The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

earth from which they’d been torn too soon—and from that secret place of our Lord they watch over you: they war when you go to war, make sure you don’t stray from the path, and send you letters you don’t know how to read...
    So they’re watching me right at this moment? Igor, Nestor, Lodzio, Roman, Ash, Myron, Lisovyi, Ratai, Legend, all the boys who left me here alone—I can sense their silence as it fills the air, it hangs above the ground as though a whole platoon is studying me through their optical aims from an invisible cover, and when Iraise my arm to fire my weapon they all hold their breath as well, so that my arm steadies, and when my voice warns me an inch before death—is that they, too?
    They, they...but you already knew it. Ask something you don’t know—you have time for one more question.
    Okay then. I’ve never said this to anyone. I would like to fall in Kyiv, like Lodzio. On the apostolic hills where my nation began. Where the Dnieper’s blue and the churches’ gold are our ancient colors before the heavenly host. Where the glory of our princes and hetmans roared—and from where our forefathers marched to the peal of St. Sophia’s bells to defend it. I never came that far—and I so yearned to go there, to see it all with my own eyes, that’s why I chose Kyi as my alias—
    Your blood will be in Kyiv. You don’t need to know more.
    Who are you that you say this to me?
    Black furrows plowed, plowed, hey, hey.... Black furrows plowed, seeded and plowed, and the bullets sprout, sprout, hey, hey...
    I know you: You are Grandma Lina! Oh, Grandma, I am so happy it’s you—only where are you, why can’t I see you?
    I’m no grandma, man. I am the land.
    The land? Yes, I see it—black dirt, not furrows—just mud, you leave tracks on it, too, so I must watch my step, step so the snow won’t creak underfoot, rouse neither men nor dogs, leave no trace on softening, rich soil. I see my breath knit through the air before me; I cover my mouth and nose with a wool scarf, and it’s instantly wet inside it; now tears brim in my eyes, my ears are full of wind, my eyes and nostrils full of moisture, the thaw, the thaw, everything runs, everything drips, champs, slips, screams—what?
    It is the land bubbling, soaked with blood—heavy, swollen with blood like the walls of a woman’s womb: fecund, brewing, gurgling bog; she can’t take any more blood; she oozes it like black beestings—she is asking to rest; she is asking for winter...
    Like a woman who bleeds in vain and bears no children? Yes, I see—it’s the time before winter, the darkest of seasons, and the land although wet, has no smell; it is going numb, entering sleep...
    The winter that’s coming shall be long, so long it will seem eternal. Only the women won’t cease giving birth. Remember that.
    I don’t know who you are, but listen—I cannot remember things I do not need! I have a mission, and I must come back alive, and no one will write down for me what I am soon to hear. I will have to archive it all in my head, down to the last comma, the dots above the i’s...
    What you are soon to hear you will no longer need. And what you might need you will not hear.
    What’s that supposed to mean?
    You’ll understand when the time comes. And now the wattle fence will end, and you’ll hit your knee on a stake.
    Bugger! There it is, a stake alright. How did I miss it?
    This will be a sign for you. So you would remember when you wake up on the other side of this long winter.
    So I am asleep?
    No, soldier. You are already gone. Look—
    The earth! Sweet beloved God, have mercy on us—the earth is falling from above. Is it the bunker or the world that’s collapsing? So much of it, Lord, I can’t get out from under it; it is heavy; it stifles me, covers me. I can’t see the light! It is dark...dark...
    Sleep, soldier. They’ll call for you when the time comes.
    ***
    Written on a pack of cigarettes on Adrian Vatamanyuk’s bedside table:
    Blood will stay in Kyiv
    Women won’t cease giving birth
    You won’t need
    ***
    Two policemen in winter shearling coats passed him by without a second look. For a minute, he was overcome by the sense of beinginvisible—as though he’d been transported, in flesh, through a well suddenly opened in time, into a different November morning, where another, German, patrol passed just like that, not seeing him, as if through thin air, and the feeling made the world around him shift and begin to