Chernobyl Murders

26

The village of Kisbor on the Ulyanov collective was on a dry plateau less than twenty-five kilometers from the Czechoslovakian border.

Although the Chernobyl accident was a topic of conversation, Kisbor residents felt relatively safe because Kiev was much closer and Kiev television news did not show citizens dropping dead in the streets.

Instead of worrying about the reported insignificant amount of radiation in their area, citizens of Kisbor and the Ulyanov collective were more concerned with spring planting.

Nikolai stood in the yard of the Horvath farm, watching the sunrise. The farmhouse was on a slight hill above the village, and only the tallest houses in Kisbor were visible, their peaked roofs like black witches’ hats against the orange sky. The morning was cool, and on the distant plain he could see patches of ground fog. According to local legend, these patches of fog were the last breaths of a person who had recently died. Perhaps one of the patches belonged to Pavel, his last breath drifting on the wind all the way from the town of Visenka, outside Kiev, and arriving now, his last breath wandering about until it came upon his friend Nikolai, who cradled him like a babe in his arms as he died.

Nikolai walked around the side of the farmhouse where a rooster strutted back and forth on the tin roof of a lean-to chicken coop.

The rooster’s claws on the roof sounded like someone scratching from inside a coffin. The rooster stopped strutting, puffed up its chest, and greeted the sunrise with a high-pitched wail.

When he went into the backyard, Nikolai passed a weathered wooden box set in the ground. The box had an old oilskin tablecloth draped over it, and on it were two battered tin plates holding water from the last rain. Tarnished and bent knives and forks rescued by local children completed the make-believe table setting.

Children. At the funeral, Pavel’s wife said they were going to have children. She repeated it over and over as he helped carry the coffin to the grave site set aside for Kiev’s KGB agents and militiamen. “He was only twenty-seven and no children!” screamed Pavel’s wife as the coffin was lowered.

Shortly after Pavel’s funeral, Nikolai was sent here. In the farmhouse there were three children-a baby belonging to the Sandors, who lived in the house, and the two daughters of Nina Horvath, who had come from Pripyat by way of a Moscow hospital. Walking beyond the oblong box with its oilcloth, discarded utensils, and border of untrimmed weeds, Nikolai wondered about Detective Horvath’s boyhood here with his brother, little boys playing games just as he and Pavel had done when they were boys. Today the games were more serious. The winner’s prize was to remain alive. Today’s orders were to be alert for the possibility Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics might show up. And tomorrow? Who knew?

Nikolai was not alone. He and the others took twelve-hour shifts alternating between the farmhouse and the small hotel in the village. Originally there had been four men. Now, with the arrival of Captain Brovko and three others, the total was eight. At any given time there were at least three of them at the house.

Nikolai reached the end of the yard where tilled soil began, looked at his watch, and turned back when he heard tires on the gravel road. He had been at the house for his twelve-hour shift and, walking to the side of the house, was glad to see Captain Brovko in one Volga and three replacements climbing out of a second Volga.

One of the men stretched and yawned loudly. Nikolai joined the other two who had spent the night at the house, each of them alone, alternating positions every two hours. One man in the house, one in the car, and one walking about the perimeter, all three armed with Stechkin machine pistols.

Nikolai was about to get into the second Volga with his two partners when Captain Brovko called him over and sent the other two ahead to the hotel. As the men drove away, Nikolai wondered what more could possibly happen to him.

“Come,” said Captain Brovko. “I’ll drive you back.”

The inside of the Volga was warm. For the moment, as Captain Brovko drove down the road into the dust of the other Volga, Nikolai felt safe. Here, in a warm Volga with his machine pistol stowed on the floor and his new captain driving, he was assured of not being attacked from behind by Detective Horvath returning to his boyhood home. No matter what Captain Brovko had to say, even if it was a reprimand, he was glad to be away from the house with its dark yard and the women inside who conveyed hatred by simply looking at him. Last evening when he took his turn in the house, Mariska Sandor, the resident farm wife, played a game with the little girls in which she claimed she could tell their fortunes by observing teacup stains. During the game, Mariska Sandor had turned to him and claimed she could tell how long he was going to live. The smile on her face when she said it frightened Nikolai, filling the remainder of the night with visions of Detective Horvath sending him to join Pavel in the grave.

Shortly after the road curved and dropped down the small hill, Captain Brovko pulled over to the side and parked. Ahead, and slightly below, the village greeted the sun, clay tiles on the roofs taking on the color of rouge on a woman’s cheeks. The Volga carrying his two partners disappeared into the main street of the village, leaving only the dust settling above the road.

He and Captain Brovko spoke of their pasts. Nikolai described the PK and his and Pavel’s assignment in the Pripyat post office.

Captain Brovko described working in Moscow and in the GDR.

Captain Brovko said he missed Moscow because he had a girlfriend there. Chernobyl had ruined plans to spend a furlough with her.

Nikolai mentioned his latest girlfriend in Pripyat, wondering if she had escaped. He told Captain Brovko how Pavel had come to the door the Saturday morning after the explosion and found him in bed with his girlfriend. Captain Brovko laughed with him, and this, combined with the morning sun shining through the windshield, made Nikolai feel more relaxed.

After a pause, during which they stared ahead at the awakening village, Captain Brovko asked about the assignment. “What do you think, Nikolai? Will Detective Horvath and Juli Popovics really come here?”

Nikolai knew it was time to choose his words carefully. “Because we are here, Major Komarov must have reason to believe so.”

“What do you think of him?”

“Detective Horvath?”

“No. Major Komarov.”

“I… I don’t think anything. I simply follow orders.”

Captain Brovko chuckled. “Don’t worry, Nikolai. I’m not trying to trick you. We’re in this together, assigned to a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Can you tell me why Detective Horvath would come here when he knows we’re waiting?”

Captain Brovko turned to stare at him. “I don’t blame you for not answering. Especially after being uprooted from your PK assignment and sent on a field mission during which your partner was killed before your eyes.”

Nikolai was silent as he stared at Brovko’s eyes.

“You and your partner were unprepared for the situation. Afterward you were angry because of the inappropriateness of the assignment. Correct?”

“Yes.”

Captain Brovko leaned closer. “Now I’ll tell you something, Nikolai. I believe Detective Horvath will come here. He’ll be drawn here because his brother’s wife and children are here. There are things about this case even I don’t know, things Major Komarov, for whatever reason, has chosen to keep to himself.”

“The major is a driven man,” said Nikolai.

“In what way?” asked Captain Brovko.

“He is willing to do anything to prove Detective Horvath is a saboteur.”

“What has he done so far?”

“I can’t say more, Captain. I’ll get myself in trouble the way Pavel got in trouble because he didn’t know the consequences of aiming a pistol at an armed militia detective.”

“Tell me,” said Captain Brovko, “why do you think, with the men available to him in Kiev, Major Komarov chose to send you and your partner to retrieve Juli Popovics?”

Nikolai looked out at the road, where an ancient battered bus began climbing slowly up the hill. “I don’t know, Captain. Pavel and I were both inexperienced. I don’t even know what I’m doing here.”

The bus lumbered past, lifting dust from the road. In the windows Nikolai saw the faces of wide-eyed farmers staring at the strange sight of two men sitting at the side of the road at dawn in a black Volga.

“The farmers are off to their fields,” said Brovko as he started the Volga and began driving down to the hotel in the village.

Five hundred kilometers east, near the town of Korostyshev, another collective bus drove down a dusty road. The bus was full of men and women wearing layers of clothing to keep away the morning chill. Some on the bus commented on the dry weather of the past few days allowing planting to progress. Some talked about family matters. But most conversations eventually turned to a more serious matter. These workers, belonging to the Kopelovo collective, a hundred kilometers southwest of Kiev, were now providing food and shelter for several hundred refugees forced to flee the Opachichi collective near Pripyat.

A man in a leather cap at the front of the bus stood facing the back, firing questions at those sitting near him.

“How do we feed our own families? That’s what I’d like to know.”

“You’re not starving,” said a woman in a yellow babushka.

“Not yet,” said the man. “But we’re the ones working the fields.

We need food so we can continue working.”

The man sitting next to the woman in the yellow babushka waved his hand. “Nothing makes sense when people are forced from their homes. How would you like to lose everything and be forced to sleep in barns and tents and practically beg for food for your children?”

“At least,” said the man in the leather cap, “they could come work in the fields. What else have they got to do?”

“The people in my barn wanted to work,” said the woman in the yellow babushka. “But the chairman said no. He said they all have to stay where they are because officials are arriving today from Kiev.”

“What for?”

“A census,” said the woman. “The chairman says they might relocate some people farther south and west.”

“Good,” said the man in the leather cap. “Maybe things will get back to normal and I’ll have a decent meal. Look how thin I am.”

The bus passengers laughed, and even the man in the leather cap smiled as he turned to look out the bus windshield. The only one who didn’t laugh or smile was the driver, who was in his own world, the world of the throbbing engine and the shifting of gears and the dodging of holes in the road.

Within the Kopelovo collective village, behind one of the houses lining the road, Lazlo lifted the canvas tent flap and looked outside. The tent opening faced away from the house, with a view of the family’s freshly planted private plot. A thin layer of ground fog was being burned away by morning sun. The damp morning air smelled of livestock and smoldering trash fires.

Lazlo heard footsteps in the weeds, leaned out, and saw the man from the next tent over. The farmer from the north lived in a tent with his wife and two children. A goat tethered outside during the day was allowed inside the tent at night. The farmer walked back from the outhouse carrying a rolled-up newspaper in one hand and a tin cup in the other. He hummed a Ukrainian folk song. Although Lazlo did not know the name of the song, he knew it glorified morning. A cheerful song of hope and hard work, a song he sometimes heard the skinny baker at his favorite bakery whistle in the back room before bringing out a fragrant tray of pastry.

The thought of the warm Kiev bakery made Lazlo shiver. He dropped the tent flap and sat back on his heels. He reached up to touch the warm slope of the tent where the orange of the sun glowed.

Although the cut on his wrist was healed, his ankle still ached from the jump to the scaffold at the Hotel Dnieper. He turned and crawled to the back of the tent where Juli slept. He lifted the blankets carefully so as not to let in cold, damp air. Beneath the blankets, he felt Juli’s warmth against him and his shivering stopped.

After the narrow escape at Lenkomsomol Square, Lazlo met Juli at the hospital. Dressed as peasants and with Lazlo wearing an eye patch to disguise himself, they’d gone to one of the roadblocks and joined the line of people trying to enter Kiev. Lazlo had worked the roadblocks long enough to know how to use the situation to their advantage. He knew that instead of being allowed in, they would be transported with others to a collective many kilometers away. He also knew they could do this without identification because during the rapid evacuation, many refugees failed to obtain passes. He let Juli do most of the talking, saying they were from Pripyat and had worked in a department store. He kept his face hidden, and none of the militia officers recognized him.

They had been here at the Kopelovo collective a full week, freez-ing in the tent each night and keeping trim on the daily ration of food provided. Kiev was a hundred kilometers northeast, and he might never see it again. His sprained ankle had healed, and he was ready to move on. The question was where to go and when. The only logical direction was west, to Czechoslovakia or Hungary or even farther. The time would be soon, because yesterday there were rumors of relocation. Paperwork would be completed, names put on file, and representatives of the militia or the KGB milling about.

They were fugitives, both considered criminals-him a murderer and Juli his accomplice. It didn’t matter if the agent aimed his pistol at them. To the KGB, one of their own was dead. No matter if the incident was a setup and Tamara’s poet friend was a KGB informer.

He recalled Tamara’s anger at the poet when he met her at the river, saying she would kill him if she saw him again. Lazlo had insisted she not make trouble for herself. He needed her to follow through on the faked betrayal so she would not be implicated when he and Juli escaped.

Would he ever see Tamara again? Would he tell her about his confusion when he realized he was attracted to Juli? Would he tell her about the past week, during which he and Juli posed as husband and wife living in an army tent on the Kopelovo collective? Would he tell Tamara he was in love?

As he lay beside Juli, Lazlo could feel the heat of her breath on his face. He kissed her cheek and held her close. But at his back the chill of morning touched him, reminding him that Nina, Anna, and little Ilonka were in Kisbor. Komarov would know Lazlo must go there. If he and Juli escaped across the frontier without going to Kisbor, Komarov would take revenge. The thought of going to Kisbor and of what he must do became icy fingers pulling him away from Juli and her unborn child.

Coming awake, Juli thought she felt her baby move. She wondered if time had sped up, if months had passed and she was in a bed in an apartment with Lazlo by her side. But when she opened her eyes, she saw the tent roof. Time had not sped up. They were still at the collective. She was still in her seventh or eighth week of pregnancy and certainly would not have been able to feel the baby move. The momentary thought of being in a bed with Lazlo was a dream. But at least part of it was true. Lazlo was with her, holding her tightly.

“I thought you were my baby.”

Lazlo kissed her cheek. “I am your baby.”

“When you moved, I thought it was my baby moving. I dreamed we were somewhere safe with no one looking for us. I was big and fat, and you still loved me.”

Lazlo smiled. “It’s a wonderful dream.”

“I hope it comes true.”

“It can if we cross the frontier. We’ll be able to go to a good hospital and get you and your baby checked. We’ll be able to tell someone what you know about Chernobyl. We’ll find somewhere to live instead of a moth-eaten tent.” Lazlo sat up and looked down at her with a broad grin. “It’s nothing but good news from now on.”

“I like seeing you smile, Laz.”

“I rarely smiled before I met you.”

They kissed and made love beneath the rough army blankets.

After a breakfast of canned sardines, bread, and bottled water, Juli reviewed with Lazlo the information about Chernobyl they hoped to get to officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. The information included what Mihaly told Juli before he died-the experiment to see how long the inertia of the turbine could generate emergency power, the emergency backups turned off while the reactor was still running, the absence of the chief engineer who had ordered the experiment, printouts of reactor conditions not available directly to control-room personnel, speculation about Chernobyl being used as a guinea pig for other reactors of the same type throughout the country. Juli had memorized as much as possible and recited the details each day to Lazlo. She also included information she knew from her job, including specific figures she recalled concerning radionuclide sampling around the power station before the explosion.

“It’s like being in school again,” said Lazlo. “A big tough guy with his Makarov pistol strapped to his chest back in school.”

Juli touched Lazlo’s chin, realizing how much he resembled Mihaly.

“You’re not such a tough guy, Laz.”

“What am I?”

“A Gypsy, like me. I’ve always wondered what it would have been like to live somewhere else, to be someone different. We can’t help it. It’s in our blood. It was in Mihaly’s blood.”

Lazlo lifted her hand from his chin, kissed her hand, stared at her. “Mihaly wasn’t attracted to a desire to try something new. He was attracted to you because you’re special.”

“How can you say that? I’m the one who initially thought of our affair as a game. I wasn’t married so who could get hurt? No, Laz.

Don’t call me special.”

“I’ll call you whatever I like,” he said in a deep voice.

They both laughed, pulling the heavy blankets over their heads so others would not hear them and wonder who would be insane enough to tell jokes in a situation like this.

Later in the morning, while Juli washed the tattered peasant clothes they managed to pick up along the way, officials arrived. She was behind a nearby house using a washtub set up for refugees. From where she stood, she could see a militia car pull up and three men get out. Two men in suits and a local uniformed militiaman. Juli stayed at the washtub, watching as Lazlo stood in line to speak with the men. Lazlo looked like any of the other farmers, his hands in the pockets of baggy trousers, his ill-fitting cap pulled down tightly on his head.

Because they had agreed not to panic, Juli stayed at the washtub. If Lazlo recognized any of the men, he would not have gotten in line.

One of the officials had a clipboard. When a refugee made it to the front of the line, the man would flip through pages on the clipboard and write something down. The procedure took only a minute or so for each. But when Lazlo got to the front of the line, the man with the clipboard kept flipping pages, Lazlo kept shrugging his shoulders, and the militiaman standing to the side stood closer. Finally Lazlo leaned forward, pointing at something on the clipboard and the questioning became more serious. They questioned Lazlo for several agonizing minutes. When he was finally allowed to leave, Juli hurried to the tent to join him.

Lazlo retrieved the sock in which he kept his money and his pistol from the hole dug in the ground through a slit in the tent floor.

He took the pistol out, checked the magazine, put the pistol in one pocket and the sock with the money in his other pocket, and turned to Juli.

“We’ve got to leave.”

“Do they know who we are?”

“Not yet. But I couldn’t convince them I was on the list. I tried mispronouncing a name to see if I could fake one, but they wanted family details. I guess you saw what happened when I tried to look at the list myself.”

“I thought they would arrest you.”

“I pushed them close to it. Soon they’ll report back about a man and wife named Zimyanin, a name not on the refugee list.”

“Where should we go?”

“I don’t know yet. There’s a bus due early tomorrow morning for those being shipped out. We’re supposed to stay here until the officials come back. If we get out of here tonight, or at least before morning, maybe they’ll think we got on the bus. We’ll spread the word we’ve been told to leave on the morning bus.”

Lazlo took off the hat he had worn, combed his hair, and put on a shirt with fewer holes in it. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Get ready while I’m gone. I like your idea of posing as radiation technicians.”

“I’ll put things together.”

After Lazlo kissed her and left the tent, Juli looked out and watched him go. He walked quickly, one hand deep in the pocket where he had put the sock containing money saved during his years in the Kiev militia, the other hand deep in the other pocket where he had put his pistol.

Juli had gotten the idea to pose as radiation technicians when she saw technicians in lab coats while being bussed out of Kiev.

Creating makeshift lab coats out of bedsheets had taken three days.

The needles and thread and a pair of scissors were available at the village store. Although they were simply smocks rather than coats, it didn’t take much to look official in this region. Especially when she made a fake Geiger counter by taping an old radio tube from the local trash to a length of wire and inserting the other end of the wire into her black overnight case.

Juli removed the fake lab coats from the overnight case and spread them on the floor of the tent to get out the wrinkles. She took out a bottle of pink nail polish she had purchased at the village store and closed the overnight case. The smell of nail polish quickly filled the tent as she pulled out the brush connected to the cap. Juli did not polish her nails. Instead, she pulled the overnight case close and began filling in letters she had earlier outlined on the side of the case. The letters spelled out in Russian the words, danger, radioactive samples.