with my parents before I was married, there was an old man who liked to come and watch people die. By the time I got outside, Sashka was on the ground, moaning… his head all yellow… You’re not from around here, what do you care? What do you need a stranger’s grief for?Įveryone wants a good look at death. What can you say! He ran over, started trying to put him out. A student had been walking past, there’s a technical college nearby, and there he was, a man on fire. An old person’s voice… a familiar voice, like Sashka’s… and then another, younger voice.

I was sitting here watching TV when suddenly I heard screaming. He burned alive on his vegetable patch, among his cucumbers… Poured acetone over his head and lit a match. Well, death never comes for no reason, there’s always a reason. Strangers, what do you want, coming here? People keep coming and coming. ON BROTHERS AND SISTERS, VICTIMS AND EXECUTIONERS… AND THE ELECTORATEĪlexander Porfirievich Sharpilo, retired, 63 years oldĪS TOLD BY HIS NEIGHBOUR, MARINA TIKHONOVNA ISAICHIK

Secondhand time alexievich