A nurse was shaving a little girl’s head with a razor. Tears were flowing down the girl’s dirty cheeks. Her long black locks had fallen to the ground in twisted curls.
No one had to tell me. My turn was next. Then Mama had her turn.
“Climb on up,” the nurse said to me.
The chair was too high. Papa always told me that he loved my hair. It reminded him of Granny Vera. In protest, I stared deeply into Mama’s eyes. She bit her lip, shook her head and helped me into the chair.
I took a deep breath.
“It will grow back, Katya,” Mama’s voice was saying.
I felt the cold razor travel up the back of my neck. The nurse turned to dip the razor in water. I reached back and touched a bald stripe. My bare skin felt naked and ugly.
PART II
KIEV, 1986
Chapter Thirteen
TWO WEEKS AFTER THE ACCIDENT, Mama and I knocked on the plain brown door of an apartment in Kiev. Each of us carried our small suitcase. Both our heads were covered in ugly stubble, and to add to my disappointment, my own hair seemed to be growing back brown.
“We’re so lucky to get this apartment for our two families,” Mama said. She must have sensed that I wasn’t feeling very lucky because she kept talking away. “Of course, Aunt Olga Pushko’s persistence helped a lot,” she continued. “She is one determined woman.” Mama knocked again, louder this time.
Not only is Kiev the capital of the Ukraine, it is also my country’s largest city. Since arriving, we had wandered by St. Sophia Cathedral’s thirteen golden domes and the Mariyinsky Palace’s gorgeous blue and cream façade, and I had already verified with my own eyes what I had always heard. The city was beautiful. It stood on a series of steep wooded hills and was bounded on both sides by the Dnieper River which flowed south towards the Black Sea. Flowering chestnut trees lined the streets. The domes of St. Sophia’s weren’t alone; hundreds of other golden domes gleamed in the sunlight.
There was so much I wanted Papa to see.
Although I eagerly awaited his return, Mama had cautioned me that it wouldn’t be soon. Uncle Alexander Pushko and Papa were recovering at a sanatorium from mild cases of radiation sickness. Already, Papa had warned Mama that when he got well again, he was going to apply for a job, helping to clean up the station. A position at the station meant that he would have to live apart from us.
“Welcome.” Aunt Olga threw open the door. She was surrounded by my four cousins, all with shaved heads.
Yuri, the youngest, grabbed my hand. “Come see, Katya. The water in the shower is so hot.”
On our second day in the flat on St. Petersburg Street, Mama and I stepped into our creaky apartment elevator. Our arms loaded down with groceries, we were returning home from the market. The occupants of the elevator, a man smoking a carved pipe and a woman holding a mongrel puppy, stared at us. Even their dog’s eyes bugged out with interest and curiosity.
I assumed that the couple was simply intrigued by our shorn hair until the woman suddenly demanded, “Get off this elevator!” The man used his body to block the elevator door from closing. Both of them waited, expecting us to leave.
“I’m sorry. What do you mean?” Mama asked. She had a country woman’s natural grace and inability to grasp rudeness.
“We don’t want to get sick. Get off,”[8] the woman ordered us.
The man took a drag on his pipe and blew smoke in my direction. I started coughing.
Mama took hold of my arm and began pulling me out of the elevator.
“We’re not sick,” I cried.
“Hush, Katya,” Mama said. She steered me back onto the landing.
Before the doors slammed shut, I thought I heard the man tell the woman, “They say fish are being born without heads[9] and babies without blood.”[10]
“What were they talking about?” I asked Mama.
Mama had turned pale. “People can be radioactive, Katya. A nurse at that clinic told me.”[11]
“They don’t know anything,” I cried. Since we arrived in Kiev, we had listened to the radio. The government had repeated over and over. “Everything is safe. The danger has passed. Few have been harmed.” Papa was recovering, and soon we would all go home. I could already feel my hair growing back. I wasn’t sick.
“It’s O.K.,” Mama comforted me.
When I had a cold, Mama would make me throw away my dirty tissues. “You’re infectious,” she would say. Now I asked, “Can those people catch radiation sickness from us?”
Mama shrugged. “I don’t know whether we are still radioactive or not.” Now that she had no hair, her dark eyes looked huge, and I could see in their dark pools so much that she didn’t know.
“And Papa. When is Papa coming to Kiev?” He always knew what to do.
Mama sighed as we stepped onto the next elevator. Thankfully, it was empty. “I’ve told you. Soon.” I had asked her this question again and again, terrified her answer would change.
“May I go see him?” I asked.
“No. Papa will visit when he can. You know how stubborn your father is. Every day that he is safe, we should be thankful.”
Chapter Fourteen
THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS OF FINDING MY WAY around Kiev, attending a new school, feeling self-conscious, hoping for my hair to grow and waiting for news of our loved ones and friends ran together into a blur of pain, loss and discovery.
One night, my cousins and I arrived home, sweaty and out of breath, from a walk in the park. When I opened the door, I found Papa sitting at the dining table with Aunt Olga and Mama.
“Papa!”
I hurried to greet him. Staring into Papa’s handsome face, I realized how much I had missed him. I burrowed into his arms, which smelled of sun and earth.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you, donechka! And I bring good news,” Papa said.
“What?” I asked.
“The station has reopened, and Uncle Alexander and I have jobs as drivers.” He beamed at me.
“But is it safe?” I asked.
“Of course,” Papa waved his hand dismissively. “They’re fixing it all up.”
“How’s Noisy?” I asked him.
For an answer, he squeezed me so hard that I felt like I might pop.
After a few moments of aimless fun during which Yuri challenged Papa to an arm wrestling match, Aunt Olga gathered her children saying, “I’ll leave you three to talk. My kids are too young to hear.”
Puzzled, I looked at Papa for an explanation. Although I was impatient to hear what he had to say, whatever it was, it couldn’t be too bad. Now that Papa was back, the worst was over.
“Katya,” Papa said slowly. He pulled out a chair. I sat down next to him.
When Mama had joined us and grabbed my hand, Papa leaned over the breakfast table towards me. He hadn’t shaved for the last few days and stubble smeared his face. He touched his forehead and both sides of his chest, mimicking a gesture that Granny Vera had used on solemn occasions. “Katya,” he said. “I am so pained to have to tell you this when we have just been reunited.” He took a deep breath and said, “They are shooting our animals.”[12]
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