Excerpts from the Novel

Nuclear energy is the hubris of humanity, like aspiring to fry bacon on the sun.

*

On Saturday, 26 April, 1986, at 01.23 am, something went terribly wrong with Reactor Four at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Station in the Ukraine. Due to an experiment to try to produce electricity from the residual energy in the steam generator, several safety precautions were out of operation. Uncontrollable heat was produced, which caused an explosion of steam in the core of the reactor. The explosion blew away the reactor’s roof and the graphite in the core caught fire. The blaze went on for several days, casting huge quantities of radioactivity a thousand metres up into the atmosphere. To quench the fire, five thousand tonnes of lead and stones were dropped from helicopters. It was a long time before the local people were given warnings and evacuated. Later a concrete sarcophagus was built around the reactor and a zone three miles in radius was established around it, within which nobody was allowed to stay.

*

It is an evening in spring, the air is mild. Some people are getting ready to go on night shift, others are enjoying the evening and the warmth, an evening to hang out with friends.

The child likes the word ‘atom’. I explain that it is both big and small. At the same time? asks the child. Yes, I reply. The Pripjat River is broad and yellow, the child wants us to go there. Can’t we play war with the atoms? No, atoms are our workers, not our soldiers, they said, I say. It is the weekend and I am uneasy, something must have happened at the works last night, something bad, I can almost feel it in my bones.

We saw trucks and overcrowded buses leaving Pripjat, where all the workers at the plant lived. We began to realize that something serious had happened.

The children came home from school, they had been told to change their clothes and stay indoors. People hoarded food. I remember I peered over towards the works, there was a thick haze and the chimneys seemed to vanish into the sky. When I got home, my husband was there, they had been ordered to evacuate the village.

We weren’t allowed to take anything with us, neither Nataliya’s puppy nor Alexei’s trombone. The children cried. The youngest one put his teddy in a bag. I phoned my uncle, he is a farmer and didn’t want to leave the cows and the newly-sown fields. The soldiers who fetched us knew nothing. We asked when we could come back and they only shook their heads. First we were driven to Kiev, from there we had to go further by train. There was a crowd, but we who came from Chernobyl were allowed on first. Nobody wanted to sit near us.

*

The roads are graveled, hard compressed, no dust even when it is dry. My skin prickles, as if it senses radiation. Automatically my hand goes to my throat, feels my thyroid gland move up and down.

The black spots on the skin grow bigger, now they are as big as coins. Mother has even bigger spots, her hair is beginning to fall out. I know she is going to die.

The children were told to draw what had happened. Many drew the sky with flames, others drew abandoned blocks of flats. One girl, I remember, drew a roe deer going round in a black field.

How could we believe what they said? That we only had to wash our hands? We didn’t want to understand. The tomatoes grew bigger that year, and cucumbers and cabbages, no doubt a little radiation promotes growth, but it is dangerous to eat just the same.

Don’t think too much, that’s what’s dangerous, if you start thinking, you’re lost. Work, as much as possible, let go, see things change, understand how they change, the smell inside work gloves, sweat from other days, go on working, go on, and the days go on by themselves, of course they do.

We were ordered to shoot the dogs. We were hunters, used to killing wild animals, but not pets, cats, puppies who came and licked our hands. All had to be shot, shot and buried.

A photograph shows twenty-three men in front of the sarcophagus they are building to stop the radioactive leakage from the reactor. The men’s face masks are hanging under their chins, they are smiling and holding up a placard between them: Morituri te salutant! Those who will die salute you!

Those who saved us smile, not yet branded with death, they smile and wave. Now their names are in Vladimir’s book. He is keeping a register of his workmates, he has a system: those who are entered in blue are sick, a red pen for invalids, and those who are recorded with a black pen are no longer living. Dates in columns: born 1947, died 1987; born 1939, died 1991; born 1953, died 1999. They looked for volunteers to dive down into the heavy water to open the hatch under the reactor. Swimming in heavy water is suicide. There were a lot of volunteers.

*

There is supposed to be a golden fish in the Pripjat River, many people have seen it, you can see it gleaming in the depths. The children say it has swum in the heavy water, that they want to try it too, maybe we will become golden children, they giggle. More and more people come with fishing rods in the afternoons and evenings, boys bunk school and go there, triumphant, thrilled. The river becomes narrower on the way down, but it is beautiful when it widens out again. Fishing is not allowed here anymore, the waste from the reactor fire poured straight into the river, but nobody wants to miss the hunt for the golden fish.

Light shines in your eyes – is this your dream? You lean out over the bank. There might be a lot of golden fish.

*

The reactor is no more dangerous than a domestic fire extinguisher.

*

Acute radiation injuries:

If too many of the body cells die, we get an acute condition of illness – acute radiation syndrome. The characteristics of this pattern of illness vary according to which tissues are affected. Tissues with rapid cell division are more sensitive than tissues whose cells divide slowly. Therefore, in adults, blood-forming tissues (stem cells in bone marrow) the lining of the intestines and fertility cells (sperm and eggs) are very sensitive to radiation, while skin and mucous membranes, lungs and muscles (ligaments) are less sensitive. Bone, cartilage and nerve cells are less affected by radiation. Foetuses and children in a stage of rapid growth are particularly vulnerable to radiation damage.

[…]

I have seen burns patients for twenty years, that isn’t it, but those we took in that night were different. It was something to do with the skin colour. Something burst inside the body and the result was a little shadow on a piece of skin, on the upper arm. We knew that the stretcher-bearers who brought them in were sacrificing their lives, maybe they knew it themselves. It is strange how closely we have lived from, and around, the power plant, and so few who know anything about radioactivity, nuclear physics and the danger of radiation. Would we then have lived here, would the housewives have dared to send the children out, air clothes on the balcony, sow pumpkins, kiss their husbands ‘good night shift’ and simply gone to bed? Humanity needs a hole in the sand to hide its head in. Several psychologists would like to get to the bottom of protective mechanisms, repressions and the whole subconscious. I think about how wrong that is. Subconscious processes are formed precisely because we need them. I have respect for unconscious mechanisms: if you take them away, we cannot call anything normal any more. Do you hear the sirens? They have gone away near the Culture Institute now, I have never got used to the sirens coming close. I was in Afghanistan, the sound of the sirens there was different, but it gave me the same feeling.

One night I was woken up by breath beside my ear. I thought it was soldiers and opened my mouth to scream, but I suddenly got a kiss instead of a blow and two delicate little woman’s hands pulled me up. She couldn’t manage to say what the matter was. I saw it. She was pregnant. Certainly with one of our men. She wanted me to take it away. It could have been me, I remember I thought while I fetched the curette and suction equipment. That was the worst assignment in the whole war. It was like that after the accident as well, I don’t know how many children were born here in 1986, but it was not a big batch. Some speak of 200,000 abortions in Belarus. I scraped and scraped, and we were never able to find out if it was right, if it was really necessary, which ones would have been healthy, would have been running around or poring over a maths lesson now. We live in the Middle Ages, the time in the middle, between two ages, after the emission and before the isotopes have gone.

*

Sounds in a hospital at night: far away a door closing, so quiet that you can hear it. The pressure in the vein that has the intravenous drip inserted, the pressure is too strong, the vein feels too small, you think it will burst, the ambulance drives out, comes back, you begin to think about the twins, one big and the other small, without eyes, you have to look out of the window, darkness and yellow lights, you see two big chimneys, puffs of steam and smoke, puffing out as if someone was controlling them, you begin to notice a smell, see in front of you amputated body parts, hands, feet with gangrene, ears, wombs, abortions, foetuses. You get up out of the bed, take the intravenous drip tube and the stand with you, the old woman you share the room with is asleep at last after coughing and muttering prayers all night. Maybe they were not prayers, maybe she was talking to someone, a faint stream of whispered words, but with pauses as if answers came, maybe it was a dead husband, Christ, herself. You must go away, open the door and feel the good draught against the legs that have only lain under a quilt for several weeks now. You are not dizzy and know where to go, downwards, towards the basement, there’s a lift, you drop four storeys, open the door, there are more passages to go through before you get to the autopsy tables. You just want to lie down a little and rest.

Speak to me!

Wake, something in between the lips, when you notice the thirst, the lips have completely sucked it into themselves, greedier than an infant, juice, thin, thin juice. Before you have managed to swallow anything, the damp cottonwool stick is taken away. Anger makes the eyes open, the cottonwool stick, pale pink, again on the way in, cling, suck, bite hard. No, says a voice, don’t drink, you will only throw up, I will just moisten your mouth a little, yes like that, you must not try to sit up, you have just had an operation, think of your wounds, they’ll grow bigger, be quiet, yes, I know you are thirsty, once more, but then you must promise me not to suck.

The ceiling light is so bright!

*

My son. Have you seen him? He must be lying in this hospital. I must go in. He is calling for me. I know you know. Something about him. He is only a little bit hurt. Maybe in his leg. Hey, answer me. If you see someone with red hair. Not all that red. Maybe the fire took away his hair. No. It didn’t. I’m waiting here. Don’t come with that death certificate again. Not him. There are often many people called Yuri. Many people were named that after Gagarin. He is calling. You understand. I’ll wait a bit longer. May I be allowed in. Are you asking me to go. Where shall I go? When he is here. Was I here yesterday? It is today I am searching. I’ve brought chocolates. What is long ago? It’s today I’m searching. The accident. I’m searching now. Can you see him inside behind the window pane? You are not looking. I can see you are not looking. Let me see. Just a bit. I am quite clean. Had a bath yesterday and new clothes. Are you laughing? My son is calling. I’m not crying. You can’t refuse. The certificate is fake. Papers are fake. I only want to see. Are you tired? Many people who ask. I must be allowed to ask too. I won’t go. Shall I bring something for you? Sweets. They are good sweets. No, not from the zone. Are you looking at me? I won’t go. The certificate is fake. I don’t want to see it. I got one in the post. It wasn’t long ago. The fire was yesterday. Smell the smell of scorching. What’s that you’re saying? No. You can take the sweets. I’ll buy more tomorrow. Maybe sweet things are not good for him. Don’t push me. I’m standing here. It’s my place. Two years. What do you mean? I haven’t stood here for two years. I came by bus just now. The new buses come all the way here. That’s good. It’s a long way to walk. He will help me around the house. My son is calling. Hear his voice? Here. Here I am. I’m coming. I’m coming at once. Guards. Why do you have guards? Don’t push, I said. I won’t go. He is calling. Calling!

*

The child is screaming! Today he is a wolf, the wolf seizes the sun, gobbles it up greedily, the sun is down inside the wolf’s stomach. The child is afraid of the dark, some rays come out of his ear, a few, but just the same it has become cold and dark. The child struggles, he sends out rays through his mouth, which frightens people. The rays are poisonous, skin shrivels up.

The child is screaming! Today he is the rain, the rain is yellow and sticks to the hair, cannot be washed away on the inside, the child rains, he does not know he has become dangerous, the rain will not stop being rain, it falls on the birches with new leaves, the leaf shrivels up like the skin, shrinks and wrinkles like an old man’s skin, the child is not aware, it rains just like it has always rained, why shouldn’t it, the clouds are vapour, the rivers are full of clouds, the seed lies waiting in the ground.

The child is screaming! Today he is the cells, in things that are smaller than little darting tadpoles, he attacks himself, the child feels unease in his body, feels it all over as if the body were sewn up with ants inside, he can’t scratch himself, the cells are too soft, the cells live by themselves, they are infected and do not know it. The child cannot be other than a child, nobody can tell him why he cries, be is too big and too small for that. He cannot rely on things being as they were any more. The child is older than himself, but is unaware that this is the beginning of a story.

*

We carry on as if nothing has happened, carry on with the little things that fill up life. I write my name on everything I come across, books, newspapers, toilet rolls, telephone kiosks. I have to write that I exist. I sit inside the tractor shed all day, not thinking, it is like when you wake up much too early and lie tossing and turning, you don’t think proper thoughts, you drift, more and more I’ve stopped thinking, it’s easier to let be, but I drone along steadily like the tractor, as I idled away the time as a child. Let the tractor drive on the minimum of fuel, enough to cruise but not enough to power the searchlights. I probe for what I might find in my ears. The tractor is parked up by evening, I linger, long afterwards. I go into the tractor shed. I plough in. I write my name on the tractor roof. Slowly. I write it several times, my full name: Kolya Kozlyuk. I hold on tightly, don’t want to be down there in the slag. Kolya Kozlyuk. I write all over the roof. It looks like doodles, my name on the roof of the tractor which buries atoms. You can’t use a spade against atoms. You can’t use a name against emptiness.

(Translated by Marietta Taralrud Maddrell.)