“Do you still feel unwell?”
“Something keeps squeezing my throat, then releasing it.”
“It will soon pass. The medication has not yet taken full effect.”
The psychiatrist tapped his pen on the table.
“I imagine you would like to hear my diagnosis?”
“Yes.”
“It is not as terrible as you imagine. We are no longer in Ibsen’s times, and something you have inherited needn’t destroy you. Of course, you will have to live moderately, I must emphasise that, but I do not believe that you will lose your mind or die. You are a neurasthenic.”
“Will I recover?”
The pen rested quietly in his fingers.
“It’s difficult to say. I’m not a practitioner of rose-coloured diagnostics. But we’ll try. What you’ve told me leads me to speak openly. Your disease is not yet fully understood. You know, the nervous system – these are labyrinths in which we are still quite lost.”
He mumbled something in Latin that I didn’t understand. Then he said, “You die and are risen again from the dead.”
The psychiatrist grinned, probably pleased with his clever description of the disease.
“A passing nightmare,” he added. And began to write out the prescription. The music from beyond the window continued to play. The now quiet whistle from the factory in Aleksotas still buzzed in my ears. Two men stopped outside the window.
“You’re wrong – Banaitis is no good.”
“I don’t believe it. Yesterday he…”
The psychiatrist closed the window and I missed the rest of the conversation. I put two banknotes on the table.
“I want to get married,” I blurted out.
“I would not advise it. You’ll be a burden on your wife. If you need a woman…” and he grinned, like before.
“I understand, Professor. Thank you and goodbye.”
“Come back in a month. Goodbye.”
I went back out on to the street. I held the verdict in my hand. A white prescription. I studied the words. Some kind of bromide. The injection was working. I felt sleepily calm. Objects and people no longer frightened me. At the drugstore I received a red-capped bottle. I had lunch at the fancy Metropolis restaurant. And, when I returned home, I slept the kind of sleep that is free of dreams.
When I woke up it was evening. My date with Jonė was in half an hour. I felt oppressed by the scent of the linden trees, the lights starting to flicker on the slope of Aleksotas, the cool evening air, the muffled rattling on the streets, my stiff muscles, Jonė’s kind eyes, those fateful words: “I will marry you.”
I shouted out louder than I had earlier in the day by the Maistas store. I slammed the window shut. I took the bromide. I moaned into my clenched fists in the twilight. Until the sedative washed over me.
…Now she’s walking, stopping by the post office, glancing at the arms of the clock. Two minutes past nine. He’s a little late, she thinks to herself, finds a shoe store, takes a look at the latest style from Switzerland. Fifteen minutes past nine. Jonė walks slowly, every man is the one she is waiting for. Twenty minutes past nine. Maybe he’s sick, she would go and visit him but doesn’t know his address. Exactly half an hour. Jonė goes home…
It’s over, Antanas Garšva. You’ll sleep with Ženia or some other one, when you need a woman. You’ll play much more pool. You’ll sit in bars with talkative friends. You’ll study literature more seriously. Of course, if you start thinking, “I can’t live like this,” you could kill yourself. But… you have a strong will to live, toned muscles, a healthy heart, clean lungs, good digestion. It’s over, so start again, Antanas Garšva.
I was sentimental that evening. I felt sorry for myself. And I wrote Jonė a letter. I wanted to break up because I was bored to death with her.
A few weeks passed and I wrote a poem. It was my twentieth or so, and I timidly went to Konradas Café, where I hoped to meet a critic I knew. The critic was sitting by himself in a corner of the café, reading a French newspaper. We had met at Versalis and I had once asked him to take a look at my poems. When he gave them back to me I had detected an ironic sympathy in his expression. The critic was bent from consumption, wore spectacles, reddish shadows stretched across his grey face. That time he had said, “You want to be a poet?”
“I do,” I replied.
“None of this is yours. You’re searching for a ‘classical’ image, metre, rhyme. It’s artificial, young man. You’re different. I wouldn’t recommend this rubbish to any serious magazine.”
He noticed my disappointment.
“I’m not saying that you can’t write. Try. But… don’t depend merely on technique. Poetry is a demanding mistress. She despises con men and impotents. You’re probably good at billiards, right?”
“Quite good,” I boasted.
“That’s what I thought after reading these,” and the critic handed back the sheaf of papers.
Today I approached him quietly. I pulled up a chair, the critic stirred, the glass of his spectacles flashed, and he put his newspaper on the little table.
“Sit down.”
I sat down, crumpling the single poem in my pocket. His glasses were searchlights pointing at the hand in my pocket.
“You’ve done some more writing?”
I pulled out the sheet of paper.
“Only one?” he said in feigned surprise. He took the sheet, carefully straightened it out, and started to read. He read much longer that I had expected, as the poem wasn’t very long. And, when he had finished, he asked me in a warm, pleasant voice, “What is the matter with you? Are you ill?”
I felt my lips tremble, tears gather in my eyes.
“An incurable disease,” I replied.
“It’s not a bad poem,” said the critic. “I’ll try to get it published.”
*
A tall brown man enters the empty elevator on the eighteenth. His face looks like it was carved from a pumpkin. A grown-up in a Halloween mask. Lips turned up at the corners, round, colourless eyes, an inflated forehead – like a genius, or someone with dropsy. A bald head, thick triangular eyebrows. A polka-dotted sports suit, the narrow jacket cinched at the waist. The brown man smiles evenly, his large, yellow, pointed teeth leaning against his upper lip.
“Down. Press ‘pass’,” the man orders colourlessly.
“Are you a … hotel employee?” asks Garšva.
“Yes.”
Garšva presses the “pass” button, the elevator plunges down, no one can stop it at the intervening floors.
“Nice summer,” notes the man.
“Very.”
“Felix culpa doesn’t suit you. I think you have already entered autumn.”
“You can read my mind?” asks Garšva.
“A little. And I see a certain disproportion.”
“In me?”
“Absolutely correct. The right side of your face is somewhat crooked. To be sure, the crookedness is barely noticeable, but in photographs…”
“I resisted slithering into this world. They pulled me out with forceps. The doctor pressed a bit too hard and… that’s why I always have my picture taken at an angle,” says Garšva, interrupting.
“That’s what I wanted to emphasise.”
The brown man’s hands are thick and freckled.
“Are you … Irish?” asks Garšva.
“I’m not interested in my past, because I don’t have one. But you – you’re a different story. I’m not being critical, it’s normal, you’re following an ancient tradition.”
“Excuse me, but…”
The man looks at Garšva. An experienced priest with a thorough knowledge of sinners.
“It’s too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“O Felix culpa quae talem et tantum meruit habere redemptorem.⁸⁸ You haven’t forgotten?”
“I can’t.”
“There you are.”
“If you remember,” Garšva quickly begins to expl
ain, “If you remember I kept thinking and thinking, when I was praying, that I want to make up for everything.”
“It’s too late,” says the man, waving a freckled hand.
“You like to dream about Christ. Did Christ talk about his past?”
How long the elevator falls without stopping at any of the floors in between! And it occurs to Garšva that he would like to always have this person by his side, to always be able to talk to him.
“Then the devil took him to the holy city, to the top of the temple, and said: ‘If you are the Son of God, jump down,’” says Garšva.
“Megalomania is not dangerous for you,” the man says gently.
He glances at the numbers. They no longer light up, they are just dark ornaments at the edge of the ceiling. But the elevator continues to fall.
“Jonė’s feet in their little white shoes,” the man says colourlessly. “And your father staring at Pažaislis Monastery. And your mother screaming on a dying Earth. And two soft, sticky cherries, and a single poem on a crumpled piece of paper. And the smiling old woman.”
“And lioj, ridij, augo?” Garšva asks hopefully.
“A vėlė wrapped in a white sheet. Your salvation.”
“I’ll pick up all the shards,” Garšva promises. He would so like to touch the freckled hand, but doesn’t dare.
“I won’t forget you.”
“You will. And now here’s the lobby,” says the man.
“The lobby already?”
“Yes, already. Do you remember the story about the angel and the newborn?”
“No.”
“When an angel says goodbye to a newborn, he touches its face with a finger, so that the new arrival on Earth won’t remember Heaven. That’s why there is a little groove between the nose and the upper lip. Your face is slightly crooked in photographs. Do you see the connection?”
Garšva looks at the man’s face. The Halloween mask is missing that groove.
“You don’t have a groove – you don’t have one!” exclaims Garšva.
“Zoori. The only word. It’s a good word. Dream about zoori. It’s good to dream about zoori. And now… open the door.”
79Laisvės alėja or Freedom Avenue: a 1700-metre pedestrian boulevard running through the centre of Kaunas, from the Old Town to the Church of Saint Michael the Archangel (popularly called the “Soboras”, a variation on “Sobor,” the Russian word for a Russian cathedral. The large, square neo-Byzantine church was built as a Russian Orthodox garrison church in 1895, when Kaunas was still part of the Russian Empire.). With two rows of linden trees, planters and benches, and many shops and restaurants, it was the social and business hub of the city during the interwar period, when it was also Lithuania’s temporary capital while Vilnius was occupied by Poland.
80Konradas Café: an interwar artists’ cafe on Laisvės alėja.
81Versalis Hotel: a posh interwar hotel and restaurant on Laisvės alėja.
82Juozapota: a character in A Sad Story, a novella by Jonas Biliūnas (1879–1907).
83Litas: the Lithuanian currency during the interwar period of independence
84Panevežys: the fifth largest city in Lithuania.
85Krupnikas: a spiced Lithuanian honey liqueur.
86See note 104 re. “Soboras”.
87A suburb of Kaunas on the left bank of the Nemunas, across from the city centre.
88See note 34.
Chapter 13
“I trusted him. He’s strong. He’s successful. He bought a car, our savings are growing, he’s looking at a house in Jamaica. I can’t complain. He’s caring and uncomplicated.”
“And you’re free to dream of Vilnius?”
“Don’t make fun of me. You should know – I’m not afraid of work. I worked in a sewing factory for two years. I could start working tomorrow. You don’t believe me?”
“Forgive me. Your husband. Try to understand.”
“I do understand. I’ve been faithful to you these last two weeks.”
“You…”
“We don’t make love that often. But I think he’ll want me again soon.”
“And?”
“You decide.”
“You would leave him?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve saved up a bit. I’ll buy another sofa. This one is too narrow to sleep on. Come, I’ll be waiting.”
“If I want to go back to the sewing factory, they’ll take me. I was a good worker.”
In his blue housecoat Garšva looked tired and wan. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened, the corners of his lips drooped, he touched his face with trembling fingers. He sat in the armchair, a sheaf of papers held together with a rubber band lay on the table.
“You read my notes?”
Elena lay on the sofa. A grey, little woman under a blue-covered quilt.
“I found it painful. Don’t be angry – I’m not talking about the literary quality.”
She stopped talking.
“Grotesque?” asked Garšva.
“You’re anxious, so it’s grotesque.”
“And your noblemen’s heads?” interrupted Garšva bitingly.
“That’s why we met.”
“Two grotesques.”
“We need to be together. That’s not grotesque.”
“You’re not afraid of this…” asked Garšva, looking at the pack of papers.
“We need to be together. And I’ll help you.”
Garšva grabbed the bottle of White Horse.
“Don’t drink,” Elena asked.
“I’m afraid of death, so I drink. I’m afraid of death, so I write. I’m afraid of death, so I take pills. Everything is because of death. The poet Vaidilionis said that trees covered in toadstools are ironic. My life is ironic. Let’s say, for example, that an optimistic writer is sitting in his study. I imagine that his feet are pedicured, there’s a subtle scent of cologne, a pleasant atmosphere. You reach out your arm. An ivory paperweight. You reach out your arm. Chagall’s illustrations for Dead Souls. You reach out your arm. Plato and a Platonic god. And if it’s too dull, there’s a Renoir hanging on the wall. It’s heaven on earth. And so interesting how the Negro mask is used! And the lawn in the park is trimmed – perfection, harmony. My own atmosphere, I’m afraid, is nothing but passed gas, a cosy stench. I would be a grotesque if I tried to be a Plato. Maybe, if I got myself a job as a night watchman, I might be able to squeeze out some Faustian stories for little children. Isn’t suffering – no matter how lovely – grotesque? Van Gogh shot himself in a field, and his blossoming cherries are so lovely! Poe drank himself to death, and the cries of his raven are so lovely! Čiurlionis ran from the madhouse through the snow, and his sonata paintings are so exquisitely musical!⁸⁹ ‘Kill me, doctor, or you’re a murderer,’ begged Kafka. This Jew is indeed charming with his horrifying nightmares!”
“I’m sorry, you’re angry, and that…”
“I know, I’m contradicting myself. And I’m jealous. And illogical. You’re right. I mock. I admire. I drink, I love. Because I like to drink, love and mock. If I find a harmonious truth, I’ll have lost. And I’ll lose if I fail to find truth.”
Two red circles appeared on Garšva’s cheeks. He drank half a glass in one gulp. His whitened fingers squeezed the glass tight. Elena shifted. Garšva placed the glass on the table.
“You rest. I feel better when you’re lying here. Stay.”
“Don’t drink,” she repeated.
“Stay.”
It was damp outside. Cool. Thirty-eight white bathrobes hung on a line, Garšva counted them as he waited for Elena. The shutters of the adjacent house were closed, and rippling flames from the chimney of a distant foundry burst through the clouds.
“My jeweller is lazy. He didn’t tighten the carnelian ring. You and I didn’t visit the wagon in the square in Plaza. We’re émigrés, we need anachronisms. You need legends, I – unfinished poems.”
“What does your doctor say?”
“Nothing definitive.”
“When will you see him?”
“Tomorrow.”
Garšva suddenly moved to the sofa. He leaned his hands against Elena’s shoulders.
“You want to live with me? It would be good. I’ll stop drinking, I’ll smoke less. I’ll change my shift so we can be together in the evenings. Once in a while I’ll ask you to go out – to a movie or visit friends. I’ll write. I won’t mock you any more. It’ll be good for me to be with you. I would like to say a few words. Final words. For myself. I’d like to write a cycle of poems in which each letter is an irreplaceable ornament. I would work long and hard to find them. I feel good with you. Don’t think that I’m talking like this because I’m drunk. This is my obsession. A few lines etched into marble, that’s what I long for. The illusion of immortality? So be it. To die with a real illusion is the real thing. I will give thanks. To my father, my mother, the marshland, the semaphore, Jonė, my seizures, my critic, books, the soaking old woman, Ženia, Vaidilionis. All of them. If you think we can try, then let’s try. I may win. If you believe in me, then stay. If you need me too.”
“I love you,” said Elena. “I’ll speak to my husband today. And I’ll be here.”
“You don’t need to. I’ll ask him for the divorce myself.”
Time dissolved. Clenched fingers, final sacrifice, the sliding downwards, the reward of an animal cry.
And oblivion for one of the winners. For Antanas Garšva. His muscles loosened. All that was left in his dimming consciousness was the silhouette of a right arm. And he didn’t even feel himself slip off the sofa. He managed to grab his blue robe, his fingers clutching a silk edge.
Antanas Garšva lay on the flowered linoleum. His mouth was ajar, and a green foam leaked from it, ran down his cheek and dripped on to a spectacular flower. His pupils disappeared into his eyelids. His legs were curled under him, like a sleeping child’s. His fingers and toes were turning yellow. Elena grabbed and threw on her dress, ran to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of water. She tilted the bowl towards Garšva’s head.
White Shroud Page 15