I watched an interview with Gorbachev that night on TV. His expression revealed more than his words. He looked so betrayed. I wondered if Gorbachev still believed that version of Soviet history I had been taught and once believed too.
I had already had time to adjust to changes. Since the August declaration of independence I had thought of Ukraine as a separate country, though one undergoing a complex transition. Ukraine needed to build many independent institutions of its own, free from Moscow’s control. Banking was so rudimentary here. Most business seemed transacted through cash, barter and bribes. Still, I felt a sense of history in the making on Christmas Day when I watched Gorbachev formally resign. By the end of the year, the Soviet Union no longer existed. I wondered what would happen next.
In early January 1992, I sat at the desk in my small study and looked out the window over the treetops. Snowflakes swirled in the sky. I hoped this wind would chase the grey clouds away. I could not remember the last time we had seen sunshine in Kiev.
The shrill ring of the phone roused me into action. I picked up the handset and shifted. I sat on the top step of a short staircase that led down into the kitchen area and said hello in English.
“May I speak to Susan?” a man asked in a North American accent.
“Speaking.” The man’s voice did not sound familiar. He introduced himself as a businessman, Mr. Smith, on assignment in Kiev. He spoke for a few minutes and then said, “I have some information that will interest you.” I asked for details, but he would provide none over the telephone.
“I’m staying at the Zhovtnevyi Hotel. Meet me here.” I had no reason to trust this stranger. He established no common link through friends or acquaintances and barely stated his business. I hesitated but did agree to go. Foreigners, still rare enough in Kiev for interest, had never posed a threat. I wondered what this man wanted and who had given him my number.
I lived so centrally that I could reach the hotel quickly on foot. I scratched at frost built up on one window pane in my study. I pressed my hand against the glass and felt the sharp sting of January cold. I decided I would drive.
I took two coats from the cupboard and put them on, layering one on top of the other. I lifted a square hat, the shape of a cake box, from one shelf and placed it on my head. I pulled on wool socks and boots, slid my hands into thick lined gloves and stepped into the corridor. I fished a set of impossibly long keys from my pocket, locked the door and then waited for the arrival of the elevator. A couple fit inside with moderate ease; three was a squeeze. I stared at a jagged hole in the door on the slow ride down and wondered, as I always did, if a bullet had made the hole.
A snowdrift partially blocked the door. I shoved hard, opened it and blinked as I emerged from our windowless lobby into the courtyard. I tramped through snow that reached my knees. Some spilled in over the top of my boots. As I reached the street the warmth that I carried from my well-heated flat dissipated. I felt the first burst of cold sting my thighs. I moved as quickly as I could on the snowy sidewalks to reach a stoyanka — a guarded parking lot — just above October Revolution, no Independence Square. I was still adjusting to new names for streets and other city landmarks.
I had kept my red hatchback Lada in these guarded lots since the morning that I woke and found it stripped of all exterior parts, left wheel-less, propped up on wooden blocks. Street parking was no longer safe. I had ignored warnings not to leave my car out and so could blame no one but myself.
I felt moisture build inside the scarf wrapped tightly around my face. I soon reached the lot and my car, opened the door and started the engine. I took a snow brush from the trunk and cleaned off my nearly buried car. When I had finished, I knocked the brush clean and put it away. I opened the door and sat on the driver’s seat. The heater had warmed the interior quickly. This one part of my Lada worked well. I put my hands in front of the vents to warm them in a blast of hot air and wondered about a faintly salty, fishy smell inside the car.
I looked in the back seat and noticed a package wrapped in newspaper. I picked it up and unfurled the paper. A dried fish dropped out. Evgenyi, I thought. He’d taken to leaving small presents in my car. I turned the ignition off and went to a cabin at the edge of the lot. Evgenyi, the stoyanka attendant, saw me as I approached the booth. He flung the door open.
“Well, look who’s here!” he said. I wished him Happy New Year and thanked him for the fish.
“Come in for a New Year’s toast,” he insisted.
“I’m driving,” I said. “But I’d love a cup of tea,” I added as I scrambled in from the cold. I sat on a tiny stool as Evgenyi made tea for me and poured a shot of vodka for himself. He inquired about my family in Canada and I asked him how he had spent the holidays.
“Alone with my thoughts,” he said. I explained that I was late for a meeting and edged toward the door.
“Sit for a while,” he insisted. “Do you know about Stalin?” I nodded. I had studied Stalin’s regime in university. So many innocent people died. Purges resulted in mass arrests, show trials and sentences in the Gulag. Sometimes guards just shot their prisoners in the back of the head.
“I was a driver back then. I didn’t do any of the dirty work,” he said. I wanted to end this conversation. I could not bear to hear more. I already imagined Evgenyi behind the wheel as agents pushed victims into the car for their trip to the security services headquarters. Interrogation, torture and sentencing would follow.
“Those guys in the service were my family, my brothers,” he said. I wanted to shout, “Why tell me this?” But I sat silent, uncomfortable. I guessed he felt safe talking to a foreigner who might not judge him. Maybe he would die soon and needed to unburden himself. I edged toward the door again. He put up his hand as if to say wait, so I did. He rummaged in a drawer and pulled a pin out.
“It’s my badge for service,” he said and put it in my hand. “A gift, for the New Year.”
I smiled and thanked him but felt quite horrified by my gift, as if someone from the SS had just handed me Nazi memorabilia.
“I must go now,” I insisted. “I’m very late.” He opened the door. I ran back to my car.
When I reached the hotel, I parked and fumbled in my pocket for the notebook where I had recorded Mr. Smith’s room number. I also pulled out Evgenyi’s badge and shoved it in the bottom of my bag. I sat in the car for a few minutes to reflect on what he had told me, compose myself and switch gears for this next meeting. When I felt ready, I entered the lobby and rode the elevator up. I knocked on Mr. Smith’s door. A man in casual business dress opened it and asked me in. Papers lay strewn across a small desk. I sat on a chair nearby.
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I invited you here,” he said. I did.
“Do you cover business stories?” he asked. I said that under Communism the government had only permitted small-scale experimentation with private business, usually restaurants or cafés.
“Well get ready for some changes. I’ve worked for several months on a big telecommunications deal and I don’t like what I see.” Few people in Ukraine had a phone. There would be a good market for any company that was able to meet this demand. I asked for details.
“I lost the deal. I have no doubt at all those guys that won paid a significant bribe,” Mr. Smith said.
I felt shocked by what Evgenyi had told me but not by what Mr. Smith said. Deals worked that way here, so payment of a bribe seemed a reasonable assumption. I had learned how the market in Ukraine functioned through a gas station attendant not long after I arrived, when Ukraine was still Communist. As a foreigner I received no coupons that would allow me to purchase gasoline at state-run stations. A co-operative station, a semi-private enterprise, opened, and this is where I bought gas. Usually the line stretched several blocks down the street and the wait was several hours. Demand always exceeded supply and at some point gas ran out.