The Four Chills.

---

(CONTINUED FROM "DIARY OF A MADWOMAN")

• A miserable diary for a troubled fortnight - but there is a much more positive one around the corner.

The traumotologist ordered me to keep to "a blanket regime" for ten days to allow the concussion to mend. I couldn't go outside, watch television or even read. Work was out of the question. Instead of getting dressed for the office on Friday morning I fluffed up my pillows on the sofa-bed, sorted the four different types of pills I had to take into a row on top of the piano, and tried to think as little as possible about the witch who had organised for this nightmare to happen. Jared, Joel and Ana were all at work during the day so I only had Puppy, the boisterous cat with the identity crisis, for company. For three days we shared the same lonely routine: twenty hours of lethargy in bed together, with four hours of hunger and restlessness each evening. I was still woken up by his claws in my ribs at least once a day, no matter how many times I let him lick the caps of my bottles of yoghurt.

My head was stale. It only hurt for a small part of the time but my brain wasn't working properly. There was a moment two days after the attack that frightened me more than the punches themselves; Ana came home in the evening and asked me which type of tea I wanted, green or black - the word 'zelenyi' swirled around my head for twenty seconds but I couldn't pronounce the sound. I closed my eyes, took some deep breaths, and only then could my mouth react to what I wanted to say. I often found it hard to talk. I felt absolutely weak.

But I was almost embarrassed at how little physical damage the thugs' boots had done; I certainly looked better than I felt. My body wore a solitary bruise to show for the several kicks, and the only marks on my face were a cut on my chin and a split lip. Over the first weekend the scratch on the edge of my left eye widened - it turned my eye socket the colour of good borshch, and stayed that way for a week.

Had Ana not been so brave when pleading with the two strangers they would have hit me harder. And if she hadn't taken such good care of me while I was recovering my own temper would have hurt us even more.

The irony of fate

Every day I spent in bed I thought about the ideas that I have written in this diary which are hideously ironic in retrospect. I said that Nataliya Petrovna is "lovely in small doses", and it is true that her bitterness never came to the surface during the five minutes a day that we would spend together. I referred to the Kyiv underground system as "a metaphorical River Styx" for the way it moves people from the centre to the misery of the outskirts - comparing the Vinohradar with hell doesn't seem so hyperbolic now. When I arrived six weeks ago Prospekt Radyanskoi Ukrainy felt "more depressed than outright dangerous" but I was, of course, wrong. Reading these phrases back to myself now makes me shiver.

The phrase which is most uncomfortable to read again is my comparison of Ana's outlook on life with my own, after our landlady had broken into our flat: "Those are the people I have to brush shoulders with to lose my naivity, I suppose - those who have become too cynical and cunning for anyone else's own good... I just haven't seen enough of the cruel side to Ukraine yet to be able to empathise".

And I was so rude as to judge Ana, for thinking that the country was worse than it had seemed to me. Now I realise that I slept much more comfortably when I knew nothing about this underworld than I do knowing as much as I do now.

Speak no evil

My ten days of rest stopped with a jolt before my head was anywhere near healthy again. I hoped that our suffering would end when we arrived at the new flat; it was a new start that we were both looking forward to long before the controversy. But as soon as the gentlemen from the dusty offices became involved in our 'case' the nightmare wrapped itself even tighter around us.

The story of why Ana - of all people - was accused of ordering the attack, and what reason was made up to put her in a filthy, pitch black prison cell for a night, must wait until we are both a long way from this country: then I will publish the 100,000 words I am prepared to write about the injustice and inhumanity that I have felt this November. The most I feel safe to write now is that four days after I was attacked and robbed, Ana was called to a certain office in the afternoon to give a statement, and didn't come home that night. I sat waiting for her to come home - on a cold wooden chair next to the kitchen table, receiving call after call from a crying Nadezhda Vasilievna, who didn't know why her daughter's mobile was turned off either, and with Jared and Joel praying for Ana's safe return beside me. Only the next afternoon did I find out what had happened.

Ana's eyes when she finally came home were painful to look into. None of this madness has been her fault, nor could she have prevented it.

A stroll with Superwoman

Ana's parents arrived in Kyiv in a panic that afternoon. Her father left as soon as we had met with the lawyers at my office, but her mother stayed at her sister's flat around the corner from us to give Ana some moral support. She took it upon herself to sort out all of our problems herself - Ana's shell-shock, my health, our hopeless apartment search - and it's testament to what a wonderful woman she is that she almost succeeded in all of them.

Nadezhda Vasilievna took me for a walk on the Friday, once Ana had returned to work. We went to Podol, the high city, to try to clear our heads, and the cold breeze certainly helped to make my mind feel less stuffy. We talked about what had happened, and Nadezhda Vasilievna tried to be positive. Ana was out of prison now and my concussion had cleared, although that was now the least of my worries. In Mihailovskii monastery Nadezhda Vasilievna wrote my name, Джонатан, in lovely cyrillic handwriting underneath those of her husband, daughter, son and mother on an ornate strip of paper before putting it in a wooden box at the entrance to be blessed. She explained that it was to bring health to the people on the list. The monastery is silent apart from the shuffling of shoes, and lit only by soft yellow light the candles in front of each icon. The atmosphere becalmed me. The paintings on the walls are of Russian Orthodox saints, and she weaved between the old ladies with colourful headscarves to find certain saints to pray to.

Ukraine is a dangerous place, even more so for foreigners, and especially for those from wealthy countries. As we walked arm in arm along a cobbled street in the high city Nadezhda Vasilievna said that my Russian accent is pure enough for me to tell people that I grew up in one of the Baltic countries which were then part of the Soviet Union - so, to stop me from being hurt again by Slavonic greed, I will say from now on that I am Estonian.

I hoped that a more humble nationality would also stop Kyiv's shameless 'brokers' from charging us too much for a flat. We no longer cared whether the apartment had a washing machine or not, or how close it is to where we work; all that mattered was that the new landlady would not try to ruin our lives for an extra $100, and the walk home each night wouldn't take us through any more petrifying dark alleys. But there was still nothing to be found. Ana and Nadezhda Vasilievna spent hours upon hours looking through apartment listings in newspapers and making phone calls, and with each frustrating day our budget became higher.

But even on the way to look at flats that would cost three quarters of my salary we found ourselves in neighbourhoods that felt hostile even in daylight. And each time we stepped into a prospective home we realised that we had got our hopes up yet again. None of the places we saw had been decorated in the last hundred years. They were empty and soulless; in one dusty living room in Darnytsya I was worried about falling through a set of creaking floorboards.

Life became slightly easier once I regained my strength, and we could watch films in Jared's flat each evening without me feeling sick. Concussion had made way for exhaustion, for both of us, but our missionary flatmates were superb company as soon as we were well enough to appreciate them.

The first snow

Only in Ukraine could a walk across town hurt just as much a kick to the forehead. The temperature is only slightly above freezing and the year's first frost has been washed away by dirty cold rain. The water drips into your bones and makes your skin ache, from the drops slithering along your jaw-line to the soreness in your toes, made cold and wet through puddle-soaked shoes. Breath turns to mist even inside the trolleybuses, and the view of each passing neighbourhood from their steamed-up windows - ugly on a clear day - becomes desperate when the city turns grey and damp.

And then the first snow arrived, to hide Kyiv's dullness under a clean white blanket. Stepping outside after the snowstorm felt like walking into a black and white photograph; with the untidy colour drained from it the town is more attractive, calmer, and even colder than it had been in October. The beginning of winter.

But I am more cold than I was in the autumn, too. All my emotions for the time being are cynical. It seems that Ukraine hides all her problems rather than taking any steps to clear them up. Litter and broken pavements are buried under snow, bulemic girls are concealed under shiny coats and make-up, and injustice is ignored under bad politics.

I am not naive anymore.


Next diary: The triumphs and tumbles of Jonny Manchesterskii.

---

Photos

St. Sophia cathedral.
Kyiv.

Puppy.
Kyiv.

Jared and Joel's street.
Kyiv.

Joel.
Kyiv.

Bohdan Khmelnytskiy.
Kyiv.

Mihailovskii monastery.
Kyiv.

Snowy Park.
Kyiv.

Opposite Jared and Joel's.
Kyiv.

Opposite Jared and Joel's.
Kyiv.

Snow through the window of 'our' building.
Kyiv.

Comments

[Cat]

hi
I'm glad you're feeling better now and I hope tht being "estonian" keeps you safer from now on. Please be careful.... xx

[jamie]

'the estonian gambit'
Be careful with this old chestnut: I once told a tramp in St P that I was from Estonia - he embraced me as a brother and attempted to start a reminiscence-swapping about the good old days in the motherland. When he suggested we switch to that poetic estonian mother tongue of ours, I fled flinging rubles at him. I guess this is unlikely to happen to you (in that any estonians who dont like estonia now work in costa coffee in london) but beware.... anyway i hope this mess all gets sorted for the better mate - natalya vasilievna sounds a capable uber-tyotka and with Bog on your side nothing can go wrong.

[Phill McGinn]

Glad to hear that you are recovering. My hope is that your naivety doesn't give way to cynicism, but instead gives birth to a sense of maturity and awareness that will allow you to both appreciate the beauty of Ukraine and endure the hardship. My time here, and my interactions with other expats living and working in Ukraine, tell me that your experience is not the norm (the only other experience I have read of that compares to yours was due to that persons reckless stupidity and over-consumption of vodka). Hopefully it will never become the norm. I am certainly praying for you, hoping that you find a place to call your own, and that things start to truly look brighter for you!

[Iryna]

I love kiev. I spent best 5 years in my life. Now I am in canada, and i feel i lost something, i miss my dear capital.

[Dawei]

wow
Jon, you're a strong and brave person and I wish we had more time this holiday to sit and chat about everything. Remember that your friends are here and we'll help whenever we can.