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Belarusian Aliona Glukhova: "Writing in French to heal my wounds"
Aliona Gloukhova, in the Deroze villa.
© Elena Gabrielian / RFI
Text by: Elena Gabrielian
6 mins
“
This story was so painful that the words of my mother tongue had lost their meaning to tell it
”.
For Aliona Glukhova, a 37-year-old French-speaking Belarusian, writing a book about the mysterious disappearance of her father, in a foreign language, French, proved to be more therapy than a challenge.
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On the picturesque heights of La Ciotat, in the south of France, nothing reminds him of his native Belarus and its harsh climate.
Except for these creeks of turquoise water and the ocher-colored rocks that remind her of the drawings of her father, a dreamer who loved the sea. Glukhova, 38, is entering her new writing residency and never imagined that family drama would take her this far.
It all started in the fall of 1995, a few years after the fall of the USSR.
Aliona's father, whom she describes today as a "
romantic thug
" and a "
silent dissident
", embarks on a sailboat.
The journey of this dreamer thirsty for freedom turns tragic for his family who remained in the Belarusian capital, Minsk.
On November 7, 1995, Aliona learned of the disappearance of her father during a shipwreck off the coast of Turkey.
But his body was never found.
Is he dead ?
Did he decide to run away, "
impeccably
", disappear like "
a secret agent
»?
Fifteen years after the tragedy, Aliona Glukhova launches her research which will take her on the paths of the personal and identity quest and will end up making her a writer.
The idea of writing a book on the disappearance of his father was born during a meeting with a French journalist who came to cover the presidential election in Belarus in 2010. Aliona was his translator.
“
When I told him my story, he told me to write a book.
It was a bit of a joke that I took very seriously
,” she recalls, sitting on the sun-filled veranda of Villa Deroze on that wintry day in February.
Those azure eyes light up when she remembers how those words “
stored in an inaccessible place
” started to come out in a foreign language, French.
Since this meeting, Aliona's life has changed.
In 2013, she left her job as a professor at the Belarusian University of Vilnius to study creative writing in France.
During all these years, she is looking for her writing language at the same time as her father.
Aliona questions her family and breaks years of silence by bringing out shreds of memories.
She goes to Turkey, to the scene of the tragedy to "
feel the traces of this disappearance
", but she also delves into what could have been her father's universe, his notes, notebooks, drawings and letters, in particular the latter sent a month before her disappearance and which she did not discover until fifteen years later: "
After going through eight customs, I, a gray citizen of a gray state, turned into a world-class bum no one needs
.”
When Aliona discovers this sentence, she confesses to having thought that her father was capable of fleeing by letting people believe that he was dead.
"
Today, I don't think he would have done it, but when I read the letter, I said to myself that he could
do it ," she confides.
words that heal
To know what we are capable of, we must know who we are.
While trying to find out who her father was, Aliona learns that, out of conformity, he chose the profession of physicist when his heart leaned towards biology, but not joining the Communist Party, he had to face "
the worries of career
”.
However, by the irony of fate, it is thanks to his job that he was able to protect his family.
At the time of the Chernobyl disaster on April 26, 1986, its devices detected the radioactive danger.
While Soviet propaganda hides the truth, he shelters his wife and children.
"
Not having chosen the job of his dream, he used the imposed job to save us
," says Aliona.
Today, she no longer sees herself as an abandoned girl, but as a girl who was able to find her father, this daring, romantic and funny man who loved to write.
A man who, despite his strength, could easily have lost himself, but who always knew how to find a way out thanks to his gentle disobedience.
Through this mosaic of memories and imagination, Aliona managed to compose the portrait of her father in which she finally discovers herself.
Changing the trajectory of life, travelling, writing, disobeying the imposed order and being daring, she became the proud heiress of her father.
"
I stopped waiting for him, when I realized he was there, he was in me
", smiles Aliona who managed to fill her book with light where there is no place for words «
tears
and “
suffering
”.
Too worn, these words have been emptied of their meaning to be able to tell this story.
“
We had to find new words, I found them in French and I filled them with meaning by inventing my own language of writing, minimalist and just for this story.
I wanted to say so many things in one sentence that it was not possible in my mother tongue.
There were too many words
,” she said.
Telling this story in French, she replaces death with disappearance and disappearance with displacement.
"
When I found this word to talk about my father's story, it was a real discovery for me, I needed to take some distance, not to lessen the emotions, but to understand what is had passed.
This word cured me
,” she says.
Being a foreigner does not bother her, on the contrary, Aliona likes “
not to belong
” and now sees in her “
displacement
”, a vitality.
Far from her native country, ruled for thirty years with an iron fist by President Viktor Lukashenko, Aliona sometimes lets herself be carried away by a feeling of guilt for "
not being able to be there
", for not being able "
to face anything to the oppressive regime
" of which some of his friends have become victims.
It is with bitterness and nostalgia that she evokes these peaceful gatherings of the summer of 2020 that her father “
would have supported so much
”.
Would the dream of displacement turn into exile?
Who knows ?
But talking about it is already painful.
“
I feel the horror, I cannot make it understood and it is not necessary.
I don't want to project the horror, it has to be transformed into something else, into light, into a way out to be able to be told… For the moment I don't see any light.
So, this story has not yet found its words, even in French
, ”she regrets.
Having turned the page of her first novel, released in 2018 by Verticales editions, Aliona is writing her third book.
Thinking back to her beginnings as a writer, she says she "
jumped into the water
" without knowing where she was going to get back on her feet.
Aliona assures that her first novel,
Dans l'eau, je suis chez moi
, changed her life: "
Today, I am at home, between two languages, two cultures, two countries
".
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