White Shroud

by Anatanas Škėma

  I leapt out of bed and ran to the window. Thank God – the tin mass was only a tree! I could see its individual leaves. And the many stars in the sky. The sea whispered faintly. I could hear my father snoring in the next room. I walked barefoot around the several square metres and the space felt as enormous as the entire universe. I felt young and strong.

  Hey, I’m a good football player, I swim, and though my arms aren’t the strongest I’ve knocked out two enemies. I’m fast. They say that my poems aren’t bad, that they should be submitted to the high school students’ journal. Away with Medieval times! Away with Aldona and the mouldy Ronžė brook! It feels good to walk barefoot, at night. Tomorrow I’ll try diving from five metres. From three my dive is perfection, but tomorrow I know it’ll be even more perfect from five. A miracle will happen tomorrow. I lay down and quickly fell asleep.

  *

  The long break. From 8:30 to 9:15. Garšva and Stanley go together.

  “Cafeteria?” asks Garšva.

  “First, the basement,” replies Stanley.

  “Why?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “You’ll unlock your locker?”

  “You’re so boring, Tony.”

  The two of them wait for the “back” elevator. The starter here sways side to side, he had polio as a child.

  “Ten years in the hotel,” says Stanley.

  “That he’s been swaying there?”

  “And he likes overtime. His wife works in the kitchen. Her lover is Puerto Rican. They avoid overtime.”

  The paralysed starter gives them a friendly wink.

  “You’ll get an elevator soon, guys.”

  “He has a nice face,” notes Stanley.

  “His wife’s is nice too,” he adds, watching the elevator arrows.

  Some old chairs are stacked at the end of the corridor. Suddenly one chair falls down noisily because the lobby doors are opened wide. Two burly hotel detectives drag in an unconscious guest. He is old, his legs drag along the floor, his eyeballs have rolled up into his eyelids, the whites shining like matt lampshades. His mouth hangs open, saliva drips through his false teeth. A woman dressed in black, with a rosy, idiotic face, walks behind. Her shoes are scuffed, her white cuffs grimy, her old-fashioned hat has faded to brown. She holds a clear bag of walnuts in one hand, and three nuts in the other.

  “They’re his,” she says.

  “The tenth, quick,” says one of the detectives. The starter sways towards the control box and presses all the buttons.

  “Take them, sir,” says the woman, offering the unconscious man the bag of nuts.

  “I have a feeling the gentleman isn’t interested in nuts right now,” says Stanley politely.

  “They’re his nuts. He was walking through the lobby, holding them in his hand. Then he collapsed. I picked up the bag and three nuts fell out. I picked them up,” explained the woman, holding the three nuts under Stanley’s nose.

  “Looks pretty dead,” notices the second detective, squeezing he old man’s hand.

  “The doctor just got to the tenth,” the starter announces. The old man unexpectedly wheezes.

  “Look – he’s alive!” exclaims the second detective.

  “Not for long. I’ve seen a lot of these deaths,” explains his friend.

  The elevator arrives with a whir and within seconds the three passengers disappear.

  “Mister! Mister! Your nuts! You forgot your nuts!” the woman shouts desperately, even though the elevator lights already indicate the sixth floor.

  “You’re free to eat them. Or give them to your kids,” suggests Stanley. And the two of them get into an elevator headed for the basement.

  Ten minutes later Garšva and Stanley are holding trays in the hotel staff cafeteria. The toothless Puerto Rican is clanging plates. Cauldrons steam with yesterday’s food the hotel guests didn’t finish.

  “Leftover turkey?”

  “Sure.”

  “And a glass of milk?” “Sure.”

  “Rice?”

  “Sure.”

  “You’re really chatty today, Tony. The old man with the nuts?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  The cafeteria is on the second floor. It is long and narrow, with wide windows looking on to 34th. Red, white, green and blue neon lights illuminate the faces of the seated – to economise the cafeteria is lit with weak bulbs. The same red paint as in the rest of the hotel, only here it’s dirtier and sadder. The walls once had paintings, reproductions of vague landscapes, but then they were suddenly taken down. The new assistant manager decided that the reproductions were outdated. The assistant had visited the Museum of Modern Art, and promised to find some more modern ones. But he lasted only a month. The hotel administration fired the modern assistant when they discovered that he was an exhibitionist who liked to show off in subway stations. And so new reproductions were never hung in the cafeteria. Faded squares remain on the walls, like the imaginary clothes in the story of the naked king.

  Garšva and Stanley sit down by a window. They stare at the street as they eat. Their heads are spinning. There’s an empty bottle of Seagram’s in Stanley’s locker. Other lunchers chatter away at the surrounding tables. Bellboys in unbuttoned red jackets, kitchen staff with stained aprons, office clerks getting their caffeine fixes and a woman photographer with a face painted so heavily that even she isn’t sure of her age.

  A foursome of black kitchen maids sits nearby, each sentence followed by shrieks of laughter from a recent joke.

  “When de golden trumpets sound

  Where will yo’ soul be found?

  Standin’ aroun’, standin’ around

  When de golden trumpets sound,”

  says Garšva, chewing his turkey leftovers.

  “Negro songs?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re still a fan,” Stanley notes, drinking his milk. Garšva stops chewing.

  “Why?”

  “I felt the same way when I first heard Mozart.

  “And now?”

  Stanley’s eyes are almost swollen shut.

  “Now all that remains is the knowledge that such music exists.”

  “You don’t listen to Mozart any more?” The eyes are revealed, a film of red. Stanley’s face is painted red by the neon lights.

  “Yeah. Concerto in B-flat Major. Fantastic larghetto. Italian opera arias can kill you with their painful beauty. Concerto in D Major for violin. The rondo is graceful, like my mother dancing the mazurka. Did you know that my mother still dances the mazurka at Polish parties? And well, they say. Yeah. The Haffner Symphony. Allegro con spirito, I think. A devil in a wig is about to bow, an invitation to a minuet. Yeah. I don’t even listen to the Requiem any more. Because, like Mozart, I’m at death’s door. I listen to what the Seagram’s tells me. Seven Crown, I think.”

  The black women are still cackling after every sentence. When de golden trumpets sound. Around, around, around, around. The woman photographer chews slowly. Her facial features don’t move. A stocky bellhop laughs loudly.

  “Just imagine! Four suitcases, like they were filled with rocks, and just a quarter. And I even explained the subway system to the guy. How to find Halsey Street. And that Eisenhower had lunch in the hotel next door yesterday. And some other stuff. A quarter! The guy had a camel-hair coat!”

  Golden around. On the wall, one of the faded squares is painted by the flash of a faded advertising star. A Renoir is reborn and dies. The trumpet of art. Two Puerto Ricans enter the cafeteria. They chatter away in Spanish, waving their hands. The glasses of orange juice they carry don’t spill. A laughing black woman’s belly jiggles. “They’re fast!” she shrieks. And the chorus agrees. A black Greek chorus on a smaller scale. Aroun’ aroun’ aroun’. The “ahs” and “ohs” echo, muffled, like in a steamy jungle after heavy rain. Cars drive down the street, a jaundiced clerk stares at his empty coffee cup, the boss’s muted calls echo from the main-floor lobby, but it’s impossib
le to know who he’s calling and why. Aroun’ aroun’ aroun’ aroun’.

  “What are you muttering?” asks Stanley.

  “Around,” replies Garšva.

  “You’re done for.”

  “I’ve known that for twenty years.”

  “I meant that one day, you’ll be done for.”

  “Everyone’s done for one day. Night. Morning. Evening.”

  “Wise words. You look like you’re trying to decide something.”

  “And you?”

  “The Socratic method?”

  Garšva observes Stanley. A Mozart fan, and he’s even heard of Socrates. A long drunken šlėkltelė’s face. And shaking hands.

  “Listen, Stanley. Why do you…”

  “You want to know why I work here? It’s temporary. I’m going to kill myself. Zasvistali – pojechali.”⁶⁷

  Garšva doesn’t dare ask why. He drinks his milk and watches the Renoir appear and disappear. The black women have stopped laughing. They lean their heads together, whispering like conspirators. They’re planning to murder a rich widow. When she falls asleep, two of them will stand watch in the hallway while the other two smother the widow with pillows. Then they’ll grab her jewels and all four will hide out in Harlem. They’ll repent in a black prophet’s apartment as the horns scream and the drums roll. What nonsense! The black women are probably gossiping about their girlfriends or complaining about guests.

  “Thomas Wolfe spends several pages describing a man who landed on the street from some floors up,” says Garšva.

  “Literature makes everything beautiful. Even ugly things. Suicide is ugly. But I need to do it.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t give you a good reason. I went to high school. Studied piano. And started to drink. Why? Maybe you can tell me. You’re a European, you have all the traditional answers.”

  “You’re not being completely frank,” Garšva concludes.

  Stanley looks at him as though he were a student trying to explain why he hasn’t done his homework.

  “I am being frank. I really want to kill myself. Dziękuję.”⁶⁸

  “Then what are you waiting for?” asks Garšva, now somewhat alarmed because Stanley’s face becomes grave. There is something intangibly fine about his features. It could be a past pride, a nobleman’s sword, an ambitious narrowing of the lips, a multicoloured garment, an embroidered sash and konfederatka.⁶⁹

  “Idz srač,” says Stanley, and he gets up and leaves.⁷⁰ Garšva cringes. I didn’t want to upset him, all I did was ask. Maybe I’m like the old lady who offered a dying man some nuts? Could the faded squares from the reproductions hold the answer? Stanley’s soul is a faded square, and Mozart will fade away when the snack bar’s neon lights go out. And the black women won’t whisper as they clean rooms. And the jaundiced clerk is already counting on the other side of the partition. And I still have twenty-eight minutes. Truly I didn’t want to insult Stanley. There’s no answer to my question. The answer will be articulated by theologians, psychologists, sociologists, moralists, authors of theses. One must act this way. It had to be this way, so it wouldn’t be that way. Or that way, this way.

  The black women have already left. The woman photographer, a twentieth-century Veronika, stubs out her cigarette in an ashtray.⁷¹ The Puerto Ricans have disappeared. The cafeteria empties out. The golden trumpets no longer sound. Aroun’? Aukštoji Panemunė is all around. The vėlės have climbed down from their high benches and now surround me. I can’t make out their shapes. Everything is mixed up. Gnarled tree roots, the misty, swaying marsh, a wooden Christ standing on a sinking hummock; are those tears on His carved features, did this fine rain sprinkle down from Heaven? A harpsichord? It could be a harpsichord. Why wouldn’t a vėlė play the harpsichord? Vėlės aren’t concerned with clothes or historical periods. There are words. Magical words. Dead noblemen’s sculptural eyes, and brass snakes slithering through the rusted ring of a door handle. And a choir of kaukai, field and harvest gods.

  Dumbluoja dienelė,

  Dumbluoja giedrioji

  In vakarą, vakarėlį.

  Oi, leidžias saulelė

  Tamsiuosna debesysna

  Už žalių girelių.⁷²

  Would it be blasphemy if Christ patted a kaukas on the back and turned the marsh water to red wine? Or a fairy dried His rain-soaked face with her braids? I think this could be one solution. A solution? Could this be the beginning of the poem I’ve been waiting for so long?

  But why do I hear the black Greek choir nearby? The black women’s laughter – jungle drumming. The black women’s laughter – Elena’s fist pounding on the locked door. Lord, oh my Lord, who art inside me, I love her! All I can do is repeat the tired words. I love, love, love, love her! I love her, Elena. Stanley, where are you? Stanley, can’t you see that I’m as sentimental as an old maid? But I won’t jump out of a window. I’m afraid to die, Stanley.

  65In the well-known Lithuanian legend, the sea princess Jūratė falls in love with the young fisherman Kastytis, who has disturbed the peace in her underwater kingdom. The love between a goddess and a mortal evokes the wrath of the god of thunder and lightning, Perkūnas, who in his fury shatters Jūratė’s amber castle, which explains why small pieces of amber wash on to the shores of the Baltic after a storm.

  66The first and main hotel and restaurant in Palanga at that time.

  67Zasvistali – pojechali: We whistle – we go (Polish). Stanley’s Polish is poor, so some of his expressions do not make sense.

  68Dziękuję: Thank you (Polish).

  69konfederatka: a traditional, four-pointed Polish military hat.

  70Idz srac: Go and shit yourself (Polish).

  71Veronika: a jilted young woman in a short story by the Lithuanian author Antanas Vienuolis (1882–1957).

  72Lithuanian folk song:

  The day darkens,

  The brightness darkens

  In the evening, the evening.

  Oh, the sun is setting

  into the dark clouds

  beyond the green woods.

  And the clouds are glooming

  Over the green wood.

  Chapter 10

  The Chagall reproduction was unchanged. A cloud-haired woman flew over a Russian town. And another, a green bouquet in her hand, fell from her waist. A blurry sleigh glided by, a man waving a whip. The walls were still stamped with ornaments, possibly Roman. Books both arranged neatly on shelves and scattered on the table. Thick with dust. An expensive album lay open, and a splayed Soutine child soared over the page like a little cardboard man pulled by a string. Next to it sat two glasses with murky dregs, an abandoned cherry in one, an ashtray full of cigarette butts, a purse. Articles of men’s and women’s clothing and underwear were piled on the lone armchair. A wrinkled sheet slipped off the green sofa, a quilt in a bluish cover lay on the flowery linoleum.

  “I will give you a carnelian ring and an abandoned streetcar in Queens Plaza,” said Garšva. He kissed the mole in the bend of her neck.

  “I’ll take the ring to a jeweller tomorrow. He’ll adjust it to fit your finger. We’ll go to see the streetcar wagon next Tuesday. I’m free on Tuesday.”

  Elena licked her parched lips.

  “Are you thirsty?” asked Garšva.

  “I want. Some water.”

  He got up and found his blue robe. His back muscles tensed briefly. When he returned from the kitchen with the water, Elena said, “I knew that you were lying on the sand next to me, and I could see your back. I so wanted to touch it.”

  As she drank the water, Garšva picked up the bottle of White Horse from the floor and poured himself a third of a glass.

  “You drink it straight?”

  “Yes.”

  “He drank the scotch in one swig. He sat down on the sofa next to her legs. He stroked their skin, its fine golden stubble.”

  “Just lie there, lie there,” he said when Elena startled.

  “Just lie there.”

>   It was a foggy day.

  “Lie there, that’s it.”

  He kissed her ankles.

  “Cover me, I’m a little cold.”

  He covered her with the quilt, and she smiled faintly. Small, even, bluish teeth.

  “I lied. I was waiting for you yesterday. I saw you. You were standing by the drugstore. Mine is the corner window.” And she added, “There’s a lot of blue in your room. The robe, the quilt cover, the book spines, the clock, the linoleum. Do you like blue?”

  “I like the bluish veins on your legs,” said Garšva.

  “Don’t play games. You’re very young, and I got tired. My head is empty, like a nobleman’s.”

  “Like a nobleman’s?”

  “My own inner noblewoman wanted to hear some harpsichord. My husband mocks me, you know. I bought all these harpsichord records.”

  Garšva took the bottle.

  “Shall I pour you some?”

  “A little. Into my water.”

  They drank in silence.

  “I don’t want you to mock me. Be quiet. I’ve read your poems. I asked my husband to take you to Jones Beach. I knew that you two had met at the Vaineikis’s. I knew, in advance – yes – that you would be mine. Cold calculation, you’re thinking? Don’t speak. Trust me, I don’t know, I really don’t know. It’s true that I foresaw some of this. The drink is warming me up. No, don’t kiss me right now. Why did you buy it? Do you need artificial love? Be quiet. Drink, if you want. And pour me some. That’s enough.”

  And they both drank.

  “My head is spinning. What’s the difference? Real, artificial… I’m just a former high school teacher. And I loved Vilnius. I used to walk for hours. One fall, you know those popular books about metempsychosis, well it seems I’ve already experienced it many times. If you like I can tell you about it, didn’t you ask me to? About the dead noblemen’s heads? Fine. Listen. One night, a handsome young man was walking down Pylimo Street. His collar was turned up, a biting wind blew, it was autumn, he was rushing home after his classes, do you know the columns in the university courtyard? Don’t laugh. You’re the poet. A young dreamer leans against each one of the columns, the ends of his necktie flutter, dry leaves rustle, he’s reciting verse. Be quiet. I really wanted to cry, yesterday, in the square. It’s been a long time since I’ve cried. I feel good here. Listen. I’ll continue. And if it isn’t interesting, cut me off. No, don’t kiss me. A good-looking young man, fair-haired, a few freckles around his nose, don’t smile, that’s how I imagine it, and hungry, because he isn’t well off, so what if that’s cliché, the whole story happened under the Germans, the young man was in a rush, it was close to curfew. Near the house with the sculptures of noblemen’s heads in the cornices he heard a harpsichord playing. Naturally, he came to a stop, it was unusual to hear harpsichord music under the Germans. The doors to that building are heavy, copper lion heads with chains in their jaws, and the handsome young man didn’t dare touch the chain. And then the doors opened on their own, and it was dark inside, a greenish light shone from above. The young man climbed up the granite stairs. The light became brighter, as did the sound of the harpsichord. On the upper landing, gold-plated statues held torches, they burned with greenish flames. And at the turn, a red carpet led towards the hall. No, don’t give me more to drink. Sit still. The young man entered the hall. Many candles burned in malachite candlesticks; fat cherubim blew on long pipes: white grapes, apples and pears in woven baskets; and the candle flames rose, unmoving, even though the fair young man felt a breeze on his back. Don’t smile, that’s how I imagined it. Imagined it logically. The main doors were open, do you see? Some people stood there, unmoving, in the hall, with dark clothes, pointy beards, white ruffles, white faces, eyeless, because of the shadows that fell on their eyelids. I think that the sculptures of noblemen’s heads had been placed atop velvet clothes. They stood respectfully, their heads bowed. And… listen. In the hall, by the wall, a greenish harpsichord – strange, isn’t it, because candle flames are normally a clear yellow? And a woman sat playing, in a white gown, lace trailing on the parquet that had been polished to shine like a mirror. Only her waxen fingers moved. Her long fingers travelled the keyboard. Two red servants supported a blind man who listened, seemingly content, as he was smiling. You’re curious to know what the pianist’s face looked like? I don’t know. Once I imagined my own face there. Don’t laugh, I powdered it and looked at myself in the mirror. Then I decided: that’s me. But it doesn’t really matter what her face looked like. She noticed the fair young man and raised her hands from the keys. And naturally, he approached her, knelt, and kissed her outstretched hand. You can kiss me now, if you like. That’s enough. Later, my dear. Just sit and listen. The fair young man invited the white-gowned woman to dance. The two red servants gently helped the blind man on to the stool and he began to play a minuet. He nodded his head, probably enjoying himself. And the noblemen’s heads swayed to the dancers’ rhythm. And everything was reflected in the polished parquet. And… no, let me cry, they’re childish tears. The gilded statues stepped off their pedestals, you remember – the statues from the upper landing? They entered the hall, the greenish light from the lanterns washed over everything, and the chains hung from their necks, the chains wrenched from the lions. Fine. Pour me a little. Thank you. That’s enough. And then the fair young man saw: he was embracing a dead tree trunk. And around him, in a semicircle, stood more headless trunks. Around the rotted harpsichord. And the cherubim, and their pipes, and the baskets of fruits – everything was thick with mould. The candles went out. The torches burned. Where did the blind man and his red servants go? I don’t know. Mice scratched around in the splintered remains of the parquet floor. The fair young man let go of the black trunk. It fell down, the echo of its fall repeating itself several times. And as the fair young man ran down the stairs, he heard someone pounding on the harpsichord. The instrument shrieked, as though it were being immolated. When the young man found himself back on the street, the doors closed. The moon shone, the noblemen’s heads hung from the cornices. Now I’ll explain it to you. I didn’t make all of it up. There was an old Polish woman who lived in Vilnius, half mad, destitute among her books and candles. Like the last of the witches. A bit of bacon, butter and Polish conversation would put her in a good mood. We had a long talk. About the harpsichord. Now come to me.”