The Sky Unwashed

by Irene Zabytko

  Riding along with the floral Iron Maiden was a robust blond woman surrounded by her fourteen children. She had several medals pinned prominently on her huge chest. She stood as though at attention, never waving to the crowds. Her children stood silently by her, observing the people in mute contempt.

  More bands played on, more young girls in colorful Ukrainian costumes marched to the music. They smiled and waved, and the red and yellow ribbons from the flower wreaths on their heads whipped high in the air behind them.

  The old veterans marched next. Many were obviously sucking in their guts because their old war uniforms were stretched to the seams. Others marched in their best shiny blue suits, wearing all of their war medals on their lapels. Some of the old men were in wheelchairs, and many hobbled and staggered behind the rest. These were the war heroes who had saved the Motherland from fascism, and they received the loudest cheers and applause from the crowd.

  Zosia felt dizzy and clammy. She accidentally bumped into a television cameraman, who yelled at her to stay behind the rope barrier.

  She wanted desperately to get away from the crowds. She pushed her way out of the tight clusters of parade watchers and walked up the Khreshchatyk, then away from the main street, turning at a corner she vaguely remembered, near the Kyiv State University. She sat on a bench in the park across the street from the red university building. There she dropped her heavy head between her legs and waited for the nausea to pass. After a bit, the breeze kicked up the fragrance of roses and revived her.

  Too bad the children didn’t see the parade, she thought. They would have liked it. They would have liked this park, too. She stared at a woman selling ice cream.

  She sucked on one of the overly sweet hard candies she had bought and felt better. Then she spotted the glass display cases where copies of the daily paper, Pravda, were hung for anyone to read. She went over to the glass plates that protected the pages and searched for anything about Chornobyl—perhaps things were back to normal there and they could return. But all she found was a tiny paragraph on one of the last pages that simply stated there had been a small radiation “eruption” at the nuclear power plant, and that the good citizens had nothing to worry about.

  Well then, she thought. If there was nothing to worry about, and if the city’s children were marching in the May Day parade, and the people of Kyiv were not in the least bit alarmed about anything, then things are fine after all. Pretty soon they’ll let us go home.

  Why not now, she thought. Maybe I should just go right now to the train station, get a ticket, and get the children, maybe Yurko too, and leave. No, I’ll get Yurko later, when he’s better. I can at least get tickets for the children. Marusia, too.

  Zosia felt very proud of herself for her logic. If trains were running to Chornobyl, she reasoned, then it was all right to go home. They’ll tell me for sure at the train station.

  She paid her kopiika for the Metro and held on to the escalator that took her down the long, long descent into the cavernous subway tunnels. The children—it’s for them, she reasoned. Katia had a little diarrhea last night, and Tarasyk has that rash and probably lice in his hair, no wonder some of it is falling out….

  The subway wasn’t crowded. She was happy to get a seat. I can visit Yurko on the weekends—with Marusia. Or maybe we can transfer him to a hospital nearer to home… maybe in Prypiat’. Or if we leave him, well, it’s only a couple of hours or so by train to Kyiv. Yurko would understand. She pressed the bag filled with candy and Marusia’s comb closer to her chest, and then realized that she had dropped Yurko’s flowers behind somewhere.

  At the railroad station, Zosia was unprepared to see the mobs of mostly women and children waiting in long lines.

  “What’s going on here?” Zosia asked a woman in Russian. The woman was holding the hand of a little girl dressed in a frilly dress and with white ribbons in her braided hair.

  “I’m trying to get my child on a train to Moscow. Or somewhere…”

  “What for? Why?”

  The woman turned her attention to her child, who was complaining that she was tired.

  “Excuse me,” Zosia said, “but is it summertime vacation already?” She knew that Russians in Ukraine liked to start their vacations sooner than anyone else.

  “No, of course not,” the woman said in annoyance. “Haven’t you heard anything? About the accident?”

  “At Chernobyl,” the little girl cut in. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  The mother ignored the child’s rudeness. “So much radiation there. It’s awful.”

  Zosia was alarmed. “What do you mean, please?”

  “So much radiation. An explosion…”

  “Did you come from the moon?” the child said in exasperation.

  Her mother smiled. “Yes, it’s true. Radiation is polluting Kiev. We’ve known it for days. That’s why we’re sending our children to Moscow where they’ll be safer. I’ve got an official letter myself.”

  Zosia felt numb and confused and not sure how much to trust this Russian woman. “But so many children were marching just now in the May Day parade.”

  “Not me,” the little girl said with pride. “Just the stupid khakhly. Not us.”

  “Yes, that’s right darling,” the woman said distantly. Then she eyed Zosia. “Tovarishch, where are your children?”

  “Oh, back at home,” Zosia said. She moved away from them and reckoned that there were about eighty people ahead of her. “How much is a ticket?”

  “Three rubles, but who knows for sure,” said another woman. “That’s high, and they keep changing the price. At least the children will be safe. Whatever it costs, we mothers will pay.”

  “Why is that?” Zosia heard her voice tremble with anger.

  “Because the government won’t say that there’s anything wrong.”

  “That’s so we don’t panic,” piped in another woman in front of them.

  The first woman Zosia had spoken to said, “I know it’s worth it for my Tamara here.” She looked down lovingly at the little girl, who ignored her and pretended to be interested in something invisible on the ground.

  Zosia didn’t have enough money—she had spent it on her gifts. She was sorry she had bought the things at the kiosk—she had eaten too much of the candy, and the flowers were lost, and the stupid comb for Marusia was unnecessary because she wouldn’t use it anyway. She had forgotten all about buying herself perfume.

  Zosia walked out and found the bus that would take her back to the hospital. “Bastards!” she kept murmuring under her breath. People heard her on the bus, but they ignored her as though she were just another drunk, or worse, just another crazy, angry woman cheated by an unfaithful lover.

  “WHERE HAVE YOU been! Why didn’t you tell me you were going?” Marusia was scolding Zosia. “Hospody, I thought they took you away too!”

  Zosia ignored Marusia’s wails and gave the children the bag of candy. Katia was delighted and stuck several pieces in her mouth at once. Tarasyk was uninterested and silently watched his sister’s cheeks balloon with the sweets.

  “Mamo, listen to me,” Zosia whispered. Her voice was so low the old woman had to bend down to hear her better. “I was outside in the city. We’re not safe here either. People are leaving Kyiv.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw it all. I was at the train station. Hundreds of children are getting out of here because of the radiation. It’s worse than anyone thought. We can’t stay here either. We’ll all die here just as we would back in Starylis.”

  “Maty Bozho!” the old woman exclaimed. Then she whispered, “Where would we go?”

  Zosia looked behind her and noticed that Marta Fedenko was listening to their conversation. She moved closer to her mother-in-law and whispered in her ear, “Moscow. Or maybe to Siberia, to my mother.”

  “No, not there.” Marusia shook her head. She had always been afraid of Siberia because of rumors she heard of labor camps and jails filled with sinful pe
ople. “The children can’t go there.”

  “It’s better there. Safer.”

  Marusia firmly shook her head. “No. Not Siberia.” She had always suspected that Zosia’s family were convicts. “No. Moscow is better.”

  “Only the children can go,” Zosia said. “We don’t have the money for all of us.”

  Marusia pursed her lips and didn’t say anything more. She didn’t like this plan because she hated to think of Katia and Tarasyk, so little, traveling all that way like that. Who would care about them? She shook her head again. “No. They can’t go alone.”

  “I can’t afford a ticket for the children and both of us,” she repeated.

  “And Yurko,” Marusia said gently.

  “Yes, naturally, but he’s so ill…. Are we going to wait until he’s better? When will that be?”

  Marusia saw things clearly. She looked at Zosia’s worn, sallow face and felt sorry for her. She loved her grandchildren, but Zosia was their mother after all. And she was Yurko’s mother. It was very clear to her what must be done. “You go with the children,” she said. “You know how to get them around the city, and you’ll get them there safely. I’m too old and scared to go on there. You take my compensation money and use it for the trip. I’ll stay here with Yurko. I’m already used to how things are around this place. I’ll wait until he’s well, then we’ll return back home. That’s all. It’s easy.”

  Zosia gazed at her mother-in-law with softness. “That’s the best idea. Naturally, that’s the only normal thing to do. Of course!”

  Chapter 10

  THE NEXT MORNING, Zosia went as usual to visit her husband. As always, she sat in a chair near his bed, watching him sleep. Sometimes she could help him eat some greasy soup or whatever she’d been able to take from her own dinners. Now she wasn’t sure whether to tell him anything of her plan to leave that night. There didn’t seem to be any reason to tell him anything.

  She waited several minutes for the nurse to take away his bedpan. Yurko wheezed into a coughing fit, then finally settled back on his pillow, his mouth open, saliva dripping down his chin. Zosia had to pull her chair closer to see his face behind the plastic oxygen tent clouded by his coughs.

  “You the wife?” the nurse asked Zosia. She was new. Zosia had never seen her before. She probably wasn’t even aware that Yurko was contaminated from the zone.

  “Pneumonia. Looks pretty bad.” She clicked her tongue. “It might be worse. He’ll be going to the X-ray division. It might be a lot worse than we think.”

  Zosia wanted to laugh. What a fool, she thought. The nurse kept clicking her tongue like the old women in Starylis did whenever they disapproved of something but were too guarded to give voice to their resentment. Zosia waited for her to go bother another patient.

  “Yes, X-rays are what I need,” Yurko said. His voice was so thin it was almost like a child’s. He opened his eyes. “Smile, Zosen’ka. It’s a joke.”

  Zosia saw how his face had shriveled and hung on his skull. She started to cry.

  “Bad joke?” He half coughed and laughed at the same time. “Are you crying for me?”

  “I’m so sorry, Yurochko. About everything. I wish our past was different.”

  He waved his bony, chapped hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Zosia couldn’t stop the flow of her tears because she was always hurting him, even at this moment when she believed he knew the emptiness of her feelings for him.

  “The children miss you,” she said. “And Mama, too.”

  He nodded. She always told him the same things.

  “Yurko, listen. I’m taking the children to Moscow.” She tried to keep her voice low and calm. “Mama agrees this is the best thing. It’s bad in Kyiv for the children. They’ll get sick.”

  He pointed a crusty finger at his chest.

  “Well, maybe not like what you have. But it’s better if we leave Kyiv. Your mother will stay here with you. Then we’ll all come back home to Starylis.”

  He pointed a finger at her. “You too?”

  “Yes! I always come back.”

  He didn’t answer her.

  “Time’s up,” the silly nurse chirped to Zosia before passing to another bed.

  “Not me,” Yurko whispered. “This time, I am leaving you.”

  “Yes, you too,” Zosia said. “You’ll come back!”

  His throat gurgled a laugh. Liar, it mocked her.

  ZOSIA WAS PLANNING to take the children out of the hospital early in the morning, before dawn. She knew that the night nurse would be asleep and no one would notice them going. She acted as though nothing unusual was going to occur. She didn’t tell the children because she couldn’t risk their telling another child about their plan, especially Katia. Word would get out, and then what next? Prison?

  Zosia decided not to eat her dinner but to hoard it all in her shopping bag. Marusia did the same. Zosia knew that the cold overbaked potatoes and sour kasha would save them from hunger on their long day ahead. She wanted to get to the train station before it opened and get her place in line.

  Marusia held Tarasyk in her arms that night. She couldn’t sleep, knowing that her grandchildren would be gone in a few hours. She gently stroked his head with the comb Zosia bought her, checking to see if more of his hair was falling out. She took the clumps from the comb’s teeth and hid them in her dress pocket.

  Zosia also inspected the back of his head. It looked worse, with more bald patches and his scalp ringed with an ominous shade of crimson. “Children get this in crowded situations,” Marta Fedenko volunteered after she observed Zosia’s concerned face. Zosia ignored the old woman.

  “Mama look how sick they are,” she said. “Tarasyk’s hair. Now Katia is scratching her legs so much she’s bleeding. This is awful!”

  “Just like my sister-in-law,” Marta Fedenko said.

  “Maybe we got it from your family,” Zosia snapped.

  “I keep myself clean,” the old woman retorted, then proceeded to move her mattress further away from Zosia.

  “Good riddance,” Zosia said. “Nosy old witch.”

  Marusia was upset. She liked talking to Marta Fedenko, and now just because Zosia was feeling mean or bad about things, why did she always have to take it out on others? And how many times had Zosia deserted her and left her to deal with the whiny children? At least Marta Fedenko tried to help her. Marusia thought of ways she could be nice to her after Zosia and the children had left, but that would come very soon, and she felt her chest ache again with fear and loneliness.

  That evening, two men, drunk on vodka, got into a fistfight. Several of their friends and their women got involved. The commotion made everyone more jittery and harder to calm down for sleep. But at three in the morning, when Zosia touched Marusia’s shoulder, she was amazed at how still and quiet the room was.

  Marusia insisted on carrying Tarasyk. Zosia woke Katia and helped her stand up.

  “We have to go, darling.”

  “To see Tato?” she whimpered.

  “Ssh, yes, later. But here, put on your sweater. It’ll be cold out.”

  “Can we go home?” She smiled for the first time.

  “Yes, dear. But to a better place. Be quiet and tiptoe over the sleeping people. Don’t wake them up.”

  The four of them escaped the basement room and hurried into the corridor and up a back staircase to another corridor that brought them to an entranceway.

  “Hey, you! Where are you all going?” It was the shrill voice of a cleaning woman.

  They stopped. Zosia turned and waited for the woman to approach her. “Who wants to know?”

  The woman was short, with a snub nose, and her green lizard eyes darted from Zosia’s face to Marusia’s. “I can report you,” she threatened. “No one is supposed to leave here without permission.”

  “Listen, you see this woman?” Zosia nodded toward Marusia. “She had just suffered a loss. Her husband, Colonel Makrenko, just died. That’s right. Now she must return to
her dacha because there will be several important people coming around to pay their respects to her. We’ve been at the colonel’s bedside for three days now, and she must get her rest. They told us to go out through here, because of the Chernobyl people in our way.”

  “How do you know about Chernobyl?”

  “Who do you think ordered the evacuation in the first place? The colonel!”

  Marusia was too afraid to say anything. How could Zosia think up such an incredible lie? And yet people did what she wanted. Even if they didn’t believe her, they seemed frightened and unsure enough not to take a chance in making her angry.

  Zosia stared the cleaning woman down. “Anything else you need to know? Good. Now let the colonel’s wife grieve in peace!”

  The little woman stepped aside to let them pass. She pressed her mop down on the floor, but Marusia saw that she stared angrily at Zosia’s back before swishing the mop’s slimy tentacles against the floor.

  Outside, the air was crisp but stank of diesel from the buses pulling into the parking lot. “I think those are more evacuees,” Zosia said. “Wouldn’t surprise me!”

  They went in the opposite direction of the buses, near the parking lot floodlights. “So, the Metro’s there. We can catch it. It’s a short walk, we’ll be fine,” Zosia said. She took Tarasyk from Marusia’s arms. “Wake up, darling. We’re going for a nice walk.”

  “Good-bye, my beautiful ones,” Marusia said, and hugged Tarasyk, then Katia, who pulled back. “You’re not coming too, Babo?”

  “No, sweetheart. I’ll see you later. Back home.” She kissed the little girl hard on both her cheeks, then she kissed Tarasyk the same way and made the sign of the cross over both of them.