It was a late cold December night when I was able to meet two of Ukraine’s finest.
I was walking to a friend’s apartment, hands buried in my jacket and both breath and scarf trailing behind me when I saw the two of them, both wearing the same uniform: fur-collared gray jackets and brown fur Cossack hats with a militsia badge on the brim. They were walking past me when taller of the two came towards me, motioned for me to stop and asked me in Russian for my documents.
This should have been standard, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out my documents with my pink card. Neither officer had ever seen the documents before, and they poured over them with furrowed brows.
They asked me for my passport. I told them it was at home. And then began the litany of questions: where is home, why are you here, where are you from? They seemed surprised that I was from America. In my baggy, fraying jeans, Doc Martin boots and green Miami Dolphins ski cap, I thought it was obvious.
They continued with the questions. Where did I work, what did I do there, how long had I been in Ukraine, how long was I going to be in Ukraine, every question that had been drilled into me since my first language class, save for maybe: what is your hobby?
And thank God and thank my language teacher, Oxana, that I was stopped by the police then and not as much as a month before, before the language finally clicked, when my understanding was on the level of a three year-old. Now it was up to the level of a six-year old, but that seemed to be enough.
It came in handy when they decided to search me. They asked me to empty out my pockets. I did, but I had a lot in my pockets, could only hold so much, and so left a few things in them, including the bottle with the antibiotics that I was taking for a throat infection. I figured a bottle of pills wouldn’t look good.
Looking at the items in my hands, they wanted to know what the yellow throat lozenges in a blister pack were. Sadly, I couldn’t even remember the word for “sick” and managed with “They are for my throat.” They wanted to know what the Chap Stick was, because they had never seen that before, either. I told them it was for my lips and mimicked the motion, simultaneously realizing how effeminate a motion that was.
Finally, the pat down started, and I suddenly “remembered” the antibiotics. That got their attention. I told them what they were and that they were also for my throat. They couldn’t even get the child safety cap off. I finally helped them get the cap off, and they peered into the white-powder filled gelatin capsules.
“Kokaine?”
No, it’s not cocaine. “Tse narkotica?” No, I replied, they are not drugs. They are medicine.
The taller one peered at the English label. “Narkotica vid Ameritsee?”
No, they were not drugs from America, although they were liki (medicine) from America. They were legal. They were given to me by Peace Corps. Do you know Peace Corps?
Yes, they knew Peace Corps. Did they want to call Peace Corps with their questions? No, they did not. Did they want to go up to my language teacher’s apartment, which we were standing in front of, and talk to her? No, they did not. Did they want to go back to my apartment and see my passport? No, they did not.
They paused for a moment, expectantly. When I said nothing, they went back to their questions. The shorter of the two kept dropping into Russian, and his counterpart kept hitting him on the shoulder and reminding him to speak Ukrainian to me. Even so, I kept running across Ukrainian words I did not know, and would ask them to explain this word or that word, which only confused the shorter one and caused the taller one to repeatedly cover his face with his hand in frustration.
Every few minutes they tell me my documents were not good and that I had narcotics on me. Then they would pause expectantly. Then I would say nothing, then the questions would start again.
Finally, they suggested going to the police station as if it were a threat.
“Okay,” I said in Ukrainian. “Which way?”
Peace Corps had said that if you have a problem with a police officer, get to a police station. My willingness to go along confused them, but finally they motioned down the street. That was not the way to the police station I knew and so I cautiously followed them, trying to stay close to the street and the passing cars.
A block later, we were in front of the post office, and we stopped there. The post office is also where the public phones are. Do you want to call Peace Corps, I asked them. They can answer all your questions.
No, they didn’t want to call Peace Corps.
The taller one went inside to make a phone call, while the other stayed outside with me. “What is the problem?” I asked him. He waved off the question. We stood in silence for a few minutes.
Finally, the taller one came out.
They both looked at me expectantly. Finally, the shorter one apparently decided to get overt. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, rubbed his fingers together in the universal sign for money, motioned at themselves and then waved a hand away. The meaning was obvious: give us some money and you can go.
“Nee,” I said, the word out of my mouth before I had a thought behind it, a thought that maybe it would be easier to just pay them and get it over with. They seemed slightly surprised. After a minute, they nodded towards the street, and I followed them, standing on the sidewalk as cars went by. A few people walked past us on their nightly strolls.
Both took out cigarettes and offered me one, which I politely refused. They both became jovial at that point. They said they wanted to go to America. How could they do that? I told them I didn’t know, but they could call the embassy and ask them. But, I said, I did know that there were large Ukrainian populations in Chicago and New York. I didn’t know what we were waiting on or why we were by the street or who the taller officer had called. They asked me how much policemen made in America. I told them.
Finally, a car pulled up. An unmarked car. They motioned me towards it. I didn’t budge and started shaking my head. There was no way in hell I was getting in that car.
“It’s okay,” one of them said in Ukrainian.
An older, heavyset man in a suit and wearing the same Cossack hat that they had on got out of the car and took a few steps towards us. I took a few hesitant steps towards him and he asked for my documents.
I gave them to him, and he looked at them with the same confusion his juniors had. It became obvious he was their boss, but why had they overtly asked for a bribe after they had called him, I’m still not sure of.
He asked for my passport, and I went through the same litany with him. He thought I didn’t understand him. He kept asking for my passport with a visa in it. I repeatedly told him I didn’t have it with me, that this was all the documentation I needed. He tried different ways: how did I get to Ukraine? Train, car, plane? Plane. Where, Boryspil? Yes, Boryspil. They put a sticker in a passport, where is it? I know what you’re talking about, I said, I just don’t have my passport with me.
Finally, after about five minutes of this, he gave me my documents back and told me to have my passport next time. I look between them.
“I can go?”
Yes. The older man got into his car, the two cops walked off one way, and I walked off another.
I told my language teacher about it the next day. She told me that when Yuchenko is elected, he would stop all that. Also, she told me that it had been great practice for my Language Exam.