The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

forbid!—we set out for the city, on a wagon, through the forest, and there’d just been a fight right there, and the moskali stopped us, and put two wounded into the wagon, our folks, from the woods, a man and a woman.... ”
    A fight? Near P.? That’s Woodsman’s territory, with the infirmary.
    “When was that?”
    “Late, it was dark by the time we reached the city.”
    “You wouldn’t know the hour, would you?”
    “No, not exactly...I don’t have a watch; moskali took mine two years since already, and I haven’t earned enough for a new one yet.”
    “Anything you can tell me about those two?”
    “Both young...probably married...the man died on the way. That made them very angry; they cussed like God forbid.... The one who was their boss yelled, “We need him alive!” And the woman was still alive when we pulled up to where their cars were...pregnant, about seven months. She moaned so, poor soul; I just kept praying that she wouldn’t go into labor on the way.... She’s dark, swarthy like a Jewess...”
    The day went dark before Adrian’s eyes—as if, with a heavy hop and a rustle of wings through his mind, a black bird took flight from the edge of his sight. No, no, it was impossible; it wasn’t true; it could not be...
    “Can you remember anything else?”
    Something in his voice must have changed, because the teacher blinked at him in a kind of awe—the first time he looked straight at Adrian, at the man who, a minute earlier, had thrust a gun between his ribs. Apologies, professor. It could have been worse, much worse. More than once at night, unable to see clearly, we’ve shot our own.... But, for the love of Christ, please, anything else, professor? Give me just another detail. A handkerchief, a shred of her underwear. So I would know, so I would know for sure. The man—that must have been Orko. Lord, please make it so it isn’t true.... Seven months pregnant—and it’s November now...somehow he lost his ability to count and started folding his fingers one by one, inside his pocket, like when he was little and Mother taught him how to tell from his knuckles which month is long and which is short: May, June, July, August...
    “I can’t remember,” rustled the teacher timidly. “I didn’t look very closely, I was scared...”
    He was scared—and still he followed me through the city to warn me; he trembled; he hid—but followed.... Adrian felt a lump in his throat. He wanted to shake the man’s hand, but didn’tdare, was held back by the years-old underground habit—never offer a hand.
    “How did you know she was seven months?”
    “Be darned if I know! Could’ve been eight. Just the way she looked—my wife gave birth not too long ago.”
    “Congratulations,” Adrian said automatically—and then understood the meaning of what the man said: he had a child. “A boy?” he asked, not sure exactly why—as if he couldn’t leave just yet, as if something held him in front of this man, a last hope or a promise, some delayed message. “Or a girl?”
    “A boy!” The teacher’s face glowed in the dark. “Little rascal, three kilos and a half! That’s already the second one God gave us, the older turned two on the Feast of the Intercession.”
    “God bless your family,” Adrian said. Like he was caroling for the man. Like this was Christmas, the greatest of all feasts, when above cities and villages and snowbound bunkers an invisible light pulsed through the night and underground, like in Roman catacombs, kolyada, the Noel, boomed, a great buried bell lighting the faces of all who had come together with the glow of the good news: the Son of God is born! He, too, received the good news today—he, too, was to have a son born, and exactly on Christmas: November, December, January, nine months exactly, mysterious are your ways indeed, Lord—while we war and perish, somewhere in the darkness of women’s bodies new lives swarm, grow, hasten to light, into the world, to the unceasing, bloody birth feast, the Christmas of our nation that carries on and on without end in sight....
    Villagers began singing a new carol: “Did you people hear sad news again—into chains they bound our dear Ukraine.... ” King Herod’s servants walked through the snow like Brueghel’s hunters, looking for newborns—somewhere, a crusted rag the color of rust in the cradle of an emptied Lemko home was a six-day-old baby shot at close range, and young men with submachine guns who had