Chapter 7. Under the Collapse
It wasn't that the serene times ended abruptly and suddenly. Rather, it was like a mountain collapse that begins with a few pebbles rolling down a slope and carrying with it a whole avalanche of stone.
Such pebbles were several deaths.
Grandpa Kirill died. It happened on Easter, and my mother was just about to go to the village the next day to visit her parents. The death itself shocked me. What do you mean — grandfather is no longer there?.. It seemed that the whole village had collapsed, disappeared, and it was also gone. Because how could it exist without my grandfather? The world seemed to become more empty. What had happened couldn't fit into my head. And the grief of my mother, who was only a day late for her father, and never saw him alive, made it even worse.
Great-grandmother Domna and great-grandfather Rodion died. Almost simultaneously. She was well into her 90s, and he, if I'm not mistaken, was 102 years old. As I have already said, she died long and painful, more than one month. My great-grandfather cried all the time. When she was buried and arrived from the cemetery, he got off the cart and fell without feelings. The old man was brought into the house, and laid on the bed. He never regained consciousness again, and died when it was nine days after great-grandmother's death. These two deaths made another huge hole in my world, as if they burned out part of reality.
In the village, which turned into a lifeless ghost for me, there was only my grandmother Vera remained, who was already drinking quietly before her husband's death, and after that she began to drink heavily.
Around the same time, the Chornobyl disaster broke out, and the word "radiation" firmly entered our vocabulary. Of course, not immediately. There was no panic, because not all the information about what was happening was made public, and certainly no one was in a hurry to warn the population about the radiation danger. And then it was too late to panic. During the very days of the accident we walked outside in the wind blowing from the south. Then we also went to the village. Homieĺ got a big dose of radiation. Our village turned out to be in one of the zones of the strongest radiation contamination, was declared uninhabitable and was evicted. But not then, but only a few years later, when most of the people there had already died or moved away, and only a few old people remained.
The summer in the village without grandfather and others was strange. As if passing into some other, faded reality. Everything seems to be the same — but not the same. Grandmother Vera also left afterwards — to Russia, to her son Alexander, my mother's younger brother. There she soon died of a stroke. The house in the village, my uncle still managed to sell it somehow. And there was nothing left. Nothing at all. A huge and happy part of my life has gone, leaving behind a sense of irreparable loss. I still dream about the village. And some relatives still go there, to the former village cemetery. You can't enter that area without a special permit. The military are there, you have to pass through a checkpoint. The area is overgrown with wild forest, where wild boars, wolves and moose have bred, and where it is dangerous to go.
In the second half of the nineties we had another visitor from Kazakhstan. They travelled to the place where our village was and filmed everything on a video camera. I watched the video. Solid thickets — a sea of lilacs and a forest. Here and there are the ruins of houses, and more often there are only ovens sticking out among the greenery and looking like tombstones. The sight is eerie and depressing in itself, but especially so if you know how things used to look, remember the people, remember what life was like there. One of the deep scars that cover my soul came from watching that video.
Some time after Chornobyl, radiation became a familiar part of our lives. Everyone understood everything, but who and what could do? I had to put up and live with it. As usual, people began to rethink the new reality from different angles of perception, and it was even reflected in folklore — jokes, various fairy tales, sad jokes. There was also a rumour that vodka helps to remove radiation from the body. Not everyone believed it, but many people really wanted to believe it. At that time, they drank it, saying that it was not alcoholism, but treatment from radiation. And someone said it with obvious irony, and someone in all seriousness.
Skilful craftsmen appeared, assembling Geiger counters from improvised materials. The appliances were the size of a school pencil case and reacted to radiation with loud clicks. Probably half of the city got such things. We also had one. The counters were used actively, but senselessly. It used to happen that someone would come to visit, come in from the street, the owners would start running the counter over his clothes — and it would chirp like a songbird, and sometimes it would choke from the crackling. For some, it turned into a kind of entertainment, or into a kind of ritual. Then it became clear that there was no sense in such actions, only frustration. It's a nerve-wracking experience, and there's nothing you can do about it. Therefore, the popularity of Geiger counters quickly ended. They were still lying around everywhere for a long time, beaten and gutted by an inquisitive child, reminding of new realities.
Everyone soon got used to these realities and almost stopped worrying about it. But when Aunt Ekaterina, Oksana and Aliona went to Moscow, and there, having talked to someone at the station, they mentioned that they were from Homieĺ, a remarkable reaction followed. Some of those around them moved away, while others, on the contrary, approached and asked to remove their headscarfs and allow themselves to be tugged at by the hair to make sure that they were not wigs. When asked why it should be wigs, the answer followed, "Well, you have everyone there bald from radiation."
People got used to it, but the radiation never went away. Now it is less, but the consequences are still felt, and many people die of cancer here.
...All this intruded into my life as painful losses, then as threatening circumstances that were not even clear how to deal with. My personal reality became increasingly harsh. And soon something happened that became a cruel test for me.
Those were the days of the Cold War, the arms race and the associated threats and fears. Fears in general, and fears of my own. Before that, I somehow did not pay attention to such things. And suddenly I did. At that time, news about nuclear weapons — their development, testing, deployment somewhere, the threat of nuclear war, etc. I listened to it, and I was getting scarier and scarier. The fear was building up and growing. Being aware of this, I began to avoid watching the news. Which, unfortunately, didn't work out very well, because the TV was in the common room, where I spent almost all my time. In addition, I read various newspapers and magazines, where there were articles on such topics. Fiction, too, sometimes threw up something of the same kind. And then one day I came across a story that said that nuclear war had almost started several times, and it was prevented only by happy coincidences. It was the last straw.
That day a real horror came over me. It came — and it didn't go away, it remained, piling up an unbearable, suffocating weight. Fear of nuclear war. I was expecting it to start any minute now. Literally. I couldn't get it out of my head. I listened to every sound coming from the street. The sharp grinding of the car brakes seemed to me the sound of a siren calling to the bomb shelters. If in fact there was a siren howling, I collapsed and almost lost consciousness. When I heard the sound of a flying aeroplane, I was sure that it was the beginning of a bombing, and I shrank back, waiting for a nuclear explosion and a blaze across the sky. My days and nights became hell. It was worth the incredible effort to hide the insane fear from others. At times I was shaking, my teeth clenched. I had to squeeze them to a grind. Sometimes, someone noticed this and asked me why I grind my teeth. There was nothing to say. All I could do was look away and pretend as best I could that nothing was happening.
The torture lasted for several months. In those days I, then fifteen years old, got my first grey hairs. I think if it had continued like that, I would have gone mad. But something unexpected and amazing happened.
One evening I was sitting in a common room in my usual place. The television was on. My father was watching it, lying on the sofa. I was doing something, I don't remember what. Not so much doing something, as fighting against a terror attack, because when it started to get dark outside the window, it became even scarier. And suddenly a book appeared on the table in front of me. An ancient folio, opened in the middle. Dark cover, thick yellowish pages that looked like parchment and were heavy even in appearance. They were covered with text in an unfamiliar language. A strange, somewhat angular alphabet. Later I found and looked through what seemed to be all the alphabets of the world, but this one was not among them. I sat there, frozen, staring at the book in amazement. Suddenly I realised I had to turn the page. I reached out, picked up the massive sheet with my fingertips, and turned it over. It was light as a feather, even weightless. At the same moment the book disappeared. And with it, fear disappeared. Just gone, as if it never existed. It was like a huge mountain fell off my shoulders. It was such peace, such pleasure, that it is hard to find words to describe the sensation. It was as if I was breathing again.
My father, who was in the same room, didn't notice anything. And it was clear to me that I physically could not stretch out my hand and turn the heavy page. So what was it? That thing called a vision? Why did it happen and how did it work? What connection did turning the page have to the disappearance of the agonising fear? What kind of book was it, what kind of language? There are no answers. It's still a mystery to me. The only thing I can surmise is that it was something related to the Teaching that kept helping me, saving me. No other intelligible options come to mind.
My parents never found out about my torment or my unusual deliverance from it. What could I tell them..? Nothing. Not to them, not to my friends. And life went on as usual.
Only now it was very different. A lot of things had changed, and not for the better. In addition to what I told you above, there was another change, a very hard one: my father's drinking.
He had always been a lover of alcohol, but at that time he began to literally ruin himself by drink. And then some unsavoury aspects of his nature began to show themselves. Firstly, when he was drunk, it was as if he had lost some kind of restraints. Usually more or less calm, and hesitant, almost timid in communication with strangers, when drunk, he became rude, behaved defiantly and even aggressively, talked practically only obscenities, made lewd jokes and remarks. Secondly, he is a cowardly and weak character, but at the same time striving to dominate people. Such people pass in front of those who are stronger, but seek to get back at those who are weaker. I will never forget how he humiliated himself on the phone in front of his boss, who intended to fire him for drunken absenteeism. And at the same time, getting drunk, he shouted at me and my mother, insulting me. But if he often received resistance from her, then I could not oppose him, and he asserted himself at my expense. The words I heard most often from him back then was "Shut up!" My mother defended me, but that didn't make it any easier.
One day my father drove me so hard that I burst into tears. Seeing this, he, drunk, walked around the room and, rubbing his hands, said, "He's afraid of me!" He had a triumphant smile on his face. Mum said to him, "Fool! He's crying not from fear, but from powerlessness." My father answered, "No, he is afraid of me!" That's when I realised that he enjoyed making fun of someone who couldn't defend himself. That was the last time he made me cry. And that's when we began our confrontation, which gradually turned into a battle with his alcoholism. What I talked about above was the tip of the iceberg, only the very beginning of a painful epic that was to continue for many, many years. I will have to return to it many times.
Another new circumstance was that the doctors finally left me alone. You can consider this a negative point, but for me then it was a real relief. And what was the point of further attempts to cure unknown what? Even my family is tired of hoping for something and struggling.
A kind of final point was the loss of my medical card. It was thick — a whole huge volume, where everything for almost a decade and a half had been filed. And then it disappeared. My attending doctor, who had been observing me for almost all these years, spread her hands, "I can't find it, it's not in the polyclinic, it's disappeared." Later we learnt through acquaintances that she had prescribed expensive, scarce medicines in my name to other people, because I was entitled to them for free, and then destroyed the card to hide the traces. We found out, but what was the use? It was impossible to prove anything. And then I was given a new card. And when I soon had a new doctor, he was very surprised to see these two sheets. He said, "Is that all? Have you not been treated?" We explained the situation. He shrugged his shoulders, "How am I going to prescribe a treatment without knowing your medical history?" It was around that time that my close relationship with medicine ended. Appeals to doctors became rare and mostly due to flu.
I will also mention that it was the only time in my life when I thought about suicide. Not even about suicide... It was one of the big fights I had with my parents, who were collectively pissed at me that time, and my resentment was so great that I was ready to slash my veins. If something cutting had happened at hand that minute, I probably would have. Not to die, but to make them realise how bad I felt. Fortunately, there was nothing suitable within reach, and the affect passed without consequence. When I calmed down, I thought it over, analysed it, drew conclusions, and never allowed such thoughts again.
Sometime during the same period I tried to start a diary. Having heard about it, I decided to try it myself. A notebook was set aside for this purpose, in which I made the first entry before going to bed. The resulting diary was placed on a stool by the bed. That evening, after putting me to bed, my mother stood beside me as if she did not dare to say something. When I asked her, "What is it?" she said, "Can I read what you've written?" It became clear that I would not have a diary. She wouldn't hold back, and it was useless to forbid it. With a heavy sigh, I asked her to tear a page out of the notebook without looking at it and tear it up. That was the end of it.
The diary story can be safely put down as a failure. Probably, a detailed, daily chronicle of my life and thus of events connected with the Teaching would have been useful. However, it didn't work out... Much later, when I had a computer, this became possible. But I thought about how much had not been written down, and I simply did not want to start. There was a certain incompleteness, a defect in the future potential diary. Perhaps the decision not to keep it was a mistake. Perhaps I have repeated it every day since then — it was possible to start a diary whenever I wanted — and I continue to repeat it now. Either way, I think it's too late. And I don't feel like doing it. And to torture myself into writing... I don't think it's going to be any good.
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