No, you didn’t understand. Hic! You can’t just be so black and white…. What do you mean, either prisoner or guard? So what then, a whole generation is guilty merely by virtue of the time they were born? Those who survived—they’re guilty? And they should all have hung themselves… to come out clean, is that how it is? A noose around your neck—and you’re out? Then you’re a hero—fit for the movies? That’s what you’re doing, with your film, too. Okay, alright, I understand, let them be heroes—they fought… for Ukraine’s independence. We have independence now, times have changed—so we should honor them. Put up monuments and such… fine. But why do you insist on digging in these… deaths? On bringing back these death lovers? Is that a good example for the young people? Why do they need to know these things?
They need to live, Daryna Anatoliivna. Live! Not look back. You know what people say: the less you know, the better you sleep. I, for one, am very glad that Nika did not know old Boozerov while he was alive. My mom, our Grandma Dunya, may she rest in peace—she just bloomed after he died! Shed years. Lived another two decades. Raised Nika, had that joy in her old age… Nikushka loved her too. She’s always taking flowers to their graves at Lukyaniv cemetery… we all go, as a family… Memorial week, Victory Day… and the Cheka Officer’s Day, of course! I’ve given her what I could. She has what I didn’t have. My daughter grew up in normal family! Like regular people have. If it were up to me—I wouldn’t have told her anything at all, let her think she is Boozerova, like her grandparents. But my mother-in-law just had to get in there, the snake… and what would you have me do? Tell my child that her birth grandmother hung herself in prison after three men raped her during an interrogation?
Yes, she did. Hung herself. In her cell, on her own braid. Hic! Used her braid to… strangle herself. I myself didn’t know until a couple years ago. I dug it out… spent twenty years digging—to find that. Was that a good idea? You tell me, was it?
They were men from the front, my dear, men from the front…. You’ve got to understand. It was okay with German women in ’45; war wrote it all off. And the banderas—they were basically considered as good as the Nazis: the Ukrainian-German nationalists, that’s what they called them. The Germans had Ukrainian-Jewish nationalists and we had Ukrainian-German ones. That’s the lot she drew… my Jewish mom. If not Jewish during the war, then—sign here, please!—you’re German afterward. And no one told her, poor girl, not to aggravate young men who’d conquered half of Europe, went all the way to Berlin! Wrote their names on the Reichstag. You know what the biggest thing was my father—Boozerov—saw written on a Reichstag wall? Letters this big! Excuse my language, I’ll say it as it was: I FUCK YOU ALL!
Uff. Don’t worry, alcohol has no effect on me. Sometimes I wish it did, I think to myself—what a waste…
What did you think was going to happen? That I’d find piece of paper for you—and you’d have it all? They don’t write things like that on those pieces of paper, my dear…
The investigator? He was disciplined, yes. And those other two, as well. All got demoted in rank… for two months. A suicide in prison—that’s a severe breach, worse than an escape. How did she pull that off? A perfect escape. Escaped from me, too… my own mother. Like in that song: “Dearest mother of mi-ne, tell me why you aren’t sle-eping….” Sorry… if only I knew where she’s buried, I’d have carved these words on her tombstone.
And you come to me to see about your relative’s grave. A grave! Where they took bodies from prisons, where they buried them—who’s going to tell you? Those who did the burying are not talking… if they’re still alive. There was this veteran, from Russia—he came out not long ago—he was on the team that processed Shukhevych’s body after the MGB killed him. A special operation; the team got extra leave afterward. They took the body out, burned it, and spread the ashes—in a forest, overlooking the Zbruch river. There was no trace left to be found! Do you understand? No trace at all, and that’s how they do it now, too… in Chechnya: after they secure a place—total erasure. You won’t find anything! And I won’t find out either… where my own mother was buried. So now what? Huh? You can’t tell me… I’ll tell you! I will. When you have your own children—you’ll understand. Because a child needs to have a… a place, a memorial, a cemetery in the city, where she can go when all her friends go with their parents and then talk about it at school. It’s not like she’s from somewhere else—she’s a Kyivite. These are her roots, basically. If you have graves—you have roots. Grandfather, grandmother. Everything I didn’t have—I’ve given her. My daughter is not an orphan! When she was little, I showed her the portrait on the headstone, taught her to say, Grandpa, Grandpa—she still says it like that. And God forbid… God forbid… Hic! Excuse me. No, I’m just… something in my throat.
Don’t go digging in there! What do you want from it? Leave it alone.
You think it’s fear talking? Well, yes, it is fear! Fine, if that’s what it is. How do you live without fear? Everything will come apart—look at it coming apart now! A whole state came apart as soon as people stopped being afraid. I’m fifty-six, and I spent my whole life being afraid: I was afraid of my father, of my bosses, afraid to make a mistake at work. And now I’m done; I’m not afraid of anything—myself, I’m not afraid for myself. If only you could see how… horrific. The braids she had… in the picture… my mother, Lea Goldman… two braids, out over the front of her shoulders… black. Nikushka has such beautiful hair, too, so thick. Grandma Dunya braided it for her, for school. No one will see that picture. Maybe when she herself is fifty. When she has her own children, grandchildren. If she is curious to know… I saved the picture. Of the whole file, I saved the picture… I didn’t show it to anybody. And I won’t… God forbid… knock on wood… I’ll knock on every tree along this shore, with my head if I have to….
And pressing buttons—no, thank you! I’ve got a child; she needs me. My own mother didn’t need me. She didn’t think twice about abandoning a tiny baby, not even two months old, to be raised by strangers—fine! But my daughter needs me, my only flesh and blood. Everything I have—it’s all for her! The grandparents’ apartment, the dacha—my father-in-law basically built it with his own hands. She wanted the Conservatory—go ahead, child, do the Conservatory! We’ll manage; while I’m alive, she won’t want for anything! Let her study. God willing, she might make it… as some soloist, she’s talented. And she’s got ambition too, thank God, I gave her that, too—the confidence I never had; I was wolf cub. Whatever I could—I’ve given her! And as long as I’m alive, that’s how it will be. My conscience is clear; I’m not guilty before anyone.
Oh, oh, here it goes, here it goes! Come on, sweetie, don’t you fight it, I’m not that kind of a… hang on now… easy…
Fucking bitch! Ripped off the hook. A nice hook, too, made in Japan. You stupid fish, now you’ll just go swimming around with a hook in your lip, till you die.
Darn it… such a shame. It was something big, too; could’ve been a catfish—they’re wily! Or a perch. Agh, I’m sorry.
Is there anything left? In that bottle?