The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

he should’ve married her instead of Vlada?
    They do now make a kind of a family, with Vadym cast as Katrusya’s weekend dad. And Svetochka cast as his help. Katrusya does with Vadym exactly what she does with her labrador, Putty, named after the Russian president: makes a show of jerking his leash—his tie—in public so as to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that this massive and, as she sees it, all-powerful dude is hers alone; she calls him Vaddy the way her mom did and teaches him various useful tricks, such as toting around her skiing gear or anything else she wishes to have toted. Not bad for a teenager—one day, when she grows up, this damsel will avenge us all.
    In response to all that, Vadym just huffs like a Gypsy bear, and not without pleasure, and N.U., misty-eyed, beholds the idyll. Vadym, if you think about it, got himself a pretty cushy gig—for one lost woman he gained three, a full set: Katrusya for emotional attachment, Nina Ustýmivna for spiritual understanding, and, of course, there’s Svetochka with her permanently engaged massage organ, where it is always so nice to stick his worked-up dick. Especially if it makes itself known at an inopportune moment—say, when Katrusya, the innocent child, climbs onto her Vaddy’s lap.... Although I highly doubt that a thing like childhood innocence even exists in this post-sexual-revolution generation.
    Irka Mocherniuk’s kid has already enlightened his mom about sex—it’s when a mister and miss kiss each other where they “go wee-wee”—and suggested he and his mom do the same, right there in the bathtub, when Irka was giving him a bath before bed.Irka said the thing that shocked her most was the way he looked at her at the moment: wily, askance—like a man, “exactly like a man, Daryna, you wouldn’t believe it!” Grandpa Freud, wherever he is now, is rubbing his dirty hands together in satisfaction, and Katrusya’s already, what, thirteen—high time to, as the national bard did, herd her lambs beyond the village on the lea.
    Gosh, now I’m feeling like I can’t breathe—wasn’t there water on the table somewhere? Aha, I see—the water’s been appropriated by the bald weasel; he’s moved it close, to keep it handy. That’s fair: I take something he wanted (butter), he takes something I want (water), and in such manner a balance is maintained in the world, and it (the world) continues to spin. Spins, God damn it, so fast I’m seeing black.
    “Excuse me...may I have some water?”
    The sound of my voice makes the glass wall between us crack, and noises spill over me from the general hubbub of the café like knives from a sack, discrete and separate: the clatter of plates in the kitchen, the desperate creak of the front door, the sharp soprano, like a car alarm, at the next table; the bald weasel, in an unexpectedly theatrical, self-regarding baritone, accustomed to people taking notes (Is he a professor or something?) cuts in, too. “Of course, of course, right here, with great pleasure.” He’ll even pour it himself. He’s making a fuss, reaching across the table (revealing the moistly darkened armpits of his already dingy shirt—it’s obvious he’s worn it before today); how solicitous of him! Aidy’s sitting next to him in his elegantly unbuttoned sport coat, calm and sharp like a snow leopard; it makes my heart flutter just to look at him—this ability of his to maintain an utterly natural benevolence in the most artificial, contrived situations. Who would ever think that he’s the conductor of this show? It always puts me in a state of mute awe: Is this possibly the same man with whom I made love the night before? Whose cells are probably still swirling somewhere inside me like tonic bubbles? “Oh, I see, it’s Perrier.... Thank you very much, that’s enough.... Pardon?...No, you’re not mistaken.... Yes, on television, quiteright,
Diogenes’ Lantern
.” (Oh God, do I have to go through this now, too?)
    Baldy oozes grease (And why did he want to eat more butter?) from every pore like a miracle-working icon dripping myrrh, and suggests, with subtle didactic superiority (He’s got to be a professor!) that I consider featuring a unique subject, unfortunately not yet popularized by the media: the heroes of Kyiv’s artistic underground of the 1960s and ’70s, a whole little-known stratum of our culture, and what a rich stratum indeed! The professorial baritone assumes an elegiacally restrained tempo, as if