The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

them must have secretly known: that she was the brains of the channel, its soul, and not merely its showy face, which could, with appropriate promotion, be just as easily replaced with someone else’s. And here it is—she’s lived to see it—belated, almost posthumous recognition sent in her wake. Nose better than a bloodhound’s—that’s their way of appreciating her now that they’ve had a chance to regret not quitting with her, the whole team together, when they could (and they could have, they had their chance—and it would have set precedent for their whole guild, and it would’ve been easier to get funding for VMOD-Film now!). Nose better than a bloodhound’s. That’s what it’s now called. Well, guys, I won’t turn it down.
    No point belaboring this—no sense multiplying essences, as old Occam taught, and as Antosha likes repeating; Antosha, who always defends the basest among all likely motivations for anyone’s actions, maintaining that his chance of being wrong lies within the range of statistical error—and Daryna swipes Occam’s razor at him.
    “Is that proper language? Mind your discourse, Antosha!”
    “Well, I didn’t go to discoursing school, hon. You know, I’m a humble man—a shooter, as we used to say in school...but, fuck me, I’ve had enough. I’ve eaten so much shit in my Soviet days that when the same Komsomol-GB rats throw me back into it and go ‘give me ten!’ it makes me want to hurl, and booze don’t cure it anymore. Plus, one can’t be drunk his whole life!”
    This is somewhat surprising, coming as it is from Antosha who always and everywhere had been the first to inquire whether drinks were included.
    “So what, you looking for a job?”
    “Yep. That, by the way, is why I’m calling you. Come on, out with it, is it true that you’ve bought out all the footage we got on Olena Dovganivna?”
    Not I, she thinks. Vadym simply solved that problem too, while he was at it. He chatted with the guys, did them a favor, looked out for himself, and, well, didn’t forget her consult. Plus, threw her a bone to make sure she’d shut up, would never again drag Vlada’s skeleton out of his closet. No wonder he turned it all around so quickly, and without her having to remind him.
    “Where’d you hear that, Antosha?”
    “Not like it’s rocket science. Who other than you would want that stuff? It’s obvious whose little fingerprints are all over this. Spit it out, Sis. You got it?”
    “I do.”
    “You witch,” Antosha drops his second compliment in a row, with genuine pleasure, like a dollop of cream into her coffee. “And what are you going to do with it?”
    That’s a good question, Daryna Goshchynska thinks. A very good question indeed. She would love to know the answer. Now that the life, passed on to her down the line from Gela Dovgan, smolders somewhere inside her, a not-yet-visible spark, and at this thought a smile rolls out, by itself, onto her lips: what if she went ahead and said into the phone, as she did to Adrian about an hour earlier, “You know, I’m pregnant”?
    (No, that’s not how I told Adrian. I said, “You were right, you know,” and he knew it instantly from my voice, from the way it strained to contain the triumphant bulk of the secret knowledge that cannot really be shared with anyone, even with you, my most precious, my love, you whose touch I yearn for, while you, on the other end of the city, are choking on the uncontainable shock of this new joy, while I long for it like for a drink of water on a scorching day. It would be wonderful to have you by my side the whole time, holding my hand, but what I would like best right now is to fall asleep—sink into long, translucent daytime sleep, blissfully unhurried like rapid filming, like smoke rising from a fire in a summer orchard—languor-sleep, doze-sleep, the sweet stillness of the body stripped of will, with the mind dimmed likea lamp not quite turned off—sleep through which I could still sense your presence—you working in the kitchen, you out on the balcony, carrying something from one place to another, nailing, moving things—making a place for the baby, perhaps? Noises that blend with the lisping of rain outside and the whoosh of tires on wet asphalt, with flashes of sunlight that swim around the room from the balcony door when it opens, then closes—and then you dive in with me, under my blanket, hugging me from behind, and purr in a low voice so that even asleep I