Andrea White: Radiant Girl

I GRIPPED MY GREEN BLANKET TIGHTLY OVER MY HEAD, but it didn’t shield me from Mama’s voice.

“Katya.” Her strong hands shook me.

My eyes flickered open. I rubbed the sleep out of their corners.

“Wake up,” Mama said. She was standing next to my bed with her arms crossed over her chest. She was wearing her durable farm clothes, dark pants and a sweatshirt. Soon, she and Petro Shamenko would be at the barn milking our cow.

Petro Shamenko was the paid herdsman who helped my mother tend the animals. I had known this simple-minded man all my life. He swept the barn and milked the cows, slowly and carefully, as if the fate of the world rested on the successful completion of these chores. Yet he had a sweet playful side. When I was little, he had helped me collect chicken feathers for the small pillows that I was fond of sewing for the fairies.

I struggled to sit up.

“That’s my girl,” Mama said.

As Mama returned to the kitchen, I managed to get out of bed and begin dressing. The delicious aroma of fried dough filled my room—she was making pancakes. I slipped my brown dress-uniform over my head.

“Katya,” Mama called from the kitchen, her voice full of suspicion. “Did you raid the refrigerator last night?”

With this reminder, the night rushed back to me: the theft of the food, the moonbeam on the path, Boris’ proposal to Marta, and, most terrible of all: Vasyl.

My mother stuck her head in the door. “Katya, why aren’t you answering me?”

“I did get hungry last night and ate a few pieces of cheese. That’s all,” I finished lamely. I wasn’t used to lying.

“And a sausage,” Mama added.

“Yes, Mama,” I agreed. Then it occurred to me that if I had eaten all that food, I couldn’t possibly be hungry. “And I’m still stuffed,” I said as I went to the bureau for my hairbrush.

As I looked into the mirror, I glanced at the figure of the domovyk . He had the same half-smile as always on his wooden lips, and remembered again the horrible impression that I had in the instant before Vasyl said, Our world is going to be destroyed .

“Katya,” my mother called. “What are you doing in there?”

Her voice chased away the unsettling night memories, and I found myself once again standing in the half-light of dawn. I touched the domovyk and said, “Stop looking at me,” before I hurried into the kitchen.

A pile of pancakes, a bowl of sour cream and strawberry jam waited for me on the counter. The butter dripping off the side of the pancakes had formed a luscious yellow pool. Sitting down, I gazed at the photos on the wall beyond.

For their wedding photo, Papa had worn a daisy in his lapel. Mama had on a hat with a frilly veil that covered her forehead. My parents looked stiff, like people in black and white shots always manage to do. A photo of a middle-aged Granny Vera hung next to my parents’ wedding portrait. My grandmother had a pleasant face with eyes the color of acorns and red hair. In the photo, she wore the Ukrainian national costume—a white embroidered tunic wrapped by a scarlet skirt, covered by an apron and sashed by a belt of coarse woolen thread. Strings of red glass beads hung around her neck. I missed her more than I had for a long time. Granny Vera would have been able to tell me about Vasyl.

Forgetting that I was supposed to be full, I finished my pancakes in no time. Meanwhile, my gaze swept the cottage. Everything appeared normal—unharmed, but I was in a hurry to go outside. To see the sun shining—just like it had the day before.

“You wolfed down your breakfast,” my mother scolded me. “I thought you weren’t hungry.”

“The pancakes were so delicious.” I offered this lame excuse as I quickly rinsed my plate. “Excuse me, Mama, but I want to get my chores done. I have a lot to do at school.” I set my plate on the counter and hurried to the door.

“You didn’t drink your milk,” my mother said.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

As my hand gripped the knob, my mother called out, “What am I going to do with you, daughter?”

Did she know, I wondered, how naughty I had been? That I had talked to a boy in the woods at night and given him food?

When she turned back to the dishes, I realized she had believed my lie, and I felt even worse.

Outside, the sun peeked over the horizon, and the grass, the sky, and the trees were hazy with spring mist. Still, I could tell that it was going to be another typical day. The same as any other April day, only hotter. I was barely out the door and could already feel myself beginning to sweat.

Looking around at our beautiful yard, I began to calm down. Vasyl wasn’t real. He was just a forest creature. And even if he was real, he obviously was mistaken. Still, there had been something so scary about that fire. I remembered touching my nose and finding it as hot as a brick left overnight near the stove.

After a brief stop by the outhouse, I went to our chicken coop where Pirate, our cross-eyed rooster, proudly ruled. Entering, I smelled moist, decaying hay. “Hello, everybody.” They were making a ruckus. “Cluck. Cluck.” I shooed the noisy chickens outside.

After scooping up a bucket of feed, I followed the chickens and tossed the yellow kernels on the hard ground in front of the hen-house. Returning to their nests, I collected seven warm eggs in my apron and headed for the cottage.

I was about to open the front door when I heard a car. As our lane didn’t get much traffic, I turned to see who it could be. I was surprised to recognize my parents’ white Lada weaving down the lane.

Papa was home early or, more likely, I was confused about his schedule. I hurried into the cottage to store the eggs before rushing back outside to greet him.

The door to the Lada was open, but Papa hadn’t gotten out. As I drew closer, I was shocked to see that he was slumped over the wheel. I ran toward him yelling, “Papa.”

He reacted as if in slow motion. It took him a long minute to lift his head and look at me. His dark eyes were half-closed. His jaw hung slack. Most terrifying of all, he didn’t seem to recognize me.

“Papa,” I murmured. As I had done once with a wounded doe, I inched slowly toward him. When I was so close that I could see the stubble on his face, I got a whiff of the strangest smell. My Papa smelled just like the earth after a thunderstorm. [2] The Truth About Chernobyl By Grigori Medvedev, page 99, 1991 Perseus Books Group, New York

“Step back, Katya,” Papa ordered me.

I gave him room and watched as he slowly climbed out of the car. When he started off in the direction of our cottage, he was stumbling like Uncle Kryko. I wondered: Could Papa be drunk?

As I had seen him help my uncle, I ran up next to him so he could lean on me. When he threw his heavy arm around my shoulder, I staggered under his weight. He tripped, and we both collapsed into the grass, still wet with cold dew.

Mama turned the corner. When she saw us, she threw back her head and began laughing. Yet when she caught my gaze, her laughter stopped abruptly. Except for the sound of Noisy barking and Papa’s snarly breath, it was quiet, so quiet again.

I was still lying on the wet grass with Papa’s arm weighting my middle, when I noticed something unusual. In the direction of the station, a black plume of smoke twisted and curled against the dawning sky. It looked small and insignificant. I wanted to believe that it had nothing to do with me. But I had seen it before, and Vasyl’s words ran through my mind. Our world is going to be destroyed .

Mama rushed towards us. “What’s wrong?”

I felt tears sting my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“An explosion and a fire,” Papa sputtered. “At the station…. Reactor Number Four.”