Frederik Pohl - Chernobyl

Actually, it started out as Dean Garfield's own idea. It came to him as he was peering out the window, slightly hung over and too restless to sleep, at the misty Ukrainian sunrise over the city of Kiev. When he saw that his wife's eyes were open and watching him from the bed, he grinned. "I guess I'm all charged up. How many Americans get to see the inside of a real Russian home-Ukrainian, anyway," he amended. "You know what? There ought to be a story here. All this local color! Let's go out and take a look at the city."

"We already saw the city," Candace yawned. "I haven't got the strength for one more museum of teeny-tiny paintings on human hairs."

"I don't mean the tourist stuff! I mean the way the people live. Ride in the subway. Walk around a tenement district. See a, I don't know, a whatever they have to eat in that's like a McDonald's."

"That Intourist guide is really not going to like that," his wife said absentmindedly, because actually she had begun to take an interest when he used the word story.

"So screw the Intourist guide," Garfield said happily. "We'll just tell the hall lady, hey, no speak Russian. Then we take off. What can they do?"

His wife was looking doubtful but persuadable. "Dean? Are we talking about a new television series?"

"I don't know what I'm talking about-yet. All I'm saying is what could it hurt to hang around and take a look?" And so they had, even though the hall lady had done a lot of head-shaking, even though it had begun to rain.

During the morning they had found their way into a grocery store and a dairy store, even a department store- Candace Garfield aghast at the people waiting in one line simply to see what was available to buy, then a second line to pay the cashier, then a third line at last to get whatever it was.

They never did find anything like a McDonald's, but they decided to treat themselves to the best meal they could find in Kiev. By the time they were ready for lunch, Dean Garfield was just about convinced that not only was there a possible show but his wife might well be the star of it. "Maybe you shouldn't be an engineer," he said thoughtfully as they waited for a table at the Dynamo restaurant. "How about if you were an Intourist guide? You get into all sorts of funny situations with the tourists. You know? Every week there's a new batch of tourists- American, Japanese, everything-so we have guest stars doing vignettes-"

"Like Love Boat?" She was frowning as the headwaiter led them up the stairs to a table on the balcony, but it was a frown of concentration, not anger. Garfield well knew the difference. He sat down with a groan of satisfaction.

"It's nice to get off my feet," he observed, glancing around. They had been walking around Kiev for four hours, and Candace had been talking the whole time. The hangover was gone, and he was getting really hungry. When the waitress arrived with the menu, he didn't even look at it; ten days of travel in the USSR had taught him that of the hundred dishes printed in any given menu, only the dozen or so with prices attached were ever available, and not necessarily all of those. "Do you speak English?" he asked. When she shook her head, he got up and looked around at the other tables. When he saw something that looked edible he pointed to it, then to himself and held up two fingers.

"Not steak, I hope?" Candace said absently; she had her glasses on and was already writing things in her notebook.

"I think it's kind of a veal stew," said Garfield. "Smelled good, anyway. And I ordered a bottle of that white wine over there."

He lit a cigarette and gazed down at the floor below. There seemed to be at least two wedding parties, one bride in traditional white, though without a veil or a train, the other in a pale green business suit. A four-piece orchestra was playing what Garfield recognized as "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," and two couples were on the tiny dance floor. "Even if we don't get a show out of it, I'm glad we decided to stay," he told his wife.

Candace looked up from her notes. "You do get some really neat ideas sometimes, hon," she acknowledged. "You know? I was a little worried that some KGB guy might grab us for running around without an escort or something."

Garfield accepted the complimentary tone with a modest shrug. "I was pretty sure they wouldn't bother us," he said, although, in fact, for the first hour or two he had felt an uneasy itch every time any Russian looked twice at them. "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to see my relatives again, only how are we going to get in touch with them?"

Candace had already returned to her scribbling. "Call them up," she said absently.

"Call up who where? Simyon doesn't live in Kiev, and I don't know Aunt Aftasia's address." The old lady had phoned them at the hotel and then sent a car for them the day before, and it had not occurred to Garfield to ask for addresses or phone numbers.

"There has to be a telephone book," said Candace.

"In Russian? Besides, the old gal doesn't have a phone."

"So we wait until Monday and call up the power plant. Listen, I'm an Intourist guide, like you said. Maybe sometimes I'm a stew on Aeroflot. Each week we get a different bunch of tourists, and we go to different locations. Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, I don't know, maybe Tashkent, Yalta-there's a million places in Russia. Like Love Boat, you know? We get in a lot of scenery, right?"

"How're we going to do all of those locations?"

She put the ball point pen down to look at him over the top of her glasses. "You don't think the Russians will cooperate with filming?"

"I'm thinking about production costs," he said, "not to mention trying to get along with Russian film labs and technicians."

"I'm thinking about a title role for me," said Candace decisively. "How about calling it Comrade Tanya ? You can figure out the location stuff. Send a crew to go all over for background shots-hell, Dean, there's probably plenty of stock footage around. Cathedrals, rivers, airports. Then what do you need? A bus. A hotel lobby and some rooms. A beach-any beach will do, just put a lot of people on it in Russian bathing suits."

"It could happen," Garfield conceded; and then, when he saw the beginnings of that other kind of frown, "I mean, we'll certainly give it a shot. I'll get a writer in as soon as we get back. And here's our wine!"

The stew turned out to be pork rather than veal, and the white wine was warm, but it was still a good lunch. What made it a particularly good lunch was that Candace was bubbling over with her new idea, and Dean Garfield had begun to feel confident that even if no part of it ever got before a camera, the development would make their whole Soviet tour beautifully and unchallengeably tax deductible.

He used up their last roll of film shooting the bridal parties, the wood-beamed ceilings, the waiters in their dinner jackets, the funny little orchestra with three of the four players female. Even the terrible thick sweet coffee did not blight his mood. He leaned back and lit a cigarette, regarding his beautiful wife. Nearly everyone in the restaurant had stared at this tall, slim American woman in the pale blue suit. It was Garfield's opinion that the women were looking at the suit and the men were busy imagining what was under it. It wasn't a new thought for him; that was his general opinion every time they went out together, and he was certain it was right. He did the same kind of looking himself. He was doing it now as he contemplated his wife across the table, though in his case he was not imagining but remembering. Though not, unfortunately, from recent experience; it was not only on The Love Boat that couples went traveling to try to save their marriages.

He stubbed out his cigarette decisively. Since Candace had filled the ashtray with the carefully amputated fat from her pork stew, he had to use a saucer. "I think," he said, "we could use a little nap about now, don't you? So let's go back to the hotel."