Father and mother lead a joyful life. They had two handsome sons, strong, healthy and industrious. They achieved what they aimed for. Many a girl in the neighborhood fancied the idea of getting married to one of them. The boys made their parents proud; they dreamed of a future surround by grandchildren, their house like a bee hive, the air filled with the laughter of kids.

But that was not to be. The future was overshadowed by events befitting the family name: ’’Shurba” - the Belarusian word for ’’Sorrow”. There would come a time when they would feel cursed; when the mother would stand in front of a framed picture of her boy, repeating the same thing again and again: ’’Chernobyl, you’ve killed my son!”

Ivan’s conscription order arrived by mail. It was the height of summer, hot and dusty. Everyone knew that something bad had happened in Chernobyl, that people had died in the effort to contain the radiation. Father took the letter from the mail box, opened the envelope and read the small piece of paper: ’’Conscription order for Ivan Shurba. Effective immediately, you are to report at the draft center and begin your 15-day recruit training.”

’That does not bode well’, thought the father. ’That’s no coincidence, and looks different from the usual draft notices.’

’’Relax, father”, his son tried to cheer him up. ’’That’s nothing. There’s no war going on, I’ll learn how to march in ranks and be back in two weeks.”

’’This could be worse than war” his mother said with a worried voice. ”Mom, it’s half a month. I’ll cope.”

”In the army, a single hour can change your life.”

’’There’s order and discipline in the army, everything happens under the supervision of officers. It’ll be ok, you’ll see.”

Mother said nothing. She only sighed and, with a tilted head, regarded her son like it was the first time she truly saw him.

All those who’d received a conscription order had gathered at the draft center. The feistier of the recruits pelted the officers with questions about where they would be sent. ’’That’s not any of your concerns, not yet”, came the reply. They were brought to the Orane village, just a few kilometers away from Chernobyl. They did none of the training recruits usually go through: no rank-and-file drills, no long-distance running, no shooting practice. Instead,

they were assigned the most menial task: to wash clothing. But it wasn’t ordinary clothing they were to wash. It was the gear worn by the reserve troops that had cleaned the roof of the reactor building from the moderator graphite that had been deposited there in the course of the fire in the reactor core. When they used dosimeters to measure the radioactivity of the gear, the readings were at the top end of the range. In the first days, everyone suffered from headaches. Many got nosebleeds that wouldn’t stop. In the sick bay, this was treated by shoving towels in people’s faces. Everyone was afraid of the invisible danger. The medics gave them some nameless pills and speculated about cases of’’heat stroke”.

They were counting hours, not days. In the hope of getting out of there as soon as possible, they worked as fast as they could. ’’What are those dimwits talking about ’heat stroke’? It’s no hotter here than where we came from.” Victor, one of the more level-headed recruits, surmised ’’We’re near the epicenter, exposed to nearly ground-zero levels of radiation, and we don’t have any protective gear. We’re no better off than lab rats.” Their battalion was nicknamed the ’’Partisans”. In the off-hours, officers and soldiers alike were drinking heavily, as if the alcohol-induced stupor offered some protection. Ivan didn’t like it and soon stopped drinking because it worsened his headaches and nausea. Back in the laundry, people were dropping like flies, nosebleeds getting worse. None of the officers seemed to care about the health of the recruits. Everyone felt relief on the night of day 14: tomorrow,

they’d be heading out of this place. In the morning, an officer from the headquarter arrived and mocked them: ’’You want to head out, you cowards? Crawl back under mommy’s skirt? Forget it, you’re soldiers now, under the command of the Ministry of Defense! And as such, you’re going to follow orders.”

Someone behind Ivan whispered ’’This is an industrial operation, isn’t it? Why is it governed by military orders?” The officer continued ’’You are loyal servants of the state and the army that protects it. The party entrusts you to help with the cleanup effort. Your orders have been revised: You’re going to stay here for another two weeks.” Someone yelled from behind ”We did our two weeks, to stay any longer is homicidal!”

’’Quiet, soldier! Those not following their orders will be court-martialed.” They received a writ with the new orders. They all signed it, including Ivan. The next day was like the one before: around noon, half the ’’partisans” had collapsed, nosebleeds everywhere. ”1 can’t take this anymore”, one of the younger recruits said, crying. ”I’d rather hang myself.” Ivan grabbed his shoulders. ’’Hang in there, Vasya. Just a little bit longer.” As the days dragged on, interminably, no one joked or smiled anymore. Towards the end of the second two-week period, another officer from the headquarter came, and told them that their commission had been extended by another two weeks. And so it kept going, every two weeks, until they had stayed there an unfathomable 5 months. The boys were exhausted, apathetic, hopeless. They kept working under the constant threat of being court-martialed. Someone had managed to get hold of a dosimeter - not domestic one, but of Japanese production. One of the more sympathetic officers, hailing from the same area as Ivan, helped them to use the device. The readings had their hair on end. ’’This is our death warrant”, the officer said. ”By the official rules, one would not be allowed to stay here longer than a day. You’ve been here for almost half a year.” Ivan kept a filing card with the dosimeter measurements. It read

08/18/86: 0.2 Roentgen

09/06/86: 2.2 Roentgen

09/27/86: 5-6 Roentgen

10/17/86: 8.3 Roentgen

11/05/86: 12.6 Roentgen

11/25/86: 16.7 Roentgen

12/13/86: 19.8 Roentgen