Forbidden Flame in a Divided World

GALINA

My father was a priest. He would read the holy scriptures to me every night before I went to sleep. I loved those stories.

"Is there anything more romantic than a forbidden love?" he would ask, his eyes twinkling in the candlelight.

I remember how he would smile when I answered "no", because I knew that the same question was about to be posed to me, and I would say "no". And then he would smile as if he was pleased with my answer, and then say, "Well then, we'll just have to make you think, shall we?"

I would laugh, and he would laugh too, and he would look so happy, and I loved him dearly, and I would ask him to tell me the next story, and it was never the same.

When the time came for me to marry, I was told that I would have to live in a land far away, where men wear horns and women wear horns and there are no priests to read the holy scriptures to you, and the land is marked by forbidden love. I had asked my father what forbidden love meant, and he had looked at me sadly and said that I would know when I got there.

But I didn't want to go, and so I did the only thing that any young girl in my position would do. I packed my bags, I stole my mother's jewellery, and I ran away to meet my true love. My heart was pounding, and I wondered if my father could hear my heartbeat from where he was, in heaven.

I had no idea where I was going, so I stopped a man in a uniform and I asked him for directions to my true love. He looked at me strangely and asked me who my true love was. I told him, and he stared even more at me, and then he told me to get back to wherever I had come from. I had no idea where I'd come from.

So I walked, and I walked and I walked until I saw a big building with a big flag on top, and I went in and asked the man behind the counter where my true love was. He looked at me as if he was beginning to understand why I was here, and he told me that my true love was in prison, and that I would have to pay to see him.

I had no money, so I cried and cried and cried until I couldn't cry anymore. Then I asked him how much to get my true love out of prison, and he said he would have to ask his boss. Then he left and went into a room, and I waited and waited and waited and then he came back and said that he couldn't afford to let my true love out of prison, but he could give me a card that enabled me to visit him.

The card was black, and it said something about a number, and I didn't understand, and so I went outside and asked another man where I could get some money. The second man also looked at me strangely, and he said that I had to get a job. He showed me a list of jobs, since everyone had to have a job, and I chose the one closest to my true love, and I went to the address, and there were a lot of people there, and they were holding signs, and I held up my sign and joined in.

Eventually, a man came and asked us to follow him, and he led us to a big hall, and there were a lot of people there, and they were all holding signs, and they were handing out voting slips, and they told me to fill mine out and put it in a box. I wrote my name on my voting slip and put it in the box, and then I went home and waited.

The next day, the television in my house told me that my vote had been counted, and that it had not been the winning vote. I was very disappointed, and I felt as if my heart was beating louder than ever, and I wondered if my father could hear it from heaven.

My personal assistant told me that I had to get a *real* job, and that she had found one for me, and I would have to wear a uniform and I would have to go to school. She told me to get in the car, and so I got in the car, but I could sense that something was wrong, and so I got out and ran.

I ran and I ran and I ran until I reached a big building with a big flag on top, and I went in and asked the man behind the counter where my true love was. He looked at me as if he was beginning to understand why I was here, and he told me that my true love was in prison, and that I would have to pay to see him.

I had no money, so I cried and cried and cried until I couldn't cry anymore. Then I asked him how much to get my true love out of prison, and he said he would have to ask his boss. Then he left and went into a room, and I waited and waited and waited and then he came back and said that he couldn't afford to let my true love out of prison, but he could give me a card that enabled me to visit him.

The card was black, and it said something about a number, and I didn't understand, and so I went outside and asked another man where I could get some money. The second man also looked at me strangely, and he said that I had to get a job. He showed me a list of jobs, since everyone had to have a job, and I chose the one closest to my true love, and I went to the address, and there were a lot of people there, and they were holding signs, and I held up my sign and joined in.

Eventually, a man came and asked us to follow him, and he led us to a big hall, and there were a lot of people there, and they were all holding signs, and they were handing out voting slips, and they told me to fill mine out and put it in a box. I wrote my name on my voting slip and put it in the box, and then I went home and waited.

The next day, the television in my house told me that my vote had been counted, and that it had not been the winning vote. I was very disappointed, and I felt as if my heart was beating louder than ever, and I wondered if my father could hear it from heaven.

That night, I asked the man in the uniform if he would like to play a game of chess with me, and he said yes, and so we played chess, and he told me his life story, and how he had fallen in love with a girl who lived far away, and how he became a stowaway on a boat, and how he had been captured and imprisoned, and how he was looking for his true love. And then he asked me if I would like to be friends with him, and I did.

And so we walked together, and we kept walking until we reached a big building with a big flag on top, and we went in and asked the man behind the counter where our true loves were. They looked at us strangely, and they told us that our true loves were in prison, and that we would have to pay to see them.

We had no money, so we cried and cried and cried until we couldn't cry anymore. Then we asked them how much to get our true loves out of prison, and they said they would have to ask their bosses. So they left and went into rooms, and we waited and waited and waited, and then they came back and said that they couldn't afford to let our true loves out of prison, but they could give us cards that enabled us to visit them.