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Five girls model provocatively to save street kids but others think the models need saving |
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ATOMIC ANGELS BOOK ONE: CRIME OF COMPASSION Ukraine, 2003. Parted twelve-year-old friends Oxana and Katya are brought together again by family disasters and deadly pursuers. Always a couple of tearaways at school, getting into trouble, defying authority, they join the country's secret rebel movement in a desperate bid for survival and revenge. Katya, a photographic model and naturist all her childhood, models and performs provocatively on the Internet with four other girls, in a philanthropic mission to feed and house street children, and support Oxana's quest for justice against the oligarch Stoichkov. The damning testimony of Oxana and her younger sister, Layla, in a court of law, should bring him down, but only if power in the country changes hands and corrupt authorities loyal to Stoichkov change sides or can be overthrown. Ukraine's political opposition, however, faces internal challenges and soon discovers it cannot rely on foreign powers, either to the East or the West, who pursue their own imperial agendas. Two investigative journalists from England enter the conflict. Tamsin responds to media panics and diplomatic pressure on Ukraine to close down the 'Lolita sites'. She goes after Katya's enterprise in the name of saving the children, and in pursuit of a scoop which should attract top ratings on television. Jude answers Katya's podcast, appealing for international solidarity and practical help for the street kids who never hit the headlines. |
ATOMIC ANGELS BOOK ONE: CRIME OF COMPASSION PART ONE: UNFINISHED SYMPATHY CHAPTER 1: PICTURE THIS Translated from Russian Images of child abuse trigger my disgust: five-year-olds in rags, begging at the docks in Odessa. Shame on my country! Their tiny bodies suffer the unwelcome attentions of a cruel and callous predator: the cold. From the gallery on the wall they stare at me with plaintive eyes like my little sister's when she wants a big favour. It's as if they're calling me home. I miss the city of my childhood, especially the summers, playing volleyball on the nudist beach and having a blast with Katya. 2003 has dragged without her. Best friends forever, we promised to be, but we're growing apart before we reach our teens. Her legs and hips curve more in each new photoset she poses for; stick-insect me is still the same. Being the plain friend never mattered before. We had so much fun being as daring and stupid as the boys and we could beat some of them up. Now she brags about her sexy modelling on the Internet and the money she makes. Katya lives like a princess and her dad treats her like a grown-up, while muggins me lives in Kiev where I'm forbidden to go out on my own. It's not my fault my dad's boss has dangerous enemies and revenge murders are on the rise. Everyone tells me they take no prisoners and spare no children. But no one's done anything to make me fear for my safety. What terrible thing can happen to me in a photographic museum of childhood? There's no one else here besides the curator who is older than most of the exhibits. She would struggle to climb the spiral staircase to come and get me with her walking stick. Listening to it tapping on the floor below, amid the hum of car engines from the street outside, I can almost trace her steps. How long before my parents trace mine? Only they and my sister know where I am. So who's going to assassinate me here, on a Saturday, in daylight? Mum must have called Dad by now and told him I absconded again. And he should remember his promise that she broke, to let me come here this morning, to research the causes of mass persecution and genocide for my homework assignment. The music store and McDonald's were just convenient places to stop on the way and see my friends for five minutes, or twenty. A chill draught whirls into the room and nips my neck. Who left the window open? Stupid me forgot to throw my fur coat on over my denim jacket and jeans when I stormed out of our apartment after a blazing row with Mother. And my phone's in my bedroom. I couldn't have turned back and rung the doorbell to ask her for them, could I? Thinking of the look of smugness and satisfaction in her face makes me cringe. So here I am, in trouble again, shivering, and remembering that no radiator in Ukraine turns itself on until the first day of winter which is next week. The sash window is one of those old, wooden-framed ones that often get stuck. Standing on tiptoe, I reach up and release the bolt, and then hook my fingers on the ledge of the frame, and tug. It drops like a guillotine, with a mighty thud, crushing a cockroach that wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time. I gaze through the glass over Kreschatyk Street where the fog makes ghostly silhouettes of the bustling crowds and jammed traffic and shop window displays. The view outside is as clear as the business my dad's mixed up in. If one thing's worse than the fear he might not come home, it's never knowing the reason. He hasn't been in a war since Bosnia, and now it's like he's fighting a secret one, and he isn't even in the Army anymore. He should spend Saturdays with me instead of working at the office. Those were our special days together I spent the whole week looking forward to. It's just our luck the Army disbanded the Junior Cadets, after all his hard work as a volunteer, organising our training. Lack of funds: same old excuse. Everyone in Ukraine has run out of money except the bandits and the oligarchs, and Katya. Turning and scanning the room, I half-expect Dad to charge up the stairs any moment now, livid at being dragged from the office to collect me. Or Mum will bring sister Layla all the way from Lybidska and they'll both be twice as furious. Damn it, I'm not a little kid anymore. So I'd better attack this school project while I'm still left alone to do it. The pictures I came here to research are so distressing I can hardly bear to see them again. But something lures my gaze, and it isn't my desire for the top grades everyone expects. Leaning forward on the window sill, I turn my head and sneak a sidelong glance across the room at the far wall, as if looking is forbidden. How odd is human curiosity, it tempts us to look at things we don't want to see. I swallow to stifle a faint surge of nausea. Napalm cluster bombs lash kids in Cambodia as they run and scream, kicking up clouds of dust. There's the photo of the little girl my teacher told us about, with horrific burns across her chest. She's the one who shocked America on the television news because she wore no top and showed her nipples. People called the broadcasters vile. That's what Katya says they call her fans for looking at her pictures. But even if she makes an explicit porno, I can't imagine it being as vile as these images of bombed and burned children. "Oxana." A soft voice, of a boy behind me, startles me. I turn and catch the gaze of his almond eyes as he stops two paces from me. Curls of raven hair frame his smooth, olive-skinned face and tumble down to his shoulders. Tall and lithe, dressed in a tweed suit and black leather jacket, the stranger would pass for eighteen or nineteen if his voice didn't sound younger. "How do you know my name?" His black Puma training shoes explain why I failed to hear his steps up the stairs and across the stone floor. He points to the last photo I looked at. "That one's famous. I've seen it before." I've never seen him before but he looks familiar. Who does he remind me of? "It's the only one I found on the Internet. I had to come here to see the others. You haven't answered my--" "The girl was only twelve." He looks me up and down. "The same age as you, though you'd pass for ten or eleven." What cheek. "I'm nearly sixteen, actually." A crooked smile flickers from the corner of his lips. "Liar. You're nearly thirteen." "Who told you?" My hand clenches to a fist, itching to wipe the smugness off his face for creeping me out and enjoying it. He can't be a stalker? That should be Katya's problem. Knowing her, she'd welcome it as a claim to fame. "What do you want?" "More caution from you, before you meet a fate worse than hers." He cocks an eye to the picture of the Cambodian girl. "You shouldn't wander alone. Not in the centre of Kiev. And not in places like this where you're exposed." I've had a gutful of my parents' paranoia without this clown showing up out of the blue and delivering the same old lecture. What was God thinking of, wasting luscious good looks on such an impertinent creep? "Who are you? Who sent you?" "Are you frightened?" The pitch of his voice rises like he's sucking his breath in because something's scaring him. "I am now." "You're not nearly frightened enough." He reaches inside his jacket as though to fetch something from his pocket, and hesitates. His latest move triggers a rush of adrenaline inside me. I plant my feet apart and shift my arms a tad from my sides, unsure why my instincts have put me on alert. The paranoia must be catching. "What if I'm an assassin?" He pulls out a black revolver and points it at my face, freezing my gaze on the barrel. His hand trembles. Every inch of my skin crawls with terror. Assassin? What if he's a nut job? Or a psycho? My next move needs to be faster than lightning. With a twist of my body towards him I flick my left leg in the air, aiming for the gun. Got him! My boot strikes his hand. "Ai!" He exclaims with a sharp intake of breath. The weapon slips from his grasp. It bounces an inch off the floor and then lands beside his feet. He gapes at me in shock. "Now who's scared? Make one move for the gun and I'll kick your ass down the stairs." My rapid breaths stifle my voice to a squeak but I'm fired up to rip the punk apart for the stunt he pulled. "What on earth is going on up there?" For a babushka, little taller and fatter than me, the curator gets a shrill bellow out of her lungs. The boy raises his hands, palms facing me, in gesture of surrender, as if the old lady and my little surprise have made him panic. "It's an imitation. See for yourself." He kicks the gun across the floor to me. "I'm on your side, you idiot." "You've got a funny way of showing it." I pick up the revolver. The cartridge won't revolve. It's fake. And what's more, it looks exactly like the one... no, it can't be. "It's okay," I call to the curator. "We just had something to sort out." "I was only trying to warn you," says the boy. "Your parents aren't getting through to you about the danger, are they?" "They sent you?" "Uhm, not exactly." He clasps his wrist where I kicked him and grimaces. "So they teach you martial arts in the Junior Cadets?" Is there anything about me he doesn't know? "What did you think they taught us? Crocheting?" My words draw a scowl across his face. "If the gun was real, your Bruce Lee antics wouldn't have saved you. I'd have shot you first." "No you wouldn't. Your posture was all wrong. And you weren't holding it steady." "Ah yes. I forgot. Your badge for marksmanship. And the prizes." His gaze darts up in the air and down to me again, as if he's chastising himself. "Your dad never stops bragging about you. I can't remember everything. But you were at point-blank range. What chance do you think you'd stand against a professional killer?" The curator's steps and taps of her stick draw closer, on the stairs, as she demonstrates she can indeed climb them. "Have you no idea how much worry your disappearing acts are causing people?" The boy lowers his voice to a whisper. "People who care about you. How can you be so selfish?" "Selfish? How am I supposed--?" "Shh!" "Don't shh me. Why should I care what she hears? If people want to stop me having a life of my own, they should explain the reason. Then at least I'll understand." "Because you're not safe. All you have to do is what you're told. How difficult can it be?" We turn and watch the bold pattern on the curator's green headscarf emerge into view, followed by her wrinkled forehead and eyes behind winged spectacles, cast down to her feet, as she taps her stick on each step. I slip the gun into the inside pocket of my jacket. Best not to alarm a woman of her age. "It's time I was going." The boy snorts at me. "Pretty girls are all the same. Me-me-me." "You mean, me?" He flashes me a wry grin, as though grudging. "Your photo doesn't do you justice. Redder hair. Cuter freckles--." The curator turns our heads back to her as she halts at the top of the stairs. Leaning on her stick, she brushes the hip of her trouser suit with her other hand, shooting me a glance, then the boy. She gawks at him. "You gave me a fright. For a moment, I took you for... someone else. How did you sneak past me?" "Sneak? I just strolled up here." "No you didn't." Her eyes narrow. "I was watching the entrance door. Intermittently. You must have sneaked." "Have it your way. Good day to you both." He rushes past her, down the stairs, and out of sight. "Wait!" I call down to him. "Don't you want your gun?" My brain catches up with my mouth and suggests I might have been more discreet. "Hey, don't just shout about it." His invisible voice screams at me. "Why not advertise it in the Kyiv Post as well? It's not mine. It's your dad's." I should have known. Better answer the curator's perplexed and horrified stare before she speaks. "Don't worry. It's a dummy, the one I practised handling before my dad let me fire a real gun. It's okay, he was a captain in the Red Army." "Was? Why did he leave? Or did he lose his stripes?" Her tone of voice sounds worried, perhaps suspicious, as though she thinks I'm making it up. "He resigned his commission to work for Sergei Stoichkov, as head of security. That's why we moved to Kiev." "Stoichkov? The oligarch?" She spits his name like an actress announcing the villain in one of those old movies my mother likes to watch. "That's who the boy reminded me of. It's the eyes. And that nose. My dear, are you in some sort of trouble?" I shrug. "I always am. It's my middle name." I imagine the boy thirty years older with receding hair and a moustache. Bingo! Stoichkov. "Rumours link his name to political murders." Tut-tutting, the curator shuffles across the floor. She stops beside a life-sized porcelain bust of Taras Shevchenko, mounted on a pedestal. He stares out in anger, open-mouthed, as if he's reciting one of his poems, urging the Ukrainian nation to rise from its knees. She stoops over him and blows a cloud of dust off the top of his head. "Bald crowns are supposed to shine. You shouldn't broadcast who your father works for." "Why shouldn't I? What's to be ashamed of?" I've had enough of the kids at school giving me grief over Stoichkov. No one has a good word for him. But if the woman speaks ill of my dad, she'll make me wish she was younger and didn't wear glasses. How do I stop her judging him by his boss? "Mister Stoichkov said he wants to use his wealth and power to rebuild the country and end all the corruption." The curator barks a sarcastic laugh. "Ha-ha-ha. That was Putin's dream. And look at him now. Don't even get me started on Chechnya." "I know how it looks." Folding my arms, I lean back against the window sill as my butt longs for a seat in sympathy with the soles of my feet aching. "But I don't believe my dad has done anything wrong. I refuse to believe it." She turns her attention from the bust and focuses on me as if she's studying my face. "See these photos?" I point to the ones that caught my eye first. "My dad rescued my mum from the streets of Odessa. That's how they met. She was heavily pregnant with me and my sister." I wish the need for money to raise one of us had never forced Mum to sell the other for adoption, my missing half I dream beyond hope to find. "So he's not your real father?" "He's always been a real father to me. And he's always hated the poverty and injustice in this country as much as I do. The street kids in these photos aren't history. They're still there. I used to join the outreach teams with my mum. We gave them food and medicines." Shifting her gaze between Shevchenko and me, the curator breaks into a broad smile. "Two different faces, same expression. Same passion." "My dad isn't blameless, though. I hate defending him blindly, never knowing what he's done and hasn't done, because he never tells me. I wish I had some hard facts to defend him with." I wish my parents would confide in me instead of treating me like a child. Something's been bothering them for days; frightening them, even; I see it in their faces. Katya hasn't reported anything. I'll remind her to prime her dad again. I'm surprised he's still speaking to mine after he took the job with Stoichkov. Mum complains our fathers have spent too much time talking on Skype, ever since the local mafia razed Katya's home and her dad's photographic shop to rubble. It hasn't stopped him protesting in the open, without fear, against war and religion and corruption and car-park rackets. But if he knows about my dad's secret business, he hasn't breathed a word to Katya. "Be careful what you wish for." The curator runs her knobbly finger along a crease in Shevchenko's tunic, between the wide lapels of his jacket. "Facts aren't hard; they're dry and settled, like the dust on here, until a new discovery sweeps them away. Truth is different. When I gaze into those baby eyes of yours, green as the depths of the sea, I believe you." She pats Shevchenko's shoulder. "Why do you think our greatest national hero was a poet and not a scientist? You don't need to know the facts about your father when you already know the truth. You're a woman; you need to be a judge of men. If in doubt, trust your instincts. You will always know when a man feels right and when he doesn't." Nothing feels right. For all his good looks, my instincts brought me closer to killing the boy than kissing him. But he meant me no harm. Why isn't Dad here yet? It's not like him to take this long. Something's happened. It spooked the boy. He panicked, and that drove him here to warn me. At least, he'd better have a darn good reason for scaring the life out of me, or I will kill him, if I ever see him again. Not knowing Dad's number because I click his name to call him, other phones than mine are useless. I'll head straight for his office: Prorizna Street, top of the hill, ten minutes' walk at most. If he's on his way here, we'll see each other. Someone had better tell me what this is all about or I'll get angry. |
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