Frederik Pohl - Chernobyl

"Oh, wonderful," she said, her face lighting up for the first time. But then she withdrew again.

"Are you cold?" Sheranchuk asked solicitously. "Maybe we should go in and get a good night's sleep. And tomorrow morning we will go to see our son."

She was silent for a long moment. Then she turned to him and said, her voice rapid and almost harsh, "There is something we must discuss. Did Dr. Akhsmentova speak to you?"

He was quite calm. "The bloodsucker? Oh, yes. She was full of some nonsense about blood types; I could not understand such things."

"Leonid," she said sadly, "I don't believe that. You are quite capable of understanding what that bitch had to say."

Sheranchuk shook his head. "What I understand, my dear, is much more important than any blood tests. I understand that we have a fine son who has always been mine. Have you forgotten? I rubbed your back for you when he was still inside your belly, and I walked through every store in Moscow to find rubber pants to put on him, and I fed him and burped him and changed him-not as often as I might have," he admitted justly. "Certainly not as often as you. But often enough to know' who is my own dear child, born from my very dear wife. So what is there to say about blood types? And now, my dear, since it seems these mosquitoes are also interested in sampling my blood, perhaps we should go inside and to bed."

Tuesday, May 20

The KGB are always thorough, but sometimes they are also meticulously correct. When they are merely thorough in the task of, say, searching a flat, a tornado would be more welcome. Every closet and box and drawer is opened, the contents ransacked and thrown on the floor; pillows and mattresses are ripped open, canisters of flour and salt poured out, the seams of curtains and sheets torn apart; and what the KGB leaves with is always as much as they can carry of papers, books, and whatever else they deem important. When they are being meticulously correct, the process takes longer but leaves less havoc. Then they probe with long needles instead of ripping things apart, they have a city militiaman standing by as required by law, they generally replace what they have taken out of drawers and boxes-well, of course, sometimes not very neatly, perhaps. Sometimes they even present an official search warrant.

They had presented a warrant to Selena, Aftasia, and Vassili Smin before they began on the little flat on the outskirts of Kiev, and the city militiaman, abashed in the presence of so old an Old Bolshevik, was glad to accept a cup of tea while the searchers did their work. But there were so many of them! There were six industrious workers in each room, one of them present only to take notes, one in authority to point to this place or that for special care, the other four to do the actual work, quietly and with great skill.

All the while the Smin family, or what remained of it, chatted politely with the militiaman. "And there is the matter of our water supply," said Selena Smin, rising courteously so that one of the kitchen detail could turn her chair over to examine the bottom of the seat. "One hears that we will soon be getting it from the Desna River as well as from the new wells." For radionuclides had been found not only in the Pripyat River but in the underground aquifers all around Chernobyl, even at Bragin, seventy kilometers to the north.

"They've capped seven thousand old wells," the militiaman confirmed, and then, glancing at the searchers, "or so people say, at least."

"Yes, that is true," Selena nodded, taking her seat again. "Mother Aftasia? When you were at the market this morning, were they taking care about the vegetables from the farms?"

"Oh, indeed they were," said Aftasia enthusiastically. "They were running those what-you-call-them things over all the tomatoes and fruit, and if there was the slightest peep out of the machines, then, snap, into the disposal bin, and no certificate to sell that batch! Our Socialist state is taking excellent care of its citizens! More tea, then?" she asked the uneasy militiaman. He shook his head, frowning. "Ah, but the worst thing," she went on, "was the people. Can you imagine? You could see them walking from stall to stall, looking for farmers with Oriental faces before they would buy. From the eastern provinces! Hoping, no doubt, to get cabbages grown two thousand kilometers away! But I bought only from honest Ukrainians," she finished virtuously.

"Not that our Tatar and Kalmuk brothers aren't honest, of course," Selena supplemented.

"Of course not," Aftasia agreed, and then smiled blandly at the man in charge. "What, are you finished already? And we were having such a nice chat with the citizen militiaman here."

The KGB man eyed her thoughtfully. For one moment it almost seemed he would return her smile. Then he shook his head. "We are removing certain books and documents for study," he said. "Sign the receipt, please."

"If it is a receipt, then you should sign it and give me a copy," Aftasia Smin pointed out. "However, let me see. These letters? Yes, of course you may have them; they are only from my older grandson, who is now back serving his country in Afghanistan. This book? It is written by Solzhenitsyn, yes, but don't you see? It is One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch, a quite approved work. Still, perhaps you would enjoy reading it; by all means, take it along." She rummaged through the dozen other books, then pushed them together and spread her hands. "If you need these, then I must not quarrel with the organs of the state. No, don't bother with a receipt; if I can't trust my government, who can I trust? And thank you for your courtesy."

The Chekist folded the paper slowly, regarding her. He was no more than thirty, a pale-haired, plump man with a pleasant face, and very young to be in charge of such a detail. "Comrade Smin," he said, "you are a remarkable woman. A Party member since 1916. Heroine of the October Revolution. And, at your age, so alert and active!"

"Now I am, yes," Aftasia smiled. "Would you believe me, Comrade? Even at my age I feel I have just begun to live."

He nodded, started to speak, then changed his mind. "Perhaps we will meet again," he said, and followed his men out of the flat.

"So," said Aftasia Smin, picking up the cups. "Let's clean up this mess." She headed for her bedroom, but her grandson detained her for a moment.

"Grandmother? Do you think they'll be back?"

Shaking her head, she said decisively, "No. If he had said we would definitely meet again, then perhaps they would return. If he said definitely not, then certainly they would. But he said 'perhaps,' and that means never. Now, help me make this bed!"

On the floor below, the Didchuks were doing their best not to hear the heavy footsteps on the floor above, while they prepared to go to the train station to meet their returning daughter. "But I wonder," Oksana Didchuk said absendy, lifting a corner of the curtain to peer out at the street, "if we aren't making a mistake, letting her come home too early. After all, the camp is costing us nothing."

"We discussed that, my dear," her husband said. "She was simply homesick there, and, really, there's no danger." He glanced at the scrawled chalkmarks on the wall of their room; they had been put there the week before by the radiation-monitor teams, certifying that this apartment was not registering anything above normal background levels.

"I suppose so," Oksana said gloomily. And then, in a lowered tone, "The cars are still there."

Her husband nodded. "Will you pour me some more tea, please?" he said.

"I am worried, though," she said.

She didn't specify the source of her worries, which could have been anything from the behavior of the evacuated couple they had taken in-the husband, now out looking for a new job, seemed a good enough sort, but the wife was still in the room they had given them, sobbing to herself-to what was going on on the floor above. Didchuk chose to interpret it as referring to their daughter. "After all," he said, managing a smile, "if Kiev is safe enough to accept evacuees like our guests, then it really is not sensible that she needs to be evacuated to still some other place."