We entered Ukraine through Palanca, on the Moldovan side of the border. Alexander Garachuk, a professor of French philology at the Odesa Mechnikov National University, is waiting for us on the other side under the blue and white tent through which a stream of refugees pass. Garachuk, with his mischievous look and tousled white mane – and his way of introducing himself by saying that he has never known for sure whether he was Ukrainian, Polish, Lithuanian, Jewish, German or French – embodies the spirit of Odesa, which Pushkin defined as a happy blend of cosmopolitanism, libertarian humour and irony. An hour later we have passed through the dozen checkpoints strewn with iron crosspieces in staggered rows and the mountains of sandbags held in place by concrete walls, through which all who enter Odesa must zig-zag. There I was – with my team members Gilles Hertzog and Marc Roussel – in the third-largest city of Ukraine, its most brilliant, its literary light, and now living on borrowed time. We will stay in an unremarkable house facing the sea, with a view of the port and its giant cranes. Below, at the end of a path winding through acacias, is a half-moon beach studded with mines. In front of us, visible through binoculars (and to the naked eye when the weather is clear) the Russian squadron blockading the city lies at anchor, awaiting word from Vladimir Putin to saturate Odesa with bombs: 14 vessels, including a missile cruiser Buyan-M style, two Ropucha-class amphibious landing crafts, mine-clearing boats, and the flagship Movska.
Our first act is to make our way to the historic centre of the city to visit the opera theatre where, in 2014, during the first year of the Maidan uprising, I had performed my play pleading for Ukraine’s admission into Europe. Alas, the opera is closed. Derybasivska Street, the pedestrian way that leads to the theatre – which is usually densely packed – is empty. All of the adjacent streets, where I had previously admired the faded pastel façades and neoclassical porches overshadowed by sycamores, the southern languor, are full of barricades and watched over by uniformed volunteers of the national guard. Many of them are very young. They look as if they had never before held a gun. We detect a mixture of determination, anxiety, and, when they stop a foreign writer without press credentials, a sort of feverish distrust. Double agents are everywhere, explains Volodymyr, a former bartender who speaks English and, unlike the rest of his comrades, is willing to talk. There are certainly fewer double agents than before. To the great surprise of the Kremlin, which never doubted that Russian-speaking Odesa would be the crowning point of its imperial dream, the war has united the city together as never before. But some remain. They want Putin, and they’re counting on infiltrated commandos who have been living in Odesa for months, renting apartments, finding jobs, melting into the population, and waiting for the signal. Volodymyr’s unit stopped two of them this morning. Three were taken down last week near the train station after several hours of street fighting. Watch out, he warns me. They’re killers. They’re nowhere and everywhere.
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