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Shcherbina looks around and shakes his head slowly.
In a few days, Legasov reduced his hotel room worse than a dump: clothes, towels, blueprints, technical manuals and notes are scattered everywhere, on the floor there are the remains of military rations (the only ones that are allowed to eat, arriving directly from Kiev, because the food there in Pripyat is too contaminated to be consumed).
Probably a good glimpse of what may be the status of his apartment in Moscow.
He has never known such a messy man.
Legasov is sitting on the sofa, busy on scribbling complicated calculations on a sheet, the first two buttons of his shirt undone, the sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the head bent over the table, in front of him an ashtray overflowing with butts and another lit cigarette hanging between his fingers; the room is almost foggy with smoke, and the air is stale and hot.
Without thinking, Shcherbina walks to the window, but Legasov stops him immediately.
"No, don't open it: today the wind is too strong."
Shcherbina sits down with a heavy sigh on the sofa next to him.
"As comrade Glukhov would say: does it make any difference?"
To be a man who knows nothing about radiation and its effects, he has come to terms with his destiny with extraordinary serenity.
Secretly, he admires him for this.
Legasov throws the pencil on the table, which rolls and falls to the floor, and takes off his glasses.
"No, probably not."
Without a word, Boris takes the cigarette from his fingers.
"You know, it seems that some scientists say that smoking is bad for your health."
Legasov shrugs.
"Does it make any difference?" he parrots.
Boris gives him an indulgent smile, then brings the cigarette to his mouth, holding it between the tip of his fingers, closing his eyes as he sucks in the smoke.
The exact opposite of how he does it. Being a compulsive smoker, he holds the cigarette tightly at the base of his fingers.
He has never known a man who is so different from him, yet Valery can’t take his eyes away from him: he sits straight, his jacket and shirt are smooth, his shoes clean and his hair perfectly combed, even at the end of a working day near where the miners are digging a tunnel in the bare earth.
Pristine is the first adjective that comes to his mind.
For some strange reason, he finds himself thinking that Boris will be like like that even when he will die, he can't imagine him otherwise.
Shcherbina slowly blows the smoke from his lips, then sucks in again, resting his head on the back of the sofa.
Valery knows that it’s not polite to stare at him so intensely, but he cannot help it.
Sensing his gaze on him, Boris opens his eyes and turns to look at him.
"What?" he asks.
They have known each other for a few days, yet Boris has this amazing ability to always understand if he is upset, or if he has to say something but he doesn’t dare. On the other hand, you will not get to sit next to the General Secretary of the Party if you don’t have a good dose of insightfulness, but for him, who understands chemical reactions much better than people, it’s still something extraordinary.
He's not used to someone who seems able to read his mind, and Valery wonders how safe his secrets are.
Not much, probably.
Since Shcherbina is still watching him, waiting patiently for an answer, Legasov just shakes his head: "No, it’s nothing."
"Valery..." he warns him, but his voice has lost the usual brusque and irritated note. It happens more and more frequently, when they find themselves alone at the end of the day to evaluate the progress of the operation.
"I... you... you will get angry," he stutters with his usual awkwardness.
"You challenge my authority all the time and I haven't had you shot yet: at this point I doubt you could say or do anything that would really infuriate me. I don't know why," he adds almost under his breath.
"Well... I was thinking that you will die with great dignity."
Boris's look becomes incredulous, just like when he told him that yes, we are here, and we will be dead in five years, then he rests his forehead on his hand and, surprisingly, starts to laugh.
There is nothing, absolutely nothing to laugh about, they are facing an apocalypse that they don’t know if they will be able to stop, and half of the people who are in Pripyat right now will die too soon and atrociously.
But he realizes that he said something really bizarre and, after all, what else is left for them to do but laugh?
Crying and shouting, perhaps, but it's not manly.
"I should have thrown you out of that helicopter," Boris snorts.
It's Valery's turn to laugh: it's a strangled, almost hesitant sound, and Shcherbina thinks it fits him perfectly.
"And you, how do you think you will go?" He asks, serious again.
Legasov surely thought about it, he knew it from the moment Gorbachev sent them there that they would die, he had more time to metabolise the idea.
"No, I... I'll scream and kick. The idea terrifies me," he whispers, lowering his head.
"But you will do what it’s needed to be done," says Shcherbina, confidently.
It’s not a question, it’s a statement.
And it's true: he won't go away until that disaster is resolved. Or until he dies in an attempt to stop it.
Boris looked beyond his fear and understood him, once again.
"Sure, I will."
And he will do it not only because the foreseeable future of an entire continent and millions of human lives is at stake, but also because Boris will do it, and will not hold back, as he did up to that moment, complying with his every request, no matter how absurd and complicated they are: tons of boron, sand, liquid nitrogen, men and means, bypassing the bureaucratic obstacles and political resistance, to make sure he has all the weapons to contain the meltdown.
The cigarette hangs forgotten between Boris's fingers; it’s almost completely spent down to the filter, but Valery takes it between thumb and forefinger and brings it to his mouth again.
"I will," he repeats.