want picture?”
“Let’s just go on to Pripyat,” Scorpion said.
“The others going,” Dennis said, pointing to the people filing into the building. “You get nice picture of reactor building from window inside.”
“Let’s go,” Scorpion said, walking back to the Lada.
“You not care Chernobyl. What you wanting, mister?” Dennis said, getting back behind the wheel.
“I want to see Pripyat,” Scorpion said.
“Sure. Is interesting,” Dennis said, backing out and driving down the road. He stopped the car in the middle of the road. “Rush hour in Pripyat,” he joked, the road empty for as far as could be seen. He pointed to an empty snow-covered field bordered by stunted trees. “Here is Rudyi Lis, famous Red Forest. Is called because after accident, trees is turning red from radiation. No more green.”
“Where are the trees?”
“Bulldozers is burying trees. Is gone. These new trees replanted,” indicating the stunted trees. “Don’t grow so good.”
They started driving again. Soon they were at the entrance to the city of Pripyat. A concrete sign read: ПРИПЯТЬ 1970. Pripyat 1970. Dennis drove onto a bridge over a frozen river, decaying half-sunken boats and rotting piers trapped in the river ice, then stopped.
“On night of accident, stream of colored light is shooting up in sky from reactor. Beautiful colors, millions blue and red sparks spraying up like fountain in sky. Is so beautiful, people in Pripyat is coming out of house to see. Some is coming on this bridge. But beautiful colors is ionized air. Everyone on bridge who is seeing colors is becoming dead,” he said, lighting a cigarette.
He drove off the bridge, past an abandoned train station and into the center of the city. The streets were empty except for the occasional rusting car or tree growing up through the asphalt, most of it covered by snow. There were abandoned buildings with their broken windows everywhere. One of the high buildings was topped by the concrete hammer and sickle of the old Soviet Union. Dennis stopped the car in the middle of the street near the central town square and they got out.
It was very cold, the sky leaden. They were in the middle of a city without a single person. Trees and shrubs had grown out of the pavement, their branches growing through broken windows and cracks in building walls. Scraps of old newspapers were blown by the wind through the snow-covered streets. It felt like the end of the world.
A wolf walked out of an apartment building. It showed no alarm at the sight of them. It looked at them for a moment, then walked away. From somewhere came the sound of a shutter banging in the wind. Not far from where they stood, they could see a Ferris wheel above the tree line.
“Children’s amusement park,” Dennis said. “You want see?”
They walked to the amusement park. Near the entrance, Dennis brushed away snow over a patch of moss on the ground and laid the Geiger counter on it. It nearly went ballistic, beeping furiously. The LED screen showed 2.651.
“Vegetation worse than asphalt. Don’t touch,” Dennis said. “You sit on ground, you fry balls. No babies. Maybe babies with three heads,” he joked.
“What about the animals? How are they doing?”
“Who can say?” Dennis said. “We see many animals, but no one knows nothing. They send robot with camera into reactor. Find walls covered with strange black fungus. Like no fungus on earth. This fungus mutate to exist on radiation only. Imagine.”
They walked through the park, filled with broken, rusting rides. The metal chairs from the Ferris wheel swayed and creaked in the wind. “Children park never used. Park is schedule to open two, three days after accident. People had to run, leave city forever. Come,” he said.
They walked to the hotel.
“Best hotel in town, but for you is room. Make good price,” Dennis joked. “We go top. Best view.”
They went inside the lobby. There was broken glass everywhere. Walls were torn open with holes where scavengers had removed pipes. Snow had blown in and branches from vines and trees had threaded their way into the hotel through broken windows. Scorpion followed Dennis up the stairs to the top floor. They went to the penthouse suite. The rooms were bare except for an old armchair, its upholstery torn and rotting, and a cracked and tilted picture of Lenin on the wall. All the windows were broken. Icicles dangled from the windowsills and a drift of snow had blown in onto the floor. They looked out over the city through a broken panoramic window. From where they stood they could see the reactor and smokestack and cranes sticking above the tops of the apartment houses in the distance.
Scorpion started to sit in the armchair.
“Don’t!” Dennis said, and put the Geiger counter on the chair. It read 1.397. “We go.”
“Wait,” Scorpion told him. “Let’s stay a while.”
“This is not good place to stay. What you want, mister? Is not tour.”
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Someone here? In Pripyat? Cannot be. Only crazy peoples live in Exclusion Zone.”
“Maybe he’s crazy.”
“Maybe you crazy, mister. We go now,” Dennis said, starting for the open doorway.
“How much do you make?” Scorpion called after him.
Dennis stopped and looked at him.
“What you think, mister? I like radioactive? I think zona nice place? You think I not know I get cancer someday? I was English teacher. I make fifteen hundred hryvnia in one month. Now I am tour guide; with tips I am making more than double; three, four thousand.”
“I’ll give you five thousand just for today,” Scorpion said, taking out a wad of money. Dennis looked suspiciously at the money. “What is this?”
“Five thousand,” Scorpion said, holding it out.
After a long moment Dennis came over, took the money and stuck it in his pocket.
“Okay, what you for sure want?” he asked.
“I’m looking for a man. His first name is Dimitri. I won’t tell you the rest. He would have come sometime within the last four or five days. I have reason to believe he’s somewhere in the Exclusion Zone. Have you heard of anyone coming here recently?”
“No,” Dennis said. “But I am guide. I come, go. Best to asking Pani Mazhalska.”
“Who’s she?”
“Old woman. She is knowing all samosely, is what they call squatters in zona. Lives alone in village, Krasnoe, in little hut in forest.”
“Like Baba Yaga,” Scorpion said, trying a joke, mentioning the old witch in Russian fairy tales.
“Is no joke. People say she has ‘the bad eye,’ ” Dennis said, shifting uncomfortably.
“What about Pripyat? Is it possible he’s hiding in an abandoned apartment here?”
Dennis took off his fur cap and scratched his head.
“Is possible. But radioactive in Pripyat not good. Too high.”
“We’re here.”
“Not for days and nights. Also, Pripyat was city of fifty thousand. Many buildings here. How you find someone?”
“I figured we’d wait till dark. See if we could spot any lights. He’d need heat and light,” Scorpion said.
“Wait in hotel?” Dennis said.
Scorpion shook his head. “Other tourists might come. This was the first place you took me. Besides, we need to move the car. It’s best if he doesn’t know we’re looking for him.”
“He don’t want to be found, this guy?”
“He’s hiding in the zona. What do you think?”
They walked down the stairs. Outside, they saw the other tourists, the Dowds and the Germans following Gennadi into a school. The Dowds and the Germans waved and they waved back. Scorpion and Dennis got into the Lada and started to drive through the empty streets.
“I know place behind Palace of Culture. We put car. No one see.”
