Belly of the Beast (16 page)

A few minutes later, the soldier returned and tossed Pytor the keys. “Drive with care.”

“The cold must be our friend today,” said Pytor. “Usually they search the car, find something wrong, and detain me until we settle on a price. I expected that stop would cost us a bottle of vodka or a few fish, probably more because of your passport.”

“I don’t think it’s cold enough,” said Niki. “The fish really stink.”

“The back floor is hot. I think the exhaust pipe got bent up against the back floor when I got stuck on a snow bank last week. I should have thought of that. And who knows how old the fish were before they were frozen.” Pytor drove silently for the next few kilometers, then said, “Irina liked salmon. She liked the cold too. She taught Katrina to ski when she was only five.”

“It’s painful to talk about her, isn’t it?”

Pytor sighed. “She was a wonderful person, a doctor for children with birth defects and cancer. Russia’s Mother Teresa of sorts. She found that most of the children had a parent or grandparent who lived in Chelyabinsk-40, in the fallout zone to the east, or along the radioactive rivers. Irina spent a lot of time in some pretty bad places when she was researching the medical reports I told you about. She said one old woman told her about workers who had radiation-burned skin sloughing from their faces. The medical reports said they died of heart attacks. Irina saw some of the medical reports, but she had no way to copy them; I’ll steal them if I get the chance.

“Irina got sick herself and was moved to Sverdlovsk. That’s where we met. I was a radiologist. How ironic to be using radiation to detect radiation damage. We thought she was better when we had Katrina.” Pytor choked up, finally caught his breath. “It took her two years to die. That’s why I do what I do.”

After another easy checkpoint at Tyubuk, Pytor turned right onto a secondary road. A roadside sign said to keep windows closed. Pytor did not.

“What’s that about?” asked Niki.

“Don’t know. It’s been there forever.”

“Come to think of it, that’s the first sign I’ve seen.”

“The government figures if you should be in a place, you should know how to get there.”

“Not very tourist friendly.”

“Who’d want to come here?”

Niki shrugged. To the southwest, an orange glow stretched between two low mountains before igniting a thin line of steel gray clouds. The sun stuck its nose out for a moment sniffing dark ridges along the peaks, then hid behind the clouds.

With the dawn, Niki spotted ski tracks on the frozen lakes that lined the highway. One car was on the ice. Fishermen sat nearby. Two skiers strode past side by side.

“This is actually the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” said Niki. “It’s got lakes, streams, beautiful forests, and mountains. I would come here.”

“It would not be wise.” Pytor stared ahead. Just across a bridge, another guard post loomed. Lights glistened off razor wire.

 “We’re getting close,” said Pytor. “This is Kasli.”

A young soldier, probably no more than a teenager, stomped his feet against the cold as Pytor pulled to a stop and rolled down his window.

“Show me your papers.”

Pytor handed over the passports and explained he was taking the Canadian scientist to Kyshtym.

“In a fish truck?” asked the soldier.

“I’d haul manure if the price was right.”

“Wait a minute. We’re surrounded by lakes. Only a crazy person would pay you for fish.”

“These are going to Kyshtym. They don’t eat local fish.”

“Rutabagas. Why wouldn’t they eat their own fish?”

“Makes no sense to me,” said Pytor. “I don’t believe the rumors about what’s in Lake Artyash, but people in Kyshtym pay a lot for pink salmon from the east.”

“Pinks? I lived on the Kamchatka Peninsula. We had tons fresh pinks when I was a kid. Used to feed them to the dogs and use them for fertilizer. They disappeared for some reason.”

“These come from somewhere else. I could let you have some wholesale.”

“
Durak
. Where would a soldier get money for fish?”

“Go ice fishing then. It’s probably just the water at Kyshtym.”

The young soldier scratched his head with his mitted hand while his thoughts jelled. “It’s the same lake here as there. Are you telling me there’s something wrong with our fish?”

“I wouldn’t even suggest that.”

“Your car looks overloaded,” the young soldier finally said. “I’m going to have to fine you.”

“What if I lightened it?”

Pytor gave the young soldier several fish and drove on.

“That’s more like it,” said Pytor as they drove through Kasli. “I was beginning to think there was something strange about the checkpoints. I almost had to beg that young soldier to take a bribe. The warehouse man allows twenty percent for
in-transit costs
.”

“The soldier didn’t seem concerned about my passport,” said Niki.

“They must know Canadians are coming.” Pytor sniffed his fingers. “Damn. Even the frozen ones stink.” He looked for a place to wipe his hand and settled on his pant leg. Niki scrunched her nose.

A few minutes later, Pytor pointed to the left, across frozen Lake Artyash. “Ozersk is on the other side, and Mayak is beyond. It’s only ten or twelve kilometers from here. On a clear day you can see steam from the reactors. I’ve been told that the far side of the lake is heavily patrolled, a
shoot first, ask questions later
sort of place. Ice fishermen who wandered too close have disappeared. Irina said this side of the lake used to be closed too, but they scaled back restrictions during Perestroika. The whole country was restructured during the last five years.”

“Are you still okay about the risk of going on?” asked Niki.

Pytor nodded. “This has been as easy as flipping blini so far. Besides, I really want to help you. You are really—” he stumbled for a word. “Commendable,” he finally spit out.

Niki smiled.

Just north of Kyshtym, Pytor pulled over for another checkpoint. A seasoned soldier seemed not to have gotten the message about the Canadians coming. “Where is the
Intourist
stamp?” he asked Pytor as he pointed to Niki’s visa.

“They must have forgotten—you know how inefficient—”

“Where did you stay last night?” the soldier said to Niki.

She pretended that she didn’t understand.

“You are under arrest.” The soldier stood back and pointed his pistol at Pytor’s head.

“She doesn’t speak Russian,” said Pytor, “and I don’t speak whatever gibberish she spouts, but I’m sure there’s some simple mistake. I picked this woman up as I passed the
Intourist
hotel myself. She would have come in a government car, but its radiator was frozen. The driver flagged me down and asked me to drive her.”

“And I’m my own aunt. Foreigners aren’t allowed here. Both of you get out. I’m going to search the car.”

“I’d like to leave her here,” said Pytor. “She’s intolerable talking to herself about something, but I don’t get paid until I deliver her to some KGB General at Kyshtym, and I’m running late. I could drive faster if I had less fish. Could I leave some with you?”

“Are you trying to bribe an officer of the state with stinking fish?”

“Of course not. Look, I’ll level with you. The woman’s driver was drunk before breakfast and ran off the road. I stopped to help. He gave me a bottle of vodka to keep my mouth shut and drive her to Kyshtym.”

“That makes more sense. And what did you do with this government property?”

Pytor reached under the seat. “I intended to return it to the government as soon as I got the chance.”

“Are you certain he only gave you one?”

“Perhaps it was two.”

The guard smiled without exposing his teeth to the cold. “And fish for my sick mother, so you can drive faster.”

 Pytor handed over two bottles of vodka, and a salmon.

“I will still have to fine you for being overweight.”

Pytor grabbed two more salmon, and the guard waved him on.

“That was close,” whispered Niki, visibly shivering.

“No different than one of your toll bridges, I suppose.” Pytor wiped his hand, then fiddled with the heater.

Just past a railroad crossing, Pytor stopped at yet another checkpoint and paid another toll.

“That’s the worst of it for a while,” he said as he drove across the north edge of town.

It was full light now, but heavy clouds weighted the northwestern sky. A double set of train tracks paralleled the road. “Until last year, most everything came in by train. Now, some is trucked down from Sverdlovsk.”

“The seeds of free markets,” said Niki. She looked down the road that led through town. “There are a lot more cities in Siberia than I imagined.”

“This is still the Urals; Siberia is further east and there are fewer towns.”

“And everyone here works at Mayak?”

“We think about 20,000 people work at the plant. It’s big. It took 70,000 people, mostly prisoners, years to build it. Some say there’s a whole city underground. All the secret cities were built to withstand a nuclear war, so we could continue to build more bombs after most of the world was destroyed.”

Niki shook her head. “How ludicrous can people be?”

“America was probably doing the same. Anyway, the bombs were never used, but the pollution remains. Most of the prisoners are probably dead, and the quarter million people who live in the area are affected. Many are peasants living off the contaminated land. At least the population won’t increase. Irina said half the population is sterile.”

Pytor stopped in front of a row of concrete buildings. “We’ll get rid of the fish, then we’ll try to find someone in the Kyshtym action group to help us find your father. Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

Pytor got out and knocked on a door. “Damn,” he said when he got back in the car. “Someone was supposed to be here. We’ll have to go on with the fish.”

Pytor drove to the address he had for the office of the Kyshtym Action Committee. It was an empty lot. “Just like a bogus post office box,” he said.

“If you don’t know where the members live, they don’t want you to go there,” said Niki.

“You’re learning Russian.”

“Could we ask around?”

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I know an old woman in Tatysh, but there’s another checkpoint and your visa is to Kyshtym.” Pytor checked under his seat. “Three bottles of vodka and half a ton of fish. I suppose we could give it a try. It’s only six or seven kilometers.”

The checkpoint on the way to Tatysh was unmanned. Pytor was almost giddy. “There’s one advantage to the military being broke. The checkpoints are understaffed, and unpaid soldiers could care less about doing their jobs. On the other hand this checkpoint was always silly. All the roads past here dead end. There’s only one way out.”

 A few snowflakes fell as Pytor stopped in front of a little cottage in the village of Tatysh.

Niki looked out across a snow-covered lake surrounded by tall dark forests. “I could live here.”

Pytor retrieved the dosimeter and took a piece of gray tape off the on-off switch; the dosimeter clicked steadily. “I wouldn’t want Katrina to grow up here,” said Pytor as he wrote down some notes. He taped the switch back off, then pulled a fish from the back seat. He inspected it, put it back, and selected another.

“Who lives here?” asked Niki, as they walked to the door.

“An old woman Irina told me about. I talked to her before.” Pytor handed Niki the fish and knocked.

A bald woman answered.

“Maria, I’m Pytor, remember? And this is Niki Michaels.”

“I am pleased to meet you,” Niki said in formal Russian. She handed the old woman the fish.

Maria stared coolly at Niki a moment, then ushered them in.

The house reminded Niki of her own cabin, one room with areas neatly separated by open shelves and curtains. Wood was stacked by a large kitchen stove, apparently the only source of heat.

“May I wash my hands? asked Niki.

Maria nodded to a pan of wash water by the sink, then sniffed the fish like a rose, inspected the pink meat where the fish had been gutted, licked her lips, and finally laid the frozen form on the table. “Where did you get such a fine fellow?”

“I was supposed to haul eggs from Sverdlovsk, but I got a load of salmon instead.”

Maria parted lace curtains and looked out the window. “You drove up in a Zhuguli.”

“With the back seat out, it’s my truck.”

“I see.” Maria sat down at the table and gestured for Pytor and Niki to sit across from her. “Do you still want to know about nuclear accidents? I told you I don’t know anything.”

“I’m trying to find my father,” said Niki.

“Strange accent.”

“She’s from Latvia,” Pytor quickly replied.

“And why would I know about your father?”

“My mother worked at Mayak.”

“I haven’t worked there for thirteen years.”

“It was thirty-three years ago at the plutonium finishing plant, Plant B.”

“You know too much.”

“Svetlana Mikhailovna Trepova was her name.”

“Never heard of her. Thank you for the fish. Now I must rest.”

“People are talking now,” said Pytor. “The times have changed. What we’re learning about the accidents could help future generations.”

“I’m trying to save my son’s life,” said Niki.

Maria fondled the fish. “I’m old, my memory is not so good.”

“He has leukemia. He needs a bone marrow transplant.”

“Even if I remembered something,” said Maria, “I couldn’t trust anyone named Kolchak.”

Pytor flinched. “Just because my great grandfather was head of the anti-Bolsheviks—”

“Not Alexander Kolchak, Yuri Kirillovich Kolchak, your father. I asked questions after the last time you visited.”

“You knew my father?”

“Everyone knew
of
him.”

“Why?” asked Pytor.

“Best you don’t know.”

“I can’t defend what I don’t know.”

“Some things are indefensible. More tea?”

Niki looked at Pytor. They hadn’t had any tea yet.

“I just want to save my son,” said Niki. “Please, can’t you tell me something?”

Maria got up and put the teapot on the stove. “For forty-two years, everything was top secret. We were forbidden to say one word about what we did, forbidden to write anything down.” She tapped on her bald head. “Everything was kept up here. No one talks because we were programmed not to.”

“It’s all right now,” said Pytor. “Everyone is talking. Kyshtym has its own action committee to help people affected by radiation.”