Chernobyl Murders

28

Already four weeks after the Chernobyl accident, yet news from Radio Moscow seemed like the confessions of a naughty boy caught in the devious act. The boy would be silent, acting as if nothing had happened. Then, when someone pointed out the obvious, the boy would confess in a way that would implicate others. The spooning out of information caused anger in cities and lively meetings on collectives. Farmers wanted to help their fellow farmers in need, but they also wanted to be told the truth about the danger and the outlook for the future.

At a collective farm three hundred kilometers southwest of Kiev, an evening meeting was held in the living room of the chairman. The collective was small and far enough from Chernobyl so no Chernobylites had yet been sent there. The meeting had been called to tell collective committee members that the Agriculture Ministry had designated seven families be permanently relocated there.

The committee argued about where the people would stay and who would build them houses. They argued about what jobs the new members would perform and whether one of them should be allowed on the committee. They argued about the small size of their school. One man on the committee wondered if the new members could bring radiation with them. A woman on the committee spoke against this, saying whatever harmful radiation the people received was locked in their bodies and would affect only them.

“The Chernobylites might have it in their clothing,” said the man.

“These people are checked by technicians,” said the woman. “If their clothes are radioactive, they get new ones. And quit calling them Chernobylites.”

The man waved his hand at the woman. “If technicians told you the reactor never really blew up, I suppose you’d believe them.”

“You’re talking nonsense,” said the woman.

“Ha! We might not be safe from radiation even here.”

“How can you say that? Kiev is much closer. Kievians aren’t dying.”

“Not dying,” said the man. “But they sent all their children to the Black Sea. I spoke with my cousin in Kiev. He said they have special milk only for children, and Kiev is building an aqueduct to bring fresh water into the city. One cannot escape radiation. In a year or two, we’ll all be dying of cancer.”

It was the woman’s turn to wave her hand at the man. “You’re a fool. How can you say such a thing? We have no radiation here!

And you’re a fool for talking about such things to your cousin in Kiev on the telephone!”

The man paused a moment and smiled to everyone on the committee before speaking. “If I’m such a fool, why did I see technicians at the pond today?”

“What pond?”

The man continued to smile. “We have only one pond on the farm, the very same pond where your favorite pigs are taken to drink.”

The woman pretended to spit. “I have no favorite pigs, not even you!”

The chairman stood and asked for order. He told the man to tell about the technicians at the pond and to refrain from sarcasm.

“Very well,” said the man. “I was on my way past the pond with a can of oil for our tractor, which burns more oil than gas, when I saw a car parked and a man and woman picnicking on a blanket.

They looked like doctors, both wearing white coats. I said hello and thought I might get some advice about my arthritis. They said they weren’t doctors but technicians checking for radiation. I asked if they found any. They said no.”

“I told you,” said the woman.

“But wait,” said the man. “When I walked past their car, I managed a peek inside and saw a carrying case saying it contained dangerous radioactive samples.”

“Ha,” said the woman. “A carrying case talks to him.”

“It didn’t talk. Words were printed on it.”

“What words?”

“It said, danger, radioactive samples, in Russian. If they were carrying radioactive samples, they must have gotten them from here.”

“They probably carry the case around in case they find radioactive samples,” said the woman, looking to others for support.

“Besides, you know very little Russian.”

“So, tell me why they left the car to eat.” Now the man looked to the others. “I’ll tell you why. Because it’s not good to eat around radiation. It gets inside and eats you from the inside out. It turns your cells against you. It’s the worst cancer there is. And I know plenty of Russian.”

“Describe these technicians,” said the chairman.

“They weren’t Ukrainian. I could tell by their accents. They could have been Russian or even Czech or Hungarian. Maybe Belarussian.”

“Why Belarussian?” asked the chairman.

The man thought for a moment before answering. “Reports said radiation was very high in the Belarussian Republic to the north.

Perhaps the technicians camped out here were on their way south to escape with samples from their own area. Technicians would know best about the cancer danger and would want to go south.”

The mention of cancer and the description of technicians who might be fleeing Chernobyl radiation silenced the meeting, reinforcing the inevitability of damage already done. Many who would be affected by future disease were already impregnated. Except for having children drink potassium iodide the first few days after the accident, there was nothing anyone could do but pray their own cells would be strong enough to stave off the attack from within.

As far as the Chernobylite refugees were concerned, the committee members began seriously discussing where to house them and what jobs they could do on the farm.

Juli lay back on the pile of straw, aware of the warmth stored in the barn from the day’s sun, and of its smells-livestock, leather, straw, and fresh paint. She looked up at the rafters, saw bird droppings on timbers darkened with age. One rafter was worn thinner at its center where a rope must have been tied, or many ropes wearing the wood away over decades. She wondered what the ropes had been for. She wondered if a rope tied to the rafter had ever been used to hang someone. They were in the Carpathian foothills, the Skoda having coughed and sputtered its way. The Czech and Hungarian frontiers were nearer, just across the northern range. They were already within the region of border disputes and turmoil, which took place during the last war. Perhaps the rafter above had been used for hanging dissenters. And now abandoned, with no other task, the barn awaited future hangings.

“Do you think we’ll make it?” asked Juli.

Lazlo was in the center of the barn, putting the finishing touches on the car with a brush and a can of oily black paint he had found.

“We’ll make it. If anyone tries to catch us, they’ll stick to our fly-paper.”

“Isn’t it drying?”

Lazlo dabbed at the roof. “Slowly. The part you did is only sticky now, not wet.”

“Our little Skoda with a brand-new skin.”

While Lazlo continued painting, Juli shook out the blankets they had taken from the Kopelovo collective and arranged them on the bed of straw near the stone wall at the back of the barn. Last night they had slept in the car. Tonight would be more comfortable. After the blankets were spread out, she stuffed straw beneath the bottom blanket at the end nearest the wall to form a wide pillow.

When she finished making their bed, she took off her slacks and blouse and got under the top blankets. Lazlo was stooped behind the car and hadn’t seen her undress. The lantern was aimed at the car, and their bed was in the dark corner against the wall.

Although the barn was in good condition, it seemed unused.

Lazlo said it might be used to house livestock in the winter. It was some distance from the collective village and was probably left over from a time when one family owned the farm. Near the barn there was an overgrown foundation, which might have been a house before one of the wars.

Because the barn walls were made of stone, they were not worried about anyone seeing light through a crack. Earlier in the evening, after lighting the lantern, Lazlo went outside to make certain. To celebrate their find, they ate some of the food Lazlo had purchased at a local market. While eating, they took turns with the brush changing the Skoda from white to black. If someone questioned the last farmer who saw them today, he would say the technicians eating lunch by the pond had driven a white Skoda.

When Lazlo finished painting, he washed using the bucket of water drawn from the covered well outside. He sat inside the car using the mirror to shave with the razor he’d purchased back at Kopelovo. When he finished, he closed the car door, took off his shirt, dried his face with it, and hung it on a nail on a post. His shoulder holster and pistol also hung there. Finally he blew out the lantern, came to the dark alcove, and climbed into the bed of straw.

“How long have we known one another?” asked Juli.

“A thousand years,” said Lazlo.

“Either clocks and calendars are all wrong, or we’ve gone mad,” said Juli. “Which is it?”

“Both.”

She pulled Lazlo to her, and they fell quickly into the momentary otherworld of not knowing what had happened or what could happen. She thought only of Lazlo, how she needed him and loved him. When he was inside her, she felt complete. Even if someone told her that in a few moments she would be tortured and hung from the rafter herself, it didn’t matter because the momentary otherworld had opened, and she and Lazlo had tumbled into it.

After what seemed only a few moments of sleep, Lazlo awakened.

Juli was in his arms, her head on his chest. Even though she had washed her hair several days earlier at Kopelovo, it still smelled sweet. He pushed his face deeper into Juli’s hair and inhaled.

“What do you think about when you lie awake?” asked Juli.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“And I thought you were. What do you think about?”

“About you. About us. About everything around us.”

Juli turned her head on his chest and faced him. “It’s a dilemma, isn’t it? All these things happening around you, people depending on you even though you’re the one in the most danger.”

“You know I must go to Kisbor before I can cross the border. If I simply leave, I’m afraid Komarov will hurt Nina and the girls, and even Bela and Mariska.”

“He’s vindictive, one who can never forget?”

“Yes. It’s his game. He knows I’ll go to the farm because I know he’ll go there. Going there will not guarantee their safety, but I can’t leave Nina and the girls alone as long as Komarov is in power. I should have gone after him in Kiev instead of waiting for him to act.”

“You sound like Mihaly.”

“Perhaps I am Mihaly.”

They were silent for a time, the only sounds their breathing and a mouse somewhere in the corner of the barn tunneling beneath straw. Juli broke the spell.

“How long will it take to get to Kisbor?” she asked.

“It’s a few hours’ drive across the northern range. The Hungarian frontier is only about a hundred kilometers away. Kisbor is another hundred northwest at the edge of the steppes. When we were boys, Mihaly and I sometimes worked in fields near the frontier when other collectives needed help during the harvest. Last June on holiday, I told Mihaly we would have been better off staying on the farm. We were in the wine cellar. The cemetery’s not far from the house. The wine cellar’s about as deep as a grave, and I can’t help wondering if Mihaly had been predicting his death.

There we were down in the ground… we even spoke about how I used to be frightened that dead people from the cemetery visited for a drink now and then…”

Lazlo paused, and when Juli remained silent, he knew it was time to tell her about the deserter he’d killed on the Romanian border when he was a boy soldier. He told of the snowy day, he and Viktor leaving the army truck with their rifles. He told of their officers’ anger at Khrushchev’s Cuban missile fiasco, taking revenge anywhere they could. He told of the silenced violin in the village, the pistol in the violin case, the boy deserter shooting Viktor, his own rifle aimed, the trigger pulled, the blood exploding from the deserter’s face, the mother and sister screaming. He told of the return visit with his captain, the sister’s eyes as she stared at him, and finally his baptism with the name Gypsy, the name taken from the deserter he had murdered.

“I was going to tell Mihaly about the deserter, but he is gone. So now I have told you.”

Juli hugged Lazlo to her. “You used the word murderer. Promise me you will never use it again. I saw what happened in Visenka.

I saw the agent aim the pistol at us. You are not a murderer, Lazlo!

Never, never use the word again!”

Juli held him tightly for a long time, long enough for him to shed a decade of tears. She wiped the tears away with her hands and with her lips as they kissed. They lay together in silence until Juli spoke.

“My father wanted me to be a doctor. He said lots of women were becoming doctors. He said women were better at healing.

When I didn’t become a doctor, I felt I had disappointed my father.

The past is gone. Even if you had stayed on the farm and I had become a doctor, we might still be running away together.”

“We’re not in control,” said Lazlo. “We feel we’re in control from minute to minute or even from day to day, but in the end, destiny rules. My destiny is to guarantee nothing happens to Nina and the girls.”

“We’re back where we started,” said Juli.

“The dilemma.”

“Yes.”

They lay silent again, listening to the mouse in the corner. During the silence, Lazlo kept visualizing the farmhouse, the yard, the exact placement of trees, the position of the wine cellar in relation to the house, the border of the private plot at the back. Since it was spring, there would be no tall crops to hide among. Then he remembered the lazy afternoons beneath the chestnut tree, Anna and Ilonka and Mariska’s baby playing, the cover over the wine cellar a make-believe tabletop. Perhaps they had set their make-believe table again. If they did, if they had placed a tablecloth over the entrance, who would know it was a wine cellar? Even when it wasn’t covered, it looked like a discarded box or the cover of an old well.

If necessary, it would be a place to hide, or to hide others, Nina and Anna and Ilonka.

“Are you asleep, Juli?”

“No.”

“You know I must go to Kisbor right away.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. I’ll go alone.”

“Part of Mihaly is in me. His wife and children are in danger.

I’m going. After we’re finished, we’ll go to Budapest. They have a renowned radiation clinic there.”

“You seem to have our plans all in order.”

“Will we drive to Kisbor tomorrow?”

Lazlo kissed Juli’s neck.

“Laz, you can’t stop me from going.”

“We’ll go tomorrow.”

Lazlo lowered his head and kissed Juli’s breasts. Again, for a few minutes, they left the world of destiny and dilemma in which they were trapped.