A Road of a Thousand Years. Part Four. Chapter One

The school greeted him with silence.

The corridors were no longer the same — the walls repainted, notices about English clubs on the board, and the staff room now smelled not only of chalk but also of coffee from a new machine. Everything seemed slightly alien, as if he had returned not home, but to a museum where exhibits were arranged not by memory, but by instruction.

New children sat in the classrooms — different faces, different gazes, different questions. They regarded him with curiosity — and a hint of irony.

“Why do we need Russian, Comrade Teacher? Everyone learns English now.”

“Even an enemy must be known — and understood,” he replied, trying to smile. “But, to be honest, I didn’t start learning Russian because of politics. I learned it because of one person. Because of a teacher who once read poems to us. I learned it even when I was in a labor camp.”

“And what is the most important thing in a language?” asked a girl by the window.

“The most important thing is not the language,” he said. “The most important thing is what the author feels. The most important thing is what you want to say when all words have already been spoken.”

He opened an old, tattered book, the very one Mei Lin had once held in her hands. Turning the pages, he suddenly felt time contracting, as if no time at all separated the past from the present.

“I want to read you some poems,” he said. “My teacher once read them to us. Perhaps you won’t understand all the words, but maybe you will understand the essence.”

He began to read. His voice was calm, but in every word sounded the memory of what had been lost, of what could not be returned. Outside the window, rain was falling, and drops trickled down the glass like lines that cannot be erased.

A sleep broken by a blast,
Someone’s death, someone’s gasp
 —  Repeats again…
Burnt flesh, and the earth, like a swing,
 —  Is swaying…
No retreat, and no forgetting,
 —  It remains…

He read, and the classroom was quiet. Even those who usually whispered were now listening without interrupting. He closed the book, looked at the students — and suddenly saw something familiar in their eyes: expectation, longing, hope.

In that moment, something changed in the classroom. Someone awkwardly dropped a book — and this sound rang out so sharply that everyone flinched, as if waking from a long dream. But no one laughed, no one said a word. Even when the bell rang, announcing the end of the lesson, the students sat silently for some time, not getting up, as if they did not want to let go of what they had just heard.

It had all happened already: this classroom, this sunset, and even his loneliness, which no longer seemed personal, but part of some ancient, inexorable history.

He knew that all of this was predestined: his departure, the school’s vanishing, and even this evening, with the sun setting as if bidding farewell not only to him but to everything that had ever been here.

And many years later, sitting in the emptied old school, he remembered the day when he saw her for the last time.

Part Four. Chapter Two →
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