The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

you. I was two months old when she...when she passed. Not even quite that. Do you know what the orphanage mortality rate was for babies under a year of age? And I survived. It was only when he told me for the first time...about my mother, and I was an adult already...married...only then did I understand why he sent me into the organization. That was the right thing to do. He did well. Otherwise, I don’t know what would’ve come of me...I, when I was young, wanted to hang myself. They pulled me out of a noose...in eighth grade.
    Did you serve, Ambrozievich? Oh, after university...a lieutenant? Which branch? Oh, that’s where my father-in-law served, too, may he rest in peace. Go ahead, pour another one; no use just holding on to the glassware. To service!
Uff.
    You know, there is this concept out there...they teach it in the military, too, from day one: understanding the service. A security services officer is always on duty; that’s what we were taught...what he was taught, my father—and he became cripple at thirty; after he got wounded, he couldn’t have his own children...so for him I was his last mission. For the rest of his life. That’s service! Do you understand? Shtrafbat, penal battalion at home, so to speak. He guarded shtrafbats at the front, that’s what he did, before he was sent into the Western. Guarded the men who had to pay with their blood...Vysotsky has a song, remember? “We are not stra-ight up, we are
shtraf-bat
/we wo-on’t be le-aving notes—count me a Com-munist.... ” That’s a good song, very soulful. Well, that’s how Father saw me—I was in a shtrafbat. Paying for my birth mother...who died. Escaped, basically...forever. I saw the agreement in her file—the agreement to work for the government. Written in her own hand. And—not a single report afterward! Not a single one. An utter failure. Two and a half years, that’s no joke! For every failure like that someone had to be held responsible....
    No, I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses for...I don’t even know if he knew it all...Boozerov—if they’d apprised him of the situation, and to what extent...but I understood his service! I understood why he raised me the way he did. When my mom, sometimes, would hide me from him, when I was little...when he’d take his belt, his army belt with a brass buckle, and wrap it around his hand, like so...he’d yell at her: “You,” he yelled, “you stupid bitch, you don’t know nothing, it’s for his own good—it’ll make him meaner!” That was his idea of education...his methods.Now, of course, we see it all differently. But that was a different time. That’s what I’m saying; it all depends on your perspective.
    I wanted to kill him when I was young...once. After he twisted my ear at school, in front of the whole class...forced me to my knees...and made me apologize standing there like that, say I won’t do it again—I was a troublemaker when I was little...I still remember how quiet it was...and everyone’s eyes, the entire class looking at me...ugh...I ran away from home after that...waited to catch him, with a shiv. That was back before I knew anything...I was young. A boy...
    You must be thinking, what’s the point of all this, right? Why’d I invite you to talk business, and then sit here, telling stories?
    That’s how I can tell you don’t fish. Fishing—it takes patience, persistence. It’s good training, you know...same as tracking a target, basically. Everyone’s always in such rush...and in the end, the winners are the ones who can wait. And, of course, know when to hook—when you’ve got a bite, that is.
    And they’re not biting right now. Well, alright, we’ll just wait. See how the float’s moving? That’s fry playing with it.
    You know, back when I was a cadet, there was this one incident. I volunteered—went along with a soldier; they sent them out on these missions: gave a man a document marked Top Secret, three typewritten pages—they’d put it in a briefcase, lock the briefcase with a handcuff to the guy’s wrist, put the guy into a jeep, and send him off—to us, one of our offices. And next to the soldier, there was this little red button—a “self-liquidator”...if in danger, the soldier has to press that button—and self-liquidate together with the briefcase. And I sat there and stared at that button the whole way. Couldn’t take my eyes off it. That’s why I came along...I stared and thought: Now—or should