19 – Escaping Ukraine
Another Bloody Day
Another feverish session at the cashpoint, pulling out my daily limit.
Another ramble through the historic district, pretending to be tourists.
Another heroic battle to not stand on the pavement, screaming my head off.
Just another bloody day in Ukraine.
~
Hoarding cash, while we still had access to ATMs, felt like the right thing to do. There was simply no way of knowing when we'd be making another run for it; going dark and into deep hiding; buying our way out of harm’s way—or jail; or ending up severed from my bank account. By wiping out my savings and gnawing away at my house with a Home Equity line of credit, I was slaughtering our future safety for the present illusion of having options.
~
Elena's mobile rang. She answered. Walked away from me. Mumbled: “Allo? … When? … Really! … Where? … How much?”
It had to be that eejit Alexi or some other crackpot-stupid-desperate connection we'd made. But all I could do was speculate. Prodding Elena usually got me the cold shoulder—or an eye injury. That time, however, she volunteered in a subdued monotone: “Tanya got my passport from Mama.”
Holy kapoosta! I would have been shouting news like that from the rooftops. Maybe, dancing on the ceiling. Anything but a monotone one-liner. Elena is like that: too many hopes dashed to let go of fear.
~
Tanya showed up with Elena's passport. The two old friends were as thick as thieves. Between them, I was about as out of place as an actor in Hollywood, and probably just as unappreciated. Getting the hint, I made a graceful exit to the hotel's business centre.
The passport changed everything, or so I thought. I called the Canadian consulate in Kyiv and got the same old story: “No job. No money. No ties to Russia. Thus, no tourist visa. No how. No way! Unacceptable risk of her staying.”
“Of course, she will stay. We want to be a family.” I said, cringing at how box-ticking trendy that sounded.
“Exactly! And that is unacceptable on a tourist visa.”
“Wow. What do I do?”
“You go home, to Ca-na-da! Your friend goes to her home in Russia. She can apply for an appropriate visa through the Canadian consulate in Russia, not Ukraine.”
It was like a hard kick to the gut. “That takes years!”
“It can. Look, your friend can only apply for a Canadian visitor visa from within her country of citizenship or legal, permanent residence.” She rattled off the usual list of required documents. All of them—except the passport—were held for ransom by Elena's parents.
“She can't go home. She has no home! Her parents beat the crap out of her and hired thugs to get us. They're promising to lock her in a dom durakoff crazy house, and fry her brain with enough juice to light up a good size town.”
“I see.” She took a very audible breath, “That is a matter for the local authorities. Not Canada!” And then, she hung up on me.
Not even my superhuman powers of denial could deflect what was clawing its way up from the pit of my stomach—fear. I was bloody terrified. Whoever said: “There's nothing to fear but fear itself,” got it absolutely dead on.
Elena leaped, I caught her. Blimey, I encouraged her. She'd told me a zillion times that she'd die before going back. That she was as good as dead anyway. That if she went back, they would never let her out again.
There was nowhere left to run but south to Türkiye. One of the rare countries that allows entry to both Canadians and Russians as tourists. If we got there, then what?
In the very least, it would buy us time.
~
They say that what one leaves behind is evidence of one's existence. If that's the case, the leavings strewn about our hotel room were a bloody monument to ours. Airline baggage restrictions were yet another brutal lesson in belongings triage.
I watched Elena kneeling on her suitcase, bouncing violently to get it closed. “I'm no climatologist, but I don't think you'll need that parka in Türkiye! Just leave it.”
“Nyet, if they do not let me go and send me to Russia, I will need it. Think, why Mama so easily gave to Tanya my passport?” She had a point: a Trojan horse was easy, especially in Russia. Declare her daughter missing, or a fugitive, or insane, or a terrorist, or an alien doppelgänger, and she was as good as bound, gagged, trussed up like a holiday roast and mailed home to mama. “Bladt, Mama wants to get me.” Elena gave up, yanked the down-filled winter coat from her bag and put it on. It was, of course, the same coat she was wearing when I first saw her at Kyiv's Boryspil airport.
Tanya, with her minuscule carry-on bag, met us in the lobby. Elena flew back to our room and crammed what she could, of our cast-offs, into a duffel bag. Computer speakers, ridiculous high-heels, books, stupid fashions, makeup. Tanya could keep it or toss it. It didn't matter, at least Elena wasn't forced to abandon or bin her belongings; like everything else.
~
Tanya's flight to Moscow was first. Elena embraced her friend. They avoided eye contact when they pulled away from each other. Impulsively, Elena dug the last of her Russian Roubles from a pocket and shoved them into Tanya's hands. “For lunch. For the taxi. For everything. Until we meet again, have a soft flight, my friend.”
When it was our turn, Elena passed the initial security screening with ease. My western passport, however, obligated me to a far more stringent search. Not only were my bags scanned multiple times, but I was asked to describe fuzzy smudges on the ancient x-ray monitors, which someone decided were drugs. While that charade kept me busy, someone else, this one in a reflective safety vest, muddy work boots and hard hat, turned my socks and scanties inside out with his filthy hands. A couple of boxes of chocolates I'd crammed in between my clothes were of intense interest. “Show these to me.” I pulled them out. “Ah, very nice. Kyiv-In-the-Evening chocolates. To be such a rich foreigner as to buy such confections, we can only dream of.”
Of course, what was I thinking? “The chocolates are yours, with my compliments!” A woman in makeup, she must have applied with a trowel, retreated to a side office with both boxes. Yay, the inspection was done.
Passport control was next. A man, woman and two cranky kids waited behind a yellow line. An officer signalled to them with a half-wave. The man approached without his wife and children. Something about, family members travelling together must present themselves together, squawked from a speaker embedded in the glazing. I made a mental note of that. The woman herded her kids across the yellow line to join her husband at the booth. A lot of head bobbing and rubber-stamping ensued. Papers were shoved back and forth in a sliding metal tray, then the family was waved on.
The officer, a humourless man in a surrealistically large hat, tidied up his bulletproof booth. He leaned back in his chair to lazily confer with adjacent comrades. It was probably a special psyching-out tactic used on the next victim. Us.
Then, the blithe, half handed come hither gesture was waved in our direction. We stepped up to the booth. “What is this? One at a time!”
“We are together.” Elena said with an I-swallowed-my-electric-toothbrush tremolo.
“Nyet! One goes back to the queue.” He slapped the metal tray to our side of the acrylic shield.
I scooped out my passport and fell back. If that yellow line was scary before, having it between us was hell-on-the-half-shell. I watched the enormous hat bobbing up and down. Catching up with the officer's head a split second after each glance at Elena and the monitor inside his booth. My mind was screaming, this is bad. It's taking too long. Then the officer's amplified voice squawked at me, “You! Come here.”
Elena stood there. “A problem, Meg. He wants speak to—”
“Forbidden! No talking. The Russian goes. Now!” He jabbed a thumb toward the third gate: passenger security screening. Little did I know, the chocolate filching gang was just a preliminary baggage check.
I dutifully plopped my passport and various excrescent papers in the tray. They sat there on my side of the barrier. The metal tray didn't retract. The officer casually took his time. Tidied up. Spoke with colleagues. Raised his enormous hat, ran a hand through his hair. Took a phone call.
I must have gone invisible. “Eh-hem.”
“Silence! You wait.”
People were moving past the other booths. Those queuing behind me were getting ugly. Elena was nowhere in sight. I assumed she passed through without concern.
“Meez Ah-eeet-kyen, pleez.” Warbled from somewhere beyond the passport-control stockade. Weirdly, it sounded like an enormous mosquito calling my name. I turned. Ah-hah! The chocaholic from baggage screening was beckoning.
“You go with her.” Rasped from the booth's speaker.
I reached for my passport, but missed by a nanosecond as the metal tray with my papers was snatched back. Crikey, I could have lost a finger or two. “Ooooh-kaaay, I see that you're going to keep my passport safe. I'll just pop back round in a bit to collect it, shall I?” It was starting to feel an awful lot like the Russian consulate fiasco. Just nowhere near as funny.
“Go! Now!”
Sitting at her desk and sighing like she had to broker a Mid-East peace deal, the woman offered me one of my chocolates.
“Thank you, but no. Not particularly peckish at the moment.” The box was almost empty. I felt more like throwing up than gobbling confections. “Is there another problem with my luggage?”
“Problem with girlfriend.” The woman's English wasn't bad.
The big-hatted, passport-control officer came in without knocking. He dropped into a metal chair and helped himself to a chocolate. “The Russian girl, she can fly to Türkiye. I have stamped her passport.” He went on in Ukrainian. Russian is hard enough; Ukrainian is beyond me. I couldn't catch a thing they were talking about.
“This Russian girl, she can go to Türkiye. This officer has not to stopped her. She should not travel to out of CIS.” The woman spoke slowly, in English.
“Why?” I said, before realizing the right response was how much?
An intense back-and-forth Ukrainian dialogue ensued. The woman broke it off, turned to me. “No time, if to Türkiye with Russian girlfriend you go. There is problem with girlfriend passport.” She looked at me intently. I waited for the bottom line. The woman sat back in her chair, exhausted by the translation effort. “This man, he has done, how to say—”
“A favour?” I offered.
“Da, yes! He has done to you a favour. You should thank to this officer for not send girlfriend to Russia.”
“Was her passport flagged?” Stupid question.
The woman leaned forward and said, “Plane to Türkiye, is leaving soon, yes?”
My mind raced. Obviously, the passport was flagged! When he scanned it, three cherries probably flashed on his monitor. The chocaholic was right, I was going to miss the bloody plane. I plunged a hand into one of my pockets, pulled out a fistful of twenties, and bolted for the door. The queue at passport control—minus an officer—was going to strand me in Odesa. I wondered if I would get my passport back. Oh, my dog! I hoped Elena would get on the plane without me. Get safely out of Ukraine, know that no matter what, I'd find her.
The chocaholic came from behind, grabbed my wrist and pulled me toward the passport-control booths; past the queues of petulant, nervous passengers. Right to His booth. He never made eye contact. How could he, given the size of his hat? “Where are you travelling to?”
“Istanbul.” I said, but screamed inside my head, arrogant prick!
“You came to Kyiv, but you leave through Odesa. Why is this? How did you get from Kyiv to the south of Ukraine? Show to me travel tickets.” At that, he made eye contact. I could just make out the first hint of an evil gotcha grin.
I didn't have time for another milking, and couldn't just hand over money at the booth with all those eyes and cameras on us. I thought fast. “No tickets. We travelled with friends in their private vehicle.” Brilliant! I congratulated myself.
He picked up his stamp, then wielding it like a gavel, slammed it down on my papers and finally, my passport.
~
Business-class was all ours. It was eerie, considering the rest of the plane was chock-a-block full. It wasn't clear to us why Mama gave up the passport. Elena thought that since Tanya knew the true story, she could contradict Mama's lies about her daughter's disappearance. Maybe she didn't expect us to fly the coop before Tanya had time to report that she had failed to bring Elena back. Maybe passport-control smelled opportunity when a Westerner doling out chocolates and crisp twenties showed up with a pie-eyed Russian. Maybe the passport was flagged and I outbid the flagger.
Maybe we were running headlong into disaster. I was getting the shakes. Elena sat, buckled in, staring out the window. I could hear her fighting a losing battle with tears. It was threatening to unleash an avalanche of emotion in me. No, I couldn't cry. This was no time to fall apart. Perhaps later, in flight. If Elena slept—perhaps then.
I didn't know where we would end up in Türkiye, or what we would even do once we got there. I certainly didn't know what would happen when our pockets full of twenties ran out. All that mattered, at the time, was that we were getting out, and we were still together.
