Gavin was convinced there had to be something in it for me. “And, by providing those targets you’re finally going to get back at Menchikovskaya?”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
“That’s bullshit. It’s all you ever think about.” Gavin said. “Are you going to involve that Anna in this?”
“I’m not sure, Gavin. If I involve her and this thing somehow blows up, she could get burned.”
“Do you think she has any idea what she’s involved in?”
“That’s just the thing. I have no idea. On the one hand she seems pretty sophisticated, but if she knew how deeply her mother is involved, my guess is she wouldn’t be mouthing off on the Internet to strangers.”
“Strangers?”
“Sandy and now me. She’s revealing things she must know would raise an intel eyebrow or two and I’m wondering why. I just don’t get the feeling she’s dangerous, but I worry she might be putting herself in danger.”
“You going to meet her?” Asked Gavin.
“I don’t know but, it’s more than likely. I just can’t shake the feeling, there’s more to Anna than meets the eye.”
Vancouver got its annual blizzard as I was finalizing plans for Kiev. It happens every year, sometimes more than once, and every time Vancouverites claim it never happens. I had been in regular contact with Anna throughout the two months that passed since Sandy handed her off to me. During that time I’d grown fond of her electronic presence in my life. As she took me into her trust, I became her confidant. It was like having a secret summer camp best friend.
All Gavin knew about Anna was what I’d told him. She provided information. Why? Perhaps to impress a westerner. Maybe she was bored. I certainly never let on that she liked me and had, in fact, told me in a deep solemn voice during one of our last phone conversations that she loved me. I wanted Gavin to think that all Anna was to me was a willing informant, a stepping stone toward a monetary payoff. I figured it was the only rationale for my interest in Anna, he could or would accept.
Gavin made a show of refusing to have anything to do with my intelligence sideline. He refused to benefit from it, objected to it, even belittled me for it. But when push came to shove I knew he would find a way to pull me from the fire should I find myself in it. Despite his feelings, he has never tried to stop me. He knows I’ll eventually find a way to do whatever I want to. If there is a conflict with someone as a result, I’ll simply walk away, move on, leave behind anyone who stands in my way or undermines my support. “Like what happened when it came down to Brian or the bungalow.” It’s something Gavin points out to me whenever he can, as though he’s waiting for me to recognize his brilliant psychoanalytical skills.
Just as I was attracted to Anna’s direct and brutal honesty, she was infatuated with my American common sense. I thought she was kidding when she asked me what to do about her fiancé, the man she despised. “Ditch him.” I had responded. “If you don’t love the guy, if you don’t even like him and don’t get anything from being with him, tell him to get lost.”
Anna didn’t know she had the right to tell a man that she didn’t want his company or advances. I reduced her to tears by telling her it was unfair to the guy to be faking the relationship. I asked her how she would feel if someone who despised her was putting in time with her because he felt obligated. It must have rung a bell, because Anna’s reaction was akin to my opening a logical doorway to an entirely new way of thinking. She was afraid to consider her own needs and desperately needed me to tell her, over and over, that it was okay. I encouraged her to listen to her heart, apparently, an intensely alien concept to most Russian women.
Anna’s mother had become a big problem. Not because her daughter might be revealing family secrets, but because she was spending time and energy communicating with another woman instead of lavishing attention on the man she wanted Anna to marry. Anna was, after all, going on 27 — well past any reasonable prime for marrying off a Russian daughter. That Anna didn’t want to marry anyone, was irrelevant. It simply wasn’t her decision to make. I was impressed by how Anna had adapted to living under her mother’s constant watch and control, especially while communicating with me. She had turned deflection and deception into a virtuosic show of extreme patience and planning.
Although Anna hadn’t asked, I hinted at being a freelance journalist with a particular interest in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution and its aftermath. When I told her I was going to be in Kiev and suggested she join me there, she was shocked into silence. When she found her words, a stuttered a mix of Russian and English, she said something like, “God, I move heaven and Earth to leave this place. To meet you, but so far from here is Ukraine. They will not let me go. I do not know how I can arrive to Kiev.”
I recall answering flippantly. “It’s easy, you buy a plane ticket.”
“It is not so easy. But Jess, I will meet you in Kiev. I will do so nothing shall stop me!”
I settled into my business class seat on Lufthansa flight 493 to Frankfurt. A huge wave of relief washed over me. There was nothing left to do, and for the next sixteen hours or so someone else was doing the driving. I cherished the moment my option to yell, “Wait, turn around! I forgot such-and-such,” expired, and I was sitting on the plane. No turning back. The luggage doors slammed and the A340 pushed-back onto the taxiway. It was time to relax. There was only one direction to go, no choices to make, and I could mercifully relinquish control. It was the last time I would feel that way.
FIVE
The man across from me looked dead.
Subway riders, shouldered in alongside, didn’t notice or seem to care that his face was the color of periwinkle, eyes half open, dull. Stops went by. Passengers came and went. Eventually he slid over sideways, stiff legs levering his feet off the floor. “Drunk, disgusting…” Said a shopping bag festooned woman in an overstuffed nylon parka.
“Is that man okay?” I asked the shopping bag woman in Russian.
“He’s not with me.”
“I think he’s sick.”
“Ach, he’s drunk!”
“He looks dead. Should somebody do something, maybe?”
“Ha! You think I should do something? I don’t know this man.” She kicked at one of his cantilevered feet, muttering. The man didn’t respond. He was dead.
“Daborzha moy! My God! Dying here, what a disgrace.” The woman extended an accusing finger at me. “Foreigner! Couldn’t keep your mouth shut. Now I have to do something.”
She dropped her bags on the muddy floor and rifled through the dead man’s pockets. Other passengers looked away. I assumed she was looking for the man’s wallet, but she pulled out his cellular phone, punched in a number and snapped at whoever answered, “The owner of this phone is dead on the southbound Syretsko-Pecherska train approaching the Klovska station.” Leaving the flip phone open and transmitting, she slid it into its owner’s breast pocket. Then, as if it were completely routine, she gathered up her bags, glared at me, and positioned herself in front of the subway car’s exit.
So, apparently, goes life and death in Kiev, the birthplace of Russia and the once glittering capital of modern day Ukraine. Hundreds of feet below the venerable city, in a subway built to withstand a nuclear attack, I sat faced with the ignoble end of a man who looked like he could have been anything to anybody.