By the way, about Lolita’s legs and other body parts. Call her a slut straight out, if you’re more comfortable with that, if you think it’s worth calling a person a slut just because he sells his body and not his soul, as is customary. But you will seem particularly old-fashioned—in these times of greater or lesser sexual freedom, a concept like that has no meaning whatsoever. Besides, she wasn’t a slut at all. She didn’t even look seductive. Maybe that’s why she sought to sleep with every man worth the attention. Furthermore, I wouldn’t say that she liked this change of partners all that much. It seemed to me she expressed her spite and contempt for men that way. She’d seduce them, and then kick them aside. They’d get a taste of what it’s like to be no more than a defenseless puppy, a puppy that’s petted at first, and then roughly driven away. I would say that Lolita squandered only her body, but her spirit remained innocent.
This is how I talk about a woman who led three great men to their deaths!
She latched onto VV like a leech; the first two weren’t enough for her. I actually wanted to warn him off, to deter him, but, unfortunately, VV was always beyond control. He was impelled to rush headlong towards doom. He was a madman.
On the other hand, only madmen can accomplish great things. They put their purpose on one side of the scale, themselves on the other, and the purpose always tips the scales.
By the way, I’m not taking it upon myself to decide. I’m Martynas Poška, a programmer by coercion, a collector of fortunes, the doleful clown of Vilnius. The mlog is not a collection of conclusions. It’s only a collection of facts.
Maybe it’s a good thing that I can only think seriously in fits and starts. You barely sense you’re about to have some time and you start spouting off senselessly. It’d be better to always feel the lack of time—then you’d set down what you really know in a hurry.
Now, post factum, many rush to proclaim VV a monster and a madman. People remember the oddities of his behavior and his ungovernable character. I really hate to philosophize, but I’m forced to declare that every one of our lives could very easily be portrayed as lunacy. All that’s needed is to tidy up a few things, be quiet about a thing or two, add a thing or two—not much; the very least will do.
For this reason, I state officially: VV was a man with an extremely healthy, extremely witty, and extremely well-educated mind.
I’m not by any means defending VV; I only defend the truth. The objective truth. That is the task of the mlog.
At one time, I was taken with intelligence tests. I had amassed a pile of them and bothered all of my acquaintances with them. I discovered that people are panic-stricken by things that could show their inadequacy. But VV took on the problems boldly and playfully. He cracked them like nuts. His IQ was one hundred sixty and still climbing; he made fun of the people who made up the tests and offered new ones of his own. No scale would be large enough to describe his intelligence.
So much is straight fact.
Now—about sexual perversions: if a person with that much intelligence sometimes acts in a way we don’t understand, couldn’t that mean he grasps principles of higher import, ones we cannot perceive?
At times he would be beset by ghosts. He would remember some participant in a long-ago incident and would want to explain something to him or ask him something. It would drive him totally crazy that he couldn’t talk to people who were long since dead. VV liked to say: we should all carry our dead in our pockets like a deck of cards, so if the need arises we could play the decisive game of poker.
In essence, VV was a hardened poker player, even though he never played cards in his life.
He would summon ghosts, but he couldn’t stand live witnesses to the past. When he came across someone he knew from his time in the prison camp, he would run away. Sometimes a neighbor from his childhood years would visit him, this woman named Giedraitienė, an alcoholic with a puffy face. VV would buy her off with a three-ruble note. He didn’t go to his grandfather’s funeral because he couldn’t have avoided meeting his father at the burial.
I’ll never understand his relationship with his father. At some point, VV’s father re-emigrated from Argentina; he works as a doorman at the restaurant in Druskininkai. No big deal—Russian princes used to work as doormen in Paris too, and he’s no prince. Sometimes I visit him and tell him about VV. I can’t imagine what I’ll tell him now.
VV behaved as if his father didn’t exist at all. The strangest thing was that his father submissively went along with this.
VV had a strange view of his past: the dead were more real to him than the living. The latter he simply ignored.
Stealthily, I begin painting the first portraits; apparently I secretly hope to paint the entire gallery. Just that it’s inadmissible to forget the most important of them all—the portrait of Vilnius.
The first draft:
Vilnius is a city of identical little cement boxes. A city of identical little clay figures. A city of identical tears and identical sperm. If some giant were to suddenly mix everything up completely, all the houses, the people, the tears, and the sperm, if he were to switch everything’s place and muddle it all up, absolutely nothing would change.
And that’s what’s the very worst—Vilnius hasn’t been capable of changing for a long time now.
It’s unbelievably difficult to begin VV’s story, so I look for excuses despite myself. Perhaps history can’t exist at all? “Life is a tale, told by an idiot, signifying nothing.” If that’s true, I’d really make a good storyteller. I’m sufficiently idiotic. My entire life proves this. The smart ones build houses and zoom around in Mercedes-Benzes. Or defend dissertations and receive decorations. Or give speeches from podiums and ride in special automobiles to special stores.
But I was, and still remain, an idiot. I had a sacred idea. I was such an idiot that I believed in humanity’s sacred future. After little Nikita censured Mister Joseph’s actions, I thought things in this world could change for the better. I decided the new Soviet society would inevitably need a new kind of human. I resolved to dedicate my life to the education and raising of children. This was my idée fixe. This was my magnum opus. I even had myself a child, whom I swore to teach only by my system. This was to be the first modern human.
I sat down to write a dissertation about a new educational system. I must add that both of my parents were educators, and my father collected information about the educational systems of various countries as well. This also helped me—helped me to complete ruin. You see, I wrote a solid dissertation rather quickly.
I’m not at all ashamed to admit what an idiot I was back then. I proved logically that the lack of the free rein of thought is strangling the Soviet school. I demonstrated that the educational program is pedantic, practically medieval. I demanded an essential change in the teaching of history, that we present children with the hidden facts of history. I suggested teaching children how to think independently, to argue, and to draw conclusions. And so on. It’s funny to even remember my stupidity. I suggested teaching Soviet children to think! I wanted to disclose the true facts of history! I was the Very Idiot of Idiots. I was VII.
Anyone with a solid education in this field could write a dissertation like that. But only VII could officially submit it to a scholarly council. And I kept perfecting the text’s style! I was a cosmic cretin, an imbecile squared, a divine degenerate.
No one discussed my dissertation openly. However, unexpectedly, a departmental meeting took place to denounce the infiltration of bourgeois influences into Soviet pedagogy. Next, I was left unemployed when it was announced that I had not completed the requirements of the doctoral program. Then I couldn’t find work anywhere else. The fate of the Soviet unemployed is no cause for envy. The majority of dissertators like myself get work as night security guards. But I took all of my savings and went to Moscow to search for justice. Even as the VII, I grasped that justice doesn’t survive more than three days in Vilnius. However, I was a true VII: I imagined that justic
e had been cultivated in Moscow for the duration. At that time, little Nikita had already been kicked out; the ROF slowly but surely took over the government. The mean-eyed old men crawled out of the caves they had hidden themselves in and started to dictate their will, to control all of the minutiae of our lives. But I was blind, I didn’t get it.
I rushed around the corridors of Moscow’s bureaus searching for justice. I was treated like a harmless crank. Everyone kept asking me if I understood what I was suggesting. And I, as is appropriate for a divine degenerate, explained that I was suggesting a bright future of intelligent, thinking, and self-motivated people. At last I stumbled into the home of a former party mucky-muck; he explained to me what kind of people his system needed, what kind of children we should be raising. My eyes were finally opened. I understood everything. First I wanted to strangle my own son, before it was too late. Then I wanted to hang myself, but it was too late. On my return to Vilnius, I was invited to visit the KGB and offered a job at the library. Apparently, it had been decided I was a harmless crank after all.
Incidentally, every copy of my dissertation mysteriously disappeared. Even the manuscript from the drawer of my desk at home.
Unfortunately, I never did strangle my son. My wife left me, and she made sure my son saw me as little as possible. More often, he doesn’t want to see me, either. I’ve long since stopped teaching him anything—by any system. He’s already doomed; there’s no saving him. I do not have a son. And that teenager or young man who’s recorded in my documents, who uses my surname, has no soul. He is a true product of Vilnius. He scorns me because I’ve obtained neither wealth nor social status. He would respect me if I had a Mercedes or occupied a minister’s post. That young man condemns me because I had intelligent and truthful ideas. He’s by no means a fool; he agrees my ideas were good, but, in his opinion, that’s exactly why they should be forgotten as quickly as possible. He intensely dislikes Komsomolites or party men himself, however, understandably, he’s officially a Komsomol member—otherwise they wouldn’t take him on trips abroad. He thinks what matters most is to have a lot of stuff. Not money—Soviet rubles mean nothing—but concrete, tangible stuff. The Ass of the Universe is slowly returning to a natural economy and the direct barter of goods. It’s in this barter that my offspring sees the meaning of life. That young man sincerely doesn’t understand that feelings of virtue, kindness, or justice can exist. He trains a bit as an athlete and speculates heavily, because sport takes him abroad to compete. He takes hard currency there as contraband, and he brings home the stuff he’s dreamed of. He travels to places I’ll never be, but he doesn’t see anything there—only stores. I have nothing against sports. I once dreamed of becoming a basketball player myself. I loved and I still love basketball, but my offspring hates sports.
He makes fun of me. He lectures me on how to live. He’s surrounded by the prettiest girls, even though he’s as ugly as sin. The girls aren’t at all interested in him, but the beauties of the Ass of the Universe can sacrifice anything for contraband rags. He knows with certainty that when he turns twenty-five he’ll drop that despised sport and start up a rose farm. He hates flowers too.
I lost my son a long time ago. I should not have brought him into the world.
And now I’ve lost my only friend, or at least buddy. I discovered him as soon as I got to the library. VV greeted me, smiled wryly, and said:
“If you had given me twenty kopecks then, we would never have met again.”
I hardly recognized him. He was clean-shaven, scented, and wore a tie. At first glance, you’d think even his insides were polished and scented. But the eyes were the same: the eyes of a fallen saint. He added:
“Our office is the strangest in the world. Or at least in Vilnius. I advise you to consider why they let the two of us into the book collections. What’s their secret purpose?”
Our office really is the strangest in all of Vilnius. Computer experts, bibliographers and otherwise inexplicable types have congregated here. Sooner or later, we’re supposedly going to computerize the library catalog. I think probably later: first, because we don’t have our own computer yet, and second, no library has the right to convert to computers as long as the Lenin Library in Moscow hasn’t done it. The metropole must be first, and if someone tries to outdo it—they must be reined in. So we’re all in the dark as to what we’re doing. I’m gathering my collection. Gražina knits. Elena is a Party member. Marija is growing a hussar’s mustache. Laimutė tries a different diet every day, even though she only weighs a hundred pounds. Stefa takes care of VV. And so on.
And that’s the way it will be until the central library in Moscow computerizes. Outdoing Moscow is forbidden. It’s a verified fact: for example, the resources and technical capabilities in Vilnius would allow the telephone problem to be easily solved. However, that can’t be done, because then the count of telephones per thousand inhabitants in Vilnius would exceed Moscow’s.
I appreciated VV immediately. Egoistically, it bothered me that he had made friends with Gediminas. After all, I was the one who introduced them.
I remember Gediminas from my school years. Everyone in school knew Gediminas Riauba. His father was our principal, and Gediminas was the center on the basketball team. I always smile sadly when I remember how much I envied him. What Lithuanian boy doesn’t dream of becoming a basketball star!? We’re suspiciously similar to American blacks in that respect. I dreamt of it too, at that point not having reached five foot three. What didn’t I do. I’d hang on a crossbar, hoping to stretch out that way, and cried at night. I practiced five hours a day—like a professional. I was the most energetic and tenacious player, I should have gotten onto the school team, but Gediminas Riauba drove me out. He could do that; the coach listened to him. He said, “Maybe let’s not start a kingdom of dwarfs here.” I’ll remember those words until the day I die. Probably I secretly hated Gediminas Riauba. Not because he insulted and mortified me. Rather because, being generously endowed by nature, he never did finish anything to the end. I think he could have been the best basketball player in the world, but in the first year of college he completely stopped playing and devoted himself to mathematics. I think he could have been the best mathematician in the world, but suddenly he took up his cacophonous music. Later he started mountain climbing too. I probably hated him. I couldn’t bear to see how that man wasted God’s gifts and didn’t finish a single thing to the end. He was a snob. He always went for whatever was trendy and flashy.
But VV was immediately charmed by him. The two of them would wander the streets of Vilnius at night and fall in love with the same women. Probably they were friends, although Lord knows I don’t know what “friend” means. That’s something no one knows.
I’m going to start talking about myself again, but there’s no other way to write an mlog. I can only tell you what’s reflected in me, like in a mirror—not a distorted one, I hope.
Now I’m reflecting the senior Riauba, Gediminas’s father. He was a true Lithuanian intellectual. They tried to eliminate people like that. But he somehow survived and even became the principal of our school. I’ve never met a more radical man. All of his decisions were strict, categorical, and implemented immediately. He became the hero of my adolescence. Riauba was the only person who took up open battle in my presence. He independently changed the teaching curriculum. At that time, this could have cost him his life. He scoffed at the cult of Stalin and taught everything his own way. He wasn’t at all naïve: when the inspectors came, we would go through a fictitious lesson we had rehearsed in advance. He taught history himself and began every school year with the legend of the Iron Wolf. We would hold our breath listening. I fell hopelessly in love with Vilnius without ever having seen it. To me, from our little town in Žemaitija, it seemed the Iron Wolf slowly cantered through the empty streets of Vilnius at night.
By the way, about the Iron Wolf. A stray dog used to hang around next to the Lithuanian Film Studio garages. He was sickly, mangy,
and horribly bloated. His intestines wouldn’t hold food; as soon as he ate, he’d rush into the bushes with the runs. An awful stench emanated from those bushes. He would trot about staggering, banging into the walls, but he just wouldn’t die.
All of the Film Studio drivers called him the Iron Wolf—without irony or sarcasm, in all seriousness, and very sadly.
Riauba’s Iron Wolf was entirely different. He really did announce us to the entire world. In art class, I drew nothing but iron wolves. If we were told to draw an autumn forest, an iron wolf would surely be hiding somewhere in mine. If we were told to draw a vase, an iron wolf would be impressed on the side of mine. Once they forced us to draw a May Day demonstration. In mine, an iron wolf proudly marched at the front of people with placards and slogans. The art teacher sent me to the principal, threatening Siberia. Riauba patted my head and said:
“You might yet grow up into a human being.”
I well remember the lessons Riauba prepared for the inspectors. We would rehearse those plays at the expense of classes on the history of the VKP(b), the Communist Party. Riauba would select the actors from all the classes; he watched Russian films especially for this purpose and used them to select faces that, in his opinion, best suited the stereotype of a Soviet pupil.
“Who wants to earn extra credit?” he would ask, imperceptibly giving Kaziukas Budrys a sign.
Kaziukas Budrys was a teenager with a pudgy face and fanatically burning eyes. He was very proud to get such an important role in the play.
“We must unfailingly emphasize Comrade Stalin’s incomparable contribution to the theories of Marxism-Leninism!” he would shriek in a fanatical voice.
Then he would practically sing a text he’d learned by rote. Once an elderly inspector, listening to Kaziukas’s oratory, automatically stood up at attention. I thought he was going to salute him.
Vilnius Poker Page 39