Lazlo Horvath Thriller - 01 - Chernobyl Murders

by Michael Beres

  “Yes, she did.”

  “Good. I have to go. Others are waiting to use the phone.”

  “Kiss the girls for me, Nina.”

  “I will.”

  Easter dinner with Juli and Aunt Magda reminded Lazlo of boyhood Easters. Sausage, veal loaf, cheese, bread, and hard-boiled eggs, all prepared on Good Friday, put into the Easter basket, and taken to church to be blessed on Holy Saturday. The smell of the food evoked images from boyhood. His parents healthy and strong, his kid brother, Mihaly, running to keep up as they walked uphill from the village of Kisbor with the blessed food.

  The Easter meal is served cold on a large platter. After prayer, a single blessed egg is peeled and divided equally among those present as a reminder of who shared the Easter feast. According to tradition, if you experience misfortune during the coming year, you will remember those with whom you shared the egg, and this will give you strength.

  Aunt Magda’s Easter tradition was the same. She said decorated eggs dated back to before Christ. According to legend, as long as someone in the world decorated Easter eggs, the world would continue.

  While he ate his portion of the blessed egg, Lazlo wondered if Mihaly had a chance to think of tradition before the reactor exploded.

  After the shared egg was eaten, Lazlo uncorked the Hungarian wine he brought. He, Juli, and Aunt Magda gave a toast to safety and peace of mind for all Chernobyl victims and refugees. Aunt Magda said because she had no children, she had celebrated Easter alone since her husband died several years earlier. This year she was grateful to have guests. During their toast, Lazlo noticed that, although she held up her glass, Juli had only a sip of wine.

  As they ate, the conversation naturally turned to questions about Chernobyl. Radio Moscow’s latest report was two deaths and a hundred or so injured. Lazlo described the roadblocks, the refugees sent to collective farms. Juli said years of illness and an increased probability of cancer could be expected among refugees and emergency workers.

  “We may all die of this someday,” she said, putting down her fork and looking out the window. “Not suddenly, but gradually.

  Chernobyl children will be frightened of rain and snow. Even those receiving potassium iodide have no guarantees.”

  “No iodine for me,” said Aunt Magda. “I’d rather the children have it. Neighbors have asked about Chernobyl because they know Juli worked there. I don’t know what to say. Yesterday while I weeded the garden, Mariya Grinkevich said men are watching the house.”

  Juli nodded and turned to Lazlo. “I’ve seen a car on the road with two men inside.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Lazlo. “If you see them, it means they want you to know you’re being watched. It’s simply a warning.”

  “Do they watch everyone who worked at Chernobyl?” asked Aunt Magda.

  “I’m not sure,” said Lazlo.

  “I think they would like to,” said Juli. “Mihaly said the KGB was constantly around, waiting for something to happen so they could cover it up.”

  After dinner Aunt Magda stayed in the kitchen while Juli and Lazlo went into the living room. Lazlo sat on the sofa, watching as Juli walked to the front window. Her cotton dress hung loosely about her waist. The sun through the window enveloped her. Although Juli’s child did not show, the loose dress reminded him of Nina several summers earlier, pregnant with Ilonka.

  “I can’t see the car now,” said Juli. “You said if I can’t see them I should worry.”

  “I saw them on my way here,” said Lazlo. “They’re parked up the street near the corner.”

  When Juli left the window and sat beside him on the sofa, Lazlo stared at her profile, wondering why she reminded him of Nina.

  True, they both had brown hair, both were slender and about the same height. But Nina’s eyes were brown, whereas Juli’s were greenish-gray. She moved slightly closer and turned to face him. The sun from the window shadowing her face brought forth an image from youth. The visage of a fictitious young woman from boyhood dreams. A young woman not only beautiful, but someone to save from danger. The age-old boyhood fantasy, becoming a hero. However, boyhood was long gone, stolen away by the world of guns and reactors and the KGB.

  Juli put her hand on his hand. “I’m sorry, Lazlo. I’ve done nothing but add sadness to your life.” Tears came to her eyes. “Your brother is gone, and I’m …”

  “You haven’t created sadness, Juli. It’s always there, a part of life. Please go on. We need to talk about Mihaly.”

  Juli took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “So much of Mihaly is gone. He was always joking. It was part of him. He joked when he didn’t want to talk about something. He joked when I brought up his family. It was because the effect of our relationship on his family overwhelmed him.”

  “How would he have reacted to the baby?”

  Juli looked down. “I’ve imagined it a thousand different ways, selfish ways with Mihaly deserting me, or blaming me.”

  “Do you think he would have blamed you?”

  “No. I imagined it because I thought it would be easier to say good-bye. I was going to tell him about the baby Friday on the bus.

  But he was worried about the reactor. Instead of telling him, I kept it from him and … we argued. The same argument. One of us saying we must end it. The other softening. Back and forth …”

  Juli folded her hands in her lap and looked up at him. “Technology rules our lives. We act like the machines. All this damned logic when nothing is really logical. Bringing children into the world, keeping them healthy, giving them moments of happiness along the way. And after they’ve grown up, happiness disappears.”

  When Aunt Magda brought plum brandy, Juli went into the kitchen for water instead. Back on the sofa, when Juli looked at him above her water glass, Lazlo saw the emotions of a woman. He was reminded of Nina sipping wine at dinner last winter in Pripyat. He was reminded of Tamara’s eyes glowing in candlelight at Club Ukrainka. He saw in Juli’s eyes a sadness he had seen in his mother’s eyes when she was alive.

  “I wonder,” said Juli, “if the KGB knows what Mihaly told me.”

  “You mean the test on the reactor?”

  “Yes. What if the chief engineer was knowingly doing something dangerous? Mihaly said the plant might be a guinea pig. The chief engineer wasn’t there. Why wouldn’t he be there when the experiment was his idea?”

  Lazlo did not answer. An experiment; Mihaly, the scapegoat.

  Would they blame it on error or laziness? Would they accuse Juli of seducing Mihaly, causing emotional upset in his life? And what about Cousin Zukor last summer at the farm? Lazlo mistrusted Zukor and had the feeling his questioning of Mihaly about Chernobyl might turn up again.

  Juli’s eyes, reflecting light from the front window, did not blink.

  Lazlo wondered if he was performing an experiment. Staring into this woman’s eyes to see how it would affect her, or him. His chest felt suddenly smaller in size, breathless, his thoughts veering away from the logical path of investigation.

  Before considering the consequences, Lazlo leaned forward and kissed her. And she kissed him. They did not embrace. They did not close their eyes. When he withdrew, he expected a reaction, a comment. Instead, Juli sipped her water and began speaking again as if nothing had happened.

  “When I was a girl, my father took me skating in Gorky Park.

  His friends were there, and he’d tell them about my schoolwork. I remember being embarrassed. When I was older, he wanted me to go to medical school. ‘A career based on compassion, perfect for a woman,’ he said. I should have followed his advice. If I’d become a doctor, none of this would have happened. I would have been in Moscow. And at Chernobyl, Mihaly’s boss, compassionate and aware of Mihaly’s family, would not have put him in charge during the experiment.”

  When Aunt Magda returned with brandy to refill Lazlo’s glass, he declined because soon he was due back at the roadblock. Juli had turned, her knees pressing against his leg. The house w
as warm.

  The brandy made him even warmer. And now this woman carrying his brother’s child immersed him in womblike warmth. He wanted to kiss her again. He wanted to hold her. He wanted the rest of the world to go away for at least this brief time before the devil named duty called him back to the cold world.

  Although Lazlo reminded her of Mihaly, he was not Mihaly. Lazlo was a man of his own making, sensitive and honorable, but with a mysterious past. A man filled with melancholy. She felt it deep inside when he kissed her. A man so alone, so wanting to encompass her life. How could he do this? How could he fall in love with her now? And why did she want so much to embrace him? Insane! Mihaly dead, and now his brother sits so close, so close.

  Juli recalled the photograph she’d seen in Mihaly’s apartment.

  Lazlo in the wedding party, smiling with pride. Lazlo looking so much like Mihaly, but also looking like her father. A man brought to her by fate, speaking about a wine cellar on the farm where he and Mihaly grew up.

  “We spent a lot of time in the wine cellar last summer. Down there we could go back in time. If we stuck our heads up out of the hole, we’d see our mother in the yard hanging laundry. When the wine began to flow, we confessed our sins. Because we were brothers, because we trusted one another, the confessions were more revealing than those to a priest.”

  Lazlo turned to the window, the resemblance of his profile to Mihaly’s profile making her shudder. He turned back to her. “What Mihaly told me in the wine cellar might account for both of us being followed. He said there were serious problems at Chernobyl. He worked in the control room. He was around the reactor all the time.

  He saw what went on.”

  “So did others,” said Juli. “The so-called ‘disregard for safety’

  at the plant generated jokes. It was a way of coping. Officials disciplined anyone who spoke openly. Some were sent away to psychiatric hospitals.”

  “Initially Mihaly said he would resign because of the probability of an accident. Later he said he’d mentioned problems at Chernobyl to avoid telling me about you.”

  “But he did tell you about me.”

  “He told me. I hadn’t even met you and I hated you.”

  “Do you hate me now?”

  Lazlo put his hand on her knee, leaned close, and whispered,

  “How could I?”

  The KGB had more aggressive methods than monitoring correspondence and telephone conversations when it came to keeping track of suspected anti-Soviets. Most common was direct observation, noting movements and contacts.

  Pavel and Nikolai discussed the ramifications of KGB methods as they sat in a shiny black Volga parked up the street from Aunt Magda’s house.

  “So,” said Nikolai, “you’re saying there’s no point placing microphones or even reading the mail because guilty people won’t say anything to begin with?”

  “Right,” said Pavel. “Our work in the Pripyat post office was a waste of time.”

  “Then there’s no point to any of this.” Nikolai motioned with his hand at the dashboard of the Volga and at his new suit of clothes.

  “What we’re doing here is as useless as reading those idiot peasants’

  letters.”

  “Would you rather be back in the post office?” asked Pavel. “Or worse yet, getting a fatal dose of radiation hunting down idiots stu-pid enough to stay in Pripyat?”

  “No,” said Nikolai. “I’m simply bored. And I’m really hungry.

  I think the iodine we took increases appetite. Do you smell food?

  Someone’s cooking somewhere.”

  “My sister-in-law’s probably cooking an elaborate dinner for my wife right now,” said Pavel.

  “How far away is your sister-in-law’s place?” asked Nikolai. “If we get a break, we could go for a bite, and you and your wife …”

  Pavel waved dismissively. “Not a chance. Anyway, I don’t smell food. All I smell is the newness of the car and perhaps your foul breath.”

  “Careful,” said Nikolai. “We carry pistols now. In the post office all we did was throw crumpled letters at one another.”

  “I wonder if anyone will ever be allowed back in Pripyat,” said Pavel.

  “A tragedy,” said Nikolai. “Banners for May Day prepared, and no one to use them. Maybe the whole thing was a conspiracy planned in Moscow. A big distillery hidden among the reactors at Chernobyl to keep employees 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?