Chapter 1
– "What are you thinking about?" someone asked Mark. But Mark didn't answer; he was staring at a point that was growing into a large black hole, surrounded by a raging ocean that filled the remaining space, the darkening sky. "Here they are, the gates!" thought Mark. "The name is written above: 'Moment.' Here, two paths collide – the past and the future."
Again, he heard the voice:
– "Enter these gates, my friend, and the question of everything: 'Do you want this again and again, countless times?' will weigh heavily on all your actions. If you say 'yes' to joy, then you must also say 'yes' to all sorrows. Everything is connected and intertwined…"
Mark entered this space. He winced from pain – not physical, but emotional shock. His memory began to crumble into unorganized details. Visions flashed before him: lacy stockings, young plump behinds, feasts with abundant food and envious faces. Luxurious cars with proud owners, people rushing to work with unclear purpose, passionate business faces glued to mobile phones; restaurant tables with people dazed by their own existence. Quarrels, scandals, doll-like women's legs, and a sick sexual passion turning into hatred. Endless black men's suits and constant meetings. Amidst it all, the passion for creativity that hunted him all his life, like an addict.
"Again! It's probably just frayed nerves," Mark thought and looked around. There was no one around. Only a gentle wind caressed his forehead and hair like a mother's hands in the distant world when he was born.
When he was born, the great sadist Joseph Stalin was still alive. The war with another tyrant, Adolf Hitler, had ended a few years earlier. Incidentally, Mark's father was also named Joseph. Likewise, the respected stepfather of Jesus Christ was named Joseph, and both were Jews.
But Mark was ashamed of his Jewish heritage in that distant world where he once lived. Perhaps he was shamed for it. But here, now, he found it interesting and smirked, feeling close to the truth.
However, he was only half-Jewish. His mother was Orthodox and met his father, a young man returning from the front after Germany's defeat. Those were romantic postwar years when people sincerely believed in the invincibility of communism and its leaders. When the air was filled with the sound of beautiful tango, young people full of hopes and dreams fell in love, went to concerts, built families, fought for truth, sacrificed their youth for something important, and believed.
The country "came alive and bubbled with spring bloom." Yet people understood these were just slogans but believed "that's how it should be." Perhaps it was true: flowers, tango, and love; but the whole spring garden grew only on the surface – like the last hair sprouting on a smoldering corpse. The smell and stench were felt by all, but they refused to believe love could be shattered by poverty, faith broken by sadistic communists, and some never returned from the front. Somewhere, a ruined fate, or arrest, or execution. Applause for the communist messiah didn't help. The "hair" of official happiness thinned and fell out.
