The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

Goshchynska no longer works on television has not yet gained national currency. It’ll be a full year before my name is taken off all the mailing lists, and I must say something encouraging to the girl: “Your concert? Congratulations.”
    “It’s our class concert...for our whole year, I’m in the second half. Piano, it’s in the program...I have two pieces—Britten and Gubaidulina.”
    “Difficult composers,” I nod knowingly, about to wish her the best of success, anoint her with a ritual blessing by way of taking my leave: go with God, child—but the child has no intention of giving up so quickly, she needs to pour it all out, since she’s caught me, and, without giving me a chance to break away with another word, she bursts forth, like rainwater gushing from a gutter.
    “This is my first serious performance, Miss Daryna, please come if you can, please. It would mean so much to me! It’s so important for me, if only you knew.” She clasps her hands prayerfully to her C-cup breasts, which protrude vigorously under her leather jacket and the fashionable short sweater under it, so that a pale strip of her belly winks every time she moves—the current fashion is meant for stick figures, and this girl—nothing to complain about—sports a good childbearing shape, but her hands—her hands are made for the piano indeed: large, with beautiful long fingers. And who wouldn’t melt a little hearing this: “You are my hero, I watch your every show; I haven’t missed one in two years! I even ran away from a date once, to watch it.”
    “Thank you,” I say, waiting for her to ask me why the show didn’t air last Wednesday; I have to change the topic: “That’s very nice to hear, but running away from a date—that seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Unless the boy wasn’t anything special.”
    She wrinkles her nose, laughingly shines her enamored bovine eyes at me, and concedes that he was not anything special: a moment of female solidarity; we are both laughing. This is it, my audience. This is what I have managed to accomplish in my life. How many of them are out there, across the country, girls and boys like this? Lord, the letters I used to get!
This is
Diogenes’ Lantern
and I’m Daryna Goshchynska, stay with us.
And they’ve stayed; they haven’t even noticed my absence yet.
    “As soon as Dad said you were coming to see him, I just couldn’t wait...I had a class at the Conservatory; I don’t know how I sat through it, and as soon as it let out, I ran uphill! I tried to flag a cab on the way, didn’t see any, and just kept running, the whole way...I rang my dad and he said you already left! I didn’t think I’d catch up with you!”
    “Your dad?”
    “Well, yeah,” the joyous stream whirrs forth from the gutter unchecked and unstoppable. “I called after you back at Zolotovoritska, as soon as I spotted you from afar, but you didn’t turn to look. And I recognized you right away, from the way you walk, the way they show you in your show’s teaser when you enter the studio, you’re unmistakable.”
    “I’m sorry, and who are you?”
    The stream plugs up, the prominent eyes freeze in their sockets like prunes in whipped cream. “Oh...I’m sorry. I, I didn’t think.... ” Catching herself, she blushes even deeper—all the way to her ears now, “I’m Nika...Nika Boozerova.”
    Never underestimate the value of professional training: all my facial muscles remain in their places. Well, well. Of course, how did I not figure it out—the same eyes like jet stones, the same plump lips, and the same high cut of the nostrils that makes them appear constantly puffed, and her body is built the same, too—she’s short-legged and big-bottomed, a dark little pony, but a girl with hips like that can do alright for herself, much better than her dad. Pavlo Ivanovych can be congratulated on this improved replication of himself—a softened, more delicate version, not asoily-spicy-Al-Jazeera cast as the original: the features are seemingly the same but the treatment is in watercolor, not in oil. “My daughter,” as he bragged at our first meeting, with the stress on the first syllable. Nika, of course—Veronika Boozerova, a Conservatory student, my fervent admirer. This is she, in person. Apparently, the Boozerov family has decided to parade its full ranks in front of me today—who do they have left, mom, grandma? Bring them all out!
    “Aha,” I say to the girl in the voice of an