On that cold night, I walked to the bridge. I saw many men and women, smoke issuing from their mouths, though, to my surprise, there wasn’t any tobacco scent in the cold air. I was about to sift through many years in the dusty archive of my memory, and my posture and gaze certainly didn’t convey the impression of a sociable person. I was far away, alone with my thoughts, and no one in the present was bothering me.
One winter, many years ago, I met a student—a very young girl. She was practically a child when my parents died and I was held captive. In her, in a poetess whose roots were in the world of butchers and executioners, I felt true beauty and an understanding of pain that was impossible for any other person.
Our feelings were that experience humanity has unsuccessfully tried to describe ever since the first spark of thought ignited in cavemen. We put our emotions and thoughts onto paper. I sang her hymns, yearning for a response, but I only heard emptiness in return. It was a cold feeling: the perfect lotus, grown from the mud, had found me but remained distant. I saw the face of it—the beauty and the detachment that separated us—and I also saw the murky water nourishing the flower.
This feeling was difficult to accept. Suddenly, as if the hand of providence intervened, she responded to my desperate cry with unparalleled sincerity and insight.
«My dear, I received your beautiful letter. You write that my silence is killing you. Understand that when I am silent, it is not because I am rejecting you. It is because I am trying to find an answer worthy of your words. I am not building a wall between us. Silence is a keepsake box into which I place your words so that they do not shatter against the noise of the world. You demand that I hear you. I hear you. Do not perceive this quiet as emptiness.»
I reread this letter countless times, staying up nights contemplating every word. There was something in these lines that held back truly inexpressible thoughts. These words contained more than just an echo of my own answering voice.
Then came proximity and separation, both seeming eternal. We met many enlightened individuals. We discerned the unity within multiple voices, and once, thanks to my dear companions, I met a man slightly older than me. His name was the name of a shepherd, the slayer of a giant, and the name of a king—and this man, with whom I shared a room, was a violinist. The musician only once spoke of his past—when he was miraculously saved from some calamity—and from his words, I understood that we shared similar suffering.
I sat, hunched over my poems, muttering absentmindedly, when my neighbor silently took up his violin and began to improvise. His music followed the words I was speaking, reflecting what I could previously only put to paper. It was another response from the world, received in such a sublime, pre-verbal way.
I never met the violinist again, but I continued our meetings, our correspondence, and our quarrels with the most beautiful poetess. Of course, everything came to an end. My hope faded, but I was left with that incredible letter—a scrap of paper that made the ensuing silence more bearable.
It was then, while we exchanged empty letters, that the ruthless enemy axe fell upon me. A calamity I had anticipated but was unprepared for. The spider and others claimed my words were hollow, passive imitations, and my tales of the great slaying and its victims—vile lies. These accusations reduced me to nothingness. I contemplated an act that would finally settle all questions and prove my rightness.
What happened next was a complete surprise. It was as if this was a third intervention in my destiny: the most distinguished people publicly and fiercely stood in my defense. I saw true allies; I saw them push back against the enemy. And I felt what true unity felt like—a unity based not on hatred or dogma, but on human dignity.
And tonight, in this cold night, I stood on the bridge. I looked at the black water, which could easily wash away all the ash, the unresolved problems, and the pain. I peered into the abyss, and my thoughts latched onto me again: thoughts of my quiet survival, of a world deaf to my words, of the executioners awaiting their moment. I pulled a slip of paper from my pocket—already worn thin from countless touches—but I didn’t unfold it. I recalled one melody and understood that I would never truly meet the author of this letter, and that I never could truly understand this woman. And, at least at that moment, I realized that being understood does not equate to being justified.
The bridge beneath me is cold. The river is black. I turned sideways toward the railing and started walking away. I didn’t feel warmer or any better, but an unshakeable feeling emerged—that my testimony, the voice of a million lost souls—my mission was not yet complete. And as long as I could scream, I could not afford to stop.