Vilnius Poker

by Ricardas Gavelis

  I expected a start or a smile, I expected what she would say, knowing full well that I would sense deceit immediately. There was a great deal I expected, but not what happened. She suddenly bared her teeth like a trapped wild beast and pressed herself into the corner. She didn’t even try to feign anything; she had been caught too suddenly. She furiously shot her eyes to the sides, but I had blocked her path. Unexpectedly, her lips distorted into a pale smile. The short-cropped little head of hair turned coquettishly to the side, but the veins in her neck immediately tensed up again. She hunched her back and fixed her stare on my face. It seemed someone had whipped me in the eyes with a switch. The shadow of a smile on her lips vanished; she firmly planted her feet on the floor and leaned forward. That young, pleasant girl turned into the twin sister of the neckless spiderman, the ruler of the Narutis quarter. The pupils of her large grey eyes widened, and I couldn’t pull my gaze away from them; I felt a lazy warmth flowing over my chest; my legs and arms began to melt. The corners of her lips turned upwards, instantly changing her face into a doughy mask. She took control of me; I stood there as if I had been turned to stone, I couldn’t even budge. I suddenly forgot everything I had wanted to do. Her face slowly paled, her cheeks sank in, her firmly pressed lips lost their color. It seemed she was insistently sucking something in, siphoning something into herself with all her might. Barely visible barbs emerged from her eyes and pierced my numb arms and legs. A lazy, sticky warmth flooded over my entire body; I wanted to sit down and rest. I was a traveler who had walked a thousand steps, I needed to sit down and rest. Agile little fingers intruded into my guts, into my kidneys, gently caressed the most secret, most sensitive places. I saw a dull, bloodless smile on her face; I wanted to smile too. After all, the two of us were good friends. All of my fury was silly and unnecessary. She was my friend, and at the same time my ruler. The gentle but tenacious little fingers penetrated deeper and deeper, I felt good, better and better all the time. It always feels good to obey—to obey and to humble oneself, to dissolve in another’s will.

  A book plopped to the floor unexpectedly and released me. It seem­ed someone had pulled it off the shelf and hurled it down. Vaiva gave a start and scowled to the side, momentarily releasing me from the grip of her stare. A cold wave of sobriety washed over my head. I was still alive. I had met a disgusting octopus in the shape of a girl. Straining, she stood opposite me and attempted to injure me with a sharp, biting glance. I saw her unevenly lit pale face quite well. An unnatural face—there wasn’t even the tiniest wrinkle on it. The gray skin was smooth, dull, and lifeless. She moved her completely narrowed, bloodless lips convulsively, as if she wanted to suck in all of the air in the library and thereby suffocate me. She rolled her eyes hopelessly, trying to stab me with her glance’s barbs. She was powerless and revolting; she had finally and irrevocably given herself away. I had sidestepped her kanukish tricks; I was saved by the book falling to the floor with a crash.

  Now I stand, trapping her in the dead-end corridor, and attentively follow her barbed eyes. Now the lamp with the colorless shade slowly sways, the lines of the shadows intertwine, crossing over and shoving one another aside. I feel horror rising inside me; I feel how my legs and arms slowly come back to life. By now I know what I will shortly do; by now I know why I slowly snuck over here and what must be uncovered. Now I am her ruler; I have triumphed. She stabs me with her barbed pupils, futilely seeks extra support for her feet, but her spectral efforts are in vain. I feel the strength in every tiny muscle, and most importantly—I feel how my brain has freed and focused itself. I see every wrinkle in her short skirt, her knees pressed together: she curls up her left leg, as if trying to hold up some thing falling from her crotch. I could crush her with a single look, reckon with her for this evening’s nightmare, for the hideous change. It was she who oppressed me from afar, who wanted to turn me into a bat, a jellyfish, a cockroach. Now she turns her eyes away, now she’s afraid; she knows there’s no help coming.

  I have the urge to tear her into pieces, to pull off her arms and legs, to fling the bloody pieces in all directions. She intruded on my world, broke into it by deceit, at a time when I particularly hungered for help. But she fell into her own trap. No punishment would be enough for her. My hands reach for her throat of their own accord, sweat beads up on my forehead, and below my belly a hard lump writhes. I have pressed her shoulders; I didn’t press them hard, I was just trying it out. She finally raises her eyes, which are brimming with horror, but immediately cowers again—now she’s the one who is cowering! Her body goes limp and surrenders. She doesn’t dare to oppose me; she doesn’t defend herself with either words or movements. I can no longer stop my hands; they let go of the stiffened shoulder blades and slide heavily down the sloping shoulders. I see the sweater’s buttons fly to the floor, I see the smooth skin uncovered to the breasts. Only then do I understand what I must do.

  Calmly, I pull off the camisole and bra straps; she tries to get away, but my hands are firm, she is in my power. With gusto I clean her body of its layer of deceitful clothes, she struggles and writhes, red indentations remain on her back from the shelves, and there are blue circles from my fingers on her shoulders, but the more pleadingly she looks at me, the more my fury boils. I know what I’ll shortly see: withered breasts with multiple layers of disgusting folds and lumps on a deformed belly, those familiar abominations with which Their bodies are marked. I’ve already seen the body of a woman like that, I came to know it very well; soon I’ll be disgusted again by one just like it. I’ve torn the last scraps off her torso, she’s still curling her left foot up, the skirt writhes as if it’s alive, but at the moment I’m more concerned by what’s above it.

  I pull back to see better, because she covers herself with her chin and shoulders, now I see it—I don’t believe my eyes, but I see—she stands in front of me naked to the waist, breathing hard through her mouth with her arms lowered helplessly. But I search in vain with my eyes for what I expected, in vain I widen my pupils, blink and want to wipe my tearing eyes. I don’t see the slightest sign of abominations; her skin is smooth and soft, the firm young breasts tremble in agitation, the small dark nipples stick out to the sides, and the smooth, slender stomach heaves heavily. Unable to restrain myself, I touch it: I don’t believe my other senses. It can’t be: I stroke and squeeze the soft breasts, still naïvely hoping they’re artificial, buttoned on, stuffed. She winces terribly at every touch; I finger the skin under the breasts, I search for scars, the marks of an operation or something similar. It’s hopeless, it’s all hopeless; I audibly release a breath, it’s gone musty in my lungs during that long moment. Everything was so clear, so absolutely clear—but suddenly everything fell apart. What have I done?

  Now I stand in front of her like I’ve been struck by lightning. I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, it can’t be! I look at her, my eyes widened; I look at what she’s hiding with her curled-up left leg. I remember the globs of flesh between Irena’s thighs, I remember the wrinkles and the stinking abscesses, that image crashes mercilessly into my brain—I no longer control my hands; they grab her again, tear the short skirt aside, pull and rip off the stockings, losing all reason, all patience. I must hurry, because a horrible doubt keeps escalating, and I don’t want to go there. She writhes and struggles like a fury, squeezing my hand with her knees, it seems I hear breaking bones. I must hurry, because the doubt keeps growing, by now it’s bigger than I am, the stronger it is, the more furiously I tear at her clothes and skin, she defends herself like mad, I brutally twist her arms and push her knees apart. And the hideous doubt keeps getting closer, it’s no longer doubt, but reality: of all her clothes, only pale blue lacy underpants remain, and I see, I feel with my hand, nothing but turned, polished thighs with a soft nap, they’re long and graceful, I have nowhere to hide anymore, I see, ever more plainly, that I have done something insane. Her nearly naked body thrashes, squirms out of my hands, my eyes are covered in a red veil, because I have done
something insane, I don’t even dare to think of what will happen next. I cannot stop, because I cannot admit I’ve done something insane, the triangle of blue lacy underpants still remains, under it I’ll find the answer, surely I will find the answer of all answers. It’s there! I lift her from the ground, bend her in half, but she still presses her knees together, I can’t tear off the blue barrier guarding the bottom of her belly, but I must do it, I want to do it, I want to find, to take her vagina, she’s entirely in my power, all that’s left is to enter her, I want that, I want it, no one will get in my way. Totally insane, I rip off the underpants, sling the remnants aside and wait, totally at a loss: something has gone wrong here, something has fallen apart. There is no vagina; there is nothing there! The body in my hands suddenly goes limp, turns slack, I pull out my convulsively curled fingers, then, not believing it, stick them into her crotch again. That is where the answer is. I let go of that doll-like body, set it on the floor; it stands there like a statue, even though just now it struggled and raged.

  She stands and looks at me with complete indifference. I still don’t want to believe it; I wait for something to change, even though I clearly see everything in front of my eyes, even though I just now felt of it with damp, trembling fingers. The lamp with its colorless shade has stopped swaying; it illuminates everything with a lifeless light. She stands in front of me, disgustingly bent over; I don’t want to see it, but all the same my glance slides down her smooth belly until it reaches the long, slender thighs. Trembling, my hand stretches out, the fingers slide sluggishly between her legs, and Vaiva (or how would you call her?) nonchalantly crooks her thighs, letting my hand in. Once more I see, once more I feel it with my palm, once more I realize: she has no vagina, no labia, no mound of Venus, no pubic hair. Everywhere there is smooth, shining skin—like a plastic doll’s. My head feels slightly dizzy and I desperately want a drink. All of my phobias, fury, and rage have disappeared. Casually, sickeningly, she squirms out of my hands and squeezes by me. I quickly recoil: now I’m afraid to touch her, I don’t even want to look at her, because she’s not human, she is something else. I want a drink something awful. The book that saved me lies under my feet, I pick it up and vainly search for a title—there isn’t one anywhere. The binding is leather with an impressed ornament, and then the text starts up immediately—in Italian, it seems. A nameless Italian book.

  Of course, Vaiva (or how would you call her?) didn’t show up again. I knew it was hopeless to search for her traces, but I checked, anyway. Her documentation had vanished; no one knew where it had disappeared to. The number of the building on Minties Street she had given for her address had never existed. I quietly rejoiced at avoiding the danger, until I realized a simple thing: she hadn’t been sent accidentally. They had come across my traces; only God knows what information the pseudo-Vaiva had managed to collect. At the very least, They now knew for sure that I was secretly looking for information about Their activities. It was just that They hadn’t grasped what I had already found.

  I was stunned by that body, by that unearthly doll made of flesh and bone—almost like that of a human’s. In my mind I arranged and adjusted all of the details of her behavior, but I found nothing peculiar in them, nothing provocative. That ideal mimicry was intimidating; it nearly drove me out of my mind—it’s terrible to trust no one, to suspect every last person. I couldn’t get used to it, probably I eventually would have had a nervous breakdown, but this time Stefa came to my aid. She had anxiously followed my Donjuaniad with Vaiva; it seemed to me that she breathed a sigh of relief when she disappeared. And immediately, without a pause, she shoved me into the very midst of the kanukai. One gloomy morning she brought an elderly gray-haired man into my office. An expensive suit and a markedly correct pronunciation immediately gave him away as a stranger; he reminded me of a foreign diplomat. I chatted with him about the weather for some ten minutes before I realized it was Vasilis sitting opposite me. The eccentric Vasilis from the hut in the swamp, the sorcerer Vasilis, who understood the language of birds. I still hadn’t managed to collect my wits when he finished me off completely: he cold-bloodedly explained he had come to Vilnius to attend Stadniukas’s funeral.

  Thank God, I was too exhausted and too dim-witted to feel all of that news’ absurd menace to the hilt.

  Stadniukas the scab, Stadniukas the pervert, Stadniukas the executioner, who had lived like a gentleman for all those years practically next door to me in the Executive Committee Building, had just now died. He wasn’t struck by lightning, he didn’t burn in the fires of hell; he expired peacefully in his bed! Both of us walked the same sidewalks, probably passed each other a hundred times, and I didn’t see, didn’t hear, didn’t smell him! This can only happen in Vilnius, only Vilnius can hide a person that way for years upon years!

  “You should have your eyes burned out . . .”

  “Burn his pecker . . .”

  “Shit on peas, shit on beans . . .”

  Sralin twitches his mustaches in the frame, and the nostrilly face flies around you. He minces and giggles, shitty Russkie NKVD.

  I got so wrapped up in disconnected memories of Stadniukas that I almost wasn’t surprised at the miracle worker Vasilis. The nearly seventy-year-old looked my age at the very most. The dumb wizard spoke a foreign language fluently. The hermit of the swamps paraded his aristocratic manners.

  He was terribly suspect. What did he show up here for? Why just now? I looked at his infernal eyes and had no idea of how I should act.

  “You don’t resemble either your father or grandfather,” Vasilis observ­ed calmly. “All the Vargalyses are very different. I know the Vargalyses well, better than they know themselves. After all, I’m writing a history of the Vargalys family.”

  “Where is it?” I went pale.

  “In my head. In this world, there’s no sense in trusting everything to a piece of paper.”

  Those words miraculously calmed me. I felt that Vasilis was one of my own. We prepared to go to Stadniukas’s funeral together. Vasilis ponderously explained why it was not to be missed on any account.

  “In attempting to understand certain people,” he lectured me, “I decided that the drab spirit of the swamp reigns in their heads. The name means nothing; all that matters is that it’s an evil spirit. Without question Stadniukas was beset by that spirit to an unusual degree. I believe when a person like that dies, the swamp ought to give an important sign.”

  I wasn’t mistaken—Vasilis was one of my own. As if I had lost my mind, I threw all sorts of hints at him, and nearly spoke up about Them. Thank God, he was more sensible than I. He said what he could say, and clammed up like he’d been sewn shut. He really was one of my own.

  At the funeral I stared more at those who had gathered than at the coffin, uncovered according to the Russian custom. Even now I hate the expression of Stadniukas’s face, his thin, predatory nostrils. I was afraid that if I stared enough at his mug, I could attack it and tear it into pieces, or even worse—get even with him, an eye for an eye—unbutton his fly and rip out all of that stinking seed of evil. In those days I could have done anything.

  Groups of NKVD agents had gathered at the graveyard—all of them outfitted in civilian clothes, but they couldn’t, after all, change their eyes and faces. We stood a bit farther off; Vasilis watched the coffin with infinite concentration. The oppressive burial speeches came to an end; in them, the murder of innocent children was called a battle for the Communist cause, and denunciations—the embodiment of the highest morals. The refined sadist Stadniukas flew out of them as half angel, half holy martyr. It seemed to me that after every speech he got more and more bloated, the kanukai’s hypocritical words penetrated into the rotten body through the ears and nostrils; they exploded Stadniukas’s remains from within. By now the gravediggers had raised the coffin lid and grabbed for their hammers. The disappointment on Vasilis’s face grew ever more obvious. Even I fixed my eyes on the corpse. The body was swollen to nearly triple its size; a black
steam seemed to rise from it. The gravediggers attempted to close the coffin, but the swollen body resisted.

  And at last, what Vasilis and I had come for happened. Stadniukas’s long head suddenly broke off like an overripe pear; a black, sticky gruel flowed out of the crack over the entire face. I gave a hoarse cry, while Vasilis only grew more engrossed, straining in his effort to avoid missing the slightest detail.

  I got a good look at the attendees’ reaction. The gravediggers, acting as though nothing was the matter, closed the lid and pressed it down, even throwing themselves on top of it. There was no trace of Stadniukas left, only black steam continued to rise from the cracks in the coffin. The disguised NKVD agents pretended that absolutely nothing had happened. However, they gave themselves away; they had all, to a man, seen everything: for a brief instant their flat faces distorted, and terror flashed in their pupil-less eyes. But just for a brief moment: a second later they again stood there as if nothing was going on—full and satisfied, overflowing with self-satisfaction. Only one undersized gray-haired figure looked completely done in, but not because of Stadniukas: he kept cowering and glancing at me.

  I had seen him somewhere before, but I didn’t have the time to think about him. Vasilis was all that interested me. He cleared his throat in satisfaction and immediately turned to leave the graveyard. I barely managed to keep up with him. I didn’t say anything, but my face and my eyes screamed and yelled: he couldn’t have misunderstood my question.

  “You saw it all yourself,” Vasilis maintained his remarkable restraint to the end. “What more is there to say?”