Vilnius Poker

  A short-cropped little head! I fruitlessly try to remember the expression of Beta’s eyes and the expression of that other’s eyes, the face of that little parasite in the dimness between the bookshelves. It seems to me that Beta sees my hand; could it be her brain isn’t frozen? I shake all over, but I can’t manage to conquer myself. I carefully pull her skirt up even higher, push it entirely to the side. Nothing happens. I carefully stick my fingers behind her underpants and waistband. And nothing happens. I pull the elastic towards me, I wait for Beta to suddenly shriek, or fall over, or crumble into dust, or . . . But absolutely nothing happens. She stands there like she’s planted to the spot. I quickly glance downwards—thick hair luxuriates under her panties. Apparently everything is in order, but the devil keeps pushing my hand; I let my fingers in deeper still, slide them between the lips, and grasp a rather large, slippery clitoris.

  I pull my hand out like it’s been burned and leap out into the corridor. Only now do I realize my forehead’s covered in sweat, my heart is pounding, and my hands are shaking. And Beta, with her skirt turned to the side and her underpants pulled down, still stands before my eyes. What will she think when she wakes up? If she wakes up at all.

  This is better than reading someone’s diary. In a diary you can lie to yourself, but here everything is the way it is. I had to check Beta out, I stubbornly confirm to myself, but my thoughts go in an entirely different direction. I can do whatever I want. I can intrude anywhere. Perhaps I can even come across Their hiding place.

  My arms go numb down to my very fingertips; I reel as I walk, as if I had forgotten how to. No objective invites me forward, nor backward, nor to the side. As if in a dream, I step into a darkened stairway. I stumble up the stairs; I rattle the doorknobs one after another. The third or fourth opens up; I end up in a large room that is jammed full of furniture. A sickly young man stands with his hands raised dramatically; the open mouth of his distorted face looks like a doorway to hell. A woman with a frightened face sits next to a round table. She’s considerably older than he is, but she’s too young to be his mother. Her hands are knitted together; the fingers of the right are nearly breaking the fingers of the left. But most expressive of all are her eyes: I plainly hear the horrible, inadmissible words of the sickly man reflected at the bottom of the woman’s eyes, and I also see suffering and contempt. She was horribly frightened at his words, but suddenly her depths flushed with contempt and disgust, that he had dared to say what he had said. A neurotic lover with a mother complex? A disgusting jealous scene? Or maybe a brother who called his sister a slut, or who cursed her for his ruined life, having found the guilty party at last? The frozen instant of a stranger’s time doesn’t want to give anything away; I see only as much as I can wrest from it by force. I won’t guess anything more, even if I were to dawdle here for hours. I quietly close the door and rattle more doorknobs. Yet another unlocked apartment, squalid and decorated with unmatched furniture whose colors clash. The trashed little hallway table is on its last legs; the corners of the shoe rack are battered and greasy papers are scattered on top of it. At the end of the corridor, a first grader with a shaven head is fixed to the keyhole, his thighs pressed together and one foot stepping on the other. A long string of saliva drips from the boy’s protruding tongue, which he has bitten in suspense. I carefully push open the door to the room and nearly cry out, I even recoil. Looking straight at me is a girl’s distorted face, covered in sweat and as pale as if strewn with chalk dust. It’s a corpse’s face—only by gathering all of my strength do I calm myself. She’s alive and isn’t about to die, but she looks like an embalmed corpse. Black circles under the eyes, lips crookedly pressed together, hollow cheeks. She stares at me shamelessly and angrily. The grubby, contemptuous corpse’s face is horribly incongruous with the rest of the scene; for a long time I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She smirks, her head thrown indifferently to the side, while a broad-shouldered, curly-haired, bandit-faced little bull has fallen upon her with his entire body, pressing her into the very corner of the sofa. There are no smells here, but nevertheless I sense how he reeks of vodka. The girl’s bent legs stick out from both the man’s sides—they are pale and bloodless, like some strange growths that don’t belong to her. But it’s her hands, dug into the lover’s neck, that are the most shocking. Nails caked with dirt, black dirty half-moons and peeling pink polish. I move clumsily, catching the head of the young spectator; his skull rings like an empty clay pitcher. His eyes are narrowed in horror and satisfaction; the thread of saliva continues to hang as it was. The girl’s eyes look at me without turning away; she looks like someone who has unexpectedly bit into a peppercorn.

  Only out in the street do I remember that I left all the doors open. I cough as if I’m trying to retch. Something stirs in my chest, my ears ring; suddenly I feel drawn to Lolita’s place. I’ve known what I want for a long time. I want to see Lolita rooted to the spot. I’ve always wanted that. I’ve always wanted to secretly observe her from the sidelines. I cannot reconcile myself to the thought that sometimes she is by herself, that she no longer belongs to me. That she can do things I’ll never find out about. I crave, I desperately crave to take her by surprise, the way death takes us by surprise. I want to find Lolita frozen stiff, sprawled under someone’s body. To find her inert, unable to either deceive me or hide herself. I wouldn’t touch her, I wouldn’t do anything to her. I just want to catch her, to see everything in secret, under cover. There’s just one thing I want—to know everything.

  If Vilnius isn’t going to move, I’m not going to be able to take it much longer. Frozen Vilnius invites me, begs me, to a festival of insanity. A person never answers for his thoughts, but in this inert Vilnius he begins to no longer answer for his actions, either. I really am dying to visit her and clarify her betrayal. I want her to deceive me. I would be disappointed if she would simply be sitting in an armchair.

  But what if she’s moving too?

  But no, probably not. I remember her husband’s studio, her strange pose and the pigeon momentarily frozen in flight. She didn’t move then, so she shouldn’t move now, either; she’s the same as the others. I would feel it, if she were moving.

  No, nothing moves. On the other side of the avenue is the motionless Conservatory, next to it is Vilnius’s cheeriest house—its doors are flung open; a fat little kanukas with a puffy face got stuck in the doorway. I won’t go inside, really I won’t, I’ll just look at him from close up. The little kanukas looks like an animatrontic doll. I squeeze by his protruding belly, but I stop, afraid again, just inside the door. It’s been a long time since I last visited here. Would I still find my cell? The stairs invite me to climb them, but the offices don’t interest me. The guard by the door, his petrified finger jammed up his nose, isn’t of interest, either.

  Why on earth did I come in here? Maybe They are intentionally trying to lure me here? I’ll descend to the basement and a flat-faced kanukas, with a pale smile and swollen fingers that bend every which way, will be waiting for me. But the more fearful I get, the faster I move forward. Only a fool could fear that They would set such idiotic traps. Something much worse has long since been arranged for me, so for that very reason there are many things I don’t have to be afraid of.

  I came here the same way others go to a sacred place of their childhood or youth: to the lone hundred-year-old oak on their native homestead, or to their parents’ graves. I could probably shed a tear, or simply remember who knows what—an undefined quivering fog, the haze of an existent or non-existent longing. But actually, this is a just business, an office like any other office, although it’s true the basement windows are barred.

  I angrily rattle the doorknobs, try to push the bolts, but even today it’s not my destiny to go inside or to change anything here. I can only look through the little windows in the doors; I hope to see nothing but empty rooms and the indifferent walls of the cells. Only the very first one is empty. In the next one I see a raw-boned, gray-haired man standi
ng in a yoga position on his head; it seems he’s stood there like that for a hundred years and will stand there until the end of time. His face is completely expressionless. He’s wearing a suit that doesn’t stand out; every other Vilniutian could be wearing one like that. Who is he? A refractory suspect, or a lieutenant who had decided to relax in his own particular way? His inertness is particularly shocking. The people petrified in the streets look somewhat alive in spite of it all, but this one, it seems, never did move. All of the observation windows are the same, only the view inside them changes like a kaleidoscope; I don’t even manage to check the faces out carefully. I’m in a hurry, all of Vilnius still awaits me. A man with a horsey face and a remarkably thin neck stares at the bars, an arm outstretched, as if he were preparing to rip the bars out with a single yank. A hollow-cheeked woman with neurotic features who looks like a drug addict stands in a corner, her blouse unbuttoned to the waist, both hands stuffed under her arms as if she were trying to pull her guts out. In a large cell, children concentrating on arranging toys have come to a complete standstill. How did they get here? What are they doing here? Their faces are unnaturally aged and much too serious. They can’t really be prisoners too? Or maybe this is a secret school for born agents, agents from the cradle? In yet another cell sits a large, beautiful dog, a brown and white collie. He sits majestically on the bunk and looks at the ceiling. I don’t even try to understand what that means; I keep hurrying on, something is driving me forward. One of the cells holds an aquarium: the seaweed is frozen, and huge lethargic fish hang motionless in the water; the bubbles are woven together like beads in a necklace. I hurry forward, only forward. The scenes grow confused, at intervals it seems as if all space is divided into myriad squares, out of which constantly changing images look at me. The ever more protuberant eyes of large-headed children. Pale women’s lips ever more distorted in passion. Monsters without faces, only gigantic orbs—perhaps a special variety of kanukas. The corridor bends in the form of a horseshoe, although earlier it seemed straight. It leads back to the beginning, to the first, empty cell (although maybe it’s some other empty cell), which waits for me. But it won’t see me—once again I squeeze past the fat slob stuck in the doorway, once again I make my way down the avenue. I suddenly realize how sick I feel. Really sick.

  Vilnius has stopped. Now I don’t just see it, now I even smell that inertness; I sense its petrified taste. But it wouldn’t suffice to close your eyes and pinch your nose shut. Immobile Vilnius has penetrated into every one of my cells, into every nerve. It will remain inside me forever, I will always know that it stopped—even if I’ll see a bustling throng and smell the stench of gasoline and sweat . . . Even if I hear human speech . . . Everything has penetrated much too deeply inside me: the inert dusty leaves of the lindens . . . and the petrified statues in strange poses . . . Shout at them as much as you want. Shriek. Tear around . . . But they won’t budge . . . The great power of movement has vanished . . . Vilnius Syndrome eats away at them . . . The bug of Kovarskis’s disease eats away at them . . . They’re helpless—and I’m helpless too, even though I’m still moving. I’m still alive. God knows how much I’d like to rouse them . . . God has to exist, if only to see this . . . How badly I want it! . . . How I crave it! . . . Move! Wake up! Burn the Vilnius syndrome out of yourselves . . .

  God knows how much I want to stroke that long-nosed girl over there. To push those three children forward . . . To turn the branches of that linden to the sun . . . Let me be unseen and undetectable . . . Let me not exist at all . . . But you, move . . . Wake up! . . . There’s just one thing I want to ask: is anyone else moving? Show him to me. I know that he must exist. I know that he is.

  What one person has experienced, someone else surely must have experienced too. Somewhere there really is another Vytautas Vargalys (not necessarily named Vytautas Vargalys). Somewhere there is this person, living in his own Vilnius (it’s not necessarily called Vilnius). Somewhere there is at least one person like that (many people like that), who, at this very moment, is walking the streets of Vilnius. Somewhere, perhaps in his mother’s womb, hides the one who will come after me.

  I know what everyone who is moving now is asking, because I’m asking the same thing: have They frozen in place too? Could I catch Them unawares—like those women, those men and children, and the trees, and the monsters, and the fish, and the streets, and the air, and the water, and . . . And everything else under the sun, because all of Vilnius (all the world) has come to a stop, only I move and every instant I grow ever older. I grow ever older . . . I remember something, I remember something, but it’s maddeningly vague: if you want to awaken those sleeping for eternity, you need to kiss somebody . . . or stroke somebody (like that long-nosed girl there?) . . . Or make love to somebody . . . or . . .

  But who could I kiss HERE—save perhaps the short, stumpy, and powerless phallus of Vilnius?

  The frozen avenue looks downwards, towards Old Town, towards Their lair. I’m not walking on the street—I’m walking on the back of a corpse. Perhaps they’ll never awaken—I chase this thought aside, but it won’t retreat. The wind froze, the sky clouded over, the earth no longer breathed—I vaguely recall an old manuscript I read not so long ago. The wind froze, the sky clouded over, cows no longer brought forth calves, nor sheep lambs. Women no longer gave birth to children and water no longer flowed in the river, because all the gods had abandoned the world and nothing could change anymore. But what happened next? What solution did the manuscript offer? The frozen statues push me to the wall, to the avenue’s bricks; even in their lifeless condition they try to block my way. A heavy woman with a red face. Three drunk guys with their chests bared. The same city, the same figures, but every single thing is sterile and dead, like inside Kovarskis’s morgue. But a city should be shaken by convulsions before death. Stinking currents should pour out from the sewers, the Neris should flood its banks, the drowned words should come up to the surface of its waters at last.

  The statues and the trees, the belfry of the cathedral and the square, every single thing slides by my eyes; suddenly I grasp that I’m walking along calmly, as always. Vilnius stands still, as always. It’s locked in paralysis, as always. The corpse of corpses, as always. Perhaps only the worms inside its guts are still moving.

  By now I’m standing in front of the Narutis; a hunched-over old lady with a basket in her hands had set one foot on the sidewalk, carefully climbing down the stairs from the delicatessen. Two staggering red-nosed men had stiffened and were leaning in opposite directions, seemingly dancing an unearthly dance. A blond-haired child, dressed up as if for a parade, inquisitively stretched a hand towards a dirty rag. I turn into the courtyard and my heart throbs with a surprising fear. The first ones wait here. Even when they’re frozen stiff I’m afraid of them. Two of them stand together, pressed together conspiratorially, as if they had been lying in wait for me for some time now. Their straw-colored hair looks like it’s glued to their skulls; their eyes look right at me but see nothing. What should I do? Smash their heads open? Destroy them one at a time? The same way I could smash cockroaches one at a time, hoping to overcome them.

  I go past the straw-haired kanukai; I even bump them with my elbow, and nothing happens. I slip over to the courtyard’s stone well, and nothing happens. I look over the walled-over ancient stairwell; I even touch the bricks with my hand. And nothing, absolutely nothing, happens. My arms and legs are wracked with pains, with my entire body I sense I’ll never escape from here, but I won’t retreat either, not until I have come to the very end.

  Isn’t this where I’ve been going all my life? Isn’t it my Way that led me here? I press my ear to the brick wall and listen carefully. I’d rather pretend, I’d rather not hear it, but all that remains is to be truthful: I plainly hear the throbbing of a gigantic heart.

  That’s not how Vilnius’s heart beats; no real heart beats that way. Only the poisonous heart of Vilnius’s Basilisk could thump like that. I’ve cornered it at last.
I’ve come like a warrior to cut off its head, but I don’t have a sword. But that’s not what matters. I will overcome it. Man is invincible.

  “And just exactly what are you looking for?” asks a loud, clear voice.

  At first I thought I was hallucinating. Unfortunately, it’s for real: a woman, her head wrapped in a heavy tawny scarf, glares at me intently. That’s all. The Basilisk escaped, leaving me with a perfectly ordinary Old Town slut. Startled, I glance towards the street. The Indian summer sun is shining there; sparrows hop by on the sidewalk. A fleshy, mean-eyed old woman turns a bag of garbage right onto the heads of some scrawny cats. Vilnius is moving again. It’s alive again. I step forward, inhaling a full chest of air, but the farther I go, the slower my steps become. They had lured me right up to the threshold of the secret, and cheated me at the last minute. I’m a genuine Lithuanian: I smashed into the ground a step away from the final goal.

  Suddenly I turn around and manage to catch sight of a pudgy little face, with beady little eyes, jumping back from the window. I’ve been caught. They understood everything. I have stepped outside the safety zone; now I will have to pay dearly for it all. I still manage to creep into the street and turn a corner, where my strength gives way altogether. I lean against the wall and fumble for a cigarette. I’m a corpse already. It’s weird to feel like a corpse. I see neither people nor the rumbling cars; I sense no smells. They certainly won’t let me go now. I’m dead. There’s only one thing I repeat to myself: you must not lose your cool. A calm, sound mind. That’s what matters most. A sound mind and sober analysis always saved me.