named Zhuchok. “Zhuchok,” I’d say, “if you see the people first, give me a shout.”
One night I dreamt I was getting evacuated. The officer yells, “Lady! We’re going to burn everything down and bury it. Come out!” And they drive me somewhere, to some unknown place. Not clear where. It’s not the town, it’s not the village. It’s not even Earth.
One time—I had a nice little kitty. Vaska. One winter the rats were really hungry and they were attacking. There was nowhere to go. They’d crawl under the covers. I had some grain in a barrel, they put a hole in the barrel. But Vaska saved me. I’d have died without him. We’d talk, me and him, and eat dinner. Then Vaska disappeared. The hungry dogs ate him, maybe, I don’t know. They were always running around hungry, until they died. The cats were so hungry they ate their kittens. Not during the summer, but during the winter they would. God, forgive me!
Sometimes now I can’t even make it all the way through the house. For an old woman even the stove is cold during the summer. The police come here sometimes, check things out, they bring me bread. But what are they checking for?
It’s me and the cat. This is a different cat. When we hear the police, we’re happy. We run over. They bring him a bone. Me they’ll ask: “What if the bandits come?” “What’ll they get off me? What’ll they take? My soul? Because that’s all I have.” They’re good boys. They laugh. They brought me some batteries for my radio, now I listen to it. I like Lyudmilla Zykina, but she’s not singing as much anymore. Maybe she’s old now, like me. My man used to say—he used to say, “The dance is over, put the violin back in the case.”
I’ll tell you how I found my kitty. I lost my Vaska. I waited a day, two days, then a month. So that was that. I was all alone. No one even to talk to. I walked around the village, going into other people’s yards, calling out: Vaska. Murka. Vaska! Murka! At first there were a lot of them running around, and then they disappeared somewhere. Death doesn’t care. The earth takes everyone. So I’m walking, and walking. For two days. On the third day I see him under the store. We exchange glances. He’s happy, I’m happy. But he doesn’t say anything. “All right,” I say, “let’s go home.” But he sits there, meowing. So then I say: “What’ll you do here by yourself? The wolves will eat you. They’ll tear you apart. Let’s go. I have eggs, I have some lard.” But how do I explain it to him? Cats don’t understand human language, then how come he understood me? I walk ahead, and he runs behind me. Meowing. “I’ll cut you off some lard.” Meow. “We’ll live together the two of us.” Meow. “I’ll call you Vaska, too.” Meow. And we’ve been living together two winters now.
At night I’ll dream that someone’s been calling me. The neighbor’s voice: “Zina!” Then it’s quiet. And again: “Zina!”
I get bored sometimes, and then I cry.
I go to the cemetery. My mom’s there. My little daughter. She burned up with typhus during the war. Right after we took her to the cemetery, buried her, the sun came out from the clouds. And shone and shone. Like: you should go and dig her up. My husband is there. Fedya. I sit with them all. I sigh a little. You can talk to the dead just like you can talk to the living. Makes no difference to me. I can hear the one and the other. When you’re alone . . . And when you’re sad. When you’re very sad.
Ivan Prohorovich Gavrilenko, he was a teacher, he lived right next to the cemetery. He moved to the Crimea, his son was there. Next to him was Pyotr Ivanovich Miusskiy. He drove a tractor. He was a Stakhanovite, back then everyone was aching to be a Stakhanovite. He had magic hands. He could make lace out of wood. His house, it was the size of the whole village. Oh, I felt so bad, and my blood boiled, when they tore it down. They buried it. The officer was yelling: “Don’t think of it, grandma! It’s on a hot-spot!” Meanwhile he’s drunk. I come over—Pyotr’s crying. “Go on, grandma, it’s all right.” He told me to go. And the next house is Misha Mikhalev’s, he heated the kettles on the farm. He died fast. Left here, and died right away. Next to his house was Stepa Bykhov’s, he was a zoologist. It burned down! Bad people burned it down at night. Stepa didn’t live long. He’s buried somewhere in the Mogilev region. During the war—we lost so many people! Vassily Makarovich Kovalev. Maksim Nikoforenko. They used to live, they were happy. On holidays they’d sing, dance. Play the harmonica. And now, it’s like a prison. Sometimes I’ll close my eyes and go through the village—well, I say to them, what radiation? There’s a butterfly flying, and bees are buzzing. And my Vaska’s catching mice. [Starts crying.]
Oh Lyubochka, do you understand what I’m telling you, my sorrow? You’ll carry it to people, maybe I won’t be here anymore. I’ll be in the ground. Under the roots . . .
Zinaida Yevdokimovna Kovalenko, re-settler
MONOLOGUE ABOUT A WHOLE LIFE WRITTEN DOWN ON DOORS
I want to bear witness . . .
It happened ten years ago, and it happens to me again every day.
We lived in the town of Pripyat. In that town.
I’m not a writer. I won’t be able to describe it. My mind is not capable of understanding it. And neither is my university degree. There you are: a normal person. A little person. You’re just like everyone else—you go to work, you return from work. You get an average salary. Once a year you go on vacation. You’re a normal person! And then one day you’re suddenly turned into a Chernobyl person. Into an animal, something that everyone’s interested in, and that no one knows anything about. You want to be like everyone else, and now you can’t. People look at you differently. They ask you: was it scary? How did the station burn? What did you see? And, you know, can you have children? Did your wife leave you? At first we were all turned into animals. The very word “Chernobyl” is like a signal. Everyone turns their head to look at you. He’s from there!
That’s how it was in the beginning. We didn’t just lose a town, we lost our whole lives. We left on the third day. The reactor was on fire. I remember one of my friends saying, “It smells of reactor.” It was an indescribable smell. But the papers were already writing about that. They turned Chernobyl into a house of horrors, although actually they just turned it into a cartoon. I’m only going to tell about what’s really mine. My own truth.
It was like this: They announced over the radio that you couldn’t take your cats. So we put her in the suitcase. But she didn’t want to go, she climbed out. Scratched everyone. You can’t take your belongings! All right, I won’t take all my belongings, I’ll take just one belonging. Just one! I need to take my door off the apartment and take it with me. I can’t leave the door. I’ll cover the entrance with some boards. Our door—it’s our talisman, it’s a family relic. My father lay on this door. I don’t know whose tradition this is, it’s not like that everywhere, but my mother told me that the deceased must be placed to lie on the door of his home. He lies there until they bring the coffin. I sat by my father all night, he lay on this door. The house was open. All night. And this door has little etch-marks on it. That’s me growing up. It’s marked there: first grade, second grade. Seventh. Before the army. And next to that: how my son grew. And my daughter. My whole life is written down on this door. How am I supposed to leave it?
I asked my neighbor, he had a car: “Help me.” He gestured toward his head, like, You’re not quite right, are you? But I took it with me, that door. At night. On a motorcycle. Through the woods. It was two years later, when our apartment had already been looted and emptied. The police were chasing me. “We’ll shoot! We’ll shoot!” They thought I was a thief. That’s how I stole the door from my own home.
I took my daughter and my wife to the hospital. They had black spots
