Chernobyl Murders

36

August 1986

It was Sunday. The bells of Vienna’s churches had tolled the noon hour. The view from the seventh-floor window of the Vienna Intercontinental Hotel was facing northeast across the city park, where people in colorful summer clothing walked along tree-lined paths.

Juli stood looking out the window, holding her abdomen. Although her baby was not moving now, she had felt it earlier. The baby moved most in the morning, waking her. But now, as she looked out the window, the baby was asleep in its small world. The only feeling Juli had now was the tingling of her newly stretched skin.

According to tests several days earlier in Budapest at the Institute for Radiobiology, everything was normal. The doctors said the baby’s growth did not seem affected by radiation. But there were no guarantees. There were never guarantees. The technician asked if she wanted to know the sex of the baby, but she declined. She already had possible names picked out, but she did not want to tell Lazlo, at least not until the baby was closer to being born. If it was a boy, she wanted to name him Mihaly. If it was a girl, she wanted the name Tamara.

After they crossed into Czechoslovakia, several days passed before they could cross farther into Hungary, north of Budapest. Farmers in Czechoslovakia hid them and the Skoda until searches decreased. In Hungary, they abandoned the Skoda, and more farmers transported them south to Miskolc and got them on a train to Budapest.

After the tests at the Institute for Radiobiology, they thought they would have trouble crossing the Hungarian-Austrian border.

Instead, a doctor at the institute referred them to Dr. Istvan Szabo at the Hungarian National Atomic Energy Commission. When they told what they knew about the Chernobyl accident, Dr. Szabo began work on temporary visas. During the wait for visas, Juli and Lazlo stayed in a small apartment in Budapest.

It was a strange interlude in Budapest. While she was happy to be with Lazlo, there was always the chance someone processing their visas would recognize them as the man and woman on the run from the Ukrainian militia. She and Lazlo agreed they should make the best of what could be a temporary freedom if Hungarian authorities discovered their identities. While in Budapest, she and Lazlo fell more deeply in love and, with the baby between them as they made love, became a family.

Their assumed name in Budapest was Petavari, Andras and Margit Petavari. The only time they left the apartment was when Dr. Szabo’s assistant picked them up to go to the Institute for Radiobiology or to Dr. Szabo’s office. If anyone approached and asked questions, they were to say they were brought from an area in Eastern Hungary for tests relating to the Chernobyl accident.

Everything was arranged by Dr. Szabo. They would accompany the doctor to the August meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna and repeat to delegates from the member nations what they knew about Chernobyl. The meeting was to begin tomorrow. Yesterday, at the Parliament Building, she and Lazlo were offered political asylum by the Austrian minister of foreign affairs.

Juli turned from the window, walked across the room, and sat on the ornate sofa. The dress she wore, purchased in Budapest, was already too tight when she sat down. Tomorrow, after a morning session at the Atomic Energy Agency, Dr. Szabo had promised his assistant would accompany Juli to a local maternity shop.

Shopping for clothes! A suite at the Vienna Intercontinental!

And all of this after days and nights on the run during which a mil-dewed tent or a straw-filled barn had seemed precious shelters.

Lazlo was in the bedroom on the telephone. Because there was no telephone at the farmhouse, Lazlo had left a message at the office of the Ulyanov collective’s chairman. A few minutes ago, the operator rang with a call from Kisbor. Although she could not hear what he said, Juli heard Lazlo’s voice coming from the bedroom, calm and controlled. Lazlo had not asked her to leave the bedroom during the call, but she wanted Lazlo to be able to speak with Nina in private. It was hard enough to talk knowing the PK might be listening.

This morning, when Juli had called Aunt Magda, she had been careful not to mention anything about how she and Lazlo escaped.

Aunt Magda assured her everything was fine in Visenka and also gave Juli a message from Marina and Vasily. They planned to marry soon and had moved to a resettlement apartment near Kiev. The news was not all good, however. Vasily’s mother and sister were sick from the high radiation they received, and both were being treated at a Kiev hospital.

When Lazlo’s voice stopped, Juli closed her eyes. She heard the door open, and Lazlo sat beside her, putting his arm around her.

When she opened her eyes, she saw Lazlo smiling. The scar on his upper lip from Komarov’s beating made his smile seem crooked.

But soon, according to the doctor in Budapest, his smile would be straight again.

“Everything is fine at the farm,” said Lazlo. “The KGB never returned after they took us away. Nina and the girls are being checked periodically at a hospital in Uzhgorod. No organ damage, but the girls especially will have to be watched. Nina’s decided to stay in Kisbor. Bela wants to help her build a house next to his.”

Juli reached out and touched Lazlo’s chin with her finger. “Your smile is gone.”

“Did I have one?”

“When you first sat down.”

“I wish there was something I could do for Nina.”

“You did, Laz. You went to your family when they needed you.”

“And you came when I needed you.”

Lazlo stood and went to the window. He looked east, his profile so sad when he wasn’t smiling. “Earlier you mentioned your friend Aleksandra Yasinsky, who was taken away when she spoke openly about radiation dangers. It made me think again about the man named Pavel, and also about the Gypsy on the Romanian border. We’ve left so many people back there, Juli. I hope leaving is the right thing to do.”

Juli went to join Lazlo at the window and held him close. “You said it yourself, Laz. We can help more people from here.”

“I know. I simply need to consider these things occasionally.

It’s part of my melancholy. By the way, before Nina called, I spoke with Dr. Szabo.”

“What did he say?”

“He’ll pick us up in the morning for the meeting. He said we should consider relocating, perhaps to the United States. He’s arranged for visas and contacted a medical facility in New York.”

Juli and Lazlo stood together looking east, Lazlo’s arm around her, his hand resting on her abdomen.

In the distance, beyond the green of the park and the blue of the Danube, the horizon was a thin line of colorless land and sky. It was like any horizon, a magnet to any Gypsy, a reason to keep moving.

As they stood at the window, they both felt the baby’s kick.

Four months after the unit four RBMK-1000 reactor at Chernobyl exploded, Soviet officials joined with scientists from throughout the world at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. For the most part, delegates were pleased with the openness displayed by the Soviets in detailing the causes of the accident.

Although there seemed to be many indirect factors leading to the accident, the main cause was reported to have been an ill-planned experiment at the reactor.

Design flaws were also discussed at the meeting, and Soviet officials outlined corrective measures to be performed on the other RBMK-1000 reactors in operation. Although the Soviets said some designers and high-level engineers were at fault, they praised the heroism and bravery of those who were at the site when the explosion occurred.

At the end of August 1986, the official death toll from the Chernobyl accident stood at thirty-one, and hundreds of thousands of people who had been forced from their homes faced a high risk of developing cancer in their lifetimes.