There was a time when this idea used to help me. Mobilized me. When I was young. Helped not to lose shape, not to start slipping… spinning. Not to think… maybe it would have been even better in the army. But—what’s the point now? It’s good things worked out the way they did. I am not complaining, and my conscience is clear.
Cognac for you? It’s good cognac, Transcarpathian. Good for the blood pressure… prevents hypertension.
Uff!
So peaceful out here! So quiet…
You know, I had never met a woman like your mother before. Or after. Sometimes, that’s the way it happens in life; there are such times when everything comes together at once, and it’s just one thing after another. I had just learned about my birth mother for the first time… and that she never told them who my father was… didn’t give them the name… and then, when I was working with your mother—I understood, finally, how that could be possible. I believed it. I believed that it could happen. And that you could take anything for having been loved like that… camps, prison, loony bin… everything! You don’t care. You could go out there onto the Senate Square, without a second thought—and be demoted for it, from officer to private. That’s why the Decembrists came out… that’s how they could do it. And I was inside a different system. From the day I was born—I was born in prison, wasn’t I? I knew how to put a person on his knees… before the whole class… I knew how to find people’s weak spots. I’m not just telling you this—I was talented; it wasn’t only the people who knew people who got promoted to captain by the time they were twenty-eight! But that’s another matter…. The way those men were loved—no one ever loved me like that. And no one would have waited for me.
That’s a big thing, you know—when someone is waiting for you…
He was lucky… your dad.
Ehh, Daryna Anatoliivna… I don’t want you to think that I… I thought so at the time. The older I get, the more I think about this. There was a movie back then, in the ’70s, about the Decembrists’ wives, do you remember? I forget what it was called. It had this actress in it, from Kyiv—Irina Kupchenko… she looked like your mom… I went to see the movie again, when it was in the second run, and I was at the archives already. But that’s another matter. Yes.
Beg pardon? Yes, they transferred me. Trusted me. That’s to my father’s credit—Boozerov’s; it’s all his effort. He renewed my… background purity, so to speak—went all the way to Moscow, to his postwar bosses… found everyone who was still alive—those who were informed of my… adoption. Up till then, my service record was spotless—until that museum. And who’d have thought—a museum! You’d think it’s a nice place… quiet, mostly female staff… and look how it turned out. So, I got transferred. From field operations, from working with people to working with documents. That was for the best, too, as it later turned out. In life, it’s often like this—you think: this is it, I’m done, and later you see—it’s even better. Because that was the second time in a row that I… my second failure, with your mom—right after that Jewish woman. Except that with your mom, I did it myself; I made the decision. I didn’t start the case on her, and wrote it like that in my report—that it would be a waste of resources, so to speak. Wrote up her profile. My boss read it—he got mad: “What are you doing here?” he asked. “Recommending her for the Communist Party?” But they put the brakes on it anyway, didn’t pursue it any further… changed their minds. And the hook was already cast…
Nikushka hadn’t been born yet then. She came later. And you were going to school already. You were such a skinny little thing, pale—I once saw your mom pick you up from school… I wouldn’t have recognized you now! No way. When I first saw you on TV, I thought—that can’t be right…
So, yeah, that’s how it goes.
You know, in the army things are simpler, they have a clear line: there’s home, and there’s work. And the aggression is strictly localized in time: at seven a.m.—drills, you screw up—get a boot in your face. Hic! Excuse me… so with my father-in-law you did better to leave him alone on weekend mornings. In NKVD, under Stalin, they worked nights—with the same idea—but in our times it no longer worked that way. My father, Boozerov—he was still old school… he fought the banderas, after all… fought with the dead, and it was to them he kept making his point for the rest of his life. Raised me to be meaner… but careers weren’t being made on aggression anymore; you didn’t get ahead by being mean. Knowing you had been chosen—that’s what kept you in the services! The feeling of being initiated… to the services… to the state’s holy of holies… a great state’s, one that makes the whole world tremble! The might! The mystery of power, as this one man said, a director of a Moscow institute, he came to speak to us recently… the mystery, yes! When you’re young, it’s hypnotizing; it can replace both home and family…. And then one blow like that—and you find yourself… naked. Naked. And you don’t, it turns out, want anything, nothing at all—only to be loved… for someone to be waiting for you… even to have you back from the loony bin. Hic! Knowing in what shape people came out of our loony bins and wanting you back anyway. I made sure I told her. Your matinka. I warned her…
Yes, I did.
Sometimes I wonder who he was, my father. My birth father, I mean…. Why did she love him so much? My mother? She could have survived… she was so young then; she wouldn’t even be eighty now… my mother-in-law’s eighty-two… she could have lived this long, too. How could she have done that? Sometimes you think—she was just foolish, a silly girl. She was too young; she didn’t understand… life… and then I remember your mom… Olga Fedorivna, yes, I remember. And? How did her life go… afterward?
Well… that’s good… good that it went well. Only, you know, when you have a daughter of your own… when you have your own children, you’ll understand me. It’s only in your movies that everything comes out so pretty. And I’ll tell you from my experience: as soon as you read a document that’s so pretty, so smooth, reads like Leo Tolstoy or something, not a word out of place—you should know it’s fake… it’s all fake, written for the reporting purposes. You can be ninety percent sure. Don’t think that as soon as you have a document in your hands, you’re done.
And you just wait, what’s your rush?…. They’re just starting to bite now…. Last Sunday I pulled a champ of a zander here, a twelve pounder! This big! Don’t worry, I won’t knock it over… let’s put it over here, that bottle, closer this way…. Hic! Excuse me.
Have a pickle, it’s homemade… my wife marinates them! You won’t find another one like it. She’s really stupid, of course, but runs a great house! Father-in-law’s schooling. And Nika takes after me. Thank God. Some girl I have, no? Knock on wood… she’s my blood!
My conscience is clear, Daryna Anatoliivna. And please don’t go enlisting me in the shtrafbat. You think I don’t understand? You think I’m too dumb to know? I’ve done my time, thank you. My father knew it too… Boozerov. He knew he got spat out. We all got spat out. Right, wrong… wherever you stood with the organization. All the same! Your father and mine, the same. Yes, the same! Only mine realized it first. Boozerov did. Long before the Union fell apart.
Hic! There’s water right by you, would you mind passing? No, I’m fine; it’s just to wash down my pill… thank you.
You know, I once heard this writer speak, she’s the one—forgot her name—who wrote about sex… under field conditions… some-thing like that. I don’t remember exactly the way she said it, but the main idea was that if you’re born in prison you grow up either prisoner or guard. No other choices, so to speak. And I disagree with that! I flat out disagree. I myself was born in prison—and what would have come of me if it weren’t for him… my father, the man who raised me?