Soon I will draw my last breath where I drew my first. But for now this room is my kingdom, this oak-framed bed my county. A compact yet comfortable domain, and I have learned that nothing outweighs comfort in old age. I am clean, well-fed, warm, cared for ? lovingly, beautifully cared for. And I have my memories, no small consolation for loss of strength and independence.
The past is my last and most precious possession. My recall absolute, but I?m no longer certain what I?ve seen with my own eyes and what I?ve been told.
I?ll concede that some events, some experiences, may have come to me second-hand, but I?ll not admit the great events I?ve witnessed have been tainted by forgotten conversations. What?s the harm if I was told about these things so many times by those who were there, that they?ve been absorbed into my own history? It doesn?t make the past less valid or true.
I?ve often wondered if memories and emotions, like disease, can be transmitted from one person to another. If so, that would explain why I?ve always felt so acutely the pleasures and pain of those I?ve loved.
I?ve had a good life, a long one, richer in every way than the one of poverty and bondage to iron and coal I was born into. I?ve seen and done things and travelled to places beyond most people?s imaginations.
I?ve lived like royalty in a St Petersburg palace and cowered, a hunted animal, in a burrow in the ground without a kopek or crust to my name. But the steepest climb I made was out of the Merthyr hovel where I lost my innocence and abandoned my childhood. I?ve broken more commandments than I care to dwell on, including Thou shalt not kill . But I feel no remorse for that sin ? if sin it was. Some men are evil and deserve death. If saying that makes me a poor Christian then so be it.
Perhaps that?s why I?ve lived so long. Ninety-nine years on this earth and still God doesn?t want me in his heaven. Possibly He?s asked Satan to prepare a place for me but the Devil is also reluctant to extend an invitation.
I sense my thoughts meandering into philosophy; the hobby of the ancients, the bane of the young. I?m not so decrepit that I can?t recall my irritation when I was on the receiving end of lectures from my elders. I believed I knew everything then, just as my grandchildren and great-grandchildren do now. They sit next to my bed with grave, unlined faces, solemn-eyed in the face of my old age and impending death, so sure of their knowledge and themselves.
They try to fool me and themselves that I have a future. That my life isn?t coming to an end.
It is, but it?s not over ? not while I can still dream ?
A shaft of light pierces the darkness. The door opens. I keep my eyes closed but I sense him creeping in, wary of disturbing me. It?s too dark for me to see his face but I don?t need the light. His features are imprinted on my memory. They are those of his great-grandfather, alive again.
He steals to the bed, removes the photograph album from my hands, and lays his fingers gently on my forehead.
His touch is soft, cool, like the whisper of the spring wind brushing over the Russian Steppe ?
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