The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

expanded to the other republics...to the whole Union. Of course, it’s illegal, but what can you do? You got your orders from above—go execute them! That’s our job.
    There was a time when this idea used to help me. Mobilized me. When I was young. Helped not to lose shape, not to start slipping...spinning. Not to think...maybe it would have been even better in the army. But—what’s the point now? It’s good things worked out the way they did. I am not complaining, and my conscience is clear.
    Cognac for you? It’s good cognac, Transcarpathian. Good for the blood pressure...prevents hypertension.
    Uff
!
    So peaceful out here! So quiet...
    You know, I had never met a woman like your mother before. Or after. Sometimes, that’s the way it happens in life; there are such times when everything comes together at once, and it’s just one thing after another. I had just learned about my birth mother for the first time...and that she never told them who my father was...didn’t give them the name...and then, when I was working with your mother—I understood, finally, how that could be possible. I believed it. I believed that it could happen. And that you could take anything for having been loved like that...camps, prison, loony bin...everything! You don’t care. You could go out there onto the Senate Square, without a second thought—and be demoted for it, from officer to private. That’s why the Decembrists came out...that’s how they could do it. And I was inside a different system. From the day I was born—I was born in prison, wasn’t I? I knew how to put a person on his knees...before the whole class...I knew how to find people’s weak spots. I’m not just telling you this—I was talented; it wasn’t only the people who knew people who got promoted to captain by the time they were twenty-eight! But that’s another matter.... The way those men were loved—no one ever loved me like that. And no one would have waited for me.
    That’s a big thing, you know—when someone is waiting for you...
    He was lucky...your dad.
    Ehh, Daryna Anatoliivna...I don’t want you to think that I...I thought so at the time. The older I get, the more I think about this. There was a movie back then, in the ’70s, about the Decembrists’ wives, do you remember? I forget what it was called. It had this actress in it, from Kyiv—Irina Kupchenko...she looked like your mom...I went to see the movie again, when it was in the second run, and I was at the archives already. But that’s another matter. Yes.
    Beg pardon? Yes, they transferred me. Trusted me. That’s to my father’s credit—Boozerov’s; it’s all his effort. He renewed my...background purity, so to speak—went all the way to Moscow, to his postwar bosses...found everyone who was still alive—those who were informed of my...adoption. Up till then, my service record was spotless—until that museum. And who’d have thought—a museum! You’d think it’s a nice place...quiet, mostly female staff...and look how it turned out. So, I got transferred. From field operations, from working with people to working with documents. That was for the best, too, as it later turned out. In life, it’s often like this—you think: this is it, I’m done, and later you see—it’s even better. Because that was the second time in a row that I...my second failure, with your mom—right after that Jewish woman. Except that with your mom, I did it myself; I made the decision. I didn’t start the case on her, and wrote it like that in my report—that it would be a waste of resources, so to speak. Wrote up her profile. My boss read it—he got mad: “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Recommending her for the Communist Party?” But they put the brakes on it anyway, didn’t pursue it any further...changed their minds. And the hook was already cast...
    Nikushka hadn’t been born yet then. She came later. And you were going to school already. You were such a skinny little thing, pale—I once saw your mom pick you up from school...I wouldn’thave recognized you now! No way. When I first saw you on TV, I thought—that can’t be right...
    So, yeah, that’s how it goes.
    You know, in the army things are simpler, they have a clear line: there’s home, and there’s work. And the aggression is strictly localized in time: at seven a.m.—drills, you screw up—get a boot in your face.
Hic
! Excuse me...so with my father-in-law you did better to leave him alone on