The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (91 page)

A drink?—of course, anytime! Good thinking that you brought some, it’s an indispensable part of fishing, ha...like tackle. I have some with me, here. In a flask. Would you like some? No? And you...what’s your patronymic? Adrian Ambrozievich? Yes, it’s cognac. Transcarpathian. I always bring some when I go fishing. Here’s to your health!
Bud’mo
, yes. We had this delegation from Israel once—took them to dinner at The Presidential, top-notch, everything like it’s supposed to be...and their interpreter did not
know this word, he asked, whose “buddy” are we talking about? Ha...well,
bud’mo
!

Uff
. Have a pickle—it’s homemade, marinated. I highly recommend it; my wife’s a wiz at these.

Yes, we cooperate with them. With Israelis, and the Poles. Mainly on the Holocaust, we have the war period fairly well represented as it is. With the Poles, we also work on Starobilsk, where their officers were executed in the camp, the ones from Katyn group. Pardon, I didn’t catch that? Sure, if we need something from them, they don’t turn us down either...

Oh, in that sense.

I know, Nika told you.

You know, she has the highest regard for you. Highest. She’s an ambitious girl, thank God...I’ve no idea where she gets it—I was never known to have any special ambitions, and my wife’s the same. And you know—I’m happy to see it. I’m happy. Having ambition in life—one needs that. Yes, we hope so, knock on wood.... Her teacher praises her too...her professor, I mean. Of course, one worries, how else? She’s my only one, you see. Do you have children?

You must. Children, young people, are a must. Absolutely. Otherwise—what’s there to live for?

Oy, stop with that talking, as they say in Odessa! Work—please. You know what they say: it’s not like work will run away, and someone else can drink the vodka. Here, let’s have another round. To your health!
Bud’mo
! Have a pickle...homemade.

Yes, so that’s how it goes.

And as far as my Jewish origins are concerned, I know everything I need to know already. I don’t need those...Israeli contacts for that.

Only, I must ask you—this is all just between us, okay? Not a word to Nika. She doesn’t know everything, and she doesn’t need to...

Fuckin’...! Lost it! That was a bite...beg pardon. We should talk quieter, the fish—they’re smart. Some, you know, grab the bait and don’t even touch the hook. Like people.

That’s alright though. We’ll bring them, as they say, to light. Let me just hook a new worm...

Yes, according to Israeli law I am, basically, Jewish. The way they have it, one’s nationality comes from your mother. If you’re born to a Jewish woman—you’re a Jew. But then my daughter is not, because her mom’s Ukrainian. It’s funny, a kind of a...zoological nationalism. I never understood this; we used to all be—Soviet people...alright, Russian, what’s the difference. But what country we had! Everyone was afraid of us. Oh! Now it’s coming, good things come to those who wait, as my father-in-law used to say. Fishy, fishy in the brook, Papa catch him on a hook...

And you are from Lviv, Ambrozievich? Well, then, we’re compadres. I was born there too. Peace Street, former Lontsky Street...the MGB prison. Yes, that’s where I was born. In prison. So the organization, you could say, is where I come from, my native land. For life. My native land and nationality...and my mother, the woman who gave birth to me—she also had a relationship with the organization. She was sent to infiltrate the banderas in ’45...with a particularly important mission. That’s how it goes...

Only it’s not a woman’s work. God forbid.

I do know her name. Lea Goldman—that’s how she was called. My mother, the woman who gave birth to me. In Israel, by the way, she is listed among the victims of the Holocaust. As perished in 1942 in Przemysl, in the ghetto. That’s how it goes.... And you say—approach your Israeli colleagues. You think they, over there in Israel, would be thrilled to learn that in ’52 they received compensation from the Germans for a person who actually survived on the Soviet side?

Of course, she died. And in the same prison even. But not until ’48! That’s a completely different story.

But please, I don’t want you to think that I am, in any way, making excuses, so to speak, for Stalinist methods. Our side did not, of course, value people...never did. My father—the one who raised me—he used to say, we put to the wall people who, truth be told, should have been made Heroes of the Soviet Union. Obviously,
we weren’t fighting Hitler for human lives. And had Stalin struck a separate peace deal with the Germans in ’42, it would have been the USSR eradicating Jews on our territories; the Soviet side promised Hitler as much at the negotiations in Mtsensk—in exchange for the Germans closing the Eastern front; these documents have been published already.... But that’s, you know...who knows what went on! We have what we have: my mother was supposed to die back in ’42, from a Nazi bullet. And that’s how they counted her in Israel, because it suited them better. The Soviet government gave her the gift of life. So, if you see things from the government perspective, was it so illogical to suggest she return the favor by working for us?

Nika doesn’t know all this, she doesn’t need to...my wife doesn’t know all this, either. You have to understand...I’ve seen her picture. My mother’s, Lea Goldman’s. In her agent folder. Full face, profile. You know...it’s terrible. Especially in profile—it’s Nika, exact copy. Sends chills down your spine, you know. Don’t think me superstitious or anything. When you have your own children, you’ll understand. Nika doesn’t know, and doesn’t need to...

My father told me, yes. The one who raised me. Gave me life the second time, basically. That I survived, and grew up—it’s all thanks to him. He made me a man. Made sure I had my own two feet to stand on...I raised Nika to be that way too—she’s always taking flowers to her grandparents’ graves—at the Lukyaniv cemetery; they’re buried at the Lukyaniv. On Victory Day, the Cheka officers’ day, the week after Easter...I wasn’t even two months old then...in prison. They had me in the juvenile criminal system.

Shhh! Nope, not biting, I just thought it did.

Well, if it’s not biting, it’s not biting. No use beating the dead horse, right? Let’s have another round, so we’re not just sitting here.... Your health!
Uff
.

That’s how it goes. So I’m a lucky one as you can see. Knock on wood, where’s a piece of wood here? A lucky bastard. That’s what they said about me back when I was at the Institute. Yes,
here in Kyiv, at the Red Army Street. I was the youngest in my class, signed up straight out of high school. Sure, at first everyone thought, you know how it goes, he’s here because of his dad, a protégé...Father a decorated officer, veteran. None of them knew what kind of schooling I already got from my father. You couldn’t get it in the Dzerzhinsky Academy. And I am grateful to him for it! Grateful, yes.

You know, I only felt I really understood him after he told me. Mom worried so much about it; it was such a stress for her...she had a weak heart already.... It wasn’t easy on her, living with Father; she spent half her life deaf in one ear—he, when he got angry, hit her from the left, he had a heavy hand, may he rest in peace. But it wasn’t easy for him either...to be crippled at thirty, that’s, you know.... He could not have children after he got wounded. He was ferociously jealous, once threw an iron at her right before my eyes...an electric one.... Whenever she went out, he’d yell at her in the hallway when she came back, “Take your pants off!”—he was checking, you know...to make sure she hadn’t cheated on him while she was gone. For the longest time, I thought that’s how things were supposed to be. That everyone lived like that.

Are you cold?

Here, have a drink...by means of prevention, so to speak, it’ll keep you from getting sick. Your health!

I sort of wondered if he were not my birth father—I thought, maybe Mom had another man before him. Like, this other man was Jewish, and they split up or something...children, you know, think up all kinds of things. And Father, by the way, fought all the way to Berlin, did Nika tell you? Yes, the entire war. A hero: twice decorated with the Order of the Red Banner. And then to spend years laid up in sanatoriums—what kind of life is that? For an officer?

Oh! Shhh! Aha! Got ’im!

I gotcha right here brother, don’t even try it...a perch! That’s alright, he’ll go into soup. Let’s get him in here, in the net—hold
it out for me, would you please? Yes, to keep them underwater, fresh—see what beauties I got here? There. Thank you.

Yes...so that’s how it goes.

Turns out I really am a bastard. Only from a different woman. Who my father was is unknown. She never told them...my birth mother. I was fifty the first time I saw her picture. These pictures, taken in prison—a person looks different in them than she does outside, you know. Especially women. Did you see our star, Yulia Tymoshenko—the way she came out of the Lukyaniv Prison? That’s about the stage when you can take the pictures—when you can already see the way the woman is going to look in the camps. The eyes change...the look...but still, you could see she was a beautiful girl.... Lea Goldman. Davydivna was her patronymic. I understand she went by Rachel. She was just shy of twenty-three. I, soon as I laid my eyes on that picture, told myself: Nika must not see this, ever. God forbid. Especially that profile...it just stands before my eyes.

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....