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Voices from Chernobyl
Svetlana Alexievich, Keith Gessen
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Voices from Chernobyl
Svetlana Alexievich, Keith Gessen
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Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature and Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award A journalist by trade, who now suffers from an immune deficiency developed while researching this book, presents personal accounts of what happened to the people of Belarus after the nuclear reactor accident in 1986, and the fear, anger, and uncertainty that they still live with. The Nobel Prize in Literature 2015 was awarded to Svetlana Alexievich "for her polyphonic writings, a monument to suffering and courage in our time."
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HistoryThema
Russian HistoryPART ONE
THE LAND OF THE DEAD
MONOLOGUE ON WHY WE REMEMBER
Youâve decided to write about this? About this? But I wouldnât want people to know this about me, what I went through there. On the one hand, thereâs the desire to open up, to say everything, and on the otherâI feel like Iâm exposing myself, and I wouldnât want to do that.
Do you remember how it was in Tolstoy? Pierre Bezukhov is so shocked by the war, he thinks that he and the whole world have changed forever. But then some time passes, and he says to himself: âIâm going to keep yelling at the coach-driver just like before, Iâm going to keep growling like before.â Then why do people remember? So that they can determine the truth? For fairness? So they can free themselves and forget? Is it because they understand theyâre part of a grand event? Or are they looking into the past for cover? And all this despite the fact that memories are very fragile things, ephemeral things, this is not exact knowledge, but a guess that a person makes about himself. It isnât even knowledge, itâs more like a set of emotions.
My emotions . . . I struggled, I dug into my memory and I remembered.
The scariest thing for me was during my childhoodâthat was the war.
I remember how we boys played âmom and dadââweâd take the clothes off the little ones and put them on top of one another. These were the first kids born after the war, because during the war kids were forgotten. We waited for life to appear. We played âmom and dad.â We wanted to see how life would appear. We were eight, ten years old.
I saw a woman trying to kill herself. In the bushes by the river. She had a brick and she was hitting herself in the head with it. She was pregnant from an occupying soldier whom the whole village hated. Also, as a boy, I saw a litter of kittens being born. I helped my mother pull a calf from its mother, I led our pig to meet up with a boar. I rememberâI remember how they brought my fatherâs body, he had on a sweater, my mother had knit it herself, and heâd been shot by a machine gun, and bloody pieces of something were coming out of that sweater. He lay on our only bed, there was nowhere else to put him. Later he was buried in front of the house. And the earth wasnât cotton, it was heavy clay. From the beds for beetroot. There were battles going on all around. The street was filled with dead people and horses.
For me, those memories are so personal, Iâve never spoken of them out loud.
Back then I thought of death just as I did of birth. I had the same feeling when I saw a calf come out of a cowâand the kittens were bornâas when I saw that woman with the brick in the bushes killing herself. For some reason these seemed to me to be the same thingsâbirth and death.
I remember from my childhood how a house smells when a boar is being cut up. Youâve just touched me, and Iâm already falling into there, fallingâinto that nightmare. That terror. Iâm flying into it. I also remember how, when we were little, the women would take us with them to the sauna. And we saw that all the womenâs uteruses (this we could understand even then) were falling out, they were tying them up with rags. I saw this. They were falling out because of hard labor. There were no men, they were at the front, or with the partisans, there were no horses, the women carried all the loads themselves. They ploughed over the gardens themselves, and the kolkhoz fields. When I was older, and I was intimate with a woman, I would remember thisâwhat I saw in the sauna.
I wanted to forget. Forget everything. And I did forget. I thought the most horrible things had already happened. The war. And that I was protected now, that I was protected.
But then I traveled to the Chernobyl Zone. Iâve been there many times now. And understood how powerless I am. Iâm falling apart. My past no longer protects me. There arenât any answers there. They were there before, but now theyâre not. The future is destroying me, not the past.
Pyotr S., psychologist
MONOLOGUE ABOUT WHAT CAN BE TALKED ABOUT WITH THE LIVING AND THE DEAD
The wolf came into the yard at night. I look out the window and there he is, eyes shining, like headlights. Now Iâm used to everything. Iâve been living alone for seven years, seven years since the people left. Sometimes at night Iâll just be sitting here thinking, thinking, until itâs lights out again. So on this day I was up all night, sitting on my bed, and then I went out to look at how the sun was. What should I tell you? Death is the fairest thing in the world. No oneâs ever gotten out of it. The earth takes everyoneâthe kind, the cruel, the sinners. Aside from that, thereâs no fairness on earth. I worked hard and honestly my whole life. But I didnât get any fairness. God was dividing things up somewhere, and by the time the line came to me there was nothing left. A young person can die, an old person has to die . . . At first, I waited for people to comeâI thought theyâd come back. No one said they were leaving forever, they said they were leaving for a while. But now Iâm just waiting for death. Dying isnât hard, but it is scary. Thereâs no church. The priest doesnât come. Thereâs no one to tell my sins to.
The first time they told us we had radiation, we thought: itâs a sort of a sickness, and whoever gets it dies right away. No, they said, itâs this thing that lies on the ground, and gets into the ground, but you canât see it. Animals might be able to see it and hear it, but people canât. But thatâs not true! I saw it. This cesium was lying in my yard, until it got wet with rain. It was an ink-black color. It was lying there and sort of dripping into pieces. I ran home from the kolkhoz and went into my garden. And thereâs another piece, itâs blue. And 200 meters over, thereâs another one. About the size of the kerchief on my head. I called over to my neighbor, the other women, we all ran around looking. All the gardens, and the field nearbyâabout two hectaresâwe found maybe four big chunks. One was red. The next day it rained early, and by lunchtime they were gone. The police came but there was nothing to show them. We could just tell them. The chunks were like this. [She indicates the size with her hands.] Like my kerchief. Blue and red . . .
We werenât too afraid of this radiation. When we couldnât see it, and we didnât know what it was, maybe we were a little afraid, but once weâd seen it, we werenât so afraid. The police and the soldiers put up these signs. Some were next to peopleâs houses, some were in the streetâtheyâd write, 70 curie, 60 curie. Weâd always lived off our potatoes, and then suddenlyâweâre not allowed to! For some people it was real bad, for others it was funny. They advised us to work in our gardens in masks and rubber gloves. And then another big scientist came to the meeting hall and told us that we needed to wash our yards. Come on! I couldnât believe what I was hearing! They ordered us to wash our sheets, our blankets, our curtains. But theyâre in storage! In closets and trunks. Thereâs no radiation in there! Behind glass? Behind closed doors! Come on! Itâs in the forest, in the field. They closed the wells, locked them up, wrapped them in cellophane. Said the water was âdirty.â How can it be dirty when itâs so clean? They told us a bunch of nonsense. Youâll die. You need to leave. Evacuate.
People got scared. They got filled up with fear. At night people started packing up their things. I also got my clothes, folded them up. My red badges for my honest labor, and my lucky kopeika that I had. Such sadness! It filled my heart. Let me be struck down right here if Iâm lying. And then I hear about how the soldiers were evacuating one village, and this old man and woman stayed. Until then, when people were roused up and put on buses, theyâd take their cow and go into the forest. Theyâd wait there. Like during the war, when they were burning down the villages. Why would our soldiers chase us? [Starts crying.] Itâs not stable, our life. I donât want to cry.
Oh! Look thereâa crow. I donât chase them away. Although sometimes a crow will steal eggs from the barn. I still donât chase them away. I donât chase anyone away! Yesterday a little rabbit came over. Thereâs a village nearby, also thereâs one woman living there, I said, come by. Maybe itâll help, maybe it wonât, but at least thereâll be someone to talk to. At night everything hurts. My legs are spinning, like there are little ants running through them, thatâs my nerve running through me. Itâs like that when I pick something up. Like wheat being crushed. Crunch, crunch. Then the nerve calms down. Iâve already worked enough in my life, been sad enough. Iâve had enough of everything and I donât want anything more.
I have daughters, and sons . . . Theyâre all in the city. But Iâm not going anywhere! God gave me years, but he didnât give me a fair share. I know that an old person gets annoying, that the younger generation will run out of patience. I havenât had much joy from my children. The women, the ones whoâve gone into the city, are always crying. Either their daughter-in-law is hurting their feelings, or their daughter is. They want to come back. My husband is here. Heâs buried here. If he wasnât lying here, heâd be living in some other place. And Iâd be with him. [Cheers up suddenly.] And why should I leave? Itâs nice here! Everything grows, everything blooming. From the littlest fly to the animals, everythingâs living.
Iâll remember everything for you. The planes are flying and flying. Every day. They fly real-real low right over our heads. Theyâre flying to the reactor. To the station. One after the other. While here we have the evacuation. Theyâre moving us out. Storming the houses. People have covered up, theyâre hiding. The livestock is moaning, the kids are crying. Itâs war! And the sunâs out . . . I sat down and didnât come out of the hut, though itâs true I didnât lock up either. The soldiers knocked. âMaâam, have you packed up?â And I said: âAre you going to tie my hands and feet?â They didnât say anything, didnât say anything, and then they left. They were young. They were kids! Old women were crawling on their knees in front of the houses, begging. The soldiers picked them up under their arms and into the car. But I told them, whoever touched me was going to get it. I cursed at them! I cursed good. I didnât cry. That day I didnât cry. I sat in my house. One minute thereâs yelling. Yelling! And then itâs quiet. Very quiet. On that dayâthat first day I didnât leave the house.
They told me later that there was a column of people walking. And next to that there was a column of livestock. It was war! My husband liked to say that people shoot, but itâs God who delivers the bullet. Everyone has his own fate. The young ones who left, some of them have already died. In their new place. Whereas me, Iâm still walking around. Slowing down, sure. Sometimes itâs boring, and I cry. The whole village is empty. Thereâs all kinds of birds here. They fly around. And thereâs elk here, all you want. [Starts crying.]
I remember everything. Everyone up and left, but they left their dogs and cats. The first few days I went around pouring milk for all the cats, and Iâd give the dogs a piece of bread. They were standing in their yards waiting for their masters. They waited for them a long time. The hungry cats ate cucumbers. They ate tomatoes. Until the fall I took care of my neighborâs lawn, up to the fence. Her fence fell down, I hammered it back up again. I waited for the people. My neighbor had a dog named Zhuchok. âZhuchok,â Iâd say, âif you see the people first, give me a shout.â
One night I dreamt I was getting evacuated. The officer yells, âLady! Weâre going to burn everything down and bury it. Come out!â And they drive me somewhere, to some unknown place. Not clear where. Itâs not the town, itâs not the village. Itâs not even Earth.
One timeâI had a nice little kitty. Vaska. One winter the rats were really hungry and they were attacking. There was nowhere to go. Theyâd crawl under the covers. I had some grain in a barrel, they put a hole in the barrel. But Vaska saved me. Iâd have died without him. Weâd talk, me and him, and eat dinner. Then Vaska disappeared. The hungry dogs ate him, maybe, I donât 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 canât 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?
Itâs me and the cat. This is a different cat. When we hear the police, weâre happy. We run over. They bring him a bone. Me theyâll ask: âWhat if the bandits come?â âWhatâll they get off me? Whatâll they take? My soul? Because thatâs all I have.â Theyâre good boys. They laugh. They brought me some batteries for my radio, now I listen to it. I like Lyudmilla Zykina, but sheâs not singing as much anymore. Maybe sheâs old now, like me. My man used to sayâhe used to say, âThe dance is over, put the violin back in the case.â
Iâll 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 peopleâs yards, calling out: Vaska. Murka. Vaska! Murka! At first there were a lot of them running around, and then they disappeared somewhere. Death doesnât care. The earth takes everyone. So Iâm walking, and walking. For two days. On the third day I see him under the store. We exchange glances. Heâs happy, Iâm happy. But he doesnât say anything. âAll right,â I say, âletâs go home.â But he sits there, meowing. So then I say: âWhatâll you do here by yourself? The wolves will eat you. Theyâll tear you apart. Letâs go. I have eggs, I have some lard.â But how do I explain it to him? Cats donât understand human language, then how come he understood me? I walk ahead, and he runs behind me. Meowing. âIâll cut you off some lard.â Meow. âWeâll live together the two of us.â Meow. âIâll call you Vaska, too.â Meow. And weâve been living together two winters now.
At night Iâll dream that someoneâs been calling me. The neighborâs voice: âZina!â Then itâs quiet. And again: âZin...