Kremlin’s new priority was to assert its influence and fight against increasing Westernization. Moldova’s unrest would have been a test of Russia’s ability to project power and protect friends.
‘What happened?’
‘What always happens when the people take on the state. The police came in mob-handed and arrested more than two hundred.’
‘Could Lilian have been involved?’
‘A sociology student? Does a bear shit in the woods?’
‘Russian bears shit wherever they want to.’
She grinned. I liked it when she did that. ‘Ready?’
I nodded. I was in her hands. I didn’t speak the language, and I wasn’t the world’s leading expert on universities.
‘They’ll think we’re parents visiting, or here to find out about evening classes or something. We’ll just wander round a bit, try to find out what bars she went to or groups she hung out with. Then we’ll take it from there.’
We left Mateevici and followed one of the concrete paths that snaked through the grass. Anna had been on Google in the car. There were twenty thousand students, spread across twelve faculties.
We stopped at a blue and white signpost that must have been really useful if you could read Cyrillic.
‘OK. Philosophy’s in that direction. Sociology must be close by.’
She put her arm through mine as we followed her hunch. ‘These kids are hungry for knowledge, Nicholas. They know it’s the way out of poverty. You people in the West, you have it so easy. You think education is a right, not a privilege that must be earned. You have a welfare system to catch you if you fall, or if you just don’t give a shit. These people have no safety net. They have nothing without an education.’
I could see through the windows that every lecture room was packed. We came to a newer building, lots of brick and glass. I held the door for her. Wherever you are in the world, an institution smells like an institution: a blend of body odour, wood polish, boiled cabbage and bleach.
She led me down a wide corridor lined with posters, wall charts and notice boards. My boots squeaked on the tiles. Students young and old leant against walls and talked sociology shit, or maybe just shit.
Anna stopped an older guy in a brown and grey patterned sweater. He looked Scandinavian rather than Russian. He pointed in the direction we were already heading. I smiled my thanks and got a very dark look in return. Maybe my jacket didn’t have enough herring-bones and snowflakes.
‘Where are we going?’
‘I thought we’d start at the administration offices. Maybe I’ll say I’m an aunt on a surprise visit from Moscow, hoping to pick up her phone number or address.’
We came to a line of benches that would have been more at home in a park.
‘Wait here, Nicholas. It might be better, just a woman on her own. And we’ll have a problem explaining the fact you don’t speak your niece’s language.’
It sounded fine to me. I took a seat as she disappeared into the office.
7
I was surrounded by display cabinets bursting with trophies, framed certificates and photographs of bigwigs handing them over, shots of social and sports events, class and year portraits. It got me thinking. I decided to have a closer look.
It took a few minutes, but it was worth it.
A group of students dressed like Victorians stood, bathed in sunshine, outside the building; a party maybe, or some kind of commemoration. Lilian was in three of the pictures. She was alone in one, poking her tongue out at the camera. In another she looked almost shy, alongside three or four other girls. It was the third that interested me. The lad she was with had eaten a few too many pies. He had a mop of fuzzy brown hair and bum-fluff on his chin. He and Lilian had their arms around each other. Their eyes were swivelled towards the camera and they seemed to be enjoying a very un-Victorian kiss.
I was about to move on to the next display when Anna rushed out of the office. ‘We need to go.’
I kept scanning the photos. ‘Hang on, look at—’
She grabbed me. ‘Now, Nick. Now.’
Sweaterman was piling down the corridor towards us with a posse of six or seven very pissed-off mates.
‘What the fuck’s happening?’
The office clerk came to her door. She shouted and waved her arm to move us on.
‘No questions.’
I started walking fast beside her. We went back the same way we’d come in, with Sweaterman’s posse in hot pursuit.
8
Anna didn’t turn a hair as we drove away. There was no need to flap. They hadn’t jumped into vehicles and followed us. All we had to do was make some distance.
I watched in the wing mirror my side as we rumbled across a cobbled junction. Trams, buses, cars, carts - all tried to head in a dozen different directions at the same time. Once we were clear I glanced behind us.
‘What the fuck was all that about?’
‘They thought we were secret police.’
I turned back but kept an eye on the wing mirror. A dark blue Beamer with the new shark-eye headlights and low-rider sills was shadowing us, but keeping its distance. The front fairing made it look like a hovercraft. It was having a hard time with the cobbles and potholes.
‘So teachers now stand up to the police round here, do they?’
‘The people united will never be defeated. Haven’t you heard?’ She allowed herself a smile. ‘Or, as they’ve been saying more recently, the people with Twitter will never be defeated.’
‘Like the green revolution in Iran?’
‘They had it here first. As soon as they heard the result, the students started tweeting, trying to mobilize opposition. There was also a rush on Facebook and videos on YouTube. Suddenly everybody knew what was going on. It gave them a sense of power. Something they’d never experienced before.
‘The police wanted to get in there and grip everybody, of course. The first people to arrive for a rally outside the government buildings found their cell phones were dead. The network had been switched off. But somebody had Twitter, and they used it to give live updates over the GPRS networks. The authorities won that round, but it could be the beginning of the end of totalitarianism. It’s fascinating, don’t you think - what started as social networks becoming the tools of political change? I might do a piece on it—’
I cut in. ‘Chuck a right.’
She didn’t ask. She just did.
We turned onto a single-carriageway street lined with shops and apartment blocks. A group of cyclists, all women in black, wobbled over the cobbles in front of us. Anna had to slow down. She glanced in the rear-view. ‘The BMW?’
I didn’t turn round. I smiled and moved my hands as if telling her a funny story. ‘He still with us? He’s been back there a bit too long.’
She turned her head and smiled back. ‘The registration is C VS 911. That’s a Chisinau plate. Four men. Very short hair. Not smiling, not talking.’
I nodded as we eased past the women, still jabbering away with no awareness of the vehicles trying to get past in both directions. Anna changed up and we accelerated.
‘Take the next right.’
