Chernobyl Murders

8

Spring rains had moistened the Ukraine soil, preparing its rich farmland for the job of feeding the USSR. In the far northern Ukraine, waterfowl had returned to the Pripyat marshes. East of the marshes along the Uzh and Pripyat Rivers, gulls followed tractors, feasting on unearthed insects. Farther east, where the Uzh and Pripyat emptied into the Dnieper for the journey to the Black Sea, waterfowl congregated at a large pond. The pond bordered the Pripyat River but was separated from the river by a man-made dike. Water in the pond was warmer than the water in the river or in any other ponds in the area because it was used to cool superheated steam emerging from several turbines.

From the far side of the pond, the sound from the Chernobyl Nuclear Generating Facility operated by the Ministry of Energy was a steady drone. To some, it was a sound of unlimited power. To others, trained in engineering and physics, it was not one sound, but many sounds. Pumps, turbines, generators, and transformers formed an orchestra. The failure of one instrument would diminish the score.

Early in the morning on Friday, April 25, 1986, a technician in an off-white uniform walked near a turbine and generator of Chernobyl’s unit four. The combined structure was over fifty meters long. On the generator side, thick copper bus bars in protective pipe went through the wall of the building to the transformers outside.

On the turbine side, large pipes brought steam from the reactor to drive the turbine, and more pipes carried steam off to be cooled.

The concrete floor to which the structure was mounted vibrated.

The noise was deafening and there was the smell of oil and hot metal and graphite in the air.

One wall of the huge room was a mass of piping, wiring, gauges, solenoids, and valves. The technician paused in this area, watching solenoids and valves doing their work. But to stay long enough to watch every solenoid-valve combination go through a cycle would have taken hours, and the technician had further rounds to make.

The operators had already begun the hours-long process of reducing power leading to the tests to be performed during shutdown.

The technician mounted a metal stairway, pausing to watch a particular valve, painted red, being actuated. Then he continued his climb. He met another technician at the top of the stairs, and the two shouted to be heard above the roar of the turbine hall.

“How do the emergency cooling switches look?”

“They look… content!”

“They’d better be content because the idiots in the control room are insane!”

“Everyone working here is insane! Especially the bosses!”

“They were smart enough to build the bunker below their offices!”

“Who put Pavlov in charge of programming the computer? The dog doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing!”

“His name fits the situation! I hope we get this bitch shut down for May Day!”

“The parade banners kids make in school have construction superior to anything here!”

“Antiquated technology is our business!”

The two technicians laughed, slapped one another on the back, and went on their way.

In another wing of the building, in the relative quiet of the main control room, several technicians dressed in similar off-white uniforms sat at a semicircular console. At one end of the console, a two-by-six-centimeter rectangular panel lit bright red for two seconds, then went out. The technician nearest the panel was speaking on the telephone. After the red light went out, the technician looked in the general direction of the panel for several seconds, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and resumed his conversation.

In a large room above the reactor core, one of the technicians making his rounds walked a catwalk. He paused a moment and stared down at the ends of graphite columns. It looked like a giant circular checkerboard. He reached into the vest pocket of his uniform, took out a dosimeter, held it up to the light, and looked into it. Then he hurried along the catwalk, went out a side door, and descended an outdoor stairway.

Outside the building, the technician paused to speak with the operator of a large diesel front loader carrying gravel. The technician stepped up on the side platform and shouted at the man in the cab. Amid the throbbing of the diesel engine, he pointed to a small high-tension tower a few meters behind the front loader. After the technician dismounted, he stood with his hands on his hips and watched as the front loader left the area.

The technician walked back to the far end of the building and climbed a flight of stairs. Before entering the building, he paused to watch a pair of ducks fly over the yard and out above the cooling pond. He lifted his head and inhaled deeply of the spring air before going inside through a set of double doors to rejoin his comrades in the control room and fill out the morning inspection report.

The morning chatter of birds through the open window awakened her. The previous evening she’d gone for a walk alone. Pripyat’s lin-den trees had thickened, and she’d stood watching skylarks building nests. She went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror, trying to see if she had changed, if her complexion was rosier, her cheeks puffier, her eyes calmer. The only change was a slight thickening of her abdomen. To see it she had to stand on a stool and study her profile. Six weeks, and the baby was beginning to show. She’d noticed the change this week, and now she was certain she could see the bulge beneath her slip.

“It’s still too early to see,” said Marina, standing in the bathroom doorway watching her.

Marina was like a sister, someone she could confide in. They had spent many nights discussing what she should do, and she had decided to request a medical leave to have the baby. She would stay with Aunt Magda in the town of Visenka during the last months of pregnancy. Finally, the most difficult decision, she would arrange for the baby’s adoption.

Juli stepped off the stool and began combing her hair. She glanced to Marina. “I’m going to tell my supervisor today, assum-ing she doesn’t already know.”

“No one knows,” said Marina. “Nobody was in the apartment next door last winter. The footprints on the balcony were made during the day. The following week, our new neighbors moved in, so there’s nothing to worry about. Another pair of powerless women like us.”

“Are you going to lecture me again, Marina?”

“Not a lecture, Juli. I simply wondered when you would tell your secret to someone besides me and the doctor and your aunt.”

“I’ll tell my supervisor late in the day so I’ll have the weekend to prepare for the gossip.”

“And Mihaly?”

“We’ve been through this, Marina. I’m not trying to protect him! A fool protecting a fool! His wife finds out about us, and we continue seeing one another! It’s an insane situation! Nothing good can come of it!”

“The baby is good,” said Marina.

“I know. I didn’t mean to yell. I’ll… tell Mihaly today. After work. After I tell my supervisor and get the hell out of there.”

“You still won’t consider an abortion?”

“No. Don’t ask why. Maybe because my father is dead and I was his only child.”

Juli looked in the mirror, saw her own face sneering back at her.

“I should have gone to medical school like my father wanted instead of working at a damned nuclear plant. I’d be a doctor in Moscow sitting behind my desk, and on the other side of the desk is an unmarried girl come to get the results of her test. I should have stayed in Moscow after school or gone to some other job away from here so I would never have met Mihaly.”

“Do you love him?”

“I don’t know. I’m a coward, Marina. If I do love him, I don’t have courage to say it.”

Marina came behind her, took the brush from the sink, and began brushing Juli’s hair. “You’re very brave. No matter what I’ve said the last few days, I want you to know I don’t think I would have handled the situation as well.”

“I should have handled the birth control so none of this would have happened.”

Marina paused a moment, then resumed brushing Juli’s hair.

“Here we go again. It’s the men in power who cause the problems.

Always the men who put us into situations we’d rather not be in.

Keep reminding yourself you’re going through this for a couple who can’t have a baby of their own. When you tell Mihaly, remember to also tell him about the couple. They’re waiting for their baby.

Their baby.”

“Last night I lay awake thinking about how Mihaly will react.”

“How?” asked Marina.

“Silent, brooding. Then he’ll smile, put his arm around me, and ask what he can do.”

“Do me one favor,” said Marina.

“What?”

“If he thinks only of himself, kick him in the nuts.”

Juli turned, and when she saw Marina smiling she couldn’t help laughing. They hugged and Juli felt her eyes fill with tears. “I haven’t even thought of contacting my mother. She’ll never know about it.”

“It’s all right,” whispered Marina into her ear. “You’ll be all right.”

Marina took Juli’s hand and led her out of the bathroom. “Come with me. You need breakfast to feed our couple’s baby. Plus, I don’t want you to be late. No running for the bus.”

In Kiev a man wearing a ski mask despite the warm spring weather had, during the past month, beaten and raped three women in three separate metro stations. Kiev’s detectives were put on extra duty.

Female militia officers were placed in each metro station as decoys.

But the rapist had not been lured into the trap.

Because he was single, Detective Lazlo Horvath worked several sixteen-hour shifts in a row. His reward was the requisite congrat-ulatory speech by Chief Investigator Chkalov and a weekend off.

Chkalov had seemed angry, the speech terse, the weekend off given reluctantly after an odd complaint saying Lazlo should have visited the militia station in Pripyat while visiting his brother. A rumor among detectives linked Chkalov’s foul mood to KGB inquiries.

But on this Friday morning, with one normal day shift to go before his weekend off, Lazlo was not concerned with Chkalov’s relationship with the KGB. What occupied Lazlo’s thoughts this Friday was the plan for Tamara Petrov to spend the weekend at his apartment. This morning, before going on duty, he had cleaned the apartment, a procedure consisting of cramming the accumulation of clutter either into the garbage or into the closet. His bed linen and an assortment of soiled towels and clothing were in the back seat of the Zhiguli to be dropped off at the laundry. The inside of the Zhiguli smelled ripe as he drove along in the morning sun.

Lazlo stopped for breakfast at a pastry vendor on Khreshchatik Boulevard. The last time he’d been there the tea had been weak, so he ordered coffee. He sat on a bench in the plaza near the stairway to the metro. While he ate pastry and sipped the strong coffee from a paper cup, morning commuters disappeared into a metro stairwell like ants heading into a wine cellar. The main post office across the street reminded him of the last letter from his brother. Mihaly said Nina knew about the “other woman,” and he and Nina had rec-onciled. Mihaly would stop seeing the woman and work hard to salvage his marriage.

As he sat in the sun enjoying the warm southerly breeze, Lazlo wondered what this “other woman” of Mihaly’s was like. Perhaps Juli was a Gypsy, at least in appearance, like Tamara. If so, if he were in his brother’s position, could he be tempted away from Nina and the girls? Of course he could. Being in a profession of trying to make things right did not mean he was better than anyone else.

Perfection was for others, perhaps those without ties who could cross the frontier and live in so-called freedom.

A young woman walked past, the breeze making her cotton dress cling to her hips. Like Nina, thought Lazlo, Nina on last summer’s holiday. So young and beautiful, but not for him. Tamara was no less beautiful. Not young, his age, but still beautiful.

At the metro stairwell, a young man emerged carrying a guitar case. The man, most likely a student, was perhaps nineteen.

His hair was dark. The young man glanced at Lazlo. Dark eyes.

Gypsy eyes. The young man striking in his resemblance to the one he had killed. “Boys killing boys,” an officer at camp had said. “The strings of his violin silenced in youth,” said another. A quarter century had passed, yet he could not get the boy out of his mind. He had killed a maker of music. All those songs left unplayed. All the joy of his music unfulfilled. All because of Lazlo, the Gypsy. Tamara was the only person he’d told of the incident. Soon he would tell Mihaly. Perhaps having two people in his life know about the Gypsy would help.

After the young man carrying the guitar case was gone, Lazlo did his best to return to the present. Horns sounded, and a loud motor scooter roared past. Tonight, after a relatively peaceful day of asking questions around the metro, filling out reports at headquarters, and doing his laundry, he would be with Tamara. Tamara, who often said his constant brooding and moroseness were unhealthy, even for the Gypsy. He disposed of his garbage, went to the Zhiguli, and drove across town to a wine shop that sold a fine Hungarian vintage.

As Juli stood at the bus stop in front of the low-level laboratory building, she felt as if those waiting behind were trying to detect signs of pregnancy. Though her supervisor had promised confidentiality, Juli assumed the entire laboratory knew. She wished she could leave immediately to be with her Aunt Magda near Kiev. The bus wheezed to a stop, giving off a loud groan. Insane. Even the machines of the world seemed to know.

Mihaly sat at the back in his usual seat. Juli could see he looked worried and wondered if he already knew about the baby. But Mihaly was not looking at her. Instead he stared out the window and did not turn to her until she sat down.

“Friday at last,” she said.

“But tonight I must return to the station,” said Mihaly. “I’ll only have time to eat and take a short nap.” He looked at his watch. “I’m due back at midnight. Sorry, Juli, if my mind is elsewhere. They’ve already begun reducing power on unit four. Everyone knows she’s unstable at low power, yet they invite visitors from other ministries.

The elite in Moscow will have their experiment completed for May Day. Idiots.”

Juli thought for a moment, and said, “If something goes wrong, isn’t it simply a matter of reinserting control rods?”

“Not necessarily,” said Mihaly. “The RBMK, she’s got tentacles like an octopus. She can go into power surges. We went to the chief engineer last Wednesday, but he still insists on the shutdown. We’re doing a goddamned experiment dreamed up in Moscow. Experiment without analysis-it’s how we do things at Chernobyl.”

Power, machines, industry. What did her unborn baby mean to them?

“What kind of experiment, Mihaly?” When she spoke, her voice sounded foreign, overly calm, like a mother speaking to a ranting child.

“They want to see how long the turbines can generate emergency power after a shutdown,” said Mihaly. “They’ve picked us to be the guinea pig for the entire system. Moscow engineers wouldn’t want to lose any sleep when we can do their experiment. As if we haven’t got enough problems.”

“What problems?” Again her voice sounded distant.

“There’s been a mysterious warning light.”

Juli imagined they were discussing how she could have gotten pregnant instead of discussing the reactor. “Mysterious?”

Mihaly turned with a serious look, a technician anxious to solve technical problems. “It’s happened twice in the last week. Two separate operators catching a glimpse of a panel light in their peripheral vision. But they were on the other side of the room, and the light was momentary. Today we took turns watching the board constantly because emergency backups were off so they could be worked on. Tomorrow morning, after we shut down, electricians will install lock-on circuits, so once a light comes on, it won’t go off until we shut it off. The lock-ons should have been installed in the first place, but parts weren’t available when construction was finishing up.”

“Awards handed out for completing projects on time.” Juli felt as though she had no control over what she said, speaking as if she were one of the machines.

Mihaly went on. “There are things we can fix only when the unit is shut down. Like clogged pipes. And listen to this one. A few weeks ago, an idiot driving a front loader ran into one of the towers carrying power lines into the control building. Luckily he only buckled one of the legs. If he had knocked the tower down and we lost power, we would’ve been in real trouble. This morning we caught the same driver taking a shortcut through the yard outside the control room. After we shut down, they’ll fix the tower, and we’ve convinced the chief engineer to fence in the area. Mistakes are piling up, and we’ve got to fix them before they lead to something else.”

The guard on the bus interrupted to check their passes. The sign for Pripyat went by on the right, and Juli knew they would be at her stop soon. If only she could see Mihaly on the weekend, tell him then about the baby. In the past, she could have suggested a rendezvous. Mihaly would have met her, because in the past, the meeting would have had another purpose. It was over. The last time they had been together was weeks ago, before she found out she was pregnant.

Mihaly was looking out the window again. The bus passed a field of wildflowers blooming gold and yellow. Juli decided not to tell Mihaly about the baby tonight. Monday would be soon enough.

Monday, her supervisor would confirm her medical leave, and then she would tell Mihaly about the baby.

“Will you work all weekend, Mihaly?”

“Yes.”

“And you’ll still be on the early bus Monday?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Because,” said Juli, “I have to arrive early on Monday, too. I’ll see you on the early bus. We have to talk…”

Mihaly turned to her, gripped her hand. “I don’t like being torn apart by my love for you and my obligation to my family. Why can’t we simply keep our secret?”

“Big secret,” said Juli. “You tell your militiaman brother, and he tells your wife!”

“Laz didn’t tell Nina.”

“And you believe him?”

Mihaly stared straight ahead, sat silent as if he were a man of great patience waiting for the vixen’s tirade to subside. Finally he spoke quietly, calmly.

“The night I returned home from your apartment, I should have guessed Nina knew.” He continued staring straight ahead.

“But sometimes, even when we know something, we pretend not to know. We should have both known it was over. We shouldn’t have seen one another again because it’s made this moment harder for both of us.”

They sat silent during the remainder of the ride. Before her stop, Juli asked, “Will I still see you on the early bus Monday? It will give us a chance to think over the weekend.”

“Yes, I’ll be there.”

The bus stopped. Mihaly touched her hand lightly. She stared into his eyes, felt an overwhelming urge to kiss him. But she stood, said good night, which seemed inappropriate because the sun was still high in the sky, and left the bus.

Juli looked back as the bus pulled away and saw several passengers watching her. But Mihaly looked straight ahead, his pointed nose and small chin accelerating his movement away from her. The bus resembled the wall of a gallery devoted to portraits of melancholy. Sad faces, brooding faces. And this on a Friday evening before a spring weekend.

Juli turned and walked to her apartment, wondering about a world in which machines took over the lives of the workers. But most of all, she wondered if Pripyat, a town populated to service the Chernobyl reactor, a town neither rural nor urban, was a place in which a child could be raised properly by a single mother.