Darkness and Company

by Sigitas Parulskis

  After her steps had faded away Vincentas tried to grasp what had happened. His head was empty, his stomach muscles were sore. He had not been with a woman for a long time. He stood up and slowly began to gather the photographs that were scattered around the room. He felt as though he were gathering shards of himself. A giant with clay feet. That curse – of feeling infinitely happy and infinitely unhappy at the same time. That curse.

  TALITHA CUMI

  The word ‘angel’ was scrawled on the blackboard in chalk. The rest of the sentence had been erased. Angel of vengeance, angel of redemption – it could have been either one.

  He got up quietly so as not to awaken the other men and went out into the yard. He couldn’t see the guard, who was probably off dozing somewhere. The Germans were staying at the local police station; the brigade was sleeping in the town’s school. After a night of festivities at a local restaurant, most of the men were indistinguishable from the mattresses spread on the floor.

  Vincentas stuffed his camera into his coat and headed off in the direction of the forest. He looked at his watch and saw that it was five in the morning. The sun was just coming up – the best time of the day if you wanted to catch the light. To capture the idea of light, as Gasparas would say. Where could he be now? Underground, probably; still wearing his thick-lensed glasses. Lying in the dark, trying to see the essence of things with his myopic eyes. His grey beard sticking up, his thin hair pressed to his forehead in a black band. Although short-sighted and ailing, he had been a strange and interesting person. His photography students called him by his first name, Gasparas. The photographer Gasparas. It was from Juozapas that Vincentas had first heard about photography, that miracle of light. While still a teenager he had read a few articles and a small book called The Amateur Photographer, and then, when he turned eighteen, he had bought his first camera, a used Kodak Retina. But it didn’t go well, so he had found Gasparas. Without his thick-lensed glasses Gasparas couldn’t see a thing. He would take them off, look straight ahead with his strange, empty eyes and say, ‘Now I can see the real world.’

  Vincentas liked studying with Gasparas, who did not talk only about technical things – distance, focus, exposure, making prints – but also liked to philosophize and was good at it. A frozen image, Gasparas would say, raising his finger and then pausing, is not an image, because a photograph is a frozen idea. Whose idea? He didn’t know. The world’s, God’s, man’s. Nature’s. When you are photographing a tree and there is no one else around, whose idea could it be? If the world is God’s idea about goodness, beauty and truth, then the tree is also God’s idea about the tree. And man is God’s idea about – about what?

  Gasparas was talking about Plato and his cave. About how people are like the prisoners squatting in that cave, underground, chained up so that they can neither move nor turn around. There is a crack behind them, and all they can see is the shadows on the wall before them. If someone walks up there, behind them, the prisoners see moving shadows and their own shadows, but they do not see the true light. People never see the true light because they do not understand its source. It emanates not from the heavens above nor from electric lamps. It is there, inside. Socrates knew that, and Christ knew that, and when they spoke about love they were talking about that very light.

  But if the world is made up of God’s bad ideas – if we are ideas about falsehood, malice, envy – then there is no hope for us, no hope for our souls.

  Gasparas often talked about Plato’s allegory of the cave and liked to say that Plato was the first theorist of photography. People cannot see the beauty of this world with the naked eye; they generally see only the shadows, not the essence, of things. But photography can do that – it can show us what an object really is. Because photography is not just the object itself; it is always above it, beyond it.

  He would speak about the world of ideas and constructs, but Vincentas best remembered the image of people sitting chained in a cave, able only to see shadows. Who are the ones walking by – philosophers? Or prophets, warriors, or perhaps rich men who can purchase anything they desire, even truth?

  Feeling somewhat nauseous and light-headed, Vincentas strode down the country road. He wasn’t sure if he felt that way from the alcohol he had drunk or from what he had seen the day before. He remembered Gasparas and his cave, because now he felt as though he were in a cave himself. Everything that was happening around him seemed to be happening somewhere off to the side, as if behind a transparent wall. He felt ill. The invalid’s world is like living in the cave, where one can only see shadows and reflections of the living, the well.

  He thought he saw some movement in the pit. The ditch-diggers, in their haste and laziness, had not finished burying the dead – they had just sprinkled them with lime and thrown on a few shovels of earth. The contours of the bodies were sharp in the morning sun, and here and there the sparkling layer of lime looked like snow fallen in midsummer. How many were down there – a thousand, fifteen hundred? He had not managed to photograph anything yesterday. Although he had known and had prepared, when the bullets began to spray and the people, struck by them, to collapse dead, he was overcome by a paralysis that held him until the very end. He had pressed the button a couple of times but doubted that he had captured anything clearly. He had been standing too far from the ditch, scared to go any closer because Jokūbas the Elder had threatened him: If I see a lens pointed at me I’ll shoot you! After that he hadn’t tried to raise his camera to his eyes, had just stood and watched.

  Vincentas approached the edge of the pit, pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Now he would have to get used to smoking not just after sex but after death. Below, by his feet, lay a little girl. Her slight body was half covered with lime and earth; she lay prone, and you could tell it was a girl only from the stiff braids. He kneeled down on one knee, looked around and stretched out his hand and whispered, ‘Talitha cumi …’ Get up, little girl. He was echoing the words said by Jesus to the daughter of Jairus.

  He looked around again and was overcome by a feeling of shame and despair. It was all so unexpected – at once horrific and prosaic. As though it were not the thousand people killed yesterday lying there in the ditch but mannequins, or extras in a film, who would soon get up, dust off their clothes and return to the village until the next session.

  His hands trembling, he pulled out his camera and tried to find the best angle. One side of the girl was lit up, the other in shadow. Her body is trapped in a cave under the earth, while her soul – or perhaps only its shadow – walks around above. As the sun rises, shadows are long, just as when it sets. It is the best time of the day to take photographs. The best time to become light.

  He liked photographing Judita. She would leave work early, and as the sun slowly went down she would lie on the bed by the window, one side of her lit, the other in shadow. Her pubic bone also cast a shadow, as did her breasts, nose, a hand raised slightly or placed under her head, a bent knee, a hip – everything casts a shadow and everything seems to be only a reflection, as though it were not the real thing but only a suggestion of it.

  Once Judita said, ‘You look at me as though I were an object.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When you are photographing me.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘I see you differently.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘As a very precious object.’

  Here, by the pit full of freshly slaughtered Jews, he felt as though he had betrayed Judita. He will never dare to admit what a mess he has got himself into and will always feel guilty. Even if he did not kill. Yes, he is only a witness. Like Him, that Other. He hangs on His cross and watches as villainy is committed in His name. It’s a good excuse – I would do something, but my hands are nailed down. With nails of guilt on to the post of shame. Vincentas felt like he would throw up.

  He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and something like the flash of a blade caught his attention. To the right, down the slope, the surface of the la
ke rippled, and a few pine trees stood awkwardly alone, as though they had escaped from the forest or perhaps the opposite: they could not return to it. Talitha cumi, he whispered to himself again. Everyone wants a miracle. Even the smallest, most pathetic miracle. And then he had a real scare. The camera fell from his hands, made a hollow thud at his feet, and he began to back up from the edge of the pit.

  There, below, someone had moved. The girl in the pit. Her hair was like the whitest wool or snow, and her legs looked like cast brass. Instinctively he looked around for some object – a rock or a stick – with which to defend himself. But there was nothing like that near by. The girl moved again. And she moved as though not by her own efforts but by a force coming from somewhere else, from outside, from the depths. His mouth burned as though scalded by sulphuric acid; he tried to lick his lips, but his tongue would not respond. He took several steps forward, picked up the camera and approached the edge of the pit. He stepped carefully into it. It wasn’t deep, with gravel edges and sand below. Afraid of stepping on a buried corpse, he carefully tapped the girl’s back with his shoe. She stopped moving. If he had a weapon, would he dare to shoot a child? To shoot one who had already been shot. To finish someone off, so she wouldn’t suffer. Or maybe she could still survive? If he were able to save at least one life, would his guilt be less? Vincentas looked around feebly. I was dead, but here I am alive for ever and ever, holding the keys to the world of the dead.

  The little girl’s body moved again, turned slowly on its side, and a bloodied, chalky hand emerged from under it. The world of the dead was speaking to him. Unable to resist, he gave into temptation and pressed down several times. He liked that sound. Like little guillotines, as Gasparas used to say. Click, click, click – listen, you hostages of darkness, to the decapitation of reality. It dies so that it can be born again on film. The same but now different. Light struck down and light resurrected.

  Then he stretched out his hand, firmly grasped a childish palm and pulled.

  The boy, no older than ten or twelve, was bloodied but uninjured. His oversized underclothes were full of holes. He had lain there all night, perhaps unconscious or perhaps out of fear.

  A miracle, he said to the boy or to himself. You have a chance. We all, always, have a chance. Go, just get out of here, he said, although he could not hear his own voice.

  The child understood. He ran through the dewy meadow towards the lonely pines. The sun had risen over the tips of the trees. He ran towards it unevenly, staggering to the sides on his wobbly legs, leaving a messy trail in the grass. Vincentas focused and pressed once more: click. Here in my hands are the keys to the kingdoms of death and life. The sin of false pride, but it’s so sweet. The plum juice runs through my fingers; the blade of death dissects the soul.

  Suddenly a shot thundered over him, somewhere close to his ear. Startled, frightened and briefly deafened, he once again let the camera fall from his hands. The child stopped, took a step to the left, then one to the right, and fell on his side, one leg briefly sticking up and shaking slightly, as if blown by a strong wind, although the morning was so still that not a branch quivered.

  Tadas was standing behind him.

  ‘Bloody hell, you frightened me,’ said Vincentas, rubbing the ear deafened by the shot.

  ‘He would have got away,’ said Tadas. ‘You wanted to let the little bastard go.’

  Vincentas bent down, picked up the camera and checked to see if it had been damaged, dusted it off and once again looked towards the child lying in the meadow. ‘I didn’t want anything. He’s just a child, for God’s sake, just a little child.’

  Tadas leaned his rifle against his leg and pulled out a cigarette. ‘He’s better off there, believe me. There was no point pulling him out of the ditch.’ Tadas carefully scanned the buried bodies. ‘Those stupid peasants – they couldn’t even bury them properly. They’re just in a rush to sit down and get drunk and then stuff their bags with Jewish rags.’

  Vincentas was still looking at the dead boy lying in the meadow. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t want to meet him at St Peter’s gates.’

  ‘I’m not in a rush to get there.’

  ‘Next year in Jerusalem. That’s what they say to each other. When they’re saying goodbye.’

  ‘There you go,’ said Tadas with a grin. ‘He won’t even have to wait for next year. He’ll get there today after lunch.’ Pleased with his joke, Tadas laughed loudly. He was drunk. After a moment he added, ‘He fell beautifully. Like he was dancing.’

  Vincentas was still rubbing his stunned ear. ‘In my childhood I learned a poem about the dead dancing,’ he finally said. ‘They were dancing in a meadow. Girls rocking dead babies in their arms. Do you have children, Tadas? Do you? Children, a wife?’

  For a while they both looked down at the bodies covered in lime and dirt. Nobody moved. The silence was making Vincentas uncomfortable. If he were shot now, no one would care; it would mean nothing. They would tell his mother it was an accident.

  ‘He fell beautifully,’ Tadas repeated.

  Vincentas looked up at the sky. There were no birds, no aeroplanes. He turned away from the pit and stuck his camera back into his coat.

  Tadas threw his rifle over his shoulder and scratched his cheek. ‘That Gestapo officer of yours – he pays well?’

  ‘He doesn’t pay me.’

  ‘Why do you work for him?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Idiot.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Both of you.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  It had never occurred to Vincentas that he could be asking the German for payment. And he didn’t want to be paid. Because he knew that he owed him his life.

  ‘You wanted to let a little Jew-boy get away,’ said Tadas, teasing him again.

  ‘But you didn’t let him get away.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I’m not you. If I told Jokūbas the Elder he’d get you for it.’

  ‘I’m not a soldier. I don’t have a weapon.’

  ‘You want to stay clean? You work for an SS officer, so you’ll go with us.’

  ‘And where will you go?’

  ‘To the end.’

  ‘I don’t want to go anywhere. I want to go home. I want it all to be over.’

  ‘You want so many things – but Christmas is a long way off,’ said Tadas.

  Vincentas looked at him. The rolled-up sleeves, the thick, blond-bristled paws. ‘Stop – I’ll take a picture of you.’

  ‘No, I don’t want you to. Not here.’

  ‘What’s wrong with here?’

  ‘I can’t stand being photographed near the dead. It’s a strange fashion these days – everyone wants funerals to be photographed. It’s disgusting.’

  ‘People need proof that they’re more alive than the dead.’

  Tadas looked at him as though seeing him for the first time. ‘What’s with you?’ He shook his head, sat down on a mound of earth, pulled out a bottle and took a swig. He offered some to Vincentas, who grimaced but then took it.

  The alcohol burned in his dry mouth, and at first he was overcome by a hellish feeling of nausea and almost threw up. But then everything calmed down, the warmth in his stomach started to spread through the rest of his body, and he felt an easing.

  Squinting, Tadas looked at him. ‘Death is death. It’s disgusting. I was a teenager when I first understood that. Her name was Marija. She died at seventeen. She was very pretty, with thick black hair. I could watch her washing it, brushing it, for hours. She would be wearing this sheer linen slip, and drops of water would fall on the fabric, and the more drops fell the more shone through. You can imagine – big, round, firm. She would be smiling, sometimes singing, and would look at me with such eyes that my head would spin, you know … My sister Marija.’

  Vincentas didn’t reply. He just wanted to get out of this place and as far away as he could from the pit. But instead of leaving he sat down with his back to the lime-filled hole.

&nb
sp; Tadas continued his story. ‘It’s wrong. She died, and no one even knew what she died of, although they talked about some mysterious blood disease. She was so pretty, so young, and when she died I didn’t even understand that that was it, that she was gone, that I’d no longer see her brushing her hair, that I wouldn’t hear her singing in the morning, you know. I was alone at home the day she died. I sat by her deathbed and cried. She was so young, so pretty.’ His eyes glistened, and it looked like he might suddenly break out in sobs. He paused and then sighed. ‘And I’ve never met a girl as beautiful as her.’

  Tadas fell silent. Vincentas tried not to look at him. He sensed that Tadas was very agitated, very vulnerable. There are people who can’t forgive those who witness their moments of weakness.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone about that,’ Tadas murmured.

  Vincentas nodded slightly.

  ‘And you won’t tell anyone about it either,’ Tadas continued just as quietly but now in a harsher tone.