The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

friends, and later by some provincial relatives summoned to Kyiv for this purpose; but, for reasons that defy understanding, nothing ever happened to him on these nocturnal sojourns, except the money he lost paying the traffic cops, or, rather, whatever US dollar bills he grabbed and blindly thrust at them when they stopped him. What followed usually depended on the cops’ benevolence: one time they towed him to their station and kept him there for the night, pouring him strong tea from their thermoses and calling every single number in his address book until they roused a friend to come take him home—the ticket must have been especially impressive that night, or maybe he just ran into some really kind cops (Why not? Things happen.), some good folks who listened to him pour his soul out and tell them, over and over, how his Vlada perished, until he fell asleep on a cot, or they finally knocked him out, instantly and professionally, and who would blame them if they did?
    It had never occurred to me before that, of the two of them, Vlada was the stronger one. The ancient mythical notion (branded into me since infancy by my mother) that the husband—the Man!—unless he was in jail or in hospital, must be “the leader” and “take care of everything” was apparently more persistent than I had suspected, outliving hell, high water, a ruined marriage, and a broken (multiple times) heart, providing the dusty peephole through which I viewed (without really seeing much) Vlada’s marriage as a fulfillment of our poor mothers’ ideal: here—finally!—a strongman shielding you from all worldly mishaps with his mighty shoulders, both physical and financial; all you have to do is bloom, look pretty, and pursue spiritual improvement, without a care in the world, other than scheduling your interviews on national TV. The funniest thing is that women like that still existed in our mothers’ generation: the ladies who stayed home, cooked borsches, studied esoteric literature, patronized persecuted and unrecognized artists, occasionally penned or crafted something, and were held in high regard as impressive activists by their communities; but the fact that some humble hardworking husbands bankrolled all their activism—their artists, their books, and whatever went into their borsches, too—was never mentioned in polite society, just like it wasn’t proper to point out that a person has to piss and shit; the knack these ladies had for arranging their lives so comfortably belongs to the ancient feminine arts that were irretrievably lost by the end of the twentieth century, like weaving on an upright loom or treating hives with herb smoke. By the time we came around, the ladies were in their decline, widowed—their humble hardworking husbands, naturally, having all died first—we found them not grandmotherly even, but as a tribe of mothballed ancient girls who didn’t know how to go out alone or where the phone and electricity bills were; they responded to an innocent “How are you?” with a two-hour-long lecture on their existential condition, and generally seemed slightly batty, an impression that could not be alleviated even by the glow of their former glory and that was made all the stronger by how laughable they were, which, in turn, cast retroactivedoubt on that much-publicized glory, the times that made it possible, and the incredible persistence of the ideals they embodied.
    Only when Vadym collapsed without Vlada, like a sack dropped in the middle of the room, did I see how things really were between the two of them—but it didn’t make me feel any better. I remembered her the way she was when she first fell in love with him—it seemed like yesterday, but no, ’tis twice two years, my lord—how suddenly charming she was, as if her face, posture, and gestures were lit with a soft low light, and the lumbering Vadym melted in her presence like butter in the sun, clearly not having eyes for much of anything else, and it was all so darn nice that often, after I’d said goodbye and was alone, I’d catch myself still smiling and feel silly, like I had jam on my chin and no one told me. True love always becomes a source of warmth for the people around it, a small hearth, and I was also happy for Vlada in a purely woman’s way—happy that she got so lucky, and juiced, like on an essential vitamin, on the fact that her new affair, no less intense at thirty-eight than it would’ve been at eighteen, showed me,