Чернобыль. Страницы жизни и любви

“I’ll keep myself together. I will.”

The guys took me to the cafе. I cried and we talked for a long time. We didn’t want to believe in the death sentence. Pain smothered me, but I knew that the next day I had to be strong.

I came to him in the morning. He wasn’t sleeping. I had brought a basket of thirty?three burgundy roses with me. They were very beautiful. I so wanted everything to be okay for him! He had to be happy and feel loved and wanted.

“Why are you spending so much money on me, silly?”

But he said this very pleasantly; his eyes were smiling.

We greeted each other. I kissed him.

“How are things, my sweet?” I said.

He began with a question:

Why was there a crucifix in his hand?

I smiled.

“You know, I felt that you were alongside me. I didn’t see you or hear you, but I could smell you and your tears fell on my cheeks. My darling, you were crying…In the morning, when I woke up, there was a string around my neck. I looked – it was a crucifix, which meant that you had really been beside me. Only you could have put it on me.”

He was happy and satisfied. I said that the operation had been a success, and now there would be a long period of recovery and everything would be fine for us. He hurt all over. It was even difficult for him to go to the toilet. I tried to help him: to raise the bed, so it was comfortable for him, to cover him; I even helped him to drink… when I left the ward, tears stifled me, I ran to the female nurse and asked for a tranquilizer. The evening came and I was getting ready to go home. I kissed him. He said:

“Tomorrow is your birthday.”

“Yes. I will come to you and we will be together.”

In the morning I put on a yellow suit that he really liked, did myself up and went to see him. He was waiting for me, and we greeted and kissed.

“I wish you had brought some sweets.”

I ran to the doctor and asked him if he could have sweets. The doctor said, “Yes, boiled sweets.” I promised to bring them the next day.

“I knew that you would wear this suit.”

He smiled.

Time went by unheeded. We had a great time together. We chatted, did crosswords, he relaxed and I delighted in his breathing. We were together and nothing could disturb us. Taking out his bedpan, going down the long corridor, I thought: “Oh God, how happy I am, yes, happy. I am beloved and I love, I can be beside my loved one and indispensable to him, like the air that he breathes.”

He would often repeat.

“Go on, go home, you will have guests.”

“Sergei, I haven’t invited anyone, I will be with you, my darling.”

I left him late, at eight o’clock. For the first time in many days, I didn’t cry. – I felt very good. We had spent the day so pleasurably together that I was happy.

When I got home, I discovered a surprise. Our friends had laid the table and were waiting for me. They had come to congratulate and support me. They were so kind and dear to me. They gave me presents, congratulated me, and all of them suffered the trials which I was going through together with me.

Sergei had given me a bouquet of 27 red roses for my 25th – a year later, my friends did the same. I will always remember these roses. They were roses of friendship, respect and love. It was wonderful to be among friends, and only the fact that Sergei was not there oppressed and weighed heavily on me. The thought that he had but a short time left to live constantly distracted me.

No, my Sergei would live. I was ready to fight for him, to look for the necessary literature, where I could find the straw to grasp at. But next to me were his friends and doctors – I believed them and believed in them. They gave me money, for I knew Sergei’s cherished childhood dream. In the morning I went to the shop and bought him some binoculars, which I had chosen with his friends from the institute. They were packed in glittering paper with a beautiful bow.

When we went in, he immediately boasted that the doctor had given him a sweet. I went into the ward, put the box on the bed and said:

“It’s for you.”

“Spending money on me again, eh?” He grumbled, but softly and pleasantly.

When he opened the box, he was so pleased that I noticed there were tears in his eyes. He turned away for a second and then called me to him.

“Come here.”

I leaned over.

“You are the best woman in the world. I love you. Thank you darling.”

My heart contracted. Tears smothered me. “I cannot lose him,” murmured a voice in my head. Sergei wouldn’t have been himself if he didn’t immediately start joking: the binoculars I had bought weren’t the right ones – they should have been navy ones…but I was happy that he was joking. Speak, say anything you like, only speak, my darling.

The days went by in turn and, as before, we spent a lot of time together. Sergei slowly started getting out of bed, his drip was cut off, his scar slowly healed over. I constantly beleaguer the doctor with questions: whatever I read, whatever I hear, I run to him with questions. He hears me out and always supports me. I am so in need of this support.

They showed Sergei’s operation on TV–I happened to watch it and subconsciously understood that several surgeons really worked magic on my Sergei. When it was time to discharge him, the surgeons promised that they would stand by us. They kept their word.

We were discharged and back home again. The difficult time began. Sergei in pain. The baby boy, our daughter at school; we started treatment using the Shevchenko method, from people’s medicine. We kept using spasmalgon pills. The doctor came and examined him, calmed him down: now would be the difficult stage, the stage of recuperation, but he had to fight.

We decided to christen the children, give Sergei his first communion and sanctify the flat. The priest came to our home and talked to Sergei for a long time. The christening was wonderful and our friends became godparents. Soon we were preparing to celebrate our son’s first birthday.

The priests said: you have to tell him the truth. You can’t force this sin upon yourself. One of Sergei’s friends came to see us.

“He really ought to know,” she said.

“But how can I find the words?”

“You must! He must fight, knowing what we are up against.”

Sergei’s condition got worse. There were fits and a really awful night – then he showed for the first time how broken and tormented he was. Night pains, night, then remaining alone with his illness, I sensed for the first time the breath of death.

It slowly touched us. It did not sneak up, rather it inexorably moved towards us.

Regardless of fright or fear, I had no right to give in. I entered the fray, and there was no way back. But how should I fight. How could one turn the world back? I had a feeling of devastation, but in my head one question constantly rang: what is the right thing to do? My soul was crushed with pangs for which there are no medicine can help. Rigid with fear, seizing all my energy, sighing with pain and helplessness, I tried to find the right decision.

“I will embrace you as tightly as I can.”

“I won’t let anybody have you.”

“Embrace me, hold on to me. We are together and no one can separate us.”

Our strength is only in ourselves, and this cold, deathly touch, which causes such pain, cannot alter our love. The embrace of two loving people is a power, which can change us into a single, indivisible whole – a monolith of Love.