Michael Beres: Chernobyl Murders

Last winter had been terrible. Sergey broke off their year-long engagement. Then, a week later, her father died, and she took the train to Moscow on funeral leave. Her mother, to whom she had never been close except when she was a very small Muscovite, was especially cold. It was during this trip she discovered Aleksandra was missing. It was during this trip she felt closer to Aleksandra’s mother than to her own mother. After the trip to Moscow last winter, Juli returned to the loneliest time in her life. Each night, as she left the building, the demon darkness drained her, emptied her of purpose the way the gurgling vacuum pumps in the main-floor labs sucked air from the Geiger tubes.

But spring came as it always does, and darkness no longer awaited her after work. In spring she moved in with Marina. Having Marina for a roommate was like having the sister she’d always wanted. On days off they shopped together, waiting in lines, giggling like schoolgirls. Evenings they’d lie awake late into the night, talking about the future, which of course always included wealthy men who would give them the lives they deserved. The lonely nights were when Marina was out with her boyfriend, Vasily. This was how spring went. Then in summer, Juli met Mihaly.

Mihaly was slender with dark hair and eyes. He reminded Juli of her father when she was a little girl. Small chin, thin nose, forehead sloping back to his hairline. Like her father, Mihaly was Hungarian. Although they simply rode the bus home from work together during June, Juli knew she had fallen in love the very first day when they sat together and spoke in Hungarian, keeping their voices low so others would not overhear them. Russian was the official language at the facility. Ukrainian was looked down upon.

Hungarian was barbaric.

On a warm July day, Mihaly got off at Juli’s stop so he could walk her home. On a hot August day, he came to her apartment.

They sipped wine and made love. The next time Mihaly came to her apartment, he told her he was married and had two daughters.

Juli didn’t want to hurt Mihaly or his wife and daughters. She kept trying to convince herself she needed Mihaly only for the moment.

Another man would appear, and Mihaly would remain a good friend. But now, after he’d been gone three weeks on summer holiday, she knew differently.

When Juli paused at the entrance to the laboratory building before going down the stairs, she looked out to the southeast where the red and white reactor stacks pierced the sky. Today was Monday, and she knew Mihaly was back to work, had taken the earlier bus as usual. Tonight, after a three-week absence, he would catch her bus and she would see him again.

By applying herself to her work, Juli made the morning go by quickly. She turned off the overnight counters, did her calcula-tions, removed the counting tubes from the tombs, and sent them up the dumbwaiter to be refilled with fresh samples. After lunch, she would busy herself again-new samples into the tombs, voltages set, samples logged, tombs closed, overnight counts started. But for now, the moles were out of their hole for lunch.

Juli sat alone at a table near the windows until a lab technician who worked on the main floor joined her. The technician’s name was Natalya, a plump girl with a loud voice. Juli might have gotten up to leave, but it was obvious she had just started eating.

Natalya placed a large brown bag on the table and began empty-ing out food, making their table look like a table at a street market.

Bread, cheese, two tomatoes, a large cucumber, cookies, cake. Besides speaking in a loud voice, Natalya spoke with her mouth full, which resulted in the occasional flight of a crumb of food across the table.

“I’m so hungry,” said Natalya. “Even if my work is not strenu-ous, I still get hungry as a bear. You have so little, Juli. A simple sandwich, and look at my lunch. I went across the Belorussian border to shop at farm markets and bought too much. One of these days, for sure, I’m going on a strict diet before I explode.” Natalya swung her arms outward to portray the great explosion. “Perhaps I should try one of those American movie-star diets. Did I tell you the Odessa Bookstore on the north side of town has a stock of American magazines?”

“No,” said Juli. “What kinds of magazines?”

“Celebrity magazines,” said Natalya. “I can’t bring them to work anymore. The chief technician says they’re distracting. She caught me looking at Bruce Springsteen. The Frank Sinatra of the eighties. Am I right?”

“Each generation has its idols.”

“So, who is your idol, dear Juli?”

“I don’t have an idol.”

“What about your boyfriend? Couldn’t he be considered your idol?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“No? A pretty girl like you with no boyfriend? It’s shameful we have boys around here instead of men. The real men are married.

Here, when the boys aren’t drinking vodka, they hover over their books and calculators. I prefer older men. I’m waiting for a widower who needs a helpmate to cook meals and send him off to work so I can relax.” Natalya sighed. “But if I’m home all day watching television and reading magazines, I’ll eat myself into an early grave.

You’re lucky to have been born thin, Juli. All the women in my family are heavy. None of the diets I’ve tried do any good. So I might as well enjoy it while I can.”

They ate, silent except for explosive crunches as Natalya munched her cucumber. After she finished that, Natalya polished off the cookies and cake. Then she leaned across the table and whispered.

“Did you hear the latest joke circulating up here?”

“Here” meant the main floor, as opposed to the basement or sub-basement. Gossip from the facility entered the building by way of the main floor, where workers had contact with drivers who brought in samples and reactor personnel who sometimes visited.

Juli leaned close to Natalya, hoping the joke would not be overheard.

Even Natalya’s whispering was loud.

“Is it the one,” asked Juli, “about the reactor inspector who wears gloves even in the summer?”

“This joke is much better,” said Natalya. “The head of the SSNI in Moscow receives an invitation for delegations of Soviet reactor safety engineers to visit U.S. facilities and study reactor safety principles. The U.S. official says they can visit any reactor they like in the United States. The SSNI head makes his selections and, a few days later, hands his list to the U.S. official. ‘Everything looks fine except for one thing,’ says the U.S. official. ‘What?’ asks the SSNI head. ‘You’ve said you wish to send your Chernobyl engineering staff to Three Mile Island. Don’t you realize,’ asks the U.S. official, ‘we had an accident there in the seventies?’ ‘Of course,’ says the SSNI head. ‘But Three Mile Island is more than adequate for Chernobyl engineers, because at Three Mile Island you had only one accident!’”

Natalya laughed so hard Juli thought she would tip over backward in her chair. Several people at other tables turned and smiled.

At one table, a man Juli had never seen before took out a notebook, wrote something in it, then put the notebook back in the pocket of his lab coat.

For a moment Juli considered warning Natalya about the recent memo condemning “malicious gossipmongering.” But Natalya would probably say something worse. Besides, the joke would spread throughout the facility by quitting time. Better to let the matter rest despite the man in the lab coat.

“Funny, yes?” said Natalya.

“Yes,” said Juli. “But now I’ve got to get back to work.”

As she left the cafeteria, Juli noticed the man in the lab coat tug at his earlobe. And while going down the stairs to the basement, she wondered if Natalya might be part of the head office’s underground network. If the joke was a test, it wouldn’t work because, since Aleksandra’s disappearance, Juli never repeated these jokes to anyone, except Mihaly.