The Museum of Abandoned Secrets

by Oksana Zabuzhko

  That was a mistake she made, of course—not telling them who the father was. Worst mistake she could have made. If she’d told them, she’d have had a chance. Had she said anything, anything at all… made something up, done something… to cooperate with the investigation. They would have tried to use her again, of course—you didn’t just write off people like that in Western Ukraine at the time. My father—Boozerov, that’s what he said about it, he called it sabotage. It was criminal negligence to lose an agent with such experience. Two and a half years among the banderas—that’s not nothing! In any case, the MGB would have let her live, that’s for sure. Yes, they were angry at her, of course they were—they’d sent her into the enemy camp with a mission, and she’d disappeared! For two and a half years—vanished, as if the ground swallowed her whole, not a trace. Of course, what’s the first thing they thought—that’s she’d sided with the bandits… but still, they would’ve kept her, agents like that were highly valued.

  Beg pardon? Well, whether they trusted her or not—that’s, pardon me, just sentiment, pink snot…. They didn’t trust anyone! There wasn’t a single agent in Western Ukraine at the time who was trusted. And they were right not to, I’ll tell you. Remember what happened with Stashynsky? Well, there you go. But you don’t need me telling you this—your own families fought… on that other side. So what if they didn’t trust her! Until he or she is deactivated, an agent is active, on duty, you could say. That’s what Father told me at first… Boozerov—he told me that my mother was killed in the line of duty…. He actually may not have known everything himself, and if he did, he wouldn’t have thought so much of it; they had a different view of things—men from the front, you know, those who’d gone through Germany. They were used to, you know, not being soft on the enemy. But this was different. She was Soviet citizen already. An agent with a special mission. Her death was a gross institutional error. She had to live. Two and a half years, so much information. She could have lived. If only she hadn’t kept silent. That was the one thing she absolutely could not do. She should not have riled them up like that… young men.

  Are you getting cold? No? Mind the breeze, watch you don’t catch a cold…

  Yes, they were interrogating her. And weren’t doing it right. Now, my father—he was a first-class interrogator! Back when I was little, he’d put me through one of his wringers every so often—whether you wanted to or not, you’d tell him everything as good as under oath. And he had this way of twisting your ear—make you go down on your knees! Now, I don’t want you to think he was some kind of… sadist. I think, he loved me in his own way, was proud of me. Just—times were different, the methods were different…. And it worked, you know! It worked…

  That I survived is entirely his doing. His exclusively. However things were, you know what they say: she’s not the mother who brought you forth, she’s the mother who raised you. I was two months old when she… when she passed. Not even quite that. Do you know what the orphanage mortality rate was for babies under a year of age? And I survived. It was only when he told me for the first time… about my mother, and I was an adult already… married… only then did I understand why he sent me into the organization. That was the right thing to do. He did well. Otherwise, I don’t know what would’ve come of me… I, when I was young, wanted to hang myself. They pulled me out of a noose… in eighth grade.

  Did you serve, Ambrozievich? Oh, after university… a lieutenant? Which branch? Oh, that’s where my father-in-law served, too, may he rest in peace. Go ahead, pour another one; no use just holding on to the glassware. To service! Uff.

  You know, there is this concept out there… they teach it in the military, too, from day one: understanding the service. A security services officer is always on duty; that’s what we were taught… what he was taught, my father—and he became cripple at thirty; after he got wounded, he couldn’t have his own children… so for him I was his last mission. For the rest of his life. That’s service! Do you understand? Shtrafbat, penal battalion at home, so to speak. He guarded shtrafbats at the front, that’s what he did, before he was sent into the Western. Guarded the men who had to pay with their blood… Vysotsky has a song, remember? “We are not stra-ight up, we are shtraf-bat/we wo-on’t be le-aving notes—count me a Com-munist….” That’s a good song, very soulful. Well, that’s how Father saw me—I was in a shtrafbat. Paying for my birth mother… who died. Escaped, basically… forever. I saw the agreement in her file—the agreement to work for the government. Written in her own hand. And—not a single report afterward! Not a single one. An utter failure. Two and a half years, that’s no joke! For every failure like that someone had to be held responsible….

  No, I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses for… I don’t even know if he knew it all… Boozerov—if they’d apprised him of the situation, and to what extent… but I understood his service! I understood why he raised me the way he did. When my mom, sometimes, would hide me from him, when I was little… when he’d take his belt, his army belt with a brass buckle, and wrap it around his hand, like so… he’d yell at her: “You,” he yelled, “you stupid bitch, you don’t know nothing, it’s for his own good—it’ll make him meaner!” That was his idea of education… his methods. Now, of course, we see it all differently. But that was a different time. That’s what I’m saying; it all depends on your perspective.

  I wanted to kill him when I was young… once. After he twisted my ear at school, in front of the whole class… forced me to my knees… and made me apologize standing there like that, say I won’t do it again—I was a troublemaker when I was little… I still remember how quiet it was… and everyone’s eyes, the entire class looking at me… ugh… I ran away from home after that… waited to catch him, with a shiv. That was back before I knew anything… I was young. A boy…

  You must be thinking, what’s the point of all this, right? Why’d I invite you to talk business, and then sit here, telling stories?

  That’s how I can tell you don’t fish. Fishing—it takes patience, persistence. It’s good training, you know… same as tracking a target, basically. Everyone’s always in such rush… and in the end, the winners are the ones who can wait. And, of course, know when to hook—when you’ve got a bite, that is.

  And they’re not biting right now. Well, alright, we’ll just wait. See how the float’s moving? That’s fry playing with it.

  You know, back when I was a cadet, there was this one incident. I volunteered—went along with a soldier; they sent them out on these missions: gave a man a document marked Top Secret, three typewritten pages—they’d put it in a briefcase, lock the briefcase with a handcuff to the guy’s wrist, put the guy into a jeep, and send him off—to us, one of our offices. And next to the soldier, there was this little red button—a “self-liquidator”… if in danger, the soldier has to press that button—and self-liquidate together with the briefcase. And I sat there and stared at that button the whole way. Couldn’t take my eyes off it. That’s why I came along… I stared and thought: Now—or should I wait another minute? Now—or wait another bit? Rode a hundred and twenty five miles like that. And you know, it helped. I didn’t have ideas like that after that… for a long time. Knowing how to wait—that’s the thing. That is the key. Another minute, another day. Someone will press your button for you eventually, so why hurry? Why jump the line?

  No, it was intelligence that worked with her: blue bloods—that’s how they thought of themselves. Everyone wants to think themselves better than they really are, don’t they? They were trained in Moscow, in the Dzerzhinsky Academy. And here, in Ukraine—this was their finishing school, to train them for the dirty work, at detention sites. Beg pardon? I couldn’t say I know about that—if anyone ever self-liquidated… some might have… back under Stalin, when there was still fear. In my memory, there wasn’t anyone left who was stupid enough. And no one cared about those three pages—that was just, boilerplate, you know. Half of our archive, Daryna Anatoliivna, consists of boilerplate
like that. The common, pardon me, bullshit. So please don’t think that as soon as you find a document—that’s it. Documents—they are written by people, you know.

  Only please don’t tell Nika.

  Well, one never knows… you might run into each other somewhere.

  She is the only one I have. My wife—that’s, you know…

  Nika, when she was born, weighed just over four pounds. And five ounces. I went to the milk kitchen… fed her from bottle myself; my wife didn’t have enough milk. Had it been a boy, I don’t know if I’d have managed. It’s different with a girl… as long as I can stay on my feet, she’ll need me.

  So that’s how it goes…. Another one? To our children…. You should have your own, have them soon, don’t put it off, someone has to help the demographic situation in the country! I’m kidding, of course. Alright, here we go! Uff… down it goes…. My father-in-law used to say, if work gets in the way of drinking, time to quit working. He, my father-in-law, was also from the military, rest his soul. Retired in the rank of lieutenant colonel, even made it to Afghanistan. And wished to be buried where he was born, in the Cherkasy region… in the village both he and his wife came from. He and I went fishing there. He was such a character, you know… always kept himself busy. He retired in ’91—and became a taxi driver. A Soviet Army lieutenant colonel—working the wheel like a common cabbie! Why not? he’d say. I’ve got my own car; I’ll make enough to cover the gas, and the passengers share cigarettes—so I’m ahead all around. That’s the kind of man he was… humble. That works better in the army; we had it a bit differently in our organization. He helped me a lot in this life. I was fortunate to have him. I’m lucky, I’m telling you.

  My mother-in-law—she got bent out of shape a little when she learned I was adopted by the Boozerovs. With her, it was a simple, rural thing, you know—she wouldn’t have people say she let her daughter marry a Jew… a Jew, please! She got her daughter worked up against it, too. The wife got scared they’d ship me somewhere provincial, just to be on the safe side, and she’d already got a taste of the good life. Good thing my father-in-law didn’t fall for it, set them both straight… my wife and my mother-in-law, too. After Father, Boozerov, told me… if it weren’t for that, he may not have told me the whole story. But the way things went—he had to interfere… reveal all his inside information, so to speak. Yes…

  I think that’s what did him in. In a certain sense, so to speak… cut him down. That fact that his life’s work—everything he did, raising me—didn’t do anyone any good. His service. I was a captain already. The youngest captain in Republic’s entire KGB! If you see things from the government perspective, he really should’ve been made a Hero for that… only no one appreciated it anymore. They used the old man up—and spat him out, forgot about him. And it was quite a shock to me—when he told me.

  So that’s how it all started… because of the Jews.

  Dear, dear Daryna Anatoliivna… ask your matinka—she ought to remember, it was a colleague of hers. Yeah, yes. They worked at the same museum… it was a Jewish woman who applied for emigration to Israel. And I was working with her… talked to her. Spent two months talking to her, and all for naught. And how did you think it worked? That we just let them leave?

  Ha… we have a whole field branch there, in Israel. Even Vysotsky had a song, do you remember? “We missed our chance with Golda Meier’s spot, but one man of every four is our former folk.” A joke? Well, in every joke there’s a seed of truth, as they say… a grain. He cooperated with the organization too, Volodya Vysotsky did. What, you didn’t know?

  What did you expect? Of course, they were not trusted… the Jews. There were cases when veterans from among them applied for emigration, even Heroes of the Soviet Union. So many scandals! Who knew it would all end… so soon.

  Aha! I got something! Come on, come to Daddy… gotcha!

  Darn it, another roach… such a little thing, might as well throw him back in.

  This moment here—this is the fun: when you’ve got something on the hook, but you don’t yet know what it is! The most important moment, this. And back then I was still young, I hadn’t seen real fire, so to speak, and pulled up with that Jewish woman a whole, pardon me, cabal…. She talked to someone somewhere—they had their networks working like clockwork to help their own—and they found a way for her to get out… to slip off the hook, basically. They thought, you see, that I was also one of their own, only closeted—that maybe I changed to a Russian last name, when the government was fighting the rootless cosmopolitans. And such closeted people—they were rarely accepted into the corps, they worked as agents mostly, and worked hard. You’d work hard too, if, for instance, your mother was Jewish and your father was in the Nazi-sanctioned police! A schutzman, yeah… you’d spend your life bending over backwards. Pardon? Well, we won’t name names, these are respectable people now, in high posts. It’s not important. So anyway, back then they decided among themselves that I must be one of those people—that I covered up, you know, some stains on my biography and got into the organization with a perfect record. They thought they’d found a weak spot, and that’s where they hit—to take the fire off their woman and put me on the spot… the best move. It couldn’t fail.

  Beg pardon? Oh… that, you know, is just something that people think—that the KGB was omnipotent and no one could get around it. In fact, the organization was as much of a mess as everything else… bureaucratic, backstabbing… I, too, had to write an explanatory report to my bosses to account for the two months when I didn’t get anything done. And then a thing like this hits—a complaint from your target, plus an anonymous letter—and that’s it, you’ve been marked! The shadow’s been cast: Jew won’t cross a Jew, you know, and that I’m probably getting help from some Sochnut of theirs, their Jewish till… for protecting my own from the KGB. What’s the first thing? To cast shadow on a person—and you go prove yourself an upstanding citizen after that! Go prove you weren’t double-dealing. That was a good, smart plan they had—they just miscalculated a bit. No one knew what really happened, remember… I didn’t know anything myself yet.

  And I was in law school by then, about to get my degree. Long-distance… got promoted to captain. Things were just starting to go well.

  It was hard, you know… it’s always hard when you are not trusted. When behind your back, people are happy that you’ve stumbled, because there’s a line waiting for your spot already. And at home—there was the same emptiness, nothing to lean against. The old man drank himself numb… my father, Boozerov. That’s how he told me—he was drunk; Mom just cried. He didn’t live much longer after that. He had a hard time dying, too—he had a grudge… against the whole world… cirrhosis—that’s not a walk in the park. Nika didn’t know him; she was born later… when he was already gone.

  Are you getting a draft there? No? Your feet warm enough?

  A stretch like that… you don’t want to go on living, don’t want to go home at night. What’s the point, you ask yourself? Just push the button, and that’s it. I didn’t know everything back then… but it was a shock, a real shock. And the thing of it was—it was all like the world conspired to mock me, you know, that yes, I am a Jew after all! A bastard. And that my mother, the woman who gave birth to me, was also under suspicion, same as I… in double-dealing. It’s like… a curse or something. You start thinking these thoughts and… God forbid.

  This fear… I don’t fear for myself anymore, I don’t want you to think that… but it’s inside me somewhere—since then, sitting there. In my gut. Thank God Nika doesn’t know everything. She’s got her own life. A clean slate, so to speak… let it be….

  I think Father didn’t know everything either. But it cut him down. Finished him off, it did, that he had to go explain things—because of me. He had to go all the way up to Moscow, because here in Kyiv, people just looked at him like he was nuts. No one wanted to take responsibility for the decision, they were all too scared for their own hides… and, wel
l, they wouldn’t miss a chance to bite off a chunk of someone else’s. He was a stranger here. An outsider to the very organization he’d given his life to. Old fart who had no more influence anymore. So what, he was a distinguished pensioner? If all his service, everything he’d given his life to, just think—blew up like… like feathers—from a single fabricated denunciation. How he yelled when he’d had a drink: Cursed… Rats!—he yelled. He said that thing about the banderas once, I won’t forget it as long as I live—that he envied them the way they stood up for what was theirs! For thirty years he hadn’t spoken a word of it—and now it came back. I looked at him with new eyes then. That was before the ’91 coup, you must remember, before all the changes….

  It’s all very complicated, you know. And you want things to be just cut-and-dried, nice and tidy! Like now—you must be sitting there, listening to me talk and wondering, what’s all this about. Yes? I can tell… everyone’s in such rush, can’t wait…. You want the archives opened, want your documents brought out to you on a silver tray, want them declassified before the fifty-year term runs out…. Do you know how many waves like this I’ve lived through already? And you with your film are just the same. And the consequences—have you thought about that? People’s children, grandchildren. What have they done to deserve that?