pranced down the steps and into the street. At first her eyes smarted from the bright sunlight, but then they fixed hungrily on the fresh blooms of tulips and chestnut trees that brightened the dingy gray of the bulky concrete buildings.
Zosia knew Kyiv well. When she was a younger woman she had spent many weekends there in the company of small-time party officials who bribed her to come with them for a good time. She had been promised important jobs that turned out to be inconsequential, until she was transferred to Chornobyl. And what the hell good was that, she wondered. If I had been a
Kyivlianka
back then—in a real city where there were opportunities and people who liked me—I wouldn’t be here now, like this, a hooligan and with a half-dead husband. . . .
She thought about her last lover at Chornobyl. Maybe he was also in Kyiv, forced to be just anotherrefugee like her. Was he thinking of her? Was he sorry for the way he had treated her the last few times?
Hell no, she thought. He never wanted me, really. Now Yurko will be gone, too. . . . She cried openly for the first time since she’d left the village. It was refreshing to feel the soft spring breezes dry her wet cheeks.
Down the Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street, she paused in front of a large store window. On display was a female mannequin wearing a pink and green mohair skirt and matching jacket with a large red cloth string bag dangling from its upturned wrist. The dummy’s blond wig was askew, and its high arched feet were shoeless. Zosia laughed.
“How are you, my friend?” she said softly. Back in the days when she was new to Kyiv, she used to stare at this very same dummy and admire some other ill-fitting outfit that it wore. “Stuck here too, darling,” she said. “Girls like us never get anywhere.”
She caught her own reflection in the window and decided she liked the way she looked; like Cleopatra, she thought.
She walked further down the street and saw how crowded the sidewalks suddenly were. Outdoor kiosks were open for business. She carefully counted out enough of her evacuation money to buy Marusia a plastic hair comb, since the old woman had complained only that morning about how snarly her hair had become. For the children she bought a bag of candy, the kind with sweet apple and cherry jam fillings. For her husband shebought a small bouquet of red and yellow tulips, though it seemed to her to be a stupid thing to get for someone who had never had much interest in such things.
More people positioned themselves on the sidewalk. Old women were eagerly sweeping the wide street, and Zosia heard the faint trumpet blasts of a band. She poked her head between the bystanders and realized that a parade was about to come down the street.
The music grew louder and more familiar. She saw an orderly group of young children in white shirts with red neckerchiefs marching together—Young Pioneers, whose scrubbed little faces looked too serious to be children’s. Two of them were holding a large banner with the words:
SLAVA
— GLORY and MAY DAY — MAY , 1986. The people on the sidewalks cheered and kept their applause steady when the Ukrainian troops of the Soviet Red Army marched ahead of the tanks and military warheads mounted on flatbed tractors. Another float carried a floral copy of the Monument of the Motherland, better known as the Iron Maiden. Zosia had seen the original many times, a white metal monstrosity that stood high and ugly over the polluted Dnipro River. It was taller than the golden domes of St. Sofia, so that it would be—as someone once explained to Zosia a long time ago—more important than religion. Like the original, the floral statue wore a long Grecian toga, very like America’s Statue of Liberty, except that the Iron Maiden held a sword and shield up to the sky, as though challenging God to a duel.
Riding along with the floral Iron Maiden was a robust blond woman surrounded by her fourteen children. She had
Zosia knew Kyiv well. When she was a younger woman she had spent many weekends there in the company of small-time party officials who bribed her to come with them for a good time. She had been promised important jobs that turned out to be inconsequential, until she was transferred to Chornobyl. And what the hell good was that, she wondered. If I had been a
Kyivlianka
back then—in a real city where there were opportunities and people who liked me—I wouldn’t be here now, like this, a hooligan and with a half-dead husband. . . .
She thought about her last lover at Chornobyl. Maybe he was also in Kyiv, forced to be just anotherrefugee like her. Was he thinking of her? Was he sorry for the way he had treated her the last few times?
Hell no, she thought. He never wanted me, really. Now Yurko will be gone, too. . . . She cried openly for the first time since she’d left the village. It was refreshing to feel the soft spring breezes dry her wet cheeks.
Down the Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main street, she paused in front of a large store window. On display was a female mannequin wearing a pink and green mohair skirt and matching jacket with a large red cloth string bag dangling from its upturned wrist. The dummy’s blond wig was askew, and its high arched feet were shoeless. Zosia laughed.
“How are you, my friend?” she said softly. Back in the days when she was new to Kyiv, she used to stare at this very same dummy and admire some other ill-fitting outfit that it wore. “Stuck here too, darling,” she said. “Girls like us never get anywhere.”
She caught her own reflection in the window and decided she liked the way she looked; like Cleopatra, she thought.
She walked further down the street and saw how crowded the sidewalks suddenly were. Outdoor kiosks were open for business. She carefully counted out enough of her evacuation money to buy Marusia a plastic hair comb, since the old woman had complained only that morning about how snarly her hair had become. For the children she bought a bag of candy, the kind with sweet apple and cherry jam fillings. For her husband shebought a small bouquet of red and yellow tulips, though it seemed to her to be a stupid thing to get for someone who had never had much interest in such things.
More people positioned themselves on the sidewalk. Old women were eagerly sweeping the wide street, and Zosia heard the faint trumpet blasts of a band. She poked her head between the bystanders and realized that a parade was about to come down the street.
The music grew louder and more familiar. She saw an orderly group of young children in white shirts with red neckerchiefs marching together—Young Pioneers, whose scrubbed little faces looked too serious to be children’s. Two of them were holding a large banner with the words:
SLAVA
— GLORY and MAY DAY — MAY , 1986. The people on the sidewalks cheered and kept their applause steady when the Ukrainian troops of the Soviet Red Army marched ahead of the tanks and military warheads mounted on flatbed tractors. Another float carried a floral copy of the Monument of the Motherland, better known as the Iron Maiden. Zosia had seen the original many times, a white metal monstrosity that stood high and ugly over the polluted Dnipro River. It was taller than the golden domes of St. Sofia, so that it would be—as someone once explained to Zosia a long time ago—more important than religion. Like the original, the floral statue wore a long Grecian toga, very like America’s Statue of Liberty, except that the Iron Maiden held a sword and shield up to the sky, as though challenging God to a duel.
Riding along with the floral Iron Maiden was a robust blond woman surrounded by her fourteen children. She had
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