We Are Not in Pakistan by Shauna Singh Baldwin Read Free Book Online Page A

1992
    Viktor is spending hours at the Constant Reader, a used bookstore several blocks away. Every weekend. Perhaps he has found a pretty bookseller there. Olena will surprise him.
    The wind is beginning to whip leaves from flaming maples. As she walks, Olena admires the carved pumpkins with which people decorate their doorsteps. A volunteer said none of those pumpkins will be eaten, they will all go to waste. Competing election signs ask her to vote for Clinton, Perot or Bush, but she is not a citizen here. Is she now a citizen of Ukraine or the Soviet Union? American immigration authorities will decide.
    Olena tells the bookseller she is looking for language tapes because she can’t find the words to say anything else.
    She wanders up and down the stacks until she finds Viktor. He’s sitting on a stepstool, old copies of Moscow News spread on the floor beside him. He shows her a 1989 article, “The Big Lie.” It says Soviet leaders covered up Chernobyl. It is news for the world, he says, and he’s glad it was printed. And he shows her another in English about a place called Three Mile Island.
    â€œFor the health of so few, the company paid five million dollars in compensation,” he says. “And in the Soviet Union, the Chernobyl allowance is negligible. Oh, it’s not only the money — we could have learned much from the mistakes of others.”
    Olena rests her hand on the slope of his shoulders. How thin he is! Perhaps they should take the bus home.
    She leads him from the bookstore. At the bus stop, she stifles her habit of staring at dark-skinned people.
    Riding home, Viktor says, “So many big lies. Even in America. Nothing is free here — not health, not good education, not housing. Only they say you are free. I think they mean you can buy blue jeans, black jeans, white jeans, so long as they’re jeans — this is what they call freedom. You can rent an apartment and it looks same as your neighbour’s — just like in Kyiv. You can buy a desk, a chair, a sofa, and there are ten thousand others like it in the homes of other people. And thousands sit before a TV that looks like ours. This is individualism?”
    He is decaying as if a half-life had expired. A doctor told him his white cell count is low. But Olena thinks grief for so many lost comrades, sorrow and self-disgust kill slowly.
    Viktor shows her a book he bought. “For you,” he says. “Taras Schevchenko, in English.”
    A showcase in Olena’s mind displays every gift from Viktor, from the large box with the thousand kisses inside to her iron, a Swiss knife, a blanket from their early days in Moscow. All left far away in Pripyat. Never before has he given her poetry.
    Olena looks out of the bus window and back; everything has blurred.
    The book falls open and she reads slowly, “In foreign lands live foreign folks; their ways are not your way. There will be none to share your woes or pass the time of day.”
    She shows Viktor.
    He has bought himself a book in English, too.
The Gulag Archipelago.
It looks very difficult.
    A few blocks later she says, “You know that Zone of Exclusion they made at Pripyat? I’m living in one here. I can’t speak to anyone, they don’t understand me.”
    Viktor takes out his wallet, opens it and holds out a small square of paper. A photo of Galina. Olena gazes at it with him.
    â€œDid you know, she wants to study public health?” he says. Pride, surprise and admiration are mixed in his voice.
    Olena envies Galina.
    December 1993
    After giving three massages, Olena leaves the spa at two o’clock. Sunshine reflects off store windows and snow-furred lintels. It’s ten below zero with the wind chill factor. It’s good she found a sheepskin jacket and a hat, scarf and boots at the thrift shop. Good that she doesn’t have to wait long at the bus stop.
    She walks home on plowed and salted sidewalks. Snow