Marina sat cross-legged behind Juli on the bed, massaging Juli’s shoulders as she spoke. “There’s nothing you can do,” said Marina.
“Worrying about it won’t help. Even if it was the number four reactor, Mihaly would have been one of the first out of there because he would have known if something was going wrong. He’s home right now, sealed in his apartment.”
“Mihaly wouldn’t have left, Marina. There’s no answer at the plant switchboard. They were going to do a shutdown. And now there’s no answer…”
“How bad could it be?” asked Marina. “My Vasily lives closer to the plant than we do. I wish he had a phone so I could call him.
What about the dosimeter you put out on the balcony? Will the dosimeter tell us if it’s safe?”
Juli stood, walked to the balcony door, and opened the curtains.
She slid the door open a few centimeters, reached quickly outside, pulled the dosimeter inside, and slammed the door.
“You should have asked me to get it,” said Marina.
“Why? You said it’s probably nothing.”
Juli took the dosimeter into the bathroom, turned on the bright overhead light, and held the small lens to her eye. At first she thought she saw the hairline resting at zero. But it was only the zero marker line. Then she thought there was no hairline, and she had trouble keeping the markings in the dosimeter in focus. Her hand shook, so she held the dosimeter with both hands, steadying her knuckles against her forehead.
The hairline was where she had never seen it during her years at the laboratory. If turned in to the rack on Monday morning, it would bring a crew of safety technicians down into the sub-basement to remove her from the vicinity of the sensitive counting equipment.
Marina spoke from behind Juli. “What does it say?”
Juli turned and did her best to remain calm. “Thirty millirems.”
“Is that a lot?” asked Marina.
“Some workers are exposed to as much as a thousand millirems a year. Anything above five thousand a year is considered dangerous.”
“Then it’s okay, Juli. See? It’s fine. Everyone will be fine. Mihaly and Vasily… everyone.”
“How long did I leave it on the balcony?”
“I don’t know,” said Marina. “Maybe half an hour.”
Juli worked out the figures in her head. It was no use remaining calm. “At this rate, in a day outside on the balcony, the exposure would have been over a thousand. In five days it would have been beyond the danger level. We’re three kilometers from the explosion, and the worst of the radioactivity might not even be here yet!”
Juli turned, placed the dosimeter on the edge of the sink, and began washing her hands and arms vigorously, especially her right because it had reached out into the blackness to retrieve the dosimeter.
“But if something’s happened, where’s the militia?” asked Marina, looking worried.
The ceiling began shaking with a pounding vibration, rattling the balcony door. “What’s that?” screamed Marina.
Juli looked up as the pounding became louder before suddenly fading. “A helicopter heading to the plant.”
“Should we go out and see?”
Juli went to Marina and held her shoulders. She spoke in a voice that did not seem her own. “We’ll stay here. Technically I should go to the plant because I’m a dosimetrist, and in the event of a spill, I should be monitoring the area. But this is no spill. This is a disaster.”
Not everyone in Pripyat was frightened. Many slept as moist air swept through open windows. Others, even though they knew of the explosion, did not believe radiation could be allowed to be let loose. Dawn would bring action. Weren’t there plenty of sirens now? Weren’t firemen being called to extra duty? Obviously the explosion, and the resulting fire, was something entirely controlla-ble? To some, even the metallic taste and smell in the air was a good sign. “Nothing but an ordinary industrial fire,” they said.
Lectures from Juli’s classes years earlier in Moscow haunted her. Strontium, krypton-85, cesium-137, and the concerns of her co-worker Aleksandra Yasinsky-all of these things from her years of training and working with radiation took on new meaning. Not because of concern for herself, but because of the vulnerability of the baby growing inside her.
And what about Mihaly? One second she imagined Mihaly and his co-workers safe inside the bunker beneath the administration building. The next second she imagined him at home with his wife, both of them looking out their balcony window facing the plant.
Yes, Mihaly either at home or in the bunker. In the bunker briefing the power plant Party secretary on the explosion and what could be done. Both of them tying up the phone lines calling in more helicopters. Mihaly and the Party secretary filling in KGB operatives on duty. Mihaly in charge to make sure no one was killed or injured, especially the young, especially the unborn, especially his child growing this very moment inside her.
While Juli watched Marina use the last of the cellophane tape on the side of the sliding door, reality returned. The world she had known was ended. Perhaps the world everyone had known was ended. The great environmental disaster had come, not slowly as Aleksandra had been predicted, but with great speed.
Juli and Marina stuffed rolled-up wet towels at the bottoms of the doors, taped the windows, even taped a plastic bag over the exhaust vent above the stove. There was nothing to do but seal themselves inside and wait. Sealed inside like babes in a womb.
With a shaking hand, Juli held the dosimeter up to the light again.
“What does it say now?” asked Marina.
“Still at thirty.”
“And it doesn’t mean it’s thirty now?”
“No. It’s a cumulative measure. Since it was recharged at the lab, it’s accumulated thirty millirems. As long as it doesn’t keep going up, we’re fine. Even if it goes up a little, we’ll be okay. At least in here.”
“How long will the radioactive dust or smoke or whatever it is stay in the air?”
“Until it blows away. But if the reactor keeps sending out more…”
Marina crossed the room, turned on the radio again, switched between the three stations they could receive. Beethoven on one, Prokofiev on another, some jazz on the third. Next she tried the television. Still too early, only snow.
“Why don’t they say anything?” asked Marina. “And Vasily lives so close to the plant. I hope he was out somewhere. At one of those men’s clubs in Pripyat, drinking himself silly. He’s such a joker. He’s…”
Juli and Marina looked to the ceiling as more helicopters flew over. They hugged until the helicopters passed.
“Why can’t Vasily go somewhere where there’s a phone and call me? Why is his mother so cheap she can’t have a phone?”
Juli looked to the balcony, where Mihaly had held her and kissed her last winter. Everything seemed so long ago. She picked up the phone, dialed the number at the plant, and, again, received a busy signal after a wait of several minutes.
A little past six in the morning, the electricity went out, and Marina brought out her portable radio. At six thirty, the curtains over the balcony door looked the way they did any other morning before work. The glow of day bringing life to the world. But there was not the yellow glow of sunrise on the edges of the curtains. The morning was overcast.
At seven o’clock, Juli tried the plant again, received a busy signal. Without knowing what she would say, she dialed Mihaly’s home number.
As the phone rang, Juli imagined Mihaly answering, pretending he was talking with someone else, telling her everything was fine. A small explosion, some release of radiation, and he was fine. But the phone kept ringing.
On the far side of the room, Marina picked up a glass egg she had transferred from a shelf to her bed when the helicopters began flying over. She held the egg in both hands. “No one answers,” she whispered. “In the legend, Easter eggs must be decorated every year, or the world will end. No one will answer because they are decorating eggs.”