Frederik Pohl: Chernobyl

The tea was cold before he tasted it, but he had gotten through almost a tenth of the papers on his desk. He sifted through the remainder. There was still nothing in them that seemed more urgent than any of the other urgencies. He sat back, thinking about the weekend. With any luck at all, he and his wife could get away to spend a little time on the plot of land twenty-five kilometers north, where their dacha had been growing toward reality for nearly a year. How fine that would be when it was finished! It was April now, almost the beginning of May; by July at the latest all the doors and windows would be in, and in August they could almost certainly occupy at least one of the rooms. By fall certainly they would be spending weekends there, and the ducks of the Pripyat marshes would learn that Simyon Smin knew how to use a shotgun.

He lit one of the Marlboro cigarettes thoughtfully, gazing at the old cartoon he had tacked over his desk; it was from an ancient issue of the humor magazine, Krokodil; it showed a bolt the size of a railroad car and a nut as huge as an apartment building coming out of a plant labeled red star nut and bolt works no.l, and the caption read, "And so in one step we fulfill our plan!" It was not, Smin appreciated, an unfair jibe at Soviet manufacturing customs.

His workday was nearly over, and he even thought he might get home on time. He picked up the phone and called his wife to tell her so, but Selena Smin had news for her husband.

"We won't be going to the dacha. Your mother telephoned," she said. "She wants us all to come for dinner tonight. She says you didn't come last night, so at least you can come tonight. Do you know what she meant by that?"

Smin groaned. He did know, but did not particularly want to say so on the telephone. "But that means driving into Kiev and back!" he said, thinking of the hundred and thirty kilometers each way.

"No, we can stay over in our room in her flat, and then I can do some shopping in Kiev tomorrow morning," she said. "Perhaps we can visit the dacha on Sunday. Oh, also she says she has a surprise for you."

"What surprise?"

"She said you'd say that. She said to tell you that if she told you what the surprise was, it wouldn't be a surprise, but it's a big surprise."

Smin surrendered. When he had hung up he buzzed for his secretary. "I'll want my car tonight," he said, "but I'll drive myself. Have Chernavze bring it around and see that the tank is full, then he can go home."

There was one more thing for Smin to do before he left the plant. In a way, it, too, was setting an example. It was a visit to the plant's baths. He undressed in the locker room and, taking a sheet and a towel from the attendant, headed for the showers.

There had always been showers in Chernobyl because men who worked with radioactive substances needed them. But these baths were not only new, they were Smin's own. The slate slabs for each man to lie on, the shower heads above, the soap dispensers-those were Smin's. He stretched out, turned the water on to a trickle, and soaped himself. He lay back, bare, the glassy scar exposed for anyone to see if anyone had been there, but he was alone in the shower room. He closed his eyes, listening to the squeals and cries from the women's bath on the other side of the wall-some of the female workers were playing tag and ducking each other in their pool. He wondered absently if they appreciated the luxurious facilities he had provided for them. But, after all, whether they did or not, what was the difference? The extra care showed up in the plant's attendance, and the important thing was the plant.

When he had rinsed himself off, he wrapped the sheet around his broad shoulders and headed for the sauna. It was almost time for changing shifts. There were eight or nine men in the steamy sauna. Four husky young men were tossing a knotted towel back and forth; one dropped it and kicked it to another, who rescued it and nodded apologetically to Smin.

"Don't mind me," Smin said, recognizing them. "Just do the job in the game tomorrow."

"You can count on it, Comrade Deputy Director," said the big forward, Vladimir Ponomorenko, the "Autumn" of the four related players they called the Four Seasons. They were two sets of brothers, and their fathers had been brothers as well; they all had the same surname of Ponomorenko. Arkady was "Spring," a slim, shy diffident man of twenty-three, just out of his Army service, who worked as a pipefitter in Sheranchuk's department, but on the football field he was like flame. Vassili, "Summer," was a fireman; Vyacheslav, "Winter," a machinist. All of them were on the midnight shift of the plant except for "Autumn"-Vladimir-the forward.

"So you are getting ready to practice for tomorrow's game?" Smin asked as he peered through the steam for a vacant place. He was never entirely sure which of the Four Seasons he was talking to. They were all strong-featured dark men of medium height, none of them yet thirty. Spring was the quick one, Autumn the one armored in muscle, Smin reminded himself; but the other two?

One of them said, "That's right, Comrade Deputy Director. Will you be there?"

"Of course," Smin said, surprising himself as he realized that, after all, he might as well; they would not stay in Kiev all day, he hoped, and the game was in the late afternoon so that the players on the midnight shift could get some sleep.

A man on the bench before him threw back the towel over his face and revealed himself as Khrenov, the First Department man. "Enough steam, Comrade Footballers," he said genially. "Now cold showers, and then practice!" And to Smin, "Thank you for excusing Autumn from the shift."

"Why not?" said Smin, shrugging. Absences for footballers to practice were always approved, for encouragement of sport was a directive from Moscow. The Chernobyl plant was not unusual in that respect. In some places, in fact, it was standard practice to give star athletes good jobs they did not necessarily ever work at at all.

It wasn't Smin's own way, of course, but in this he was willing to make concessions, since there were so many others he refused to make. He moved slightly to get past Khrenov, and the towel slipped off his shoulder.

Khrenov didn't get out of his way. He did, Smin thought, a very Khrenov-like thing. When Smin's towel failed to cover him in the baths, most men almost invariably averted their eyes. Not Khrenov. The First Department man reached out and thoughtfully touched the line of scar tissue at the back of Smin's neck, like an art collector appraising the patina on an old bronze. He didn't say anything about it, but then that was also Khrenov's way. He just studied the scar carefully every time he saw it, although Smin was quite certain that the Personnel and Security man not only knew its exact dimensions but very likely also knew the serial number of the blazing T-34 Army tank in which it had been acquired.

Smin shrugged away from Khrenov's touch. "So," he said, to change the subject, "will we win tomorrow, do you think?"

"Of course we will win," Khrenov said with pleasure, and began to explain the ways in which the Four Seasons would triumph on the football field. Smin heard him out patiently. It was a matter of policy with him to be as cordial as possible with the Security man, so that the times when confrontations were necessary would be eased. As GehBehs went, Gorodot Khrenov wasn't so bad. The men who were the organs of state security came in two main varieties-the ones who wanted you to know who they were, like Khrenov, and the ones who did not. The undercover ones were a nuisance sometimes, but as you could never be entirely sure who they were or what they were looking for, the way to deal with them was simply to guard your tongue and watch your actions all the time. The Khrenov variety was something else. They made themselves conspicuous. They were like the militiaman on the corner, whose principal job was not so much to catch violators of the law but, simply by his presence, to remind everyone that the Law was watching. It amused Smin to wonder, sometimes, if KGB training included, for people like Khrenov, lessons in how to look all-wise and sinister.