The operators had already begun the hours-long process of reducing power leading to the tests to be performed during shutdown.
The technician mounted a metal stairway, pausing to watch a particular valve, painted red, being actuated. Then he continued his climb. He met another technician at the top of the stairs, and the two shouted to be heard above the roar of the turbine hall.
“How do the emergency cooling switches look?”
“They look… content!”
“They’d better be content because the idiots in the control room are insane!”
“Everyone working here is insane! Especially the bosses!”
“They were smart enough to build the bunker below their offices!”
“Who put Pavlov in charge of programming the computer? The dog doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing!”
“His name fits the situation! I hope we get this bitch shut down for May Day!”
“The parade banners kids make in school have construction superior to anything here!”
“Antiquated technology is our business!”
The two technicians laughed, slapped one another on the back, and went on their way.
In another wing of the building, in the relative quiet of the main control room, several technicians dressed in similar off-white uniforms sat at a semicircular console. At one end of the console, a two-by-six-centimeter rectangular panel lit bright red for two seconds, then went out. The technician nearest the panel was speaking on the telephone. After the red light went out, the technician looked in the general direction of the panel for several seconds, his hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. Finally he shrugged his shoulders and resumed his conversation.
In a large room above the reactor core, one of the technicians making his rounds walked a catwalk. He paused a moment and stared down at the ends of graphite columns. It looked like a giant circular checkerboard. He reached into the vest pocket of his uniform, took out a dosimeter, held it up to the light, and looked into it. Then he hurried along the catwalk, went out a side door, and descended an outdoor stairway.
Outside the building, the technician paused to speak with the operator of a large diesel front loader carrying gravel. The technician stepped up on the side platform and shouted at the man in the cab. Amid the throbbing of the diesel engine, he pointed to a small high-tension tower a few meters behind the front loader. After the technician dismounted, he stood with his hands on his hips and watched as the front loader left the area.
The technician walked back to the far end of the building and climbed a flight of stairs. Before entering the building, he paused to watch a pair of ducks fly over the yard and out above the cooling pond. He lifted his head and inhaled deeply of the spring air before going inside through a set of double doors to rejoin his comrades in the control room and fill out the morning inspection report.
The morning chatter of birds through the open window awakened her. The previous evening she’d gone for a walk alone. Pripyat’s lin-den trees had thickened, and she’d stood watching skylarks building nests. She went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror, trying to see if she had changed, if her complexion was rosier, her cheeks puffier, her eyes calmer. The only change was a slight thickening of her abdomen. To see it she had to stand on a stool and study her profile. Six weeks, and the baby was beginning to show. She’d noticed the change this week, and now she was certain she could see the bulge beneath her slip.
“It’s still too early to see,” said Marina, standing in the bathroom doorway watching her.
Marina was like a sister, someone she could confide in. They had spent many nights discussing what she should do, and she had decided to request a medical leave to have the baby. She would stay with Aunt Magda in the town of Visenka during the last months of pregnancy. Finally, the most difficult decision, she would arrange for the baby’s adoption.
Juli stepped off the stool and began combing her hair. She glanced to Marina. “I’m going to tell my supervisor today, assum-ing she doesn’t already know.”
“No one knows,” said Marina. “Nobody was in the apartment next door last winter. The footprints on the balcony were made during the day. The following week, our new neighbors moved in, so there’s nothing to worry about. Another pair of powerless women like us.”
“Are you going to lecture me again, Marina?”
“Not a lecture, Juli. I simply wondered when you would tell your secret to someone besides me and the doctor and your aunt.”
“I’ll tell my supervisor late in the day so I’ll have the weekend to prepare for the gossip.”
“And Mihaly?”
“We’ve been through this, Marina. I’m not trying to protect him! A fool protecting a fool! His wife finds out about us, and we continue seeing one another! It’s an insane situation! Nothing good can come of it!”
“The baby is good,” said Marina.
“I know. I didn’t mean to yell. I’ll… tell Mihaly today. After work. After I tell my supervisor and get the hell out of there.”
“You still won’t consider an abortion?”
“No. Don’t ask why. Maybe because my father is dead and I was his only child.”
Juli looked in the mirror, saw her own face sneering back at her.
“I should have gone to medical school like my father wanted instead of working at a damned nuclear plant. I’d be a doctor in Moscow sitting behind my desk, and on the other side of the desk is an unmarried girl come to get the results of her test. I should have stayed in Moscow after school or gone to some other job away from here so I would never have met Mihaly.”
“Do you love him?”
“I don’t know. I’m a coward, Marina. If I do love him, I don’t have courage to say it.”
Marina came behind her, took the brush from the sink, and began brushing Juli’s hair. “You’re very brave. No matter what I’ve said the last few days, I want you to know I don’t think I would have handled the situation as well.”
“I should have handled the birth control so none of this would have happened.”
Marina paused a moment, then resumed brushing Juli’s hair.
“Here we go again. It’s the men in power who cause the problems.
Always the men who put us into situations we’d rather not be in.
Keep reminding yourself you’re going through this for a couple who can’t have a baby of their own. When you tell Mihaly, remember to also tell him about the couple. They’re waiting for their baby.
Their baby.”
“Last night I lay awake thinking about how Mihaly will react.”
“How?” asked Marina.
“Silent, brooding. Then he’ll smile, put his arm around me, and ask what he can do.”
“Do me one favor,” said Marina.
“What?”
“If he thinks only of himself, kick him in the nuts.”
Juli turned, and when she saw Marina smiling she couldn’t help laughing. They hugged and Juli felt her eyes fill with tears. “I haven’t even thought of contacting my mother. She’ll never know about it.”
“It’s all right,” whispered Marina into her ear. “You’ll be all right.”
Marina took Juli’s hand and led her out of the bathroom. “Come with me. You need breakfast to feed our couple’s baby. Plus, I don’t want you to be late. No running for the bus.”
In Kiev a man wearing a ski mask despite the warm spring weather had, during the past month, beaten and raped three women in three separate metro stations. Kiev’s detectives were put on extra duty.
Female militia officers were placed in each metro station as decoys.
But the rapist had not been lured into the trap.
Because he was single, Detective Lazlo Horvath worked several sixteen-hour shifts in a row. His reward was the requisite congrat-ulatory speech by Chief Investigator Chkalov and a weekend off.
Chkalov had seemed angry, the speech terse, the weekend off given reluctantly after an odd complaint saying Lazlo should have visited the militia station in Pripyat while visiting his brother. A rumor among detectives linked Chkalov’s foul mood to KGB inquiries.
