The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

spring—it flared and died.
    But she does retain one thing from this flare: the being above—in relation to what happened the night before as well.She’s broken free of the boss’s yesterday office; it doesn’t oppress her anymore. She does, in fact, feel better.
    “Thanks, Ma,” Daryna says into the receiver she is still clutching in her hand; her knuckles stand out as if made from mother-of-pearl. “I know now what I have to do.”
    She’ll go to Boozerov herself. And she will bring Gela’s case to light—to heck with the film, if that’s how things turned out, it’s not about the film—she needs to find out where these threads that run through her life come from, whence this capillary lace of human destinies. And she’ll also meet with Vadym: he’s the only elected representative with whom she could be considered almost friends—they have Vlada in common. He is her only immediate chance of undercutting those bastards’ show with which they plan to cover up someone else’s slave trade. This is what’s really important.
    And what she’s to do with herself, where she’s to look for work, and whether she’s to look for a job at all—that’s all like scree underfoot, the common rubbish of life’s prose, in the same department as what to make for dinner tonight. That’s how she is seeing it at the moment—in big, clear terms, with her vision corrected—and she knows it’s the right way of seeing.
    “See, I know you’re my smart girl!” her mom brightens up. “You’ll see; it’ll all turn out okay.”
    “How else, Ma?”
    “Only do be careful!” Of course, Mom is Mom.
    Daryna barely contains herself before she responds the same way as to her boss last night, and can’t help but smile, “I’ll do my best, Ma.”
    “Alright, you take care of yourself now!”
    “You too, Ma. Call if you need anything.”
    That’s a ritual phrase between them, and it means if you need money. This time, for the first time it doesn’t sound completely heartfelt: her savings, Daryna hopes, will last her a while, but how long can they actually last if she also needs to help the old folks? Aidy, after all, also has a dad on an engineer’s salary—it’s enough for thefood, but not for the medication he needs. That’s how it all begins, that’s how they leak and flood, our little cardboard houses. Nah, to hell with it, she doesn’t want to go slopping around in all that again.
    After she puts down the receiver, Daryna rises and, just as she is, in her flimsy nightshirt, goes to the window, throws the curtains open, and gasps with surprise. So that’s where her clarity came from, that’s what lit the curtain with the yellow light that she barely noticed for the entire hour she was on the phone: It’s the snow! The first snow came in the night!
    Spellbound, she looks at the instantly lightened street, at the heavy white lashes of trees in the park next door and the roofs turned white, turned Christmas-y, like a picture in a children’s book: smoke is rising from one chimney, and the whole view looks as though the city had drawn a deep breath and stayed still in the blissful smile of relief. Her city—they can’t take that away from her, either.
    “So,” Daryna says out loud, addressing no one in particular. “Let’s fight back, shall we?”

Room 5. An Evening for Two
    Half Past Five
    A CQUIRED THIS MONTH:
    1.
Polish military cross for Monte Cassino (inscription on the medallion “Monte Cassino Maj 1944”), bronze, with suspension ring, no ribbon, award document missing.
    Could send out a feeler to our military collectors about this. Be better to find a Polish contact, though—for them, it’s got historical value, too.
    2.
Commemorative badge issued on the 150th anniversary of Skovoroda’s death, made from tank-grade steel, with the philosopher’s portrait and inscription on the medallion (“Grigory Skovoroda 1794-1944”)
.
    More from ’44, huh? Bulk supply. Must be a sixty-year cycle or something. I’d read something once about the cyclic model of the universe—not much of a scientific hypothesis, but it does make you wonder sometimes how history makes itself known in roundabout ways.
    3.
Tin-glazed earthenware ocarina, Kyiv region, mid-20th C.
    I don’t remember this. Where’zd it come from? What does it even look like, this ocarina?
    I’ll leave my office, go sit in the subway, and play my ocarina...make this pitiful sound—there was a little old dude I saw in the subway