There was once a woman who had a baby after leaving prison and decided she would rescue a political prisoner gallery

I remember Mamma’s smiling face, her laughter in the back garden, behind her a burst of laughter, a guffaw, it’s Papa, a Dad as happy as an angel, as terrible as a demon, they are beneath my teenage window, or perhaps I am younger. Think of us, me and my younger brother listening to music, or reading looking out the window at our happy parents. All the secrets in the world just being in the back garden. They are the people of the counter-stories, improvising a a a life. What do they believe, what do they want? They, Mama and Papa are hiding out in this utopian moment, with their children, me… It’s springtime. All of a sudden a desire awakens, the ageless songs of birds singing goodnight in spring, the songbirds may die, the song continues. A kite flies over, whistling to its other. The trees are coming to life, green leaves and buds emerging, hibernation season is nearly over. The old cherry tree by the house has died and will be cut down. All the forces and desires are reemerging… And there on the last sunny spot of the patio they are sitting talking. This moment, with us sitting in my bedroom gradually listening and hearing about who our parents were and are.. before that moment I, we thought she was a manager, a director of a hotel chain, and he was a professor, “teacher” (he would correct me) “I teach hegel and stuff” but on his office door i remember the “Prof.” sign. But here we are in spring, listening to our parents speak. Why? He asked, why did you do this? I heard papa ask this and wondered what he was asking mama about. I can see them sitting in the back garden facing westwards towards the evening sun. What are you asking? She says, pouring carbonated water into a glass. I can see the affectionate look on her face. An expression I now realized she only shared with him and us. I just wanted to ask how we ended up here — I don’t really understand. Yes you do, she replied. You have always known, it’s not special, it was our situation. We are here because I wanted to know what it would be like to be with you outside of the village, that’s all. And then later when i was here on my own, I wondered if being with anyone else would be better. And then I had her and thought, once you were not in prison you could at least know she existed. To see us without the constraints of prison, to see what it would be like, papa said. Mama puts her hand on him, his shoulder, or thigh I’m not sure where. She moved closer so their bodies are touching. Obvious really, i found once we met again in Moscow and came here that i wanted you, she said, I just wanted to know. And there was no point in asking you. It was my decision. True, you had the baby, it was your idea. We still read, we don’t go to the cinema, we sit on the sofa and watch dramas from korea, japan, china… is it strange we read when so many don’t… we no longer think to be afraid when the door is knocked on. For us this may be a foreign land, but not for them… from this reign of terror, spirit is unabled to return to the concreteness of the realms of culture…(Hegel) I have never been there. It’s a country, a town, houses, streets where I have never been and where I will avoid going. And yet years later, decades later, here I am, sitting in a hotel room writing this into my notebook, finding myself here, as if there is another me in this potential situation. I visited a a a house that was my mother’s home, her home, her old life, somebody else is living in the house and we are negotiating selling it to them. There are differences, a man li(o)ves in it with his wife and child, is he a criminal? A sick person suffering from strange illnesses that I don’t have. He looks like he wants to say something to me. But perhaps he cannot, these people from my mothers past life cannot speak. Their language does not have the words that they want to express what they need to say. Sometimes I feel as if they look at me with horror, is this because they think I am chocolate, delicious to eat but ultimately poison or is it because I am carrying the baggage of my mother? Whilst here i have not visited the place that my parents were imprisoned in together. The life that contained the secrets they shared had long vanished. Listening to them speak in the garden, years before this — the sentence and phrases became more vague and I am writing this from memory… My mother says… my name is Me-Ti, it used to be something else. to become Me-Ti, it was difficult. there was festival in NY, a public art gallery, with a theatre and a cinema attached. the exhibition of photos and paintings of a retrospective, some films by mekas (of all people), paintings by leonora carrington, strange memorials of the death ship, attempts at filming versions of capital. tv screens of the images of the poor, projected films on the ceilings of the high gallery. i am a thing sipping black tea, feeling out of place in this bohemian plateau, a, the representative of the sponsors. i am the sponsor, they have got carried away with an idea of representation. what is this thing? a building full of technology, they think it will help liberate. I should have brought a glock with me, for when i have to stand on the stage. to talk to these americans, a hospital shooting just down the road, and yet so much of my history would disturb these petit-bourgeois. The director sees me and walks over to collect me. what are you going to say? the director asks. i smile at him and say you’ll see. “Good evening, the director never asked why we gave this years budget for the arts to this event. Why is this thing here? Pointing at myself. Because I thought it sounded like a good idea, until I found out that I had to come here and speak. What is this a festival of? What does this thing think it is a festival of? You might say it is because it is ten years since I was released from prison. I am a thing who was in jail. And i do think, we, me and the man have earned the right to say fascism at the drop of a hat…” and so on…