The Sky Unwashed

by Irene Zabytko

  Marusia thought now how busy she would be cleaning the stench from her neglected house, making a new life for herself without her son and his wife and the grandchildren. She would live in her house until it was time for her to be buried in the graveyard down the road. Nothing would ever force her to leave Starylis again—not even another nuclear blast. She would die where she lived or be blown up with it.

  Then she thought about her son, whose body was burned away into particles and without a decent burial. “I wished I could’ve brought him back with me,” she sobbed to herself as she stoked the woodstove with a crowbar. “I could’ve nursed him back to health here, or at least have buried him.” She cried long and hard and allowed herself the luxury of her tears for him. “As God wills,” she declared several times out loud. She sighed and felt the weariness settle in her body.

  She wiped her eyes with the backs of her sleeves, and remembered her favorite black gum that she had hidden in a glass jar in the back of her bedroom closet. It was still there—a black rubbery residue from the time she had made rope from hemp a few summers back. She scraped off a wad with an old butter knife and chewed it. The gum soothed her in a mellower way than the samohon she was used to drinking, and gradually she began to feel better.

  Marusia went outside to inspect her little garden in the back of her house. She paused in front of the tiny empty shed where her beloved cow had lived. Marusia always regretted leaving the cow, and now she would never know what had happened to it or to its calf.

  Her thoughts turned from the past to the long winter ahead. She wished she had left Kyiv earlier in the spring, in time to have planted more vegetables. Now it was far too late in the summer to sow anything plentiful. “Well, maybe there’ll be some potatoes left in the fall. And I’ll be ready for next spring!” she said out loud.

  She gazed beyond her yard and saw the copperygolden dome of the village church. “Tomorrow, I’ll go there and ring the bells myself. Someone will hear that. I will ring them every day and they’ll know that I’m back.” Marusia felt satisfied.

  She swatted her face and then spotted a tiny butterfly with translucent white wings landing feebly on a bush. She picked it up and saw that it was dying while it fluttered its white wings against the palms of her hands. Marusia saw that both of its antennae were crooked. She saw another one settle on a bush, and another one flitted around its twin. All of the butterflies had crooked antennae. “Devil’s work!” Marusia yelled. She threw the dead butterfly on the ground and stomped it with her foot. She spat on it. “Devil’s work!”

  She scuttled into her house and slammed and bolted her door. Inside, Marusia gathered a handful of old herbs that she had dried on the ceiling beam in her kitchen—sage and parsley—and she hurled the tiny leaves into the stove.

  She opened the door of her warm refrigerator—the stench made her cough. I have to get it, she said to herself. She searched the shelves for a vial of holy water from the last Epiphany she had celebrated in Starylis. She took it as a miracle that the water was well corked and had no offensive smell. It looked normal. She sprinkled all of the rooms. “Get out of my house you zlyi dukh, you bad spirit, who lived on my land while I was suffering so far away from home.” She ran out and sprinkled some of the water over the overgrown garden and where she had seen the butterflies. “Get out! Get out!”

  As exhausted and weary as she was, Marusia was unable to sleep her first night back. She watched the dancing flames of her stove diminish into hot red coals. She stoked the coals all night long and sat near her window waiting until the sun arose.

  Finally, when the first pink of the early morning sky crept toward her line of vision, Marusia was relieved. “As long as the sun returns, I’ll be all right. As long as the sun obeys God, then it isn’t the end of the world.” She felt refreshed and strong as she whispered her morning devotions in front of the window. When she was finished, she decided to celebrate her return home with half a cupful of the instant chicory coffee that she had carried with her all the way from Kyiv, and before beginning her new day’s work, a fifty-gram shot of samohon that she had kept hidden in her kitchen.

  Chapter 12

  THE FIRST TIME Marusia took the lonely path toward the church, she was very afraid of what she might find. She imagined that all of the icons of the rapturous saints bedecked in their rich robes, always forgiving the earthly sinners with their mute eyes, might be replaced by skeletons of death. She looked up at the tower and saw that the two bells still hung in their tower.

  She knocked on the doors and then found they were unlocked. She stepped into the dark building. The familiar scent of old beeswax candles and frankincense reassured her. The sanctuary was cool except for the unexpected warmth emanating from the small window. The icons and iconostasis at the altar front were still nailed to the floor, just as before. She crossed herself several times, bowed low to the floor, and opened the large central altar doors of the iconostasis.

  She held back her breath. The golden communion chalice was gone. So were the gold candlesticks and the big gold and silver crucifix. Fortunately, the tabernacle remained as before, in its place on the dusty white linen altar cloth. Above it the red lamp hung from the round ceiling by its thick golden chains.

  There were withered flowers in the vases, probably the same ones from the very last time she and the other villagers attended Mass that terrible Palm Sunday. The bouquets of white daisies had turned a putrid brown, the leaves were transparent, and the pussy willows had long ago let go of their fuzzy balls, which were scattered all over the floor. She went outside to throw away the abandoned flowers and left the vases on the steps to air out.

  Marusia stepped to the right of the altar, where a well-varnished door opened into the priest’s sacristy. There he had kept his vestments and the ritual objects needed to celebrate the Mass. What had happened to Father Andrei? Did he die that horrible night, or was he alive in a refugee camp, or slowly losing his life in a filthy hospital? Did his crazy old mother, old Paraskevia, ever see him again?

  Marusia opened the door to the closet and was glad that the vestments had not been touched. She knew where things were kept because she and the other babysi in the village had taken turns cleaning the church and mending the vestments. She fingered the rich gold brocade, then searched for a box she knew was hidden in a drawer and found that nobody had taken the other chalices and incense.

  Really, it would have been such a low sin to steal the vestments and chalices and sell them for Western cigarettes, she thought. Only a rotten thief would sell his mother for those sinful, stinking cigarettes.

  She lit a candle and left the room through another door that led into a cold, clammy area of the building that stank of peat moss and rancid water. From there, she climbed to the bell tower. The winding wrought iron staircase creaked and swung out each time she laid her heavy foot on a slippery stair. She was perspiring, but out of respect she kept her head covered with her cotton babushka.

  In the tower the air was cooler, and from where she stood she could see the entire dilapidated village. It looked gray and seemed muzzled beneath the gauzy skies. Over to the east, the silent overgrown kolhosp hayfields were burnt blond, and rotting carcasses of straw bales were still visible. She shuddered when she realized that the red lights on the horizon were not planets or stars, but the twinkling red lights from the towers of Chornobyl.

  Her eyes lingered on the tattered roofs of the motley homes, threatened now by the bent trees that folded over the buildings like brown ghosts with broken spines.

  “I am in hell,” Marusia said aloud. Her knees buckled, but she held her balance. “Lord, take me now.” She beat her chest with her fist. “Take me so that I won’t be alone anymore.”

  Marusia cried a little longer, then asked for forgiveness. She searched for her own house and saw the thin stream of smoke blowing hopefully out her chimney and up to the filthy sky where only God could see it. Maybe it will tickle the soles of an angel who will tug at the Lord’s ro
be and point to where I am, she thought.

  “Or maybe they’ll hear me. Please God, let someone down there, hear me!” she called out. She grabbed two tufts of cotton she had brought from the house and plugged up her ears as best she could before trying to pull on the long rope. With the big fingers of both of her hands wrapped around the rope, she tugged at the ringer until the bells finally groaned and then swung into life and shocked the stillness of the air with their clanging.

  Marusia’s head vibrated and ached with the timbre. She rang and felt the rope cutting deep into her hands. Her chest hurt, and dizziness filled her head. When her ears buzzed with pain, she stopped. But she kept her vow and returned later that evening. She made it part of her personal vigil to ring the bells twice a day: once in the early morning, and again before the terrifying night fell.

  In fact, Marusia looked forward to ringing the bells. She felt a great release in their melodic noise, and sometimes, because she knew she couldn’t be heard over the sounds, she cried out loud to God and to the world and asked why she was forsaken in such misery. Often she was on the brink of cursing at God, but as each ring strengthened her bitterness, she cried and cried until she no longer felt so deeply the ache in her arms and in her heart. When the bells muted and no longer swayed, she wiped her tears, descended the stairway, and prayed before the iconostasis that the saints and the Virgin would forgive her hostility and that her anger at God would not scar her heart.

  Two saints in particular were the objects of her concentrated prayers. In the evenings, she prayed to St. George, the dragon slayer, to protect her from the animals she heard on her walks home—shrill wolflike howls and mad bird screeches. And in the daytime she prayed to St. Nicholas, the Miracle Worker, to release her from her loneliness. “Or at least, remember me when I die,” she whispered. A strange thought filtered into her prayers: She dared to think that when she died, no one would be there on the other side for her either, not even Jesus. “Forgive my sinful mind,” she begged each time the thought intruded upon her devotions.

  Chapter 13

  DESPITE THE WARM WEATHER, Marusia kept her stove going. She had to believe that someone would turn up and see that a live human presence was in the village again.

  Exactly four weeks after her arrival, she heard a knock on her door.

  “Hey! Somebody in there?” a man’s voice shouted. Marusia peeped out the window. He was a short, thin man dressed in blue fatigues and a white paper face mask. He slung a rifle over his left shoulder and pounded harder on the door. “Hello! Anyone there?”

  Marusia was overjoyed. She opened the door. “Slava Isusu Chrystu. Yes, yes, somebody’s here. Come in, come in.”

  “No, thanks. I saw the chimney smoke and I had come to see who’s here.”

  She peered at him up close to see if she knew him, and could see a thick black bush of a mustache above his face mask. “Are you from here? I don’t seem to know you….”

  “No. I’m from Prypiat’. I was sent here to chase away the dogs with this….” He patted the butt end of his rifle. “So, seen any dogs around?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Sometimes I hear sounds at night. Maybe those are the dogs howling. I’m not sure.”

  “How long have you been here.”

  “Almost a month.”

  “But why are you here? Do you have a permit from the council? Do you work for the plant?”

  “No. I live here.”

  He laughed, lit a cigarette, and puffed it through his thin face mask, which was already dotted with brown nicotine spots. “Excuse me, babo, but this is a contaminated zone. No one is supposed to be here.”

  “Yes, but people work at the plant. And the government said we can return….”

  “Wait a minute! Just when did the government say that?”

  “It’s in the papers. I read it myself in Kyiv. The radiation wasn’t so bad after all. Things are back to normal, so why shouldn’t I come back to my house?” She wished she could talk to the man the way Zosia used to, firm and confident.

  He shook his head. “Nobody said it was all right for you to come back. The real truth is, if you want to know, that things are so bad that all of us are doomed. It’s the end of the world, babo. Still, you’re right—people work at the plant and live around there like before. But it stinks with radiation. Anyone else here?”

  “No. Just me. I’m alone. Listen, my cow is gone. I’m sure she’s dead. I need a new cow. And my pension. I haven’t seen my money since I left here so long ago….”

  He coughed up some phlegm and pulled down his mask so he could spit into her bushes. “You’re not officially supposed to be here.”

  “But I am now!”

  “I don’t know what to do for you. I’m just supposed to shoot dogs. Any dogs here?”

  “No. None here. I used to have a dog, and a cow, and my cat, Myrrko. I used to have a son and grandchildren and even some chickens. I lost everything because of your damned radiation. So, now I’m telling you, I need my money and for you to do something and get me a new cow.”

  “Look babo, this isn’t right. You have to leave. Watch this.” He took out a small box that looked like a transistor radio and placed it above her head. “See this thing. It measures the radiation. Hear that crackling—sounds like an old man’s snore? Radiation! I took it off a dead man after the explosion. Around here this little gauge is worth a fortune. Those bastards at the plant probably only have three in the whole stupid country, that’s how crazy this explosion situation is. I’m going to sell this thing and get the hell out of this place. But listen.” He positioned the instrument against the door-jamb. “Sh. Here that? See how high the numbers go? That’s the poison. That’s radiation, dear heart. You got it, I got it.”

  She was getting impatient. “I don’t care about your toy. I’m here on my own land where I’ll die. Make yourself useful and tell your chiefs that I’m here and I’ll starve soon and I want a cow. My son died because of that explosion. They can compensate me with a cow.”

  He shook his head. “Well, I just don’t know,” he said patiently, then sniffed the soup that was simmering on her woodstove. “Hey, you can’t cook here. It’s poison. You’ll die of madness and they’ll come here and arrest you and shoot you like I do the dogs.” He searched his pocket for a cigarette. “You know the joke, ‘How do you make chicken Kyiv? You hold the chicken out the window for a few minutes.’ Hah!” He laughed so hard he started to cough.

  She crossed her arms. “Yes, funny. Then why didn’t they tell us how bad it was?”

  He shook his head. “I have to go. All I can do is tell the deputy at the plant that you’re here. That’s all. Take care.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She tried to grab his hand, but he stepped back from her grasp as though she had the plague. “Have something to eat, at least.”

  “No, thanks. You take care of yourself.” He hurried away from her house. “Stubborn old bitch,” she heard him mutter.

  After he left, she heard the popping sounds of gunshots. She wondered if that’s how the animals on her land had been killed, or had they died from the poison in the air.

  But at least someone knows I’m here, she thought, and she realized how very quiet it was once again.

  HE RETURNED ONCE more about three weeks later. Marusia heard the short crackles from his rifle early in the morning. She stood at her window and saw a pack of dogs running past her front yard. One lagged behind, a thin, white German shepherd who sniffed and lingered at her gate for only a minute before she saw its skeletal body shudder and hit the ground. The dog’s upturned face stared straight at her, and she heard it whimper. It didn’t whine or yelp, but uttered a more dignified moan from its slender, pulsating throat. A truck pulled up alongside the animal. The dogcatcher leaned out of the passenger side and shot it square in the head.

  “Got him!” He jumped out of his truck, then lifted the limp hind legs with his gloved hands and threw its body in the back of the pickup. Marusia opened her door a
nd held her nose. She couldn’t help staring at the heap of dog and cat bodies piled on top of some rabbits and an animal she thought was a small pig.

  “See a cow back there?” he laughed. “Take it if you see one.”

  She stood back from the stench.

  “Hey! I told them about you. But that’s all I can do. Listen, want a ride to Prypiat’? You can get the train back to Kyiv.”

  “No, thank you,” she said, and turned away from him again.

  “Those roving dogs are wild. You could be eaten alive.”

  She turned and waved from her front steps. “Not with you around to protect me.”

  He laughed. “See you. Or maybe not in this place anymore! Maybe in hell, sooner than here! Okh, hell can’t be so bad after this place, that’s for sure.” He waved at her, beeped his horn, and left.

  She was sad to see him go. After the dust settled on the dirt road, and the thick silence closed in on her once again, she wondered if she shouldn’t have gone with him.

  Chapter 14

  MARUSIA’S EYES ACHED constantly and itched. The irritation wearied her so much that one evening she had to slice two pieces of a potato she was about to boil for her dinner and apply them to her swollen eyelids. The poultice eased her pain somewhat. She found release in a heavy dark sleep void of urgent dreams and did not awake until dusk.

  “Okh,” Marusia said, disoriented and surprised to find the potato slices over her eyes. “I have to ring the bells.” She grabbed a candle and a match and hurried to the church. On the way, she heard crickets in the grass and saw the faint white half-moon in the sky.

  She climbed the stairs. High in the tower it seemed darker than usual. She lit the candle and waited for the wax to drip on the counter where she would plant the light. She heard a low humming sound and stumbled back on something that felt like a rope. She heard another screech, and the rope came alive and whipped itself out of her path.