“That’s why I’m going to be a nuclear scientist, Katya. To help the station, but you…”
“Hey, Angelika,” Sergei interrupted.
Angelika pursed her lips. Instead of finishing the sentence, she turned. Without so much as a backward glance, she walked away to join the boys.
I knew what she had been about to say, “Katya, you’re a horrible person, a thief and a liar.”
Even after the last four years, Angelika’s distrust was still painful.
After school, I parked the Moped in front of Uncle Victor’s concrete-block apartment building. He had left for Canada a few days ago. The landing smelled of cabbage and bacon. At the thought of his neighbors’ dinner pot simmering on a nearby stove, my stomach growled.
Since the elevator was small and slow, I started up the narrow stairs to the fourth floor. As I fitted the key into the lock of his apartment, I felt proud to be entrusted with this responsibility.
I walked into the dark room, flipped on the light and examined the bare kitchen. I didn’t smell any rotten trash. The bottom of the coffeepot wasn’t black and smoking. The burners on his stove weren’t red-hot. In his bedroom, even though the bed was unmade and the pillows and blankets had tumbled off onto the floor, the alarm clock wasn’t buzzing. All seemed to be in good shape.
A wrinkled apple sat on the kitchen counter. I ate it hungrily before heading over to the stack of articles that Uncle Victor had given me to read.
I opened the journal to a collection of eyewitness accounts of the accident. I copied word-for-word descriptions like, ‘I saw the fire from my apartment. It was white with red spikes. It looked radiant. Like a fire sent by heaven.’
After what felt like a short time, I shifted in my seat and noticed that my foot had gone to sleep. I stood up to try to wake it up. When I glanced at my watch, I couldn’t believe what I saw. I had spent two hours in this chair.
Looking out the window, I noticed that it was growing dark. My parents would be angry with me for being late for dinner. I closed the journal and was preparing to leave, when I happened to glance at the voice machine.
I should check Uncle Victor’s messages for him. He had said that the machine got full. Without further thought, I headed over to the kitchen counter. Readying myself, I tore a page out of my notebook and pushed, ‘Play.’
“This is Leonid Tkachenko at the Ministry of Health. We received your report on the illegal strawberries. We are processing it.” I jotted down illegal strawberries and the man’s name.
Click.
“Victor Kaletnik. This is Olga Petrova. I have your laundry.” I wrote pick up laundry.
As a Chernobyl kid, I knew that frightening things happened suddenly. But I also believed my life had already been altered as drastically as was possible.
“Bad news. Five liquidators have tested positive for cancer. Vitaly Bondar, Yuri Verovsky, Dmytro Paltayev.” I was scribbling as fast as I could trying to keep up.
“I think you know one,” a man’s voice said.
I dropped the pencil.
“Ivan Dubko. Forgive me for breaking the news to you this way.”
I realized what Granny Vera always said was the truth. “When you begin to accept your losses, expect another one.” I wasn’t able to hear the fifth man’s name. As I pushed ‘Off’, my mind flashed to the day when I first saw the plume of black smoke in the sky. Back then I didn’t know that the plume had anything to do with me. I remembered my cottage with the blue shutters. Boris. My forest with its ancient trees. Noisy and his blue-black terrier nose. The cross-eyed rooster named Pirate, who woke me most mornings.
The plume had taken my home, my friend, my forest and my animals. Now it was taking my Papa. My stomach rose in my throat.
I staggered into the bathroom and lost the apple in Uncle Victor’s toilet. I gagged repeatedly until only harsh stinking liquid flowed out of my mouth. Leaning over the toilet, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
My strong Papa!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
WHEN I GOT HOME, IT WAS MY FATHER, not my mother, who was sitting at the kitchen table covered with the white embroidered cloth.
Papa’s thick fingers drummed the table, which usually meant that he had excess energy and needed to go to the gym. But tonight, I wondered whether his nervousness was related to his diagnosis.
His big hands closed around the jar of foreign coins. “If you were going to stay out late, why didn’t you call us? We’ve been waiting for you,” he scolded me.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Mama went to buy some groceries. We thought we’d have a special family dinner tonight. She was going to try to find a chicken…” When his voice faltered, I was suddenly certain.
“Papa.” I saw the fear in his eyes and felt a stab of pity. “I know,” I blurted out.
“So you saw Mama?” The coins jangled as he passed the jar from one hand to another. When I didn’t answer, he continued talking, “The doctor called this morning.” His deep sigh made me recall his despair when he suffered even a minor cold. “As a liquidator, I’ll be entitled to the best care.”
“Papa…” There was so much to say, and I didn’t know how to say it.
“I’m glad that the government is going to cover the cost of my treatment,” Papa mumbled as if to himself. “There’s only one problem with that.” He banged the jar of coins down so hard that the glass sounded as if it might break. “I’m the one who’s going to die.”
“You’re not going to die, Papa,” I cried out.
His dark eyes stared blankly at me as if he had gone blind and could no longer see the world that he had always been so sure of.
“What kind of cancer is it?” I asked.
“Thyroid,” he said. “It’s a good kind of cancer. At least that what’s Dr. Sokolov said.”
“I’ll do some research. I bet Dr. Sokolov’s right.”
“There’s no good kind of cancer,” Papa said. His head fell into his large hands.
Despite the pitiful sight that Papa made or perhaps because of it, suddenly I was angry at him again—at his mistaken idea of patriotism. For hadn’t Papa put himself into danger? Of course, on the day of the accident none of us had known that living near the station was so dangerous, but later, when he sought the job of driver, the risks should have been more obvious. But just as Papa believed his beloved country was the greatest in the world, he continued to insist that his government would protect him. I had no wish to hurt him now when he was so down, but I had to ask, “At least, do you understand now that the station is unsafe?”
“Katya,” my father said. He looked stooped and more frail than I had ever seen him. “Part of health is mental toughness. I know I received a massive dose of radiation. I have tried to act as if I didn’t. But I know…I do know that working at the station is not completely safe.” He sighed. “I even know that it could happen again.”
I couldn’t help myself. “So why do you work there?” I felt my voice rising. “Why must we live in a city next door?”
My father started speaking more slowly than I had ever heard him. Every word felt like a fingernail tearing off, exposing the quick. “I am not a well-educated man. Ever since the accident, I have always known that I may not live a full life span.”
I guessed that he had never spoken these words out loud before, even to my mother. It would have been admitting weakness.
“I am proud of my bargain.” Papa held his head up and met my eyes. “I have done what I had to do to protect my family.”