"Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster" by Svetlana Alexievich, translated from the Russian by Keith Gessen
Our regiment was given the alarm. It was only when we got to the Belorusskaya train station in Moscow that they told us where we were going. One guy, I think he was from Leningrad, began to protest. They told him they'd drag him before a military tribunal. The commander said exactly that before the troops: "You'll go to jail or be shot." I had other feelings, the complete opposite of that guy. I wanted to do something heroic. Maybe it was kid's stuff. But there were others like me. It was scary but also fun, for some reason.
Well, so they brought us in, and they took us right to the power station. They gave us white robes and white caps. And gauze surgical masks. We cleaned the territory. The robots couldn't do it, their systems got all crazy. But we worked. And we were proud of it.
We rode in-there was a sign that said: Zone Off Limits. We met these crazed dogs and cats on the road. They acted strange: They didn't recognize us as people, they ran away. I couldn't understand what was wrong with them until they told us to start shooting them… The houses were all sealed up, the farm machinery was abandoned. It was interesting to see. There was no one, just us and the police on their patrols. You'd walk into a house-there were photographs on the wall, but no people. There'd be documents lying around: people's komsomol IDs, other forms of identification, awards.
People drove to the block, the actual reactor. They wanted to photograph themselves there, to show the people at home. They were scared, but also so curious: What was this thing? I didn't go, myself, I have a young wife, I didn't want to risk it, but the boys took a few shots and went over. So…
There's this abandoned house. It's closed. There's a cat on the windowsill. I think: Must be a clay cat. I come over, and it's a real cat. He ate all the flowers in the house. Geraniums. How'd he get in? Or did they leave him there?
There's a note on the door: Dear kind person, please don't look for valuables here. We never had any. Use whatever you want, but don't trash the place. We'll be back. I saw signs on other houses in different colors — Dear house, forgive us! People said goodbye to their homes like they were people. Or they'd written: We're leaving in the morning, or, We're leaving at night, and they'd put the date and even the time. There were notes written on school notebook paper: Don't beat the cat. Otherwise the rats will eat everything. And then in a child's handwriting: Don't kill our Zhulka. She's a good cat.
I went. I didn't have to go. I volunteered. I was after a medal?
I wanted benefits? Bullshit! I didn't need anything for myself. An apartment, a car-what else? Right, a dacha. I had all those things. But it exerted a sort of masculine charm. Manly men were going off to do this important thing. And everyone else? They can hide under women's skirts, if they want. There were guys with pregnant wives, others had little babies, a third had burns. They all cursed to themselves and came anyway.
We came home. I took off all the clothes that I'd worn there and threw them down the trash chute. I gave my cap to my little son. He really wanted it. And he wore it all the time. Two years later they gave him a diagnosis: a tumor in his brain… You can write the rest of this yourself. I don't want to talk anymore.
On May 9, V-Day, a general came. They lined us up, congratulated us on the holiday. One of the guys got up the courage and asked: "Why aren't they telling us the radiation levels? What kind of doses are we getting?" Just one guy. Well, after the general left, the brigadier called him in and gave him hell. "That's a provocation! You're an alarmist!" A few days later they handed out gas masks, but no one used them. They showed us Geiger counters a couple of times, but they never actually gave them to us.
Before we went home we were called in to speak to a KGB guy. He was very convincing in telling us we shouldn't talk to anyone, anywhere, about what we'd seen. When I made it back from Afghanistan, I knew that I'd live. Here it was the opposite: It'd kill you only after you got home.
We got to the place. Got our equipment. "Just an accident," the captain tells us. "Happened a long time ago. Three months. It's not dangerous anymore." "It's fine," says the sergeant. "Just wash your hands before you eat."
I got home, I'd go dancing. I'd meet a girl I like and say, "Let's get to know one another."
"What for? You're a Chernobylite now. I'd be scared to have your kids."
Every April 26, we get together, the guys who were there. We remember how it was. You were a soldier, at war, you were necessary. We forget the bad parts and remember that. We remember that they couldn't have made it without us. Our system, it's a military system, essentially, and it works great in emergencies. You're finally free there, and necessary. Freedom! And in those moments the Russian shows how great he is. How unique. We'll never be Dutch or German. And we'll never have proper asphalt and manicured lawns. But there'll always be plenty of heroes.
They made the call, and I went. I had to! I was a member of the Party. Communists, march! That's how it was. I was a police officer —
senior lieutenant. They promised me another "star." This was June of 1987. The looters had already been there. We boarded up windows and doors. The stores were all looted, the grates on the windows broken in, flour and sugar on the floor, candy. Cans everywhere. One village got evacuated, and then five, ten kilometers over, the next village didn't. They brought all the stuff over from the evacuated village. That's how it was. We're guarding the place, and the former head of the kolkhoz arrives with some of the local people, they've already been resettled, they have new homes, but they've come back to collect the crops and sow new ones. They drove the straw out in bales. We found sowing machines and motorcycles in the bales. There was a barter system-they give you a bottle of homemade vodka,* you give them permission to transport the television. We were selling and trading tractors and sowing machines. One bottle, or ten bottles. No one was interested in money. [Laughs.] It was like Communism. There was a tax for everything: a canister of gas-that's half a liter of vodka; an astrakhan fur coat-two liters; and motorcycles-variable. They transported the zone back here. You can find it on the markets, the pawnshops, at people's dachas. The only thing that remained behind the wire was the land. And the graves. And our health. And our faith. Or my faith.
They gave me a medal and one thousand rubles.
I remember the empty villages where the pigs had gone crazy and were running around. The kolkhoz offices and clubs, these faded posters: We'll give the motherland bread! Glory to the Soviet worker-peoples! The achievements of the people are immortal.
My wife took the kid and left. That bitch! But I'm not going to hang myself. And I'm not going to throw myself out a seventh-floor window. When I first came back from there with a suitcase full of money, that was fine. She wasn't afraid. [Starts singing.]
Even one thousand gamma rays
Can't keep the Russian cock from having its days.
That bitch! She's afraid of me. She took the kid. [Suddenly serious.] The soldiers worked next to the reactor. I'd drive them there for their shifts and then back. I had a total-radiation meter around my neck, just like everyone else. After their shifts, I'd pick them up and we'd go to the First Department-that was a classified department. They'd take our readings there, write something down on our cards, but the number of roentgens we got, that was a military secret. Those fuckers! Some time goes by and suddenly they say: "Stop. You can't take any more." That's all the medical information they give you. Even when I was leaving they didn't tell me how much I got. Fuckers! Now they're fighting for power. For cabinet portfolios. They have elections. You want another joke? After Chernobyl you can eat anything you want, but you have to bury your own shit in lead.
My friend died. He got huge, fat, like a barrel. And my neighbor-he was also there, he worked a crane. He got black, like coal, and shrunk, so that he was wearing kid's clothes. I don't know how I'm going to die. I do know this: You don't last long with my diagnosis. But I'd like to feel it when it happens. Like a bullet to the head.
I was in Afghanistan, too. It was easier there. They just shot you.
Source: The Paris Review
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