Frederik Pohl: Chernobyl

Oksana sighed. "I suppose we should think about getting your parents back too."

"They're well enough with my sister," Didchuk said. "Let her have a turn."

"But she's expecting a child. And, oh," she said, happy to have thought of a subject to talk about, to drown out the sounds from above, "I read such an interesting article in the magazine Working Woman. Did you know that seventy percent of city women, and over ninety percent of those in the rural areas, terminate their first pregnancies with an illegal abortion?"

"An illegal abortion? But that's shocking," said Didchuk with indignation, as happy as his wife to have found conversation. "Why illegal, may I ask?"

Oksana Didchuk looked at her husband for a moment. "I suppose you have never been to an abortion clinic."

Didchuk looked startled, almost hostile. "Well, neither have you!"

"No, no," she assured him. "At least, not for myself. But when Irinia Lavcheck became pregnant, she asked me to go with her."

Didchuk didn't scowl, but he came close to it. "The one who is separated from her husband?"

"Her husband beat her, you see. She didn't want to bear his child, she wanted a divorce."

"If she carried his child, he did other things than hit her." He paused, listening to the sounds from the stairwell. There seemed to be faint voices from the landing above. He blinked. "What were we saying? So she had an abortion, and you went along to hold her hand."

"My dear," Oksana said earnestly, "it was not easy for her. It was her child too. Also to get a legal abortion she had to get a special medical permit, so of course everyone knew. And then, when you go to the clinic, do you know what is the first thing you see? A great sign, which says, 'Mother, don't murder your child!' "

"She doesn't have to look at the sign, does she?"

"It is impossible to avoid it. And the operation is, really, quite unpleasant, since often they don't waste anesthetics on a woman who wants an abortion."

Didchuk pursed his lips. "What about the good of our country?" he demanded. "If there are so many abortions, how will the country stay strong for the next generation?"

Oksana didn't answer directly. The only appropriate answer would have been to point out that they themselves had only one child, and if she herself had not needed to abort, the principal reason was that they had been able to get a prescription for the scarce birth-control devices. She was not pleased she had chosen to bring the subject up at all, but she said, "So a silly young girl knows all this, because her older friends tell her. So what can she do? Perhaps she doesn't even want a legal one, because if she is too young, she will have to get her parents' permission. She does what her friends have done. She goes to a midwife."

"And sometimes she dies as a result!"

"Yes, that is true, but-what is it?" she asked, looking at her husband. He had raised his hand, listening.

She heard the sound of footsteps on the stair. Daringly, she opened the door a crack and closed it swiftly. "They are leaving," she whispered.

"Ah," said her husband, sighing. There seemed to be a great many of them and they walked slowly, murmuring among themselves. Oksana peered out of the window cautiously, pulling the curtain just a crack aside.

"They're getting into the cars," she said. "Yes, and now they're all leaving."

"Ah," said her husband again. He blinked at her. "What were we talking about?"

"I don't remember. Well! If we're to go to the train station this afternoon, perhaps I should fix us some lunch!"

While they were getting ready to eat, they could hear the sounds of people moving around on the floor above-lighter footsteps now, and far fewer of them-as the Smins restored order to their flat. The Didchuks didn't discuss it, since there was nothing to be gained by talking about what the organs did, especially while some of them might still be lurking about. Even half an hour later, when there was a knock at the door, both jumped.

But it was only old Aftasia Smin, looking quite cheerful and unconcerned for someone whose flat had just been searched by the organs of the state. "I hope I'm not disturbing you?"

"Of course not," Didchuk said, politely if somewhat uncertainly. "We were just getting ready to go out to meet our daughter."

"Oh, is she coming back today? How wonderful for you. But I'll only keep you a minute." She did not quite brush past Didchuk as he stood at the door, but she moved forward with enough assurance that he got out of the way. "Perhaps you saw that we had visitors," she said gaily. "What a nuisance! They were just doing their job, of course, and, naturally, we were glad to cooperate, since we had nothing at all to hide. The thing is, do you have that present for my daughter-in-law's birthday that I asked you to keep for me?"

"I thought you said it was for your grandson's," Oksana Didchuk said, looking frightened.

"Well, actually it's for both of them," Aftasia smiled as Didchuk pulled a flat envelope out of a drawer. "Is that it? Oh, thank you; I'll take it now, perhaps I'll give it to them a bit early. And one more thing, if I may. The telephone? It's a long-distance call, and I insist on paying for it-an old friend in Moscow." She folded the envelope and tucked it into her bag as she went, without waiting for permission, to the phone. It was a long number she dialed, but it was answered at once.

"Hello," she said pleasantly, not giving a name. "I simply called to wish you happiness on this occasion. We, too, had a party, but I wish we could have been at yours."

The Didchuks could not hear the voice on the other end of the phone, but from Aftasia Smin's expression, it seemed to be a friendly one.

"Oh, yes," she said, nodding. "The article is quite safe; in fact I have it here. Our friends at the party wanted very much to see it, but unfortunately I couldn't put my hands on it at that moment. So. When will we see you again? No? Well then, if you can't come here perhaps we will join you one of these days. Mail the gift? No, really, I think that might not be reliable; one would not want it to get lost. Well, then, all of us send our best wishes. Yes, good-bye."

She hung up and rummaged in her purse for the money to pay for the call. "Wedding anniversary," she explained. "An old Party comrade's son-why, I held him when he was still nursing at his mother's breast and, can you believe it? Now he has a grandson of his own! Well, I won't keep you any longer… and thank you for helping with my birthday surprise."

"You're welcome," said both the Didchuks at once. They looked at each other dismally after the old woman left. But they didn't say anything further about the birthday surprise, not then, when one of the visitors might happen to return at any moment, and indeed not ever.

In any case, their daughter's return gave them far more attractive things to think about. They engaged a taxicab for the trip to the railroad station and extravagantly commanded, and bribed, the driver to wait. The terminal was a far happier place this time than it had been three weeks before.

The Didchuks were not the only parents eagerly awaiting a returning child, and everyone was in a holiday mood… with somber undertones, to be sure. The official death toll had just been announced again-the number was now up to twenty-three, twenty-one of them men and two women. And everyone was well aware that the number would surely rise. And go on rising, not just this week or this year, but for a long time to come as the slow damage from radiation would produce cells that turned cancerous, or caused babies to abort, or, worse still, let them be born with no one knew what difficulties. The doctors had said that at least one hundred thousand Soviet citizens, perhaps twice that many, had been exposed to levels of radiation high enough to warrant a close watch for decades to come.