The Museum of Abandoned Secrets (92 page)

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, well, 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?

Eh, Daryna Anatoliivna...I very much would have preferred it that way—not to know everything. Sometimes, you think—here I am, I survived.... But for what?

Only Nikushka...my girl. She’ll always need me.

You’re cold now? Well, that means we need to drink some more. My father-in-law used to say—“Let’s save ourselves...we’re getting sober!” Come on, don’t be shy.... Your health!
Uff
.

He was the one who rescued my family...saved it, I mean. My father-in-law. Nika was born later. If it hadn’t been for him, who knows how it all would have turned out. Such emptiness there was...like a black hole...such a dark stretch. At work—gloom, and at home—gloom. What’s the way out? What could there be? Once you’re in the system, you, my dear, have only two options—up or down! You don’t get a third choice. Those are the rules. Until then, things were going up for me, but when they head down—you whole life goes down the drain. And I was only thirty! And not a glimmer of light at home, I had nowhere to go. My better half was pissed at me. She was afraid they’d pack us off to the middle of nowhere, where she wouldn’t be able to buy the shearling coat she wanted...from our chancery—she’d just put her name on the waiting list for one. My father-in-law later shipped in a whole container of those shearlings from Afghanistan, but those weren’t the right kind for her, either, because everyone already had one like that—llama fur they were called, with those white tails like snot. Eh, why am I telling you this! All women are stupid. Sorry. That’s what I thought at the time. Meaning—that that’s what everyone’s life was like. I’d never met a different kind of woman. And they only showed the Decembrist wives in movies....