Vincentas soon began to doubt his mother’s stories about his father and his birth. A car would have been a great luxury in those times and not something every engineer could afford. His mother dutifully replaced the car with a horse-drawn carriage. And then once, when she was very drunk, she began to cry, and stroking his head told him about how his father had died from the treacherous Spanish Flu that had come from Asia in 1918.
‘Do you miss the stories?’ Judita asked.
‘Yes, I do,’ said Vincentas.
‘You know what I think – damn the stories,’ said Judita. She said it passionately, almost angrily.
‘Damn the stories,’ agreed Vincentas. ‘When I started going to school one of my classmates, big-nosed Jurekas, offered me a better explanation of my origins: your mother is a whore; you’re the son of a whore; a bastard. Because his nose was such a convenient target, that time I managed to pay back the insult, but the story of my father was spoiled for ever.
‘Juozapas was a black cloud that darkened the bright and colourful skies of my childhood. But he also taught me lots of interesting things – woodworking, for example, and, most importantly, photography.’
‘And what about your mother?’ asked Judita.
‘She only admitted it recently.’
‘Poor boy,’ Judita teased him.
‘Yes, I really felt like a poor boy,’ acknowledged Vincentas, turning to the wall. He felt as he had that time Juozapas had tied him to the cross. Helpless, in pain, unable to do anything. Nothing at all. Not even move a finger. Wrapped in a piece of birch bark and tied to a cross. All that was left was to set fire to it all, and he would explode.
Judita stood up. ‘I’ll go and help your mother. I hope you’ll join us soon.’
TEST OF FAITH: BALTRAMIEJUS
The engine of the bus droned. Some of the men were dawdling. They’d woken early and had a trip of several hours ahead of them.
‘Faster, faster,’ the lieutenant urged the brigade members as the men climbed sluggishly on to the bus. ‘It’s going to be a hard day. Lots of work to do!’
The bus drove out of Kaunas under a cloudy sky. The air smelled of dust and rain; it looked like it was starting to drizzle, but then the clouds dispersed, suddenly, as though they had been wiped away by a gigantic, invisible hand.
Jokūbas the Elder pulled out a packet of cigarettes, put one in his mouth, then took it out again and started turning his head, inhaling loudly through his nostrils.
‘What the hell is this stench?’
‘It’s an internal-combustion engine.’ Tadas stretched and gave Pilypas a punch. ‘Give me a sandwich. I didn’t have time to have breakfast.’
‘You’re always hungry,’ grumbled Pilypas, and he bent over his knapsack.
‘OK men, what the fuck, something really stinks,’ said Jokūbas the Elder, drawing heavily through his nostrils. There were two Jokūbases in the brigade, so one was called the Elder, the other – the Younger. There were two Simonases as well. One was simply Simonas, the other, too, although everyone called him Petras. A Simon who is a Peter. Jokūbas the Elder had come up with the joke. He had studied at the seminary but never became a priest, was kicked out before his ordination. He, however, claimed that it was his own decision to leave.
Jokūbas the Elder lit a cigarette, then turned his head towards Baltramiejus, who was snoozing next to him. Once again he breathed in through his nose and then bent over the man’s chest.
‘For God’s sake, Jokūbas the Elder, I didn’t know you were so attracted to men!’ shouted Andriejus, turning towards him and laughing. A few of the other soldiers chuckled in agreement.
‘Go to hell,’ said Jokūbas without raising his eyes. Then he punched Baltramiejus. ‘Baltramiejus! Get up, you spawn of the Devil. You’ve shat your pants!’
Baltramiejus opened his eyes and looked around, alarmed. ‘What? Are we there?’
‘You stink.’
The confused Baltramiejus blinked a few times and looked around. ‘Bloody idiots,’ he said and once again leaned his head against the window, intending to sleep some more.
‘Wait.’ Jokūbas the Elder suddenly grabbed Baltramiejus’s shirt pocket firmly. The man waved his hands angrily.
‘Jokūbas! What are you doing?’
‘What do you have there?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Show me.’
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘That shit you have in your pocket – it stinks.’
‘No.’
‘I’m telling you.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘Show me.’
Andriejus got up from the front seat. Matas and Pilypas also looked at Baltramiejus with curiosity.
‘OK, OK, if that’s what you want,’ said Baltramiejus, raising his hands. ‘Do you know the story about why Jews don’t eat pork?’
‘There are a lot of stories about why they don’t eat pork,’ said Jokūbas the Elder. ‘Show me what you have.’
‘Fine, right away,’ said Baltramiejus calmingly, then suddenly shot back, ‘Why should I show you anything? Can’t I have a bit of privacy, it’s my own business what I –’
‘Show me. It’s an order!’ interrupted Jokūbas the Elder.
‘Fine, right away, but it’s a whole story –’
‘He who has ears to hear, let him listen …’ interjected Jokūbas the Younger.
Baltramiejus glanced at him, then began to speak. ‘So it is written – I haven’t invented or added anything. Christ came to a seaside village. Not far from the market where he planned to buy himself some food for supper He was blocked by a gang of aggressive local youths. They were looking for trouble and wanted to mock the Redeemer. Everyone says that you’re the Son of God, they said to him, everyone says that you can raise the dead, that you’re a prophet, that you … I am the light of the world, Jesus interrupted, he who follows me will no longer walk in the dark and will have the light of life. The Jews laughed, and one of the them, the most forward, said, here’s an overturned barrel, if you are such as you say you are, tell us what’s under it, and then we’ll believe you. I know where I have come from and where I am going, but you know nothing, said Jesus, wanting to continue on His way, but the Jews wouldn’t let up. You’re a coward, you make claims about yourself and your claims are false. Fine, said the Son of God, if that’s what you want, under the barrel there’s a pig with her piglets. The youth laughed at and mocked the Son of God. Before He had appeared they had hidden a young Jewess there with her two small children. You pretend to be a prophet, they shouted, you speak about the light of the world, and you can’t even say what’s right under your nose. But what horror, what a shock befell them when they turned the barrel over – there was no Jewess nor her children there, only a pig and two piglets!’
Jokūbas the Elder finally lit his cigarette, while Andriejus turned away to the front and said, ‘That’s just a story. Jews don’t eat pork because Christ drove all the evil spirits into pigs.’
For a while the men were silent.
‘And what is it that stinks then, great lover of old wives’ tales?’ demanded Jokūbas the Elder, breaking the silence. ‘Show me or I’ll take it out by force.’
Baltramiejus reluctantly unbuttoned his shirt pocket and pulled out an object wrapped in a handkerchief.
‘Just what I thought. Carrion,’ nodded Jokūbas the Elder.
‘It’s a bone,’ Baltramiejus said shyly, unwrapping the handkerchief. In fact, it was a piece of pork rib. There was no way anyone could have detected it unless they had already known it was there, so it looked like someone had snitched on Baltramiejus.
‘Throw it out,’ said Andriejus, opening the window. ‘It’s unhygienic.’
‘I … it’s just … These days people are saying all sorts of things … You hear that sometimes they rise from the dead … from under the ground …’
‘You’re an idiot, Baltramiejus. I told you yesterday that’s all just gossip, and
you’re like a little kid!’ Andriejus spluttered.
Baltramiejus glanced at him reproachfully. ‘Jews. Sometimes they rise from the dead.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘The photographer said so.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That he saw it.’
‘And you think that this bone will protect you?’ asked Jokūbas the Elder in exaggerated surprise.
Baltramiejus said nothing in reply, turned away and stared out of the window. The whole bus broke out in laughter.
‘Mr Photographer, I still haven’t figured out if you’re an idiot or a genius,’ said Jokūbas the Elder. ‘So it was you who advised him to protect himself from the dead Jews with a pig’s bone?’
‘No,’ said Vincentas, shaking his head.
‘Holy Jesus,’ said Jokūbas the Elder, waving his hand dismissively. ‘Obscurum per obscurius, explaining the obscure by means of the even more obscure!’
There were quite a lot of Germans at the site, two of them walking around with film cameras. Seeing Vincentas with a camera in his hands, one of the German cameramen came up to him.
‘It is strictly forbidden to take photographs. Strictly! Understood?’
Vincentas showed him the SS Sturmbannfuhrer’s permit. The German let him be, but soon after a stony-faced first lieutenant approached him and said that he was forbidden from photographing today. He did not explain why. Vincentas guessed that there were too many senior German officials present. They did not want to end up in the frames – they only photographed and filmed the bloodthirsty Lithuanian barbarians.
‘This nation lacks rigour,’ said the German as he walked off accompanied by a sergeant who reminded Vincentas of Juozapas.
Seeing Vincentas returning to the bus, Jokūbas the Elder waved for him to come over.
‘So many gentlemen, and they’re all so handsome,’ he said mockingly. ‘I have some work for you.’
Vincentas tried to resist, but Jokūbas the Elder took no notice.
‘A lot of people lack rigour. They’re rushing all the time. They want better lives, right away and without putting in any effort. They barely lift a finger and then ask for money,’ Juozapas used to say when Vincentas asked him for money. He didn’t ask for handouts – he worked as Juozapas’s assistant and had, in his opinion, earned it. But each time he had to listen to long lectures and advice. Juozapas liked to do everything slowly, carefully, thoroughly. Once they had a job covering the roof of a shed in the outskirts of the city. A minor structure, minor work, for very little pay. Vincentas got bored with the monotonous hammering of nails and was hurrying to finish faster. He had saved some money to go to the cinema. The Metropolitan cinema had just started showing the first American talkie, The Jazz Singer, and Vincentas was dying to see and hear it. Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Ramon Novarro, Lilian Harvey, Clara Bow, Brigitte Helm, Maurice Chevalier – the actors’ names sounded like spells to him, like secret codes for entering a magical world of light and splendour. Maybe that was why Juozapas, having seen Vincentas’s passion for film, began to teach him about photography – he helped him buy his first camera and then even set him up in a studio where his Jewish friend Maksas Handkė worked.
Juozapas grabbed him hard by the wrist, yanked him towards him and said, ‘Look me in the eye.’
His eyes were brown and watery and bulged somewhat. They reminded Vincentas of a fish, of a dead carp.
‘If you do something, do it well or don’t do it at all,’ said Juozapas, then told him to hammer down the nails that had come through the inside of the shed roof.
‘You can’t see them and no one will ever reach them –’ replied Vincentas.
‘God will see them,’ Juozapas cut him off and squeezed his wrist so hard that the skin was bruised for days.
Vincentas often thought about Juozapas after he died. Or maybe Juozapas was thinking about him from the beyond?
With a local lorry driver he loaded ten smallish barrels of lime, eight boxes of vodka and a few cases of beer. The driver was drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn’t drive. Vincentas felt thirsty.
As though reading his thoughts, the driver grinned. ‘There’s nothing worse than getting a thirst when you’re working hard.’
Vincentas sat in the cab next to the driver and thought about thirst, about the Redeemer’s thirst. Andriejus had talked about how in those times the Romans soaked sponges in vinegar to alleviate thirst. According to him it was some kind of narcotic solution, so that the crucified would suffer less. Who knew if he could be believed – Andriejus had done time in prison for trading in contraband. He had been caught moving cocaine from Latvia, and he was partial to the fine powder himself. He was frequently in a good mood, cheery. He often asked Vincentas if he didn’t want to try some of his magic powder.
‘You won’t need any more photographs,’ Andriejus tempted him. ‘There’ll be a lot of pictures, and not boring ones like yours: everything moving like in a film, and even better – in colour.’
The Redeemer’s thirst was something altogether different. Maybe it was a desire, a very strong desire to find out what awaits you when the dark is descending over your eyes. Thirst is fear, and even He felt fear, He must have been frightened. When He had asked His Father to withdraw that cup, He had been frightened. Nobody wants to die. Even God, because who else, if not He, knows truly what death is?
The airport appeared in the distance. A few kilometres from the small town, to the left of the road on the banks of a brook, they finally saw a long trench. Perhaps a hundred metres long, about four metres wide and approximately two metres deep. Soviet soldiers – POWs – had dug the pit and were still gathered by the edge, and when Jokūbas the Elder waved at them they ran up to him like miserable, filthy, hungry little dogs.
Jokūbas the Elder looked disdainfully at the prisoners. ‘People degenerate very quickly. Just give them the opportunity to become animals and it happens just like that. They make excuses about how circumstances made it happen. But no circumstances can force someone to lose their humanity – to neglect to wash or shave or comb their hair. Animals.’
The prisoners unloaded the barrels of lime, and Jokūbas the Elder ordered them to carry the vodka and beer a bit further away, near a fresh but already drying pile of loamy soil with a few wilting branches stuck into it. It was still well before midday, but the sun was already very strong. It would be a hot one.
Jokūbas the Elder told the driver to carry on to the stud farm. Vincentas asked what he should do.
‘Go with him. He might need some help, and you’re not much use here.’
On the way to the stud farm the driver pulled a small bottle from his pocket and took a swig. The smell of vodka filled the cab.
‘Soon we’ll load up some dying nags,’ said the driver, looking at Vincentas, who did not reply, so the driver spat angrily out of the window and shut up.
Near the stables stood several German cars, along with police and farm trucks. A German military commandant and a local police chief, a little man with short legs and a huge belly that barely fitted under his jacket, were in charge.
Uniforms transform people. Yesterday Vincentas was an insignificant and powerless city-dweller; today he has metamorphosed. He belongs to a group that has power. People value power. They respect it and fear it. To some degree Christ, too, is a uniform. His suffering is a uniform. His Father is a uniform. His threats are a uniform. People don’t even know if they believe out of love or fear. A person who loves is weak; he is ruled by feelings. A fearful person is always alert, cautious, focused. Responsible. I should drink, thought Vincentas, I should drink because it isn’t going to be good. When you see a pit that size it can’t be good.
The men were being held in the granary, the women in the barn. The doors of the granary were ajar, and the commandant was explaining to the Jews that he was going to lead them to a work site. That he would first take the old men and those that could not walk. The Jews listened, hanging their heads like hor
ses.
‘What are we doing, boss?’ the driver asked Vincentas, who flinched. In truth he had no intention of being in charge. He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I don’t know, don’t know.’
The driver once more spat angrily out of the window. ‘Everybody wants to be in charge.’
He drove up to the doors of the granary, got out of the cab, lowered the side of the bed and stood leaning against the vehicle, watching the old men struggle to climb up in.
‘You could pull up the bench,’ Vincentas suggested to him, and the driver assented, went over by the granary where a small bench stood and brought it to the side of the truck so that the old men could step on it to get in.
Darkness and Company Page 12