or not. Have they come to free me or what? he wondered. It was only to express his shame that he finally spoke.
—Don’t come closer, he said wretchedly. I’m dirty and I don’t smell good. I’ve been traveling for weeks without washing.
They stopped four or five steps away from him.
—Oh, you didn’t have to bother telling us, Myriam Umarik said. We’re the ones who picked you up and dragged you over here yesterday afternoon.
She seemed to be swaying. Under her dress, her breasts shifted. She smiled wryly.
If Kronauer hadn’t been so weak, he would have blushed. The blood tried to fill his cheeks.
—I’d really like to take a shower or wash myself somewhere, he said.
—We’ll show you how to get to the shower room, Myriam Umarik said.
—Good, Kronauer said. Because I really don’t smell good.
—Don’t worry, soldier, Hannko Vogulian said. We’re not delicate. We’re in a kolkhoz here. The smells of cows don’t scare us. When we have to take care of animals, we just deal with it.
She still had an expressionless gaze and she looked at Kronauer with her two different eyes that had no white, the one gold and the other black. Kronauer looked away. He wasn’t used to her gaze and he couldn’t decide if it was attractive, magnificent, or monstrous.
—That’s right, yes, we’re not delicate, Myriam Umarik repeated.
—They told me that after nuclear accidents the cows couldn’t reproduce anymore. So they disappeared fast. But you, you still have animals?
—Well, we don’t have as many herds as before, Hannko Vogulian said. But when we have to take care of a cow or a sheep, we just do.
—Or a pig, Myriam Umarik added, swaying her buttocks.
—Don’t worry, solider, Hannko Vogulian said.
Neither of them seemed to feel pity for him. Without giving him any time to ponder the consequences of radioactivity on the ovine, bovine, equine, porcine, avian, or human, or generally surviving populations of the area, they invited Kronauer to go wash up. As he wavered and was not able to let go of the wall he was leaning against, Myriam Umarik went over to him, grabbed him by the sleeve, and pushed him ahead of her. She didn’t help him to walk, she didn’t hold his arms or his shoulders to help him balance, but she guided him. In any case, even if she stepped aside to get out of his way when he staggered, she didn’t evince any great disgust at his smell.
—Go on, soldier, she said a couple of times. It’s at the end of the hallway. You’re not sick. It’s nothing but a little exhaustion.
Sometimes Kronauer held out his arms to lean against the hallway wall. His knees were weak. Hannko Vogulian was two steps ahead of him, he felt like she was too close and if he stumbled and staggered forward, he would drag her down as he fell.
They brought him to the washroom, which was behind an iron door. They opened it and stepped aside to let him through. From where they were standing, still in the hallway, they pointed out a basket with a thick terry-cloth towel and clothes for him to change into. There was also a huge zinc basin where they told him he could wash his rags later. Finally they told him that after the shower he could sit down for a snack, a light meal, Hannko Vogulian said, nothing to give him a stomachache, Myriam Umarik clarified, so you can recuperate physically before you start eating properly.
Kronauer could feel their unwelcoming eyes on him. He avoided looking up at them. He was afraid more than anything of fainting again, he didn’t want them to have to lean over his inert and smelly body once more. The scenery drifted around him, the iron door that resembled a boiler-room door, black and heavy, the high tiled walls, the cement floor, the strong lights all turned on. He was now by a small table and a wood bench that had a bar of soap, a brush, and the basket with perfectly folded clothes.
He walked past the zinc basin, then took off his coat and set it on the ground. The room seemed overwhelming and large. Along the bottom, the wall was covered with green porcelain, which was the only decoration here; the rest of the room was completely white. Large mold stains covered the ceiling. Eight shower heads came out of the wall on the left, with drains painted red below. They were spaced widely enough to allow each user to wash without bothering either neighbor, but there was no divider between any of them.
Myriam Umarik watched Kronauer’s curious eyes.
—These were the prison showers, she explained. There were once prisoners here.
Suddenly the girls became talkative. They wanted to talk with Kronauer before his shower, whether to update him on the kolkhoz’s business, or maybe tease him, or in any case indicate his unimportance compared to them.
—After a rekulakization attempt, Hannko Vogulian said, long ago. We hadn’t been born yet. It was before the kolkhoz was renamed Radiant Terminus. If the Organs hadn’t gotten involved, it would definitely have been the return of capitalism and all the muck that goes with that. This was used for two or three years as a reeducation center. Then Solovyei became president and it was all shut down.
Myriam Umarik went on.
—During the accident, it was reopened, she said. We needed a place to pile up the irradiated things while waiting for the Gramma Udgul’s warehouse to become operational.
—We found so much useless irradiated stuff on every corner, Hannko Vogulian added. We had to store it all somewhere.
The two daughters’ chattering echoed through the room. They made Kronauer dizzy; he didn’t need this avalanche of words to give him trouble.
—We keep calling this the prison, Myriam Umarik said as she swayed her hips, but nowadays we use it more as a community house. Nobody’s really living here. Sometimes Solovyei comes here to take a shower, when the one in the Soviet is clogged.
Kronauer finally had a pause in conversation to ask something he needed to know.
—What about me, am I a prisoner? he asked.
—A prisoner, no, but you’re under Solovyei’s watch, Myriam Umarik said.
—What does that mean, under his watch?
—Oh, it doesn’t really mean much at all, Hannko Vogulian said. He just holds power of life or death over you, nothing more.
Myriam Umarik held up an arm and leaned against the doorframe. The gesture stretched her blouse and accentuated her large bosom.
—You’re under his watch, solider, she said. You’re not in prison.
—The window in your room doesn’t open. The door locks.
—Be careful, the water gets boiling hot sometimes, Hannko Vogulian said. You have to turn the cold water knob all the way. If there’s one thing we don’t need more of in this kolkhoz, it’s hot water.
—Because of the core, Myriam Umarik explained.
• After the women shut the door behind them, Kronauer undressed and got under the pipes. He decided to stand under the fifth shower, in the middle of the room. He took Hannko Vogulian’s advice, turning the cold-water knob all the way, and the water, although it was very warm, didn’t scald him. It smelled strongly of gravel, with an aftertaste of something that had to be iodine or cesium.
Kronauer’s short hair and his skull seemed coated with a sort of grease he wasn’t able to completely get rid of. His chest and limbs were filthy. The lower part of his stomach reluctantly shed some sort of excremental suet that had become embedded. As he scrubbed energetically, he felt hair being rubbed away by his hands, by the water. Becoming bald and hairless were the same to him. He knew that this was the minimum price to pay for staying in forbidden nuclear zones and for not having avoided numerous nuclear power plants in decay, the very last ones being the one at the Red Star sovkhoz, and this one in the Levanidovo.
The animal stink still hung around him