The First Breath Of Freedom

Author : Sofia Faddeeva
Publisher : Sofia Faddeeva
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 280 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Download or read book Battle of Colors written by Sofia Faddeeva and published by Sofia Faddeeva. This book was released on 2023-11-24 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ANNOTATION Soviet upbringing meets capitalist reality in this poignant and explicit woman experience tale that pits mystery vs. madness, patriarchy vs. love, and Russian Far North vs. Latin American South. TRANSLATOR’S FOREWORD Literary aficionados may delight in finding among this novel’s themes certain parallels to a great diversity of other novels and stories, from "The Joy Luck Club" to "I’m Your Horse in the Night" – and yet "Battle of Colors" is as authentic as can be. The author’s manner may seem somewhat more overwrought than today’s English – and especially North American – reader is used to, but that is part of the game. It is definitely a woman’s story. It is a jarring account of the white privilege – both real and perceived, however unsettling the last notion may sound. It is a passing snapshot of the disappearing Soviet mindset, presented in this book free of ideological tenets, as well as of life and politics in a Latin American country as seen by a quickly learning immigrant. It is a tale spanning across cultures and continents, a tale of portraits and musings, violence and horror, sex and mysticism – although, as a F. Garcia Lorca’s line in the beginning warns the reader, it is first and foremost about Love and Death. PROMO QUOTES WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE ...No, he did not rape me. I raped myself, forcing myself to put up with it... Why? Because I didn’t want to lose him to another woman? Rubbish! A person can put up with something only out of love. Not out of vanity, material benefits, the desire to be loved the most, pride, or ambition. I am the one guilty of violence. As for him, it wasn’t about sex. WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE But I remember, as in slow motion. The frying pan with potatoes flipping over, and the oil stain spreading over the wooden floor, wider and wider... the milk that I just put on the stove to warm, pouring down on my head and flowing from my hair onto the clothes...myself being dragged from the kitchen, where I was trying to hide, into the hall – I push back, I don’t want to go there, there are people outside the windows... the phone receiver raised high – this man is so tall... why is everything happening like in a slow-motion picture?.. the receiver comes down on my head. I feel dull pain and hear humming in my temples, I am lying on the floor... "Enough! We’ve seen everything!" voices outside say. WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE ...And the truth is that the children do need a father, they do need housing and money, the woman needs the man toward whom she can feel pity and love, so that she can cry after quarrels and then listen to confessions of love and pleas for forgiveness. The woman needs the man to sleep with at night, to know pleasure. And the truth is that there can be no pity or love for the man who beats and humiliates you, that you don’t need any housing and money from such a person, and children don’t need such a father! Everything that this woman will tell you will be true, and nothing will be true. WOMAN’S EXPERIENCE Does he need a tragedy, or is it enough for him to see me this way: powerless, weak-willed, dependent on the smallest movement of his finger, at his disposal, at his mercy, having my eyes glued to his madding eyes? Does he need bruises and burns on my body? Does he need my pain? No, he doesn’t feel it. He needs my fear. This he can see. He holds a cigarette to my breast and sees the fear in my eyes, he jams my hand in the door and enjoys the horror in my eyes, he threatens to hit me and enjoys the shiver of my soul. He doesn’t beat me. He wants to hurt my soul. LOVE Looking back, I am convinced that lovers should be together, and if they happen to part for a time, they must be ready to forgive each other many things… As for the real vs. false love rhetoric, it is meaningless and contrived. Everything is real – and everything is fake... because every feeling is unique. There is no standard, there is nothing to compare it with. Our conscious struggles with the subconscious, and our morals interfere with that struggle – but as a participant, not a judge. And we are confused, being the first and the second and the third simultaneously. Nothing is a mistake, and guilt is nothing. There are only contradictions – within and without. LOVE What have you done, my sweet one? Why have you made me go through so much abuse? Why couldn’t you forgive me then and there? Now I really can’t... His tears come in streams. Just like that other time, when my mother tried to persuade him to leave me if he wished me well. "I'll never find a woman like you!" So what have you been thinking before? It's too late! I am not yours anymore! And this is your fault! You’ve made me love another man! You’ve squeezed my love dry, like juice from a lemon… LOVE Love is an illusion, a deception, it comes for a while and always goes away. Love is joy and pain... Do I believe in love? Yes, I believe in love, I believe in the most beautiful of illusions, I believe in the most beautiful of deceptions, I believe in joy and pain, I believe in love. Yes, it exists, yes, it gives strength, it’s the meaning of our life... But I avoid love. MYSTICISM I have no idea how I am so sure that I’ve never lived in the ancient Rome, Greece, or Judea, that I’ve never been to Byzantium – I’ve lived before that, and after that, and I’ve been a barbarian, a plebeian, a slave, a robber, a pirate, male and female, and only once I’ve been a most sophisticated aristocrat, and I’ve always been cruel, beautiful and strong. MYSTICISM ...men wearing strange clothes, armed with spears… fire, shouts and my laughter, when flames broke out wild at my feet. I wasn’t screaming in pain. I was laughing at those who were burning me. I despised and hated them. My own pain and the pain of others seemed trifling to me, and my life and the lives of others, worthless... I was cursed… MYSTICISM I am ashamed of my fears. I just got scared by my own feet! But then I almost physically saw that presence take the shape of a man and walked to the door, retreating from the sun. And now I am left with horror and bitterness, but most of all with bewilderment and curiosity. "What, time to go back to the cemetery? Can’t stand the sun?" I whisper. "Guess you haven’t kicked the habit of leaving through the door yet, eh?" RACES "Are you crazy to marry an índio?" the young man jumps from the polite "you" to the informal one. "He is not an índio, he's an engineer!" "Does your husband beat you? Indios love beating. At my hacienda I penalize índios when they beat their wives, but then the women come and cuss at me for penalizing their husbands!" Weren’t he so straightforward, I would have thought that he’d heard about us from some friends and now is just playing me. But obviously that is not the case. RACES An índio is a creature of the mountains, dirty, unkempt, uneducated... basically, a draft animal that we, non-índios, use to get bags and baskets carried from the market to our houses. We hire this animal to do hard work. Indio women come and wash our clothes, cook dinner and clean our houses for meager pay. Of course, we teach them some vestiges of culture and hygiene. Indios are those we should care about as good, merciful Christians. Indios are a terrible power that unleashes when they get intoxicated with reed vodka and start cutting the air with their machetes, shouting carajo! – they descend from the mountains and try to rush our battle tanks surrounding them. An índio is a lesser human being, even if he succeeds among white people. MUSINGS We humans are all turncoats. Sooner or later, on purpose or not, consciously or unconsciously, we turn our backs on our loved ones, our friends, partners, children, parents, we turn on our neighbors next door and on our neighbors next country, and we turn ourselves. We can’t help it: life is full of turns and turnabouts, we turn this way and that, and so do our loved ones and our circumstances and our feelings. This is the way the world turns. We are human, we turn. Life is impossible without turning. MUSINGS The depths of human nature are home to turmoil and chaos. When they say "pure of character," what they usually mean is the upper layers of the soul, exposed to public view. The chaos and the turmoil are something everyone is supposed to hide: people have agreed among themselves that this way it feels nicer to be around one another. But what if the purity and the chaos are combined, grown into each other, soaked through with each other so that isolating them again is impossible? USSR Oh, don't you know what people back there think about our marriages: she went after a pretty life! And if you come back… "Aha, got your pretty life!" they will say. "Drank from the bitter cup! And now going back under mother's wing, you slut!" They’ll be angry and envious, alright! They know full well they’ll never be able to get out and see the world!.. And what about your kids, especially the ones a bit darker than the locals? ...Will you be able to stay in the lines for some drab clothes to dress yourself and your kids? Will you be able to find a decent job with your ruined personal record?.. SEX His infinity burst and strung on a chain of fireworks, flowed out like liquid fire and fell into the cold – but I knew no fulfillment. With great patience and countless tricks, he would lead me to my final point, which turned into weak suspension points, and from there it quickly turned into a comma waiting for a continuation. I couldn’t do anything with that damned comma... I told him all I knew and thought about myself, and the story began from my birth. He listened and tried to conquer the comma again – he couldn’t put up with it, he wanted to change me, although he said that he accepted me the way I was, but he wanted more… And again the cursed comma stood between us. ABUSE A mad, drunk hand pushes him still lower into the tank, holding by the hair… He is out of breath... The delicate, unrecoverable connections in his brain are broken... His father's hand feels no resistance anymore. His mother rushes screaming from the house and throws herself at the father. As his father switches his violent attention to the woman, the boy crawls out and hides behind the stacks of boards. He is cold. His teeth are clattering. He has nothing to cover his body with for warmth. But gradually it gets warmer anyway. He falls asleep. He doesn’t hear the screams and wails coming from the house… In his dream, he is dead. He sees his own burial... The parents are crying so bitterly! The grief brought them together. They are crying for their son.