The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

few hours, not living long enough for a name—both were gone in ’33, my unrealized uncles, may they rest in peace. And girls (“gals” as you called them, Grandma Tetyana)—they’re tougher, hardier—“lustier” as you used to say, Grandma Tetyana, people don’t speak like that anymore....
    Well then, hello.
    Daryna puts the test aside (the lines have turned beet red, but are still there) and feels her legs: ice-cold. And she didn’t even notice when she got cold. A new, unfamiliar anxiety for her own body commands her—for this vessel’s fragility, whose full extent has been revealed to her it seems, only now, for how easy it is to harm—and she starts rubbing her stiff legs energetically:Should she go put on a pair of warm socks, or would it better to just jump under a hot shower—and how hot, precisely, should it be? Lordy, myriad questions pop up from nowhere, stuff that’d never crossed her mind—it’s like landing in a foreign country where you don’t recognize anything except the McDonalds. She knows nothing, absolutely nothing; she needs to read up on this right away, at least look stuff up on the Internet before she goes to see a doctor, and by the way, where should she go? She doesn’t even know that—she’ll have to ask the girls.
    ***
    The same day, around noon, while Daryna is still on the Internet (she’s had an idea for a new column in a women’s magazine—why the topic of pregnancy is so unpopular in our culture?), her cell phone rings.
    “Hullo, honey.”
    It’s Antosha, her former cameraman. A voice from her previous life, no longer a stab of pain but of quiet sadness that sooner or later smoothes over the anguish of any loss: that was a nice life she had....
    “Hi, Antosha. Glad to hear from you.”
    “You’re lyin’. What’s the joy hearin’ from an old knuckle-dragger like me? Yurko says he saw you the other day on Davydov Boulevard with some mensch—he still can’t get over it. Went off his feed.”
    Kyiv—always a small town. On Davydov Boulevard—that must have been when they went to visit Ruslana, to see Vlada’s remaining paintings. Nina Ustýmivna’s lawyer came a bit later, so Yurko must have seen them when they were getting out of the car—why didn’t he call out to her? Still, it feels nice to hear Antosha’s words, nice to know she’s been seen with Aidy and the studio is now buzzing with gossip—she used to love that sophomorically careless, permanently simmering, as if on low heat, atmosphere of studio banter, jokes, flirting, “follies,” and parties people spent weeksplanning and then months remembering. Kids, she thinks. Grown, sometimes aging kids whose job is a serious game of virtual reality.
    “Don’t be jealous, Antosha,” she says, surprising herself with the maternal notes in her voice. “I still love you.”
    “Alright, let’s say I believe you. What are you up to these days?”
    “Oh, you know...odds and ends. Whatever comes my way...”
    “A decent living?”
    “Still better than the nation’s average. What’s new on your end?”
    “Good for you. Our chickens came home to roost. Whole flocks of them.”
    “Must be a chore to clean up after them?”
    “You’ve no idea, Sis. Knee-deep in guano doesn’t begin to describe it. Censorship’s worse than in the Soviet days. I’ve got the same ol’ feeling of eating shit again—got twenty years younger!”
    “You’re not that old yet, Antosha,” she says, realizing that Antosha has called her to vent. “Don’t write yourself off before your time.” (I should really shut down the computer and focus on the conversation, she thinks, regretfully—but make sure to bookmark this site for future moms first.)
    “Heck, I’m not the one doing it; I’ve got help. But I’m getting too old for brown-nosin’, Dara. You know what ol’ Lukash, may he rest in peace, used to say, the one who wanted to go to jail in Dziuba’s place, except Dziuba then confessed, and Lukash just got fired from everywhere...”
    “Of course I know who Lukash was—what do you think I am, a total idiot?”
    “Well, this was back when you were still walking under tables and I was already working, and I remember how every word he spoke became urban legend.... So when people asked him how things were going, he’d say, ‘I might be flat on the floor, but I’m not kissing any boots.’”
    “Nice. I’ll have to remember that.”
    “Yep. I’m feeling a little like that myself—not