We Are Not in Pakistan Read Free Page A

over Olena and Galina and ask his advice. A farmer gives Galina a ride in his cart; Olena will bathe the manure smell away when she gets home.
    Olena tells Dedushka they will leave on Saturday morning, tomorrow, after Viktor finishes the safety test at the station. She cannot hide the pride in her voice: they will be guests of Viktor’s director at his dacha. And now, since Viktor’s director is travelling with Director Burkhanov to Moscow to report their progress on hay storage, it will be just Viktor, Galina and Olena.
    Six days — just the three of them in Sochi! Olena has made pampushky and berry-filled nalysnyky. Viktor has stocked up on vodka because Anatoli told him Gorbachev will ban it after May 1. Olena has packed cans of dried milk in a suitcase.
    They’ll be home on Thursday to watch the May Day parades. Galina is excited about May Day, and so are all her friends. Olena too loves the parade, the streamers, the flags, the placards with the familiar slogans.
    â€œEnjoy this week, Olena,” says Dedushka, as she kisses his forehead and brings Galina forward to say goodbye. “There’ll never be another like it.”
    As soon as Olena gets home, the phone rings. Matushka, from Kyiv. A message for Viktor: “Ask what have I done that he is not coming to visit his Matushka on Passover weekend.”
    The column of Olena’s neck feels as hollow as if she had scoured it, removed her larynx and other organs. Her anger sours the sauerkraut soup she makes for dinner.
    And she doesn’t tell Viktor before he takes the bus to work at ten that evening.
    She will tell him when he gets back.
    There was an accident. At the plant. Viktor’s voice is telling Olena this. He says it again. It’s five o’clock on Saturday morning, and he is saying to keep Galina home and stay inside. “Not serious,” he says. “Don’t worry. Not serious at all.”
    â€œAre you telling the truth?”
    â€œI’m so tired,” says his Party voice. “Stop your chatter. Close all the windows.”
    Outside the balcony window, past the laundry, Olena sees it — a red column rising over the power station into the dark sky. She closes her eyes and the afterglow pulses against her eyelids. Viktor said she shouldn’t worry. Fire engines will be there already. But her inside voice is saying
oh no, oh no.
    Seven o’clock comes and Olena is still waiting. Instead of dawn, a lesser darkness is spreading behind a column of smoke. Red flames glow and grow. What is Viktor doing? Where is he? What is his exposure? Thirty-five rems an hour is the limit. Then evacuation. But a safety engineer must continue working as long as he can. What does she know but the basics? Radiation sickness — nausea, diarrhea, changes in the blood.
    But only if a person is exposed to more than one hundred rems in an hour.
    Olena opens the balcony door a crack and sniffs.
    Trees. The last fragrance of April. A faint scent like rain falling on a dusty road.
    Olena can’t see the radiation, she can’t sense it in her body. But it’s there. Is it going into and through her Viktor right now?
    Her knees turn liquid. She has a sudden need to pray. She, an atheist. Dedushka would laugh at her. And she doesn’t know a single prayer. A Schevchenko poem is all that comes to mind: “No, let us not depart, nor go. It is early still …”
    She will wait till eight, and if Viktor isn’t home by then, she will even pray to Lenin.
    Seven-thirty. Another call. Viktor has been taken to Pripyat hospital. “It’s only gas,” says the nurse on the phone.
    Olena leaves Galina with a neighbour. She runs to the bus stop.
    Is it the air or fear burning her eyes, her throat?
    Ten minutes. She has wasted ten minutes.
    She walks and runs all the way to the hospital. Military vehicles pass, soldiers block some roads — she takes detours. Other women, young and old, are