Despite the icon, I was sure that something evil was happening, and Vasyl had tricked me into being a part of it. “The boy who stole the blanket told me about this,” I muttered.
“Katya!” Mama jerked my hand. “Stop making up stories. I don’t have the patience for you today.”
“Mama,” I moaned, “I’m not making this up.”
Her gaze stayed fixed on the scene in front of her as if she didn’t even hear me.
A little boy wearing an embroidered shirt and a black jacket fussed next to me. He was squirming in his mother’s arms. “Where are we going?”
Without a pause, his mother answered, “We’re going to a circus.”
Even I knew we weren’t going to a circus.
“Which circus?” the little boy lisped.
“I don’t know. Maybe one in another country,” the mother said. The little boy beamed up at her, and I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. But the mother’s comment started me thinking.
Was it possible that the buses would take us out of the country? Papa had said the government would not let us leave the U.S.S.R. Ukraine shared its borders with Belorussia and Russia, both part of the Soviet Union, as well as Poland and Romania, which were not under Soviet control. I had always wanted to go to Belorussia, the country just north of Ukraine, where Mama had a cousin. Perhaps we could go stay with her?
I felt a twinge of excitement. My longest trip had been to the city of Chernobyl, about twelve miles north of Pripyat and Yanov.
Many of our neighbors and friends were gathered in clusters on the sidewalk, but not the Kaletniks. It was as hard to locate them in the anxious crowd as it would have been if it had actually been May Day. Searching for them, we hurried from group to group, not stopping to talk to the others.
Everyone was dressed differently. The gay hat that Mama wore for gardening sat atop her head, making her look slightly festive. Some women had worn embroidered or lacy party dresses and their expensive woolen shawls. Others had stayed in their everyday clothes. I spotted one old woman wearing her gray robe and slippers. As if the occasion were a formal one, I noticed that a number of kids had worn their school uniforms. I was glad that Mama had let me keep on my slacks.
And people carried fascinating objects. A boy had his guitar slung over his back. An old man held a goat in his arms. A cat jumped out of a basket carried by a girl. The girl started crying and running after the animal. The shouts of the policemen added to the chaos. “All residents need to board a bus immediately!”
One piece of the surrounding confusion was especially puzzling. I pointed at the large puddles of white liquid on the asphalt street. “What’s that?”
“The government is trying to wash the roads,” Mama said.
I wanted to correct her—to say the outdoors can’t be cleaned like a house after a party—but right then I saw Galina Galkina, Angelika and her older brother, Oleg, huddled near the street light.
“Mama.” I tugged on Mama’s hand. “I see Comrade Galkina.”
Mama and I hurried toward them.
“Angelika!” I shouted. The sight of her face—pale against her brown uniform shift—made me afraid. “Are you O.K.?” I cried as I reached for her hand.
Angelika jerked away. She kept her eyes on the sidewalk, but Oleg said quietly, “Our father is very sick.” He was a tall, studious boy who wanted to be an engineer like his father.
“What’s wrong with him?” I asked.
“He has radiation sickness,” Oleg said.
Angelika lifted her eyes and nailed me with them. “You knew about this. What did that boy in the woods tell you?” she demanded.
From the coldness in her brown eyes, I could tell that she thought I was responsible for her father’s illness. “Angelika,” I protested. “No, I had no idea.” I shook my head. Not me.
“Tell me what that boy told you,” Angelika demanded.
I felt Oleg watching me, too, and I drew my eyebrows together in feigned confusion. “Boy. There was no boy.” I lowered my voice so Oleg wouldn’t hear. “You know I always pretend.” As soon as I told this lie, I felt a terrible loneliness. As lonely as any boy living in the woods by himself.
“What are you silly girls babbling about?” Oleg asked crossly.
Angelika turned her back on me and began walking away. She called over her shoulder, “Ask Katya to tell you. She’s a liar…and a thief.”
Hearing the words that I had used to brand Vasyl flung back at me felt strange, and I struggled to understand what she meant by her charges.
I knew why Angelika had called me a liar, but a thief? Why, she must be talking about Sergei. I realized that I had forgotten all about him.
Before I could react to Angelika’s accusations, I heard Mama screaming behind us. When I turned around, I saw Comrade Galkina patting Mama’s cheek.
I ran over to them. “Mama, what’s wrong?”
Tears overflowed Mama’s eyes. As if the garden on her hat had been lashed by a thunderstorm, the straw flowers hung at odd angles. “Last night, when your father went to work, he got too close to the reactor. Victor was right. It was damaged. Papa’s sick again.”
I grabbed her hand and started tugging on her. “We’ve got to go to him.”
“Comrade Dubko is at the clinic. He will be fine,” Galina Galkina said stiffly. “We need to board the bus now, Natasha. Be brave.” In a gesture unusually tender for her, she touched my mother’s cheek again. “Until we meet again.”
Mama wiped her eyes and looked at her. “I hope your husband…” Her voice faltered.
Galina Galkina met her eyes. She assumed again the stern, humorless demeanor which characterized her. “My husband is dying for the Motherland.” She turned away.
Angelika’s father was dying. How could this be?
A policeman holding a megaphone walked up to us. “Please board the closest bus.”
My mother gripped the policeman’s arm. “My husband works at the station,” she begged. “We have just learned that he is sick. We have to go to him.”
“Impossible,” the policeman said, throwing off her grasp.
I looked, but could find no pity in the officer’s eyes. My suitcase was getting heavy, and the crowd around us had grown.
“We can’t leave without making sure that he is all right,” Mama insisted.
“Get on the bus!” the policeman ordered before turning away.
I grasped Mama’s hand but her fingers were sweaty, and as a large man pushed past us, I lost my grip. Suddenly, I was alone among strangers, all carrying suitcases, purses, babies. As the group tightened, I was frightened to be staring into the face of a bright-green parrot. Behind the cage bars, he was cleaning his claws. His dark tongue curled around the talons.
“Mama!” I screamed.
“Mama,” the parrot mimicked me, his voice full of distress.
I tried to breathe and gagged on a perfume that smelled like roses. As bodies crushed against me, I despaired, Mama will never find me.
The bodies shifted, and I lost sight of the parrot, turning my gaze instead on the ground, at shoes of all sizes and shapes. A pair of thick-black boots looked particularly ominous. In a wave of nausea, I realized those black boots were the fate of bad girls who snuck out in the middle of the night and brought boys food; of girls who stole their best friend’s boyfriend. The boots would trample them until all that was left was their clothes. With one hand, I covered my eyes and waited, helpless as suitcases and bodies poked and prodded me. I had given up all hope of being rescued when I felt someone snatch my arm.