Oksana Zabuzhko - The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

That’s the story I have for you, Daryna Anatoliivna. A family saga, so to speak…

Now, who those four people were and what their names were—I’m sorry I can’t help you with that. Father, may he rest in peace, he might have remembered… but there’s no one left, except myself, who is aware of this fact from his biography. So it’s all just between you and me… among friends… so that you wouldn’t go looking for something you may later not be so glad to have found.

The documents are gone, long gone. I checked.

Well… I suppose, you could put it that way—I made sure.

Well, what do you want from me? I had a young child. What good would it do for the girl to find out, when she got older, that her gramps—albeit adoptive, but still her gramps, as good as her own—the man who left us his apartment, secured our position… everything we have, all thanks to him… what good would it do for her to learn one day how he fought pregnant women?

And I’ll tell you what: it’s harder to build than to break. So much effort… you spend all your life working, trying hard to put down some roots, make a home, a life—and to have it all ruined with a single blow, whoosh!—and down it goes? A single shove?

You don’t want it, trust me. It’s better this way… for everyone. I’m the one to know.

“And now,” Pavlo Ivanovych said in a surprisingly sober voice that made both Daryna and Adrian jump, “pull out your dictaphone. And erase this recording.”

FILE DELETED

“I should have known it right away. From the first time I saw her. I can’t believe how stupid I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Gela, of course. The fact that she was pregnant. You could tell at a glance. The smile she had—a DaVinci smile, a Mona Lisa smile. That’s what the secret was. She was pregnant. Now it all makes sense.”

“I wonder—did Granny Lina know?”

“I bet she did. Yeah, she should have—it was October when Gela went to see them… I bet that’s why she went, actually—to tell her family. To share. Alone in the woods, among men, being pregnant for the first time—that’s no picnic. And plus—of course!—she needed to make arrangements for the family to take the child. Her sister was already married; your dad was a toddler—they could have easily made it look like Gela’s baby was theirs, their second. That’s it, Aidy; that’s exactly what happened! Any woman in her shoes would have run home like that, disregarding any danger, and no MGB would’ve stopped her.”

“You women are something else.”

“Why?”

“Nothing… it never ceases to amaze me.”

“What about it? It’s very simple, really. Elementary, my dear Watson.”

“Still, think how she kept silent about it her whole life… Granny Lina.”

“A fantastic granny you had. A beast!”

“Beast?”

“Yep. She’s the one I should be making a film about, only no one would appreciate her quiet heroism, the feminine heroism—there’s nothing spectacular about it.”

“No, I mean, you said beast, and it rang a bell, somehow, in my mind…. Something linked to that word… hmm. Well, that’s alright, it might come to me later….”

“There’s only one thing I don’t understand: Why did he say four? Why don’t they have the fifth man on their lists? He couldn’t possibly have survived a bloodbath like that.”

“Don’t you think it’s possible that our dear Pavlo Ivanovych did not tell us everything?”

“I don’t think he was lying. No, love, I believe him. A gang rape, a suicide—that’s not something a normal person would ever make up about his own mother, even if he’d never seen her.”

“Operative word there being normal. Not so much with his background. God, if only we could play that recording! There were all kinds of things that didn’t jive.”

“Yeah, he threw me off royally, catching me with my dictaphone like that… I felt like one of those fish he kept yanking out of the water.”

“You poor fishy! You worked so hard with that thing. My homegrown conspirator.”

“Well, I knew that if I asked him up front he wouldn’t let me record him. And it’s not like I wanted to publicize what he said—it’s just for me, to help remember things. I can’t get over it—how did he figure out I was recording him? That I had a dictaphone in my pocket?”

“He smelled it! What if he really is—talented?”

“No kidding. Nika said he wanted to pursue mathematics when he was young. But he does have a beautiful voice, did you notice?”

“You bet. Our special attraction—a singing KGB man!”

“Not KGB—SBU.”

“Same shit.”

“I wouldn’t say that…. But you’re right; it sort of threw me off every time he’d start singing. Gave me the heebie-jeebies. It’s like his whole self is patched together from different pieces, no? With the frame sticking out here and there. What kind of things would you say didn’t jive?”

“All kinds of stuff. You can’t quantize so much bull to the proper bit rate.”

“Sweetie, could you please use words I can understand?”

“Sorry. He wore me out, that guy. The whole time, ever since I first met him, I have had this nagging feeling that I’ve seen him somewhere before—I told you—or if not him, then maybe someone who looks like him, and I can never see him clearly with this weird feeling in the back of my mind, the picture’s always doubling up on me.”

“Same here. Could it be because he’s lived someone else’s life?”

“There’s that, too…. Who from his generation has lived his or her own life?”

“My dad. Your mom.”

“They haven’t . They died . That’s the thing.”

“Still, Aidy. You shouldn’t compare his lot with anyone else’s, God help him…”

“Well, whatever, that’s not my point, actually. The whole time he was talking I tried to figure out where he was going with it—and he’s got more logic gaps in his tale than you can count; it messes up your algorithm. Take his mother, again. If she was in the Przemysl ghetto, then back in ’42, it couldn’t have been the Red Army that freed her, I’m sorry. She had to have escaped somehow—so how did she run into the NKVD? And what on earth possessed them to send her, a Jewish woman, under cover into Bandera’s underground? Nonsense, it doesn’t add up. And he just kept hammering on his ‘she was a Soviet citizen!’ As if every Soviet citizen automatically had to be an agent. Like fucking serfs.”

“C’mon, that was just the natural logic of that government. That’s what a citizen was for them—a serf, a subject. Like in the feudal days. You don’t remember it—you were little then…”

“Yeah, and the new government just thinks we’re morons. Go vote for whoever we tell you to, and don’t make a fuss. If you’re not nickeled, you’re dimed.”

“Yep. Sounds about right.”

“Are you feeling sorry for him, or something?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I thought you might be. He doesn’t seem to bother you…”

“Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Finally there’s an answer that explains it all. Thank you.”

“What are upset about, love? You’re not jealous, are you?”

“Me? Of him? You’re crazy!”

“No, wait a minute, you actually are…. Look at me, come on, you goof… now. What’s wrong? Captain, my captain—what’s bugging you?”

“I don’t know, Lolly. It’s… it’s all weird. Weird. The whole time back there, he was talking to you —just you; I might as well not have been there, a fifth wheel, you know, the lady’s escort. Someone to pour the vodka, sure, lend a hand. And the way you listened to him… wait, let me finish! I understand, he played a very meaningful role in your life. Your mother’s life. But you cannot forget that it was an exchange and not just an act of charity for which you must forever hang on to his every word. You don’t need to be a genius to see that your mom made something big click in his head, too—it’s obvious. A gear without which he may not have survived at all. He’s pretty hung up on the suicide theme, did you notice?”