Chapter Text
( 5 )
Valentina
The lady on the telephone told Oksana’s mother that they couldn’t spare an ambulance to pick up Dyadya Sergei, so the girls’ mothers bundled him into the back seat of the car of their only neighbor who owned a vehicle. The neighbor volunteered to drive them all to the hospital, so they piled in.
From the back seat, sandwiched between Oksana and Dyadya Sergei, Valentina watched the long, straight streets of Pripyat roll past. How badly hurt was Papa? What was wrong with Dyadya Sergei? He looked so different. Everything looked different.
Smoke filled the sky. It cast shadows across the city. In the dimness, policemen patrolled and women walked hand in hand with their children, and men went into shops. A trio of soldiers wearing gas masks strode down the pavement. At a sidewalk restaurant, a crowd lifted their glasses in a toast, and a young woman in a white dress blushed. It was a wedding reception. People were celebrating, and Valentina’s father was in the hospital. Nothing felt real.
At Pripyat Hospital, a nurse whisked Dyadya Sergei away. The girls’ mothers went to the resection desk to ask about their husbands.
Valentina hugged the bag of cucumbers to her chest. For a moment, she and Oksana stood without speaking until Valentina couldn’t bear the silence anymore. There were too many questions in her head, crowding to get out. “What did you bring for your father?”
Oksana didn’t look at her. “Why do you want to know? So you can steal it?”
Heat rushed to Valentine’s cheeks. “I don’t want your stupid medicine.”
“Why not? My medicine isn’t good enough for you?”
“That’s, that’s not what I meant,” Valentina stammered. “I’m not a thief.”
“My father says your kind is always trying to steal from us.” Oksana started to say more, then closed her mouth. Their mothers were coming back.
“The nurses won’t tell us anything,” Oksana’s mother said quietly. “Come along. We’re sneaking upstairs to find your fathers.”
They took an elevator to the top floor. When the doors opened, a wall of noise roared out at them.
The corridor was a jumble of confusion. Doctors and nurses ran to and fro, carrying charts and glass bottles and trays lined with syringes and needles. A doctor in a white lab coat talked to a man in a dark business suit. The man must be a Communist Party official–Valentina saw a pin, embossed with a hammer and sickle, in his lapel. In the middle of the corridor, a group of women talked loudly. Some of them were crying. One of them, who had a big, pregnant belly, sobbed, “Leo, my Leo!”
“I don’t recognize those women.” A hopeful note hung in Valentina’s mothers voice. “Perhaps they’re from one of the villages. Maybe there’s been an accident, a farming accident, and that’s why they’re here–“
“No,” Oksana’s mother interrupted. She nodded at the pregnant woman. “I know her. Her husband’s a fireman in Pripyat. All of these ladies are probably firemen’s wives.”
Valentina seized on her words. The firemen must have been hurt while fighting the blaze. Her papa was probably resting in one of these hospital rooms, eager to be discharged and home with them again.
Her mother grabbed the arm of a passing nurse. “We’re looking for our husbands. They were on duty at reactor number four last night.”
“They might be in the dormitory,” the nurse said. “You can come with me. I’m going there now.” She caught Valentina looking at the clear glass bottle in her hand and said, “Vodka. One of the best cures for radiation sickness.” She beckoned for Valentina and the others to follow her through an open doorway.
Valentina took two steps into the room and froze.
The smell was horrific: vomit, blood, and excrement, and something else, something that smelled like hot metal. She had to cover her nose to stop herself from out right gagging at the smell.
Dozens of men lay on cots. Their pale faces glistened with perspiration. Some were sitting up and mumbling to themselves, while others lay motionless under thin white blankets. Where was Papa? She didn’t see him anywhere.
A nurse rushed over to Oksana and Eleonora Ivanovna. She hugged Oksana’s mother, murmuring something Valentina couldn’t hear. They must be friends. Then the nurse led Oksana and her mother out of the dormitory. Valentina guessed Oksana’s papa must be in another room.
She looks away to scan the rows of cots. Where was her father? He had to be here somewhere.
Then she saw him. He was in a cot by a window. He lay still. So still. The banker covering his chest barely rose and fell. His eyes were closed.
Beside her, her mother gasped. “Nicolai.”
Valentina unfroze with a jerk. She raced across the room to her fathers bedside. “Papa!” she said, but he didn’t wake up. She laid her hand on his shoulder. Through the fabric of his hospital shirt, the heat of his body pumped into her hand. He was so hot she thought he would burn her, but she didn’t move away.
Her mother leaned over him, smoothing his hair away from his sweaty forehead. “Nicolai,” she said shakily.
He looked different from the man who had kissed Valentina good night only hours ago. His face was as pale and thin as paper; she could see the veins in his temples. Sweat had darkened his hair, turning the strands from brown to black.
What was wrong with him? He didn’t look as though he had been burned in the fire, and he couldn’t be sick from radiation poisoning, for everyone knew that was easily cured. So what had happened to him
His eyelids fluttered open. For an instant, they focused on Valentina. “Red stars in the sky,” he muttered. “Black pebbles on the beach.”
What did he mean? He wasn’t making any sense. Had the explosion damaged his brain?
The strong odor of drink wafted from him. Valentina guessed it was from the vodka the nurses had been giving him, to ease the radiation sickness. He sounded as though he were drunk, not ill. Perhaps he wasn’t badly hurt after all. Maybe he only needed to sleep away the alcohol.
“Papa,” she said, bringing her mouth to his ear, “can you hear me? It’s Valentina.”
His eyes blurred. She saw his lips moving, but she didn’t hear any words coming out. “Papa!” she cried. “Please answer me!”
An arm wrapped around her waist and held her tight from behind.
Her blood ran cold at the sudden grip, panic and confusion raged in her mind.
She twisted in the person's grip, craning her neck to see his face. She caught an impression of a man’s cheek dotted with stubble.
Before she could yell at the man, he hauled her out of the dormitory. Her mother rushed after them. “Let go of my daughter!”
The man paid no mind to her mother. In the corridor, he released his hold in Valentina. She moved back from him quickly, staring with wide eyes. He wore a doctor’s white coat, and his brown hair was sprinkled with gray. His eyes were angry.
“Who the devil let you into the dormitory?” He demanded.
“A nurse.” Valentina’s mother squeezed her hand, a warning to hold her tongue. “Why did you take my daughter?”
“I removed this young lady,” the doctor said, still sounding upset, “for her own good. The men are under quarantine. That means they’re being held separately from other people,” he added to Valentina. “You mustn’t see your father. Do you understand?”
She shook her head no.
He looked down at her slightly, he was only a few inches taller than her. He spoke slowly, like he was thinking of a way to word what he wanted to tell her. “When the reactor exploded and released radiation into the atmosphere, the plant workers absorbed that radiation. Their bodies have become dangerously radioactive. If you make contact with your father, or something he has touched, you might absorb some of his radiation.” The doctor’s gaze remained steady on hers. “Your father’s body could make you very ill or possibly kill you. You must get away from here as quickly as possible.”
Valentina didn’t believe it. “Can’t he drink milk and eat cucumbers and be cured?”
The doctor sighed. He looked tired, like he had been working all day without a single break. “I’m sorry, but no.”
“But that’s what we’ve been taught!” Valentina said. She was so confused. When the doctor didn’t reply, she asked, “Then how are you going to heal him?”
Her mother squeezed her hand harder. “Hush, Valya.” Her face looked pale. “You mustn’t talk like that in public.”
“But, Mama–”
“That’s enough.” Her mother turned to the doctor. “If this were true, you would be telling the other wives, too,” she said quietly.
The doctor took off his spectacles and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I wish I could. I’m not permitted to because our officials are concerned about starting a panic. But when I saw your daughter, an innocent child, in danger… Go now, both of you.”
Still Valentina’s mother made no move to leave. “What do we do?” she asked him.
“Did your husband teach you what to do if there was a nuclear disaster?”
“Yes, but he said it would only happen once in ten million years.”
“That’s what the government ministers said, too,” the doctor said. “It looks like this is that one time. You must return home at once and follow your husband's instructions.”
What did he mean? And why would he tell her how he was going to heal her father? There was always a solution–that’s what Papa said; you just had to fail and keep trying until you discovered it.
Valentina opened her mouth to ask when a fireman’s wife rushed over to them. “Doctor, I heard a rumor that our husbands are being flown to Moscow tonight. Is it true?”
The doctor looked pained. He raised his hands. “Ladies, ladies!”
At once the firemen’s wives silenced . Valentina’s mother placed a hand on her shoulder, showing she wanted to stay and listen to the doctor, too.
“Your husbands are being flown to a special hospital in Moscow,” the doctor said. “They will receive the best possible care. The clothes they were wearing when they were at the power station have been burned. If you would like to help your husbands, then I suggest you return to your homes and gather spare clothing for them.”
Some women burst into tears. Others gasped, while a few said, “Yes, we’ll pack their things,” as though they were pleased to have something to do. Relief washed over Valentina. The doctors in Moscow must have special medicine or medical machines that would heal her father and the others.
“Come.” Her mother walked toward the elevator. “We must go home and collect Papa’s belongings. The hospital in Moscow might be cold. He’ll want his warmest sweater.”
When they got outside, they found the trolleys weren’t running, so they had to hurry on foot to their apartment. In the distance, blue-black smoke churned above the broken reactor. In spots, the streets were white with foam; it looked like thick, soapy water. Valentina wondered where the foam had come from. Was it part of the radiation? She knew she couldn’t ask out here in the street.
Policemen stood in every corner. Children rode bicycles, skipped rope, and played marbles or dolls on the front stoops. Some laughed and slipped in the foam. Valentina’s friend Larisa was dancing in it with a group of younger girls. She caught sight of Valentina and waved. “Isn’t it splendid? Papa says they’ll evacuate us and we’ll camp in the forest!”
Valentina waved back at Larisa. “My papa’s going to a hospital in Moscow, and they’ll make him better.”
“Hurrah!” Larisa shouted.
“Come,” Valentina’s mother said, and they kept hurrying through the white foam that ran in rivulets down the road.
At home, they threw some of Valentina’s father’s possessions into a suitcase: two wool sweaters, a pair of trousers, underwear and socks, and a couple of his favorite books so he wouldn’t get bored.
Then it was back outside, where red light fell softly everywhere and the foam glistened white and the smell of smoke and metal weighted the air. The stink was so strong that Valentina’s eye stung. The back of her throat tickled, no matter how many times she coughed. She’d look at her father’s textbooks tonight. Maybe she could learn more about radiation. And she and her mother ought to eat lots of cucumbers, despite what the doctor in the corridor had said.
By the time they had reached the hospital, the sun was sinking below the horizon. A crowd had gathered in front of the building. Against the lighted windows of the hospital, the people looked like a black mass writhing up the steps. Several soldiers had formed a line at the doors. People screamed at them, demanding to be let in.
Her mother clutched Valentina’s shoulder. “My God, what now?” she murmured to herself. She pushed her way through the crowd, clamping one hand in Valentina’s wrist. Valentina had to jog to keep up.
As they reached the steps, the same doctor from before came out the door. The soldiers fell back to let him through, then took up their positions again, barring the way inside. The doctor raised his hands for silence.
Slowly, the crowd quieted. From the lights shining through the hospital windows, Valentina could see most of the people gathered at the door were women. Tears shone in their eyes.
“Thank you for bringing your husbands’ belongings,” the doctor said loudly. “Unfortunately, the airplane for Moscow has already departed. Your cooperation is appreciated.”
A huge gasp rose from the crowd. All Valentina could think was: Papa.
The doctor scuttled into the hospital. The door hadn’t even closed behind him when the women started shouting.
“How dare they take my Andrei without me!”
“They tricked us! They sent us to get our husbands’ clothes so we wouldn’t make a scene when they took our men away!”
“Monsters! Give me my husband! Let me see what has been done to him!”
There were so many wails of grief and rage that the air seemed to echo with them. Valentina’s mother stood still with her hand over her mouth. She hadn’t said a word.
Valentina moved closer to her. “Why is everyone so upset? Because we don’t get to say goodbye?”
Her mother’s hand fell to her side. “Yes. And they’re afraid the doctors are trying to hide the truth from us.”
“What do you mean?” Valentina asked. “The doctor already told us they’re going to a special hospital in Moscow. They’ll be healed there.”
“Yes,” her mother said again, wrapping Valentina in an embrace. “They’ll be fine. We all will be.”
But her voice shook, which was how Valentina knew she should be frightened.