If — thinking of the cloud of gases that blew helter-skelter across the face of the earth — anyone in Europe were out of danger. Or anyone in the world.
The pleasant moment had turned sour.
Sheranchuk got out of the shower and dried himself on a pair of his own undershorts — towels were among the niceties no one had yet thought to truck in to the control post. He pulled on a cotton shirt and a pair of work pants and felt slippers. As dressed as he needed to be, he shuffled down the length of the improvised dormitory, past the rows of bunks, some of them with men snoring away, and the tables where other men were talking or playing cards, to his six o'clock conference.
That was the bad side of the good fact that so many Soviet citizens had hurried to help. Meetings. With more than two thousand men and women deployed to fight the explosion and its consequences, the people in charge had to keep in almost constant conference to coordinate their efforts.
In the meeting room there was a table with an unshaded light hanging over it, and half a dozen men were waiting for his report. He gave it quickly: "The valves won't open. They're trying to force them now, but I think they'll just break."
Looking around the table, Sheranchuk realized that he was now nearly the highest-ranking person left on the scene from the peacetime — he corrected himself, the pre-explosion time — of the Chernobyl Power Station. Smin was in his hospital in Moscow, fighting for his life. After the Director had arrived, he had insisted on taking charge of the emergency effort just long enough to be removed from it. Where he was now was easy to guess, and the Chief Engineer along with him. Others were in Hospital No. 18 in Kiev, or evacuated with their families, or simply run away. The people around this table now were all from outside the district, from Moscow and Kiev and Novosibirsk and Kursk. Most of them wore military uniforms under their coveralls.
The person chairing the meeting, however, was the civilian from the Ministry of Nuclear Energy, Istvili. He was no longer as dapper as when he first arrived, but he was still energetic as he received Sheranchuk's bad news. He did not seem surprised. He only said, "The plenum has to be drained." The plenum was the reserve of water under the reactor itself, built there so that in the event of a rupture of a single tube the steam would bubble through the plenum and cool back down to water instead of bursting the containment shell. Of course, against what had actually happened at the plant it was useless— worse than useless, a danger.
The general of fire brigades stirred restlessly. "I don't see why we can't just leave it alone," he said.
"Because, Comrade General, we don't want water down there, we want concrete. We need to isolate that entire core from the world outside, top, bottom, and sides."
"You're talking about work that will take months!"
"I hope we can do it just in months. In any case, we don't know how much strength there is in the structures that hold the core; if it should fall into the plenum, it would be serious."
Serious! It was already serious enough for Sheranchuk, who put in obstinately, "Nevertheless, I don't think those valves will open."
Istvili nodded. "Then what do you propose?"
"Attack it from another direction," Sheranchuk said, throwing his cigarette on the floor to free his hands. "Here, let me show you." He quickly sketched the outlines of the ruined reactor and the water-filled chamber below it. "If we cut into the tank from another side, we can pump it dry. Here. Where it approaches the plenum for Reactor Number Three. Pump that one out, then people can get in to cut through."
Istvili studied the sketch, unsurprised. "I approve. Also, I think, we should try digging another shaft from — here. It will be longer, but easier to cut through, perhaps."
"My men aren't moles," the fire general barked.
"We won't need your men for that, Comrade General. A team of miners from the Donetsk coalfields is already on its way. Now. As to the fire in the graphite itself?"
The fire brigade commander said, "The helicopter drops are helping. Another fifty tons of sand are needed, though, at least."
"Comrade Colonel?"
The Air Force officer rapped out, "Of course. We have requested another squadron of men and machines; they should be here in the morning. With them, we will continue the drops on schedule."
Istvili looked at the fire brigade commander, who shrugged. "If that is so, then perhaps we ought to have more volunteers to fill the sandbags. Also my men can't get through the rubble near the reactor building."
"Have it bulldozed away!"
"To be sure, Comrade Istvili," the fireman said mildly, "but to where? Some has already been dumped into the pond—"
"Good God, man," Sheranchuk cried. "Not the cooling pond! We've poisoned enough water already."
"So I have said, but then, where?"
Since no one else spoke, Sheranchuk said, "There's a foundation dug for another reactor on the other side of the station. I doubt it will ever be built now; can't you shove everything in there?"
"Do it," said Istvili, turning to gaze at Sheranchuk again. He asked the meeting at large, "Is there anything else we need our hydrologist-engineer for at this time?"
Sheranchuk said quickly, "There is something I need the meeting for, at least." "And what is that?"
"It is simply impossible to accomplish anything in a two-hour shift a couple of times a day. I request permission to work for longer periods." "How long?"
"As long as I have to! Four hours at a time, at least." Istvili drummed his fingers on the table, looking around. "How are your white-blood corpuscle readings, Comrade Sheranchuk?"
"Who can tell? They simply take it and go away somewhere. At least they have not told me I am in danger."
Istvili nodded. Then he sighed. "Permission granted," he said. "Now let us see how we stand for materiel. . "
Chapter 21
Wednesday, May 1
Except perhaps for the anniversary of the October Revolution (which occurs in November, because of the changed calendar), the paramount public holiday of the Soviet Union is on the first day of May. It is called International Labor Day, or more frequently simply "May Day." There is no village in the USSR so small that it does not have at least a celebration on May Day, and in the largest cities the event is an immense production.
"But we can't watch it on the TV," Candace Garfield told her husband reasonably, "because we don't have one in this delightful little toilet you found for us, and they'll just charge us extra if we want to use the one in the living room, and it's in black and white anyway."
"Well, hell, hon," said her husband, also reasonably — it was only eight in the morning, and they were both still being reasonable—"who wants to watch it on TV? We might as well be home in Beverly Hills if that's all we want to do. We'll go on into town, and—"
"And walk to the subway, right? Because those buses don't ever run?"
"They were running all right yesterday, honey. It was only like on Sunday and Monday that we couldn't find one."
"And today's a holiday, right? So they probably won't be running at all."
Garfield opened his mouth to respond a touch less reasonably, because his own temper was beginning to run short after four days on their own in Kiev. They were saved by a knock on the door. "Oh, poop," said Candace, "that's Abdul for the rent. Wait a minute till I get something on."
Abdul was who it was, although his name was surely not Abdul. He was some sort of Arab in some sort of diplomatic post at some Arab consulate — for four straight days he had managed to avoid telling them which nation paid his salary.
He was a constantly smiling slim young man, no more than thirty. This time, as always, he greeted them with a cheery "Good morning to the both of you!" and an outstretched hand. As always, he took Garfield's hundred-dollar traveler's check, and returned the change in rubles. He had every reason to smile, Garfield thought. The agreed-on bed-and-breakfast rate was sixty-five dollars American each day. The thirty-five dollars' worth of rubles Garfield got back in change were always
calculated at the official rate, and Garfield was quite certain the man got his own rubles from one of the furtive young men who hung around the tourist hotels, at no more than twenty-five cents apiece instead of the official rate of over a dollar and a half.
Of course, they hadn't had much choice. It was not really that bad a room — in fact, it was reasonably nice, especially by Soviet standards — even though they didn't have a bath of their own. It was in a new and attractive building. They were in a sort of diplomatic ghetto; you got into it through a gate, and when you arrived in a taxi a militiaman peered in to make sure no locals were sneaking into the place reserved for foreign residents of Kiev. There did not, unfortunately, seem to be any Americans or even English or Canadians in the compound, and their host had urged them (still smiling, but very emphatically) to avoid contact with the neighbors as much as possible. "Is not against Soviet law exactly, no, but still is a matter for discreetness, please."
That May Day morning, though, when he had carefully paid out Garfield's twenty rubles and some odd kopecks in change, he lost the smile. Looking at them seriously, he said, "I am very sorry to bear ill tidings, but all things must end. Tomorrow must be last day of you to be here. Due to the changed circumstances, I am required to leave and must close down my flat."
"What changed circumstances?" Garfield demanded. The man only shrugged.
"Now, come off it," barked Candace from the table. "Where are we supposed to go? You've got to let us stay here just for a couple of nights, anyway!"
"But it is impossible," he explained, once more smiling broadly. "Your luggage? Yes, if you like, you may leave it here until you call for it — no later than six tomorrow evening. And now I must leave at once to prepare for our May Day reception, and then we must pack for departure. My good wife will now have your breakfast ready. It has been very great pleasure to know you, really. And, oh, yes, for the extra hours in your room due to leaving the luggage, that will be additionally twenty-five dollars American."
Breakfast was like each of the other three mornings they had spent in the diplomatic flat, with the silent, pregnant wife serving them the same soft-boiled eggs, thick slices of bread, and strong tea, except that this time while they were still at table a swarthy man knocked at the door. He and the diplomat's wife talked in low voices for a while — it was not an Arabic language, Garfield thought, but almost certainly not Russian, either. Then the man handed her a thick wad of currency. The woman counted it all over twice, then fished a set of car keys out of her apron pocket and gave them to the man. A moment later the Garfields heard the sound of a car starting in the courtyard below. Through the window Garfield saw the man driving away in Abdul's huge old canary-yellow Mustang convertible.
As they walked out of the compound, nodding familiarly to the cop at the gate, Garfield said, "Abdul's not going to come back here at all. He sold his car."
"So?" asked his wife, peering toward the avenue where there might have been, but was not, a bus.
"So nothing," said Garfield cheerfully, deciding on the spot not to press the question of what "changed circumstances" caused Abdul to flee with his wife. "Look, there's no use trying to get a bus, and it's only about a twenty-minute walk to the Metro."
"Next time I go anywhere with you," Candace said grimly, "I pack my Adidas. Dean? This little adventure is beginning to get bor-z «g. I think it's time to go home."
"Honey, you know what they said at Aeroflot. No space available to Moscow until the seventh."
"So are we going to sleep in the airport for the next week?"
Garfield winced. But when they got out of the Metro station on the far side of the river, even Candace began to show signs of excitement.
For one thing, it was a meltingly beautiful spring day. The city was full of roses and chestnut blossoms, and it was in a holiday mood. The streets around the Kreshchatik were full of people getting ready to parade past the dignitaries on the stands. Trade unions, schools, Army detachments, government workers — every group seemed to have a detachment of its own to strut past the great billboard of Lenin, six stories high, with his chin thrust resolutely forward to challenge the hostile, encircling world.
There seemed to be thousands of people crushing toward the route of the parade along with the Garfields — not just marchers, but no doubt the families of people in the line of march as well. There were children carrying little flags, mothers with string bags — not on this day in the hope of finding something wonderful to buy, but only to hold picnic lunches for the children. There was a barricade at the entrance to the streets nearest the reviewing stands. The Garfields could not hope to enter the square, or even get very close to it, but they could see that it and all the surrounding streets were gay with banners and posters. The face that dominated the event belonged to V. I. Lenin, but Marx and Engels had their huge portraits too.
Candace gazed uneasily at the scores of uniformed militiamen keeping the throngs in order. "I keep thinking one of them's going to ask us what we're doing here," she fretted.
Garfield grinned. "We're doing what everybody else is doing, right? We're watching the parade. Listen, if they were going to give us a hard time, they would've done it long ago."
"Yes, but I'm getting real itchy. What are we going to do tomorrow?"
"Well," said Garfield slowly, "I've been thinking about that. See, today's the holiday, right? So I bet that along about checkout time tomorrow the hotels're going to empty out pretty fast, and probably we'll be able to get anything we want."
"Probably," his wife repeated flatly.
"What do you want from me?" he demanded. "All right, as soon as the parade's over we'll go around the hotels and see if they're going to have a room. How's that?"
His wife only sighed. "I wish we could sit down somewhere and watch this," she said.
Garfield took her hand. "Aw, but honey," he pleaded. "How many Americans get to do anything like this? Think about the stories we're going to tell. Think about Comrade Tanya. Why, when we get back— Hey!" he cried, pointing to a group of children surrounding their teacher on the far side of the barrier, girls in cocoa dresses with sparkling white pinafores, boys in navy blue jackets and caps, every third child with a banner to pass to the next child in rotation as small arms grew weary. "Isn't that what's-her-name? The teacher that speaks English, from Smin's party?"
Oksana Didchuk didn't see the Americans, didn't even hear them calling to her or notice the little argument they had with the militiaman when they tried to cross the barricade. Oksana was busy with her class, rehearsing them in the slogans they should chant, reminding them to march in step, cajoling, warning, telling them stories to keep them quiet until their turn to march. "Look," she said, pointing at the contingent of tall young men in gold-braided black uniforms, swords at their sides as they swung past, "those are cadets from the Kiev Naval Academy. Someday some of you may go there!"
But the girls were looking at the folk dancers twirling in their bright traditional Ukrainian costumes, and most of the boys were gazing popeyed at the huge T-60 tank that was shuffling up the avenue toward them, a trail of smart Soviet Army soldiers goose-stepping along behind. Oksana sighed, peering around to see if she could get a glimpse of her own daughter, but there were too many groups of schoolchildren, too many floats and bands and military vehicles, too many people entirely.
Oksana Didchuk wondered if it could possibly be true that this thing at the Chernobyl Power Station could be dangerous even to people here in Kiev. What was one to believe? The voices had been more strident than ever that morning. The Didchuks had even managed to catch a few minutes of Radio Free Europe before the jammers discovered the wavelength they had switched to and the warbling tweeweeiveeweep had drowned it out. But what was one to do? At school the authorities had been quite firm: "There is certainly no cause for panic. If any extraordinary measures are required, of course we will be informed at once!"
And yet the rumors grew — twenty-five thousand dead and buried in a mass gra
ve on the banks of the Pripyat River, one colleague had whispered, or so he had heard one of the voices say. Almost certainly that was untrue, Oksana thought staunchly. Especially considering the source. No one believed Radio Free Europe… but what a pity that they could not get the calm, trustworthy voice of the BBC.
And then the signal came for their unit to. begin the march. Oksana gathered up her group and they took their places in line. What angels they were being this day! Every one of them, little as they were, unruly as sometimes they could be, marched along bravely; and as they passed the reviewing stand, each did a perfect eyes-right and shouted together: "We will defend the motherland of Socialism!"
Her eyes were moist as they passed under the great posters of Marx (the size of the head demonstrating the immense power of the great brain that lay inside it) and of Lenin (sharp gaze ever alert to seek out those who sought refuge in the twin enemies of the working class, God and vodka). And then, at the very edge of the square, was a tiny poster of Khrushchev. Oksana stole a quick look around as they passed it to see if any of her class had noticed that a new face had been added this year. None of the children seemed to. So there would be no difficult questions — although, Oksana told herself, it was, after all, quite proper that the man who had held the city of Kiev together in those terrible days of 1941 while the Germans hammered past it on both sides should be recognized on Kiev's May Day.
One must always remember that it was Khrushchev who, years later, had insisted on adding Kiev to the short but illustrious list of the USSR's "Hero Cities" for that desperate resistance. . though, of course, at the time of that resistance a good many Kievans, listening to the traitorous words of defeatists and saboteurs, had not been nearly as eager for their tasks as the people of Moscow and Stalingrad. Nevertheless! The delay at Kiev had cost many thousands of lives, but it served a purpose. It had slowed the Hitlerite drive toward Moscow just long enough to make it fail. And of course—
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