Читать книгу Chernobyl - Ilinda Markova - Страница 4

ROB LOVED TO GO to the lake alone.

He entered into it and swam fully dressed. He had seen Byron swimming and swam doggie-paddle like him. Coming out onto the shore he lay on the sand to dry: this way he and his clothes got washed at the same time. He only took his shoes off; or rather what had once been shoes many, many years ago when they were given to the Home by a charity.

Since then the feet of some twenty children had inhabited the shoes and each of the children had left a smell and a history of impairment. One might say that the shoes were boats, full of memories, although as they stood lonely on the shore, waiting for him to come back, they rather resembled burrows in which little goblins lurked. The laces long gone, one tongue torn off and the holed soles letting gravel in they let water in even in on a dry day.

Sometimes he took his shoes off put them on his hands and used them for boxing gloves. They were ideal for the purpose and even Fatzy Dembo was careful to protect himself from the parched leather; or was it Rob’s knuckled fist?

Often Rob lied on his back, the water under him like a bed all for himself, which he never had, thinking about what it was to drown. A year ago one of the boys from the Home drowned and police officer Boyd came to ask questions as the father of the child was seen hanging around the Home and the lake. Yes, the Home was a shelter and the lake was a hiding place from the hostility of this world which didn’t want them and had banished them. In the small town sprawled not far away with its lights twinkling at night there was a different life, there were streets, a school, ice-cream and balloon sellers, there was an amusement park and other children, much smarter because they had arranged for themselves to have not only mothers but to look nice.

Aunty Dobreva used to say that the children at the Home were there because the stork that had delivered them was old and forgetful. The stork couldn’t find their parents’ address but Rob knew the truth. They were called Chernobyl children and they didn’t look nice but like broken toys piled away so the people didn’t got scare or feel guilty and embarrassed.

The Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe had not only wiped away lives; its radioactive rain had travelled across other countries and doomed young innocent lives to horrible physical and mental damage. Misshaped misfits called them the town mayor Damien who wanted them out, evacuated somewhere else so the town could develop recreational tourism around their beautiful lake, he himself being an ardent fisherman.