Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster (4 page)

If anyone got indignant and wanted to take the coffin back home, they were told that the dead were now heroes, you see, and that they no longer belonged to their families. They were heroes of the State. They belonged to the State.

We sat in the hearse. The relatives and some military people. A colonel and his regiment. They tell the regiment: “Await your orders!” We drive around Moscow for two or three hours, around the beltway. We’re going back to Moscow again. They tell the regiment: “We’re not allowing anyone into the cemetery. The cemetery's being attacked by foreign correspondents. Wait some more.” The parents don’t say anything. Mom has a black handkerchief. I sense I'm about to black out. “Why are they hiding my husband? He's—what? A murderer? A criminal? Who are we burying?” My mom: “Quiet. Quiet, daughter.” She’s petting me on the head. The colonel calls in: “Let’s enter the cemetery. The wife is getting hysterical.” At the cemetery we were surrounded by soldiers. We had a convoy. And they were carrying the coffin. No one was allowed in. It was just us. They covered him with earth in a minute. “Faster! Faster! ” the officer was yelling. They didn't even let me hug the coffin. And—onto the bus. Everything on the sly.

Right away they bought us plane tickets back home. For the next day. The whole time there was someone with us. He wouldn’t even let us out of the dorm to buy some food for the trip. God forbid we might talk with someone—especially me. As if I could talk by then. I couldn't even cry. When we were leaving, the woman on duty counted all the towels and all the sheets. She folded them right away and placed them in a polyethylene bag. They probably burnt them. We paid for the dormitory ourselves. For fourteen nights. It was a hospital for radiation poisoning. Fourteen nights. That’s how long it takes a person to die.

At home I fell asleep. I walked into the place and just fell onto the bed. I slept for three days. An ambulance came. “No," said the doctor, “she’ll wake up. It’s just a terrible sleep."

I was twenty-three.

I remember the dream I had. My dead grandmother comes to me in the clothes that we buried her in. She's dressing up the New Year's tree. “Grandma, why do we have a New Year’s tree? It's summertime." “Because your Vasenka is going to join me soon." And he grew up in the forest. I remember the dream— Vasya comes in a white robe and calls for Natasha. That's our girl, who I haven't given birth to yet. She's already grown up. He throws her up to the ceiling, and they laugh. And I’m watching them and thinking that happiness—it’s so simple. I'm sleeping. We're walking along the water. Walking and walking. He probably asked me not to cry. Gave me a sign. From up there.

[She is silent for a long time.]

Two months later I went to Moscow. From the train station straight to the cemetery. To him! And at the cemetery I start going into labor. Just as I started talking to him—they called the ambulance. It was at the same Angelina Vasilyevna Guskova's that I gave birth. She'd said to me back then: “You need to come here to give birth." It was two weeks before I was due.

They showed her to me—a girl. “Natashenka," I called out. “Your father named you Natashenka." She looked healthy. Arms, legs. But she had cirrhosis of the liver. Her liver had twenty-eight roentgen. Congenital heart disease. Four hours later they told me she was dead. And again: we won't give her to you. What do you mean you won't give her to me? It's me who won’t give her to you! You want to take her for science. I hate your science! I hate it!

[She is silent.]

I keep saying the wrong thing to you. I’m not supposed to yell after my stroke. And I’m not supposed to cry. That's why the words are all wrong. But I'll say this. No one knows this. When they brought me the little wooden box and said, “She's in there," I looked. She'd been cremated. She was ashes. And I started crying. “Put her at his feet," I requested.

There, at the cemetery, it doesn't say Natasha Ignatenko. There's only his name. She didn't have a name yet, she didn’t have anything. Just a soul. That’s what I buried there. I always go there with two bouquets: one for him, and the other I put in the corner for her. I crawl around the grave on my knees. Always on my knees.
[She becomes incomprehensible
.] I killed her. I. She. Saved. My little girl saved me, she took the whole radioactive shock into herself, she was like the lightning rod for it. She was so small. She was a little tiny thing.
[She has trouble breathing.]
She saved . . . But I loved them both. Because—because you can’t kill something with love, right? With such love! Why are these things together—love and death. Together. Who's going to explain this to me? I crawl around the grave on my knees.

[She is silent for a long time.]

In Kiev they gave me an apartment. It was in a large building, where they put everyone from the atomic station. It's a big apartment, with two rooms, the kind Vasya and I had dreamed of. And I was going crazy in it!

I found a husband eventually. I told him everything—the whole truth—that I have one love, for my whole life. I told him everything. We'd meet, but I'd never invite him to my home, that's where Vasya was.

I worked in a candy shop. I’d be making cake, and tears would be rolling down my cheeks. I’m not crying, but there are tears rolling down.

I gave birth to a boy, Andrei. Andreika. My friends tried to stop me. “You can't have a baby." And the doctors tried to scare me: “Your body won't be able to handle it." Then, later—later they told me that he’d be missing an arm. His right arm. The instrument showed it. “Well, so what?" I thought. “I'll teach him to write with his left hand." But he came out fine. A beautiful boy. He's in school now, he gets good grades. Now I have someone—I can live and breathe him. He’s the light in my life. He understands everything perfectly. “Mom, if I go visit grandma for two days, will you be able to breathe?" I won’t! I fear the day I'll have to leave him. One day we’re walking down the street. And I feel that I'm falling. That’s when I had my first stroke. Right on the street. “Mom, do you need some water?" “No, just stand here next to me. Don’t go anywhere." And I grabbed his arm. I don’t remember what happened next. I came to in the hospital. But I grabbed him so hard that the doctors were barely able to pry my fingers open. His arm was blue for a long time. Now we walk out of the house, he says, “Mommie, just don't grab my arm. I won't go anywhere." He's also sick: two weeks in school, two weeks at home with a doctor. That's how we live.

[She stands up, goes over to the window
.]

There are many of us here. A whole street. That's what it's called—Chernobylskaya. These people worked at the station their whole lives. A lot of them still go there to work on a provisional basis, that's how they work there now, no one lives there anymore. They have bad diseases, they're invalids, but they don’t leave their jobs, they're scared to even think of the reactor closing down. Who needs them now anywhere else? Often they die. In an instant. They just drop—someone will be walking, he falls down, goes to sleep, never wakes up. He was carrying flowers for his nurse and his heart stopped. They die, but no one's really asked us. No one’s asked what we’ve been through. What we saw. No one wants to hear about death. About what scares them.

But I was telling you about love. About my love . . .

Lyudmilla Ignatenko, wife of deceased fireman Vasily Ignatenko

____

The wolf came into the yard at night. I look out the window and there he is, eyes shining like headlights. Now I'm used to everything. I've been living alone for seven years, seven years since the people left. Sometimes at night I’ll just be sitting here thinking, thinking, until it’s lights out again. So on this day I was up all night, sitting on my bed, and then I went out to look at how the sun was. What should I tell you? Death is more just than anything else in the world: no one can escape it. The earth takes everyone—the kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, there's no justice on earth. I worked hard and honestly my whole life. But I didn’t get any justice. God was dividing things up somewhere, and by the time the line came to me there was nothing left. A young person can die, an old person has to die ... At first, I waited for people to come—I thought they’d come back. No one said they were leaving forever, they said they were leaving for a while. But now I'm just waiting for death. Dying isn't hard, but it is scary. There's no church. The priest doesn’t come. There’s no one to tell my sins to.

The first time they told us we had radiation, we thought: It's a sort of a sickness, and whoever gets it dies right away. No, no, they said, it's this thing that lies on the ground, and gets into the ground, but you can't see it. Animals might be able to see it and hear it, but people can't.

The police and the soldiers put up these signs. Some were next to people’s houses, some were in the street—they’d write, 70 curie, 60 curie. We’d always lived off our potatoes, and then suddenly—we’re not allowed to! For some people it was real bad, for others it was funny. They advised us to work in our gardens in masks and rubber gloves. And then another big scientist came to the meeting hall and told us that we needed to wash our yards. Come on! I couldn't believe what I was hearing! They ordered us to wash our sheets, our blankets, our curtains. But they’re in storage! In closers and trunks. There's no radiation in there! Behind glass? Behind closed doors! Come on! It’s in the forest, in the field. They closed the wells, locked them up, wrapped them in cellophane. Said the water was “dirty.” How can it be dirty when it's so clean? They told us a bunch of nonsense. You'll die. You need to leave. Evacuate.

People got scared. They got filled up with fear. At night people started packing up their things. I also got my clothes, folded them up. My red badges for my honest labor, and my lucky kopeika that I had. Such sadness! It filled my heart. Let me be struck down right here if I'm lying. And then I hear about how the soldiers were evacuating one village, and this old man and woman stayed. Until then, when people were roused up and put on buses, they'd take their cow and go into the forest. They'd wait there. Like during the war, when they were burning down the villages. Why would our soldiers chase us?
[Starts crying.]
It's not stable, our life. I don't want to cry.

Oh! Look there—a crow. I don't chase them away. Although sometimes a crow will steal eggs from the barn. I still don’t chase them away. I don't chase anyone away! Yesterday a little rabbit came over. There's a village nearby, also there's one woman living there, I said, come by. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but at least there'll be someone to talk to. At night everything hurts. My legs are tingling, like there are little ants running through them, that’s my nerve running through me. It's like that when I pick something up. Like wheat being crushed. Crunch, crunch. Then the nerve calms down. I've already worked enough in my life, been sad enough. I've had enough of everything and I don't want anything more.

I have daughters, and sons . . . They’re all in the city. But I’m not going anywhere! God gave me years, but he didn't give me a fair share. I know that an old person gets boring, that the younger generation will run out of patience. I haven’t had much joy from my children. The women, the ones who've gone into the city, are always crying. Either their daughter-in-law is hurting their feelings, or their daughter is. They want to come back. My husband is here. He’s buried here. If he wasn’t lying here, he'd be living in some other place. And I’d be with him. [Cheers
up suddenly
.] And why should I leave? It's nice here! Everything grows, everything blooming. From the littlest fly to the animals, everything’s living.

I'll remember everything for you. The planes are flying and flying. Every day. They fly real, real low, right over our heads. They're flying to the reactor. To the station. One after the other. While here we have the evacuation. They're moving us out. Storming the houses. People have gone under cover, they’re hiding. The livestock is moaning, the kids are crying. It's war! And the sun’s out ... I sat down and didn't come out of the hut, though it’s true I didn't lock up either. The soldiers knocked. “Ma'am, have you packed up?” And I said: “Are you going to tie my hands and feet?” They didn’t say anything, didn’t say anything, and then they left. They were young. They were kids! Old women were crawling on their knees in front of their houses, begging. The soldiers picked them up under their arms and into the car. But I told them, whoever touched me was going to get it. I cursed at them! I cursed good. I didn’t cry. That day I didn’t cry. I sat in my house. One minute there's yelling. Yelling! And then it’s quiet. Very quiet. On that day—that first day I didn’t leave the house.

They told me later that there was a column of people walking. And next to that there was a column of livestock. It was war! My husband liked to say that people may shoot, but it’s God who delivers the bullet. Everyone has his own fate. The young ones who left, some of them have already died. In their new place. Whereas me, I’m still walking around. Slowing down, sure. Sometimes it’s boring, and I cry. The whole village is empty. There’s all kinds of birds here. They fly around. And there’s elk here, all you want.
[Starts crying.]