The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

Israeli colleagues. You think they, over there in Israel, would be thrilled to learn that in ’52 they received compensation from the Germans for a person who actually survived on the Soviet side?
    Of course, she died. And in the same prison even. But not until ’48! That’s a completely different story.
    But please, I don’t want you to think that I am, in any way, making excuses, so to speak, for Stalinist methods. Our side did not, of course, value people...never did. My father—the one who raised me—he used to say, we put to the wall people who, truth be told, should have been made Heroes of the Soviet Union. Obviously,we weren’t fighting Hitler for human lives. And had Stalin struck a separate peace deal with the Germans in ’42, it would have been the USSR eradicating Jews on our territories; the Soviet side promised Hitler as much at the negotiations in Mtsensk—in exchange for the Germans closing the Eastern front; these documents have been published already.... But that’s, you know...who knows what went on! We have what we have: my mother was supposed to die back in ’42, from a Nazi bullet. And that’s how they counted her in Israel, because it suited them better. The Soviet government gave her the gift of life. So, if you see things from the government perspective, was it so illogical to suggest she return the favor by working for us?
    Nika doesn’t know all this, she doesn’t need to...my wife doesn’t know all this, either. You have to understand...I’ve seen her picture. My mother’s, Lea Goldman’s. In her agent folder. Full face, profile. You know...it’s terrible. Especially in profile—it’s Nika, exact copy. Sends chills down your spine, you know. Don’t think me superstitious or anything. When you have your own children, you’ll understand. Nika doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to...
    My father told me, yes. The one who raised me. Gave me life the second time, basically. That I survived, and grew up—it’s all thanks to him. He made me a man. Made sure I had my own two feet to stand on...I raised Nika to be that way too—she’s always taking flowers to her grandparents’ graves—at the Lukyaniv cemetery; they’re buried at the Lukyaniv. On Victory Day, the Cheka officers’ day, the week after Easter...I wasn’t even two months old then...in prison. They had me in the juvenile criminal system.
    Shhh! Nope, not biting, I just thought it did.
    Well, if it’s not biting, it’s not biting. No use beating the dead horse, right? Let’s have another round, so we’re not just sitting here.... Your health!
Uff
.
    That’s how it goes. So I’m a lucky one as you can see. Knock on wood, where’s a piece of wood here? A lucky bastard. That’s what they said about me back when I was at the Institute. Yes,here in Kyiv, at the Red Army Street. I was the youngest in my class, signed up straight out of high school. Sure, at first everyone thought, you know how it goes, he’s here because of his dad, a protégé...Father a decorated officer, veteran. None of them knew what kind of schooling I already got from my father. You couldn’t get it in the Dzerzhinsky Academy. And I am grateful to him for it! Grateful, yes.
    You know, I only felt I really understood him after he told me. Mom worried so much about it; it was such a stress for her...she had a weak heart already.... It wasn’t easy on her, living with Father; she spent half her life deaf in one ear—he, when he got angry, hit her from the left, he had a heavy hand, may he rest in peace. But it wasn’t easy for him either...to be crippled at thirty, that’s, you know.... He could not have children after he got wounded. He was ferociously jealous, once threw an iron at her right before my eyes...an electric one.... Whenever she went out, he’d yell at her in the hallway when she came back, “Take your pants off!”—he was checking, you know...to make sure she hadn’t cheated on him while she was gone. For the longest time, I thought that’s how things were supposed to be. That everyone lived like that.
    Are you cold?
    Here, have a drink...by means of prevention, so to speak, it’ll keep you from getting sick. Your health!
    I sort of wondered if he were not my birth father—I thought, maybe Mom had another man before him. Like, this other man was Jewish, and they split up or something...children, you know, think up all kinds of things. And Father, by the way, fought all the way to Berlin, did Nika tell you?