happy, and Moscow destroyed it as part of their campaign against alcoholism.”
Pavel shook his head, smiled, and resumed staring at the house.
“I wonder how long we’ll have to sit here. This so-called subversive Juli Popovics hasn’t made a move. You’d think she’d at least give us an opportunity to drive about occasionally.”
“We’d have the opportunity if we were following Detective Horvath. Of course, we wouldn’t be able to use a Volga.” Nikolai looked out the back window. “Where do you think his tail is today?”
“Could be the van down the block,” said Pavel.
“Such strange methods, not identifying the agents assigned to Detective Horvath. What if something happens and we start shooting one another? And Horvath’s a strange one. Did you see the way his mouth moved when he was walking into the house earlier? My mother always said men who talk to themselves have a second soul that refuses to die, like a devil.”
“You should tell Major Komarov you think Detective Horvath is a devil, Nikolai.”
Nikolai shook his head. “He’d put us back in our Moskvich, return our contaminated clothes, and send us to Pripyat. I’m content to stay here. Besides, your wife is nearby.”
“Don’t keep reminding me,” said Pavel.
Nikolai laughed. “At least you have someone. I wonder what became of my date from last weekend in Pripyat. I hope she got out all right. Young and firm, not yet fattened up.”
Pavel frowned at Nikolai, then sneered.
“Sorry, Pavel. By the way, what does your wife think of all this?”
“She thinks something’s wrong. She says it’s strange we should be rewarded for running away from Pripyat. Everyone else working for Komarov knows more than we do. It might be more dangerous than we’ve been led to believe.”
“Look,” said Nikolai. “Detective Horvath is leaving. Too bad Juli Popovics isn’t going with him.”
Detective Horvath drove past them and turned north to the main highway.
“He didn’t even look at us,” said Nikolai.
“He doesn’t have to,” said Pavel. “He knows we’re here. It’s the others he’s watching for.”
While Nikolai and Pavel watched, the van down the street followed Detective Horvath’s Zhiguli at a careful distance. Now they were alone, two PK agents in their shiny Volga, wearing business suits and carrying brand new Makarov 9mm pistols in leather shoulder holsters still aromatic from the tanning mill.
20
Monday, May 5. May Day and Orthodox Easter were over, and more than a week had passed since Chernobyl’s unit four exploded.
Even though technicians were seen waving Geiger counters above vegetables at local markets and canned goods were running out, television broadcasts showed films of people swimming in the Pripyat River. Another film showed a woman milking a cow with a soldier checking the milk with a dosimeter and the camera zoom-ing in to show the low radiation count. Everything was fine. Or was it? For example, why had Kiev Party officials, having taken their children out of school early the previous week, not yet returned from southern regions?
Northwest of Kiev on the road from Korosten, a busload of Chernobylites had spent two days on their journey because of various complications. When they piled out of the bus and saw bread, sausage, and tea being served by young men and women from a Kiev komsomol, one old man, unable to control himself, stuffed food into his coat pockets until he resembled a circus bear. The old man had a thin face, reminding Lazlo of his father. When the man finished stuffing his pockets and retreated to the dark side of the bus to eat, Lazlo recalled stories his father had told him and Mihaly about Stalin’s 1932 famine. His father going on about the devil Stalin, his mother stopping his father when he began recounting the tale of the little boy who failed to show up to school one day. The boy, it was later discovered, had died and been pickled in a jar by his parents.
As Lazlo stood near his car, his hands deep in his pockets to ward off the evening chill, he wondered if Juli would have been better off going with the people who brought her from Pripyat. She could have disappeared and become an anonymous victim forced to leave home. But she was in Visenka with the KGB watching her in an obvious way, while they watched him in a not-so-obvious way.
Several hundred meters down the road, a van sat at the side of a gasoline station closed for the night. The van’s side door was out of his view, and he was certain peepholes were most likely drilled in the side of the van to coincide with the stenciled markings of a construction collective. Obviously the KGB either suspected Mihaly of sabotage, or because he was dead they assumed he would make a convenient scapegoat.
Stash, one of Lazlo’s militiamen, ran up. “A car just arrived from the north with a pregnant woman! They say she needs medical attention! She’s gotten out of the car and…”
“Give them directions to hospital and let them through,” said Lazlo.
After Stash ran back to the car, Lazlo could see the woman was quite far along and had to be helped back into the car by a concerned-looking young man. If only Juli Popovics had a husband.
Instead of being watched by the KGB, she would be simply another woman passing through the roadblock. But she had no husband.
Except for her aunt who provided a temporary home, she had no one.
She was beautiful, attractive, alone, and constantly on his mind.
It was different with Tamara. Although Tamara was a friend and lover, she had her literary magazine and her literary friends.
He admired Tamara, enjoyed being with her. But so did other men.
Everything was different when it came to Juli Popovics. Crazy. He was going crazy. First he thinks Tamara is different; next he thinks Juli is different. What was going on?
Last week he drove Juli to Visenka. Last week he visited to inquire about her hospital tests. Yesterday he spent the afternoon with her. Yesterday he kissed her, and in accepting his kiss, she drew him to her like one of the howling dogs left behind by the Chernobylites.
He was hers. Even now, forty kilometers away, he was hers. Had he, after the explosion at Chernobyl, purposely sought out Mihaly’s lover? If he could not have Nina, could he at least have Juli?
Insane brooding fool. Instead of accepting what life offers he plays mind games. Lazlo took his hands from his pockets, rubbed them together, and went to join his men at the roadblock.
Stories told by refugees, taken one at a time, might or might not be true. But when stories repeated themselves, they became believable.
Livestock being herded south shot by soldiers. Dogs running after buses. A radius ranging from twenty to fifty kilometers contaminated. Fire still burning at the reactor, and radiation still being released.
Another Chernobyl accident in 1982 covered up. Speculation about whether Pripyat residents would ever be allowed to return.
Speculation made people do strange things. In one car, all but the driver were drunk. Even a boy of eight or nine was drunk, having been urged to drink red wine and vodka because of the rumor this would protect him from radiation.
Lazlo and his men had interviewed refugees for several days. At first, his men shook their heads and even smiled in reaction to the stories. Then they became tired of hearing the same things over and over. Tonight, Lazlo noticed his men looked worried. Would there be a shift in the wind? If the fire was still burning and there was a shift in the wind…
A little before midnight, Stash summoned Lazlo to a car stopped in the northbound lane. “It’s a time warp,” said Stash. “An old Zil limousine from the Khrushchev days.”
The huge old Zil rumbled loudly through a bad muffler. When he approached the car, Lazlo noticed the grill and front bumper missing and recalled seeing the car before, recalled parking near it somewhere in Kiev, somewhere at night.
There were no passengers, only a driver. The man had a black beard and mustache, and his hair was thinning. He looked Middle Eastern and had a familiar face. The man switched off the ignition, and the Zil’s engine coughed and sputtered to a stop.
