Irene Zabytko: The Sky Unwashed

“Ow, she’s beating me! Ow!” Oleh shuffled away from his wife and smiled. “Help me!”

Everyone laughed at the childish custom which no one fully understood, but enjoyed nonetheless. Some of the men gently tapped their wives with the pussy willows. Marusia tapped Evdokia, who giggled.

After a while, Yulia Pan’kovych cut in. “Did anyone hear a terrible noise Saturday night? It woke me up! I swear my bed was shaking.”

Some of the women nodded their heads. “It might have been shooting,” Maia timidly offered. The women laughed. “No, really. I remember during the war when a man shot his ex-wife and her new husband on their wedding night. It was terrible.”

“Well, unfortunately my granddaughter’s new husband is still walking the earth,” Evdokia said. “Unless Hanna shot him. And who would blame her.”

The women chatted about the weddings they’d attended the day before and what times the Sunday receptions were to occur, but they disbanded early because they were uneasy and wanted to be at home.

On the way, Marusia worried over Paraskevia’s bitter words. She was disturbed that even Lazorska was aware of some unknown evil intruding on them. Her eyes smarted and teared, and the metallic taste in her mouth grew stronger. “ Feh ,” Marusia spat, “it’s this pollution. Too many of those damn factories around here.” She wiped her eyes and felt relieved to be at her gate.

She saw that Katia was playing tag with some other children near her neighbor’s front garden. Tarasyk was playing quietly by himself with a small shovel and a mound of dirt in the garden. They didn’t seem to be bothered by the air.

Zosia was in the kitchen busily washing Yurko’s suit jacket with the thick bar of yellow laundry soap. Her cigarette dangled from her mouth, and the ashes were scattered over her housecoat. She seemed crazed and kept striking the lump of heavy wet wool against the hard sink over and over as though she were beating a demon out of a possessed soul.

YURKO DID NOT come home until late Monday afternoon. He acted as though his mind was caught in a daze. He ignored everyone’s anguish over his absence while he slowly and mechanically peeled off his blue overalls and work boots. He drank three glasses of tepid water and shuffled to his room, where he tumbled into bed and then cried out for more water. Marusia brought him a pitcher’s worth, which he drank until his throat convulsed. He coughed some of the liquid up over the covers. “ Mamo , my throat is so dry. My eyes are burning.”

“You need sleep,” Marusia said. She felt his hot head with her hand. “I’ll get a cool towel.”

“At least one of us can sleep….” Zosia grumbled. She was in their room, changing into her blue work fatigues.

“Zosia, listen to me,” Yurko said in a hoarse voice. “Don’t go. There’s been an accident at the plant.”

“What accident?” Zosia snapped. “Nobody’s said anything.”

“Listen to me. Something worse than a fire happened. Nobody knows… it’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Something…”

Zosia moved over to the bed and bent down near her husband. She realized how bleary-eyed he looked. His face was ashen except for his cheeks and nostrils, which were ruddy in the way they used to get whenever he was out too long in the sun. “What do you mean?” she said more gently.

“I don’t know. But there were fires….” Yurko coughed and fell back on the pillows, closing his eyes.

“Easy, sonechko ,” Marusia said, stroking his hair. “I myself heard about a fire when I waited in line at the coop this morning. And Father Andrei never returned home after the wedding reception. We missed him at Mass yesterday. Maybe you’ve seen him, Yurko?”

“Don’t bother Yurko about that kind of thing, Mamo ,” Zosia said, retreating to her dresser and the large gilt-framed mirror hung over it. The dresser was a clunky piece of furniture that Yurko had taken from his mother’s room when he first married Zosia and brought her to this house. Zosia had arranged her few precious cosmetics on a blue and yellow embroidered flaxen towel she had made as a child growing up in Siberia.

Zosia frowned at the plastic tortoiseshell case that held the last few portions of crumbling face powder. “So, it’s nothing special when someone comes home late from a shift, especially if something unusual happens.” She powdered her face, then dabbed her cheeks with a sheet of blotting paper she had stolen from work. “Look, Yurko disappeared for two whole days, but he’s here. The priest is probably back now, too.”

“There were fires,” Yurko insisted. Marusia helped him pull himself higher against the pillows behind his back. “Smoke all over. Like a war. I went to Prypiat’, to inspect an electrical station. But we all heard the explosion. The ground shook. The sky lit up. Horrible…”

“Don’t worry, dear,” Marusia said. “I’m getting a towel for your head. Cool down, then talk.” She tried to catch her daughter-in-law’s eye before she left the bedroom, but Zosia was absorbed in dusting her eyelids with a sable artist’s brush dipped in light blue eye shadow with bits of silver sparkles in it—“like mica,” one of the engineers at the plant had joked when he first saw it shine on her eyes.

“When did this happen?” Zosia asked after they were alone. She moved over to sit on the edge of their bed and raked her stiff, snarly hair with a brush. Her hair snapped with electricity as she tilted her head down on her chin and forced the underside of her hair up and over her face.

“Saturday morning. After I left you at the reception. About two o’clock. I had to go and help put the fires out. Got as far as the gates, but the stink got to my chest. Knocked me out. They took me to Prypiat’. That’s where I was all this time.” He coughed again. “The medic said I was fine. To get some rest. So, I’m home.”

“It’s still on fire?” she asked. She was concentrating on pulling off the loose strands of hair caught from the bristles of her brush and dropping them on the floor.

He groped for her hand and pulled her closer to him. “Don’t go. Not now. Let them put it out for good.”

Zosia pulled away from him and stood up. “But nobody has said anything official about it. Anyway, there’s always a backup system. Something goes wrong, there’s an alarm and other units kick in.”

Marusia returned with a large pink terry washcloth and gently pressed it against Yurko’s forehead.

“Did you hear anyone say anything official about an explosion, Mamuniu? Maybe on the radio?”

The old woman shook her head.

“So, things aren’t that bad. We’re safe. They have to have special backup units at a nuclear power plant.” Marusia was devoting all her attention to her son. “ Mamo , did you hear what I said? There’s always a backup system.”

“Fine then, but people still get hurt on the job,” Marusia said. “Workers get sick lifting heavy equipment, especially the women, who shouldn’t be doing such things.” She glared at Zosia.

“Yurko is not a child, and he’s stronger than a woman. He’ll be all right.”

“I’m tired,” Yurko moaned, and closed his eyes.

“Well, let him sleep,” Marusia whispered, and covered Yurko with a blanket. “I’ll go and make some soup. But I need more dill. I have to ask our neighbor for some. I’ll be back.” Marusia was about to say something else, but Zosia pressed a finger to her lips and nodded toward Yurko.

Zosia waited until the old woman left them. She heard the front door close. “Now we’ll find out what’s really going on,” Zosia joked. “She and her nosy girlfriends will get all the news before we hear it on the television.”