Orest Stelmach - The Boy from Reactor 4

Nadia spun out of the corner. Karel fell into it. His back pressed against the wall. Hers pointed toward the exit. The dominant American woman was asserting herself in barroom foreplay. Nothing unusual. Wasn’t the American woman always on top?

“Who are you?” Nadia said, hands around his neck.

“What?” Karel glanced around furtively to make sure no one was listening. He whispered. “I told you. I am Karel. I’m just a zoologist—”

Nadia gripped his Adam’s apple with the first three fingers of her right hand, her body obscuring the act from everyone’s view.

Karel tensed.

“I’m not asking you who you are,” Nadia said. “I’m asking you, who are you ? Who sent you? How do you know me?”

“Your uncle sent me. Damian sent me.”

Nadia squeezed. “Why?”

Karel rose to his tiptoes. “Because he’s ill. He couldn’t come to the meet himself.”

“What meet? The meet here, at the bar?”

“No. The meet in Pripyat. At the Hotel Polissya. I got there early and saw the poacher. I knew the meeting was a bust. So I came here. For the party. I was planning to tell Damian later, and he would set up another meeting through the woman.”

“Woman? What woman?”

“The boy’s aunt. She speaks English. Seelick. Clementine Seelick.”

Nadia released her grip. Karel swallowed and massaged his throat. Nadia checked her watch. It was 10:33. She was three minutes late for her rendezvous with Hayder.

She studied Karel. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“What is your relationship with my uncle?” she said.

He looked her in the eye and spat the words out with conviction. “He’s my friend.”

Nadia considered her options. “Where is Damian?”

“Damian is a squatter.”

“A squatter? What does that mean?”

“He lives illegally in an abandoned home.”

“Where?”

“Here. In the Zone. In Chernobyl village.”

“Can you take me to him?”

“Take you to him?” Karel’s jaw dropped. “Tonight?”

“Now,” Nadia said. She checked her watch. 10:36. She prayed Hayder was still waiting for her.

Karel shrank. “No… I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“Well… Damian is very ill. And… And he is not prepared for your arrival. It would be better to plan for another time.”

Nadia tapped him on the cheek three times. “I’m doing the planning. Once I leave, I’m not coming back to the Zone. It has to be tonight. How do we get there? On foot? Bicycle?”

He hesitated. “Motorbike.”

“You have one?”

“Outside.”

“Let’s go.”

They stopped at the table with the newlyweds to say good night.

“ Na dobranich ,” Karel said. “The lightbulb went out in my dormitory room. Nadia Panya here insists there is an American way of screwing one in that will make it burn brighter and last longer.”

The men moaned. The women shrieked.

Nadia threaded her arm through Karel’s and smiled lasciviously.

“There will be electricity tonight,” one of the men shouted as they left the café.

They found Hayder at the rendezvous point, crouching on the swath of asphalt farthest from the power station, near the edge of the forest through which they’d arrived. A rectangular container shaped like a dog carrier was strapped to the back of his bicycle. It was wrapped in black fabric. A handle protruded through the top.

Hayder stood up. “Who the fuck is he?”

“This is Karel. He’s a zoologist. I’m staying the night with him.”

Karel smiled good-naturedly at Hayder.

Hayder measured him and tilted his head at Nadia. “You cocksure about this?”

“Yes,” Nadia said. “I’m sure about this.”

Hayder grinned. “See? What did I tell to you? The Zone. It pulls you in, right?”

“Tell Anton I’m sorry. I’ll call him as soon as I can. I’ll need help getting out of here. But I’ll understand if he can’t help me. My staying here tonight—it wasn’t part of the plan.”

“To stay night in the Zone, you must have the balls like the Crimean Tatar warrior. Like the descendant of Genghis Khan himself. I have more respectability for you. But I borrowed the two bicycles. I must return the two bicycles. Someone will come looking for them at eleven o’clock sharp. If they’re not there, someone will come looking for me. You know what I am meaning?”

Nadia retrieved her bicycle and followed Hayder to the point where they’d picked them up. Karel kept pace on a toy motorbike that looked like a Soviet-era Vespa. After dropping off the bike, Nadia climbed up behind Karel.

“I’ve seen that man before,” Karel said as Hayder disappeared into the woods. “He is a scavenger. He steals from the Zone and sells to the world. A scavenger cannot be trusted.”

“A friend of mine vouched for him.”

“Then your friend cannot be trusted, either.”

“What about my uncle?”

Karel paused. “There is no lying in a man who is dying.”

“There’s no time to waste. Take me to him.”

Karel took a deep breath as though fortifying himself. “So be it. He lives in a black village, six miles away. There will be ditches, potholes, and graveyards. Hang on.”

“MY NAME IS Oksana Hauk. I am a Chernobyl survivor. My grandmother died fighting the Nazis in World War II, and my mother was cannibalized in the famine of 1933. Welcome to my home.”

Nadia struggled to digest the enormity of the babushka’s revelations while simultaneously crafting a similar greeting, in case doing otherwise was rude.

“My name is Nadia Tesla. I am an American. My father was an officer in the Ukrainian Partisan Army. He died in America. Thank you for having me.”

Karel and Nadia crossed the threshold into the kitchen. Two lanterns lit the room.

Oksana Hauk was less than five feet tall, with the face of a pitted prune. She measured Nadia before she said, “You are from New York City. From downtown, yes?” Oksana pronounced the word in broken English, as though it were a city in and of itself, or a special destination whose meaning could not be translated.

Nadia looked at Karel, who smiled and shrugged as though he, too, was amused. Nadia laughed. “Yes, I am from New York City. But actually, I live uptown.”

Oksana frowned and glanced at Karel. “I don’t understand,” she said softly.

Karel turned to Nadia. “She thinks downtown is New York City. You confused her.”

“Ah,” Nadia said, touching the babushka on the shoulder with her hand. “I’m so sorry. Yes, yes. You’re right. Downtown. I come from downtown.”

Oksana nodded and smiled with relief, as though her sense of geography had been restored.

“My mother received letters from a man claiming to be my uncle. My uncle Damian. Is he here?”

Oksana glanced down the narrow corridor past the kitchen. “Yes.”

“May I see him?”

She made a sour face. “No, no. He is very sick. He is resting now. He is usually much better in the morning.”

Nadia didn’t hide her disappointment. “May I just take a peek? To see that he exists? I’ve come so far… It would mean so much to me just to see him.”

“No,” she said before brightening. “Sometimes he wakes up in the middle of the night. If that happens… Otherwise, in the morning.”

“So close,” Nadia said under her breath. She forced herself to smile. “I understand, I understand. In the morning.”

The house was a crooked wooden shack with a thatch roof. A wood-burning brick oven heated the kitchen, which opened to a small dining area. An Orthodox crucifix hung on one wall, and a picture of a boy skating among men hung on another. Nadia looked closer. The boy looked younger, but Nadia recognized the dark skin, pinched eyes, and broad face. It was the boy in the picture her mother had received. The boy Damian wanted her to take home to America. Where was the boy?