The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

always won.
    Stodólya could tell him nothing new about Roman: no body had been brought to a village to be identified, and none had been put on display in the district town. Roman disappeared without a trace, dissolved into the green smells of a spring forest, became a dream.
    Stodólya informed him that they were to spend the summer and fall together, as the Headquarters directed: due to significant losses this spring (he listed the names of fallen officers and the world went dark for a moment before Adrian’s eyes), there had been a major regrouping, and both of them were being transferred to newly unmanned terrain. He identified their new regional commander by alias, and Adrian nodded—he knew the man backfrom the fall campaign of ’45, when he led a hundred. “They’ll have their hands full, and they’ll have a secretary, Dzvinya, my fiancée,” Stodólya added—very formally, as if to forestall any potential infringement, like, she’s mine, alright?—at which Adrian nodded his congratulations, hiding a smile. Of all things he could imagine, Stodólya to be in love was by far the most outrageous. On the other hand, what did he know about the man? Well, he’d learn more, wouldn’t he?
    Stodólya, as if reading Adrian’s mind, suddenly reached into the chest pocket of his jacket and unfolded a paper packet much worn along the creases to reveal a small photograph, which he offered to Adrian—for an instant, it seemed even his face, always cautiously drawn to a point, with that aiming crooked nose and the sharp eyes set close to each other like a wolf’s, softened, warmed from inside, and almost smiled.
    “This is she.”
    But Adrian never saw Stodólya’s smile, although he was very curious to find out how an enamored Stodólya might smile. It is quite possible that Stodólya was, in fact, smiling as he held the photo in his hand, but if he was, Adrian did not see it.
    The woman looking back at him from the picture was Geltsia.

Room 4. From the Cycle
Secrets
:
After the Blast
    H i—hello, sweets. Here—give us a kiss.
M-mua.
Why are you all so, sort of...discombobulated? You goof, of course everything’s fine, better than ever. Yurko dropped me off right at the door, just like I said on the phone, and what did you have to dread? (Such a stupid way to use that word—he says dread whenever he means worry, and I can’t seem to break him of this habit. Dread, by the way, is a transitive verb: One has to dread some
thing
, like war or famine, and if one is talking about some
one
, then one can worry, fret, brood, agonize, lose sleep, and dozens of other synonyms, but who speaks like that anymore?)
    Here, hang up my coat, would you please?
M-m-m
—what
is
that smell? Hol-y mol-y, what is going on here?—is someone coming? Wow! Look at all this stuff; it’s like a five-star restaurant in here, flowers and all.... You—you are really something.... Can I taste it? Straight from your big skovoroda here? Okay, your skillet, whatever, but I must point out that the name of Ukraine’s greatest thinker was, in fact, Skovoroda, so it’s a perfectly good word.... Alright, alright—quiet as a mouse, watch me,
z-zip
; I’m out of your way, going to wash my hands. Or should I go ahead and shower for such a romantic occasion? Dress for dinner? And perfume myself with something fabulously sexy? By the way, did you know that of all smells men find vanilla the most arousing—don’t you think this smacks of some sort of infantile fixation on their mommies’ cookies? No, really, I read it somewhere—not about fixation, about vanilla; I figured out the fixation part all by myself, with the help of my towering intellect, what else? O-oh...Aidy! That’s not where the intellect is...not even a woman’s, let go! Very well, good sir, if you find intellectual women so irresistible, I shall henceforth be known by my new pseudonym: Daryna Skillet. Pretty catchy, no?I’ll get myself a column in
Women’s Life
. About the big stuff, and such. Only no one would ever know what a “skillet” is.... Aidy, you lummox, did you not get shampoo at the store again?
    Chianti? I like
that
! I like it a lot. (Such a
guy
thing to put on this whole show, with wine and flowers, and then forget to get shampoo, which ran out two days ago!) Looks like a decent bottle too—2002—nicely done, Mr. Sommelier.... Oh, come on, the candles—that’s too much, that’s like something they’d tell you to do in
Women’s Life
—have