We Are Not in Pakistan Read Free Page B

running like her. They join her in the crowd outside the hospital. Olena begins to jostle and yell at the soldiers.
    Just past them, at the entrance, stands a woman with a cloud of brown hair, a notebook in her hand. Olena screams Rivka’s name.
    Rivka says something to someone. Olena is allowed in.
    So many patients, so many beds in plastic cubicles. A nurse points to Viktor’s. Olena rushes.
    Then stops.
    Viktor is attached to a drip. She approaches slowly.
    â€œI felt faint,” he says, taking Olena’s hand. “Then I started vomiting. The nurse made me wash and lie down.”
    The nurse’s face is blank. If only she would tell Olena not to worry or say, Your husband will be home soon. But she just takes Viktor’s blood sample and leaves without saying anything.
    â€œDo you have diarrhea?”
    â€œNot yet.” He closes swollen eyes.
    Her inside voice repeats
one hundred rems, one hundred rems.
    She doesn’t know what to say.
    His grip on her hand tightens. “Bring milk and vodka,” he whispers. “And BTs.”
    â€œCouldn’t … couldn’t that be dangerous?”
    â€œJust bring those cigarettes!”
    â€œDa, da!”
    â€œGive Galina iodine tablets immediately. Buy all the iodine tablets you can. There are a few extra packets in the saddlebag of the motorcycle.”
    After a moment he says, “We detached from the power grid, lowered enough control rods into the core to reduce power to seven hundred megawatts. But the reactor became unstable. So the shift foreman pushed the emergency A-Z button to lower all the rods and shut down.”
    â€œWhere were you?”
    â€œI wasn’t in the control room. When I felt the thud, such a thud, I thought it was an earthquake. But it could be — we don’t know, but it must be — that actor in the White House pressed some button at the same time. Star Wars.”
    â€œLike Hiroshima?” says Olena. “Why not all of Pripyat, then?”
    â€œI don’t know. All I know is that the reactor did not explode.” But his Party voice is speaking, so Olena knows: the reactor did explode. But now what is to be done? Can it be repaired?
    â€œIt will be all right,” says Viktor. “I saw the smoke moving north, away from Pripyat.”
    â€œGet well, Viktor, and we’ll go to the dacha some other time soon.” Olena kisses his forehead.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Three days after the accident that was not an explosion, the Moscow Symphony is playing Tchaikovsky on the record player and Olena is ironing with the iron Viktor bought as her first anniversary present. She’s waiting for
Vremya
on TV.
    The announcer will say that those firemen who so bravely fought the blaze have been evacuated to Hospital 6 in Moscow. They probably won’t mention that their wives didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. Olena is so lucky Viktor is not a fireman.
    The nurse took a blood sample from Viktor — what was the result?
    It must be all right because Viktor was discharged from the hospital.
    He was called back to work, and Olena is very glad he is not at Unit 4 right now. Instead he’s escorting a KGB general and Party leaders from Moscow who have come to assess the damage. His director told him that, as he flies with the leaders in helicopters and rides with them in Zils, he must remind them that Soviet reactors do not need contingency plans and that there are not enough gas masks for the entire population. And he must reassure them that the reactor will be functional again very soon.
    Was it right to send Galina to school? She took her iodine pills with breakfast, but …
    It must be all right because the May Day parade has not been cancelled.
    Olena stands her iron up and goes out on the balcony. She pushes the wash aside and peers across the city.
    The red glow at the base of the spray of fire seems diminished. Smoke still billows up and