Viktor watched the old man's cold, dark eyes, alive inside a gray face that seemed a coffin encasing a spirit not quite ready for the tomb.  Out of respect, he waited.  Yevgheny and Angelina didn't bother.  Laughing and happy, they ate, ignoring the old man's silent presence.

            "You must be very happy to have both your sons home at once, Aneliia," Angelina said.

            Smiling, the old woman nodded, answering with her mouth half-filled with food.  "I worry every day for my Yevgheny, alone and in constant danger, for fourteen months."

            Viktor nodded his agreement. "We are glad you are home and safe, Yevgheny."

            Like a schoolgirl, Angelina rested her chin on her palms and gazed into Yevgheny's deep blue eyes.

"What was it like?"

            Yevgheny placed his fork on the table and leaned back in his chair.  "It was a desert."

            "Did you kill anyone?"

            Aneliia glared at her pretty daughter-in-law. "Angelina!  What kind of question is that for a returning hero?"

            Viktor pretended not to hear, but Yevgheny grinned.  "I flew assault helicopters.  If you can't see the enemy die, you haven't really killed him."

            Angelina giggled.  Viktor raised an eyebrow, and Aneliia frowned and continued eating.

            "Yevgheny is a warrior," she said between mouthfuls.  "I am proud of him."

            "Are you not equally proud of Viktor?  He is a physician."

            Aneliia neither smiled, nor directly answered Angelina's question.  Instead, she conceded, "He has a good job.  He can support your child."

            Viktor didn't look up to see his mother's rapt frown.  Quickly finishing his food, he wiped his mouth with a napkin.

            "You must excuse me.  I have night shift at the clinic."

            Donning his white smock hanging by the door, Viktor hurried into dusk, edged with crimson on the horizon.  Angelina helped the old woman clear the table while Yevgheny smoked and the old man remained silently seated at the table.  When they finished, Aneliia grabbed Aleksandr's elbow and led him from the room.

            "Come, Aleksandr.  Old bones must rest."

            Aneliia shut the door behind them.  Grabbing Yevgheny's hand, Angelina pulled him outside to the small yard behind the house.  Beyond the flowered meadow, last glimmers of daylight expired in vivid crimson on the horizon.  Angelina smiled and held Yevgheny's hand in the warm muted darkness.

            "I missed you, Yevgheny."

            "And I missed you, beautiful Angelina."

            They embraced without speaking as an explosion shook the ground beneath them.  Yevgheny's back straightened, and then stiffened like a rod.  A flash of lightning-like illumination exploded across the sky -- and then another.

            Angelina asked, "What was that?"

            Yevgheny didn't answer.  Releasing her, he backed stiffly away and lighted a cigarette with a palsied hand.

*    *    *

            Leonid, an orderly, opened the clinic door, excited and breathless.  "Viktor, there has been an explosion at the power station."

            "Casualties?"

            "A fire -- people burned."

            Viktor grabbed his bag and drugs, motioning the nurse Sasha.  Sasha followed him outside to the awaiting Riga ambulance.  Less than ten minutes from the power station, they passed beneath a brown cloud of dust along the way.

            A guard stopped them at the gate.  "Where are you going?"

            "The fire."

            "Why haven't you any special clothing on?"

            Viktor glanced first at Leonid and then at the guard.  "But how were we to know we needed special clothing?"

            Shaking his head sullenly, the guard let them pass.

            Silent, peaceful and starry was the night.  As they parked the Riga, Two firemen dragged an injured man, chest crushed and badly burned, out the front door.  He died as they put him into the ambulance.  Amidst a steady barrage of small explosions and

the ominous hiss of burning gases fracturing the solitude of the night, the roof of the tall structure burned.  Viktor smelled smoke and felt the super-heated air as they entered the reactor's control room.  What they found resembled a battlefield hospital.  Injured people lay in rows along the floor.  Viktor, Leonid and Sasha immediately began administering assistance and hurrying the casualties to the ambulances already arriving from town.

            "What happened?" Viktor asked.

            Burned but lucid, the injured man answered, "The reactor exploded.  Much of the roof has collapsed."

            "How did it happen?" Viktor said, shaking his head in disbelief.

            "We shut down the reactor for routine maintenance.  All systems were inoperative."

            "Even the fail-safes?"

            "Yes," the man said, breathless as orderlies carried him in a stretcher to an ambulance.

            As the man had described, much of the roof of the multi-storied building had collapsed.  Steel beams and girders protruded from the walls and ceiling like crumpled pretzels.  Wispy fingers of gray smoke snaked along the hallways and from beneath the closed metal doors.  An earth-shattering shake had damaged the reactor's computer beyond repair.  Engineers and technicians, assigned to the plant's night shift, hurried about the large alcove, desperately trying to regain control of the unleashed demon.

            Viktor dispensed iodine, encouragement, and little else to the radiation-weakened workers and firefighters, apologetic for their nausea.  Within the hour, he also began to feel the sickening sensation of radiation poisoning.  Someone touched Viktor's shoulder.

            "We must go, Viktor.  Ambulances will bring the casualties to the clinic."

            "No, Leonid.  Firefighters are risking their lives.  I can't let them think we are deserting them."

            Blaring sirens shattered the false serenity of the night.

            "Firemen from as far as Kiev are arriving, Viktor.  They will put out the fire.  The radiation level is very high, Viktor.  We can't help them if we are as sick as they."

            "There are six men on the roof, Leonid.  Go back to the clinic.  I will stay here until they come down."

            Leonid glanced at Sasha.  Quickly averting Leonid's questioning stare, she remained on her knees beside a badly burned man.  Leonid nodded knowingly and left without another word.  A firefighter in a mask and protective suit entered the front door and made a perfunctory check of the casualties in the control room.  When he saw Viktor, kneeling beside an injured technician, he hurried to his side.

            "You must leave, Doctor.  I am in charge here."

            "What about the men on the roof?  What is happening on the roof?"

            When the man removed his protective hood, Viktor looked into his sad eyes and sensed his hopeless bewilderment.

            "The fire is burning at five thousand degrees Fahrenheit.  Roofing material is flowing like a molten river."

He paused to catch his breath and wipe away an errant tear forming in the corner of his eye.  "Water from their hoses turned to radioactive steam as they doused the fire.  Still, they stopped the building from burning to the ground.  My men are bringing them down now."

            "And the reactor?"

            "Radiation has been released into the atmosphere by the accident.  God help those beneath it when it comes down."

            As he walked away, the man looked like a beaten prize fighter.  Viktor's throat constricted when the men in protective clothing finally brought the six injured firemen into the control room.  He and Sasha cut away a young man's rubber coat -- a man

no older than twenty-five -- and administered morphine and iodine tablets.  Turning his head away -- hair singed and face blistered puffy red -- he vomited on the floor.  Covering his mouth with a badly blistered hand, he turned his head away, embarrassed.

            "I'm sorry."

            "No matter," Viktor said, consoling him.

            A steady parade of firefighters and plant workers passed their station, disoriented, vomiting and muscles weakened.  At two-thirty, an ambulance driver brought more drugs from the clinic.

            Firefighters and plant workers continued, unfalteringly, to fight the blaze.  And so did Viktor and Sasha.

*    *    *

            A knock on the door startled Yevgheny and Angelina from their moment of bliss.  Yevgheny hurriedly climbed out of bed and put on his pants before the knocking disturbed Aneliia and Aleksandr, revealing their infidelity.

            "Are you Yevgheny Ivanisevic?"

            "I am," Yevgheny said.

            "An emergency.  Your assistance is needed.  Please come with us."

            Angelina watched Yevgheny finish dressing and leave with no further explanation from the intruder.  Wide awake, she put on her robe and put a kettle of water on the stove to boil.  Aneliia soon joined her.

            "Who was at the door?"

            "I don't know, Aneliia.  A man came for Yevgheny."

            By the light of the kitchen's single bare bulb, they drank tea in silence.  At dawn, another loud knock disturbed their silent thoughts.  Aneliia went to the door and found two soldiers waiting.

            "There has been an accident at the power plant.  We are evacuating the village."

            Angelina followed Aneliia to the door and grabbed her arm.  Mouth open and a look of sullen horror on her face, the old woman just stood there.

            Angelina asked, "What accident?"

            "We don't have time to tell you," the man said.  "Take only what you can carry in one bag.  Buses will leave in an hour."

            Aneliia's face went white.  A shrill wail began deep in her lungs, issuing in wheezing bursts from her quivering lips.  She buried her head in her shaking hands, revealing decades of suppressed pain in her bony old body.

            Angelina shook her back to consciousness.  "Aneliia, it's all right.  Awaken Papa and pack a bag.  I'm going to the clinic.  Viktor will know what has happened."

            Leaving the old woman, almost catatonic and trembling in the opened doorway, Angelina went to look for Viktor.  Frantic people crowded the square, many reacting as Aneliia to the evacuation announcement.  Soldiers were everywhere and hundreds of buses lined the narrow streets.  A hysterical woman grabbed her arm, desperate for reassurance. Angelina pulled away and hurried through the crowd.  In the distance, a giant cloud of smoke issued from the reactor.  Thoroughly frightened, Angelina found Leonid, eyes red and expression haggard, when she reached the nearby clinic.

            "Leonid, where is Viktor?"

            Leonid shook his head sadly.  "He is sick, Angelina.  They took him to the radiation hospital in Moscow."

            "Radiation hospital?  What happened to him?"

            "He and Sasha stayed at the power plant to assist the firemen and plant workers.  They took a large dose of radiation."

            Angelina stared in disbelief.  "Is he alive?"

            "He is strong, Angelina.  I'm sure he will survive, but you must leave here quickly," he said, glancing at the noticeable bulge in her belly.

            Angelina's face grew bright red.  Her eyes began to tear and she grabbed Leonid's arm as he turned away.  "What will happen to Viktor?"

            Leonid supported her shoulders as he spoke.  "Viktor took a very large dose, Angelina.  His hair will fall out and his internal organs will swell and cease to function.  Radiation will destroy his body's ability to create white blood cells.  He will be open to opportunistic infection."

            Angelina wrenched away from Leonid's grasp and rushed outside, not stopping until she tripped and fell on her face on the sidewalk.  A passing soldier helped her to her feet and brushed her off.

            "What is happening at the power plant?  Will it explode?"

            He shrugged.  "The firemen and helicopter pilots have the blaze under control.  They are dropping sand, cement and boron on the reactor from the air.  Once they extinguish the fire, they will encase it in a shroud of concrete to halt the reaction."

            Angelina's face went white, her hand to her mouth.  "Yevgheny!"

            Nodding solemnly and knowing who she meant, the soldier felt her concern.  "The two emergency pilots have been in the air for several hours now."

            Angelina grabbed the man's arm and dug in her nails.  "Radiation must be intense over the reactor."

            The soldier flinched, but didn't move his arm away.  "There was no one else.  Replacements are on their way."

            Angelina released the man's arm and ran down the street, avoiding people frantically loading the buses.  She found Aneliia, holding a single bag, waiting at the front door of their house.  Her entire body shook with wounded and bleeding emotion, but she was no longer crying.  She put her arms around her daughter-in-law for support and Angelina could feel the frail old woman's trembling fear.

            "Angelina, I can't find Aleksandr."

            "Where could he be?"

            "I don't know.  Maybe on the hill behind the house."

A soldier approached from behind and took Aneliia by the arm, pushing her roughly toward the bus.

            "Please.  We have no more time."

            "I'll find Papa," Angelina said, hurrying away through the crowd before the soldier could react.

            Angelina ran through a grove of trees beginning to green, across the rolling meadow alive with yellow wildflowers.  Pausing at the base of the hill, she caught her breath before hurrying through the tall grass moving in synchronous waves in the gentle breeze.  At the top of the hill she found the old man, crouched on his hands and knees on the bare earth.

            Angelina took his arm and pulled gently.  "Papa, we must go.  The buses are waiting."

            Sorrowful tears clouded the old man's dark eyes.  "I won't go.  They can't make me leave my home again."

            "It's all right, Papa.  It's only for a few days."

            Aleksandr shook his head.  "That is what we heard when the Nazi's invaded, and it was three years.  I won't live three more years."

            Angelina tugged more forcefully on his arm.  "Please Papa."

            Bending forward, the old man rested his head against the

earth and refused to move.  Angelina knelt, crying as she touched his shoulders, feeling the weight of his pain.

            "My brother died in the war.  My family.  My friends.  It's not fair," he said, bitter tears burning his eyes.

            Buses had begun their long journey -- a seamless, bumper-to-bumper procession winding like a drunken snake for thirty kilometers before disappearing into the distance.  Overhead, thick cumulus clouds were forming and the sky grew ominously dark.  Lazy drops of rain fell on Aleksandr's back and Angelina's shoulders.

            She left the old man on the hill.

            Stopping once and turning around, Angelina's tears mingled with the rain.  In the distance, a brown helicopter was dropping cement on the smoking dragon still threatening to engulf the Ukrainian springtime.  Touching her belly, she hurried away down the hill.

            Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang.  Somewhere far away a child played.  Everywhere, air remained fragrant with pink and white blossoms of apple and apricot.  But in the village all was silent except the dripping of bitter tears and muted shriek of an angry demon, encased by the feeble walls of a concrete sarcophagus.

END

Fiction South