‘What people? I’m showing you my stockings. And my purchases. Every decent man should concern himself with his wife’s legs. And her purchases.’
‘Your legs belong to you!’
‘Even so. Not to the people.’
My wife speaks at length about the benefits of buying things abroad. I don’t argue with her. I keep thinking about the lady with the red slippers. My ears were ringing with a real chanson sans paroles, but I could just as well be watching a tragic comedy.
‘How did you get here?’
‘In the usual way: I hailed a taxi and came over.’
‘But I mean, here, to Lausanne.’
‘Also in the usual way. Second-class train from Leipzig. I wish I’d flown.’
She is toying with me. I realise I will also have to switch to a more frivolous and relaxed tone, as is more suitable for a tourist travelling abroad. One mustn’t be too serious with women.
‘But back home you said you wanted to travel elsewhere.’
‘Oh, Alfred… A life without Alfred is no life for me.’
‘But how did you find out I was in Lausanne?’
‘Sometimes the ministry reveals secrets about incredibly important events. And they inform the concerned wives of their functionaries when they have left for a conference. You only need to be a little clever. Everyone sends their regards. No need to hurry back. It seems you’ve gotten on their nerves.’
‘And how did you know this was my hotel?’ I am still disconcerted.
‘That was sheer coincidence.’
‘And the shoes?’
‘Of course it’s a bit risky to set out your shoes right in front of your husband’s room. Just be happy it wasn’t two pairs.’
First published in Jurgis Savickis, Raudoni batukai, Brooklyn, N.Y.: Gabija (1951).
Translated by Jura Avizienis from Jurgis Savickis, Vasaros kaitros, Vilnius: Baltos lankos (1997).
Jurgis Savickis (1890–1952) was a prose writer and diplomat who, after the First World War, resided in Denmark and represented Lithuania diplomatically in Scandinavia. He went on to become a high level official in Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and, in 1939–1940, was delegated as representative to the League of Nations in Geneva. When Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union he moved to France, where he had acquired property, and began farming. Over the course of his writing career his narrative style changed from lyricism to expressionism.
Christmas Eve
Antanas Vienuolis
The pharmacist’s assistant Martin Gudelis was working on Christmas Eve at Kalpokas Pharmacy. On duty with him was the night guard and the clerk, Jonas.
The clock had already struck nine. It was well below zero outside. The streets were emptying. Only the occasional hunched human form would trudge by crunching through the snow, or a random sleigh would whoosh past the pharmacy’s frozen shop windows before everything would fall silent again. Inside the pharmacy it was so still that you could hear the clock ticking in the supervisor’s office and Jonas sniffling in the dispensary.
Gudelis was seated at his desk, and, resting his chin on his palm, he was considering whether there could possibly be a profession in the world more demanding than that of the pharmacist…
‘Be it Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Year’s Day or Easter,’ he thought, ‘you sit like a dog chained to his kennel and can’t relax even for a minute. Look at me now: why would anybody in their right mind come to the pharmacy on this holy night?’
His thoughts were interrupted by the ringing of the telephone.
‘That’s Christmas Eve for you, you sap,’ he mumbled to himself before walking over to the phone with little enthusiasm.
‘Kalpokas Pharmacy. How may I help you?’
‘What is your name, please?’ He heard a pleasant female voice coming from the telephone receiver.
Thrilled, flushed and flustered, Gudelis answered. ‘Me? Jonas.’
‘Jonas? Thank you. Ha, ha, ha, ha,’ chuckled the sweet voice.
‘And you, miss? What’s your name?’ Gudelis took his turn.
‘Me? Louisa. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Louisa and Jonas. A lovely couple, like Matthew and Barbara. Ha, ha, ha, ha.’
Gudelis heard a crackle in the receiver followed by silence.
‘What a pleasant voice. Could it be Aldona enticing me? Too bad she hung up so quickly.’ Gudelis pitied himself and returned to his desk to daydream…
The municipal clock tower struck ten. Upstairs at the supervisor’s, guests and children were singing a Christmas carol, accompanied by the piano. Gudelis stood up, paced the pharmacy a few times, then stopped at the frozen window. He admired the tropical brush and palm trees painted on the window by frost. Upstairs, the supervisor’s children and guests sang:
Let the trumpets play, let us sing the songs,
Let us celebrate and rejoice…
As the carol ended, Gudelis grew pensive once again. This time he was not thinking about the challenges of his profession, but rather about how even Kalpokas had once been like him, serving as assistant to the pharmacist, toiling during the night shift, working from morning to night. But Kalpokas went on to have his own pharmacy, a beautiful wife, children, a splendid apartment – and look how happy he is now. Is he any lesser than Kalpokas? Gudelis suddenly felt warm and happy because he felt an infinite power inside himself. Standing in front of the mirror he began to admire himself.
He was especially pleased at the thought that nobody would come to the pharmacy on this holy night, that he would get a good night’s sleep and he would be free all day tomorrow. He would meet some friends and pay a visit to Miss Aldona, who for quite some time had enthralled him, heart and soul. After twirling his moustache, spinning around on one leg and smiling at himself, he saw his lovely white teeth in the mirror. He became so giddy that he didn’t even notice that he was now belting out a Christmas carol, projecting his bass voice with such power that the bottles rattled on the shelves…
‘Jonas, Jonas,’ he suddenly shouted, startled by his own voice. ‘It’s time to close up the pharmacy.’
A sleepy Jonas stumbled out from the dispensary. After he bolted the pharmacy door and made a bed for the assistant in the office, he lay his own mattress down behind the display and immediately began to snore. Having locked the display and turned out the lights, Gudelis also lay down, but his dreams and his joy, that illusory joy which sometimes overtakes a man just before it ushers in some misfortune or unpleasantness, gave him no peace. But who doesn’t dream on Christmas Eve? And here, as if deliberately, was the Christmas star peeking in through the window, flickering, flirting and promising future love, happiness, wealth – whatever his heart desired…
And so Gudelis dreamed that somewhere beyond the Caucasus lives a wealthy, old pharmacist, an expatriate Lithuanian with an only daughter. Somehow Gudelis manages to get a job at the pharmacist’s shop and the pharmacist’s daughter falls in love with him, and soon he becomes the happy manager and owner of the pharmacy. Right now he likes Miss Aldona, but who is this Aldona anyway? Like all other Lithuanian girls with some education, she is vain, proud and dreams of having only a doctor or engineer for a husband. If she were to marry me she would only suffer and complain; she wouldn’t be happy and she would ruin my life. I’m better off finding myself a different girl, even if she’s not a true-blooded Lithuanian bride, but a girl brought up to marry a man, not a doctor or engineer. Besides, there’s the uncertainty of Aldona’s dowry. But here everything is as it should be: the girl is an intellectual and well-positioned in society, and of course, there’s the pharmacy. And her parents would be happy having married off their daughter to such a loyal husband. To tell the truth, at the moment he is not yet a pharmacist and is penniless. But he is nonetheless young, attractive, energetic and appealing to women. And with a little bit of money it wouldn’t be too hard to acquire the qualification of a certified pharmacist.
In his dream he was just about to seat his young wife and himself into a first-
class couchette on their way to Moscow University to attend some lectures when the pharmacy bell rang all of a sudden. Gudelis listened attentively. Jonas didn’t get up either.
A minute later the bell interrupted the anxious silence in the pharmacy once again. Jonas groaned, angrily he cleared his throat and, cursing to himself, shuffled over barefoot to answer the door. Having let someone in, he barked a few words at them and slowly approached the office, knocked on the door with his knuckles and said coldly: ‘Get up. They’re here.’
‘They can wait,’ Gudelis replied, irritated. He lay for a while longer and then got up.
When he entered the pharmacy he saw standing by the door a timid, sixteen-or seventeen-year old ragamuffin of a young man who was shivering all over and holding out an arm bandaged in rags.
‘What do you want?’ Gudelis asked angrily.
‘Sir,’ the youth stammered, stepping cautiously toward the counter, ‘a few days ago I stabbed my finger with an awl and now my finger and my entire arm are swollen, my head aches, and I’m trembling with cold. Please, sir, some sort of tincture for my headache and the sweating.’
‘Show me your arm!’
The youth unwrapped the bandages on his arm and Gudelis could see even from a distance that it was swollen and red up to the elbow.
‘Where were you all day? Why haven’t you gone to see a doctor?’
The youth was silent as he regarded his arm, then he met Gudelis’s eyes and explained:
‘I had to finish off a job during the day. My supervisor wouldn’t let me go, and now the hospitals are closed. No doctor will see me.’
‘The hospitals are closed, no doctor will see me,’ mocked Gudelis. ‘But you’re perfectly happy knocking at the pharmacy door – at midnight, no less! Don’t you know that the pharmacy’s closed at night as well? There’s no reason for you to be banging about the pharmacy in the middle of the night. Get yourself to a doctor at once.’
‘Just some tincture for my headache and sweating. Tomorrow’s a holiday. It’s Christmas…’
‘No tinctures,’ said the irritated master of medicinal mixology, who did not allow him to finish. ‘You don’t need tinctures, you need surgery! Your arm will have to be amputated up to the shoulder. Can’t you see that gangrene has set in! Go and see a doctor at once because soon it will be too late.’
The youth was stunned. Eyes wide, he held his aching arm in his healthy one, crying out in misery.
‘Get to a doctor at once! Why are you standing here?’ Gudelis snapped.
The wretched young man wanted to say something more, but seeing an irritable, dishevelled Jonas approaching him, he wrapped his arm up in the rags and left.
Jonas locked the doors and returned to his spot behind the display and, as if nothing had happened, he fell onto his mattress.
Gudelis heard something out in the street like the howl of a dog or the wind whistling. He pricked up his ears. But at that moment a thought disturbed his heart: human beings are granted beauty and responsibility. And this incomprehensible, innate instinct caused a change of heart: he understood that he had done wrong, he understood that he had behaved less than admirably and that he had not been compassionate, that he had blasphemed against a man’s greatest duty. Besides, he knew that the youth was truly in danger, that the only medicine for gangrene was to rub the arm with iodine as soon as possible, apply a compress, and immediately transport the poor wretch to the hospital…
‘Jonas! Jonas!’ He shouted, running from his office. ‘Run as fast as you can. Find that young man and bring him back here.’
‘The young man? Which young man? Why?’ Jonas was surprised.
‘Jonas, my brother, I’ll give you a rouble tomorrow. Just find the young man and bring him back here.’
The promise of the rouble was more effective on Jonas than brotherly love. Jonas collected himself, got up, threw on his furs and swiftly left the pharmacy. Outside the door he looked around and stealthily ran to one side street and peered around, then he crossed onto the other side of the street – to the other side street – and returned quickly, explaining that the youth was nowhere to be seen.
‘Jonas, you’ll find him ringing the bell at the hospital door. Run and fetch him. The doctor won’t be in and the village doctor’s assistant went with his wife yesterday to visit his in-laws. Who will take him in?’
This time the obedient Jonas ran all the way to the hospital.
Losing his patience and greatly concerned, Gudelis himself went out into the street. It was below freezing. The two ends of the avenue were flanked by two rows of lamps; not a living soul could be seen in the streets. In the distance, on the outskirts of the city, a steam engine screeched as if it were lost and a million stars looked down upon the earth from the heavens.
‘No, he’s not there.’ Jonas returned, gasping for breath, reporting the same news. ‘I asked the night guard. He said that a girl had passed by a few minutes ago, but not a young man.’
They waited a few moments and looked around. Then they both returned to the pharmacy. It was only when Gudelis was back inside his office that Jonas managed to catch his breath and piped up from behind the display:
‘I feel sorry for the child. Of course, who will take him in tonight?’ He thought for a moment and added, ‘One of my friends, a cobbler, died from an injury like that to his finger.’
Gudelis hoped that the young man, finding no luck elsewhere, would be forced to return to the pharmacy, and so he picked up a first aid book and read up about gangrene and how to treat it.
But an hour passed, and then another, but the young man didn’t ring the bell.
Gudelis had just lain down on his mattress when a sleigh stopped in front of the pharmacy and the night bell rang in the dispensary. Gudelis jumped up and before Jonas could get out of his bed, he ran to open the door. A military officer and his lady sauntered into the pharmacy. They requested a variety of perfumes, eau de colognes, soaps and powders. Gudelis couldn’t refuse to wait on them for fear that tomorrow the military officer might complain to his supervisor, so he waited patiently as the mystery lady selected her cosmetics; he even went down to the basement to retrieve some mineral water without saying a word.
After the military officer left, he went to bed.
Gudelis no longer expected the youth to return, but he knew that he would not be able to fall asleep again, so he lay there fully clothed with only a blanket to cover himself, burrowing his head underneath to block out Jonas’s snores.
He heard the clock strike three, then four; a few times he heard someone walk past the pharmacy, footsteps crunching in the snow. But eventually he fell asleep. He didn’t hear the bell, but he could make out Jonas’s words from the other side of the office door: ‘Get up. He’s here.’
Gudelis got up instantly, quickly dressed and with a pounding heart entered the pharmacy. At the door stood the same timid young man reaching out his bandaged, aching arm, trembling…
‘My dear brother, my dear brother.’ Gudelis rushed over to the young man and putting his arm around his shoulders he led him to his office. ‘I didn’t sleep a wink all night waiting for you… You’re cold, tired and it’s all because of me… My dear brother…’
‘Just a tincture for my headache and the sweating,’ the young man sobbed.
‘I’ll give you anything, anything, just calm yourself, warm yourself, don’t shiver so. Here, sit by the stove. Jonas, bring him some iodine and cotton wool. More cotton wool, more. You can see he’s frozen.’
Gudelis rubbed his arm in iodine and wrapped it in cotton, but the more he rubbed it, the more inflamed it became.
‘Jonas, quick, make me a compress. Hurry! What are you gawping at?’
And while Jonas made the compress, Gudelis kissed the young man’s head and pressed it against his chest.
‘Just some tincture for my headache and the sweating,’ murmured the boy with blue lips.
‘I’ll give you anything. Anything. Look. I’m just about to
call the municipal hospital. I’ve called the ambulance. The doctor is coming. They’ll examine you at the hospital, lay you in a warm bed, feed you. They’ll heal your arm. Stop shivering. Stop shivering.’
‘Jonas, he’s fading!’ Gudelis shouted. With all his might he pressed the young man to himself.
‘Jonas, get to the phone at once and call the municipal hospital!’
Ring, ring… Jonas dials.
Ring, ring, ring…
Gudelis jerked awake, and jumped out of bed.
Ring, ring, ring… The phone rang incessantly. In the darkness Gudelis grabbed the phone, placed the receiver to his ear, and shivering, inquired: ‘Kalpokas Pharmacy. How may I help you?’
‘Pharmacy? What do you mean pharmacy? To hell with the pharmacy! I need the City Club!’
‘Jonas, what kind of night duty do you keep that you don’t hear people ringing the pharmacy bell?’ Gudelis interrogated his assistant. ‘You sleep and our customers can’t reach us…’
‘What do you mean sleeping? I wasn’t sleeping! The phone did ring, but nobody came to the pharmacy. What do you mean I didn’t hear! Anyway, we’re not required to answer the phone.’
‘Are you saying that nobody came to the pharmacy?’
‘Of course not! A few people walked by the shop, but nobody stopped. What do you mean I’ve been sleeping? I hear everything. My good sir, you must have been dreaming.’
Gudelis was silent. He lit the lantern and sat there until morning.
When the employees and the supervisor came to the pharmacy and wished him a Merry Christmas, good fortune, good health, and all the best, he just mumbled, averting his eyes and feeling the words burning his heart.
He left the pharmacy with a heavy heart. Nothing could cheer him up, not the Christmas holiday, not the bright winter morning, not the sun newly risen over the forest, not the light smoke rising from the chimneys through the rays of the sun and up into the sky, his eyes were no longer dazzled by the trees covered in hoarfrost that looked as though they were cast in metal… He looked around him; the people seemed unhappy, gloomy and, like him, unsatisfied. When he returned home, he took no joy in his decorated room or the deliciously prepared foods on the table. He drank a glass of tea, curled up on the sofa and for the first time in his life he thought deeply…
The Dedalus Book of Lithuianian Literature Page 7