Andrea White - Radiant Girl

“I’m not worried about you flirting with Sergei,” I said, relieved.

Lyudmila moved closer to me and began whispering into my ear. “Sergei thinks Angelika likes him more than he likes her, and he doesn’t know what to do about it.” Her voice rose with excitement. “He didn’t say it, Katya, but I think he likes you .”

At some other time, this piece of news would have been all-absorbing, but now…I took a deep breath and confessed what had been bothering me all morning, “My father is really sick. His thyroid cancer is more advanced than we thought.”

Lyudmila stared solemnly at me. Her eyelids, at half-mast, revealed stripes of different-colored shadow. “Poor Katya,” she said, as she grabbed my hand.

I didn’t respond because, behind her, I spotted Sergei heading over to us.

Sergei grinned at us. “What are you two whispering about?”

Lyudmila winked at me. “I’ll talk to you in a minute, Katya.” Before I could object, she squeezed my hand and hurried off.

“So what’s going on?” Sergei repeated.

The sun streamed in through the open door. Staring at the little dust particles hanging in the light, I thought of Vasyl, running down the alley. Why, he might have been heading to Yanov. To my cottage with the blue shutters.

With the image of my cottage, a plan popped into my mind, as vivid as Vasyl’s fire had been. The only thing that might pose a problem was the electric fence.

“Sergei,” I said. “I have this crazy idea.”

Sergei’s face brightened. “I love crazy ideas,” he said.

“I’m going back to my cottage. Do you want to come?” I asked.

“Yanov is buried, isn’t it?” Sergei asked.

“Yeah, but we could try to find it.” I said, trying to keep my tone casual, not desperate like I felt.

“Sneak off?” He shrugged. “Just like that? Why?”

On the day of the accident, I had seen him riding his bike towards the plume. He was adventurous, I was sure of it. “Why not?” I asked. The real answer was too complicated to understand, even for me.

Sergei looked around as if to see if anyone was watching us.

“We can be back before the bus leaves.” I barely recognized my own voice, it was so soft and cajoling. You sound like Lyudmila, I thought.

From the next room, I could hear Angelika talking to someone. “I’m looking for Sergei. Have you seen him?”

Sergei nodded towards the door. “What are we waiting for?”

The two school buses were parked on the street. The bus driver closest to us rested his head on the wheel. The other bus appeared empty. No one was on the sidewalks. No cars were driving down the street.

I pointed at the spot where I had seen Vasyl, and we ducked into the alley. When we emerged onto a parallel street, we turned right. Despite the fact that Pripyat seemed completely deserted, instinctively we both walked close to the buildings, traveling in their shadows.

After the first block, I recognized this street. As it was on my route home from school, I had walked down this same street every day for many years.

“What’s this street’s name? Do you remember?” I whispered to Sergei. He shook his head.

My forgetfulness added to my impression that I was dreaming. Unlike my last day in Pripyat, this street was so quiet. I had never been to a city this still before. It was even quieter than the woods, and it was clear that soon all the concrete would be overtaken by nature. Once trees and bushes had only timidly lined the street, but now they had boldly advanced. A bird nested in a broken streetlight. Tall grass grew in the cracks in the sidewalk. Would the new woods eat up the buildings of Pripyat and swallow them totally? Or would odd features like doorknobs in the branches and windows in the tree trunks hint of the city that the forest had devoured?

Sergei pointed at a passing street sign: Lenin Street.

Of course, this was Lenin Street. “How could I have forgotten?” I wondered, but as I asked the question, I already knew that answer. The Lenin Street of my childhood had been bustling with pedestrians, cars, and bicycles.

In the distance, I could see a familiar building. Even with its missing front door and windows, I recognized Angelika’s home. It used to be the most modern complex in the city with the hottest water and the newest appliances. Now it looked like a haven for squatters. “Angelika’s old apartment,” I told Sergei.

“Hum,” Sergei said. He looked thoughtful. I wondered if he was imagining Angelika’s anger when she learned that Sergei and I had snuck away together. I know I didn’t begin to breathe easier until we had passed by the unhappy gaze of the building’s broken windows.

From a distance, we could see the small guardhouse at the outskirts of town. The smoke pouring out of the chimney was the only sign of life. The guards must be inside. Too soon, we reached the fence that I had dreaded.

“Isn’t the fence electric?” Sergei said.

“Yes. But maybe it’s not activated,” I said.

We both contemplated the sharp barbs on the fence for a few moments. Then Sergei glanced back in the direction from which we had come. “I have an idea. Why don’t we go see the Ferris wheel?” he said.

Although the circumstances were stranger than any I could have imagined, I felt like Sergei was inviting me on a date; the date he had asked me for all those years ago. In my mind, I could hear Lyudmila’s voice encouraging me: Go!

“Do you remember we were going to ride the Ferris wheel on May Day?” I asked him. I had been quiet for so long, but now I felt comfortable talking to him.

“Sure,” Sergei said. “I was excited.”

“Me, too,” I said and blushed. “Would you mind, Sergei? Could we go to Yanov first?” I realized now that while I had thought my interest in the guardhouse earlier had been just idle curiosity, the information I had gathered could help me now. “I think we can get past the guardhouse. No one walks in the Dead Zone. The guards will be looking for cars.”

“You want to sneak past the checkpoint?” Sergei asked, incredulously.

“Yes,” I said. “And I need you to come with me.” Not wanting to give him an opportunity to object, I hurried forward undercover of the trees. Commando-style, I slinked up to the back of the building. After a few moments, I heard Sergei’s footsteps. I was glad that he was following me, but I think I would have continued even without him.

When we reached the shack, we pressed our bodies to the building and listened to the sound of our own breathing. Except for the low murmur of a radio, the guardhouse was as quiet as the abandoned city that it guarded.

“Is anyone at the window?” Sergei mouthed.

“We’d have to backtrack to find out,” I said.

“You’re right,” Sergei said.

Surely it was some other Katya Dubko—neither the obedient girl from Yanov nor the silent one from Slavutich High School—who said. “Let’s gamble. If we sneak directly under the window, even if a guard were standing at his post, he might miss us.”

Sergei stroked his chin. “That window is high.”

“Come on,” I urged him. “If we hurry, we can go see the Ferris wheel, too.”

Just then, we heard the sound of a car, and we were forced to scoot to the back of the building. Careful to stay out of sight, we listened to tires screeching to a halt, to boots trudging to greet the car and to a few mumbled words. Then, we heard the whoosh of the bar, the thud of the boots retreating and the sound of a door. The car drove past.

“Let’s wait a minute,” I said. “Give the guard time to get settled.”