I
wake up, a weight is pressing down on my chest, now, then, there is a blizzard,
a white out, and the sky is going black, I can’t breathe.
We
walk from the corner at the end of the village, along a long straight road
lined with poplars, walking up the gentle slope, faces turned against the wind
from the East, eyes squinting into the low sun, sometimes we turn to see
through the stinging snow towards the dark squat hangers of the squadrons of our
people, the narod, and sometimes we could hear the sound of the
bombers like thunder in the air, but today there is only the moaning of the
wind from the East, straight from Siberia as the old ones say, we walk on to
the quarry, and into the canyon of snow, great drifts rising on either side,
and it is our mission, we have to dig our way through to our people, the narod,
to dig the tunnel to the other side where they are waiting. This is where we
learnt to make sacrifices. Suddenly there is a cry from within the darkness of
the tunnel, and the word comes back, they have broken through, but the hole is
still too small to pass through, too small for a man, but for a boy we think it
is possible, they say, and their eyes turn towards me and I know what it is I
have to do, hands lowering me down by my legs into the tunnel, my arms reaching
out towards the other side through the small hole, and the other hands touching
mine, taking hold, and beginning to pull, as if I am become the tunnelling
machine myself, some pulling, some pushing, but the hole is too small, we have
to try harder, they say, all are longing for that final breakthrough when all
our people, the narod, can all finally be reunited again, those
on one side who have hold of my legs and those on the other who hold my arms,
and my face is pressed hard up against the icy tunnel wall, and inside it has
become still and it is growing darker, and outside there is the sound of the
wind and the rustling of the drifting snow, and now, then it is becoming black,
because black is also the colour of light.