The Boy from Reactor 4

CHAPTER 50





NADIA ASKED DETECTIVE Novak to give her a quick tour of the park at Babi Yar so she could orient herself. He dropped her off two kilometers away from the ravine itself. She’d learned her lesson at the Caves Monastery: she wasn’t going to expose herself at the rendezvous point. She would approach the boy only after she saw him.

Nadia hoped the picture of him was recent and that she would recognize him. Of greater concern was her responsibility to help get him out of Ukraine. She could take care of herself under any circumstances. Of that she was certain. A teenage boy she’d never even met, however, was an entirely different matter.

She stepped out of the police cruiser at 5:43. After the car disappeared, she hid behind a tree and waited for a few minutes to make sure Kirilo or Misha hadn’t somehow followed her. When no one appeared, she slipped out of hiding.

Tall lampposts illuminated the tree-lined path that wove its way around the perimeter of the park. The air smelled of dew and worms. A young couple, their fancy backpacks identifying them as tourists, walked solemnly around the Menorah Monument. A family of seven stood at the ravine’s edge.

Nadia was certain she and the family were thinking about the same thing. On September 29, 1941, all Jews in Kyiv were ordered to report for relocation. The Nazis spread the word by nailing bulletins to telephone poles and taping signs to windows. At the time, the Jewish population in Kyiv numbered fifty thousand, with another hundred thousand having fled deeper into the Soviet Union and Central Asia. Non-Jews were told that their Jewish countrymen were going to be deported to Israel. In fact, 33,771 of them were lined up at a ravine called Babi Yar, stripped naked, and slaughtered over a two-day span.

A total of one hundred thousand people were executed at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation of Kyiv, including Ukrainian priests, nationalists, and gypsies. Yet, after the war, the Soviet Union refused to acknowledge the murders. The first Jewish memorial was built only when Ukraine proclaimed independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. A bronze statue dedicated to all the Ukrainians who perished was added in 2009.

The ravine was not what Nadia had expected. Its shockingly small size stood in sharp contrast with the number of bodies the Nazis had buried within it. Nadia snaked along a fence of decorative trees to a rolling meadow. A sports complex loomed in the foreground. She clung to the shadows as she marched two kilometers through the park, eyes swiveling around to the back of her head. The sound of traffic grew louder. A metro station came into view. Cars crisscrossed at a major intersection ahead. When the outline of the new statue appeared, Nadia circled around a maintenance building and hid behind a corner. From her perch, she couldn’t make out the details of the monument.

As if on cue, a boy emerged from behind the statue. He wore an old blue warm-up suit, muddy track shoes from the seventies, and an army knapsack that looked as if it had survived a world war. He carried a duffel bag in his right hand. He was close to six feet tall and lanky, with a knit cap pulled low over his forehead.

Nadia decided to approach. A light shone over the monument. On the granite wall to the left, a series of human silhouettes toppled into a ravine. A mother clung to her baby below. On the right, a bronze child read the announcement on the wall, ordering him to report to Babi Yar.

Nadia came within ten feet of Adam and stopped. He was the boy from her mother’s photo, although he looked taller and more mature. He looked ready to run on a second’s notice.

“Hi. My name is Nadia. Your father told me to meet you here.”

“Passport,” he said, like a young customs officer in training.

“What?”

“Passport.”

Surprised by his officious manner, Nadia pulled the booklet out of her bag. Adam studied her photo, her personal information, and the entrance stamp, and returned it. She stowed it back in her bag and put her left hand on her hip.

“Passport,” she said.

His sullen expression didn’t change.

She put her hand out. “Passport.”

He removed a sealed plastic bag from the front of his pants. The bag contained his two passports, as though there were a risk they would get wet during his journey. One of the passports was a domestic ID, the other international. Nadia read the inside page of the international one.

“It says you were born in Korosten,” she said. “Your father told me you were born in Chernobyl village.”

“No one lives in Chernobyl, so no one can be born in Chernobyl, even if he was really born in Chernobyl.”

He reached out with an open palm. She leafed through the domestic one quickly and slapped the passports into his hand. He stuffed them back in the plastic bag, sealed it tight, and stowed it in his knapsack.

The boy was very stiff, and she could understand that. She tried to put him at ease. “So you’re the man with the plan,” she said. “What next?”

“We go see the forger.”

“Who?”

“The forger. My father, he knows some people. It’s all arranged.”

“What do we need to see a forger for?”

“You need a visa.”

“I do? Where am I going?”

“Moscow.” He checked a battered watch with a red hammer and sickle on a discolored white dial. “It’s ten after six. The forger’s expecting us at six thirty. The express to Moscow leaves Central Station at eight-oh-nine tonight.”

“Moscow? Why are we going to Moscow?”

He remained very cautious. “I can tell you once we’re on the train but not before.”

“Why not?”

“Because those are the instructions my father gave me. If you get captured by the men chasing you, you won’t know anything more.”

Nadia studied his neck. A sliver of gold protruded along the left collar of his T-shirt.

“Your father told me about a locket. A locket that has some very special information in it. Where is that locket?”

He slid his hand under his shirt and lifted the necklace high enough to reveal a pendant. It was a golden square with a black trident carved on the front.

“I’d like to see inside—”

“No.” Adam took a step back. “I don’t open the locket for anyone.”

“I’m not anyone. I’m your cousin.”

“I don’t care who you are. My father told me. Keep it simple. If you don’t open the locket, you can’t lose the formula inside. So I won’t open the locket. Not for you, not for him if he showed up here right now. Not for anyone.”

“Okay,” Nadia said. “So be it. There are men following me. We should hurry.”

Adam suddenly loped toward the train station across the street. Nadia raced after him. As a teen, she’d run the mile in 5:37. At home, she still worked out religiously. It didn’t matter. The kid had the propulsion of a locomotive and the stride of a deer. The faster Nadia ran, the more ground Adam gained. He disappeared across the street into the Dorohozhychi metro station fifty yards ahead of Nadia.

When she got there, she was out of breath. The station teemed with commuters. Informal queues lined food kiosks. Nadia found Adam waiting for her at one of the yellow vending machines.

“I’ll get this,” she said.

He slipped two hryvnia into the machine and bought his own token before she could open her purse. Nadia did the same. Their tokens rattled to the metallic cup at the bottom, one after the other. As they walked toward the platform, a babushka stepped in their way. Nadia put her hand on Adam’s shoulder to guide him around the old woman.

Adam stopped sharply and pulled back. “Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me again.”

This wasn’t exactly a family reunion. The boy was scared, and he obviously didn’t trust her. That was okay, Nadia thought. She was scared, too.

Seven minutes later, a train arrived. They climbed aboard and headed south toward the center of Kyiv without saying another word to each other.