The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

anything that could compromise their colleagues who are still alive, and all I’ll get instead of a fat binder will be a manila folder with two pieces of paper glued into it. You can bet your life on that. You, as a direct relative—her, you could say, descendant—have a much better chance.
    So, whatddya say? Can we hold ’em up or what?
    Aidy, Aidy...you’re my bunny rabbit...warm and fuzzy.
    Nope, you don’t have to go anywhere—it should all be in their central archive, here in Kyiv, all the important UIA cases are here, I’ve asked. The files on the Supreme Command—those got shipped to Moscow, they took loads of Ukrainian archives, in 1991 most recently, after August 24, right after the independence—cleaned the stacks out like in ’41 before the German army, people say, burned papers right there in the yard for several weeks—covered their tracks, you know. Of course there are things we’ll never learn—but it doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. It’s not like they went anywhere; we’re still living with them. Only it’s like walking in the middle of the night through someone else’s place—you keep bumping into furniture.
    Speaking of which—we should blow out these candles. Could you turn on the light, please—not the main one, just the pendant above the table?
    Yeah, I am...really tired.
    O-oh, fuzzy-duds...you’re so warm...
    No, before we turn in, would you mind watching that interview of mine with Vlada? Yes, that’s the one I told you about—you didn’t see it air, did you? That was before our time. I didn’t have
Diogenes’ Lantern
then—my pieces ran as individual interviews with some editorial cuts. And here on tape it’s all raw footage, as it went. No, I’d rather not; I’ve seen it today already. I don’t want to do it again. Just don’t have it in me, Aidy. Honestly. Watch it alone, in the bedroom, okay? I’ll go ahead and accept my fate—do the dishes here.
    That was a glorious dinner you fixed. Thank you, toots.
    You’re so nice—what would I do without you?
    Just leave it, leave it. I’ll take care of it.
    Aidy, Aidy, did you play with girls when you were little?
    No, I just wanted to ask if you remembered this game we used to have—dig a little hole, line it with flowers, tinsels, beads, make it like a picture, cover it with a piece of glass and bury again? A secret, it was called.
    You don’t, do you?
    ***
    UIA SOLDIER QUESTIONNAIRE
     
           1. RANK AND ALIAS: Officer cadet Zirka Dzvinya
           2. LAST NAME NAME: Dovgan Olena
           3. NATIONALITY: Ukrainian
           4. DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 1920, Lviv
           5. EDUCATION: Three years of physics at the university in Zurich
           6. DESIGNATION: Radio operator/radio engineer
           7. SITUATION: Unattached (single)
           8. SERVICE IN OTHER ARMIES:
           9. TERM OF SERVICE IN UIA: Since March of 1944
           10. PROMOTIONS: [response illegible, form stained]
           11. COMMENDATIONS: [response illegible, form stained]
           12. WOUNDS AND HOSPITALIZATION: [response illegible, form stained]
           13. DISCIPLINARY ACTIONS: [response illegible, form stained]
           14. BLOOD TYPE: [response illegible, form stained]
           15. SUPERIORS’ OPINION: [response illegible, form stained]
     
    ***
    Her name is Anastasia, and she’s my intern—I’ve got interns now, can you believe it? That’s how it all begins, isn’t it? And then one fine day you realize that everyone around you is younger than you are, and not just younger, but like a pack of teenage wolves—nipping at your heels waiting for you to make room for them. They are the first generation that won itself the new Europe—the one whose tender minds, their young and gelatinous brains, got steamrolled by the whole megaton bulk of American media. It’s just like in the old days with the poster of the glaring Red Army soldier pointing his finger at you: “Have you enlisted in the Army?” Only the questions are different now: “Have you vacationed in the Canaries?” “Have you bought a Mercedes?” “Are you shopping at Gucci?” And they fall over each other in their mad rush, wherever the gigantic finger on the screens sends them at the moment, snapping whatever seems like an obstacle in their way. I can just see the spike on the suicide graph that this Internet generation will deliver our sociologists in ten years or so—
whoosh
,