Chernobyl

by Frederik Pohl

  "And what have you stolen now?" asked his partner, Miklas, coming up to the door.

  Konov jumped. Then he handed one of the magazines to Miklas and watched the man's eyes pop as he leafed through the pages. "And there are more of them in the truck?" he asked.

  "Dozens more. Also samizdat, all kinds."

  "Konov," said Miklas sorrowfully, "do you know what those magazines are worth? We could get ten rubles each for them."

  "We could get arrested as looters, you fool."

  "Only if we are foolish enough to be caught. We aren't looters; the GehBehs have done that for us. Also, what do you think they are going to do with that samizdat, but make some poor man's life miserable? It is our duty," Miklas said virtuously, "to protect the interests of the people who were thrown out of their homes without notice. We should do what we can to save them from harm!"

  When the GehBehs came back, their arms full of more papers and a shortwave radio, they saw Konov and Miklas at the tailgate of the truck, running the radiation detector over the stacks of papers. "Hey!" shouted one of them. "Assholes! Get away from there at once!"

  Miklas turned to them apologetically, running the prod over the magazines. "With all regret, your honors," he said obsequiously, "just listen!" The detector was screaming.

  "What is this?" the GehBeh demanded. "Is this material contaminated?"

  "All of it, I'm afraid," said Miklas sorrowfully. "Was it near open windows? Perhaps exposed to dust? Radioactivity is so tricky, your honors, one can never tell what is safe and what may be deadly — but simply listen! The count is going right off the scale!"

  Cursing, the GehBehs kicked the papers out of the back of the truck and drove away. As soon as they were out of sight, Miklas knocked the bit of radioactive mud off the end of his detector and Konov sprayed it lavishly with the oil. "Now," grinned Miklas, "our only problem is figuring out how to get the magazines back to the barracks."

  They could not simply be carried. "Perhaps one or two at a time?" Konov offered. "We can hide them somewhere and just take a couple on each trip, tuck them inside our pants?"

  But Miklas's expression had changed. He was idly running the now-clean detector over the magazines. "Not next to my balls, curse it," he groaned, for the instrument was squealing its warning of contamination as loud as ever.

  Chapter 31

  Sunday, May 11

  Afghanistan has been called the Vietnam of the USSR. This is not just because it has gone on so long and drained off so many young lives. It resembles the American experience in Vietnam in another way. The Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan, for the first time in their lives, are exposed to an easy and cheap supply of narcotics. Drugs had never before been a major Soviet problem. The penalties were too harsh, the surveillance too complete. Small boats did not sneak into Soviet harbors by night or light planes steal across its borders with cargoes of heroin, cocaine, and pot. They would have been sunk, or shot out of the sky. Anyway, the Soviet people, like the Russians of the czarist times before them, took to drunkenness rather than dope as a favorite vice. But Afghanistan is changing all that.

  Just before Simyon Smin heard that his elder son was under arrest for drug possession, he woke from a troubled dream. In the dream it seemed that he had been captured by fiends— Nazis, camp guards, the Spanish Inquisition — he could not tell who they were, but they had stabbed him in a hundred places and bound him to a bed while infernal machines clicked and hummed and gurgled all around him.

  What a pity, he thought, that the dream was no dream. All those things were true. At least the people who had done all this to him were not enemies; they were trying to save his life, not to kill him in agony, but all the same he had needles in his arms and wrists and collarbone; his side was a mass of bruises where it was not blisters or running sores.

  His first waking thought was to reach under his pillow to make sure that the schoolboy's pad was still there. His second was his body. With some effort he lifted the edge of the sheet and peered down at himself. His naked body was not merely naked. It was bare. The hairlessness of his chest did not stop at the edge of the great old wartime burn scar. There was no hair on him at all. None on his body, none any longer on his head. Even his limp organ lay exposed and as bald as a six-year-old's— and, he thought, about as useful, too.

  He did not need to be told that the transplant of bone marrow from his elder son had not gone well. His body told him that with its pain and feverish heat. "Comrade Plumber," he called weakly. "Can you find a nurse? I need a bedpan very badly."

  From the other bed Sheranchuk called back in a troubled voice, "At once! But your son Vassili is here to see you."

  "Then let him get the nurse," said Smin, "and he may come in afterward."

  Sheranchuk tried a reassuring smile at the boy waiting just outside the door. "You heard," he said, wondering what new worry it was that made Vassili Smin look so much as though he were going to cry. "The nurses' station is at the end of the hall, please."

  "Of course," Vassili said, casting one more horrified glance toward his father's bed. Although the screens were in place, they did not conceal everything. Vassili saw the clamps that looked like long, ugly scissors hanging from tube connections to keep them tight, the orange and white hoses that dangled from plastic bottles on stands — worst of all, the blue-paneled box that clicked and blinked with red lights. When he had found a nurse and returned to the room, Vassili sat resolutely by Sheranchuk's bed, not looking toward his father. Certainly not listening to those ugly, intimate sounds that came from him.

  Sheranchuk tried to help. "Look," he said, talking to cover the sounds, "see what the American doctors have brought us." He displayed a little flashlight, a pocket calculator, and best of all a wonderful small flat box, tiny enough to fit in the palm of his hand, that was an electronic alarm clock. "Your father has received them too, Perhaps he will give you the calculator."

  But Vassili was not to be diverted from his misety. Alarmed, Sheranchuk said, "What is it, Vassili? Have you had some bad news that worries you?"

  The boy looked at him through tears. "Yes, I have had bad news, and what worries me is that I must tell it to my father."

  And when Smin heard the news a few minutes later, he sat up straight in his bed, regardless of all the tubes and wires and catheters, and cried, "Nikolai? Arrested on a narcotics charge? But that is completely out of the question!"

  "It's true, Father," sobbed his younger son, casting an imploring glance at the other bed, where Sheranchuk was scowling blackly as he pretended to devote all his attention to reading a newspaper.

  "It cannot be true," Smin whispered. But as he fell back against his pillow, he knew that it must be. He closed his eyes, cursing silently. This terrible weakness! It was worse than the pain. Yes, to be truthful, the pain was almost unbearable, in spite of everything the doctors could do. His whole body was a mass of stinking, running sores. He could hardly swallow, he could not piss or move his bowels without agony, and yet he must do those things every few minutes anyway. But the pain could be borne, if only he had the strength to act — to get out of this bed, at least. And go to see his son! Or to plead with his son's captors. Or to go to anyone, to do anything, to try to get this matter somehow set aside.

  It was at least a mercy that he was having one of the less and less frequent periods of not only wakefulness but even lucidity. "Tell me exactly what happened, Vassa," he begged, and listened in misery as the boy explained how the organs had come for his brother. Yes, of course it was the organs; it was a matter of smuggling, after all, and thus under the jurisdiction of the KGB. They had simply appeared and taken Senior Lieutenant Nikolai Smin away. Why had they accused him? Because someone in the hospital had run certain tests on Nikolai's blood or urine or bone marrow — they had endless samples of all of his fluids, of course, to make sure the transplant might work. And that someone had found chemical traces of hashish in Nikolai's sample. . and had reported it at once. "You must not blame the doctors," Vas
sili said sorrowfully. "It was their duty, of course."

  "Of course," Smin croaked sourly. "And how is your mother taking this?"

  "She has gone to see what she can do. Grandmother too. She insisted on going along. I don't know where."

  Smin sighed despondently. He roused himself to turn on his side and call to his roommate. "Comrade Plumber? I must apologize for intruding this unpleasant family matter on you—"

  "It is I who must apologize," Sheranchuk said soberly. "Forgive me. You are having a private conversation with your son and I should not be here. With your permission I will go out to visit friends for a while."

  "Thank you," said Smin. He watched Sheranchuk silendy as the man got out of bed, pulled a red-striped pajama top over his bare chest, and. hurried away.

  "He is the lucky one," Smin said somberly to his son. "I think he will be released soon, while I—"

  "Yes, Father?"

  Smin did not finish the thought. It was no longer important that he was sure he would never leave Hospital No. 6 alive. "Ah, my poor Kolya," he whispered in anguish. "If only he had confided in me!"

  There was a pause. Then Vassili said, "What would you have done if he had, Father?"

  Smin blinked at the boy. "Why, I would have tried to help him, of course. No matter what!" Smin studied his son, struck by something in his tone. "Do you think that would be wrong, Vassili?"

  The boy said quickly, "Oh, no. Of course not, Father. A father should help his son."

  There was still that false note, though. Smin scowled, trying to force himself to be more alert, more intelligent; something was troubling the boy. "What is it, Vassa? Have I done something wrong?"

  "Of course not, Father!"

  "Then" — struck by a sudden and unpleasant thought—"is it — that is, have you — I mean, is there something you should tell me?"

  "No, Father."

  "Yes, Father," Smin insisted. "You have some trouble I don't know about, don't you?"

  "Really not," his son said. "I give you my word as a Komsomol."

  "Then what is it? I don't have the patience for guessing games, son. Is there something you want to ask me, perhaps about the accident, or something I have done?"

  "No."

  "Yes!" shouted Smin. "I have not raised you for sixteen years without knowing when something is troubling you. Tell me what it is!"

  Vassili opened his mouth. Then he closed it, shaking his head, and abrupdy burst out, "Why did you have me circum-sized, Father?"

  Smin gazed at his son in astonishment. The boy went on rebelliously. "Yes, it was done for health reasons, I know — but wasn't it performed on the eighth day after I was born, according to a Jewish religious custom?"

  "How did you know it was on the eighth day?" Smin demanded, startled.

  "I didn't know. They knew."

  "You were questioned?" Smin whispered, in shock.

  "Yes, by the organs, for two hours! But I knew nothing to tell them, only— Well, there was that dinner at grandmother's flat; they said it was a religious rite too. They called it a 'seder.' Was it? And then they asked me about a ceremony on my thirteenth birthday."

  Smin waved a shaking hand. "What did they do to you?"

  Vassili tried to be reassuring. "Nothing at all, Father. Really. They were only asking about these things and the difficulty was that I could not answer. But is it true? Did I have what they called a 'bar mitzvah' on my thirteenth birthday?"

  Smin closed his eyes again. It was a mistake. He felt himself drifting off and he could not afford that. He forced himself to rouse and speak to his son. "On your thirteenth birthday you had a birthday party, of course. Thirteen is a significant age, worth special attention. What you had was the best party your mother and I could give you, but it was certainly not a bar mitzvah. You know that. Do you remember any religious services connected with it?"

  "No, Father, but—"

  "But you couldn't possibly remember anything like that, because there were none. Not even in secret. Tell me, son. Have you ever been given any religious instruction? Of any kind? By me, or by your mother, or by anyone?"

  Vassili hesitated. "Grandmother sometimes tells me when it is Yom Kippur."

  "Your grandmother," Smin sighed, "eats pork and crabmeat and other things that would be forbidden if she were a religious Jew. She has never been in a synagogue since she was fourteen years old. She is not religious. But she has some old-fashioned ways; there is no secret about that." He hesitated. "To be sure," he went on, "she is defined as a Jew because she was born of a Jewish mother. As I was, Vassili. But not you. She did not decide to think of herself as a Jew, even, until she was fifty years old, when it became quite unfashionable."

  "Why unfashionable?"

  "Why? Haven't you ever heard of the Doctors' Plot? No? Well, it was a bad time for Jews, when Stalin decided there was a Jewish conspiracy to destroy him."

  "Do you mean Grandmother was not serious about being a Jew?"

  "Your grandmother is always serious," Smin said heavily. The pain was coming back again. "Still, you are not Jewish. Look at your passport. It says 'Russian.' "

  Vassili looked sullen. "Still, after they had questioned me," he said, "the GehBeh called me 'zhid.'"

  "Then report the man!" cried Smin. "He had no right! You have done nothing wrong. You have nothing to fear."

  Vassili gazed at him with the eyes of someone older than sixteen. "And do you have something to fear, Father?"

  Smin considered that for a moment, then painfully shook his head. The proper answer would be "not anymore," because all of the scores he might have to face were obliterated by one central fact. He was beyond retribution. He was going to die and he did not fear that. He said, "Are you asking if I will go to prison? No. I am sure I won't."

  The boy thought that over for a time, his face opaque.

  Smin watched him, and then said gently, "Vassa, there's more. What is it?"

  "What is what, Father?" the boy asked politely.

  Smin begged, "Please. You still have something on your mind. Tell me what it is."

  "Father, you are very tired," the boy explained. "It isn't fair to you to worry you." Then he took another look at his father's face and shrugged. "Before Nikolai was — arrested — we were, well, talking."

  "About what?"

  And then it all came out, the boy lecturing as though he were making a report to his Komsomol unit: the failings of leadership, the toleration of irregularities, the need for discipline. "Ah," said Smin, nodding, "I see. Your brother said that he wished we had a Stalin again. Is that what you mean?"

  "But what he said makes sense, Father. With Josef Vissarionovich we had strong leadership! He was a great force for discipline."

  "He was a murderer, Vassili!"

  "Father!"

  They were glaring at each other. Vassili looked away first. "You should be resting," he said penitently. "Yes, I know what you mean, Comrade Stalin had some people shot."

  "Some people? Vassili, do you know how many?"

  The boy shrugged. "A few hundred, I suppose."

  "A few hundred? But there were millions, Vassili! Not Trotskyites and wreckers — half of the leadership of the Communist Party! Most of the high officers of the Army! I don't even speak of the peasants who starved in the forced collectivization of the land, or of the millions upon millions who were sent off to the camps to die there, or, maybe, a few, to come back with their health destroyed and their lives ruined!"

  Vassili said, shocked, "But you make him sound like a tyrant, and that is impossible."

  "Is it true. Don't you know anything? Have you never heard of Khrushchev's speech to the Party Congress in 1963?"

  "In 1963 I wasn't born."

  "But you should have known! You should have made it your business to know these things!"

  "How could I know?" Vassili demanded. "If they are true, you should have told me!"

  At ten o'clock Hospital No. 6 had quieted down for the night. Most of the patients were
asleep. The vaulted corridors were empty. The nurses and the duty doctors spoke only in whispers as they made their rounds, checking temperatures, giving an injection of cyclosporine here and an antibiotic there, changing the dressing on a burn, providing a bedpan when needed, replacing the plastic sacks of plasma and whole blood and saline solution and glucose that trickled into the veins of the casualties. Even the dining room, where relatives were permitted to wait, was almost empty as Vassili curled up under a table and tried to sleep.

  It wasn't easy. The boy berated himself for arguing with his father, just when his father needed all his strength and all the help he could get just to stay alive.

  Vassili was also very hungry. The kitchen was long closed. The pale young woman with the Lithuanian name who was now asleep in a blanket on the floor had given him two slices of bread and half an apple out of her own store, hours before. But that was before she learned that he was merely a patient's son (proudly: "But I'm a sister, and so it is more likely my bone marrow will match"), and, even worse, that he was only sixteen years old.

  It began to seem probable to Vassili that his father was not going to come out of this hospital alive.

  It was a hard thought to face. Vassili had never considered the possibility that his father would die. It did not match anything in his experience. For the whole of Vassili's life Simyon Smin had always been there, and very much alive. The boy could not imagine a world that did not have his father alive in it somewhere. Thirteen days ago the thought of his father's death would have been ignored as a ridiculous idea. Now it was no longer ridiculous, but still he could not accept it.

  On the other hand, Vassili was not at all stupid. When the doctor had paused in the hallway to talk to Vassili, he had carefully marked her words and tone and the look on her face. "His condition is very grave," she had said, "but we are doing everything we can." One could interpret that as hopeful, could one not?

  But then, a moment later, he had listened while the doctor was talking to the Lithuanian girl, and the doctor's tone was the same, expression was the same, even the words were almost exactly the same; but Vassili knew for certain that what the doctor was doing was preparing the young woman for the fact that her brother, the fireman, was dying.