Voices From Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster Read Online Free PDF Page B

were leaving forever, they said they were leaving for a while. But now I'm just waiting for death. Dying isn't hard, but it is scary. There's no church. The priest doesn’t come. There’s no one to tell my sins to.
    The first time they told us we had radiation, we thought: It's a sort of a sickness, and whoever gets it dies right away. No, no, they said, it's this thing that lies on the ground, and gets into the ground, but you can't see it. Animals might be able to see it and hear it, but people can't.
    The police and the soldiers put up these signs. Some were next to people’s houses, some were in the street—they’d write, 70 curie, 60 curie. We’d always lived off our potatoes, and then suddenly—we’re 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 couldn't believe what I was hearing! They ordered us to wash our sheets, our blankets, our curtains. But they’re in storage! In closers and trunks. There's no radiation in there! Behind glass? Behind closed doors! Come on! It’s in the forest, in the field. They closed the wells, locked them up, wrapped them in cellophane. Said the water was “dirty.” How can it be dirty when it's so clean? They told us a bunch of nonsense. You'll 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 I'm 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, they'd take their cow and go into the forest. They'd wait there. Like during the war, when they were burning down the villages. Why would our soldiers chase us? [Starts crying.] It's not stable, our life. I don't want to cry.
    Oh! Look there—a crow. I don't chase them away. Although sometimes a crow will steal eggs from the barn. I still don’t chase them away. I don't chase anyone away! Yesterday a little rabbit came over. There's a village nearby, also there's one woman living there, I said, come by. Maybe it'll help, maybe it won't, but at least there'll be someone to talk to. At night everything hurts. My legs are tingling, like there are little ants running through them, that’s my nerve running through me. It's like that when I pick something up. Like wheat being crushed. Crunch, crunch. Then the nerve calms down. I've already worked enough in my life, been sad enough. I've had enough of everything and I don't want anything more.
    I have daughters, and sons . . . They’re all in the city. But I’m not going anywhere! God gave me years, but he didn't give me a fair share. I know that an old person gets boring, that the younger generation will run out of patience. I haven’t had much joy from my children. The women, the ones who've 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. He’s buried here. If he wasn’t lying here, he'd be living in some other place. And I’d be with him. [Cheers up suddenly .] And why should I leave? It's nice here! Everything grows, everything blooming. From the littlest fly to the animals, everything’s living.
    I'll remember everything for you. The planes are flying and flying. Every day. They fly real, real low, right over our heads. They're flying to the reactor. To the station. One after the other. While here we have the evacuation. They're moving us out. Storming the houses. People have gone under cover, they’re hiding. The livestock is moaning, the kids are crying. It's war! And the sun’s out ... I