It may be poisoned with radiation, but this is my home. There’s nowhere else we’re needed. Even a bird loves its nest.
I’ll finish the story. I was living with my son up on the sixth floor. I’d walk over to the window, look down and cross myself. Thought I could hear a horse. Or a cockerel. And I felt so sad. Sometimes I’ll dream of our yard: tethering the cow, and milking her, milking her. Then I wake up, and don’t want to get out of bed; I’m still back there. Some of the time I’m here, some of the time there.
By day we lived in the new place, but at night we went back home. In our dreams.
In the winter, when the nights are long, sometimes we sit counting everyone who’s died. In the town, there are lots who died of nerves and grief at just forty or fifty – is that the right age to go? But we’re still living. Every day, we pray to God, ask Him for just one thing: health.
As they say, the place you were born is where you belong.
My good husband was laid up for two months. He wasn’t speaking, wouldn’t answer me. Like he was upset. I’d potter about the yard, pop back indoors. ‘How are you feeling, husband?’ He’d look up at the sound of my voice, and I’d feel better. So he might be lying there in silence, but at least he was with me in the house. When someone is dying, you mustn’t cry. You’ll disrupt their death, make it harder for them. I got a candle from the cupboard and put it in his hands. He took it and was breathing. I saw his eyes misting over. I didn’t cry. Just asked for one thing: ‘Say hello over there to our little daughter and my precious mum.’ I prayed to be together with him. Some people’s prayers are answered, but He hasn’t granted me death. I’m still here.
I’m not afraid of dying. Nobody gets to live twice. Look how the leaves blow away, the trees topple down.
Don’t cry, old girls! We were star workers for all those years, Stakhanovite workers. We survived Stalin, survived the war! If we hadn’t laughed and had fun, we’d have hanged ourselves ages ago. Two Chernobyl women are chatting. One says, ‘Have you heard, everyone’s got the white blood cancer now?’ The other says, ‘Rubbish! Yesterday, I cut my finger and the blood was red.’
Home is where the heart is. The sunshine isn’t the same anywhere else.
My mother once told me: take an icon, turn it back to front, then leave it like that for three days. No matter where you are, you’ll find your way home. I had two cows and two heifers, five pigs, some geese and chickens. And a dog. I clasped my head in my hands and paced about the orchard. There were so many apples! Everything’s lost. Damn, it’s all gone!
I washed the house, whitewashed the stove. You have to leave bread on the table and salt, a bowl and three spoons. As many spoons as there are souls in the house. To be sure you’ll return.
All the hens’ combs were black, not red: that was the radiation. And we couldn’t make cheese. We went a month without soft cheese or hard. The milk wouldn’t sour, it curdled into lumps, these white lumps. It was the radiation.
Had that radiation stuff in my vegetable plot. The whole plot went white, completely white, like it was dusted with something. With some little specks. I thought maybe something had been carried from the forests. The wind had sprinkled it.
We didn’t want to leave. No, we didn’t! The men were drunk, throwing themselves in front of the cars. The officials were going from house to house, trying to persuade people. The orders were, ‘Leave all your belongings behind!’
The cattle went three whole days without water and food. Took them to be slaughtered! A newspaper journalist arrived: ‘How are you feeling? How are things going?’ The drunken milkmaids nearly murdered the fellow.
The chairman and some soldiers were hovering round my house. They tried frightening me: ‘Come out or we’ll set fire to the place! Hey, pass us the petrol can!’ I started running about – grabbed a towel, a pillow …
Now you tell me how that radiation works, according to science. Tell us the truth, because we’ll be dying soon in any case.
And you reckon they don’t have it in Minsk, seeing as it’s invisible?
My grandson brought me a dog. Called it Radium, because we’re living in this radiation. So where did my Radium get to? Always at my feet. I’m frightened he’ll run out of the village and the wolves will get him. I’ll be left all alone.
In the war years, all through the night, the guns would thud and chatter away. We built dugouts in the forest. They kept on bombing. They burned down everything, not just the cottages, but even the vegetable plot and the cherry trees.
So long as there’s no war … I’m terrified of war!
On Radio Yerevan, a caller asks: ‘Is it okay to eat Chernobyl apples?’ The answer: ‘Yes, but bury the cores deep in the ground.’ A second caller asks: ‘What is seven times seven?’ The answer: ‘Ask a Chernobyl survivor, they’ll count it on their fingers.’ Ha ha.
They gave us a new little house. Made of stone. You know what, in seven years, we haven’t hammered in a single nail. It’s a foreign land! Everything’s foreign. My good husband cried and cried. He would work all week, driving the tractor on the collective farm, waiting for Sunday; and when Sunday came, he’d lie there facing the wall and crying.
Nobody can trick us again, we’re not budging from this place. We’ve got no shop, no hospital. There’s no light. We sit around paraffin lamps and rushlights. But we’re happy! We’re home.
In the town, my daughter-in-law followed me round the apartment with a cloth, wiping the doorknobs, the chairs. And everything was bought with my money, all the furniture, the Lada. When the cash runs out, nobody needs you.
Our children took the money, and inflation ate up the rest. The money they gave us for the smallholding, for the cottages, the apple trees.
On Radio Yerevan, a caller asks: ‘What is a Radio Nanny?’* ‘A grandmother from Chernobyl.’ Ha ha.
I was walking for two weeks. With my cow. People wouldn’t let me into their houses. I had to sleep in the forest.
They’re frightened of us. We’re infectious, they say. What is God punishing us for? He’s angry? We’re not living like humans, not living by God’s laws. We’re killing each other. That’s why He’s angry.
My grandchildren came in the summer. The first few years they didn’t come; like everyone else, they were scared. But now they visit, and they take produce home, they’ll pack whatever you give them. ‘Grandma,’ they said. ‘Have you read a book about Robinson Crusoe?’ He lived alone, just like us. Without anyone. I brought half a sack of matches with me, an axe and a spade. And now I have pork fat, eggs, milk – all my own produce. Just one thing you can’t plant, and that’s sugar. Here you’ve got all the land you could want! Plough a hundred hectares if you like. And there’s no authorities. Nobody bothering you here. No higher-ups. We’re free.
We returned along with our cats. And dogs. We came back together. The soldiers and riot police wouldn’t let us in, so we came by night. Took the forest footpaths. The partisan paths.
There’s nothing we need from the state. We grow everything ourselves. All we ask is to be left alone! We don’t need any shops or buses. We go twenty kilometres on foot for our bread and salt. We can fend for ourselves.
A whole band of us returned. Three families. But the place was gutted: they’d smashed the stove, taken the doors and windows. The floors. The bulbs, switches, sockets – they’d unscrewed the lot. Not a living thing left. I fixed it all up again with my own hands. Oh yes!
The wild geese are screeching: spring is here. It’s time to sow. And here we are in our empty houses. Only the roofs are sound.
The police used to shout at us. They’d drive over, and we’d hide in the forest. Like hiding from the Germans. Once they turned up with the prosecutor. He was threatening to take us to court. I said, ‘They can throw me in jail for a year, but the moment I’m out, I’ll be straight back.’ Their job was to yell, ours was to keep quiet. I have a medal for being one of the top combine drivers, and here he was threatening me. Said I’d get sent down for Article 10. As if I’m a criminal.