The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

you see? You can’t get to the water anymore—it’s all fenced off. I won’t live long enough to save up for one of those, but hey.
    Yes, so...
    So I’ll just tell you like this, without any documents. What was it you said—“it’s not a needle in a haystack”—was that it? You were right; it’s not a needle, by any means. So, dear Daryna Anatoliivna...on your day of November 6, 1947 my father who raised me, Ivan Tryfonovych Boozerov, was in command of a combat mission on the territory of the Lviv Oblast. That’s where he was wounded, subsequently discharged. At the seizure of a dugout bunker occupied by four, as they were called then, bandits, as we now say—partisans. Or rebel fighters—however you please. Four: three men and one woman. And you were looking for five, yes? Well, that depends...you could count them as five. The woman, it later turned out, was pregnant. Yes. They found out later, when they collected all the remains—it turned into a bloody meat grinder there; Father was lucky he stood far enough away. Of the guys who were out front, he said, there were onlyarms and legs left, strung around the trees. Like in that kids’ song, Nika used to sing when she was little, to a cartoon tune, “Off with your arms, off with your legs, out go the eyes, and we lay you to rest...”
    That’s the story I have for you, Daryna Anatoliivna. A family saga, so to speak...
    Now, who those four people were and what their names were—I’m sorry I can’t help you with that. Father, may he rest in peace, he might have remembered...but there’s no one left, except myself, who is aware of this fact from his biography. So it’s all just between you and me...among friends...so that you wouldn’t go looking for something you may later not be so glad to have found.
    The documents are gone, long gone. I checked.
    Well...I suppose, you could put it that way—I made sure.
    Well, what do you want from me? I had a young child. What good would it do for the girl to find out, when she got older, that her gramps—albeit adoptive, but still her gramps, as good as her own—the man who left us his apartment, secured our position...everything we have, all thanks to him...what good would it do for her to learn one day how he fought pregnant women?
    And I’ll tell you what: it’s harder to build than to break. So much effort...you spend all your life working, trying hard to put down some roots, make a home, a life—and to have it all ruined with a single blow, whoosh!—and down it goes? A single shove?
    You don’t want it, trust me. It’s better this way...for everyone. I’m the one to know.
    “And now,” Pavlo Ivanovych said in a surprisingly sober voice that made both Daryna and Adrian jump, “pull out your dictaphone. And erase this recording.”
    FILE DELETED
    ***
    “I should have known it right away. From the first time I saw her. I can’t believe how stupid I am.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “Gela, of course. The fact that she was pregnant. You could tell at a glance. The smile she had—a DaVinci smile, a Mona Lisa smile. That’s what the secret was. She was pregnant. Now it all makes sense.”
    “I wonder—did Granny Lina know?”
    “I bet she did. Yeah, she should have—it was October when Gela went to see them...I bet that’s why she went, actually—to tell her family. To share. Alone in the woods, among men, being pregnant for the first time—that’s no picnic. And plus—of course!—she needed to make arrangements for the family to take the child. Her sister was already married; your dad was a toddler—they could have easily made it look like Gela’s baby was theirs, their second. That’s it, Aidy; that’s exactly what happened! Any woman in her shoes would have run home like that, disregarding any danger, and no MGB would’ve stopped her.”
    “You women are something else.”
    “Why?”
    “Nothing...it never ceases to amaze me.”
    “What about it? It’s very simple, really. Elementary, my dear Watson.”
    “Still, think how she kept silent about it her whole life...Granny Lina.”
    “A fantastic granny you had. A beast!”
    “Beast?”
    “Yep. She’s the one I should be making a film about, only no one would appreciate her quiet heroism, the feminine heroism—there’s nothing
spectacular
about it.”
    “No, I mean, you said beast, and it rang a bell, somehow, in my mind.... Something linked to that word...hmm. Well, that’s alright, it might come to me