Vilnius Poker

by Ricardas Gavelis

  The two broad-shouldered men, panting, caught up with us.

  “Hand over that pineapple,” growled the dark one.

  Yes, yes, despite it all we still had the pineapple. I watched indifferently as they looked around anxiously and wrenched it and the can of lobster away from Martynas.

  “Give me back MY pineapple!” Martynas quietly babbled. “I paid money for it! Give me back my pineapple!”

  The light-haired one marched off with the plunder, while the dark-haired one, intrigued, raised his eyebrows.

  “Are you a complete fool? What money? The merchandise doesn’t belong to this store. They don’t even have a price. You really gave them money?”

  “Give me back my pineapple,” Martynas repeated, louder this time.

  The dark-haired one’s expression suddenly changed and he hissed like a snake:

  “You’re still talking? Get lost, you rat, or I’ll write you up for provocative activities. Understand? Get lost while you still can.”

  I believe I was the one who dragged Martynas off to the side. I believe I mumbled something to him; maybe to calm him and keep him quiet, but he kept going on like a broken record:

  “Why did he take my pineapple away? He ought to give my pineapple back. Why did they take my pineapple?”

  “Listen,” I finally said. “Was that really Suslov, or was I just imagining it?”

  Martynas looked at me as if he had just now awoken.

  “You didn’t recognize him?”

  “That REALLY was Suslov? REALLY?”

  “Of course. I completely forgot . . . You know, everyone was talking about it . . . His first visit after who knows how many years.”

  Martynas suddenly started shaking all over. Shocked, I stared at him, while he kept trembling harder and harder, slowly swayed forward and grabbed at the air with his arms, until he finally fell to his knees on a wet, dirty bench and started jerking as if he was being wracked by spasms. The shocked face of an elderly woman looked at us through the window of a nearby house. She blinked frequently, as if she were trying to chase a hallucination away. It seemed to me that anything could happen now. I expected that woman to fly straight out through the glass and flutter above my head. I expected a monstrous patrol of Theirs to jump out of the stairway and devour me. Or a tank, caterpillars smiling, to crawl out from around the corner and crush us. Anything could happen, but nothing happened, absolutely nothing. The sun shone like it was summer; a gust of wind drove a few yellowish leaves towards us. It was quiet, except that somewhere someone panted and moaned as if they were being strangled. I didn’t realize at first that it was Martynas.

  “Jesus, Jesus!” He finally stuttered out through his tears. “What artistic powers! I practically believed it! . . . Some Peter Brook mounts a production of Orghast at an Iraqi shrine in some invented language and thinks he’s creating great theatre art! He’s an ignoramus! A mangy dilettante. Could he have managed to mount a spectacle like this? No! I’m completely certain—no! He couldn’t get the stench! Poor Brook. Poor, naïve Brook!”

  He gasped for breath again, it seemed his laugh was a hard, choky thing that just couldn’t get through his throat—neither in nor out.

  “There’s true theater for you! There’s the art of arts! Did you see all of it? Did you feel the rhythm? Did you see those babes pushing the baby carriages? What was in them—walkie-talkies or machine guns? Have you ever dreamed of anything like that, eh, boss?”

  He fell silent, sobered up in an instant, and jumped up from the bench. He came up to me, he even stood up on his tiptoes, and, looking me straight in the eyes, spoke quietly. It seemed he was turning over every word, literally pleading with me to understand him, wanting to convey something or other to me.

  “Listen, what’s Kafka . . . What’s Orwell . . . The number of participants, the way everything was arranged . . . What a show: a member of the Politburo inspects a run-of-the-mill store . . . Where did they get all those cans from? A government hoard? . . . Go on, tell me—isn’t God a comedian of the absurd? What was that? A tragedy? A folk lament? Prometheus Bound? . . . The folk, as you saw yourself, just ran headlong to pick over the leavings, but they didn’t even get that . . . Go on, answer me, what was that?”

  “A nightmare.” I surprised myself that I could speak in a completely normal voice. “An offering to Their god, to the Shit of All Shits.”

  “What, what?”

  “It’s just a single line from the poem of universal drivel. How does it differ from the interminable speeches no one believes? How does it differ from the list of slogans for a demonstration, printed in the newspapers in advance? How does it differ from the election farce? It’s the same genre.”

  “Maybe,” Martynas suddenly backed off and gave in. “Probably. It’s just that it was a new one to me.”

  “Me too.”

  It was new to me that Their net could encompass me like this. They stuck Suslov on me, thinking I wouldn’t control myself and I’d do myself in. They decided to exchange me for a mangy, worthless kanukas magistrate. There are no coincidences in Their system. If the dragon, for no reason whatsoever, came to Vilnius, then apparently that suits the laws of pathologic. If I ran into him, then apparently that suits the laws of pathologic.

  I was overtaken by horror at these thoughts. I no longer heard what Martynas was saying; I didn’t even see the sun. I was wracked by spasms of fear. I wanted to burrow into the ground, to turn into a blind worm that no one would find, that no one cares about. It seems you can wait out danger. Lord knows, getting as far away as possible from any light whatsoever, burrowing into the earth, relentlessly attracted me. But the sun, as if on purpose, glared like crazy. They could start anything. If the slope of the mountain moved, the avalanche must surely follow; the only unknown: would it bury me, or roar on by. Identical buildings, stamped out of a duplicating machine, loomed all around, surrounding me, preventing me from breaking out into freedom. I hate the new neighborhoods. When you find yourself inside one of them, you have no idea where you’ve ended up—it could be Vilnius, or it could be any other city. In neighborhoods like that you feel like you’re in a trap. They don’t have a face, they don’t have a soul, and anything can happen in them. There are good-natured neighborhoods and angry neighborhoods, dangerous neighborhoods and dour neighborhoods. You recognize them, you have some idea of what to expect from them. But faceless neighborhoods are no different than people in whose eyes you can’t read anything. It’s no big deal to be on your guard when you see an angry spark in a person’s eyes; it’s easier to escape in time when you see a sullen threat in them. The worst is when there’s no expression at all, when the shape you simply took for a pole, a rock, or a withered tree suddenly comes to life and bares its bloody fangs. It’s worse because you’re not expecting it. After all, you can’t go around being afraid of every pole, every rock, and every withered tree.

  Now They could start in on me at any minute. I felt I was a target in a gigantic bombing range, where every shot is precisely on target. Martynas’s fussing distracted me somewhat, but I kept thinking about Their notorious schemes. When necessity compels, They aren’t choosy about the means. They can assassinate the Kennedys, even while they’re sitting in the White House. (I always felt a pang reading the news about the investigations of those infamous murders. Not just because I was sorry for John and Robert, but mostly because I knew very well that no one will ever come across the real killers. No one. Never.) They can pretend to be anything—terrorists, madmen, maniacs. They can blow up a subway train so that a single person They found inconvenient would die. Manson, who declared himself the servant of Satan, was selected for Polanski. He intentionally disguised himself as the Prince of Darkness, to turn everyone’s attention away from his true color—a complete colorlessness. They won’t even bother arranging a grand attempt for me. I’m not a Kennedy, nor even a Polanski. I’m called Vytautas Vargalys, I’m already fifty-three years old, but I am completely, utterly unknown. Although that ma
y just be what saves me. At least for the time being.

  It’s still possible to save me from myself by remembering Lolita—but not in moments of love, not when she’s surrounded in beauty, but rather in the most banal, everyday situation.

  Lolita is standing next to me, so I’m fine. She really does perform miracles. A moment ago, there was a terribly irritating desolation here, and now everything’s changing. We’re standing in a line for sausages. I cannot bear the sight—chains of sullen, exhausted figures. They stand in silence, their eyes fixed on the ground. But today I’m at peace, because Lolita is next to me. She changes the world. If she touches wilted flowers, their petals straighten out, fill with the fluids of life and start to give off a soft scent. If she pets a dog, a human expression shows up in its eyes. And now something is starting to happen to the entire store, to all the figures; they’ve raised their hanging heads—someone even cracked a joke. Decrepit, irritable old women slowly turned into lively, red-cheeked grannies. The faded, dirty curtains glistened in brighter colors and the saleswomen smiled at everyone. Everyone felt a miraculous change, but only I know the reason: Lolita changed everything.

  In front of me, a skinny old lady with a strange Russian accent wails: these Lithuanians, these damned Lithuanians! The government did the right thing when it sent them North, oh, they did the right thing! She clams up for a bit and then starts in again: those Lithuanians wrong us, oh, they wrong us! The long, gray hairs on her upper lip quiver like petals tossed by the wind. I’m sorry for the old lady; I’d like to help her somehow. She’s a poor thing, it’s not her fault: she ended up here, this isn’t the place for her—maybe her children dragged her along with them. She can’t get used to different people and a different lifestyle, and her poisoned brains don’t help her any—unless by whispering to her that a good government would send all the Lithuanians to hell, so they wouldn’t get in her way. But she’s not to blame; it’s the fault of the kanukai magistrates, the dragon Suslov most of all. Poor old lady, I think, and I smile, because I think of how I would perceive her if Lolita wasn’t next to me: that disgusting Stalinist witch with gaping lips, seething with murderous ideas, quivering with lust the moment she can destroy someone. But, thank God, Lolita is standing next to me, so the old lady slowly calms down, stops whining, turns to me and gently asks: tell me, my son, what kind of sausage did they bring today—is it for two-twenty or two-eighty, I can’t make it out.

  Shortly we’ll separate, but after an hour or two we’ll meet again—maybe at my place, or maybe in the streets of Vilnius. The two of us have allocated the streets and squares according to mood: Cathedral Square when we’re a bit tired, but not irritable; the square by City Hall—nervous but promising fulfillment; University Square—thoughtful and in the mood to reveal secrets. We don’t even discuss where and when to meet, we’ll both sense the time and the place, neither one of us will have to wait. It’s a shame that a person has to eat, to sleep, to carry out incomprehensible duties; just walking through Vilnius with Lolita, going from one street to another, from one mood to another, would be perfect. That would really be living—the two of us and the streets: from one street to another, from one mood to another, from one dream to another, from one old hurt to another, from one renewal to another . . . That would really be living . . .

  But the only certain thing in my life now is fear. I stepped over the last boundary a long time ago. Up until that evening I had still hoped for something. I remember I was over at Martynas’s; he was driving me nuts with his television. An important basketball game was on, but I was in constant fear that a talking kanukas head was going to leap out onto the screen. Half of Lithuania was waiting for a crucial move on the part of the Zalgiris team; Martynas jumped up and down in his chair with every shot, while completely unexceptional things were happening on screen. It could have been predicted in advance. Zalgiris needed only one last step, but the basketball players, unfortunately, were Lithuanians too; at the very last second they were losing—hopelessly and completely idiotically. Martynas chewed his nails and cursed in Russian, while I thought about the Darius and Girenas complex, our age-old complex, originated by Vytautas the Great when he lost the Lithuanian crown at the very last moment, when everything, it seemed, had already almost happened. It really is our authentic complex; it’s not borrowed from anyone. It was exactly the same with Darius and Girenas flying across the Atlantic first—they did everything, heroically overcame all the difficulties, and smashed into the ground three steps away from home. The basketball players acted exactly the same way now—they had flown over their own Atlantic, overcome all the difficulties, and suddenly lacked the spirit one step away from the goal. We all lose our crown at the last minute; we always smash into the ground three steps from home. That’s the misfortune of our fate.

  They announced a timeout, and a talking head really did show up on the screen. In my surprise I didn’t even turn off the television. I recognized the long face with the bristling eyebrows and the uneven, piercing gaze of the eyes: it was Stepanas Walleye, nicknamed Carp, my talisman, my great hope, the symbol of human resistance. I was at a loss for words; I thought—maybe they mixed up the programs, maybe by mistake some other program’s sound track was connected. I watched Carp’s lips hopefully, but their movements matched the text. It couldn’t be; all my guts, filled with that long face, told me it couldn’t be. It could be anyone else—just not Carp, not walleyed Stepanas! But it was him. It seemed I had turned up in a world where rabbits devour snakes, flowers fly from bee to bee, and stars shine brightly in the middle of the day.

  “The new Party Plenum’s resolutions,” Carp’s low voice monotonously intoned, “express the deep hopes and wishes of the working people. We, the working people, indubitably know that the Party always was, and always will be, the conscience and wisdom of our epoch. We will greet the new resolutions with even greater triumphs of work and creative achievements.”

  I knew he couldn’t be saying words like that. I knew that any minute he would turn around, wink at me, and say: that’s how carp talk, now listen to how real people talk. But he didn’t stop talking; he just changed the subject for some reason:

  “Yes, I have had to go through this hell. Not a single criminal should elude the retribution he deserves. Reactionary regimes hiding those who had a hand in the horrors of the Fascist concentration camps commit crimes against humanity. As a former prisoner at Auschwitz, I agree with our government’s appeal with particular zeal.”

  “What is he talking about?” I asked, totally at a loss.

  “They’ve found another escaped Auschwitz participant in Paraguay,” Martynas answered. “We, as the most humanitarian country in the world, hasten to lodge a protest.”

  The eyelid of Carp’s walleye twitched—that hadn’t changed in over thirty years. The last time I saw him in the camp, he was in a pit where we used to dig gravel. He stood there, huge and run-down, with his head bloodied, staggering heavily, and, coughing blood, spit out through his teeth:

  “Never! Never! Remember, guys: never!”

  And now Carp, my sacred hope, my talisman, sat inside the television set and babbled something in the language that brings on despair, the language that has nothing in common either with the Russian language or in general with whatever human language: the drab jargon of the kanukai, which speaks itself, without a human being, in incomprehensible words of satanic absurdity. It seemed to me that I had seen Carp just this morning, passing under the library’s windows; just this morning I had prayed to his soul like it was some kind of holy relic.

  In the camp he was a symbol of the resistance of the spirit to me; I feasted upon it, it kept me alive! These were always his words: they can eat me alive, but they’ll never break me! Never! I’m invincible! I’ll never say out loud that they’re right! Never!

  He held out against what no human could—even Bolius didn’t have the strength to hold out. And now Carp had perished. He betrayed not just my faith in him, but even his own church.r />
  They had destroyed even Carp! Neither Auschwitz nor our zone boss had overcome him, but the calm, soulless stare of Vilnius finished him off.

  That was yet another direct warning to me: no one, but no one, holds out against Them!

  It’s a rule of Theirs that’s cast in stone. They always finish their work to the very end; They don’t lose their crown at the last minute. It’s a matter of Their honor that Stepanas Walleye be the one to sit himself down in front of the television cameras. Just about anybody could have been planted there; someone who hadn’t languished in any forced labor camp, or someone who had sat in Auschwitz but hadn’t afterwards stumbled into the Soviet meat grinder (if there are such people at all). Someone who had languished in both places, but had always been and always would remain blind, would have sufficed too. But this couldn’t have satisfied Them. It was precisely Carp who was needed. It had to be him, Stepanas Walleye. He was precisely the one who had to publicly honor the cancer that had eaten him up. I clearly understood that only this could be enough. Only a complete, universal grayness, voiceless birds, exterminated bees, and blind swallows with their wings ripped off could satisfy Them.