“Daydreaming?” Elena’s voice startled me. “I’ve never seen such a sight: you’re putting your fingers to your mouth like you’re smoking, but without a cigarette. Want one?”
Huffing and puffing, she tears open a fresh pack, sticks a cigarette in my mouth, lights it; she’s always that way, she loves to supposedly look after you like you were a little kid, apparently she thinks she’s the Big Momma, even though she’s nothing but an old brood-hen.
“There were visitors from the Department again today.” She rolls her eyes in a hideous way and keeps panting, “they say Vargalys set up secret quarters deep within the library, that he was gathering information from books. This reeks of dreadful things, mark my words. Her father—you do know who Lola’s father is . . .”
I don’t hear her anymore: I’ve seen Lolka’s father many times, he’s a history professor or something, he always speaks very learnedly, but only of the past. Vargalys liked to say it’s enough to toss him some concocted historical fact for him to disappear from this world for a couple of weeks, living in the deep past; he’s old-fashioned and very pious, once—a long time ago—he burst into Tedka’s studio and started begging Lolka on his knees to leave that den of iniquity, and she kicked him with her foot, Lord knows, she kicked her own father with her foot, that’s the way she was. Elena rolls her eyes and croaks, she resembles a giant frog, a frog from our swamp, deceptively swollen, its throat puffing, luring you towards it, into the black muck of the swamp, I saw that frog once from as close up as I see Elena now; careful, Vasilis warned me then, that’s no ordinary frog, that’s Madam Vargalienė.
That time the frog plopped into the thick mush, like Elena now plops into the mush of the library’s smells: plops and rows herself off with her fat paws, thank God, I won’t have to listen to her chatter.
“What Vargalienė?” I shot back rudely, even though I had heard many times about both Madam Vargalienė and Mr. Vargalys’s ghost, smoldering in gray ashes.
And how could I not have heard when my mother, the moment anyone mentioned my birthday, crossed herself three times: after all, I was born that very night in forty-four when Vargalienė met her horrible end.
Vasilis changed me, out of a half-wild village girl he molded the real Stefa, who, you’ll find, no longer exists; that real Stefa melted into Lola, Martynas, Vargalys, scattered herself about the streets of Vilnius; it’s like there’s nothing left of her when she’s alone, she must have others, I really need others, I have to find at least one person who can’t survive without me. If the grand sourpuss Vilnius can get by perfectly well without me, it’s best to go back to the village and grow cucumbers in a hothouse for the market; although it’d be better all around to kill myself than to go back to Bezrečjė—kill yourself with life itself. No, no, enough of hanging around here, better go outside, I can’t stand the bookshelves, I can’t stand the sticky repository dust, I even hate the books themselves: the best way to drive a person to hate chocolate would be to give him a job in a candy factory.
It’s real fall by now, that day in the gardens a wonderful Indian summer lingered: it’s drizzling, people are creeping down the avenue, stepping around the puddles, and wet, scruffy pigeons are perched in the square across from the library—and why are they perched there in the rain, what are they waiting for? I didn’t even notice how I got into the shoe store, my feet took me there themselves; the brown ones are completely worn out already, I need to look around, even though you always overdo it, the shoes they’ve displayed in the store window aren’t at all bad, you just about decide to buy, start matching colors, sew a skirt, dig a purse out from who knows where, but by the time those shoes make their way to the shelves, their color changes, it fades, you’re left with a skirt and a purse that don’t match anything, even at the shoe factory it’s the same propaganda: if they promise something, then for sure it’ll never happen, think that way and you’ll never be mistaken, always think that way.
There’s a huge line of people shoving at the housewares store—they’re selling German kitchen tablecloths, with all kinds of fruit, and hams, and spices, and other colorful dainties. They’re drawn so beautifully you even start salivating, but it turns out to be propaganda too—where would you see all of that if it wasn’t drawn on that tablecloth; oh, what a show-off, she’s fixed herself up in a light-checkered suit—pants, a long jacket nipped at the waist—it doesn’t matter that it’s rainy, she’s probably dreamed of it for half a year, she’s gonna wear it now no matter what, let it rain cats and dogs. I should drink some coffee, maybe eat something too, I haven’t had a thing all day and it’s eleven-thirty already; in the Žarija they’re already serving vodka, those two boozers, of course, put away three shots apiece and are rushing back to their offices; if some do-gooder would tighten up on serving vodka, office work would come to a stop—none of the guys would get anything done, except for figuring out where to get a drop the day after, like in our village after the wheat or potato harvest. All the Lithuanian farmers would come to have a look at those horrors—the gulping of water, the trembling of hands, the exploding of heads—that horrible morning when it became obvious that the harvest celebration had gone on too long, that all of the hooch, every last bit of it, in the entire village, in all of the cottages, was drunk down to the last drop, that now there wouldn’t be any hair of the dog. Even the Day of Judgment couldn’t compare to that sight. Zombies with dried-up mouths and parched lips would hobble around, holding on to the fences around the houses, falling into the yards, vomiting, retching, drinking water, and vomiting again; children, women, old people; the women suffer more than men, but they don’t let on—and in the entire village not a drop of vodka! On a day like that, for an itsy-bitsy bottle, anything would be given away, the most horrifying agreements signed, and unbelievable deals made. On that day the Lithuanians from Užubaliai would show up, curious but dignified; they’d paw over everything like some slave traders, everyone hated them, but they’d give anything away for an itsy-bitsy bottle of murky moonshine; the girls would even go offer themselves to the Lithuanian boys, who would take a long time ruminating and bargaining. All the Lithuanians ruminated and bargained. They planned their business and their future, but all our folks needed was vodka, those horrible mornings all they needed in the whole world was vodka: both the men, and the girls, and the children, and the old people: everyone just wanted vodka and hated those ruminating, bargaining Lithuanians’ guts. Vasilis saved me from that horror, from that hate, from that universal hangover, from myself. He came at the beginning of one of those crazes, when the hooch was still pouring in rivers, when I got plastered for the first time in my life and staggered around the yard; he came, threw my helpless body over his shoulder and carried me out—no one was worried about it, no one missed me, the village drank for five more days.
Vasilis was the first one to tell me that there is this Vilnius, a city of miracles; now I’m walking around in it, breathing its air, eating its salads—there now! I sit down at the counter and gasp, because Liovka Kovarskis is sitting next to me; he always smiles sadly; like me, he doesn’t know what nationality he is, he always says: when I meet a Jew, I want to be a Pole, when I talk to a Pole, I want to be a Lithuanian, when I drink with a Lithuanian, I want to turn into a Russian, but operating on a Russian, I get the urge to turn back into a Jew.
“Hiya, Stef,” Liovka smiles sadly and pushes his coffee over to me, “I haven’t touched it yet, I’m letting you have my place in line. I’m really a Pole today: you see how gallant I am.”
He knits his god-like hands under his chin, he’s sad, probably he’s butchered someone on the operating table again; Levas has three surgical groups and a department next to the clinics, he just never had any luck, both his wives ran off; Laima said it was impossible to live with a person like that, all he needed were those scalpels, scissors, and needles, those disemboweled stomachs and chests. I’m sorry for Levas—he’s so kind, sincere, and gentle, his sweaters and jackets are always in warm, sof
t shades; he likes to wear white slacks a lot.
“I’ve already heard about Martynas,” Levas says glumly. “Aren’t you afraid at the library? One butchered, another run over, the third they’ll probably execute. It’s cursed. I’d run from a place like that without a second thought.”
I even spilled my coffee: good Lord, I hadn’t even thought of that, maybe the angel of death is stalking me already; sometimes you think about suicide in all seriousness, but the thought that someone could do you in barely crosses your mind and you break out in a cold sweat.
“By the way, it’s been all the same to Vargalys for quite some time,” Levas says gloomily, “I can talk about it now. He came to us for tests: his cancer’s in such a stage that . . . I almost understand why he murdered that girl. He didn’t want to leave her to the world, he wanted to take her with him.”
It’s just my luck to spill coffee today; I can’t tell anyone what I know, what I was doing in that damn garden—maybe I should tell Liovka? I look him in the eyes and he smiles sadly; he’s wrong, he’s mistaken, should I tell him, or not?
“I don’t like that Vargalys, we’ve chatted over a drink several times, but when I’d run into him he wouldn’t say hello. Stuck-up. That’s the kind that butcher people.”
Suddenly he gets up off the barstool and leaves, he’s always that way, let him go torment himself over his dead patient and his two runaway wives; I meant to eat a salad, it seems I’m not cramping anymore, the narrow bar is packed, the starving ones are hanging over the backs of the ones who are eating, it looks like they’re going to snatch a bite any minute, I can’t stand it, to this very day I can’t stand it, I instantly remember those famines, when everyone in our village would look that way at someone who was eating, eating was a rare thing, every stranger’s bite would make us drool, it’s awful to remember; some people boiled roots or bark, or went to Užubaliai to steal pig’s slop, because the Lithuanians had everything, no famine affected them, they always had everything, like some kind of miracle workers, and they didn’t live at all far away; the creek, then the Vargalys mansion, the hills, beyond them the fields and the Lithuanian farms—it’d be easy to see if it wasn’t for those hills. Before the war, when I wasn’t born yet, the border went along the creek: Bezrečjė was in Poland, and Lithuania started with the Vargalyses—good Lord, what a joke; we were never Poles, tuteišy, tuteišy, the men repeated even then, after the First War, when the Entente’s inspectors checked the administrative border. But why were the Lithuanians different, what does a creek or a hill or border police have to do with it? Why are they different, why am I, who have turned into a Lithuanian, or faked being one, different? Everyone envied those Lithuanians, and I envy that Lithuanian Stefa too; the one who lived when Vargalys, Martis, and Gediminas were here, and now she’s probably dead.
Vasilis kept his promise, he cast me into Vilnius like a blind kitten into a pond, believing that I’d swim—it would have been better if I’d stayed in my village, drowned in the swamps, turned into the queen of the frogs; I no longer have the strength for my journey, I found my way, but it suddenly came to an end, because there’s no Gediminases, Martynases, Teodorases, or even Vargalys; I was like a mother to all of them, a little mommy, I fussed over them as if they were babies, I hugged them all to my chest like the Great Mother, like the earth, like nature itself—tell me, does the earth feel any kind of pleasure? It’s simply made for a seed to fall into, for a tree to grow out of and bear fruit; the earth is the earth. I’m the earth too, I think like the earth, I feel like the earth, I need them all, and at the same time I don’t need a single one—they’re the ones who need me, they won’t go anywhere; they’ll come to me, I’m the only one who can satisfy them, because I’m like the earth: they’re my children and my lovers at the same time, because everything turns in a circle and returns to the beginning again—the dead will rise, there’s nothing to be afraid of; I should finish this salad, today there’s nothing but meat salads, they’re expensive here.
“Staselė honey, get me a little salad! I don’t need bread,” I finally stopped that bustling barrel.
Will I find a new Teodoras, Gediminas, or Martynas, will I free Vargalys? Yes, I saw it; yes, I know; yes, I can tell the truth, but will it save Vargalys?
No one will want to believe me, even if they know I’m telling the truth. Or if they do believe me, I’ll be afraid of retribution, most of all I’m afraid of Vargalys, probably I don’t want to see him, I’m absolutely most of all afraid of Vargalys himself; I immediately remember his eyes, the horrible look he fixed on me that time in the library, between the bookshelves, and not just that time; many, many times, suddenly turning into something that was no longer human—a hideous spawn of the devil, capable not just of murdering you or injuring you, but of doing something unspeakably horrible, something you couldn’t even describe; I was always afraid of him, he was as unfathomable as some diabolic riddle, he was the most horrible of my babies, even though I can’t even imagine myself without him. The salad is disgusting, but what can you do, there’s nothing to choose from, thank you Staselė dear, drop dead fatso; it’s drizzling outside again, oh no, spare me, what a butt, and squeezed into disco style pants, and the color, the color, a Gothic gold, oh no, I’m gonna die, and the purse is round too, like a disk—it’s completely insane, that’s all. Even my butt would look better, Gediminas liked to pinch it like some redneck, even though he was from Kaunas; once we went off to visit his parents—a garden of paradise: his father was a famous tailor, his mother rented wedding dresses, she had some two hundred of them, a house like the Vargalys mansion, all the militia in Kaunas bought off, everyone who came just bowed, Mr. Riauba, Madam Riaubienė, only then did I realize where all of Gedka’s Opels and Mercedes-Benzes came from—he never said anything about his parents, apparently he was ashamed: such a smart, spiritual guy, and here you have a veritable fortress of money; he would dress like God, his suits grayish or bluish, they’d fit him like they’d been molded, tight jeans to emphasize his slender waist, shirts invariably unbuttoned so the hair on his chest would stick out—it went really well with the gold chain on his neck—all youthful and headlong, more hip than his students, even though he was the professor; he was always torturing himself that he couldn’t take in everything, the whole world, at once, he complained that the dragon got in his way, he was always going on about that dragon: Tedka even sculpted this piece of junk that reached to the ceiling, and he’d say it was Riauba’s dragon, even though the sculpture was named The Deformer. On the left Lenin stretches out his hand, I should go into the record store, maybe they’ve put something out at the end of the month—although no, if I listen to something good, I immediately remember Gedka and cry. They say they’ve promised to name the mathematics lecture hall at the University after him, but I don’t believe it—he died too young, they only honor old people here, the old folks in the government fear the young ones even when they’re dead. They should put up a monument to him, they all need one—Tedka with his eternally ragged sweater, and Vargalys, and even Martis; they’d sit deep in thought, and between them all—me, the little mommy, with four arms stroking their little heads, or maybe the other way around: they would all be walking in different directions, gazing off into the distance, and I would be kneeling, grabbing on to their knees, but they wouldn’t pay any attention to me, they wouldn’t even notice me: that would be the most accurate monument. I’m cramping again, Lord love a duck, I stick my nose into the pharmacy even though it’s hopeless; of course, there’s none there and couldn’t be any there, that’s the motto of our lives—if you need it, it surely won’t be there, it’s probably done on purpose, so you’d be looking for some item all the time and that’s why you wouldn’t look for anything else, be it love, or answers, or truth, or freedom. My stomach gurgles, I shouldn’t have eaten that salad; stop at the light, all the trucks in Vilnius are murderous, now you can go, I won’t go into the fabric store, on purpose I won’t, oh Lordee, there’s nowhere to hide,
maybe I should pretend that . . . it’s too late already, what can you do, I’ll stop, even though it’s really awful. Vargalys’s father blinks his little bloodshot eyes a lot and strokes his bald pate, I haven’t seen him in a long time, like it or not, I’ll have to talk to him.
Vilnius Poker Page 51