Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster by Svetlana Alexievich Read Free Book Online Page B

on the film were, like, radiated—you couldn't see them during the day.
    I talked to some scientists. One told me, “I could lick your helicopter with my tongue and nothing would happen to me." Another said, “You're flying without protection? You don't want to live too long? Big mistake! Cover yourselves!" We lined the helicopter seats with lead, made ourselves some lead vests, but it turns out those protect you from one type of ray, but not from another. We flew from morning to night. There was nothing spectacular in it. Just work, hard work. At night we watched television—the World Cup was on, so we talked a lot about soccer.
    We started thinking about it—I guess it must have been—three years later. One of the guys got sick, then another. Someone died. Another went insane and killed himself. That's when we started thinking. But we'll only really understand in about 20-30 years. For me, Afghanistan (I was there two years) and then Chernobyl (I was there three months), are the most memorable moments of my life.
    I didn’t tell my parents I'd been sent to Chernobyl. My brother happened to be reading Izvestia one day and saw my picture. He brought it to our mom. “Look," he says, “he's a hero!" My mother started crying.
    *
    We were driving, and you know what I saw? By the side of the road? Under a ray of light—this thin little sliver of light—something crystal. These . . . We were going in the direction of
    Kalinkovich, through Mozyr. Something glistened. We talked about it—in the village where we worked, we all noticed there were tiny little holes in the leaves, especially on the cherry trees. We’d pick cucumbers and tomatoes—and the leaves would have these black holes. We'd curse and eat them.
    I went. I didn't have to go. I volunteered. At first you didn't see any indifferent people there, it was only later that you saw the emptiness in their eyes, when they got used to it. I was after a medal? I wanted benefits? Bullshit! I didn't need anything for myself An apartment, a car—what else? Right, a dacha. I had all those things. But they appealed to our sense of masculinity. Manly men were going off to do this important thing. And everyone else? They can hide under women’s skirts, if they want. There were guys with pregnant wives, others had little babies, a third had burns. They all cursed to themselves and came anyway.
    We came home. I took off all the clothes that I'd worn there and threw them down the trash chute. I gave my cap to my little son. He really wanted it. And he wore it all the time. Two years later they gave him a diagnosis: a tumor in his brain . . . You can write the rest of this yourself. I don’t want to talk anymore.
    *
    I had just come home from Afghanistan. I wanted to live a little, get married. I wanted to get married right away. And suddenly here’s this announcement with a red banner, “Special Call-Up,” come to this address within the hour. Right away my mother started crying. She thought I was being called up again for the war.
    Where are we going? Why? There was no information at all.
    At the Slutsk station, we changed trains, they gave us equipment, and then we were told that we were going to the Khoyniki regional center. We got to Khoyniki, and people there didn't know anything. They took us further, to a village, and there’s a wedding going on: young people dancing, music, vodka. Just a normal marriage. And we have an order: get rid of the topsoil to the depth of one spade.
    On May 9, V-Day, a general came. They lined us up, congratulated us on the holiday. One of the guys got up the courage and asked, “Why aren’t they telling us the radiation levels? What kind of doses are we getting?" Just one guy. Well, after the general left, the brigadier called him in and gave him hell. “That's a provocation! You’re an alarmist!" A few days later they gave us some gas masks, but no one used them. They showed us dosimeters a couple of times, but they never actually