At war with the invisible

摘要

FEW PEOPLE knew they were there until he sat joking and drinking with his friends in the steam bath, and then they were visible: the long livid scars across his upper body, where surgeons had cut into him to treat radiation sickness. And there were other signs. If he nicked himself while shaving, the cut would bleed for a very long time. And three times a day he had to swallow eight pills to deal with this ache, or that tiredness, caused by the job he had done at Chernobyl in the spring of 1986, when Reactor number 4 at the nuclear power plant had exploded, and he had been summoned to quench the fire. His doctor had told him, "Chernobyl will never let go of you." True enough.