“Go on, join them,” Babulya said, nodding at the children. “I’ll do the washing up.” She beckoned Valentina and Oksana closer before they could walk away. “Don’t mention you’ve come from Pripyat,” she whispered. “If anyone asks, say you traveled here from Kiev. Then it isn’t a lie.”
Valentina swallowed hard. Of course—if others knew she and Oksana had come from the city where the nuclear accident had occurred, some of them would be frightened. Even though news of the explosion hadn’t been made public, so many people seemed to know about it. They would wonder if she and Oksana were contaminated.
She looked at her hands. They appeared normal. She felt normal, too. She thought of the dosimeters the doctor had used to check her for radiation. Perhaps she could make her own. Then she could periodically test Oksana and herself, to make sure they were still all right.
No, that didn’t make sense. They’d already received radiation from the explosion; they wouldn’t get more. Maybe they should perform other tests on themselves, like how long they could hold their breath, to see if their lung capacity had been affected—
“Valentina, are you listening?” Babulya asked. “I told you not to mention Pripyat.”
Valentina jumped. Sometimes her mind was so busy with thoughts, she forgot where she was. “Yes, Babulya, I promise I won’t.”
As she and Oksana crossed the room, she noticed one of the men sitting at the table was staring at her. He wore spectacles and was smoking a cigarette. “Rita,” he called to Babulya, who was washing their dishes in the sink, “who are your guests?”
“My granddaughter and her friend.” Babulya plunged her hands into the soapy water. “Oksana’s mother isn’t well, and my daughter’s in Kiev at the moment, so I’ve taken the girls in.”
“Interesting,” the man said. Valentina felt his eyes on her as she sat down with the other children. Did he suspect her grandmother wasn’t being completely honest? If he learned she and Oksana came from Pripyat, would he demand they move out? Or maybe he was a member of the KGB, the secret police. She’d heard they had spies everywhere. You never knew if they were watching you.
Kommunalkas weren’t only uncomfortable and overcrowded, she realized with a shiver.
They could be dangerous.
Babulya insisted the girls share the bed while she took the sofa. Tomorrow was May Day, so schools would be closed for the holiday. The follow morning, on Friday, she said she would take them to the middle school to register them in the fifth grade. Schools were set up in the same way here in Leningrad as they were in Pripyat: first through third grades were in the primary school, fourth through seventh were middle, and eighth through tenth were high school. That made moving somewhat easier: at least they wouldn’t be sent down to the primary grades. Still, with only a few weeks left before the summer holidays began, Valentina thought it hardly seemed worth the trouble of registering and going to school, but she knew better than to say so.
She was asleep when something woke her. For a moment, she lay still, listening. Floorboards creaked. Someone was walking across the room.
She sat up. In the darkness, she could see a shadow moving toward the door. It was Oksana—she recognized her outline. What was she doing?
Oksana opened the apartment door. By the fluorescent glare of the corridor lights, Valentina could see she was gripping her shoulder. Valentina remembered what she had seen in the shower in Kiev. Was Oksana still hurt?
Valentina glanced at her grandmother. She was asleep on the sofa. Valentina didn’t want to wake her to tell her Oksana was in pain. For all she knew, Babulya would be angry at being woken.
The door closed behind Oksana. Once again, the room was dark. Valentina shut her eyes. In the street below, a car trundled past. Somewhere outside something shattered, like glass breaking, and someone shouted a curse. Valentina put her pillow over her head.
Oksana had been gone for a long time. Valentina thought of how tightly Oksana had been holding her shoulder.
She sat up again. Maybe she should check on Oksana. She got out of bed and went to the bathroom at the end of the corridor.
Oksana was standing in the middle of the room. She had peeled her nightgown away from her shoulder and was craning her neck, trying to look at herself in the mirror.
Valentina gasped. Oksana’s shoulder was now swollen and red. A line of pus dribbled from a dot in the center of the wound.
Was this radiation sickness? Oksana had said it wasn’t, but what if she was wrong? What if Oksana was contagious, and Valentina and her grandmother grew sick from being near her?
Valentina stumbled backward.
Oksana’s tear-filled eyes met hers in the mirror. “I kept hoping it was getting better. But it feels worse. It hurts all the time.”
Valentina found her voice. “We have to tell my grandmother. Right now.”
Oksana hung her head and burst into tears.
* * *
- - -
Babulya told the girls to bundle into their clothes straightaway. They were going to the hospital.
They caught the last train of the night. At the hospital, they waited in the emergency area. When Oksana’s name was called, she and Babulya vanished down a corridor, leaving Valentina alone.
She didn’t know what to do. Silently, she began reciting multiplication tables in her head, which she often did when she was nervous. She had gotten all the way to the fourteens when her grandmother returned.
“Come with me,” Babulya said. “I don’t want you staying out here by yourself.” Her face was gray, her lips a thin line. She looked so exhausted that Valentina didn’t dare ask her anything.
Together they went down the corridor into a small examination room. Oksana sat on a table, dressed in a hospital gown. The gown was open at the back. A doctor was studying her bare shoulder.
“It isn’t radiation,” he said. “It’s a burn. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it was caused by a cigarette.”
Babulya looked startled. “A cigarette did this? But how . . .” She trailed off.
“I can think of only one way a wound like this would occur.” The doctor glanced at Oksana, his expression softening. “It was deliberate.”
For a long moment, Valentina stared at Oksana. Somebody had hurt Oksana on purpose. That was what the doctor meant. Somebody had pressed the burning tip of a cigarette into her skin. Somebody had wanted to harm her.
“Oksana,” Babulya asked gently, “who did this?”
Oksana ducked her head, letting her hair swing forward to hide her face. “My father,” she whispered.
Valentina remembered Comrade Savchenko. He had had blond hair, like many Ukrainians, and blue eyes. Sometimes she had seen him in the stairwell of their apartment building, or in the street. Once he had spit on her, when she was little and had bumped into him on the stairs. “Watch where you’re going, rat,” he had said. She had run away, crying. That was the only time he had spoken to her. Her father had warned her to keep clear of him.
Babulya let out a sigh. “Oh, Oksana, my poor girl.”
“It wasn’t his fault,” Oksana said quickly. “He only wanted the best for me. That’s why he had to punish me, so I could learn.”
“Nonsense,” Babulya said. “Hurting someone is never acceptable, no matter the reason.”
The doctor bent down to look Oksana in the face. “You must be honest with me so I can properly treat your wounds. Do you understand?”
Avoiding his eyes, she nodded.
“Good. The wound on your back was caused by a cigarette, wasn’t it?”
Still not looking at him, she nodded yes.
“Often,” the doctor said, “cigarette burns heal on their own. I suspect some loose ashes worked their way into the wound, which is how it became infected. You’re fortunate this lady brought you in tonight. If an infection like this is left untreated,
skin tissue can die. Your injury could have become very serious.”
Valentina couldn’t stop staring at Oksana. She knew plenty of their schoolmates were spanked or hit with a belt when they misbehaved. But to have a father who burned you with a cigarette on purpose . . . She couldn’t imagine how horrible that would feel.
“I’ll incise and drain the skin around the wound,” the doctor said to Babulya. “She’ll need to have the dressings changed once a day for at least a week. If it looks worse or begins emitting pus again, bring her here immediately.”
Valentina couldn’t understand his manner. He acted as though it didn’t matter that Oksana’s father had burned her. “Aren’t you going to do something about her father?” she asked him. “He ought to be arrested!”
“For disciplining his child?” The doctor looked startled. “I hardly think so, young lady. Now move back. I have work to do.”
Reluctantly, Valentina stepped away from the examining table. Oksana sat hunched over, picking at the frayed hem of her hospital gown. While the doctor scribbled on a chart, Babulya took Valentina aside.
“You’re so upset I think you’ve forgotten that Oksana’s father is beyond punishment,” she said quietly.
Valentina had forgotten. “It isn’t right. He got away with this.”
“My dear girl,” Babulya said, “no one gets away with anything. By hurting his daughter, Oksana’s father will never have her love. He may have thought he did, but he didn’t. Not in life or in death. I hope Oksana learns that someday. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Maybe, but she didn’t understand now. Crossing her arms over her chest, she watched the doctor set out metal instruments, a tube of ointment, and a roll of bandages on a tray. Oksana stared at the floor, her eyes vacant. Valentina recognized what she was doing. She was retreating into her mind, to someplace where nothing could hurt her. Valentina had done the same thing when she was called a dirty Jew.
Babulya guided Valentina out of the room. “You don’t want to see what he has to do to Oksana. It’s best if you wait out here.”
Valentina watched the door close after her grandmother, leaving her alone in the hallway. She had thought she knew Oksana, after being classmates for six years, but it turned out she hadn’t known her at all.
Closing her eyes, Valentina leaned against the wall, letting the iciness of the painted cinder blocks seep through her clothes into her skin, keeping her awake.
19
Oksana
THE METRO TRAINS had stopped running for the night, so the doctor let them stay in the exam room. Oksana had a hard time falling asleep. What must Valentina and her grandmother think of her now? They knew she was bad—such a bad person that her father had had to hurt her, to help her improve. They must hate her.
And what was happening to Mama? Was she getting better or was she going to die, too? Tears seeped out from under Oksana’s eyelids. She brushed them away, hoping no one had seen.
The hospital was noisy: machines beeped, voices hummed, and gurneys squeaked in the hallways. And her shoulder still ached, like a rotting tooth. It took her a long time to fall asleep. When she woke in the morning, she felt as though she hadn’t slept at all.
After they left the hospital, she saw red pennants hanging down the sides of buildings. Crowds lined the streets, talking and laughing. Almost everyone wore a red ribbon pinned over their heart. It was May Day, Oksana realized. Because of everything that had happened, she had forgotten about the holiday.
If she were still at home, she would have had the day off from school. She would have gone to the main square to watch the parade, and Papa would have held her hand—
No. She mustn’t think about that. Home didn’t exist anymore. And neither did Papa.
Her chest grew tight. Head down, she followed Valentina’s grandmother through the throngs. She supposed they were going to the nearest Metro station, where they would take the red line back to Avtovo.
But Valentina’s grandmother stopped in front of an ice cream cart. “Two vanilla cones,” she told the vendor, then glanced at the girls. “Unless you prefer chocolate.”
Ice cream for breakfast? Oksana bit her lip. “My parents don’t like me to have sweets.”
“We all need extra sweetness sometimes,” Valentina’s grandmother said. “Two vanillas,” she told the ice cream man again. “And a chocolate cone for me.”
And that was how they wound up eating ice cream in the slanting sunshine while all around them Leningraders cheered and threw red flowers on the pavement. Dozens of tanks, decorated with red bunting, and hundreds of people wearing red ribbons streamed through the streets. The city had the biggest May Day parade Oksana had ever seen. She and Valentina shouted, “Hurrah!” until they were hoarse.
When the last tank had disappeared from view, Valentina’s grandmother asked Oksana how she felt.
Oksana’s cheeks warmed. She didn’t understand why she felt so ashamed. “Fine,” she mumbled.
“Very well.” Valentina’s grandmother said, and dropped a handful of coins into Valentina’s hand. “This ought to cover your expenses for the day. Get back for supper by six o’clock. The Summer Garden is lovely this time of year—that’s where I’d start, if I were you.”
“Aren’t we going back to Avtovo with you?” Oksana asked.
“Certainly not.” Valentina’s grandmother said in Ukrainian. Oksana couldn’t help smiling a little—hearing the familiar language again was comforting. “After last night, what you girls need more than helping me around the apartment is fresh air and fun. Explore Leningrad and have an adventure. And, Oksana, the instant you start feeling tired or ill, come directly back home, all right?”
Oksana’s heart beat faster. A whole day in a new city with a pocketful of coins and no grown-ups! It was like a dream. But what if they got lost?
“Do you think you can find your way back?” Valentina’s grandmother asked.
“Yes,” Valentina said quickly.
“Then have a lovely time,” her grandmother said.
“Thank you, Babulya,” Valentina said, and pulled Oksana into the crowd with her before Oksana had a chance to object.
“Wait!” Oksana panted. “What if we can’t figure out how to get back to your grandmother’s apartment? Or run out of money? Or get in trouble for playing truant?”
Valentina rolled her eyes. “No one will think we’re truants. Schools in Russia close for the holiday, too, just like back in Pripyat. We won’t run out of money because I’ll be careful. And if we get lost, we’ll ask for directions. Let’s go!”
They asked a nice-looking lady in front of a bakery how to get to the Summer Garden. They took a couple of wrong turns, but every mistake was part of the adventure, and when Oksana saw Valentina wasn’t worried, she began to relax.
They saw enormous buildings painted pastel pink and ice blue. They bought roasted chestnuts from a street vendor. They pressed their noses to the window of a fancy shop whose shelves were lined with food Oksana hadn’t seen before: glass bottles of Coca-Cola, canned caviar, plastic-wrapped packages of cookies, and other items she couldn’t identify because their labels were printed in foreign languages.
“Orange soda,” she said longingly. “I’ve always wanted to try it.”
Valentina jingled the coins in her pocket. “Let’s go in,” she said.
“Oh, no! We shouldn’t.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course we should.”
Valentina hurried toward the shop, Oksana trailing after her. Orange soda would be frightfully expensive, she was sure of it. Valentina’s grandmother would be furious when she found out they’d wasted her money.
Oksana started to shake. “Valentina, I don’t want to go—”
“It will be fun!” Valentina interrupted.
A big man in black stood in front of the shop door. “Papers?” he ba
rked at them.
“Papers?” Valentina looked surprised. “Why do we need to show you our identity papers to go inside?”
The man frowned. “This shop is for foreigners only. Show me your papers.” His eyes narrowed. “Or do I need to telephone the police to report two troublemakers?”
“Valentina,” Oksana whispered, “we need to go.”
Valentina flashed the man a big smile. “We were just leaving.”
Together, they hurried away. When they got to the corner, Valentina looked back and shouted, “Your orange soda is probably made from pee anyway!”
Then she started to run. Oksana raced after her. Around the corner, down another street, then around another corner and along an embankment overlooking the river. Finally, they stopped in front of an enormous wrought-iron fence whose black spokes were topped with gold leaf.
“That was awful!” Oksana clutched at her heart. “Do you think the guard will find us?”
Valentina laughed. “No. He can’t leave the shop.”
Oksana took a steadying breath. They were safe.
Through the fence railings, she saw parkland stretching out for what seemed like forever. This must be the entrance to the Summer Garden, for she couldn’t imagine there was another park in Leningrad so large or so beautiful.
The gates were open. Oksana and Valentina went inside and dropped onto the nearest bench. For a moment, they didn’t say anything. Then Oksana asked, “Did you really say their orange soda is made from pee?”
Valentina made a face. “Yes.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Oksana giggled. Imagine telling that big, mean-looking man that his shop’s soda was made from pee!
She felt Valentina looking at her. Then Valentina laughed, too. “I know I shouldn’t have said it,” she said. “My mother is always telling me my mouth will get me into trouble.”
Smiling, Oksana offered the bag of chestnuts to Valentina. “Want some?”
The Blackbird Girls Page 11
