Vilnius Poker

by Ricardas Gavelis

  After that funeral, I wanted to punch VV in the nose. Since I’m like a dwarf in comparison to him, I had decided to smack him with some brick or a cudgel. I opened the door to his office panting with rage, and he raised his deep, intelligent, suffering eyes to me. I saw such despair in them that I immediately backed down. VV didn’t live in our world; at that moment he was somewhere completely, utterly different.

  “I’ve thought of it at last,” he said suddenly. “The best thing to do would be to get castrated.”

  Some ancient nation (perhaps more than one) has already thought up a mythological God who, in disappointment with the world, fixed himself—so that his seed wouldn’t prolong the degenerate human race. To cut your throat means no more than to make an end of yourself. To destroy your seed means much more: to make an end of your entire family, of all your descendants. That was what the elder Vytautas Vargalys wanted to say, that it would have been better if neither his son nor his grandson had ever been born. That they shouldn’t have been born, that in a certain sense they hadn’t been born, they’d never lived. This thought inspired him with the desire to destroy the horrible future waiting for us all, that it would be better if it never came.

  The defenders of Pilėnai, to a man, burned themselves alive, but they didn’t become slaves for the invaders. Homo lithuanicus, smacking his lips in excitement, listens to the opera about Pilėnai, but out of all of Lithuania, only Kalanta burned himself to death. All the rest slave away quite valiantly.

  At least the senior Vytautas Vargalys offered a decent solution. Without Lithuanians, the world wouldn’t be either better or worse. Haven’t any number of small ethnic groups disappeared without a trace? A sudden end would be quite a bit better than a slow death in the Ass of the Universe.

  Why VV got the urge to castrate himself, I don’t know. Despite the horrifying measurements of his sexual organ, VV was sterile. I know this for sure. I shamelessly questioned a plastered Kovarskis; he had tried to cure VV. Unfortunately, the Siberian permafrost irreparably locked up VV’s seed; it stayed there, behind the barbed wire of the camp. No, his sexual prowess wasn’t affected; he was unusually potent, but infertile.

  Probably VV was particularly Lithuanian in this symbolic sense alone; the true apotheosis of homo lithuanicus: of gigantic proportions, enormous power, but absolutely infertile.

  Perhaps because I knew this, I was struck speechless the first time I saw VV naked. His masculinity wasn’t just gigantic. It was carefully tended, even, and smooth, without the slightest wrinkle or protruding vein. It was so flawless it looked fake.

  It wasn’t merely that he and Lolita had no intention of prolonging the human race; they were incapable of it. The two of them had been condemned beforehand to the divine suicide VV’s grandfather suggested.

  Poor Lolita was the victim of her origins, her position, and her passions. She was in a hurry to place herself upon the sacrificial altar. Perhaps she secretly wanted to be incinerated and at least rise up to the heavens in sacred smoke.

  She didn’t take into account that smoke can only go down in the Ass of the Universe.

  When she sat on the floor in my room, she would look quite tiny, helpless, and defenseless; you could encircle her with one hand. I understood her rudeness—it was only a defense against the world.

  Lolita, Lolita, Lolita! Where are you now? Is the other hell worse than the hell of our lives?

  When I can think for at least a few minutes, I get tired right away. I’ve gotten unaccustomed to thinking. Today an investigator slunk into the library and was asking about everything under the sun. But probably least of all about Lolita and her relationship with VV. He was interested in weird things: V’s habits, his predilections and buddies, even what bookshelves he would rummage through. What could that mean? I don’t get it.

  I’m going to that wretched coffee break. Our office’s habits wouldn’t change even if the prophecies of the Revelations started coming true.

  “It’s surely some kind of conspiracy,” Elena declared as soon as I walked in. “They don’t investigate things this thoroughly for no reason. It looks like there was an entire group at work here. Lola could have been sent here on purpose. You do know who her father is.”

  I sit directly across from her, like I always do. Even the places around the coffee table haven’t changed. VV’s and Lolita’s chairs are empty, so Marija’s left at the end of the table, seemingly cut off from the others.

  “It’s really awful about the meat,” she replies pensively. “Yesterday there was nothing but boiled sausage for two-twenty in the store—and only one kind too. In the meat section just chicken and pig heads. It’s just awful.”

  “They’re not looking for clues just for the heck of it,” Elena gives me a meaningful look. “I think they’ll find them. These people are experienced.”

  It’s funny how quickly those government flunkeys give themselves away.

  “Pig heads—without the tongues. They cut the tongues out,” Marija chimed in calmly.

  That’s how we converse. Slowly I sink ever deeper into the eddy of women’s concerns. I’m the only man left. It must be that they simply forget themselves, or maybe they don’t notice me. They used to take pains in front of VV, but they pay absolutely no attention to me. By now I’ve learned about the dreadful panty shortage. They used to bring them in as contraband from Poland, but now there’s a shortage in Poland itself. Or maybe the customs agents got stricter. In a word, it’s a huge problem. You have to patch the same ones over and over. The young man who claims he’s my son adroitly uses this to his advantage. He brings panties by the sackful from his athletic excursions and divides them up among Vilnius’s beauties—on condition that he’ll take the old ones off and put the new ones on himself. That’s his life. I don’t understand how I fathered that huge imbecile. His eyes are expressionless and his muscles like a ship’s tow line. When he comes by, he loafs about my room and curses the authorities—evidently, it’s getting harder all the time to travel abroad, results alone aren’t enough—the sporting masters need their palms greased.

  But most important of all is that this belongs in my mlog too. Just like these gloomy rooms and the dust of books, just like our bathroom with the shit-covered toilet and the eternally broken water tank. If I were to leave this out, neither the deepest philosophy nor the most horrendous metaphysics would mean a thing.

  “A friend of mine was in Paris.” Beta interjects, “Well, you know, the one whose husband works at the Central Committee. She said all the girls were walking around with brown nail polish. Nails in any other color simply wouldn’t be decent there.”

  They all sigh deeply and squint their eyes, giving homage to unattainable Paris, where everyone paints their nails brown. The ROF made a big mistake when it let people find out they could live differently somewhere else. Stalin was consistent in that regard: no one even suspected any other life was possible.

  From my collection:

  When the first Soviet people escaped for a bit out into the world, a relative quizzed a writer returned from America:

  “Well, so how’s the situation with food in America?”

  The writer, somewhat surprised, answered that all was quite well.

  “That’s ridiculous!” the relative got angry, “Even we don’t have anything to eat, so what’s there to say about America.”

  Understandably, the writer and his relative were Russian. Homo lithuanicus always knew that it’s possible to live differently. Homo lithuanicus experienced it himself, or at least heard from his parents, that abundance is possible, that not all that long ago a Lithuanian could not only dream of Paris, but go there too. Lithuania was independent for twenty years; this spoiled Lithuanians for the duration.

  “And Moscow’s full of Dior perfume and Lithuanian smoked sausage,” Gražina remarked, stretching herself lazily. “They have that stuff for themselves. They took it from us.”

  “They do it on purpose,” Marija agrees. “They’re dying from en
vy that so far we’ve at least had enough to eat.”

  Elena frowns, but she’s quiet. The ideological boundaries haven’t been stepped over yet; she knows exactly when to take the women’s rising revolt in hand.

  The saddest thing is that if someone gave them good sausage, per­fume and panties, they’d be entirely satisfied with life. Out of the fam­ous formula “bread and circuses,” only bread remains in the Ass of the Universe. In the best case, “bread and butter.” It’s the ROF’s greatest success.

  “But what can they do? They can’t even manage to raise pigs for themselves!”

  They! It’s a miraculous term, homo lithuanicus’ magic word. It’s always them, not us at all. We’ve nothing to do with it. A genuine homo sovieticus is obliged to say: our revolution, our victory, our government, we did it. A genuine homo lithuanicus says: their revolution, their government, they did it. And we’ve nothing to do with it. By no means is this merely a lexical nuance; it’s a key marker of an inner philosophy. Homo lithuanicus couldn’t even explain who “they” are. They aren’t us. We’ve nothing to do with it. The greatest downfall of the state doesn’t worry him: they fell, but we’ve nothing to do with it. No victory cheers him: see how well things turned out for them. Unfortunately, we’ve got nothing to do with it. If some foreigner attacks him about the horrors of the Soviet state, homo lithuanicus’ eyes bug out: excuse me, but what do I have to do with it? I’m a Lithuanian.

  I have no idea if that’s a good thing or not. That’s simply the way it is.

  “The coffee is awful,” Marija announces. “It’s gotten five times as expensive and they sell you manure.”

  Thank God, at least they’re not talking about children today.

  Children are the principal subject of my cosmic despair. The carefully regulated system of stupefaction sucks them dry by preschool. Our little children don’t learn in preschool that they should love mama and papa. However, they find out right away that you have to love Lenin and the Soviet state. The kid can’t hold a knife and fork yet, doesn’t know how to read, but he already knows that Lenin was the best person in the world.

  An absolutely authentic incident from my collection:

  A teacher’s aide was leading a group of preschoolers through the Antak­alnis grove. Unexpectedly, a real, live rabbit ran right by them. The excited teacher’s aide started prompting the children:

  “So, who will tell me what ran by just now? So, who’s the smartest? Who will tell me?”

  The kids stood there gaping and said nothing. The teacher’s aide got totally annoyed, she really so wanted to brag about her clever group of children when they got back.

  “Come on now, remember, remember, what we talk about every day. So, what do we talk about all the time? We talked about it yesterday, and we read a book too. So, what ran by us? What do we talk about every day? Come on, what ran by?”

  At that moment Aliukas, undoubtedly a future top student, shyly stepped forward, hemmed a bit, and answered:

  “Was it Lenin?”

  Incidentally, the Aliukases of this world are divine innocents only until the age of five. Later, they start comparing the lessons of kindergarten and the lessons of life—what they see every day on the street, in the yard, or in the store. The child slowly internalizes that all of life is a lie, so you must always lie. We are a country of liars, everyone lies and knows full well they’re lying: they also know they’re lied to, and those liars know their listeners know they’re being lied to, and in their turn, they lie too. And so on.

  It seems I’ve thrown over my mlog and I’m starting a new dissertation about the education of children. I have to stop.

  Elena summoned me; she’s boss for the interim. I hope she won’t start talking about meat, or else I’ll start singing her a popular childish song:

  One Russian, two Russians

  The trolleybus is full of Russians!

  There is no meat, there’s nothing to eat,

  Just little red flags on the seat!

  God forbid, I really don’t blame people for the fact that they’ve forgotten their souls. For a human to feel the hunger of the soul, he needs not just a well-fed body, but one maintained with tasteful food; he must be not just warmly, but nicely dressed as well. Only then can he reflect that it seems he needs some kind of nourishment for his soul too.

  I understand everything. I don’t blame those poor Lithuanians. Hell, after all, I’m exactly like them. I’m not blaming; I’m merely stating the facts.

  Elena didn’t talk about meat. She went on about newfangled bibliographic indexes, which from now on will replace the flawed ones VV had thought up. I had completely forgotten that our office was pre­paring a computerized card catalog. I mean, can you really be expect­ed to remember what excuse they’re using to pay you that beggarly salary?

  I immediately replied that our card catalog ought to be like a layer cake. After all, the largest part of the collection is accessible only with special permission. And a significant part of it—only with special, special permission. So it’s essential to invent special, layered indexes, which would immediately show who can read what. So the first thing you need to do is create special, indoctrinated computers, ones that would give out permission themselves. The problem is difficult. However, Soviet technology is, one way or another, the best in the world; no stumbling block is too difficult.

  I was driven out of her office because of this brief monologue. And, by the way, I wasn’t being in the least bit sarcastic. The Lenin Library’s collection in Moscow is the largest in the world. It’s a fact. Another fact: ninety percent of that collection isn’t accessible to an ordinary citizen. Question: this being the case, what is a computer supposed to do? Hundreds of censors will have to sit there anyway, and judge the books—are they allowed, or are they part of the special collection? There’s only one solution—to design an indoctrinated computer that would take the place of those censors too. That’s not a joke. It’s a general concept.

  It’s too bad Elena didn’t let me finish my monologue.

  For the thousandth time, listening to the divine Elena, I thought about whether homo lithuanicus really differs all that much from homo sovieticus: is it permissible to consider the former a separate anthropomorphous species, or is it merely a subspecies of the latter? Once more I decide it’s permissible. Homo lithuanicus has characteristics that are absolutely atypical of the species homo sovieticus. Homo lithuanicus says “they,” homo sovieticus says “we.” Homo lithuanicus considers only Lithuania his country. To him the remaining parts of the USSR are as distant and as foreign as Mars. Homo sovieticus considers the entire USSR his home country. Just look at the Russians living in Vilnius or Tbilisi. They feel at home, in their own place; from their point of view, all these Lithuanians and Georgians aren’t quite where they belong. Homo sovieticus doesn’t sense any difference between Mogilyov, Ryazan, or Dnipropetrovs’k. (And by the way, there is none.) According to homo lithuanicus’ understanding, Vilnius is as different from Saratov as the sky from the earth.

  If a former homo lithuanicus quietly goes off to live in Moscow or Kiev—he’s changed his skin. Then he says “we,” and not “they.”

  In our office, only Elena says “we.” Such converts are an intermediate product. Homo sovieticus talks in an Orwellian newspeak in which all the normal, age-old concepts are turned inside out and changed. The converts, like Elena, only speak newspeak from the rostrum. In other circumstances, they start talking in normal, human language despite themselves. They unconsciously drop their fake skin so the real one can breathe, for a while at least. They simply forget themselves.

  This type isn’t completely done for. True, you won’t turn them back into humans anymore, but they’re not yet genetically ruined. You can at least try to turn their children around.

  Incidentally, on the subject of the converts’ children. One rather highly-placed gentleman’s wife told me, in horror, of an incident that embellished my collection:

  Her son,
a four-year-old philosopher, thoughtfully looked at Vilnius’s identical buildings and unexpectedly asked:

  “Mama, Lithuanians live in Lithuania, right?”

  “Yes, my sweetheart.”

  “And the French in France?”

  “Of course, sweetheart.”

  “And Americans in America?”

  “Yes, of course, who else.”

  The philosopher looked around once more, listened to the passersby talking, sighed, and asked:

  “Mama, then why are there so many Russians living in Lithuania? They’ve lost Russia, haven’t they? They don’t have anywhere else to live, right?”

  His communist mother told me this in horror. Her opinion was that someone had maliciously taught this to her child.

  She was a convert, so she couldn’t grasp that there was simply still some good sense inside the child’s head.