Vilnius Poker

by Ricardas Gavelis

  As a former jazzman, it instinctively occurred to me that Vilnius was secretly swinging. That it simply improvises a bit—so it wouldn’t be so boring. There is the basic smell theme, the familiar map of the city’s smells. But that’s only the theme; it can be varied and expanded, returning over and over again to the beginning. That’s exactly what ancient Vilnius took up. I smelled those threatening changes and naïvely judged them to be a game, musicianship without any hidden purpose.

  I can’t be angry with myself for that. I was merely a novice. I still didn’t know anything about Vilnius Poker.

  I had to run around as a dog for five years before I realized that Vilnius lies intentionally. Little by little, it accustoms its inhabitants to not feel or notice the deceptions. A little at a time, it takes up playing tricks on not just the sense of smell, but other senses as well. The pavement on the cross street above Pilies Street is at one time polished slippery, at another time coarsely rough, and later it turns slippery again. At first, you think you’re only imagining it; later, you don’t even notice it.

  Unfortunately, people don’t notice even drastic changes, and Vilnius lies a little bit at a time, very carefully. Some old house will just get a foot or two smaller; a week later by the same amount again; then more and more. Its color slowly changes too. Regardless, a few years later the house is completely different. And Vilniutians don’t even notice this. These changing people are accustomed to a changing city. If you left Vilnius for a long time, on your return you’ll no longer find some cross street: it simply won’t be there anymore. The inhabitants of Vilnius, with perfect equanimity, will say it never was. And they won’t even think they’re lying. Only people like that can live in a lying city.

  This morning is lying too. Street cleaners in orange jackets sweep the bare asphalt with brooms. Maybe they see fallen leaves there? The streets are still empty; the lights don’t dispel the dimness in the least. It’s the dimness swallowing their light.

  “Oh, look, what a doggy,” says a fat woman to her stripling assistant, who is mysteriously gathering leaves one at a time. “A hungry doggy. A stray.”

  The urchin raises his mysterious eyes to me, and picks up a whiff of a warm winter hat. He’s thinking it wouldn’t be at all bad to skin my hide.

  Skinners like that didn’t proliferate in Vilnius before. Besides, I wouldn’t make a warm hat—I freeze quite a bit in this hide myself.

  Sometimes I think I’m lying myself: I pretend to be a dog, although I am by no means an ordinary dog.

  Vilnius slowly awakens from its doze, a howling police car flies by: some Vilniutian met the morning no longer in this world. I’m dejected, I’m unbelievably depressed, although, thinking logically, this can’t be. We thinking dogs don’t have feelings. Maybe we don’t have them, but I remember them anyway. I dream them, and dreamt feelings are even more intense than real ones.

  Although I’m not convinced even of that. A human inevitably believes in something. I haven’t believed in anything for a long time now.

  There’s nothing real in Vilnius anymore. Its houses can change, switch places, disappear, and then show up again. Its people apparently can be several places at once, act several different ways at the same time, and invent not just their future, but their past too. It’s always because they have neither a real past, nor a real future. It’s always because the city itself lies shamelessly, so it has taught its inhabitants to lie too.

  It’s always because I am a homeless thinking dog, because I don’t know what I really am, because I was Gediminas Riauba, and now I’m nothing.

  I’m a dog in any case, a hungry puppy—without rights, without friends, without a future. I never did get used to living without the fear of death. I’m not immortal, but I know, after all, that I won’t die; in the worst case, I’ll change my form.

  There’s nothing genuine in Vilnius anymore. Who can say if those two huddled figures are genuine, or if they’re only Vilnius’s morning trick? One figure is a woman, the other a man; the two of them creep along the wall as if they were looking for something in the dark.

  I know the woman’s scent. She’s drastically changed her appearance again, but she won’t fool me. I can smell her very well; it’s a regenerated Irena Giedraitienė: a quite young, slender witch in the semidarkness of a Vilnius morning. What is she doing this early in the morning, in an empty street dominated by sleepy street sweepers? I run up closer; she gazes at me intently, looks into my eyes, and smiles.

  “A spy?” asks the hunched-over man in a hoarse voice.

  “No, it’s just a little dog,” she answers melodiously. “It’s just a little lost dog, it doesn’t know itself what it’s looking for.”

  She chats on and on, smiling and smiling. It bodes ill when witches smile, but that’s not what disturbs me most. Irena Giedraitienė smells me: she greedily pulls my scent into her nostrils and sways her head, as if she were trying to remember something.

  “Let’s knock him off, and be done with it,” says the tall man angrily. He smells like a holy man who has murdered his own God, and also of a profound intelligence and an unspeakable sin, and of old age too, a profound old age; he’s maybe a hundred years old.

  “Stop it, Bitinas,” Giedraitienė calms him. “After all, this isn’t the dog of hell. That one’s supposed to have three heads, isn’t it?”

  Bitinas angrily waves his hand; the two of them slowly slink off along the wall, carefully sniffing at the air. The two of them sniff at everything, as if they were large, hunched-over dogs.

  This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people sniffing like that. Incidentally, those sniffers don’t resemble humans at all. Lord knows what they resemble. Their heavy, blocky heads are grown right into their shoulders, their fingers are crooked, their joints swollen, their gaze is strange and insane. Lord knows what they resemble.

  In any case, they really don’t resemble today’s Giedraitienė and her Bitinas. Those two are slender, with long necks and straight fingers. But they can smell too!

  Only now do I suddenly realize that all the sniffers must inevitably fathom Vilnius’s lying.

  “You know, he smells of a human,” she says suddenly.

  “If an owner slowly begins to smell like his dog, why can’t a dog smell of his master?” Bitinas thoughtfully answers, his head, as bald as the back of your heel, tilts to the side.

  “Maybe, maybe,” she continues. “But why is he following us?”

  I’m no longer following now; I quickly turn into Rūdninkų, while they prowl on down Vokiečių Street. Evil ghosts have beset morning Vilnius: Giedraitienė and her Bitinas have ruinous intentions. If I were a human, I’d be completely unnerved; I’d probably break into a sweat, I’d be short of breath out of impatience and fear. Everything would worry me enormously. But now practically nothing bothers me. We thinking dogs don’t even break out in sweat. I nonchalantly sniff at trees my fellows have peed on and trot off, I don’t know myself where. I just feel horribly depressed. I want to be a human again.

  I so want to turn into a human again.

  I want to fear again, and to thrive in a horrible unknown, to doubt and to hope, again and again. I want Irena Giedraitienė’s changes to shock me and Vytautas Vargalys’s tragedy to move me to tears; I want to know again that I will die, and to desperately try not think of it. I want to be a human again: flawed, lost, and weak.

  It’s a really weird nostalgia that’s tormenting me. I don’t long for my country, not even my past: I pine for a human form. It’s too difficult and pointless to be a thinking dog. Too difficult and too pointless. I finally felt a tiny little twinge of feeling inside me. It’s like some little wavering flame in my non-existent doggy soul.

  I need to become even more human. I would give up all of my life after death just so I could laugh and cry.

  Lord knows, I’d gladly exchange my life after death for one more human one.

  My doggy brain works furiously. Irena Giedraitienė and Bitinas distend through it like
a black knot of thoughts. I’m beginning to fathom Vilnius’s fateful system, all of Vilnius’s insane jazz. Giedraitienė wandering around here is no accident. When a person is connected to every episode, to all of your acquaintances—apparently by chance, apparently for no reason—that person himself is the cause as well as the essence. Irena Giedraitienė was creeping around everywhere, all the time; her scent almost never faded from my nostrils. Could she have been the secret manager of Vilnius Poker, could she have dealt marked cards to the players?

  There’s street sweepers toiling next to the Cvirka monument too. Good Lord, an inhabitant of some other planet, seeing Vilnius for the first time this morning, would suppose it’s a city of street sweepers, that all Vilniutians dress only in orange jackets. A bit further, on the boulevard, the first trolleybuses are already rumbling. Vilnius is brazenly awakening.

  And I keep running at a steady trot, as if I had a clear purpose. But what could my purpose be? Life after death doesn’t offer any purpose. You thank the nonexistent God that at least you have the right to visit your own Vilnius.

  Of course, everyone’s Vilnius is completely different.

  My Vilnius is Vilnius. In this respect, I have precedence over many of the dead.

  And now I’m running at a trot, not knowing where, not knowing why. Although no—I’m rushing to see Vytautas Vargalys. I’m rushing to warn him, and most important of all—to ask him. He’ll answer me: via scent, sound, or something else besides. Now I’ll understand him, whatever he may do. I’ve suddenly begun feeling the secret jazz rhythm of this city of sweepers. It pulses in my veins; some piece that would allow me to put it all together is still missing, but thank God, I know the key to the cipher. It’s called Vytautas Vargalys. Only now do I realize his importance. Every act of his, every word, was significant. In my human life, he was my pal, my drinking buddy, and later even my friend, but I never understood him completely. For that I had to die and spend several years in a dog’s hide. Only this morning did I begin to grasp that Vytautas Vargalys isn’t just a human—like I was, and maybe will be again sometime. All of his family’s memory and understanding lurk within him. The Vargalyses somehow managed to connect their human lives with their after-death ones. What one Vargalys experienced after death, all of the Vargalyses—if even only the tiniest bit—felt in their own lives. It’s been that way for generation after generation.

  We desperately need to make contact, to talk a bit. It’s not true that a dog is so helpless. I can write with my paw in the damp sand by the sea. I could even type on a typewriter, if someone would outfit it with a special keyboard. Thank God I didn’t turn into a fly or something. I’m a dog, I can answer questions by barking—at least “yes” and “no.” I can . . .

  I can do anything, if I just want to. And I’ve wanted to for a long time now.

  I’ve even gotten a bit out of breath running, but the destination is close by. Here’s Pamėklių Hill, here’s the most disgusting building in Vilnius, and here I am—breathless, irritable, but happy.

  I almost had a sensation of human feelings. All the more since the wind is blowing at my back, so I don’t smell anything. Here’s Lukiškių Square. Here’s the record store; despite the early hour there’s a crowd of teenagers milling around next to it: for several days now rumors have been going around the city that they’re going to deliver a Paul McCartney record. And on a bench next to the toilet, as pretty as you please, sit Irena Giedraitienė and Bitinas.

  I don’t understand how they could have gotten here before me, but that’s not what matters most. Their faces are serene and blissful; it seems they’re looking at me: scornfully, and a bit proudly, as if they had carried out a secret mission by beating me to the punch. I don’t want to believe it, but now the wind is blowing at me from the KGB Building, so with appalling clarity I smell everything clearly.

  From out of the basement, from out of Vytautas Vargalys’s cell, spreads one and only one strong scent. I know it very well; it’s always identical, even though it’s colored differently every time. But those weak hues are merely a deception, mere smoke in the eyes, because the scent is always the same. Spreading or entwined, but at the same time unique and completely ordinary. As ordinary as death.

  There’s no other way it could be, because that is the smell of death.

  Just now, there in the basement, Vytautas Vargalys died.

  The square, the building behind my back, Vilnius in its entirety has turned into an ineffective theater set. The wind tossed the solitary leaves on the trees; the badly made-up street sweepers played the part of street sweepers. The musical teenagers played excited music-obsessed fans. The trolleybus intentionally rumbled and sped, playing a trolleybus. Every last thing here was acting—even the trees. Only Irena Giedraitienė and Bitinas continued to be unrelentingly real. As real as fate. As real as destiny itself. Their thin, doggishly quivering nostrils greedily caught at the scent they had dreamed of. Their thin faces, seemingly sculpted out of wood, shone with bliss and an evil joy. Staring at me brazenly, they got up from the little bench and waved their arms strangely. Then they awkwardly swayed their hips and took a few small steps in opposite directions. Only then did I realize they were dancing.

  An unimaginably fat, mustachioed man leisurely waddled out the door to the KGB building, grasping a bluish-white lump in his hands. Squatting with difficulty, he put the lump down on the sidewalk and stroked it tenderly. Another trolleybus clanged by. Irena Giedraitienė and her companion danced slowly and ostentatiously. Straightening up, the fatty stared at them, and then earnestly clapped his plump hands. His mustache-covered mouth grinned; his palms were so plump that the clapping couldn’t be heard at all. He was completely toothless. He glanced at his watch, stroked the bluish-white lump again, and yawned. The lump unexpectedly shook itself and spread out its wings. It turned into a pigeon right in front of my eyes. And the pair of doggish sniffers kept dancing, even attracting the attention of the musical devotees.

  I didn’t care about them anymore, all I saw was the bluish-white pigeon; the mustachioed fatty finally left it alone and returned to his office. I carefully ran across the boulevard and stopped in front of that oppressive bird.

  It was a filthy, shabby city pigeon. Like all pigeons, it squinted at me with its deranged little eyes. But it didn’t try to fly away. It merely hobbled to the side, swaying badly. Its left foot was shorter, or maybe injured. Probably it couldn’t fly at all. Without a doubt it couldn’t; it didn’t have the right to rise up into the air; it was eternally tied to the ground. A disgusting, soiled pigeon of Vilnius, with plastered-down feathers and the eyes of a dangerous maniac.

  Scent once more betrayed all and explained all.

  A threatening and tangled scent, which had forced its way through the stench of congealed feathers and soiled three-toed pigeon, through the hopeless whiff of the sniffing couple’s dance, through Vilnius’s armor and deceit—it was faint, but plainly sensed, and inarguably the scent of Vytautas Vargalys: murderous and mocking, like the idiotic squinting of the pigeon’s eyes.

  The mangy, insane pigeon of Vilnius’s morning smelled of Vytautas Vargalys, because it was Vytautas Vargalys.

  If they’d let me choose a nightmare, I’d agree to any of them, if only I wouldn’t have to see this sight. Vytautas Vargalys in the shape of a revolting, frightening, crazy-eyed pigeon of Vilnius. Vytautas Vargalys, who knows what even I don’t know, what no one else knows. Vytautas Vargalys, who despised pigeons with a deathly hatred. That Vytautas Vargalys was standing in front of me now and glaring maliciously with its fierce little eyes. I’ll never talk to him now; I’ll never see him. I won’t even smell him—a few days will go by and his scent will fade, all that will be left will be the stench of a soiled, scruffy, lame Vilnius pigeon.

  The malicious hand of the demiurge of Vilnius turned him into the one creature in the world that was the most disgusting to Vytautas Vargalys.

  Apparently, those must be the rules.

  Every
decent dog would, sooner or later, start finding those rules oppressive.

  Vilnius doesn’t stop playing a cheap comedy. Like any decent dog, I despise that old comedian. The doggishly-sniffing couple growl and wag their tails, even though they don’t have them. The city calmly awakes, yawns and stretches nonchalantly, because nothing matters to this city. It has no soul; in place of its heart hides a putrid, lethargic dragon.

  I’m left completely on my own. The last person who tied me to this city has turned into a pigeon. He didn’t want to give the secret of Vilnius Poker away to me.

  I don’t realize myself that I’ve sat down in the middle of the avenue and started howling. On my left looms the KGB Building, on the right the Lenin monument. And I howl like the Iron Wolf. Only just now do I realize: I am the Iron Wolf. The prophet of the New Vilnius. I sit in the very center of the city, my snout raised to the skies, and announce the news to the entire world. And the glory of Vilnius flies round the farthest lands; every place on earth resonates with my howl.

  Rejoicing, the morning trolleybus comes tearing along directly at me, but I don’t budge, I just howl louder still. The trolleybus even screech­es in its jubilation and flies towards me. The sullen guy at the wheel, with puffy bags under his eyes, has brightened up; he even leaned forward—he was one of those drivers who invariably speed up when they have a chance to crush a cat or a dog.