the system of un-presence SAROV
I look at their old photos and I see life that I never assumed even existed. I never perceived them as something separate from my own life, as if everything they did revolved around me. Maybe that’s why their death felt like something in me has died. Not like an external tragedy, but an erasure of the part of me that I didn't even think I had. It’s not like we were sharing our deepest thoughts and secrets with my grandparents, but I've always had a feeling that with them, time never moves. Partially because they used to perceive me as a child no matter how old I was, partially because Sarov itself has always been the place where I was never expected to move, work, study or do anything at all. It was a place for the vita contemplativa, sweet boringness, where I could always escape whenever I wanted. For as long as I remember myself, Sarov has stayed the same despite some minor changes in the exterior. I’ve never pictured my grandparents outside of it, outside of this flat, outside of my own existence. They’ve always belonged there, to this space-with-no-time. I thought it could never change.
I already emigrated when they died.
Somehow I always thought that when I come to Sarov they’ll eventually show up as if nothing happened. When I entered, the smell was there. The slippers were there. Everything is there, but it still feels hollow and empty. As if there’s a minor small detail that you cannot even grasp that’s lacking. What’s funny is that it’s not a minor detail, but it’s everything. THEY are lacking.
My mind refuses to recognise it, as if the time had stopped the last time I saw them. Sarov and the time was always a whole another thing for me, I’ve always believed that it worked differently here. Here were the lazy holidays, it was not a space to “live” for me, rather it was a space to exist aimlessly. Wander around the same places over and over again. See them become smaller. Cry while saying goodbyes to my childhood. This time it happened again. It happened again to the place to which I thought it would never happen – to the big ladder called Miru Mir (Peace to the World). When you arrive in Sarov and don’t want to catch a taxi, you can easily go to my grandparents’ flat by foot. But the problem for me was always this ladder. It seemed too high to pass it from the bottom to the top, so I would always ask someone to pick me up or even spend more time going around through the town. This time there was no one to pick me up. And it turned out that this ladder is not that big. It seemed so normal and doable this time, and it really got to me how much I've grown up. So when I entered the flat I was thinking that something would change there as well. But nothing did. And it was the weirdest thing out of all.
Their glasses. Clothes. Medicine. Notebooks. Remotes from the TVs. Everything here is ready for them to come back. This effect of their presence in reality marks what Brodsky called “the system of un-presence” in one of his poems. The more you feel the presence, the harsher is the realisation that it’s only a simulation. That it’s signifying without a signifier. The more ghostly noises you hear, the more you realise that it’s not THEIR noises. This flat is a shell with no one inside.
You feel like the time is still here, but it’s a trap. The date of December 23rd 2023 on the calendar here is a trap. You want to preserve and conserve this block of time, it’s luring you into thinking that it’ll never go away, but you’ve learnt your lesson. You know that as soon as you leave this place the time will resume flying at an excruciating pace. You know that you’ll never see this place again as it is. That the more something seems to last forever, the more temporary it is in reality. The sensation that Sarov exists only when you’re there is an illusion, and everywhere you can see the signs of it crashing. You can see the town getting older. The people who take the same train as you become different. My cousin is getting older too. Only the flat stays the same. But it will only be like that until my uncle moves in, and I know it, so this time in Sarov is my last time in delusion. Soon it will vanish.
Only nostalgia will stay. I guess I will never be able to listen to Spring Day by BTS without remembering the last summer they were alive. We quarrelled so much, and I was very lost at what I should've been feeling at that time. I was feeling quite strongly that it was our last time together, but death is too hard to believe in even when it happens.
I’m mostly afraid of forgetting right now. When I’m here today I can feel this system of un-presence, but it’s only because I remember them so vividly. I feel like they’re still here somehow, and I've started to understand the ones who believe in ghosts. Ghosts are in the expectations. Ghosts are in the waiting. Me waiting for them to come back. Me refusing to let them go. Me denying death. Me being delusional. To me, ghosts signify that I still remember. Especially here, where every sensation tells me about them. The worst thing would be to let go and let ghosts disappear. Then, my Sarov will vanish. A part of me will vanish. I cannot even say that something special ever happened here, that I need to remember exactly this special thing. It’s the space as a whole that is special, that became less special when they died, but still will hold traces of them.
Forever until I forget.
written in Sarov in july of 2024