AFTER DISEMBARKING at the railroad station, our group was ushered through the city by heavily armed security. We were brought into a large room, almost the size of a gymnasium, not far from the presidential palace. It was underground and connected by a series of zigzagging tunnels with the metro. There was nothing else in the room and the walls were black. The floors had been painted black as well. Lighting was provided by a series of lanterns. They revealed to us a large frosted sheet cake.

On top of this sheet cake slept the president, dressed in the black combat outfit he most recently wore to the Pope’s funeral. He was set on his back, his legs pointing down, his arms at his sides, but his hands folded upon his chest. His eyes were closed. He had a tranquil, beatific look on his face. Everyone in the room was entirely still, and we were allowed to walk around the giant frosted cake on which slept, I hoped, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Or was he asleep? I watched his chest for any sign of a stir, any giveaway sign of life such as a sigh or the gentle rise and fall of respiration. Zelenskyy was stiller than still life, more wax than flesh and blood. One of his representatives whispered in my ear, “This cake was made by the finest confectioner in all of Kyiv.” “The president?” I nodded at its curious centerpiece. “Is he among the living or the dead? He looks like Lenin. It’s a bakery crossed with a mausoleum.” “Just take a closer look,” one of the Ukrainian minders said. “All will be revealed to you in time.”

We circled the cake once again and I could see that a vast chocolate death’s head had been imprinted at one end. The death’s head, a combination of a skull with wings, well known to any son of New England as it can be seen in relief on gravestones in any number of ancient Puritan burial grounds. Some of the most venomous brigands of the Golden Age of Piracy flew this emblem as their flag. The death’s head could mean death itself or symbolize one’s defiance of death. “What is it then?” I asked the Ukrainians. “What is the fate of President Zelenskyy?”

One of the Ukrainians, a lovely woman who happened to be the deputy minister for eurointegration at the Ministry of Digital Transformation, stepped forward and said, “But President Zelenskyy is not dead, sir. He is just meditating on the future of Ukraine.” “Why is he lying on a cake?” I asked. “He says that cakes help him meditate,” she said. All eyes were on Zelenskyy as he meditated on the cake. Then, as if he could hear us talking, his eyes opened. “Принеси мені ложку!” Zelenskyy said in Ukrainian. Prynesy meni lozhku! “Bring me a spoon!”