The Blackbird Girls Read online

  Memories tumbled inside her head, so fast she couldn’t grab hold of any of them. Sitting on the banks of Pripyat River with her father, his surprised laugh when she caught a fish. Curling up next to him on the sofa while he watched ice hockey on television. Eating in the kitchen, his quick grin when he tasted the cake she had baked on her own. His smile felt like sunlight. And now he was gone. Forever.

  “Oh, Papa,” she cried out.

  Her mother let go of her. She brought her knees to her chest, hugging herself. “I can’t live without him,” she said.

  “Mama,” Oksana managed to say through her tears. She reached for her mother, but Mama stood up.

  “I’m all alone,” she said. She began to cry again, softly this time.

  Oksana watched as her mother shuffled back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t ask questions. She would be good and quiet, and surely Mama would return.

  Slowly, she swept up the broken glass. Then she sat down, folding her hands neatly in her lap. She waited for Mama to come back to her, but her mother never did.

  8

  Valentina

  FIVE STORIES ABOVE Oksana’s apartment, Valentina watched her mother get four tablets out of the medicine chest in the bathroom. She and her mother had barely spoken since they’d walked home from the hospital a second time. They’d slipped and nearly fallen in the foam, and her mother had made her leave her dirty shoes out in the corridor, even though somebody could steal them. Mama said it didn’t matter, and whoever was foolish enough to want contaminated shoes was welcome to them.

  She and Mama had each taken a shower, and then Mama had thrown the clothes they had been wearing into the corridor as well. Now she dropped two tablets each into a glass of water. They quickly dissolved.

  Valentina knew what they were: Papa had bought iodine tablets when he’d begun working at the power station. Just in case, he’d said, and they’d laughed because they’d thought nuclear accidents didn’t happen.

  Her throat tightened with tears.

  “Drink this.” Her mother pushed the glass into her hand. “You need to take two tablets every hour.”

  Valentina drank. Every time she swallowed, it hurt. “How are the doctors in Moscow going to heal Papa?”

  Her mother’s breath hitched. “I don’t know. But the government wouldn’t fly him and the other men to Moscow if they didn’t think they could fix them.”

  Valentina nodded. She knew her mother was right; the government would do what was best for her father.

  Her mother guided Valentina out of the bathroom into the kitchen. “We must stay low to the ground. Papa taught me that radiation rises. We have to stay here, out of the poisoned air outside, until the government comes to rescue us.”

  She pulled Valentina under the kitchen table. Valentina’s mind worked furiously. The soldiers had worn gas masks. And Dyadya Sergei hadn’t gone near the power station; he had been on the roof, sunbathing, until he fell ill. When the reactor had exploded, the doctor at the hospital had said it released radiation into the atmosphere—which meant they were breathing it in all the time.

  The walls and closed windows would only help a little. She and her mother had already been outside off and on all day, breathing in the radiation. And staying low wouldn’t do anything; after all, they lived on the ninth floor of their apartment building! What about Papa? He’d been inside the reactor for who knew how long until he’d been sent to the hospital. How much poisoned air had he breathed?

  She grabbed her mother’s arm. “Are we going to get sick, too? Is Papa going to be okay?”

  Her mother held her close. “I don’t know. We must have hope.”

  They lay together on the cold floor. The walls were so thin, Valentina could hear her own shallow, rapid breathing and the neighbor’s clock, ticking in the darkness.

  Valentina’s mother woke her every hour to give her more iodine. Eventually, the mineral water ran out, and she had to use the faucet. At midnight, Valentina noticed her mother had stopped dosing herself.

  “We only have ten tablets,” her mother said. “You need them more than I do.”

  “But Mama—”

  “Don’t argue. I couldn’t bear it if I took medicine that you ought to have.”

  Valentina curled herself into a ball. Her mother lay next to her, holding her hand. As Valentina drifted to sleep, she sensed her mother’s fingers interlaced with hers.

  When she woke, she was alone.

  * * *

  - - -

  Valentina crawled out from under the table. In the dark, she could barely see the outlines of the kitchen cupboards and the sofa. The room was silent and still. Only furniture. No Mama.

  Valentina started to get up, then remembered what her mother had said about radiation rising. She must stay low.

  On all fours, she crawled to the bathroom. The door had been left ajar. The curtains hadn’t been drawn, and the window glinted red and black. The reactor was still burning.

  Where had Mama gone?

  Valentina crawled across the main room to her parents’ bedchamber. “Mama, are you there?”

  Nothing.

  Should she leave the apartment and look for her mother? Mama had said they must stay indoors, safe from the contaminated air.

  A door creaked open. Valentina sat up. “Mama?”

  Heels clicked on the floorboards. “Valya?” Mama’s voice.

  Valentina crawled into the main room. “I’m here.”

  “Thank goodness!” Mama dropped to her knees and pulled Valentina into an embrace.

  “Where were you?” Valentina demanded.

  Her mother hugged her tighter. “I couldn’t stop thinking about what the doctor at the hospital told us. About how dangerous the explosion is. It isn’t fair that other people don’t know, too. So I went to warn our neighbors about the radiation. None of them believed me.”

  “Why not?”

  Sighing, her mother released her. “Because we’ve been taught to have faith in our government. To believe our Motherland will protect us. But it’s easier for people like us to doubt.”

  “People like us?”

  “Jews,” her mother said softly. “For many years, we’ve known we aren’t welcome in our own country.”

  Valentina shifted uncomfortably. “But . . . if the government really didn’t want us here, wouldn’t they send us away?”

  Her mother gave her a searching look. “There are many ways to hurt people besides exiling them. Why do you think I don’t teach at your school?”

  Valentina had never thought about it before. Her mother gave private piano lessons; that was the way it had always been. She shrugged.

  “I have a teaching degree in music,” her mother said. “I’m as qualified as any of your teachers. But I’ve never been able to get a proper teaching post because of our religion.”

  “That’s silly,” Valentina objected. “We don’t even go to a synagogue.”

  That was true. Nobody did, as far as Valentina knew. None of her schoolmates went to church, either. It simply wasn’t done. Valentina didn’t know anything about Judaism: the beliefs, the holidays, or the customs. Nothing.

  “Our traditions were stamped out after the Communist revolution,” her mother said. “Your father and I grew up without religion, too. But we are branded as Jews all the same.”

  “Then why has Papa been able to get such good jobs?” Valentina asked.

  “Jews have an easier time in the technical professions. Your father, though, still had to put in his time in Siberia before he was assigned here.”

  They had all put in their time in Siberia. The place where she had been born and where she had lived with her parents until she was five was a secret city. It didn’t have a proper name, and it didn’t appear on any maps. Most people didn’t even kn
ow it existed. The city housed a nuclear power station and other facilities where mysterious experiments were carried out. Her father had taken a post there because once he worked for five years in Siberia, the government was required to assign him to a better location.

  And the better location had turned out to be Pripyat. Her parents had danced around their old apartment when they had gotten the news.

  Valentina’s mother stroked her hair. “Communism is supposed to be paradise. And there aren’t mistakes in paradise. The explosion at the power station was a mistake. Our government can’t admit to the world that we’re responsible for an accident. They’re trying to cover it up.”

  She framed Valentina’s face with her hands. “Everyone in Pripyat is now part of the mistake. We’ve all received radiation. I won’t lie to you and pretend I know what this means for our futures. I don’t know if we’ll become ill, too. I do know, though, that whatever happens, I’ll do anything to keep you safe.”

  Valentina leaned against her mother. “I’ll keep you safe, too, Mama.”

  “Thank you, my love. But that isn’t your responsibility,” her mother said.

  From outside came the whump-whump-whump of helicopter blades. Valentina sat upright. Who was there? What were they doing?

  She started to go to the window, but her mother held her back. “Stay away from the windows,” her mother said. “Radiation might travel through glass.”

  So Valentina had to lie on the floor, watching firelight flicker red in the gaps where the curtains hadn’t been drawn fully together and wondering what was happening outside—and what would happen next.

  9

  Oksana

  AFTER BREAKFAST, OKSANA’S mother turned on the radio to listen to the news. The announcers talked about the upcoming May Day celebrations. May Day was a holiday across the Soviet Union. Schools and businesses closed, and in every city people took to the streets to watch a military parade.

  Ordinarily, Oksana loved May Day: the red banners hanging from the buildings and the red ribbons pinned to people’s shirts, and the trumpets and drums. Best of all, her father loved May Day, too. When she was little, she used to sit on his shoulders to see the tanks and soldiers. For the last few years, they had held hands and he had given her a rose to throw to the troops as they marched past.

  Now he was gone. No more hand to hold. No more happy May Days.

  She had to swallow hard so she didn’t burst into tears.

  Her mother twisted the radio dial, silencing the announcers’ voices. “They didn’t say a word about the accident.” She looked so tired. “We won’t even get Papa’s body back. For burial. If they can remove it from the nuclear reactor, they’ll have to bury him someplace remote, in a lead coffin.”

  Something twisted inside Oksana’s chest. She didn’t want to think about her father lying in a box, beneath layers of grass and soil. She wanted him back, sitting here at this table with them, skimming through the newspaper as he always did on Sundays, which were his day off.

  Without another word, Oksana’s mother got up and went into the bedroom. Oksana heard the door shut with a click.

  Oksana looked at the dirty breakfast dishes. She knew what was expected of her.

  After she had washed the dishes, she went to the sofa, where she folded her bedding and put it away in the trunk. Her hand hesitated over her notebook. No. There was nothing she wanted to draw.

  The hours passed with agonizing slowness. Oksana didn’t have school. There was nowhere for her to go, nothing for her to do except push her tears down inside, so deep they couldn’t possibly come out. The whole time, her shoulder ached. Sometimes it throbbed so badly she had to grit her teeth. She wondered what her mother was doing in the bedroom. Sleeping? Crying silently? And why wouldn’t she call out to Oksana and ask her to come inside?

  Oksana choked back her sobs. She had never felt so alone.

  Suddenly, from outside, a woman’s voice boomed: “Attention, comrades!”

  Oksana listened.

  “An unsatisfactory radioactive situation has occurred at the Chernobyl power station,” the woman continued. Her voice sounded tinny. The loudspeakers in the streets must be broadcasting her message.

  “As a temporary precaution,” the woman continued, “it has been decided to evacuate people from Pripyat today.”

  The bedroom door burst open. Oksana’s mother rushed out. In silence, she and Oksana listened to the rest of the announcement. A helicopter was already dropping leaflets with instructions over the city. All residents must be outside promptly in two hours. Anyone who remained in their apartment would be removed by soldiers.

  Oksana’s mother stood in the middle of the room, her hands fluttering at her sides. She was still wearing her dressing gown. From the pillow creases lining her cheeks, Oksana guessed she had been asleep. “If only Ilya could tell me what to do!”

  A wave of impatience washed over Oksana. “Mama, we have to pack and get out of here. So we don’t get sick,” she added when he mother didn’t say anything.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her mother sank onto the sofa. “Nothing does, without Ilya.”

  Don’t I matter? Oksana wanted to ask. Tears burned in her eyes, and she had to look away from her mother.

  A knock sounded on the door. Her mother didn’t move, so Oksana went to answer it.

  Their next-door neighbor stood in the doorway. “I heard about your father,” she said, giving a blue sheet of paper to Oksana. “You have my sympathies, my dear child. I suppose your mother is dithering about as usual?”

  Oksana didn’t know what that meant. “My mother’s on the sofa.”

  The neighbor snorted. “Naturally. Eleonora,” she called over Oksana’s shoulder, “you’d better hurry or the soldiers will make you evacuate. By force,” she added, then walked back to her apartment.

  Oksana read the blue sheet. It was their evacuation orders. They were allowed to bring one suitcase each and three days’ worth of clothes. Nothing more. The authorities must expect them to be able to come back soon. Perhaps the fire had already been put out.

  Oksana went to the window. At the horizon, smoke rose above the power station. When the veils of black smoke parted, she could see the roof of the ruined reactor. It was mostly gone. Flames leapt out of the opening. Men were up there, throwing things into the gaping hole. She wondered if they were flinging bags of sand or dirt to smother the fire. Above the building, a helicopter flew back and forth in slow arcs.

  The fire still blazed, and even inside the apartment a metallic taste clung to her mouth.

  “Start packing.” Her mother sounded exhausted. “And bring your schoolbooks, too. Wherever we go, I expect you’ll continue with your schooling.”

  She vanished into the bedroom. Oksana thought of her clothes, neatly hung in her parents’ wardrobe, and of her schoolbooks, tucked into her satchel. If she brought a few pieces of clothing and her work, she should still have some space left in her suitcase.

  Quickly, before her mother could come back into the room, she opened the trunk and pulled out her drawing notebook. She’d put it at the bottom of her suitcase, under her clothes. Her mother wouldn’t see it.

  * * *

  - - -

  Two hours later, they left their apartment. As Oksana waited in the corridor, her mother locked the door and pocketed the key.

  “Mama,” Oksana said, “you don’t need to take the key with you. Nobody’s going to come here and steal our things while we’re gone.”

  “Maybe not.” Her mother put a hand to her temple, as if she had a headache. She had finally gotten dressed in the smart dress and heels she wore to her job as a lawyer’s secretary. “I wonder where they’ll send us. Someplace nice, I’m sure, to make up for the accident. Perhaps it will be one of those fancy resort spas on the Black Sea.”

  Oksana hoped so. She had never seen the ocean
.

  She and her mother joined the orderly procession of people streaming down the stairwell. Everyone was quiet. Small children held on to their mothers’ hands, and older kids clutched their bags. Nobody laughed or made a joke.

  Outside the air still tasted of metal, and this time, of soot, too. On the far side of the city, smoke hovered above the buildings, throwing long shadows across their brick-and-white- plaster faces. In Oksana’s street, buses lined the curbs. The drone of helicopters muffled people’s voices.

  Doctors in white coats and soldiers in uniforms shouted instructions: “Form lines! Quickly!”

  Oksana and her mother got into place behind a dark-haired woman. The woman turned to smile at them, and Oksana saw it was her teacher, Svetlana Dmitrievna. She held a cat in her arms.

  “Hello, Oksana,” Svetlana Dmitrievna said. “This will be an adventure, won’t it? An unexpected holiday of sorts. You can’t tell me you’re sorry to miss the mathematics exam tomorrow!”

  How could her teacher make jokes when Papa was dead? She didn’t know, Oksana realized. It felt as though the world should have ended, because Papa was gone, but for everyone else, it hadn’t. Only for her and Mama.

  “No,” she heard herself say. “I don’t mind missing the exam.”

  Up ahead, doctors held small gadgets next to the first person in each line. The gadgets emitted a series of clicks. The doctors nodded and directed the first people toward the waiting buses.

  “They’re checking us with dosimeters,” Svetlana Dmitrievna explained in a whisper. “They want to see how much radiation we’ve received.”

  “Won’t we all have gotten the same amount?” Oksana asked.

  “People who live close to the power station probably received more than we did.”

  Buses stood in a long line on the opposite side of the street. Between them, Oksana could see patches of the plaza. The grass was the pale green of early spring, but the leaves and needles of the poplars and evergreens looked strange. Oksana squinted.