Chapter Twenty-One
THREE OR FOUR HOURS LATER, I awakened to sounds of boots pounding on the floor above me. A water pipe groaned. A neighbor coughed. A cat in the alley yelped. Exhausted, I opened one eye.
I was about to pull my blanket over my head when my mother entered my room.
“Katya, time to get up,” Mama said.
I glanced at my watch. “Give me fifteen more minutes,” I begged. It was a Sunday, my only day to sleep late.
Mama tugged on my green blanket. “Papa starts his shift at the station, and he wants to have breakfast with you.”
I groaned.
“Come on, daughter!” my mother demanded in an exasperated voice. “Your room is a mess. You need to clean it up this morning.”
After her footsteps trailed off, I rolled out of bed. The journal article was splayed open on the floor where I had thrown it last night. As I stepped over it, I sensed that it had already changed my life, although I wasn’t sure how yet.
I pulled on a plain yellow T-shirt—I hated logos of any kind—and blue jeans and boots. Although Lyudmila claimed that I dressed like a boy, I simply liked to be comfortable. Staring into the brand-new mirror, I tucked both my silver necklace and my crystal inside my T-shirt. I could no longer deny that my hair had turned almost completely brown. After all, although I knew a few redheaded kids, I didn’t know a single redheaded adult. I was starting to face a painful fact. Some of my favorite things belonged exclusively to childhood.
When I entered our main room, my parents were sitting at the breakfast table eating porridge. They both wore sweatpants. On recent mornings, my mother had been returning sweaty and peevish from my father’s attempts to teach her how to jog.
My mother looked up when I walked in, but my father kept eating. “Good morning,” my mother said.
“Morning.” I yawned.
“Ivan.” My mother prodded him when he didn’t seem to notice me.
My father frowned and looked up. “Hello, Katya.”
I scooped some lumpy porridge into my bowl and sat down at the table. It was covered with a white tablecloth, embroidered with blue and green peacock eyes. The tablecloth was identical to ours in Yanov. Although I used to like the tablecloth when we lived in Yanov, I found my parents’ attempts to duplicate our old life irritating.
To keep from looking at either of my parents, I fixed my gaze on the jar of foreign coins that sat on the counter. Papa collected them. He claimed that the rich foreigners at a nearby hotel were too lazy to pick up their dropped change. This jar was a prop in his standard lecture—“Katya, you need to save for the future.”
Slowly, Papa put his hand in his pocket and withdrew one of Margarita Pikalova’s prize crystals that she had given me in exchange for a week’s work. “What’s this?” he demanded. “I found it under my bed.”
My mother sighed. “Please, Ivan. Let’s don’t argue. You leave for the station in just a few minutes.”
I had heard the disdain in my father’s voice, and my own response stiffened. I automatically prepared to defend Margarita, even as I realized that after my night of intensive reading, my last shred of belief in her fanciful theories was gone. “You know what it is. I’ve explained about crystals.”
“What is this rock doing underneath my bed?” Papa demanded.
I touched the peanut-shaped crystal that I wore around my neck to make sure that it was hidden by my T-shirt. “I’m just trying to keep you safe,” I said to Papa.
Papa got that stubborn look on his face that I had grown to hate. To keep myself from saying something that I would regret, I spooned another bite of porridge into my mouth.
“Crystals can’t keep anybody safe,” Papa said.
We had had this argument before. Besides, reading Alas, Chernobyl had raised new concerns. “Neither can the Soviet government.”
My mother clapped her hands over her ears.
“What’s this nonsense?” Papa’s voice rose. “The government constructed the Sarcophagus.”
“The Sarcophagus was built to last thirty years,” I said. “The pollution will be here for hundreds of thousands.”
Papa glared at me. “The reactors are perfectly safe.”
As I answered him, I sensed two great forces battling. I had only a murky understanding of the fight between Communism and freedom, but I found myself beginning to choose sides. “What makes you so sure?” I said slowly and precisely.
My father’s spoon clattered against his bowl. “Katya, what is wrong with you? Your crystals are ridiculous.” His voice was clotted with scorn. “But your disobedience is worse!”
My mother’s dark eyes darted between us. “Let’s don’t argue. Ivan, you were going to tell her about the birthday surprise.”
My fifteenth birthday was the following week. Since neither of my parents had mentioned it, I was starting to think that they had forgotten.
“Please,” my mother begged him.
Papa’s face was expressionless. I felt badly that he couldn’t trust my reaction even to his attempt at kindness.
“I bought a Moped,” my father said cautiously. “We can share it.”
“A Moped?”
A slight smile crossed his thick lips. “You used to want a motorcycle when you were a little girl.”
“Don’t look so disappointed, Katya,” Mama fussed.
“It’s just that I hadn’t thought about a motorcycle in years,” I said, explaining my stunned surprise.
“Well?” Mama said. Her smile was hopeful.
I pushed away my half-eaten bowl of porridge and tore out the door. It was early, and I risked waking up our neighbors. Still, I ran so fast that I practically fell down the two flights of stairs.
A Moped was parked on the street in front of our apartment. The exhaust pipe was bent, but its body was a beautiful bright red. The sight of the black helmet hanging off the handlebars made me remember last night’s dream about Boris. As I slipped on the helmet and threw my leg over the seat, I found myself missing my former neighbor more than I had in a long time.
My father walked up to me.
“Where’s the key?” I asked.
He stuck his hand in his pocket and held out a gleaming silver key. As far as I was concerned, at that moment, it was the key to the whole world. I grabbed it. “Thank you, Papa.”
His face broke into one of his broad grins that didn’t used to be so rare. “Come back and tell me what you think.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m leaving in fifteen minutes.”
The clatter of the Moped drowned out my answer. The days were still short, and the sun hadn’t come up yet. Only a couple of pedestrians walked on the streets.
Although it wasn’t as fast as a motorcycle, this Moped was almost my very own. I listened carefully to the sound of the motor so that I could memorize it. I checked the engine temperature with my hand. It was cool. The body of this machine was bent, but the motor ran smoothly. For years, I had studied the details of the different machines: the engines, the spokes, the exhaust and the pipes. Yet since we had moved to Slavutich, I had lost touch with my fascination for motorcycles and speed.
Driving down Slavutich’s main thoroughfare, Heroes of Chernobyl, I passed its famous monument to its victims. Larger-than-life photos of the men who died as a result of the explosion were framed in two concrete mounts. Spanning the mounts like a rainbow, an artist had painted a mural featuring a liquidator, representing those people who were recruited or forced to assist in the cleanup after the explosion. He had long hair and was dressed in a gray suit. His hands were stretched out wide. Above him in English and Ukrainian was the inscription: We will build a new world. Pobuduemo novy svit.