Voices from Chernobyl. Светлана Алексиевич

next day I get called to the head doctor’s office.

      “Why did you lie to me?” she says.

      “There was no other way. If I’d told you, you’d send me home. It was a sacred lie!”

      “What have you done?”

      “But I was with him . . .”

      I’ll be grateful to Angelina Vasilyevna Guskova my whole life. My whole life! Other wives also came, but they weren’t allowed in. Their mothers were with me. Volodya Pravik’s mother kept begging God: “Take me instead.” An American professor, Dr. Gale—he’s the one who did the bone marrow operation—tried to comfort me. There’s a tiny ray of hope, he said, not much, but a little. Such a powerful organism, such a strong guy! They called for all his relatives. Two of his sisters came from Belarus, his brother from Leningrad, he was in the army there. The younger one, Natasha, she was fourteen, she was very scared and cried a lot. But her bone marrow was the best fit. [Silent.] Now I can talk about this. Before I couldn’t. I didn’t talk about it for ten years. [Silent.]

      When he found out they’d be taking the bone marrow from his little sister, he flat-out refused. “I’d rather die. She’s so small. Don’t touch her.” His older sister Lyuda was twenty-eight, she was a nurse herself, she knew what she was getting into. “As long as he lives,” she said. I watched the operation. They were lying next to each other on the tables. There was a big window onto the operating room. It took two hours. When they were done, Lyuda was worse off than he was, she had eighteen punctures in her chest, it was very difficult for her to come out from under the anesthesia. Now she’s sick, she’s an invalid. She was a strong, pretty girl. She never got married. So then I was running from one room to the other, from his room to hers. He wasn’t in an ordinary room anymore, he was in a special bio-chamber, behind a transparent curtain. No one was allowed inside.

      They have instruments there, so that without going through the curtain they can give him shots, place the catheter. The curtains are held together by Velcro, and I’ve learned to use them. But I push them aside and go inside to him. There was a little chair next to his bed. He got so bad that I couldn’t leave him now even for a second. He was calling me constantly: “Lyusya, where are you? Lyusya!” He called and called. The other bio-chambers, where our boys were, were being tended to by soldiers, because the orderlies on staff refused, they demanded protective clothing. The soldiers carried the sanitary vessels. They wiped the floors down, changed the bedding. They did everything. Where did they get those soldiers? We didn’t ask. But he—he—every day I would hear: Dead. Dead. Tischura is dead. Titenok is dead. Dead. It was like a sledgehammer to my brain.

      He was producing stool 25 to 30 times a day. With blood and mucous. His skin started cracking on his arms and legs. He became covered with boils. When he turned his head, there’d be a clump of hair left on the pillow. I tried joking: “It’s convenient, you don’t need a comb.” Soon they cut all their hair. I did it for him myself. I wanted to do everything for him myself. If it had been physically possible I would have stayed with him all twenty-four hours. I couldn’t spare a minute. [Long silence.] My brother came and he got scared. “I won’t let you in there!” But my father said to him: “You think you can stop her? She’ll go through the window! She’ll get up through the fire escape!”

      I go back to the hospital and there’s an orange on the bedside table. A big one, and pink. He’s smiling: “I got a gift. Take it.” Meanwhile the nurse is gesturing through the film that I can’t eat it. It’s been near him a while, so not only can you not eat it, you shouldn’t even touch it. “Come on, eat it,” he says. “You like oranges.” I take the orange in my hand. Meanwhile he shuts his eyes and goes to sleep. They were always giving him shots to put him to sleep. The nurse is looking at me in horror. And me? I’m ready to do whatever it takes so that he doesn’t think about death. And about the fact that his death is horrible, that I’m afraid of him. There’s a fragment of some conversation, I’m remembering it. Someone is saying: “You have to understand: this is not your husband anymore, not a beloved person, but a radioactive object with a strong density of poisoning. You’re not suicidal. Get ahold of yourself.” And I’m like someone who’s lost her mind: “But I love him! I love him!” He’s sleeping, and I’m whispering: “I love you!” Walking in the hospital courtyard, “I love you.” Carrying his sanitary tray, “I love you.” I remembered how we used to live at home. He only fell asleep at night after he’d taken my hand. That was a habit of his—to hold my hand while he slept. All night. So in the hospital I take his hand and don’t let go.

      One night, everything’s quiet. We’re all alone. He looked at me very, very carefully and suddenly he said:

      “I want to see our child so much. How is he?”

      “What are we going to name him?”

      “You’ll decide that yourself.”

      “Why myself, when there’s two of us?”

      “In that case, if it’s a boy, he should be Vasya, and if it’s a girl, Natasha.”

      I had no idea then how much I loved him! Him . . . just him. I was like a blind person! I couldn’t even feel the little pounding underneath my heart. Even though I was six months in. I thought that my little one was inside me, that he was protected.

      None of the doctors knew I was staying with him at night in the bio-chamber. The nurses let me in. At first they pleaded with me, too: “You’re young. Why are you doing this? That’s not a person anymore, that’s a nuclear reactor. You’ll just burn together.” I was like a dog, running after them. I’d stand for hours at their doors, begging and pleading. And then they’d say: “All right! The hell with you! You’re not normal!” In the mornings, just before eight, when the doctors started their rounds, they’d be there on the other side of the film: “Run!” So I’d go to the dorm for an hour. Then from 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. I have a pass to come in. My legs were blue below the knee, blue and swollen, that’s how tired I was.

      While I was there with him, they wouldn’t, but when I left—they photographed him. Without any clothes. Naked. One thin little sheet on top of him. I changed that little sheet every day, and every day by evening it was covered in blood. I pick him up, and there are pieces of his skin on my hand, they stick to my hands. I ask him: “Love. Help me. Prop yourself up on your arm, your elbow, as much as you can, I’ll smooth out your bedding, get the knots and folds out.” Any little knot, that was already a wound on him. I clipped my nails down till they bled so I wouldn’t accidentally cut him. None of the nurses could approach him; if they needed anything they’d call me.

      And they photographed him. For science, they said. I’d have pushed them all out of there! I’d have yelled! And hit them! How dare they? It’s all mine—it’s my love—if only I’d been able to keep them out of there.

      I’m walking out of the room into the hallway. And I’m walking toward the couch, because I don’t see them. I tell the nurse on duty: “He’s dying.” And she says to me: “What did you expect? He got 1,600 roentgen. Four hundred is a lethal dose. You’re sitting next to a nuclear reactor.” It’s all mine . . . it’s my love. When they all died, they did a remont at the hospital. They scraped down the walls and dug up the parquet.

      And then—the last thing. I remember it in flashes, all broken up.

      I’m sitting on my little chair next to him at night. At eight I say: “Vasenka, I’m going to go for a little walk.” He opens his eyes and closes them, lets me go. I just walk to the dorm, go up to my room, lie down on the floor, I couldn’t lie on the bed, everything hurt too much, when already the cleaning lady is knocking on the door. “Go! Run to him! He’s calling for you like mad!” That morning Tanya Kibenok pleaded with me: “Come to the cemetery, I can’t go there alone.” They were burying Vitya Kibenok and Volodya Pravik. They were friends of my Vasya. Our families were friends. There’s a photo of us all in the building the day before the explosion. Our husbands are so handsome! And happy! It was the last day of that life. We were all so happy!

      I