Darragh McKeon - All That Is Solid Melts into Air

I quote the following from a study published in 2009 by the New York Academy of Sciences, the most comprehensive report available regarding the consequences of Chernobyl:

For the past 23 years it has been clear that there is a danger greater than nuclear weapons concealed within nuclear power. Emissions from this one reactor exceeded a hundredfold the radioactive contamination of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. No citizen of any country can be assured that he or she can be protected from radioactive contamination. One nuclear reactor can pollute half the globe. Chernobyl fallout covered the entire Northern Hemisphere. [8] Nesterenko, Nesterenko, and Yablokov, Chernobyl , 1.

These numbers are overwhelming, but the evidence behind them is unambiguous. Given what we know about the laws of biology (and there are enormous gaps in scientific knowledge regarding the relationship between the body and the radionuclide), the aftereffects of this disaster haven’t even reached full fruition.

Broadly speaking, radiation exposure can be categorised into two groups.

Acute radiation is a short-term severe exposure, usually external, and is responsible for the initial deaths of the type that Nadezhda Vygovskaya witnessed, those that occurred soon after the disaster in the countries most affected: Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia.

Chronic radiation is a much more stealthy phenomenon; it builds imperceptibly over the long term and affects the body internally, engendering an array of debilitating illnesses, most prominently cancer. We can say with certainty that multiple future generations will be at least as vulnerable to it as we are today.

Put simply: acute radiation is the hare, chronic radiation is the tortoise.

John Gofman, former professor of molecular and cell biology at UC– Berkeley, wrote candidly that “low-dose ionizing radiation may well be the most important single cause of cancer, birth defects, and genetic disorders.” [9] Alla Yaroshinskaya, Chernobyl (University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 4.

Whether in the guise of a worker or a soldier, the rush of energy from a split atom runs directly to the heart of a nation’s power. Its capabilities are placed squarely at the nexus of immense military and economic interests. As the novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson puts it: “The industry worldwide is protected by secrecy and by its significance in maintaining the prestige of governments and by its military significance, whether as licit or illicit supplier of fissile materials or as potential target.” [10] Marilynne Robinson, Mother Country (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1989), 8.

Gomel, Belarus. Two hundred and fifteen kilometres from Chernobyl.

The morning after our visit to Pripyat we open the door to an apartment and see a man buckle in front of us.

He is tall and lean. The stripes on the side of his tracksuit bottoms take the line of his lank hair and elongated face. The hair drops away from behind his ears as he bends forward, a hand obscuring his features, tears gaining momentum. The only sound comes from his laboured breathing. It seems as though he remains standing only because of the arrangement of his skeleton. His muscles have gone slack, his head hangs on a wavering forearm. Roche steps forward to embrace him and he dissolves into her shoulder. His cries release in convulsions. We close the door gently behind us and stand in his orange vestibule, so narrow that we’re almost touching him. We gaze into the other rooms in an attempt to salvage some privacy for him.

Roche’s charity provides hospice care for Vasily’s daughter, Sasha. They make sure a nurse calls on the apartment four times a week, bringing diapers, wipes, and baby food. Vasily also receives a small stipend, enough to feed himself and his daughter but not his gambling habit. This is his only income. They receive no state benefits.

Our call is a routine visit. Though Roche has been here several times before, we can see from her eyes that her reception has never been like this. Something has happened.

A nurse is in the kitchen. Our translator moves to speak to her. As we wait, I notice the stench: wheaty and stale; the scent of sweat and faeces, magnified by the overpowering heat. The heat is so strong that I can feel vapour streams trickle out from under my coat. Later, I find out that the windows don’t open, apparently a typical feature of Soviet tower blocks, and residents don’t have any control over the temperature. In wintertime all the apartment blocks in Belarus are as stifling as a sauna.

Recently, Sasha’s health has plummeted, turning to pneumonia in the past few days. An hour ago, a visiting doctor ordered that she be moved to a country hospital fifteen miles away. The ambulance is due this afternoon.

Vasily has no car and won’t be allowed to stay in residence. In the city, only the children’s hospital has space available. They refuse to take her. Their age limit is fourteen. Now seventeen, Sasha’s death on their premises would mean multiple explanations and extra paperwork.

Seven years ago, Vasily’s marriage ended. He gave up his job as a night watchman to be his daughter’s sole carer, a position that is broken only for an hour or two each week when the nurse arrives to check on things or a relative comes by to let him go outside for an evening. Sasha hasn’t touched fresh air for a decade.

The room to my left is furnished only by a large armchair and a TV set that sits on a dilapidated stand next to the window. The chair has a stained hand towel draped around its armrest. Surrounding it is an archipelago of carer’s paraphernalia: diapers and diaper cream, baby wipes and talc, bandages, gels, towels, a feeding bottle, moisturiser, cotton balls. The chair retains the indentations of many hours of use.

Through the window of the living room in front of us, I can see a neighbouring block. Its lintels and windowsills are painted in confectionary pink, its doors and archways in baby blue. Veins of cracks run down the façade, leaking onto the pavement, running into potholes in the driveway, where an elderly woman beats the dust out of a suspended rug. Vasily, spent, beckons us forward. We step inside the living room and he motions to the sofa. Sasha is resting there.

The sofa is a two-seater, but there is still ample room for her to lie outstretched upon it. She faces the wall. The outline of her body can be clearly seen through the tightly wrapped blanket covering her. She has the body of a six-year-old. A short, frail frame; without contours. Her head generates a response of shock and pity. Sasha is hydrocephalic, a congenital condition that caused her head to swell to grotesque proportions. Weighing twenty pounds, it is almost the size of her upper body and shaped like a speech bubble; an enormous dome tapering off into a slender chin. She lies in a foetal position, each breath a struggle, her inhalations catching in her sinuses. She is almost hairless, a light down covers her skull, which is pockmarked with large, seeping calluses. Vasily has treated them carefully with white antiseptic powder to soak up and quell the irritation. A bandage is wrapped from her forehead around to the back of her crown to catch any discharge. She is blind and vulnerable as a newborn. The sofa is not a temporary resting place, it is her bed. On a normal day, Vasily cradles her in the armchair and at night lays her here, then unrolls a mattress onto the ground next to her, where he settles down for the night, reaching up to place a hand of reassurance on her body.

Sasha’s and Vasily’s lives have changed only minimally since her mother left. Vasily has the option of admitting Sasha to an orphanage, but he refuses to do so. Neglect there is assured. In these institutions even the official documentation refers to congenitally deformed children as imbeciles and retards. Despite their numbers, they are not considered part of the general population. Stories of sexual abuse in orphanages—even amongst the most stricken cases—are rife.