Chernobyl

by Frederik Pohl

  "Leonid," she said sadly, "I don't believe that. You are quite capable of understanding what that bitch had to say."

  Sheranchuk shook his head. "What I understand, my dear, is much more important than any blood tests. I understand that we have a fine son who has always been mine. Have you forgotten? I rubbed your back for you when he was still inside your belly, and I walked through every store in Moscow to find rubber pants to put on him, and I fed him and burped him and changed him — not as often as I might have," he admitted justly. "Certainly not as often as you. But often enough to know' who is my own dear child, born from my very dear wife. So what is there to say about blood types? And now, my dear, since it seems these mosquitoes are also interested in sampling my blood, perhaps we should go inside and to bed."

  Chapter 36

  Tuesday, May 20

  The KGB are always thorough, but sometimes they are also meticulously correct. When they are merely thorough in the task of, say, searching a flat, a tornado would be more welcome. Every closet and box and drawer is opened, the contents ransacked and thrown on the floor; pillows and mattresses are ripped open, canisters of flour and salt poured out, the seams of curtains and sheets torn apart; and what the KGB leaves with is always as much as they can carry of papers, books, and whatever else they deem important. When they are being meticulously correct, the process takes longer but leaves less havoc. Then they probe with long needles instead of ripping things apart, they have a city militiaman standing by as required by law, they generally replace what they have taken out of drawers and boxes — well, of course, sometimes not very neatly, perhaps. Sometimes they even present an official search warrant.

  They had presented a warrant to Selena, Aftasia, and Vassili Smin before they began on the little flat on the outskirts of Kiev, and the city militiaman, abashed in the presence of so old an Old Bolshevik, was glad to accept a cup of tea while the searchers did their work. But there were so many of them! There were six industrious workers in each room, one of them present only to take notes, one in authority to point to this place or that for special care, the other four to do the actual work, quietly and with great skill.

  All the while the Smin family, or what remained of it, chatted politely with the militiaman. "And there is the matter of our water supply," said Selena Smin, rising courteously so that one of the kitchen detail could turn her chair over to examine the bottom of the seat. "One hears that we will soon be getting it from the Desna River as well as from the new wells." For radionuclides had been found not only in the Pripyat River but in the underground aquifers all around Chernobyl, even at Bragin, seventy kilometers to the north.

  "They've capped seven thousand old wells," the militiaman confirmed, and then, glancing at the searchers, "or so people say, at least."

  "Yes, that is true," Selena nodded, taking her seat again. "Mother Aftasia? When you were at the market this morning, were they taking care about the vegetables from the farms?"

  "Oh, indeed they were," said Aftasia enthusiastically. "They were running those what-you-call-them things over all the tomatoes and fruit, and if there was the slightest peep out of the machines, then, snap, into the disposal bin, and no certificate to sell that batch! Our Socialist state is taking excellent care of its citizens! More tea, then?" she asked the uneasy militiaman. He shook his head, frowning. "Ah, but the worst thing," she went on, "was the people. Can you imagine? You could see them walking from stall to stall, looking for farmers with Oriental faces before they would buy. From the eastern provinces! Hoping, no doubt, to get cabbages grown two thousand kilometers away! But I bought only from honest Ukrainians," she finished virtuously.

  "Not that our Tatar and Kalmuk brothers aren't honest, of course," Selena supplemented.

  "Of course not," Aftasia agreed, and then smiled blandly at the man in charge. "What, are you finished already? And we were having such a nice chat with the citizen militiaman here."

  The KGB man eyed her thoughtfully. For one moment it almost seemed he would return her smile. Then he shook his head. "We are removing certain books and documents for study," he said. "Sign the receipt, please."

  "If it is a receipt, then you should sign it and give me a copy," Aftasia Smin pointed out. "However, let me see. These letters? Yes, of course you may have them; they are only from my older grandson, who is now back serving his country in Afghanistan. This book? It is written by Solzhenitsyn, yes, but don't you see? It is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, a quite approved work. Still, perhaps you would enjoy reading it; by all means, take it along." She rummaged through the dozen other books, then pushed them together and spread her hands. "If you need these, then I must not quarrel with the organs of the state. No, don't bother with a receipt; if I can't trust my government, who can I trust? And thank you for your courtesy."

  The Chekist folded the paper slowly, regarding her. He was no more than thirty, a pale-haired, plump man with a pleasant face, and very young to be in charge of such a detail. "Comrade Smin," he said, "you are a remarkable woman. A Party member since 1916. Heroine of the October Revolution. And, at your age, so alert and active!"

  "Now I am, yes," Aftasia smiled. "Would you believe me, Comrade? Even at my age I feel I have just begun to live."

  He nodded, started to speak, then changed his mind. "Perhaps we will meet again," he said, and followed his men out of the flat.

  "So," said Aftasia Smin, picking up the cups. "Let's clean up this mess." She headed for her bedroom, but her grandson detained her for a moment.

  "Grandmother? Do you think they'll be back?"

  Shaking her head, she said decisively, "No. If he had said we would definitely meet again, then perhaps they would return. If he said definitely not, then certainly they would. But he said 'perhaps,' and that means never. Now, help me make this bed!"

  On the floor below, the Didchuks were doing their best not to hear the heavy footsteps on the floor above, while they prepared to go to the train station to meet their returning daughter. "But I wonder," Oksana Didchuk said absendy, lifting a corner of the curtain to peer out at the street, "if we aren't making a mistake, letting her come home too early. After all, the camp is costing us nothing."

  "We discussed that, my dear," her husband said. "She was simply homesick there, and, really, there's no danger." He glanced at the scrawled chalkmarks on the wall of their room; they had been put there the week before by the radiation-monitor teams, certifying that this apartment was not registering anything above normal background levels.

  "I suppose so," Oksana said gloomily. And then, in a lowered tone, "The cars are still there."

  Her husband nodded. "Will you pour me some more tea, please?" he said.

  "I am worried, though," she said.

  She didn't specify the source of her worries, which could have been anything from the behavior of the evacuated couple they had taken in — the husband, now out looking for a new job, seemed a good enough sort, but the wife was still in the room they had given them, sobbing to herself — to what was going on on the floor above. Didchuk chose to interpret it as referring to their daughter. "After all," he said, managing a smile, "if Kiev is safe enough to accept evacuees like our guests, then it really is not sensible that she needs to be evacuated to still some other place."

  Oksana sighed. "I suppose we should think about getting your parents back too."

  "They're well enough with my sister," Didchuk said. "Let her have a turn."

  "But she's expecting a child. And, oh," she said, happy to have thought of a subject to talk about, to drown out the sounds from above, "I read such an interesting article in the magazine Working Woman. Did you know that seventy percent of city women, and over ninety percent of those in the rural areas, terminate their first pregnancies with an illegal abortion?"

  "An illegal abortion? But that's shocking," said Didchuk with indignation, as happy as his wife to have found conversation. "Why illegal, may I ask?"

  Oksana Didchuk looked at her husband for a moment.
"I suppose you have never been to an abortion clinic."

  Didchuk looked startled, almost hostile. "Well, neither have you!"

  "No, no," she assured him. "At least, not for myself. But when Irinia Lavcheck became pregnant, she asked me to go with her."

  Didchuk didn't scowl, but he came close to it. "The one who is separated from her husband?"

  "Her husband beat her, you see. She didn't want to bear his child, she wanted a divorce."

  "If she carried his child, he did other things than hit her." He paused, listening to the sounds from the stairwell. There seemed to be faint voices from the landing above. He blinked. "What were we saying? So she had an abortion, and you went along to hold her hand."

  "My dear," Oksana said earnestly, "it was not easy for her. It was her child too. Also to get a legal abortion she had to get a special medical permit, so of course everyone knew. And then, when you go to the clinic, do you know what is the first thing you see? A great sign, which says, 'Mother, don't murder your child!' "

  "She doesn't have to look at the sign, does she?"

  "It is impossible to avoid it. And the operation is, really, quite unpleasant, since often they don't waste anesthetics on a woman who wants an abortion."

  Didchuk pursed his lips. "What about the good of our country?" he demanded. "If there are so many abortions, how will the country stay strong for the next generation?"

  Oksana didn't answer directly. The only appropriate answer would have been to point out that they themselves had only one child, and if she herself had not needed to abort, the principal reason was that they had been able to get a prescription for the scarce birth-control devices. She was not pleased she had chosen to bring the subject up at all, but she said, "So a silly young girl knows all this, because her older friends tell her. So what can she do? Perhaps she doesn't even want a legal one, because if she is too young, she will have to get her parents' permission. She does what her friends have done. She goes to a midwife."

  "And sometimes she dies as a result!"

  "Yes, that is true, but — what is it?" she asked, looking at her husband. He had raised his hand, listening.

  She heard the sound of footsteps on the stair. Daringly, she opened the door a crack and closed it swiftly. "They are leaving," she whispered.

  "Ah," said her husband, sighing. There seemed to be a great many of them and they walked slowly, murmuring among themselves. Oksana peered out of the window cautiously, pulling the curtain just a crack aside.

  "They're getting into the cars," she said. "Yes, and now they're all leaving."

  "Ah," said her husband again. He blinked at her. "What were we talking about?"

  "I don't remember. Well! If we're to go to the train station this afternoon, perhaps I should fix us some lunch!"

  While they were getting ready to eat, they could hear the sounds of people moving around on the floor above — lighter footsteps now, and far fewer of them — as the Smins restored order to their flat. The Didchuks didn't discuss it, since there was nothing to be gained by talking about what the organs did, especially while some of them might still be lurking about. Even half an hour later, when there was a knock at the door, both jumped.

  But it was only old Aftasia Smin, looking quite cheerful and unconcerned for someone whose flat had just been searched by the organs of the state. "I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

  "Of course not," Didchuk said, politely if somewhat uncertainly. "We were just getting ready to go out to meet our daughter."

  "Oh, is she coming back today? How wonderful for you. But I'll only keep you a minute." She did not quite brush past Didchuk as he stood at the door, but she moved forward with enough assurance that he got out of the way. "Perhaps you saw that we had visitors," she said gaily. "What a nuisance! They were just doing their job, of course, and, naturally, we were glad to cooperate, since we had nothing at all to hide. The thing is, do you have that present for my daughter-in-law's birthday that I asked you to keep for me?"

  "I thought you said it was for your grandson's," Oksana Didchuk said, looking frightened.

  "Well, actually it's for both of them," Aftasia smiled as Didchuk pulled a flat envelope out of a drawer. "Is that it? Oh, thank you; I'll take it now, perhaps I'll give it to them a bit early. And one more thing, if I may. The telephone? It's a long-distance call, and I insist on paying for it — an old friend in Moscow." She folded the envelope and tucked it into her bag as she went, without waiting for permission, to the phone. It was a long number she dialed, but it was answered at once.

  "Hello," she said pleasantly, not giving a name. "I simply called to wish you happiness on this occasion. We, too, had a party, but I wish we could have been at yours."

  The Didchuks could not hear the voice on the other end of the phone, but from Aftasia Smin's expression, it seemed to be a friendly one.

  "Oh, yes," she said, nodding. "The article is quite safe; in fact I have it here. Our friends at the party wanted very much to see it, but unfortunately I couldn't put my hands on it at that moment. So. When will we see you again? No? Well then, if you can't come here perhaps we will join you one of these days. Mail the gift? No, really, I think that might not be reliable; one would not want it to get lost. Well, then, all of us send our best wishes. Yes, good-bye."

  She hung up and rummaged in her purse for the money to pay for the call. "Wedding anniversary," she explained. "An old Party comrade's son — why, I held him when he was still nursing at his mother's breast and, can you believe it? Now he has a grandson of his own! Well, I won't keep you any longer.. and thank you for helping with my birthday surprise."

  "You're welcome," said both the Didchuks at once. They looked at each other dismally after the old woman left. But they didn't say anything further about the birthday surprise, not then, when one of the visitors might happen to return at any moment, and indeed not ever.

  In any case, their daughter's return gave them far more attractive things to think about. They engaged a taxicab for the trip to the railroad station and extravagantly commanded, and bribed, the driver to wait. The terminal was a far happier place this time than it had been three weeks before.

  The Didchuks were not the only parents eagerly awaiting a returning child, and everyone was in a holiday mood… with somber undertones, to be sure. The official death toll had just been announced again — the number was now up to twenty-three, twenty-one of them men and two women. And everyone was well aware that the number would surely rise. And go on rising, not just this week or this year, but for a long time to come as the slow damage from radiation would produce cells that turned cancerous, or caused babies to abort, or, worse still, let them be born with no one knew what difficulties. The doctors had said that at least one hundred thousand Soviet citizens, perhaps twice that many, had been exposed to levels of radiation high enough to warrant a close watch for decades to come.

  The train, of course, was late. After half an hour Didchuk sighed and went outside to pay the taxi driver off, but returned in a glow. "Imagine!" he told his wife, beaming. "He said he would wait for nothing! He, too,had a child who was evacuated, the boy will be back on Saturday, and he said he would be glad to see that our daughter got home in comfort!"

  His wife's eyes were suddenly misted with happy, sentimental tears. Then she had a sudden thought. "On Saturday?" For they, like most citizens of Kiev, had been notified that the next few Saturdays were to be devoted to voluntary extra work, helping complete the nine-kilometer aqueduct that would bring water to Kiev if the autumn floods made everything nearer undrinkable with spill from Chernobyl.

  Didchuk looked concerned. "Oh, to be sure. I had forgotten. But surely they will give him time off to meet his son," he offered.

  His wife wasn't listening. She was looking in surprise at another track, with the waiting afternoon intercity train. An old woman was reasoning with the guard, who finally shrugged and allowed her to march triumphantly onto the platform.

  "But that is surely Aftasia Smin," said
his wife. "What can she be doing? She didn't mention to us that she was going to Moscow."

  Chapter 37

  Wednesday, May 21

  The gull-winged TWA airline terminal at New York's Kennedy Airport is not only an architectural spectacle, it is huge. It has its own customs and immigration facilities for passengers arriving from abroad. That relieves crowding, and that's a good thing. The United States is not the easiest country in the world to enter. The customs searches can be very thorough. Foreign nationals must have visas and health cards, and sometimes they are subjected to considerable questioning about their politics and their possible criminal records. Sometimes they are even turned back at the airport and must reboard their plane for its return flight. For many years, even returning American citizens had to spend eternities of time in the long lines, but because so many American voters complained to so many American congressmen, it has now been made easier for Americans to get back into their country; they pass by the immigration desks completely, and even at customs if they say they have nothing to declare they are generally waved through. But not always; and those who are asked to step into another room are sometimes in for an ordeal.

  When Dean and Candace Garfield were politely invited out of the line at the customs counter, the shock was nasty. "But we've written everything down on the form," Garfield expostulated. "We haven't even talked to the customs officer yet."

  Then he caught sight of his network's New York publicity chief coming toward him with a young woman and a uniformed U.S. Immigration Service official, and Garfield relaxed. "Leave the bags," the man urged, grinning. "Bobbi here will schlepp them through, we've got something else going for you."

  The something else turned out to be a little room where a government doctor with a finger-pricking blood sample needle waited for them. Just outside, there were half a dozen newspaper and network people eager to talk, first of all, to celebrities, and, even more, to celebrities who had been near the Chernobyl disaster; and that night the Garfields had the pleasure of seeing themselves on the six o'clock news.