Andrea White: Radiant Girl

A vendor on the street cried, “Lemonade! Get your delicious, cold lemonade!” A few boys were kicking a soccer ball on the sidewalk.

I looked into my friend’s happy face and tried to reassure myself. Angelika and the lemonade vendor were real. The boy in the woods was… His hair was too blond. His eyes were too blue. He seemed like he belonged to another world. Maybe he was some type of forest creature. Or maybe he was a nightmare.

As I looked at Angelika, her eyes searched out mine. She held my gaze a little too long, before turning towards Pripyat Primary School #2.

THE SCHOOL HALLWAY WAS CROWDED WITH KIDS. Angelika had left me to get a drink of water. Ahead of me, I spotted Sergei Rudko and Andriy Osadchiy walking to class. They each had on a school boy’s uniform—a dark suit and light shirt. I followed close behind, hoping that Sergei would notice me. This morning, he looked more handsome than usual. I couldn’t help admiring his tanned skin and blond hair.

Over his shoulder, Sergei caught a glimpse of me. My heart skipped a beat when he stopped and smiled.

I smiled back. Every girl in my school would say that with his light hair and ruddy cheeks, Sergei was cuter than Boris. But not me. Still I reminded myself that Boris was taken. Sergei crooked his finger towards me and took a step towards the lockers, leaving Andriy behind.

My heart pounding, I followed him. It felt so good to be chosen over all the other girls in my class.

“Katya,” Sergei said. He was grinning as if a relationship between us was the most natural thing in the world. The next words out of his mouth made me feel as if I were dreaming. “Do you want to ride the Ferris wheel with me?”

“I think my mother will let me.” I remembered Angelika only after I’d accepted.

“See you then,” Sergei said. He turned and rejoined Andriy.

Watching the two boys saunter off, I promised myself to tell Angelika. But now that I had an actual date with Sergei, it would be even harder. Boys complicated things, I decided. Oh, how I hoped Mama would let me go.

When I entered the classroom, the last student to arrive, I saw the date written on the blackboard: April 26, 1986. I was never this late to class but Lydia Rybalka, my last year’s teacher, had stopped me in the hallway and asked me to take a note to the office for her.

Although our classroom held about thirty students, my gaze immediately searched out Sergei Rudko. As I headed to my seat, Sergei looked frankly at me. His dark eyes stayed with me as if they were magnetized. When I returned his smile, a sensation of pleasure shot up through my chest from deep in my core.

I sat down at my desk against the wall.

Nina Ivanovna, a tall woman with an erect bearing, was furiously scribbling on the blackboard. She always seemed to want to cram as much into our heads as possible. Today her chalk hammered across the board with a vengeance. I kept waiting for her to mention the accident, but she never did.

After the bell rang announcing the start of class, Nina Ivanovna turned to face us. “Please begin the long division problems that I have written on the blackboard.”

“Yes, Nina Ivanovna,” we all recited.

Normally, math and science were my two best subjects. My father praised me, saying, “Science is the path to a good job.” But today, as I stared at the equations, all I could think about were boys. To the right of me, Sergei made me think of my need to talk to Angelika. When I tried to forget about him, my head filled with thoughts of Vasyl. And then I wondered about Boris and Marta in the woods. And the woods took me back to Vasyl.

I should have known better than to talk to Vasyl or to carry him food in the middle of the night. And although I still had no idea what he really knew, now that the station had experienced a fire, my actions seemed those of a criminal. I worried that I needed to tell my parents the full story, but I struggled to find the courage. I vainly plied myself with false reassurances like, after all, when I met Vasyl in the woods, I didn’t know he was a horrible person, a thief and a liar .

“Papa,” I would say. Before I could even begin practicing my confession, I could hear him shouting, “You did what !?”

I would have rather given back all my birthday presents than disappoint my father. I would rather go a month without food. I would rather…

My gaze happened upon the poster of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin hanging on the wall next to me. He was a loving son and good brother, the best grammar school student, a revolutionary who devoted his whole life to making poor people’s lives better. We all considered Lenin, the founder of the Communist Party, to be a caring father figure.

I looked at his familiar face which was drawn on the May Day banners and represented by a bust in the library. I implored him, Grandpa Lenin, What would you do?

Grandpa Lenin’s yellow eyes just stared blankly back at me.

FOR AN HOUR OR SO, I STRUGGLED TO FOCUS my whirling thoughts on my studies. I tried to pay attention to Nina Ivanovna’s lecture about the solar system. I should be memorizing the drawing of the planets on the blackboard, I told myself. She had just finished her crude drawing when a policeman appeared at the door.

“Students, remain silent,” she barked, and she went to see what the man wanted.

From what I could tell from my desk, the policeman spoke calmly. Although most of the students started whispering among themselves, sharing their May Day plans, I knew the policeman was here because of my encounter with Vasyl, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the pair.

The policeman wore a gray rain jacket over his blue uniform. It wasn’t a normal policeman’s uniform, though, because I caught a glimpse of a gold star above his pocket.

Eventually, the policeman nodded, dismissing Nina Ivanovna, and he marched off. But my relief was short-lived. As if she were a madwoman, my teacher began rushing around and closing all the windows.

When Nina Ivanovna had finished, she rapped her ruler on the blackboard. The class stopped talking. “You students are being sent home,” she said. The tone she used implied we were all bad kids.

Along with the other students, I waited for Nina Ivanovna to provide an explanation for her actions, one that made sense. Alone, I waited for her to single me out for punishment. “The outdoors is dangerous,” Nina Ivanovna warned us. “Go straight home.”

But her instruction was contradictory. If the outdoors were dangerous, why were we all walking home?

“I’ll see you next week,” Nina Ivanovna said, and turned her back to the class.

Watching my teacher clear off her desk, I knew nothing more in the way of an explanation was forthcoming. The school closing must be related to the accident at the station, but how? Nothing added up. Yet since adults’ rules often confused me, I wasn’t overly alarmed. Besides, like every schoolgirl since the beginning of time, I was excited about the unexpected holiday. Along with the rest of my classmates, I rushed out into the hall, already crowded with students, to find a holiday atmosphere. The whole school was being sent home. Not just our grade.