My Dead Parents

by Anya Yurchyshyn

  “Your father was the only person doing venture capital work at that time,” she told me, “the only one showing that it could be done, that you could invest in small and medium-size businesses, transparently and legally.” A mixture of nostalgia and regret crept into her voice. “We had very lofty goals in the beginning. We all had incredible desire and willpower to make these things work, but the environment was not ready for it.”

  Inflation, a disastrous government and its disastrous policies, corruption, financial insolvency, and “a neighbor next door who’s proven that he’s willing to stop us, even when we try to do the right thing” were the most obvious reasons that Ukraine had failed to succeed the way people had hoped. “Ukraine,” she said, “is now fighting the war of independence it should have fought in 1991 but didn’t have to because Russia was so weak. This is really Ukraine becoming a nation. Had your father lived, he would understand this as the existential outcome of what he was trying to do at that time.

  “I never thought your father’s death was anything but an accident,” she continued. “Ukrainians like to believe there’s always something behind an accident. But back then, the roads were never lit, people had extremely poor eyesight and poor eyeglasses, and their judgment of distance was bad. Driving was dangerous, especially at night. It’s just pitch-black. We hit cows. Somebody hit a horse. I’ve lost multiple friends in car accidents.”

  I told her that I’d found out a bit about the investigation, and that it seemed like it hadn’t been handled properly. She shook her head with a tired disgust. “There’s no justice system here. It comes down to corruption,” she said. “What upsets you about your father’s case, that some individual could commit a crime and walk away, happens here every single day.” I was beginning to understand just how corrupt Ukraine was and why its citizens were so beaten down. The system was rigged and easily manipulated. No one with money or connections was ever accountable.

  Later that day, Larissa called Vitaliy to confirm our upcoming lunch. We stood in the middle of the living room and I kept my ear close to the phone even though she was speaking Ukrainian.

  She hung up.

  “When are we having lunch? Soon?”

  “He canceled,” she said. “He’s moving and he doesn’t have time to meet. Maybe he’ll be able to near the end of the month. He said he has your number and will call you.”

  “He never said he was moving.” I groaned. “What about Galya?”

  “He’s willing to speak to her. You can give her his number.”

  That night, I ate dinner at the twenty-four-hour Italian and sushi restaurant on my block and washed down a bowl of pasta alla carbonara with bitter Moldovan wine as young couples stared at me. Ukraine’s currency was so depressed that I could dine out every evening, and at nicer places, too, swapping out carbonara for beef bourguignon and local swill for Châteauneuf-du-Pape. The better restaurants were always nearly empty. When I wasn’t spoiling myself, I drank at the bar downstairs or in my bed as I watched television. Instead of sleeping in the middle, I’d chosen the left side. The right side was covered in papers. An article about my father lay on the other pillow: “Fund Director in Highway Tragedy: Foremost American Investor in Small Ukrainian Business Dies.” Under the headline was a large black-and-white photo of my father speaking behind a podium. I looked at it before I went to sleep and when I woke up.

  I saw my father everywhere in Kiev, in his gray suits and the black wool coat he always wore. I saw him in a little boy on the streetcar who’d wrapped a Ukrainian flag around the arm of his jacket. We were haunting each other, but it was his country. Even if his optimism had soured, as it had for so many, I wanted him to be there.

  Galya called to tell me she’d spoken with Vitaliy. As he’d told me, he said that he didn’t know what happened with the investigation and had lost his documents from the case. She was indignant. “I don’t trust his words, Anichka,” she shouted, “I don’t trust him.”

  “So now what?”

  She told me she would ask one of her friends to look for the original documents and information about the case, and said, “He will need to be paid.” She’d be driving past the apartment that afternoon; she’d pull over wherever she could so I could bring her an envelope full of cash.

  I went to meet another of my father’s friends, Taras, at the Natsionalny Hotel, where my father had lived when I’d visited the first time. It had been lavishly remodeled at least once since the nineties. The lobby was done in velvet and marble, and large chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. There was a small bar off in the corner, but there were only a few customers, heavyset men in leather jackets smoking cigars and talking quietly.

  Taras was my father’s age, but thinner and more handsome than my father had been. He ordered us each small glasses of vodka and bottles of water.

  Taras knew my father pre-Ukraine. They’d visited the country together in 1988 and remained friends. “When your father got into venture capitalism in Ukraine,” he said, “I don’t think he was fully aware of the brutal rules of the game.” The game was the criminal system or systems that had always existed but flourished after independence. He gave me an example of how my father, or one of the businesses he funded, might have gotten tangled up in it. “Somebody starts a business, then another person starts a business off of them. They sniff around, ‘What are you doing? How can I be a parasite and leech off your company?’ ”

  As he sipped his vodka, I asked about the car crash. Did he think it was an accident or the result of the brutal game, rules maybe misunderstood or ignored? I told him I didn’t think that my father would have been unaware of the dangerous extent of corruption. He was optimistic about Ukraine’s future, but he wasn’t dumb.

  He looked at me kindly. “It wasn’t an accident. It was definitely connected to your father’s work. Even though his company had less than fifteen million dollars under management, in 1994 that was a lot of money. And, as much money as it was in Kiev, it was even more money outside of Kiev.”

  “I’m trying to learn more about what happened,” I told him, “but it’s hard. And slow.”

  “Well,” he said, “the only specific I know was that the families of the two other people who died tried to pursue the case and were basically told, ‘Drop it.’ ” He’d heard this from his neighbor, who knew people who knew one of the victim’s parents.

  I gulped down the rest of my drink. “Shit. That’s not good.”

  I called Vitaliy repeatedly, but he never answered. I made Larissa try him from her phone, but he didn’t pick up for her, either. Soon Galya called and told me he’d stopped taking her calls as well. To her this was proof that he was hiding something. Larissa listened to the recording of our conversation with Vitaliy again, and noticed that his speech patterns and sentence construction changed depending on the subject. When he was talking about the current political situation or telling stories about his previous jobs, his speech was easy, and his descriptions had been specific. But when he was answering my questions about the car crash, his thoughts were riddled with filler words like “well” and “you know.” He’d been evasive, spoken less confidently, relayed few concrete memories. I thought of how clear he’d been about the other driver taking off instead of waiting for the police. However, everything else he’d said about the accident had been convoluted. He hadn’t answered many of my questions directly; he’d skipped between topics, contradicted himself, told me that he didn’t know something, then said he did. Even if he’d been in shock immediately after the accident, he’d have remembered the events that followed. I was becoming more and more certain that he wasn’t telling me everything that he knew. I didn’t like doubting him. When I’d told him that I considered him family, I’d meant it. My father and sister had both been very fond of him. He’d stayed with my father’s company after his death, and he’d met with me. I’d taken this all to mean that I could trust him,
but maybe I couldn’t.

  Galya called and told me she was coming over with news. When she arrived, she launched into an explanation of her most recent discovery. She’d spoken with a friend who worked in the police precinct where my father’s accident occurred, and he’d told her there were no records of a criminal case related to the crash or against the driver. “Here,” she explained, “whenever a case is first opened, it is in the hands of the investigator. This investigator closed the case. For what reason, I don’t know, because I can’t get to it. The investigator is a very small figure in the system. Maybe he was paid a lot of money, or he was pressured.

  “This case never went to court,” she continued. “If the investigator states that there was no crime committed, then there is no reason to go to court, and the case is closed. When the investigator makes such a decision, he has to have evidence. This driver who killed your father and his coworkers, he was not currently serving in the police, but he’d had a high position there.”

  Galya put her hand in my face and counted on her fingers. “One, two, three persons is dead. He should have been tried, he must go stay in the prison, he must. But the case did not get to court. The person who did this did not answer for it.”

  Before I went to Ukraine, one of my friends asked me how I’d feel if I found out that my father’s accident was a hit, and what I’d do if I did. “I don’t know,” I’d said. It seemed so unlikely that I’d discover anything concrete.

  But I’d been successful, at least somewhat. And how did I feel? Like I was drowning while knowing no one was coming to save me. I’d softened toward my father, but I hadn’t had enough time to get comfortable with liking or sympathizing with him. My teenage self was still convinced that feeling anything other than anger when I thought of him meant weakness or defeat. What I learned pushed me past that. I was angry, but not at him. What I’d discovered seemed worse than murder. It offended my privileged American expectations of a criminal justice system. I was furious at everyone who’d been involved and at Ukraine for being so corrupt then, and still. And I was newly grieved. Not for myself but for him and all he lost, as well as for my mother. And I couldn’t do anything with what I’d uncovered. I couldn’t locate the murderer and avenge my father’s death.

  Galya interrupted my spinning thoughts. “I don’t understand. Your family was in America, yes, but why they don’t do anything? If Americans come and ask questions, maybe this would not happen. You want to know now, but now is difficult. Why not then?”

  I spoke slowly, trying not to sound as defensive as I felt. “We didn’t know what was happening,” I said. “We believed what we were told. Well,” I conceded, “my mother was suspicious, but she didn’t know what to do. She lived in America and she didn’t speak Ukrainian. I don’t think she knew that the investigation was buried. I don’t know why she didn’t follow it. Maybe she thought she could trust the system.” It was embarrassing, and infuriating, to know that I’d done nothing for reasons far worse than helplessness. I was relieved that my father was dead. People suggested that he might have been murdered, and at sixteen I’d cared so little about anyone other than myself that the idea hadn’t made me curious, let alone outraged.

  Galya sighed and told me she was seeing another contact tomorrow. “This man may be the miracle, for this man know many men. When I need something, we talk and he help me. But he’s policeman and every time need money. Another man, he comes back from vacation soon. I’m meeting him when he returns. Whatever is there, I’ll find it.”

  I gave her the money she needed and asked if it was enough to cover expenses like gas.

  “I am woman,” she said. “I’m every time needing money, but now you give me money, so it’s okay.”

  After she left, I collapsed on the bed. I pulled the sheets over me, then kicked them off, rubbed my forehead, and chewed my lip. My father had been failed by the country he’d wanted to help for his whole life. It was a place where people had to pay bribes for basic things like medical treatment and having their electricity turned on, where members of parliament could not be convicted of crimes. The country was suffering from an entrenched lawlessness born of decades of oppression and scarcity. But who was I to condemn Ukraine? America, and its government, were plenty corrupt, too.

  While I was in Ukraine, I finally connected with a man named Edward who’d worked at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, one of the fund’s main investors, and who knew my father well. He was now in Nigeria working on infrastructure development. When we finally spoke on the phone, our conversation was intimate and urgent. He spoke to me like he’d been waiting for my call since the day my father died.

  He told me that he’d seen my dad two days before the crash, when he’d stopped by the European Bank’s London office. My father was in a great mood and was very optimistic about his various projects. As he spoke, he’d leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on Edward’s desk. I thought of how unhappy my father had seemed when he was in Boston—our fights, the tension with my mother. How happy he must have been to get back to the work that he loved and the complicated country that was starting to feel like home.

  When Edward heard about the crash, he flew to Kiev immediately. It didn’t seem possible that my father was dead; he’d just seen him. He went to the site of the accident and left flowers at the base of the tree my father’s car hit. The tree was mangled, and its bark had been torn off.

  I interrupted his breathless monologue and told him my father’s car hadn’t collided with a tree. His driver had never said they’d hit anything but the other vehicle, and no one who’d gone to the site had mentioned seeing what he was describing.

  Edward said the car had definitely crashed into a tree. He’d examined the area closely because he thought there was a good chance the “accident” had been planned. There was only one set of very black skid marks going toward Kiev. The skid marks showed there was braking, but there weren’t swerve marks to match. The marks suggested there had been serious impact to the car on the road when the oncoming vehicle went into my father’s car’s lane. It must have nicked his car, which sent it into the tree. And if the accident happened as it was reported, why would the people in the backseat of my father’s car die?

  He said he’d always thought that the crash was a “warning shot” that went wrong. The printing company they were coming from had sophisticated equipment; he suggested it was possible that someone could have been interested in using it to make counterfeit money.

  He seemed so certain of his assessment. I explained that while I didn’t have a strong grasp of physics, the passengers in the back could have been tossed around or crushed. The person sitting on my father’s side would have received impact as well, and neither of them died at the scene.

  He tried to disagree with me gently. He explained that if Vitaliy had swerved, there would have been marks on the road, and that the tree appeared freshly damaged. My story of the crash, and the one he’d been told at the time, didn’t fit with what he’d seen.

  Hearing yet another person say that the crash wasn’t an accident, and learning new details about it, was unnerving. Every “truth” I landed on was unsteady. I didn’t want what he’d told me to upend the story I’d only just come to believe—but it did.

  Galya obtained the personal information of the police officer who oversaw the case regarding my father’s accident, and when she got him on the phone, he agreed to meet.

  She drove to his house on the outskirts of Kiev with money and a bottle of good cognac, and they took a walk around his property. He was eighty and very ill.

  He remembered the case well, and admitted to her that he was responsible for making it disappear. Someone told him to do it. If he refused, he’d have lost his job and maybe his family. It was not the only time he’d covered up a case; such actions were common.

  There were two former cops in the van that hit
my father, he said, but only one was arrested. The other one was never questioned. He said that the first time Vitaliy was interviewed, he’d told the truth, which implicated the other driver. Vitaliy was forced to change his statement and say that he was the one drinking and assume guilt so the cop could get off; he was promised that his admission would be lost, and he would not be tried. The case was archived with the claim that it lacked incriminating evidence, and it was later destroyed. “That’s justice in Ukraine for you,” the officer said to Galya.

  She offered him the money and cognac, but he refused both. “I am guilty,” he said. “I realize I will die soon, and I want to apologize to the girl.”

  She asked, “Can you apologize to her face?”

  He said that he couldn’t.

  “But he is sorry,” she told me. “He wanted me to tell you he feels very bad about what he did. I was right. I knew Vitaliy was not telling the truth.”

  He hadn’t told the truth, but I understood why. He’d been forced to give a false testimony that helped the perpetrator get off. He wouldn’t want to admit that, or that he’d played a role in the man’s ability to evade justice.

  I’d come to see Ukraine and why my father loved it, but everything I’d learned suggested it was a terrible and cruel country. My father had wanted to be one of the many people who might reform its lawlessness and support its transformation, but he hadn’t been able to because the people in power had an interest in keeping things as they were. I admired his devotion and optimism, but I also found it foolish. Why would anyone think they could change such a stubborn place? Yet even when people like him saw the enormity of the fight they’d entered, they hadn’t given up. They refused to relinquish their ideals and agendas, which was either admirable or idiotic. It seemed like their love for their country was unconditional.