The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

by Oksana Zabuzhko

  Phone, sweetie! Can you get it? Here—it’s your cell…. Yes, you left it in the bathroom—and tossed a towel on top of it, too.

  (What I really like is to listen to him talk on the phone—it’s just like watching him out the window, or in the street, in a crowd, when he doesn’t see me, smiling to myself on the sly. Once I eavesdropped on a parallel line for almost the entire conversation, listening to the two men’s voices like to a radio play—if the other voice had belonged to a woman I would’ve hung up of course, instantly and instinctively, otherwise it would’ve looked really bad, like I’m a jealous harpy or something, but with another man on the line it was really cool. I could listen, against the shadowy background of the other man’s low boo-boo-boo, for the eager sprout of his lithe, pleasant voice, growing like a beam of light, and for his laugh with that little snort, like a young horse, that always makes me want to stroke him… and it’s always fun to watch guys talk to each other when there is no woman around to constrain them or make them want to preen. Men’s conversation has a different rhythm: it’s faster, more aggressive; they throw lines like punches; they spar like schoolboys at recess; they don’t let their emotions crawl all over the place like we do—they keep them tight and focused inside their sentences, like fists, which, when you listen in, does sound like they’re jousting a little.

  “I even went to Crimea once with that Kápytsya guy,” grumbled the base, a fellow physicist in his previous life, apparently. “Should’ve taken a woman instead,” retorted my mensch. “I would, but they all leave me in May,” the other explained, with a glee I thought unexpected. “Seasonal allergy!” diagnosed mine. “Yep, that’s what it is, and I can’t make it before July…”

  I put the receiver down at that point, because they were making me laugh. Later, Adrian told me about the guy—they were in the same class at university, roomed together in the Lomonosov Street dorms in the late eighties, and the room was right across the communal kitchen where the Vietnamese students fried hot-cured herrings every day, so the boys knocked out their window to get some air, and then had to nail a padded quilt over it in winter. In his telling of it, this all sounded downright hilarious, like a well-pulled-off prank, and clearly that’s how they thought of it at the time. And now this buddy of his was out of work, his lab due to be shut down, separated from his wife, and out of luck with women in general—always had been, but I knew that much already.

  He gives me full and very detailed reports about his friends, of whom there always seem to be more. I haven’t even made it through the whole list yet; it boggles the mind, really, how he managed to acquire so many. It’s like he hasn’t lost a single pal in his entire adult life—he’s still trailing people from all the way back in middle school—and somehow, incredibly, he manages to hold the whole mob in his mind, remembering all their domestic troubles, fights with parents, snafus at work, abortions, and divorces. Lets them all cry on his shoulder when they need to, listens to everyone, makes helpful phone calls, deals with funeral homes, hospitals, and car mechanics. I can’t even keep their names straight because once he’s introduced someone to me he refers to them as if they were our common friends and not someone only he knew, as in, “Igor called.”—“Which Igor is that, the one that’s losing his hair?” And every time I evince such considerable powers of retention it makes him go all sunny—“Yep, that one!”—and of course it never once occurs to him that the shedding Igor may not at all appreciate having me, or any other sexually relevant woman, privy to the embarrassing details of his personal plight. But men have always delivered their brethren to women they love without so much as a blink—bald heads, binges, erectile dysfunctions, and marital affairs included—the way a woman would never hand over her friends—her self-preservation instinct wouldn’t let her, unless, of course, she’s a complete idiot. That, and that fundamental feline neatness of hers, the one that demands she hide her blood-soiled pad where he’ll never see it, that she pluck those naughty hairs from her chin, that she smarten up and wash between her toes. Anything so unseemly honest you might betray to your man about your friend today might come back to haunt you tomorrow, as if you’ve unwittingly opened his eyes to aspects of female nature he, with his manly shortsightedness, never noticed before, had no inkling existed at all. And that’s why, generally, women’s solidarity is much stronger than men’s—women guard what unites them far more jealously.

  Whatever I tell him about my friends has already passed a kind of censorship, whose partial objective, let us be honest, is to dim the ladies’ stardom a bit, turn them into a courtly entourage befitting my own queenly persona, into a kind of an organically coordinated flowerbed, a magnificent backdrop against which I can cut an all-the-more-compelling figure. Any details that might claim a disproportionate share of his attention are in this process corrected and retouched, while the most flattering light is turned upon Me the Magnificent.

  But this is different from what men do; this is women’s business as usual, the game we’ve always played, ever willing to change parts to help each other out—your turn to be the queen today, mine—tomorrow: around Vadym, I was Vlada’s lady-in-waiting, just like she was mine when I was seeing Ch., for instance, or D. before him. So when you think about it, this is just another manifestation of our feminine solidarity; guys wouldn’t know where to start—they’re forever falling over each other to stomp one another out to impress you, like bucks or elephants or some other animal before a female, and without even a specific goal in mind, such as, for example, actually stealing you from the other guy, just for pure art’s sake…. Alright, sounds like he’s finished his conversation, and I think my eyes look almost normal again. You can’t tell I’ve been bawling… a little puffy, but I’ll tell him it’s because I had to rub the mascara off, with cold water, that’s it. Shit, I bet the food’s all gone cold in the kitchen by now!)

  Vaddy—gosh darn it, I am so sorry—I meant Aidy, of course… can’t talk today. Who did you say called? Oh that one…. (He doesn’t see it; he sees nothing—neither puffy, rabbit-pink eyes, nor my anxiety over this Freudian slip—he just goes on shining like a new penny, because of what he’s just heard on the phone. He’s rushing to tell me, now, right away; he’s eager to share and, of course, to get the benefit of my encouragement and approval: our candelabra just got another buyer, can you believe that? Some hotshot, hot enough to desire his own independent appraisal; he’s got an expert too, flies him in from Moscow because he doesn’t trust our homegrown Ukrainian ones.) So does that mean you can have them bid against each other—your marmot and this new one—set up a little private auction of sorts? Is that how it works? Wow, that’s awesome, Aidy! Congrats!

  (There are more details; he keeps piling them on with that same forthright, barnstorming tempo of male business talk, and it takes all I’ve got to scrape together enough attention to hang on, almost wrinkling my forehead in concentration in order to stay with him, but I feel such a heroic effort is beyond me. I am really tired. I can’t muster the grace my mind needs to leap from one thing to the next, one stone to the next across the stream, especially when I know what dangerous craggy rocks lie hidden under the surface, and how hard it is to lift them from the bottom. He doesn’t even notice. He’s just chirping on, a merry little bird, oblivious, like he isn’t the reason I’m suddenly able to see underwater with this bizarre second sight that catches glimpses of the terrifying depths we skim so innocently. He is just a guy dreaming his mind-twisting dreams; he unloads them on me and goes on with his day. He is always at ease when I’m around, within reach, but as soon as I make to leave the room, I hear his indignant Where are you going? behind me, as demanding as the howl of an unattended baby. Although, maybe, there’s a bit of a protective instinct in it too, and a touch of that anxiety that you always feel when you let a piece of yourself go into the unknown, like if you forget a document folder in an empty train compartment, or something like that. For as long as I’m out of reach he is prey to all kinds of fearful troubles, like t
he hordes of hungry-eyed men he thinks of, as he once confessed to me, every time he goes out without me—he notices them in the crowds, these pushy, predatory types with their teeth-baring leers, ready to sink their fangs into their pretty prey, and always shudders at how many of them prowl out there, and how I have to walk among them like Little Red Riding Hood in the woods.

  And that’s why he is only truly content and happy when I am at his side. It’s even true when he sleeps: when we are in the same bed, he either doesn’t dream at all or get the same regular crap I do, just like everybody else, stuff not worth retelling, but when I’m gone, even if I get up and leave without waking him up, that’s when Adrian Vatamanyuk’s private screenings begin. Click—and a tape of unknown provenance slides into his unattended head; up until now these have featured totally unfamiliar characters in a period drama, but now, apparently, it’s my turn to star since the most recent installment has me interviewing Olena Dovganivna—and that’s just perfect, what can I say, a real séance. Like a hundred years ago, before people had TV, and various loons also set up interviews with the dead, spinning tables and all, “Spirit, spirit, are you here?” To which any self-respecting spirit naturally responds with “Fuck off,” or something along those lines, and rightly so, because really, leave the man, I mean the spirit, alone. You’ll all be there, in your own good time, and will certainly find out whatever it is you’re after.

  I’m totally with the spirits on this, only our situation is a tiny bit different, a rather big bit, actually, if you really think about who started it and who doesn’t leave whom alone. I personally never bothered anyone, no spirits, no nothing. I’ve got enough trouble without them, and so does he, by the way—he’s running around with those antiques of his like a chicken with his head cut off. Thank God, he’s banking a bit of change here and there, but it’s not like I can’t see how much he misses his physics, all those alternative energy sources he can’t bring himself to part with, can’t quit on that dissertation of his even if no one else gives a flying hoot about it. He keeps futzing with it just so he can keep one foot in that door, not even a foot, a toe, a pinkie, even after his business started making enough to pay the bills—but still not enough, I don’t think, to move out of these boonies into a decent neighborhood, not to mention any murky plans regarding our future.

  I don’t know really—one could, I suppose, get a loan to buy a place, but that takes connections at the bank. Maybe one of his clients could help—all our banks start their own collections these days. What about this new candelabra candidate who’s supposed to be such a hotshot, what if? Aidy may have had the same idea, that may be why he’s so wound up about it, why he’s so inspired to keep on about all the details of the deal he’ll make, while it takes all I’ve got just to keep staring at him, as if opening my eyes wider will help me hold on to at least the gist of what he’s saying.

  And where, I ask you, do spirits fit in all of this? In what itty-bitty crack? It’s no wonder he just dumps them all off on me, shakes them off like a dog come in from the rain—watch out when they fly! It is my job, after all, nothing to be done about that, and the film about his great-aunt is also mine to make—no man would ever make that movie, wouldn’t even think of it. It’s like Yurko said—he’s our Bluebeard who, whenever he’s not embroiled in the many challenges of his domestic life, likes to show off his feminism like a rented Brioni suit—“Who’s that poor thing you’ve dug up? If you were going to mess with UIA, go find yourself a real ace, some daredevil who mowed down the bad guys like hay, first Germans, then ours, pardon me—Russians—and then roused a revolt somewhere in the Gulag. Now that would be something—and you picked some wallflower with a typewriter. What kind of story is that?”

  Sure, I agree, not much there, but I’m not the one who did the picking you know—this, the story, picked me, knocked me down and had me, did, in fact, have me quite literally, which, of course, I shall never tell Adrian, and of all my friends could only maybe tell Vlada—she would appreciate it, but by the time this happened Vlada was no longer among the living, and now it’s all guys all around me, at work, at home, wherever I turn, that’s just the way the cookie crumbled, and I go around censoring myself to accommodate them.

  So there you have it: I’m smiling and nodding at him, all dutiful, because I know he needs my encouragement, and support, and regular watering, weeding, and feeding. Every woman must cultivate her little garden with the proudly erect phallus at its center, like a Mexican cactus—these are very demanding crops, these phalli; they wither and die without constant care and attention, and if I need to call off my guards, let my hair down, and just be myself for a little while I have two options: soak myself into a pruney-fingered blob in a pine-scented bubble bath, or, more radically, perfume myself with vanilla all over, pounce on him, and drag him to bed growling like a panther to buy myself a relaxing half hour of complete abandon. Only, unfortunately, the second option is not really an option when I’m exhausted like now—the kind of exhausted that wears your nerves down hair-thin and makes you want to cry—and I would really be happiest right now if I could just sit with you, Aidy, without either of us saying anything. I’d sit and finish this Chianti you found—it’s really wonderful—pour more for myself, and you won’t even notice—the wine glows beautifully in the glass I hold against the candlelight, burns with a dark garnet fire. I know you can be quiet, Aidy.

  You’re one of the few people with whom it’s been easy and natural from the start to be quiet—there was never anything foreign or alien in your presence. And that may be what I love most about you—a man with whom it is nice to be quiet, what a gem!—because there are things you really can’t talk about with men, and all these things settle in us, accumulate and calcify like scum inside pots or plaque on teeth, and itch and itch, and then begin to oppress us—vaguely, so we can’t even name them and don’t even know what’s wrong with us until one day we die and no one ever finds out what it was that gnawed on us as we lay on our deathbeds….)

  Aidy? Aidy, listen to me.

  No, I didn’t understand any of that, I’m sorry. Honestly? I wasn’t really listening. I was thinking about something else entirely. Don’t be upset. You know what it was?

  Here, cin cin, to us, and let everything be great. Let it all go smoothly, you know—with your deal, and generally… listen.

  It’s your dream that made me think of this, the one you had earlier today—about me interviewing your great-aunt Gela at a table in the Passage. Actually, I brought you a tape to watch with an old interview of mine—take a look at it later, okay? It’s in my tote, in the hallway. You can turn the sound off, so it doesn’t distract you, the picture’s the thing—you’ll see what I mean when you watch it… Aidy, listen, I’m serious. Something’s going on here—both with my film and with these dreams of yours. They’re connected somehow. And the two of us are somehow involved in it all.

  There’s another plot behind all this, a different story. I am sure of that, dead sure. Feel it in my gut. No one really knew her, this Gela Dovgan. Even while she was alive.

  How do I explain this… promise not to laugh at me, okay? All that stuff we recorded with your dad, what he remembered his mom and Grandma Apollinaria telling him—it’s all very good, no doubt about it. I can use a lot of what’s on those three tapes we have of him talking: Gela’s childhood, the Gymnasium, her joining the Youth Assembly, the Ukrainian student community in Zurich, and then the whole family going to the gulag “for Geltsia,” and your dad’s own memories of Karaganda, when he was little—how they rode the train for a month—it’s all important; I’ll use it, and all the family photos are really cool too. I’m just thinking about going to the woods to shoot some footage of old bunkers that are still there, but that’s when I have the shooting script—I’ll read it live against the backdrop of the woods…. Nah, no worries, I won’t climb into any bunkers, nothing’ll cave in on me—would you quit being like my mom, talking to me like I’m five! Only all that doesn’t quite
cut it, Aidy. It’s all wonderful, but it’s not it. Not quite. She wants something different from me.

  What do you mean who? Gela, who else? Olena Dovganivna. Olena Ambroziivna Dovgan, may she rest in peace.

  You don’t think I’m losing it, do you? Thanks, ’preciate it.

  Please, don’t take it the wrong way—I am really grateful to your dad and to you, for coming with me—he would’ve been totally different with me if you weren’t there, wouldn’t have talked to me like that, relaxed like with family—but your dad had seen her once in his entire life, and he was mostly asleep in his cradle when she came to see them in the middle of the night that time…. You see, Aidy—only, please, don’t laugh, this is really serious. I mean it. Basically the entire time she was in the underground she was among men. Except maybe those radio operators’ courses in ’44, but that was still under the Germans, and from then on, until she died in ’47, it was all woods and bunkers for three years straight—without a female soul beside her. And I’m not even talking about their draconian conspiracy in which they didn’t even know each other by name, never mind sharing anything personal…. That she presumably confided to the family during that visit about some guy she’d secretly wed doesn’t change anything, Aidy. Does not, trust me. Whatever kind of guy he was.

  She had something in her heart—and no one to tell. Something only a woman would have understood.

  You said it. Exactly. That’s exactly what I’m thinking.

  Yes, please, a bit more. Thank you.

  I think it’s still tormenting her—whatever this thing is that she died with, not having told anyone. And she wants me to help her unburden herself.

  She needs me. And you too, Aidy. That’s why we’re together. Well, of course it’s not the whole reason. I remember it perfectly—you were smitten at first sight by my legs in black jeans, a first-round knockdown, a kick in the gut, of course…. Only I am not kidding, Adrian Ambrozievich. I am as somber as a fresh-cut tombstone.