The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

filled the rooms and melded with the paintings on the walls in a colorful shimmer that seemed to produce a new chemical compound, an amalgam with the paintings, and in this way seemed surreptitiously to
displace
, to falsify, Vlada. Vlada who was no more, and about whom this audience, truth be told, couldn’t care less. I saw almost none of her friends there, none of the people who simply loved her—perhaps because they were not VIPs—but I did see a few of her artist colleagues who would’ve gladly drowned her in a puddle with their own hands while she was alive—and enjoyed every second of it—and who now were just as happy to be talking to the proffered dictaphones about their many-year friendship with Matusevych, cropping the edges of their verbal group shots to make themselves appear not only of the same stature as the deceased, but also just a little taller. And someone had already uttered—and kept repeating—the word “generation,” and a thing repeated enough, as everyone knows, ceases to be a lie.
    Not to be found among the guests was the aging Rita Margo, “Saint Rita,” the universally known concierge at the studios on the Pechersk hills who was always ready to entertain little Katrusya while Vlada painted, or to run to the store for milk for Vlada herself—anyone who accomplishes anything in art has a guardian angel like this one. Mostly invisible to the public, they are unfailing, self-denying shadows, all those editors–makeup girls–gaffers who are rarely mentioned in brochures and catalogs except in tiny print somewhere in the back where no one would ever look, while in fact they are the ones holding it all together, the ones who gluetogether, like swallows with their own spit, the whole edifice with the glorious name in foot-sized letters on its facade. Vlada always said that Rita Margo was the ideal “artist’s wife”—apparently comparing her to her own mother, who had spent her whole life in that role never having had any particular qualifications for it; while Rita Margo, with all her qualifications, did not have the fortune of an artist husband and was not, it seems, fortunate with men in general, except for her blind son who sewed or glued something in the invalids’ co-op.
    At the show, N.U., although much withered after Vlada’s death, still looked presentable: a black dress, black lace shawl, the wife and mother of artists—alas, both dead. She, for one, liked everything; everything was exactly the way she’d wanted it: “Dara,” she exhaled at me in the bathroom with sincere elation. “Just think, we’ve got
six elected representatives here!
” I was just dabbing my makeup with a napkin in front of the mirror, and pitied her as much as one would have pitied Rita Margo’s blind son had he appeared suddenly among the guests, but at the thought that in these six damn elected representatives (Vadym’s legwork!), she saw the meaning and justification not only for her own life, but also for Vlada’s, I wanted to cry. Such a feeling of desolation swept over me; I wanted to cry, not to unload it, but to wash it all out, just as I wanted to cry now—without any hope of ever stopping, a quiet drip, like drizzle “Les saglots longs / des violons / de l’automne,” pardon the French, Nina Ustýmivna. Ever since I left Vadym’s office, I’ve wanted to cry exactly like that—like the long sobs of autumn violins—and that cannot be allowed under any circumstances. Better to drink.
    Oops, looks like I just devoured the butter meant for the whole table—how rude of me!—the weaselly looking gentleman makes for the empty butter dish with his knife, and his shiny physiognomy, which could also stand to be dabbed (Why is he perspiring like that when there’s such a draft from the door, I shiver every time it opens?), spells blatant disappointment: something’s been snatched from right under his nose again, as has happened to himthroughout his life! Aha, so that’s where this mournful mouth of fortune’s redheaded stepchild comes from—been getting the short ends of sticks all his life. But why sweat like that, I wonder? His hands must be moist, too. Now I recall I didn’t shake hands with him when we were introduced; instinctively avoided him, only nodded. I see I get sort of mean when I’m drunk. This is new; I don’t remember being like this before, but something in me, I swear, has quit feeling sorry for everyone—my sorry-meter must be busted. Aidy waves at