Читать книгу Yaroslaw's Treasure - Myroslav Petriw - Страница 12

Part II

LVIV, UKRAINE

July–August 2003

1

THE SOUND LEVEL of the airliner’s engines had dropped by a decibel or two. Yarko opened his eyes. In his sleep, his mind had tuned into the constant rush of the powerful turbofans. The slight change in their sound was enough to wake him. He looked at his watch. Almost nine hours flying the great circle route from Canada. We’ll be starting the descent soon, he thought. Another hour and I’ll be in Lviv.

Yarko had a window seat on the left side of the plane. Through the window he could see a bright horizon lit by the rising sun’s rays. The land below was covered in dark forests, but from time to time he caught the silver reflection of light from the surface of some stream or pond. Just ahead, a large river spread among the trees and stretched far towards that glowing eastern horizon. Yarko closed his eyes.

“Polissia,” he muttered, through sleepy semi-consciousness, answering a question that his sleepy reason had yet to form. This was the great marshland on the borders of Ukraine and Belarus. Into his still fuzzy mind came a torrent of fragmented thoughts. He remembered a history lesson taught years ago, and the name of an ancient city, Iskorosten′. This was the walled city that some 1,100 years ago Princess Olha had burned to the ground in revenge for the murder of her husband, Prince Ihor. Yarko was looking in its direction, at the modern town that had been built on the ancient fort’s ruins. Squinting in the blinding light of the rising sun, Yarko thought he could see the glowing embers of the wooden fortifications of that city.

He remembered other conversations with his dad.

“Today, Ukraine is in a state of creeping revolution,” his father had said. “Without strife or bloodshed, and seemingly without conflict, this country had suddenly slipped from being a colony of the Russian Empire to national independence. As a result, this has become a land with no right or wrong. There are no truths or lies there. There are no demons and no angels. It is, in fact, a country in a state of moral anarchy. And it is this very ambivalence that is most dangerous – it is as a ship with no compass. Veterans of the Soviet Red Army are still heroes. Those who fought to conquer Finland for their masters in Muscovy are heroes. Those who invaded Afghanistan for this foreign empire are still heroes. But those who fought in the Ukrainian underground, the UPA, against German, Russian, Pole, and Communist Czechs alike have become heroes too – at least in the west of Ukraine – along with those who fought tooth and nail against them. And, as can be expected, they all claim to deserve a pension.

“The Ukrainian language is the state language, but Russian is still the unofficial ‘official language.’ The president himself had to learn Ukrainian soon after he was elected. His father died in the defence of Stalin’s empire somewhere near Leningrad, thus his loyalties have forever been to a foreign state. Both sheep and wolves live in the same flock …”

It’s like Alice in Wonderland, thought Yarko. “Everything is not quite as it seems.”

Yarko’s mother was dead set against this trip. She had once visited Ukraine, on a school trip in the seventies. But these were more dangerous times now. There had been many a long family discussion before she reluctantly agreed to let Yarko go. His father, of course, had been all for the trip – wishing to send Yarko on this journey to satisfy some patriotic fantasy. But Yarko agreed to it for the promise of adventure – for the adrenaline rush of a treasure hunt.

Adventure, that is all, thought Yarko as he continued his airborne snooze. He could picture himself now, racing through the streets of Lviv, hunting for treasure. He had dismantled and packed his favourite mountain bike for this trip, thinking it would provide him with an easy way of getting around. Shimano in the land of Sturmey-Archer – the thought made him smile. He could already picture himself riding the narrow trails far below in that forest that stretched eastward on both sides of the Prypyat River.

This reverie was interrupted by the heavily accented voice of the plane’s captain speaking English, the international language of air transport.

“On ze eastern horizon, some hundred and fifty kilometres from us, lies ancient town of Chornobyl′. In April 1986, an accident and fire in Block Two of ze Chornobyl′ nuclear power station resulted in ze largest peacetime release of radioactive contamination …”

Yarko did not hear the rest of the captain’s words. His thoughts and attention were again focused on that eastern horizon. He remembered the prophetic words of the nineteenth-century bard, Taras Shevchenko: “In flames, and plundered they will wake her.”

Somehow as he returned to a deeper sleep his mind unconsciously formed the words “Flaming Vengeance.”

In his mind, he could again see the red embers and wind-whipped flames of the burning fortifications of Iskorosten′. He could see dark figures of warriors with swords and shields, their faces blackened by soot, as they battled desperately in this fiery hell. He could even smell the smoke of this imagined conflagration. Spontaneously, he whispered the phrase, “It smells of history.”

* * *

And truly, the soils of Ukraine were soaked in the scents of ancient memories of mankind. The relics and traces of ages past had long been destroyed by countless wars. This distant past was crushed and plowed deep into the depths of its fertile land. Artifacts of the early ancestors had been plundered and scattered to the four corners of the earth. Their blood had long since soaked into the soil of this land, which drowned all their traces in an endless black sea.

But the depths of this fertile soil gave birth to generation after generation of peoples. Wave after wave, they spread to all parts of Europe and Asia. This was the prehistoric homeland of the Indo-European language group. It was the land of the master potters of the Trypillian culture that had built cities of multi-level homes some two millennia before the Egyptians even dreamt of pyramids.

It was also the land of those who had first tamed the horse. For countless generations of steppe dwellers, a horse was to the endless plains what a boat is to the sea. It was the means to conquer the otherwise unconquerable vastness of the steppes. And so the waves of peoples spread farther still. The mysterious Tocharians of the Chinese hinterlands; the Hittites with their chariots on the borders of biblical Egypt; Greeks and Latins; Celts and Germans; Balts and Slavs: all spread from these lands. It was the land of the Cimmerians, of Conan the Barbarian comic book tales. It was home for centuries to the warlike Scythians who defeated King Darius, fascinated Herodotus, and battled the great Phillip of Macedon. It was a land known by many names: the biblical land of Gomer, the Scythia of the Histories, the Sarmatia of the Romans.

It was more recently known as the historic Rus′, an empire that brought Christianity and the written Church Slavonic language to the Finnish tribes of the future Muscovy. Much later, an expanding Muscovy appropriated Rus′, in its Greek form, as its own name, in order to lay claim to the storied past of Rus′. The people of the Rus′ nation began to favour their word for country, Ukrayina, as the new name of their land and, eventually, as the name of their nation.

The constant throughout millennia had been the land and the people who worked it. But the recent manifestation of the Muscovite Empire, the Soviet Union, was to change even that. In a planned famine-genocide known as the Holodomor, it eliminated some seven million Ukrainians. Millions more were deported to Siberia, or ground to dust as cannon fodder in the great battles of the Second World War. Now only the land remained constant. Yet it still breathed with the scent of its ancient past.

* * *

Yarko woke with a start as his head flopped onto his right shoulder. His eyes opened wide when he glanced through the window. Gone was the forested terra firma. All he saw was sky. The plane had banked sharply to the right and was beginning its descent. Soon the clear sky was replaced by the grey fog of cloud as droplets streaked horizontally on the outside of the glass. Minutes later, through wisps of the grey fog, he made out individual trees, bushes, buildings, and roadways. The wet ground rose to meet them as Yarko readied for the inevitable impact of landing. He braced his feet on the floor, tightened his stomach muscles, and gripped the armrests more tightly, trying not to let any of this anxiety show on his face.

It was raining. This reminded him of his Vancouver home, where such drizzly rain continued for weeks. The plane seemed to taxi forever on its way to the gate.

Yarko was remembering the various pieces of advice he had been given, as well as the strange mission that he had chosen for himself. Fresh worries crowded into his head. Treasure hunting in the basement of someone’s home now seemed like a totally ridiculous idea. In any case, he’d need help. But how would he find a friend who would agree to such a task? Who could he trust in this land where wolves lived among the sheep in the same flock? The current police force was composed of many of the same communists who had served previous masters. The streets were filled with thieves of every stripe. For an American dollar or two they would perform any service, or they could simply kill you. Maybe in a church he could find some honest people, but certainly not of the kind who would agree to the risky adventure that he had in mind. This could certainly be some adventure.

Yarko reviewed the details of the challenge. He needed to locate a certain house. He had to enter its basement. And by some old furnace or stove he had to dig up a treasure that had been buried there a half-century ago. Then he had to get whatever the treasure was to a safe place. Somehow, he would have to do this under the nose of the very people who would be living in that home today. It was unlikely anyone would agree to this challenge without demanding a piece of the action.

He still didn’t know what this family treasure could be. His father had explained to him that his grandparents were teachers. Long before the war they also had a little bookstore. Nobody got rich in that kind of business. So the family treasure could consist of nothing but photographs, documents, perhaps a little jewellery – things that could not be safely taken with them, but could also not be left behind. And then there was his grandfather’s precious ancient find mentioned in the letter. In his imagination, Yarko was Ali Baba, and as for the forty thieves, they certainly would never be hard to find in the streets of Lviv. “Both sheep and wolves,” he mumbled under his breath. “I’m sure we’ll have wolves in sheep’s clothing. Those I’ll have to watch out for.”

Pushing these thoughts from his mind, Yarko looked about him to find the last of the passengers slowly filing up the aisle to the exit at the front of the plane. He snapped to his feet and grabbed his knapsack from the overhead storage bin. He caught up to the last passengers as they filed through the exit door. Leaving the plane, he heard a fragment of the conversation of the captain and his crew. He couldn’t understand a word of the Russian they were speaking. The badge on their tunics showed a yellow trident lying on its side, looking like a falcon in flight.

Yarko climbed down the stairway and onto the wet tarmac, bracing himself against the cold wind and rain as he hurried towards the doorway of a grey, colourless building. Only then did he notice that on both sides of him stood soldiers wearing the green uniforms of Ukraine’s border troops. Neither their uniforms nor their comical oversized officers’ caps had changed since the days of Gorbachev. For Yarko, these hats and uniforms symbolized the bloodthirsty Empire that was no more. Yet here, in a free and independent Ukraine, its troops still wore the hideous dress of their former masters.

Without realizing it, Yarko broke a sarcastic smile at the thought of the very incongruity of it all. A nearby trooper smiled back with such a bright smile of welcome that now Yarko felt totally embarrassed. Well and truly red-faced, he quickly entered the building.

Now that, he thought to himself as the doors closed behind him, that was surely a sheep in wolf’s clothing!

And again that crooked sarcastic smile creased his face as he hurried to the baggage collection area. The passengers were packed into a small area, waiting for any sign that their baggage would be arriving. The wait became a little uncomfortable for Yarko. Something was surely not right. Yet the locals seemed quite content to wait patiently for what seemed like an eternity.

Patience is a virtue, thought Yarko, but this country no longer has time for such patience. The world is passing it by, he knew. In fact, the world seemed quite prepared to forget about Ukraine completely.

Yarko knew that in seven days he would be leaving this flock of sheep and taking the train through Hungary to Austria. He was bored already. After several more minutes of waiting, he saw airport staff carrying the baggage, one suitcase at a time, to the waiting room. It was after watching nearly everybody’s luggage get carried in that he finally spotted his suitcase, then his duffel bag, and finally his dismantled mountain bike wrapped in a dozen layers of cellophane.

Knapsack on one shoulder, duffel bag on the other, his bike under his right arm, and dragging the suitcase with his left, he felt like a biblical donkey as he made his way through to customs.

To his surprise, he cleared customs with ease, answering the official’s questions in a mixture of both English and Ukrainian. His next task was organizing some inexpensive transport to the Hotel Ukrayina, near the centre of Lviv. Taxi pimps, opportunists who brokered taxi transport, jumped him, offering him a ride in a choice of ancient Skoda or dilapidated Lada for a mere $40 – American dollars, of course. Almost tempted to accept, he thought better of it after learning that bus fare was under a dollar. The buses were tall Mercedes vans called marshrootka, from the French term marche-route. Two hryvnias, or about fifty cents, was the going price, but the driver balked at Yarko’s extra luggage. Prepared for such eventualities, Yarko slipped his chauffeur five dollars to assist with his load. This was more than enough to secure enthusiastic assistance. Yarko didn’t realize it at the time, but the tip amounted to a half-day’s pay for the driver.

“Hotel Ukrayina, if you please,” said Yarko in studied Ukrainian.

“I’ll stop right in front of it.”

Sitting comfortably in the marshrootka, Yarko complimented himself on his newfound ability to negotiate in this foreign land. The wad of American dollars in his pocket appeared to be an effective social lubricant for getting over those rough spots. The rain was still falling, so the view through the van’s window fell short of that promised in travel brochures. Pot-holed roads and grey concrete apartment buildings looked even more sombre when streaked with wet stains in the rain. Metal surfaces that had been painted over a dozen times still bled rust. Military trucks repainted in garish colours appeared to have been recently pressed into performing civilian duties. The automotive landscape in this part of the country appeared, for the most part, to be a throwback to the seventies. There were very few recognizable models. He recognized Ladas and the old four-wheel-drive Nevas – once known as Cossaks in Canada – but it would take him a few days to learn to spot Ukrainian Tavrias, Russian Volgas, Czech Skodas, and the Korean Daewoos that populated the roads. Yarko closed his eyes and caught another snooze.

The driver woke him as the marshrootka pulled in front of the Hotel Ukrayina. Again Yarko found himself outside in the rain, burdened like a mule, looking at a yellowish four-storey building that clearly had seen better times. Run-down areas of Vancouver also had hotels such as these; only there, they’d be surrounded by drunks and addicts. Here the sidewalk was empty. On the street level of this building was a store, the Smerichka, or Fir Tree. The store window display was sparse. The room windows above displayed the occasional crack, and one was boarded up. It attracted attention like a black eye on a passer-by’s face. Yarko shivered both from the cold rain and the thought of actually staying in this building. He entered the lobby and after paying by credit card, was directed to the second floor.

The second-floor hallway was presided over by a seriously overweight middle-aged matron at a desk station by the elevator. She babbled something in Russian about his passport. Yarko had been warned about the leftover Soviet practice of holding passports hostage, and absolutely refused to comply. After several minutes of argument, where he learned to use English as a trump card, he registered himself in her book and went to his room.

There was no water in his washroom. Instead of a refreshing stream, the taps issued an ominous hiss. There was no point contacting the front desk. Yarko had been warned that Lviv, having been founded as a fortress on high ground, was located on a divide; as a result, water supply was a constant problem. Yarko knew that in an hour or two, certainly by the next day, the water would be turned back on.

To cheer himself, he busied himself assembling his bike. He had no doubt that an aluminum-framed, fully suspended, twenty-four-speed mountain bike was just what he would need to explore his grandparents’ hometown. Designed for forest trails and mountain slopes, such bikes were also ideal for traversing city landscapes. In Vancouver, they had long become the favourite of its business-area couriers. Such couriers delivered packages from one office building to another, traversing parks, sidewalks, roads, alleys, and entryway stairs with unequalled ease. Judging from the state of Lviv’s roads, bringing a mountain bike here was a stroke of genius.

As Yarko studied a map, kneeling on the floor and using his bed as a table, he was pleasantly surprised to feel the warm touch of sunlight on his shoulder. Even the limited view from his window now seemed to promise him a tour more akin to that displayed in travel brochures. Lviv was a city founded in the thirteenth century as a bulwark against Mongol intrusion. Like other parts of Ukraine, it had been ruled by various empires; however, it was the Austrian period that left the most beautiful architectural legacy. Often compared to Prague, it certainly matched it in beauty, but fortunately it still had some way to go before matching it in price.

Yarko changed into his shorts and his bicycle jersey. He threw a knapsack over one shoulder, while lifting the bike by the frame with his free arm.

“Idu na Vy,” he said, quoting the warlike challenge of tenth-century Prince Svyatoslav the Conqueror. “I go (to war) on you!” was the news feared most by the foes of Rus′. Now Lviv was about to meet its bike-mounted match, thought Yarko. But the first order of business would be a coffee, and a nice light snack.

Across from the hotel, at the beginning of a very wide boulevard, stood a monument. A bronze figure, long covered in a green patina, with some equally green winged creature descending upon it, occupied the very end of this grassy boulevard. It was the memorial to the Polish writer Adam Mieckewicz. Next to this monument stood a structure that must have been a fountain, but this being Lviv, it was silent. Rather than spraying water, the fountain, having been wetted by the rain, was surrounded in a haze of evaporating moisture.

Riding north along the Prospekt Svobody, or Liberty Boulevard, Yarko stopped at a cobble-stoned square. His attention had been captured by another monument, much smaller than the previous, yet much more accessible. Atop a rock pedestal was a black-metal, cylindrical cartoonish head of a moustachioed kozak with a long scalp-lock hanging before his left ear. On a level below it was an equally cartoonish cannon or mortar next to a pile of cannonballs. The sign on the rock had the name “Ivan” above a horseshoe. This was the monument to a kozak warrior by the name of Ivan Pidkova, or, translated into English, Johnny Horseshoe. Yarko smiled as he thought of this literal translation.

Ukrainians knew that their kozaks were the fierce frontiersmen of the steppes, living as free men on the no-man’s land beyond the reach of three empires. It was centuries later that the Russian Empire would draft such frontiersmen into serving as the dreaded shock troops of the empire, known today as cossacks.

Yarko placed his hand on this rock and looked into this kozak’s fiercely huge eyes, which gazed out from under a furrowed brow. He felt a renewed energy flowing into him. There was courage, pride, and a sheer ferocity that revitalized Yarko’s spirits. He forgot about his hunger. Mounting his bike, he turned eastward towards the Rynok, the historical market square.

The Rynok was a square of cobblestone streets walled in by buildings on the outside, with the historic city hall and its tower, the Ratush, inside. The tower was topped by the waving blue-and-yellow flag of independent Ukraine. This view gave him particular satisfaction, because it matched photographs of events on November 1, 1918, when Ukrainians seized their opportunity to declare an independent Western Ukrainian Republic as the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed. The view had been no different on June 30, 1941, when Ukrainians caught Hitler by surprise by declaring independence in a land freshly cleared of Bolshevik rule. These had been the short flashes of freedom that kept those embers of national independence glowing throughout the last century.

Closing his eyes, Yarko could see crowds of people singing and shouting, and he imagined the staccato crack of gunfire that always seemed to signal the end of such revelry. The history of the century-long liberation struggle was now speaking directly to him. Gunfire echoed from the walls of the buildings, and the acrid smell of cordite and gunpowder penetrated his nostrils.

As he opened his eyes, he found another smell penetrating his nostrils, but this was the smell of coffee, not gunsmoke. Turning around, he realized that he was standing mere steps from one of Lviv’s cafés, the Café Pid Levom, or, literally, the Café Under the Lion. Above him he saw the gargoyle of the lion that this café was under. He chained his bike to a lamp-post and entered the café.

It was lunchtime, and the café was full. He found the very last vacant table and sat down, his back to the wall, and his backpack beside him to discourage anyone from joining him and engaging him in conversation. Yarko preferred to keep to himself just now, and any attempt to exercise his Ukrainian language skills would simply be too painful. He ordered coffee and two sweet rolls, and made himself comfortable. The background music was some pop song. Yarko listened to the words: “… all week I walk and live among the lions, no wonder they call this city Lviv.” This song about the city of lions, along with the sweetness of the honey-glazed roll, momentarily rekindled that rush of energy that he had felt at the monument to Ivan Pidkova.

He enjoyed a good view of the patrons from this location, so he took advantage of it to satisfy his talents in applied anthropology. He eyed the young waitress who just now was serving coffee on the opposite side of the room. She had short brown hair, a confident smile, and a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. She was slender, but far from frail – hers was more of an athletic, or more accurately, a gymnastic build. Smallish breasts, and long legs under dark nylon completed this look. Her rear-end must have been just a bit fuller than her seamstress had expected. As a result, her black tunic tended to lift a touch as she bent to serve another coffee. A dark strip of shadow on her thighs confirmed that she wore stockings, not pantyhose. The shimmer of dark nylon smoothly accented the muscled contours of her legs. This view held Yarko’s attention like a beacon in this turbulent sea of people.

A shiver ran down his spine when he realized that she had caught his gaze and was calmly looking back at him. Taken aback, he briefly lowered his eyes to check something in his coffee. When he looked up, the young waitress was gone. In embarrassment, he wiped a crumb of white honey glazing from the corner of his lips. Frustrated, he decided to continue with his anthropological studies. Momentarily a new beacon caught his eye in this sea of lunchtime patrons.

Yarko, like all young men, had an extremely well developed sixth sense that allowed him to instantly home in on any attractive example of the opposite sex. Far to his left sat a long-haired blonde, a beauty quite worthy of his attention. Long wavy blonde hair framed the smooth skin of her face, accenting her blue eyes and pouty lips. Batting her long eyelashes, she was flirting with a middle-aged man sitting across from her. But Yarko’s attention was drawn lower, to full breasts trying to tear through a sleeveless sweater that was somewhat too tight and somewhat too short. Lower still he could see a strip of bare midriff, then a short red skirt supported by a black belt that hung low on her hips. The blonde and her friend got up and headed for the exit. Yarko had a brief opportunity to examine her legs and rounded rear-end, which rocked with every step as she walked by.

Damn, thought Yarko, now I’ve lost them both. Saddened by this turn of events, he lowered his gaze and went back to studying his map of the city. He was looking for the old suburb of Zamarstyniv. There he would have to search for Koronska, the street where his grandparents had lived. With every wave of history that had changed the rulers of this land, the street names were changed too, so the likelihood of finding a Polish-era name in this time of Ukrainian independence seemed slim. He had been studying the map with some degree of frustration when he heard a pleasant female voice.

“Are you visiting Lviv for the first time?” It was Ukrainian with a somewhat softened accent. It expressed a genuine friendly interest. Yarko lowered his map. He saw before him a navel and the tanned skin of bared midriff, and below, the black belt and red skirt. Yarko held his breath as he slowly raised his eyes to take in the skimpy knitwear, then the rounded contours of firm breasts that mercilessly stretched the white yarn. Finally, he met the friendly gaze of the young lady with wavy blonde hair. He stared back much too long before attempting a reply.

“No … but, but yes, yes … it’s, it’s my first time.”

“Are you alone?”

“Alone,” he replied, then decided to add, “but what happened to your friend?” before realizing too late that he had given away the fact that he had been admiring her previously.

“That? That was my uncle. A little presumptuous of you, isn’t it?” Keeping Yarko off balance, she continued, “My name is Dzvinka.”

“And I, I am Yarko,” he stuttered. “Yaroslaw,” he added as if by way of explanation.

“American or Canadian? I hear a bit of an accent.”

“Canadian. But my grandparents came from here.”

“First time?” asked Dzvinka breathily, leaning just a little closer as she seated herself across from Yarko.

“Here you mean?” he replied, a little flustered, not sure where to look.

“Is this your first time in Ukraine?” Dzvinka clarified while adjusting her sweater.

Yarko refocused on her eyes. “First time in Ukraine.”

“It can be very confusing without a tour guide. You’d have no idea where to look.”

“But it also gives me more freedom.” Yarko had to force his eyes not to stray below the neckline. “And I hate nahliadachi.” He used the word for overseers, not knowing the Ukrainian word for chaperones.

“So have you planned everything out for the day? And do you know what you’re doing tonight?”

“No plans for tonight. I wouldn’t have the greenest idea where to go,” answered Yarko in idiomatic Ukrainian.

“Okay, Yarko Yaroslaw,” she teased, “this evening, you could come to the club called Vezha. We’ll have nice music, dancing, some drinks. Here, let me show you on the map.”

As she spoke, she bent low over the table to study the map. A pair of rounded breasts swung before Yarko’s eyes from above the décolletage of the knitted sweater. He could see where tanned skin met delicate whiteness. The rest was just barely shielded from his gaze by the happily overburdened yarn of her knitwear. Yarko held his breath. He swallowed hard despite his suddenly dry throat.

“Let me see, here’s the Stryisky Park so the Vezha nightclub is here,” Dzvinka said. “A bit lower. Can you see, Yarko? Right here.”

As Dzvinka turned slightly to look at Yarko, the resulting jiggle repeated her invitation in a more direct manner. “See you later, about ten o’clock,” she said, surprising Yarko with her barely accented English. She turned, rotating on spiked heels, and exited the café. Yarko rose to follow her, but a pressing tightness in his shorts made modesty the better part of valour.

2

THE SUN HUNG LOW on the horizon. Yarko stepped off the Number 3 streetcar at the Stryisky Park stop. It was past 10 p.m. The long shadows that filled the park and the entranceways to the buildings gave the city a mood of romantic mystery. Several young couples had exited at the same time and headed straight for the park. Yarko followed them.

The central entrance to the park was framed in a tall, delicate, columned gateway with five arched entranceways. Dark green leaves of birch trees surrounded the meandering cobblestone walkways of the park. Yarko had read about it in the tourist brochure. Created in the 1880s as a set piece for an imperial exposition in 1894, it was filled with rare and exotic plants and trees. It included artificial ruins of a fictitious castle, and an orangarium – a tropical arboretum. It was the site of one of Europe’s first electric tramways. The swans that inhabited its ponds to this day served as a romantic reminder of past imperial splendour. Several minutes of strolling brought Yarko to the Vezha nightclub.

On entering the club, Yarko was stunned by a wall of sound and coloured strobes that attacked his senses. The dance floor was filled with silhouettes of lithe writhing bodies against a backdrop of flashing purple. It was hot. The women seemed to cope with this by wearing as little as possible. The men coped by avoiding excessive movement while dousing their thirst in beer and horilka.

“Yarko!” rang a familiar voice from across the room.

Yarko spotted Dzvinka leaning against the far wall. She was wearing a dark red dress with a single strap on her left shoulder. It was cut to reveal more than it covered in tightly fitted elegance. She was nursing a martini in a long-stemmed glass. Yarko made his way to her, pushing past drink-laden tables. To cope with the ambient noise, Dzvinka limited her greeting to a peck on his cheek as she motioned him to sit at a nearby table. Yarko ordered beer from a passing waitress. He did not know the local brands and the noise level did not allow for much explanation. He motioned “yes” with his head at each suggestion and ended up drinking a Lvivske Strong. He would later learn that in this heat, a 1715 would have been a more refreshing choice.

Dzvinka dragged him off to dance. It didn’t seem to matter what music was playing. Familiar Western tunes were mixed with the local material. A songstress by the name of Vika gave a raunchy rendition of “Boolochka z makom” – Poppy Seed Buns – and “Hot Dog,” a song describing delights far from the culinary variety. Yarko thought of this as fusion rock. Ukrainian words were grafted to sixties or seventies Western music. It appeared as if Ukrainian artists were fast-tracking through a half-century of Western musical rhythms and styles in an attempt to catch up on everything they missed while cloistered behind the Iron Curtain.

Yarko spent the evening chatting in English. He found it so much easier, and Dzvinka obviously had had much practice. She rarely had to search for words. The beer was followed by the “normal” serving of four ounces of ice-cold horilka – firewater of the Hetman brand. Yarko was having a genuinely good time.

It was well past midnight when they left to wander the dark footpaths of Stryisky Park back to the streetcar stop.

On the streetcar, once the flow of conversation dropped off to a dribble, Dzvinka cuddled closer and, taking him by surprise, suddenly pressed her lips to Yarko’s. This was a language that needed no translation. Yarko replied by wrapping his arms around her and, as her lips parted, he savoured her sweetness. He explored the coolness of her back with his right while working his left to her breast. The streetcar bell rang as it slowed for the stop at Mieckewicz Square.

“This is your stop,” said Dzvinka, liberating her lips from Yarko’s. “But I still have a way to go. Tomorrow for lunch at the Pid Levom?”

It seemed that the moment Yarko felt he was in control, Dzvinka would redraw her boundaries and again take the upper hand. They said their goodbyes, and promised to meet at Pid Levom for coffee. Yarko stepped off the streetcar. It was drizzling lightly. He stood by the obelisk watching for a long time until he no longer heard the screeching of steel wheels on the wet rails, and the red tail lights of the streetcar had disappeared in the mist.

Yarko slept for a long time. He awoke just before noon. The shower, which actually worked, was cool and refreshing. It was Saturday morning. A sunny day. Yarko grabbed his knapsack and rushed to the café on his mountain bike. Dzvinka was waiting for him. The place was half-empty, so it was much easier to talk freely. He knew that he was going to need a helper if he were to find his grandparents’ house. He wondered whether Dzvinka could be the answer. Carefully he began by explaining how his grandparents used to live in the suburb called Zamarstyniv.

“I would like to find the old place,” he said. “It’s on Koronska Street. I’ve already found it and marked it on the map. Luckily it still has the same name as when my grandparents lived there.”

“I have a bicycle with me too,” said Dzvinka. “We can ride there together. And coming back, we can take a trail to the top of the Vysokiy Zamok.” Vysokiy Zamok, or High Castle, she explained, was the name of the hill that overlooked the city. “From there, we can see the whole city. It will be fun. If we’re lucky we can catch the sunset.”

Such a proposition was hard to refuse. Dzvinka got up first to get her bike while Yarko felt around for his wallet. This gave him a chance to appraise Dzvinka and her latest outfit. She was dressed in the shortest of shorts and, again, in that undersized white sleeveless sweater. I should definitely let her lead, thought Yarko as he paid the cashier. The view promised to be quite remarkable.

They rode along Krakivska Street for about half a kilometre, then it seemed that the road changed names to Bohdan Khmelnycky and then to Zamarstynivska. The name changes reminded him of his native Vancouver where the same roadway could have several names.

“Seems it’s a lot easier to nail a new name to a post than to build a new road,” joked Yarko.

Dzvinka laughed. “Or repave the old one. But you will rarely find a post with a street name. It is far cheaper to attach the street name to the wall of a corner building instead.”

Yarko was riding beside Dzvinka but just a little behind, giving him a great view. Her shorts revealed as much as they concealed, and whenever she bent over the handlebars, her sleeveless sweater hung loosely enough to expose milky flashes of her breasts. Yarko was missing much of the historic scenery of this part of town. Centuries-old buildings and churches went unnoticed. He almost missed crossing the railway tracks, and a gentle turn to the right also went unnoticed. Only as Dzvinka slowed near an abandoned factory did Yarko return to full consciousness. Old stone houses were in a uniform state of disrepair. A short side street was marked by a sequence of yellow puddles rather than any semblance of pavement.

“I think this is it,” said Dzvinka, catching her breath.

Yarko could just make out worn black lettering on a white board on the side of a corner house. “Koro …” was all that was legible. “Yes, this should be the street,” he said. “The house number was 19. At least that’s what it was before the war.”

He walked his bike between puddles while scanning for house numbers. The smell of flowering vegetables came wafting on a slight breeze. Bordered by crumbled stone, brick, and rubbish was a garden of some size along one side of the street. Neat rows of onions, carrots, and cabbage brought a hint of order to this scene of dilapidation. In the silence, a quiet hum of busy insects could be heard. Bees and butterflies flitted from flower to flower.

Across from this garden was a large house that caught Yarko’s eye. He remembered the description of the house in family legend as being a fortress, a veritable bunker. Flaking stucco revealed stone and brickwork underneath. This house was as close to a two-storey cube of stucco-encased masonry as could be imagined. On one corner a signboard read “19 Koronska.” This had to be it.

“Family legend had it that as my great-grandfather, a school principal, was building his house, the neighbours jokingly accused him of building a bunker,” explained Yarko. “But then later, during the war, when the nearby railway station was carpet-bombed, no home escaped damage. Only the principal’s bunker stood without so much as a cracked window pane.”

Yes, this was the family bunker. Standing silently before it, he again felt that inflow of energy, that bravado that he first felt at the monument to Ivan Pidkova, the kozak warrior named Johnny Horseshoe. Much like the hero of the movie Taras Bulba, Ivan had fought the Turk but was betrayed by the Pole. His blackened bronze visage today marked the spot where his Polish allies beheaded him. Yarko knew the story.

Although feeling this renewed strength, he also felt, deep within him, a strange uneasiness. Something twisted his gut, as a shiver ran down his spine. Not all is as it seems here in Wonderland, some voice was whispering. Maybe it was the thought of having to break into this house that was bothering him. He could not form a plan, yet he felt unready to share his thoughts with Dzvinka. She had been standing behind him, not daring to interrupt his silent contemplation. Only when he moved did Dzvinka dare to speak.

“Today there will be three or four families living in this building, not just one as before,” she said. Her voice had a slight accusatory tone, Yarko felt. She sounded like a lecturing Intourist guide, more appropriate to this land some decades ago.

Yarko did not reply. He was more than prepared to argue the merits of private ownership. The pitfalls of government ownership were in full display before him. He just didn’t want to go there at this time.

“If you’re hungry, I brought a butterbrod,” she said, trying to change the subject. “A sandwich, if you prefer the English word.” She could feel that Yarko was not in a chatty mood just now. Her bicycle had a pair of travel bags with snap pockets. She opened one and gave Yarko a rye bread sandwich with Krakivska sausage. Yarko silently handed her his water bottle in return. His thoughts were still far away, as he unconsciously chewed on his bread. He looked the building over from all sides. He could feel that there was something here that was dear to him.

Dzvinka interrupted the silence again. “Come on. Let’s go to the Vysokiy Zamok. It’s getting late.”

In order to focus his distracted attention and convince him to follow her, she lifted her arms as if to clear her hair from the nape of her neck, and, simultaneously, stretch her tired muscles. This motion revealed even more of her breasts through the arm openings of the sleeveless sweater. Her belly button narrowed between twin strips of muscle and her shorts slipped even lower off her hips.

“Let’s go, then,” agreed Yarko. “You lead.”

The Vysokiy Zamok was on the route home. They had ridden around it to the west on the way here. Now they would ride around its east side. They crossed under a railway bridge and then turned up a switchback road heading to the hill’s peak. The last part of the climb was along a walking path that led to the top. The mountain was crowned by an artificial conical hill with a spiralling path leading to its top. Dzvinka rode straight past this hill and past the remains of old battlements to a small clearing surrounded by dense bushes and trees. Barely visible through this vegetation was a tall radio tower behind them. Tired and panting, the two lay happily in the grass. Dzvinka propped her head up on Yarko’s knapsack. She could just see the end of a roll of American dollars showing from under a flap.

“I see you’ve brought some hard currency,” she commented. “Be careful with that kind of amount around this town.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just a few bucks for the road. The rest is much better hidden.”

Lying on her back, Dzvinka lifted herself on her elbows to keep her hair off the grass. To stretch her muscles, she bent one knee to the point that her heel just touched her buttocks. Yarko checked out her tanned legs. The sweaty wrinkles of her shorts failed to conceal her panties, whose delicate lace seemed a strange selection for bike riding. Dzvinka closed her legs to shield herself from Yarko’s gaze, and smiled back at him coquettishly. Yarko couldn’t hold back and pressed his lips passionately to hers. Dzvinka embraced him, and while gripping his thigh between hers, she smartly rolled him under her. She laughed at his surprise at this deft manoeuvre.

“Wait here,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

Yarko watched breathless as she crawled on her knees to her bike and reached into her other travel bag pocket. Multicoloured clouds of this romantic Lviv evening were playing with the last of the sun’s rays.

“You know, Dzvinka,” he said, staring at the slivers of white lace exposed with every movement of her thighs, “I’m going to need your help. I have this interesting task. There is some kind of treasure in that house we were looking at. It’s something my grandparents left behind during the war before abandoning their home. I have no idea what it is, but somehow I’m going to try to find it.”

Dzvinka closed the pocket of the travel bag and turned to answer. “Sure, I can help you. It will be an adventure,” she said, crawling back on all fours with her top sweater button now having surrendered to the strain. “We can put a plan together right now! So where is this treasure hidden? And what will we need to get it out? You don’t look like much of a treasure hunter, so you’ll definitely need my help.” In her excitement, she mixed Russian words with her Ukrainian.

She lay down on her back beside Yarko. Gently taking his hand into hers, she slipped it under her sweater.

Suddenly, from behind the trees, the sound of several loud voices shattered the quiet seclusion.

“Blyaa; it’s the militsya,” Dzvinka whispered hoarsely, mixing Russian expletives with her Ukrainian. “They are looking for us. Let’s scram! Damned menty! May they…” She jumped on her bike.

Feeling totally confused, Yarko followed suit. Then instinct and reflexes took over. “Down this way,” he shouted. “Westward towards the setting sun. They won’t see us. The sun’s rays will be in their eyes and the shadows will be long.”

He said all this while gathering speed down the slope. Twisting between trees and bushes, he made sure they couldn’t be followed. All this was a natural reaction, for as with most young men, this certainly wasn’t his first time evading cops.

In just a couple of minutes they found themselves out of the park on Smerekova Street. It was only then that he could soberly review what had just happened. Why did they have to flee from the cops? Yarko could not understand.

“I didn’t think that was a ‘no trespassing’ zone,” said Yarko when they stopped at a traffic light. “I thought it was just a regular park, a public place.”

“Not in the exact place that we were,” said Dzvinka, having switched to accented English. “There was a radio tower; we aren’t allowed there. You understand; we could have been terrorists or something. It is military installation, you know. I take you there on purpose because nobody go there. There is many bushes, trees. Is quiet – understand? We would have been there alone. And now look what happened.” Dzvinka blushed and lowered her long eyelashes, shielding tears.

Yarko asked no more questions. And yet he still couldn’t understand the adventure that had just happened on Vysokiy Zamok. There weren’t any No Trespassing signs, no warning signs in any language. Why run from the police? Were the voices actually those of police? The terrorist threat angle didn’t feel right either. He had seen the radio tower. They were far from it. There certainly were a lot of things that he didn’t understand about this strange country. Or maybe it was just Dzvinka that he didn’t understand.

After this wild escape, all remnants of a romantic mood had evaporated. They rode home in silence. It was getting dark. He said his goodbyes on Krakivska Street, promising to meet again at Pid Levom, the same as today. He rode to his hotel alone.

* * *

Early the next morning, just as the sun was rising, Yarko was awakened by the ringing of his telephone.

“Shlyak by trafyv” – may one have a stroke – he swore, using the old Lviv expression still favoured by many in the Ukrainian diaspora.

He lifted the receiver and looked at his watch. It was six in the morning. It was Dzvinka waking her sleepy friend.

“Listen, Yarko,” she babbled excitedly, “do you know what day this is?”

“Sunday. So what?” he answered, annoyed at this early wake-up call.

“And do you know that on Sunday people go to church?”

“Gee, I had no idea! I’m so glad that you woke me at six in the fucking morning to inform me of this. Otherwise I would have slept for hours without this bit of deep wisdom.” Yarko was definitely not a morning person.

“You’re funny, Yarchyk,” said Dzvinka. “Listen, if we get lucky, then the people who live in that house on Koronska will all go to church for Liturgy. The building will be empty. Then we’ll go in and check it out. We’ll figure out where your treasure is hidden. Now get dressed. I’ll be there in half an hour. We have to get there in time to see when the occupants leave for church. Can’t you figure anything out for yourself, Yarko?”

Yarko was irritated both by the early wake-up and by the fact that Dzvinka had thought things through for him. “Thanks for spending all night doing the thinking for us both, but tell me, if the door is locked, how will we get in? Maybe, since it’s Sunday, the Holy Ghost will let us in.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve got a friend who opens doors without a key,” she explained with a giggle. “He’ll lend me his tools. It’s high quality equipment – German, you know. So don’t worry, I’ll handle the door. And you just hurry up and don’t think too much. Leave that to me. Now put your pants on because you’re probably standing there in nothing but your gachi. Half an hour – no longer. Bye-bye.”

“Bye,” said Yarko. God, how he hated it when women ordered him around.

He was standing by the phone in his gachi.

There was no water in the washroom.

Forty minutes later he was on his bike riding along Krakivska, following Dzvinka. She had totally changed her appearance from the day before. Her clothing was now much more workmanlike and practical: navy jeans, a loose black sweater with sleeves, and a black cap that somehow managed to hide most of her hair, which had been tightly wound in a French roll. She could now pass for a boy.

Without yesterday’s anatomical distractions, and little traffic to worry about on this Sunday morning, Yarko was able to study the details of the route to Zamarstyniv much better. Every church and every building hid a morsel of history behind its façade. Street names spoke of specific pages of this history, but only to those who already possessed its knowledge. The street named Detko reminded Yarko that the mid-fourteenth-century warlord of that name was the last Ukrainian ruler in this city until the sporadic flashes of independence in the twentieth century. Foreign rule had left its mark on the street names, the architecture, and the ethnic makeup of Lviv. The horrors of the Second World War and the horrors of Bolshevik rule had changed that ethnic makeup once again. The Jewish and Polish components were but shadows of their former glory. Their emptied residences had been filled by the Russian invaders.

It was truly remarkable, then, that over time the historical Ukrainian character of Lviv had gained the upper hand, transforming it into the Piedmont of Ukrainian rebirth. Equally remarkable was that the essential spirit which had been characteristic of a Lviviak a century ago had infused itself into today’s mostly non-native inhabitants. This spirit, this attitude, this cachet, was an odd mix of the soul of a philosopher, the taste of an aesthete, the class of an aristocrat, and the street smarts of a pickpocket. A Lviviak had edge. It was quite understandable that the writers Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and Ivan Franko, as well as economist Ludwig von Mises, all came from Lviv.

Dzvinka, however, did not strike Yarko as a Lviviak. She had not been sufficiently infused in Lviv’s spirit. A Lviviak was subtle. Dzvinka was brash. He realized that he had been seduced into telling her everything about himself and his family, while she had revealed absolutely nothing. Now, while riding these streets, he found himself planning the recovery of the treasure very much on his own. He was feeling very uneasy about the fact that he had brought her into his scheme.

Having crossed Tatarska Street and a set of railway tracks, he followed Dzvinka as she turned to the right into a dilapidated section of town. The houses here bore the scars of a half-century of neglect, and yards were strewn with garbage. Far beyond them, against the background of the tree-covered High Castle Hill, stood two windowless structures, one painted a garish pink, the other an equally garish lime green. Judging by their position in relationship to the railway tracks that ran a block or two behind the houses, these structures appeared to be storage silos of some sort.

Dzvinka turned left onto the unpaved Koronska Street. Yarko followed her. Yellow pools of rainwater marked the deeper portions of the ruts in the hard-packed soil. Dzvinka stopped, resting her bike against the remnants of a wrought-iron fence. Yarko did likewise.

There were just a few houses on this side street. Between some of them were empty squares of scarred land, looking like missing teeth in the haggard smile of some old babushka. Amongst traces of pre-war foundations and piles of broken bricks someone had attempted to plant a vegetable garden. He had not paid much attention to it yesterday. Today, he noted with satisfaction that a raspberry bush clinging to the remains of a stone foundation wall would provide cover for them and a place to keep their bikes while they watched for the residents of the old family bunker.

They hid their bikes behind this wall and waited. Dzvinka’s deduction proved right. First one, then another, and finally a third family left the dwelling. A father, mother and a son; a father, mother, and a daughter; then the parents and grandparent of a pair of young girls exited the house walking single file. The well-pressed suits, tidy fashionable dresses, and flashes of polished leather shoes belied the humble appearance of the home that they had just left. Yarko and Dzvinka waited another minute or two.

“Maybe we should check any mail in their garbage to figure out if any more families live there,” Yarko suggested.

Dzvinka ignored him. She leaped up and skipped across the road to the door of the house. By the time Yarko caught up with her, the door was open. Inside, on the left a well-worn staircase led down, turned right, and ended in a short hallway with two doors. They descended quickly. Yarko imagined how his grandfather must have run down these same steps a thousand times.

“Which door?” asked Dzvinka.

Yarko thought a moment to remember on which side he had seen the chimney. “On the left,” he said confidently.

They entered a dark and dank room. To one side stood a large stove made of tile and cast iron, which had once served as the coal-fired furnace that heated the home. A sloping pony wall of brick would at one time have hidden a mountain of coal behind it. A bricked-over rectangle replaced the narrow window through which this fuel would have been delivered. Naked joists ran overhead. The brick walls of this furnace room rose as high as the joists, thus serving as internal supports of the home. In front of the stove, well hidden under a layer of dust, was a large rectangular concrete plate that had been sunk into the floor. Kneeling on the ground, Yarko began poking the seam of the plate’s edges with his finger.

Dzvinka shone a flashlight. “So the treasure is under this plate?”

“Either under this plate or under the stove itself. In either case, we’d have to start by digging here under the plate.”

Yarko took out his hotel key and ran the point of it around the edge of this plate. He wondered how on earth anyone could ever raise it. Dzvinka handed him a knife. Yarko briefly admired what was clearly an old Soviet bayonet. Apart from the serial number stamped on the polished twenty-centimetre blade, it was otherwise unremarkable. He dug the tip of it into the seam of the plate. By his estimate, the plate was at least eight centimetres thick. With a surface of at least a square metre, it had to weigh a quarter of a ton. Yarko tried to imagine how he was going to lift this weight.

“Look here, Yarko.” Dzvinka shone her light on a spot of slightly lighter grey in the middle of the plate.

Yarko poked at this spot with the knife. It appeared to be plaster. This plaster plug flaked away, revealing a round hole wide enough for Yarko to fit three fingers in. Oddly, the hole appeared to be threaded. Clearly something had been screwed in there to allow the plate to be handled. Yarko took Dzvinka’s flashlight and began searching around the furnace room.

“Hey, we’ve been here for ages,” exclaimed Dzvinka. “Let me pop outside to check if anyone’s around.”

“Okay,” was Yarko’s laconic reply, although he shuddered when he remembered where he was, and how long he had been there.

Yarko ran the beam of the flashlight along the top of the walls of this room. Since the brick wall ended at the joists, there were gaps in between the joists above the wall. These were too high to inspect with his light. Yarko left the flashlight on the ground. He jumped up and grabbed the top of the wall with his left hand, and poked between the joists with the bayonet in his right. That way he could check two gaps with each jump. Repeating this a half-dozen times, he suddenly felt something heavy and metallic with his knife. He reached for it with the blade and flicked it out. The steel object clanged loudly as it hit the ground. At that moment Yarko heard Dzvinka’s footsteps rapidly descending the stairs. He swiftly grabbed the object and squeezed it into his pocket.

“What fell?” asked Dzvinka excitedly.

“Nothing. Just your damned knife.”

“Haven’t you finished yet?”

“Give me a few more minutes, please. We’ll leave in five.”

Dzvinka walked back up the staircase.

Yarko carefully checked out what he had found. It was a large steel ring fitted through a very fat stubby bolt with a square-cut thread. Yarko tried threading the bolt into the hole in the plate. It fit perfectly! This was how the plate was handled! He slipped this ring back into his pocket. He heard Dzvinka’s quiet steps behind him.

Cholera, he thought, swearing in the native Lviviak jargon. She’s poking around too much. Looks like she’s seen it. Without even turning around, he began to sheepishly excuse himself. “Dzvinka, I was going to show you – ”

Bang! A gunshot rang from just outside the house. Bang! Another one. Instinctively, Yarko dropped to the ground. I’m still alive, he thought. Nothing hurts. He rolled over to check Dzvinka. She was still standing, pale as a ghost, frozen in fear. They could hear voices outside.

“I left the outside door open,” she whispered. “There’s something going on there.”

After a long moment, they worked up the courage to sneak upstairs and look through the crack of the slightly opened door. Two policemen were arresting two other men. They shoved them into their police car and drove off. A second car, a powder-blue Lada, was parked on the street. No one else was around. It was apparently the property of the arrested men. Dzvinka stepped outside and headed towards the car. She motioned for Yarko to follow. Yarko closed the house door and followed Dzvinka, who was already standing beside the blue car. Suddenly she bent down to pick something up.

“What luck! They’ve dropped their car keys! Let’s take the car.”

“But – ” Yarko began to object.

“Who’s going to report it stolen? If those two are arrested they are not likely to miss it today. And after that, how likely are these characters to report to the cops that their car was stolen? Hurry! We can put our bikes into the trunk.”

Things were happening too fast for Yarko. Dzvinka was already sprinting across the street to where their bikes were hidden. Yarko started to follow, but she was halfway back wheeling both by the time he got only a few steps. They stuffed the bikes, or what would fit of them – the rear wheels and frames – into the trunk. Yarko thought it odd to see in there a pair of muddied shovels – fresh wet mud of a distinctively yellow hue.

Dzvinka drove fast. At the Mieckewicz square, she let Yarko out, along with his mountain bike, in front of the hotel Ukrayina.

“I’ll pick you up at six,” she said. “And in the meantime you’d better get washed. You look like shit, Yarko.”

Yarko watched as the powder-blue Lada sped around the corner, Dzvinka’s bike sliding from one side of the open trunk to the other. He caught his reflection in a storefront window. His face was smeared black, as were his hands and clothes.

Damn lucky if the water supply is turned on, he thought, realizing he looked somewhat worse than his Sunday best. He noted that the fountain near the Mieczkiewicz monument was happily spraying its rainbow-hued shower.

Now that bodes well for the water supply, he decided.

3

IT WAS 10 A.M. Yarko took a quick bath in a tub full of cool water. At least he had water. He decided right then that he should fill the tub whenever there was water available. He filled the sink too. Changing into clean clothes, he threw the morning’s dirty laundry into the tub to soak.

Through the opened window he could hear something he was not used to hearing in Vancouver. Church bells from all corners of the city were summoning the faithful to Liturgy. He remembered that this was Sunday. His mind had been full of fragmented thoughts and ideas. An hour’s calm at a church service seemed to be a good place to get his head together. He needed to digest the events of the last twenty-four hours, and to develop a plan of action for the remainder of the week. He stuffed the iron ring into a pocket of his cargo shorts, and walked his mountain bike down the hall to the elevator. The ring was the key to his mission, he thought. Something was telling him not to leave it in his hotel room.

He rode along Hnatiuk Street to the boulevard of The November Uprising, a street named after the declaration of independence of November 1, 1918. This led him straight to Saint George’s Cathedral. An imposing architectural masterpiece of the baroque-rococo style, it was almost impossible to describe: it embodied the intricate beauty of a Fabergé egg applied to the cruciform shape of a Byzantine-rite Catholic cathedral. Yarko took a few minutes to admire its beauty. Seemingly for the first time since arriving in Lviv, he was actually being a tourist. He chained his bike to a black wrought-iron fence that surrounded the property. Knowing he was late for the church service, he sheepishly climbed the steps to the platform in front of the imposing bronze-plated doors. These had been wedged open to allow the summer breeze to mix with the incense-laden atmosphere inside. To his further surprise, the church was actually packed. Despite this being the second or third church service of the day, it was a standing-room-only event. Yarko worked his way to a comfortable corner, and leaning against a wall he began scanning the countless icons on the walls. An older priest, with thinning white hair and equally white bushy eyebrows, was reciting the Divine Liturgy.

Yarko didn’t pay much attention to the Liturgy. He was using this time to run a mental inventory of everything that he would need for his treasure quest. At least shovels wouldn’t be hard to find. The trunk of the blue Lada contained two of them. He would also need a block-and-tackle setup, including at least fifteen metres of thick rope. That would give him the leverage, he thought, to lift the floor-plate by himself. But would he be able to carry the treasure up the stairs? How could he transport it on his bike? Any way he looked at it, he would still need Dzvinka’s stolen blue Lada, but the thought of working with her bothered him.

There were things that simply weren’t adding up. The flight from the police on High Castle Hill made no sense. Today’s incident with the two criminals being arrested was an even stranger coincidence. What would such crooks be looking for in that slum? Why would they be carrying shovels? Certainly not for pilfering cabbages and onions from some poor slob’s garden, he thought, as another of his sarcastic smiles creased his face. Even the bit about finding car keys on the ground beside the Lada seemed somehow way too fortunate. The echo of the gunshots still reverberated in his ears. Things just didn’t add up – or perhaps more accurately, they were adding up too easily.

These thoughts played and replayed in his head while he leaned on the wall in the corner of the church. The mass had finished and it was the general flow of the hundreds of faithful towards the exit that finally snapped him back to reality. He found himself exiting the church among the very last of these. He was in no hurry, so he stood on the steps and admired the view around him. He could see a hotel called Arena; he scanned the buildings of the Ivan Franko Lviv University. Parks and grassy boulevards were interspersed with steep and narrow cobblestone streets, centuries-old buildings, and historic monuments. He was finally enjoying the beauty of this city. He could spend a month here and not just the handful of days that he had left. Instead, he was chasing some ancient family treasure.

At this very moment, a friendly hand touched him on the shoulder. Yarko turned to see a young priest. With dark, stylishly trimmed hair, a closely cropped beard, and a youthful face, the man before him didn’t seem to fit the image of a priest. Tall, but far from willowy, he had the build of an athlete, not of some monk.

“You don’t look like you’re from around here. First time in Lviv?” asked the priest.

“Yes, Father, I’m from Canada,” replied Yarko.

“Here for a vacation?”

“You could say that.”

“You seem to have some worries, son,” said the priest. “If you find that you need some help, some advice, don’t be afraid to come to me. My name is Onufriy – Father Onufriy if you prefer. Here’s my phone number. Call me any time.” He squeezed Yarko’s hand as he handed him his business card. It was a simple card – just a cross and a phone number.

“I’m Yaroslaw. Thank you, Father. Who knows, I just might find that I need your help some day.” Yarko tried to feign calm that was far from a reflection of his emotional state. But he was not one to ask for help. Getting Dzvinka involved, he figured, would be the last of that kind of mistake. Yarko left the steps of the cathedral, and, unchaining his mountain bike, headed in a direction away from his old Hotel Ukrayina.

Unseen by Yarko, the young priest flipped open a cellphone, clicked a single key, and spoke at length while watching the mountain bike shrink away in the distance before finally disappearing into a side street.

* * *

Yarko wanted to explore the city. On a mountain bike he could ignore the map. The Ratush could be seen from most of the old city and served as a beacon that could always lead him home. He passed the monument to Ivan Franko as well as the majestic classical Ivan Franko Theatre that together with Saint George’s had come to symbolize the very best architecture that this city had to offer. He ate at the Lviv Restaurant on the street named for the 700th anniversary of Lviv. Re-energized by this lively bike ride through history, he returned to his hotel.

He had water! And hot water at that! Yarko stripped to his boxer shorts and started doing his laundry in the bathtub.

4

YARKO SPLASHED away in his bathtub. For the first time since his arrival he could actually take a hot bath. He just couldn’t let such an opportunity slip by. He took great pleasure in this chance for relaxation. He had hung his clean laundry on a rope above his head. Pants, shorts, underwear, and shirts formed a wrinkled fringe above his tub. He sank his head under the surface and blew bubbles as he relaxed every tired muscle in his body. When he lifted his head above the surface, he heard knocking at his hotel-room door. He ignored it. Then he heard Dzvinka’s voice from the hall.

“Are you there, Yarchyk? Open up. Let me in.”

Yarko didn’t reply, but stood up in the bathtub and tried drying himself with an undersized hotel towel. He heard Dzvinka call him a second time. He searched for a dry piece of clothing. He had none. Everything had been freshly washed. He put on the first thing he laid his hands on, a wet pair of white boxer shorts, and opened the washroom door. Stepping out, he was stunned to see that Dzvinka was already in his room. She had her back to him and was bent over in search of something by her purse beside his bed. On his bed lay the bolt and ring.

“What the …” began Yarko in surprise.

Dzvinka jumped, no less surprised by Yarko’s presence. “But, but, I had no idea you were here! Boy, did you scare me,” she stammered. “I decided to open the door myself to wait for you to return …Wow! Are you ever wet, my friend!”

She examined him hungrily. Her gaze flowed down slowly over his wet body. From his towel-tussled hair, it followed the drips running down to his lips still wide-open in surprise, down rivulets curving over a well-muscled chest, then down that dark strip of hair that separated his abdominals before disappearing beneath the translucent white of wet boxer shorts, and finally dripping to the rock carvings of legs, well streaked with wet black hairs. Slowly raising her eyes, she lapped up this view in reverse order.

While Yarko stood motionless, she stepped forward and pressed her lips to his, wrapping her arms around his body. She held this kiss for a long time. One arm explored his back and the other pressed his hips tightly to hers. Stepping back, she undid button after button down the front of her white dress that now clung to her body in diaphanous wetness. The dress split apart. Underneath there was nothing but the briefest of lace panties. Her nipples had hardened to the touch of his wet skin. Dzvinka stepped away to sit on the edge of the bed with her back to Yarko. The dress slid down her back from under her blonde hair. She hooked both thumbs under her panties and bending forward slipped them down in one smooth motion to the floor beside the bed.

She sat up straight and began to turn towards him. Her right hand held a gun. “My gun. My treasure,” she said, and then finished in ironic Russian, “Zdrastvuy.”

At that moment, the door to the room burst open to reveal a uniformed figure holding a pistol with both hands.

“Stop! Militsya!” the man commanded.

As if in a slow-motion movie, Yarko watched as Dzvinka, without so much as a flinch, pointed the gun at the stranger.

Ba-bang! Yarko heard the explosive reply. He saw a simultaneous muzzle-flash from both guns. The thunder of the shots echoing off the walls slammed his ears. The stranger in uniform remained standing with both hands outstretched and the gun barrel now safely pointed upwards. Yarko saw the Dzvinka’s right arm drop lamely and heard the dull thud of her gun hitting the carpet. Her body slid off the bed, leaving only her head resting on it. Unseeing eyes stared at the ceiling. Her legs, bent at the knees, were awkwardly spread.

Yarko opened his mouth, but no sound would come out. The man in uniform calmly re-holstered his weapon, then straightened himself as he looked at Yarko. “You’re lucky, my son … she was going to kill you. We’ve been tracking her for quite some time. We’ve had the task of carrying her completed works down from the High Castle Hill three times now. That’s her favourite killing place. You would have been her fourth. I’m amazed that she didn’t kill you there last night. We would have arrived too late to help. She’s a bloody criminal and a killer to boot,” he explained in a matter-of-fact tone. “She was scum … KGB!”

Yarko began to shake uncontrollably. He was suddenly very cold. His soggy underwear and wet hair just made it worse. “But the KGB doesn’t exist any more!” he said, mustering the desperate courage to actually argue with the gunman.

“Not true, my son. The KGB in Belorus still exists without so much as a name change. And they continue to serve Moscow as before. The Muscovite and Ukrainian KGB-sty continue to exist too, except under different names. Whether in the police, in the military, in the SBU – or in one mafia or another – they remain at their posts ready to serve the One and Indivisible Russian Empire. Even under Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow flags, with tridents on their caps, this scum awaits orders from their former masters in Moscow. You just won’t believe it.

“For example, this departed one. She’s an officer of the Belorussian KGB, and a servant of Moscow. She makes a living off violent crime, as well as contract killings. I’ll bet she found some American currency on you. You’re probably carrying quite the wad, aren’t you?” The uniformed stranger spoke in a calm, almost deadpan voice.

Yarko was still shivering, though his mind had started to function again. “Then explain how could a Lviv city cop manage to track down a pro like her?” He could see that behind the cop, high up in the crown moulding of the wall, there was a freshly splintered hole. Apparently the bullet from Dzvinka’s pistol had whistled past the cop’s left ear and lodged in the wall. Ever since this morning Yarko had been thinking that Dzvinka was somewhat less than angelic, but he had never expected this kind of threat at her hands.

“The Lviv police never knew anything about her,” the stranger said. “They still don’t know, and they probably aren’t going to know … So don’t judge me by my uniform. Although I look like a cop – and although I am, in fact, a cop – damn it, how should I explain it to you?” For the first time the stranger was struggling for words. “I just don’t know if you’re smart, or just another dumb Canadian …”

“I understand,” Yarko said, still shaking feverishly. The stranger’s intimate interest in the KGB meant only one thing to him. “You’re in an underground organization, aren’t you? Don’t worry, mum’s the word.” He stepped towards the stranger, offering his trembling hand. “I am Yaroslaw … Yarko.”

As he did this, he had a closer look at the dead temptress. Blood trickled downward in a dark stream from between her breasts. It stopped at the level of her navel, where it had formed a horizontal stripe in a crease of skin, before continuing down to where it flooded the golden-haired triangle in sticky red. Her ankles were still entangled in a wisp of white lace.

A violent cramp twisted Yarko’s gut. His mouth opened, but the only sound was guttural choking. Bent in half, he retreated to the washroom. Falling to his knees and shaking feverishly, he embraced that hated stainless steel bowl, noisily surrendering to it some of the finest of the Lviv Restaurant’s culinary art.

“And I’m Vlodko,” replied the uniformed stranger with deadpan cool while Yarko still crouched in the bathroom. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Stay there – stay there Yarko, don’t worry. We’ll clean things up.

“In answer to your question, though: Yes, I am a member of an organization. Such things are needed now. It’s even more dangerous for Ukrainians today than before 1991 – that is before independence. Presidential candidate Chornovil was killed in 1999. The Internet reporter Georgiy Gongadze was killed in 2000. The head of the National Bank was blown up by a car bomb in ’98. The secretary of the Rukh organization, Boychyshyn, disappeared back in ’94 and his body is yet to be found. The singer Ihor Bilozir was beaten to death just last year – right here in Lviv. Some are killed in staged automobile accidents, some are blown up, others are poisoned, but most are simply gunned down. Do you think the police, or the SBU – that’s the state security organization – or Berkut or any other state security apparatus even give a damn? They’re the ones doing it! Damn them all. They live off Ukrainian taxes, but continue to serve Moscow …”

Vlodko continued his diatribe, but Yarko wasn’t listening. He didn’t need to hear any more of that long list of victims. He knew that historically the countries of the West had proven to be no safer for Ukrainian leaders. Stefan Bandera had been assassinated in Munich, Yevhen Konovalets in Rotterdam, and Symon Petliura in Paris. He did not need to hear justification for why a clandestine organization was needed. What he needed right now was for that painful cramp in his bowels to go away.

In a while he was able to get up off his knees. The face in the mirror dripped with beads of cold sweat. The taps in the sink hissed their disobedience, so the tepid bath water had to do. He felt very cold. Still wiping his face in a towel, he stepped out of the washroom. All signs of the shooting were gone. There was no body. There was no blood on the carpet, just an innocent wet spot. The only remaining reminder was the splintered hole in the crown moulding. Vlodko was sitting at the table, finishing smoking a remarkably stinky cigarette. Yarko fished around in his backpack and pulled out a carton of Craven A’s.

“Here, Vlodko, have some of these. They are no less unhealthy, but at least they don’t stink so bad … Myself, I don’t smoke. I brought these along just in case, you know – for bribes …” Quickly, he added, “But for you Vlodko, they are a gift.”

Vlodko laughed. He opened the carton and lit one of the Canadian cigarettes. He offered one to Yarko. Yarko hesitated for a moment, then accepted the smoke. He understood that few people here could hope to reach an age where they would actually have reason to worry about lung cancer. He now felt very much a Ukrainian. He lit up and inhaled. His shakes were gone. He looked at Vlodko, and Vlodko looked back at him. Vlodko broke the silence first.

“So what were you doing this morning on Koronska Street? We saw your bike there. We caught a couple of KGB-sty there from the same gang as your dearly departed Dzvinka. She must have been there with you. Her bike was next to yours. We arrested those two characters for carrying illegal weapons. They had plenty of them. Enough for a small war. I have a feeling that they were preparing a nasty surprise for you … We came back a half-hour later looking for their car, but it was gone, and so were your bikes …”

Yarko remained silent.

“Never you mind. But let me leave you with a little piece of advice,” continued Vlodko. “If you’re having some kind of trouble, or if you’re ever in need of somewhat more reliable company, then show up at the Café Pid Levom and order two coffees at once. Understand? Two coffees at the same time. For now, I’ve got to run. Lots of work, you know … Take care, my son.”