Independence Square Read online

  For Milly and Jacob

  And for my mother Amelia

  There are decades where nothing happens;

  and there are weeks where decades happen.

  —Attributed to Vladimir Lenin

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  AND A BRIEF HISTORY

  OF A REVOLUTION

  For its backdrop, this book reimagines the Orange Revolution, which took place in Kiev in the winter of 2004–5, and its sad aftermath. But its main characters—including the Ukrainians and the British diplomats—are all invented, as is the story and its fictional climax on the night of 1 December. Any resemblance to actual living individuals is coincidental, not intended and should not be inferred. The actions of real-life figures involved in the events (see below) have been fictionalised in the novel, too. The revolution was dramatically public yet also, at crucial moments, opaque; in part Independence Square unfolds in the resulting gaps.

  These, in brief, are the real events that took place within the time-frame of the novel:

  September 2004: Thirteen years after the Soviet Union collapsed and Ukraine became independent, it faces a presidential election. The opposition candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, pledges to reorient his country away from neighbouring Russia and towards the West, and to fight corruption. Two months before the vote, he is mysteriously poisoned and disfigured.

  November 2004: Authorities say that Viktor Yanukovych, the candidate preferred by the old regime—and by Vladimir Putin—has won the election. Amid accusations of ballot-stuffing, protesters occupy Independence Square, led by Yushchenko, Yulia Tymoshenko, a firebrand politician, and Petro Poroshenko, a chocolate magnate.

  December 2004: After violent repression is averted, the Supreme Court annuls the election result and orders a rerun. Yushchenko prevails.

  February 2010: Years of infighting and allegations of corruption discredit the Orange revolutionaries; Yanukovych wins the presidency at the second attempt.

  November 2013–Spring 2014: Yanukovych’s ties to the Kremlin help incite new protests, which culminate in the killing of a hundred people around Independence Square. Yanukovych flees to Russia; Putin annexes Crimea and foments a war in eastern Ukraine. Thousands die.

  May 2014: Amid the fighting, Poroshenko defeats Tymoshenko to be elected president.

  A NOTE ON NAMES

  Purely for reasons of familiarity, Independence Square spells ‘Kiev’ this way, rather than ‘Kyiv’, which is how the capital city is properly transliterated from Ukrainian.

  The name of a character in this book was chosen by the winner of an auction held by the National Literacy Trust. The trust is a British charity that works to improve literacy in disadvantaged communities.

  1

  Poison

  23 November 2004

  Simon tramped on the spot to keep warm, one hand grasping the pedestal of the Lenin statue for balance. He flexed his fingers in his leather gloves.

  ‘There he is,’ Jacqui said.

  Her breath clouded in the winter air. From the direction of Independence Square came a low defiant rumble.

  ‘I said, he’s coming. Simon? He’s here.’

  He swivelled on the slick paving stone and followed her gaze. A posse of men were muscling towards them on Shevchenko Boulevard at speed. Kovrin was out in front, almost a head shorter than his entourage, swinging his arms like a child imitating a soldier. He began to talk before he came to a halt.

  ‘Simon, so sorry. Absolutely sorry for time.’ Kovrin blew out his cheeks. ‘From my point of view, this is bullshit. To close all streets. Simply bullshit.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, Mr Kovrin,’ Simon said. ‘We’re just pleased you were able to get here.’

  ‘Misha, please. Call me Misha.’ Silently, the bodyguards arced around him. ‘To help my British friends? Absolutely.’

  ‘Very kind of you,’ Simon said. ‘Though we hope this will be useful for you too.’ Beside him, Jacqui cleared her throat. ‘If I may, this is Jacqui Drayton, our public affairs officer.’

  ‘Terrific to meet you,’ Jacqui said. Her glasses had steamed up.

  ‘Hello, my dear,’ Kovrin said. ‘Misha Kovrin.’ He clasped her fingers and bowed, but his eyes, when he raised them, were focused on the stream of people gushing around the statue and turning towards the square. Jacqui polished her glasses.

  ‘So many,’ Kovrin murmured. ‘I did not think there would be so many. Like some army.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Simon said. ‘But very peaceful. Entirely. Our security officer came down earlier, he doesn’t anticipate any trouble. And we can be at the embassy in five minutes if we have to be.’

  Kovrin smiled. ‘The embassy, yes.’ He pinned back his shoulders. ‘I am not Hollywood hero, but—okay! Forwards!’

  At the bottom of the boulevard they turned onto Khreshchatyk, the main downtown thoroughfare. In the days since the presidential election a canvas settlement had risen on the road, the opposition’s tents stretching from the square to the statue and the Besarabsky market. The denuded chestnut trees on the pavements seemed charred by the winter. Kovrin tucked in his stubbly chin and thrust his hands into the pockets of his ski jacket, elbows protruding at his sides. A woollen hat was pulled low on his brow. His camouflage only made him more conspicuous, like a burglar in a picture book.

  ‘Yesterday, at German ambassador’s reception,’ Kovrin said, ‘when you suggest your concept, how you will show to me the opposition, you say there is someone special to see.’

  ‘There is. A group of young activists, my colleague met them in Lviv.’ Simon glanced towards Jacqui but she was stranded behind the bodyguards. ‘We think it’s important for someone from your side. . . . It’s important for you to be here.’

  ‘No side,’ Kovrin said, surveying the sea of peaked caps and technicolour flags. ‘We have no side, only our country. National interest.’

  ‘Of course,’ Simon said, panting at Kovrin’s pace. ‘I only meant to say, we know you have some influence with the government—the television stations, your friends.’

  ‘Private citizen. We have some friends, but absolutely private.’

  ‘Well,’ Simon said, ‘we thought if you came down and saw for yourself—the people here, the atmosphere—you could explain to your friends, explain to the old president, that there’s no call for any rash moves. All we want is a peaceful resolution.’

  ‘All you want,’ Kovrin said. ‘It’s clear.’

  Smoke from the field kitchens spiralled into the gravid evening sky. Through the archways between the mansion blocks, ordinary life glinted in the neon arcades. As they approached Independence Square, the band on the stage struck up the protesters’ anthem, the bassline echoing between the granite edifices built by German POWs after the war. The crowd chanted the chorus:

  Together we are many!

  We will not be defeated!

  Three old men in sheepskin coats stood, arms linked, at the edge of the square, Red Army ushankas on their heads, medals on their chests. There were so many people, too many people, and newcomers who had made it past the roadblocks on the outskirts of the city were still flooding in from the side streets and along Khreshchatyk. A girl with orange bows in her pigtails sat on her father’s shoulders, waving the national flag.

  ‘Over there,’ Jacqui said, indicating a banner that read Ivano-Frankivsk Is For The Future! ‘That’s them.’

  The singer extended his microphone towards the crowd. Together we are many!

  ‘Ah yes,’ Simon said. ‘This is who Jacqui . . . who we’d like you to meet. Shall we go around?’

  ‘Is okay,’ Kovrin said. ‘We go through.’

  Straight away he collided with the father of the orange-bowed girl. The
man staggered, his daughter overbalanced, yelping and dropping her flag as she reached down to break her fall. The bodyguards domed their arms above Kovrin’s head; Simon stepped forward to steady the child. The father began to remonstrate, changing his mind when he noticed the guards.

  ‘Okay,’ Kovrin said. ‘Forwards!’

  He burrowed into the mass; from above, their group resembled a legion of cells invading a softly hospitable organism. They reached the bottom of the independence monument in the middle of the square, the golden statue of the goddess shimmering above them on her marble column. The air smelled of damp clothes and diesel fumes.

  ‘This will do,’ Simon said. ‘Jacqui will fetch them for us.’

  ‘Right,’ Jacqui said. ‘I suppose I will.’ She pressed her glasses against her nose, took a breath like a diver going under, and disappeared into the crowd.

  On the stage, the musicians yielded to the opposition candidate, his horror-movie face still disfigured from the poisoning during the election campaign. ‘Dear friends,’ he began, ‘today our opponent declared victory.’

  Shame!

  ‘They broke up our rallies. They set fire to our offices. This, they call victory!’

  ‘Simply bullshit!’ Kovrin stage-whispered.

  ‘They stole our votes. But they cannot steal our country!’

  ‘Good consultants,’ Kovrin said. ‘Good speechwriter.’

  ‘We refuse to be governed by thieves!’

  ‘Means me,’ Kovrin said. Simon gave an awkward chuckle.

  Jacqui returned with a woman wearing mittens and a thin dark coat. The bodyguards made way for them.

  ‘May I introduce Olesya Zarchenko?’ Jacqui said. ‘That’s her brother over there.’ She indicated a young man in a leather coat, waving an orange flag on the steps of the monument. ‘She is a member of a group called—’

  ‘Delighted,’ Kovrin said, extending his hand.

  Olesya’s eyes widened as they confirmed what Jacqui had told her. The man said to be godfather to the outgoing president’s grandson, the proprietor of two television channels, a billionaire, was here on the square, talking to her. Power’s avatar, power itself, talking to Olesya Zarchenko, aged twenty-three, from Ivano-Frankivsk.

  ‘Me also,’ she said in English. Her eyes were dark-ringed, her nose reddened by the cold, but otherwise her face was pale. Kovrin grinned.

  ‘And this is my colleague—’

  ‘Simon Davey, from the embassy. Deputy head of mission. How do you do?’

  ‘No more orders from Moscow!’ said the speaker on the stage. ‘No more Kremlin lies!’

  ‘My British friends,’ Kovrin said, raising his voice above the speech, ‘say you can help me to understand—all this anger, these people, why you are all here.’

  ‘Bandits out!’ exclaimed the politician.

  Bandits out! answered the crowd. Thousands of candles were held aloft as if for a sacrament, consecrated by a gentle snow. The votes would be counted, the universe seemed to be promising, the assassins would repent. Everyone would be different, shucking off their old, indentured pasts.

  ‘It’s clear, I think.’ Olesya swallowed. ‘We want to live in a free country. A normal country. Nothing more.’

  ‘Is my country also,’ Kovrin said. ‘And frankly speaking, this is not normal. To take over city with your tents—this is chaos.’

  ‘In my opinion,’ Olesya said, ‘it’s chaos in our government. It’s chaos in our police.’

  ‘They think they can buy this election!’ the disfigured candidate growled. On the giant screen beside the stage, his likeness raised a fist. ‘But we are not for sale!’

  Shame!

  From his perch on the monument, Olesya’s brother joined in: ‘Shame!’ She beckoned for him to join them but he didn’t see her.

  ‘Buy or no buy, he loses,’ Kovrin said. ‘He lost.’

  ‘But we say no,’ Olesya said. ‘We didn’t lose. And we will stay until we win.’

  ‘Dear friends,’ the politician cooed. ‘Glory to you all!’

  Glory! affirmed the square, swelling on that word as if the organism had drawn breath. The pocket of space at the foot of the monument closed, grinding Kovrin and the diplomats together. Then the organism exhaled and the space expanded again.

  One of the bodyguards bent down and whispered to his boss. He rocked back on his heels and glanced around: Kovrin against the square, or against the world—he seemed content to take those odds.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘I would like to continue. There is something more to say. Mr Davey will come too, I think. At my house? Tomorrow?’

  Olesya turned to Simon; he nodded. ‘And my brother?’ She pinned her hair behind her ear.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Kovrin said.

  ‘Right,’ Jacqui said. ‘Terrific.’

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ Kovrin said to Olesya. ‘I send my man with our car.’

  Half a dozen other politicians joined the speaker onstage, waving and linking arms for the national anthem. The big screen broadcast wide-angle images of the crowd, letting the protesters see their own strength, the narcotic spectacle of their numberless best selves. The bodyguards led Kovrin and the diplomats towards the colonnade of the post office building, now occupied by vendors of revolutionary merchandise.

  ‘You know,’ Kovrin said, ‘television news says this is all monsters. My channels, they say these are terrorists. But—off records?—to me, they look like normal people. Young. Absolutely normal.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Simon said. ‘That is precisely why we wanted you to come.’

  ‘From my point of view,’ Kovrin said, pausing at a display of orange scarves, ‘nothing is possible without compromise. This is my number-one point.’

  ‘We’re all in agreement there,’ Simon said. Kovrin rubbed a scarf between his fingers as if assessing the fabric. ‘I mean, the international community.’

  ‘International community,’ Kovrin repeated. ‘You come tomorrow, yes? Is important. Good night, Miss Jenny.’

  Jacqui nodded. Kovrin and his bodyguards marched away towards the opera house.

  Two state security agents were keeping watch behind the stage, their cover blown by their blank expressions and the wires of their earpieces. On Mykhailivska Street, halfway up the hill that led from Independence Square to the embassy, Simon and Jacqui passed a parked bus with its engine running, its round, cartoonish headlights dimmed, curtains drawn across its windows. A group of tessellated riot policemen were smoking on the pavement, their shields stacked against the vehicle’s wheels, truncheons at their hips, waiting for their orders.

  The white and blue bell tower of St Michael’s monastery beckoned from the crest of the hill. Snow pirouetted in the cones of yellow cast by the street lamps, like ballerinas in their spotlights. The diplomats paused to see the fireworks that were bursting over the square. Between the bangs, the lyrics reached them as whispers:

  Together we are many!

  We will not be defeated!

  The sound of a country going all in against itself.

  ‘She seemed to go down well,’ Jacqui said. ‘Let’s hope he leans on his government pals to play nicely.’

  ‘Itching to crack a few skulls, some of them,’ Simon said. ‘But that’s the idea. Clever of us to find her.’

  ‘Right,’ Jacqui said. ‘Us.’

  ‘Better sense tomorrow, I expect.’ Snowflakes speckled his beard. ‘Rather pretty, I have to say.’

  She coughed; he half turned towards her. ‘The fireworks, I mean.’

  ‘Right,’ Jacqui said. ‘The fireworks.’

  i

  The Rat

  22 August 2017

  2.04 P.M.

  She does not see me but I see her. She is coming down the steps in front of the Natural History Museum, near where they set up the ice rink in the winter, and I am climbing up them, out of the Tube on my way to the park, carrying my drawstring swimming bag. I know immediately that it is her. It is both a surprise—a dislocation in ti
me and place, a resurrection of the ancient past—and not a surprise in the least. On the contrary. I have been thinking about her for twelve and a half years, when I wasn’t thinking about Nancy. Cynthia too, of course. But mostly Nancy. This encounter seems as much overdue as anomalous. It is as if my resentment has beamed her across Europe, conjured her to life, back into my life, here in the shade of the museum’s plane trees. She does not see me.

  I take a few dumbstruck steps before I am shaken into action by the offer of a leaflet on Creationism. I stop, turn and follow her, doubling back down the stairs and bounding into the underpass. Straight away I am surrounded by a swarm of day-tripping children, seven or eight years old, dressed in high-visibility jackets and accompanied by jittery minders. I am fearfully conspicuous, my body oafish and exposed amid their waist-high forms. I worry that she will see me or, conversely, that I will lose her. There is an exit at the left of the passageway—she could be up and out in a moment. The pursuit feels like a nightmare of impotence, the kind in which one knows one must run for one’s life but is unable to move or resist, helpless and waiting for the end.

  Members of the Diplomatic Service must not, without relevant authorisation, disclose official information which has been communicateded in confidence within Government.

  I can still picture her dancing on Independence Square. I can see her in the underground bar we visited, through the arch on Khreshchatyk, laughing. In the embassy, pleading. She was frightened, of course, one could see that, though perhaps not as frightened as she ought to have been.

  She doesn’t take the exit. Of course she doesn’t. She does not know that I am behind her. Quite possibly she has not thought about me in a decade.

  It’s all a matter of smell. That’s what the office told me. As if that craven rationale were a consolation for what happened.

  I sidestep the children and a busker in a cravat. I hurry beneath the strip lights that run along the ceiling, giving the tunnel the air of a hospital or an asylum. I lose her as the passage curves into the station but, dodging the scruffy tourists eating their sandwiches in the ticket hall, I spot her again. Black boots, blue jeans, canvas shoulder bag, a tightish black shirt, understated but not inelegant. Without question, it is her: the aquiline nose, that ebony hair, her eyes. Her eyes, above all.