“Who is it, Katya?” Lyudmila begged. “Tell me.”
But I only shook my head.
The next day after school, I parked the Moped in front of Uncle Victor Kaletnik’s concrete-block apartment building. It had been a few weeks since I first spied him at the market. Later, when I had returned the journals, he had mentioned that he needed an assistant. Despite my duties at Margarita, I believed that I could find the time to work for Uncle Victor. Today was the day that he had agreed to meet with me to discuss the job. My father wouldn’t be happy, but if Uncle Victor paid me good wages, I thought I might be able to convince him.
I raced up the stairs to his apartment. After walking down a dark hallway, I found number 401 and knocked. Uncle Victor opened the door. He was wearing brown bedroom slippers, casual slacks and a T-shirt with THE BIG APPLE overlaid on a Manhattan skyline. “Come in. Come in. Have a seat.” His smile was broad, and I realized he was happy to see me. It occurred to me that maybe I wasn’t the only one who got lonely.
I followed him into a bare room dominated by the largest and most cluttered table I had ever seen. Floor lamps cast spotlights on different sections. Books, gigantic pinecones, photographs and letters crowded almost every surface.
Uncle Victor settled on a brown wool sofa. I removed a stack of books and sat across from him. “I’m afraid without Julia here, I have not bothered to keep house.”
I found myself asking, “Don’t you miss your family?”
“I do, but, Katya, I love my work, which brings me to your request. Although I could use the help, I’ve been worrying.” Uncle Victor turned his direct gaze on me. “I can’t have you become my assistant without your father’s permission.” He shook his head. “I doubt he’ll approve.”
“He’ll let me. He is always telling me that I need to save for the future,” I said.
“Didn’t you tell me that you already had a job?” Uncle Victor asked.
“Not a problem,” I reassured him vaguely. Just as I had avoided telling Lyudmila and Margarita that my appointment involved science, now I was too embarrassed to describe Crystal Creations to Uncle Victor.
The phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said.
While I waited for him to finish talking, I found myself thinking about how precariously I straddled all my worlds. I wasn’t scientific like Uncle Victor, I didn’t believe in the government as loyally as my father, and I wasn’t faithful like Granny Vera and Margarita. All I had were my questions, and none of the answers the adults in my life offered were enough for me.
Sitting in Uncle Victor’s uncomfortable chair, I couldn’t stop marveling over the fact that it was Vasyl who led me here. He certainly didn’t fit into any world I knew.
When Uncle Victor sat down again on the couch, we engaged in a few minutes of small talk about my life at school and his new home in Canada before he said, “I have a confession for you, Katya.”
I nodded, waiting.
“The organization that I work for—Canadian International Health Alliance (CIHA)—hasn’t taken a public stand, but personally, I’m committed to closing the station.”
I had guessed his position. I had seen it in his thoughtful demeanor when he answered my questions. In the way his eyes darted away from mine whenever my father’s name came up.
“Of course, your father disagrees,” Victor Kaletnik said.
As I spoke, I had to shut out an image of my father’s face. I knew if he ever learned of my treachery, his lower lip would jut out and his hands would clench into fists. I managed to stammer, “I’m on your side.”
Uncle Victor stared thoughtfully at me. “If we’re successful, your father could lose his job.” His keen eyes pierced me as he continued, “I don’t know if a person your age can understand things like this, but your father and the other workers at the station enjoy an incredible standard of living. Ten times the national average.”
I considered these options. I had come to believe that the station should be closed, but I knew that my father would be devastated if that happened. It was clear that our standard of living would suffer. How could I choose among my father, our way of life and our safety? They all seemed so mixed up together.
Uncle Victor grinned and leaned closer. “Despite all this, you really want to come to work for me?”
“Yes,” I said. Taking a job with him didn’t mean the station would close, I told myself. But I would learn more. That seemed to be all that mattered. Although my newfound knowledge had been making me feel afraid, it had also awakened me, made me feel more alive.
“Well, let’s see what your father says,” Uncle Victor said. “My schedule is the same as your father’s. I go to the Dead Zone for two weeks, then return and write up my findings.”
I nodded.
“I’ll give you a key. While I’m gone, you’re welcome to read my books.” He stood up and pointed at the messy table. “In fact, let me introduce you to my filing cabinet.” He winked at me. “It’s really very organized.” We stopped in front of the first section. “This end contains photos of the mutations that people claim have been caused by radiation.”
I looked down at the stacks of photographs and saw a piglet without eyes, a pig with one eye the size of its head, a calf with a lip like an elephant’s trunk, and a goat with hind legs three times longer than those in front.
Uncle Victor picked up one photograph and showed it to me. At first, I couldn’t make out what it was. But then I noticed that although the animal’s head looked like a dragon’s, its body was that of an ordinary chicken.[23] “This is my next assignment.”
The red and greenish-blue protuberances hanging from the chicken’s face made me feel sick. I had seen Margarita’s picture of the colt, and I had heard about the mutations, but to be standing in front of stacks and stacks of photographs containing so many of these distortions made me feel as if my nightmares were coming to life. “What do you do with these?” I asked.
“My job is to investigate whether the photos are frauds or not. If they’re real, my organization sends a medical doctor or a veterinarian to visit the family.” Uncle Victor stepped sideways and gestured towards some outsized pinecones and leaves. “I collected these specimens from the Zone myself. When certain trees are infected with high doses of radiation, their leaves and pinecones grow huge.”
I gazed at a pine cone as long as my size eight shoe.
Uncle Victor faced the middle of the table. “You may want to avoid this section.” He picked up a worn stack of photographs and letters. “This part of my filing cabinet deals with the human tragedy—photographs of children born since the Chernobyl accident. Some have heads twice as big as normal. A few have no hands or feet.”
“You’re right. I don’t want to see them.” But even as I spoke, I was edging closer to get just a tiny glimpse.
“Actually, it’s difficult to prove that any particular birth defect is caused by the radiation, but CIHA is documenting a higher thyroid cancer rate in the area than the national average. Are you tested every year for thyroid cancer?” he asked softly.
His tone was kind, but as I nodded, I felt queasy. I was only fifteen years old. What an awful question. “Yes,” I told him.
After a few more steps sideways, we faced the only square foot of the table that was free of paper. “If your father agrees, you can use this area as your work space,” Uncle Victor said.
I didn’t want to appear stupid, but I still wasn’t clear what my duties would be. “What would you like me to do again?”