The next day I put on my Communion dress and veil and went to church with my parents, simply going through the motions because my heart had turned cold. My mother kept asking me if I felt all right. All the other girls were excited, dressed in their Communion regalia and holding the pearlized prayer books Sister Margaret had given us. The procession marched to the front pews, where we waited for the sacrament of Communion. The statues of saints seemed to be glaring down angrily at me. We walked up one-by-one and knelt down and raised our heads, stuck our tongues out, and waited for the holy wafer just like Vida and I had practiced. Only now I wondered if it would burn my sinner’s tongue. I remembered Sister Margaret had told us a story about a man who ate meat on Friday, saying he didn’t believe in the holy day of fasting. He ate a piece of bologna while looking at the crucifix in his kitchen and was struck blind right on the spot. Would the same thing happen to me? Would my limbs shrivel like that poor boy I once saw at the carnival? Would my mind go bad like Magda’s?
The altar boy rang the bells for Communion. One-by-one, my classmates knelt down at the altar until it was my turn. The priest said the blessing, and I was almost in tears when he put the wafer onto my tongue. I quickly closed my mouth, blessed myself and went back to my pew, waiting for catastrophe to strike. The wafer stuck to the roof of my dry mouth, and I couldn’t peel it off with my tongue. I knelt, waiting for it to melt away, wondering how God was going to punish me. My guilt tore at my soul.
When Mass finished, I walked out of the church, blinking in the May sunshine. Everyone was to go to the auditorium to get their formal portraits taken before going home to celebrate with their families.
My mother had invited our family friends, who congratulated me, giving me presents of a gold cross and savings bonds that I didn’t deserve. My mother had made roast beef and mashed potatoes. My father brought out a special bottle of wine that he had saved for this occasion called Lachryma Christi—the tears of Christ. I wondered if the tears tasted salty like my tears when they rolled down into the corners of my mouth. Later, when I found a tiny bit of the wine left in a glass in the kitchen, I drank it, though the taste was awful. If only those tears could make me a good girl again.
A week later, Sister Margaret passed out large envelopes containing the formal portraits from our First Communion. I looked at Milda’s photo in her lace dress, a rosary dangling from white gloves, eyes cast up towards heaven. She looked as if she’d just seen the Beatific Vision, a beautiful innocence beaming from her face like the morning sun. My photo looked different from the others. I saw at once that it was the face of a sinner—troubled and haunted. As I looked at the other portraits around the room, I realized they all looked saintly—all except one other face whose large gray eyes had the same haunted expression. Vida and I looked at each other’s Communion photos and recognized our kindred souls.
Stalin on Talman Street
Jurgis Vitkus, 1953
In the gray Chicago dawn, Jurgis Vitkus woke in tears, keeping his eyes shut, not wanting to face the day. He had been dreaming about Magda’s tea set again. It had been his daughter’s favorite toy, and she would make him drink from the tiny cup before she was injured. Life in Lithuania had been a sweet dream before the war. He had loved his farm—earth so black and rich you could spit on it and something would grow. Marriage to Regina had brought his beautiful children—first Magda and later his son, Algis.
A familiar wave of nausea washed over him. No good thinking about the past—that life was gone like the loud dead, whose shrill demands still haunted his dreams. He got up, but his head pounded so much he had to hold it. On the other side of the bed, Regina turned over. He tried not to wake her because she worked nights cleaning offices downtown while he worked days at the stockyards so that one of them would always be home with the children. Algis went to Nativity School, but it was no use sending Magda to school.
Sauerkraut—that was the answer to his hangover. He quietly shuffled to the kitchen, only to find Magda already pouring milk into Algis’ cereal bowl. Jurgis greeted his children as he took out the leftover sauerkraut and picked up the Lithuanian paper—March 5, 1953. No news from Lithuania—only the local gossip: a folk dance group from Detroit was performing at the Auditorium on Halsted Street, the Lithuanian government-in-exile was having new elections at the Knights of Columbus hall, keeping alive the memory of an independent Lithuania, impatiently waiting and preparing for the day it would regain its freedom from Soviet occupation.
When Regina walked into the kitchen complaining that she couldn’t sleep, Jurgis, who had been reading about the local soccer games, the marriage, birth, and death announcements, and the self-congratulatory articles by local businessmen, suddenly slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “They call this a newspaper! The parish bulletin has more news than this. Bah! What’s happening in Vilnius or Kaunas?”
“Well, that’s a fine good morning! Are you starting that old litany of yours?” Regina filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove.
“Regina, this drives me crazy! What’s going on there? Lithuania is as quiet as a tomb since the war. Once that Iron Curtain came down like a lid on a casket, everything became mute.” Jurgis threw the paper down, fed up with not knowing if his family was still alive. At least his wife’s family was still in Lithuania, while his family had been sent to Stalin’s gulags.
“Regina, I had that dream again,” said Jurgis, raking his thin dark hair with his fingers.
His wife, who had been staring out the window at nothing in particular, turned to him, whispering, “About Magda’s tea set?”
Jurgis nodded; his heart felt squeezed. “I broke it.”
“You know, you’ve wrapped yourself in sadness like a shroud. I can’t even remember the last time I heard you laugh.” Her pointed chin quivered as she spoke. “The past is gone like a swift-moving river, and it’s time to start a new life. This is Chicago, not Lithuania. Aren’t you at least happy for your children that we finally made it to Marquette Park?”
“Chicago, Chicago—what kind of life is this?”
That evening, after work, Jurgis and his young children ate the borscht that his wife had left them and washed the dishes, and then he put Magda and Algis to bed. He looked at his beloved daughter, almost thirteen—so beautiful, so loved, and so damaged. It broke his heart as he kissed her forehead and said good night. He paced restlessly until he knew his children were sleeping soundly. He was so agitated that he decided to go to the tavern for a quick drink. Leaving the radiator warmth of his brick two-flat, he could smell the sour-sweetness of the Kool-Aid factory. He walked down Talman Street, past the rows of brick houses, past the Sinclair station, to his favorite bar, the Amber Tavern. On Sixty-Ninth Street, between Western and California, there were a dozen bars or more, each known for a slightly different clientele. The Liths Club catered to the rowdy soccer teams, the Vytis Club was for patriots and politicos, the Playhouse for artists and intellectuals with clever “Second Village” take-offs of Second City, and the Continental for those world-weary cynics who suffered no fools. There were other bars for a neighborhood crowd, but the popular Amber Tavern took them all in, from the seasoned alcoholics to the pubescent local students.
Jurgis finally reached the Amber Tavern, where a group of disgruntled husbands banded together with some congealed bachelors and a small group of randy soccer players. They all had nicknames like Felius the Poet, Mr. George, and Captain Eddie—men as colorfully idiosyncratic as their names. Some eventually managed to get married, while others spent lifetimes hanging out on their bar stools, checking out the young girls who came in. Three or four shots of Asbach later, they were all best friends, singing in three-part harmony of their lost loves, while the bartender, Willy, played his accordion:
The third brother rode off to war,
leaving his beloved
weaving the finest wedding linen
and quietl
y weeping at the loom.
They sang the old patriotic songs about their lost homeland, which would make Captain Eddie, who was neither a captain nor an Eddie, tear up. Felius, the resident poet of the group, had a golden goatee and an affected manner that irritated some so that they might have written him off as an insufferable pedant, but they forgave him because he had memorized the great poet Maironis. Education was still education. Felius stood up from his barstool to declaim a poem by Brazdzionis:
Gray hills hold up a sky
That hangs so low, so low,
And you walk on foreign soil
Like an orphan, crying.
Captain Eddie started blubbering in his drink again. “Here’s to you, Felius,” he said, raising his glass. “That’s beautiful. That damned war made us all orphans.” He belted back a shot of brandy and coughed.
“Captain, you’re like an old woman,” laughed Willy, a veteran of the 1918 war for Lithuania’s independence. “You’ll stay a bachelor forever. Women want someone strong and brave, like Felius here.” He winked and clapped Felius on the back, laughing. Jurgis, like half the men there, privately wondered if Felius was a bit fey. The poet forced a half-smile, looking around uneasily. Jurgis wondered if he realized he was being mocked, because Felius always bragged about being a great ladies’ man—very debonair and Continental, like a young Cary Grant with a slight bohemian flair. No one believed a word.
Willy, a bear of a man, took off his accordion and pointed to the map he had tacked up on a wall. “Will you look at this,” he said in his gravelly voice, his finger jabbing at the map. “Once our country stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea, but now I can’t find it anywhere. It was swallowed by a giant pink glob that calls itself USSR. That’s the wretched fate of small countries. Look how China swallowed up Tibet.”
Jurgis raised his glass. “To Lithuania, may she spit on Stalin’s grave.” Half the bar spat at the mention of Stalin’s name and then raised their glasses to toast a free Lithuania.
Just then, the front door opened, and a well-endowed bleached blonde entered, followed by a group of teenagers dressed in their national costumes, followed by an older group dressed in their Sunday best.
“Hey, Willy, what’s going on?” asked Valentinas Gediminas, a plump dumpling-faced man who still lived with his mother but spent most evenings at the Amber Tavern.
“It’s a folk dance group from Detroit,” answered Willy. “They’re having a party in the back room.”
The whole place started buzzing like flies before rain. The soccer players immediately glued themselves to the young girls, while the older bachelors flirted with their mothers. Mr. George, the unctuous old bachelor, goosed one of the girls, who blanched and ran off to her mother.
Jurgis stayed at the bar with the laconic Antanas Balys, both sorrowfully sipping Canadian Club, trying to banish the gloom that sat on him like a long spell of bad weather. Jurgis was about to order another shot from Willy when he heard a laugh that was strangely familiar. That laugh made ten years drop from him like an old coat no longer needed. When he turned, he saw a woman with brassy bleached hair swept to one side, and a face so vividly painted, it would take two bars of soap to clean it. She didn’t exactly look familiar, but still, he knew that laugh from somewhere.
“Excuse me, Miss, do I know you?” asked Jurgis.
“Silvia Degutis from Kretinga,” she answered crisply, “but now I teach this dance group in Detroit.”
“Silvia Degutis! Don’t you remember me? Jurgis Vitkus. We were in school together.”
“Jurgis!” squealed Silvia. “How wonderful to see you. How are you? Tell me everything.” He looked her over, marveling that she had not only grown plump but also changed so much that he could no longer recognize her.
“Oh Silvia, what can I say?” He shrugged dolefully. “Stalin ruined all of our lives. My family is gone.” He shook his head. “My daughter,” he stammered hardly knowing how to begin. “My daughter was buried in an air raid shelter during the war.”
“Oh, my Lord, may she rest in peace.” Silvia blessed herself.
Jurgis shook his head. “No, no, she lived. It’s just that her mind was affected. She’s not right.” He tapped his temple.
“I’m so sorry.” Silvia took his hand and held it while Jurgis looked at Silvia and saw that her eyes were those of the girl he remembered. He nodded, swallowing the tangle of emotions that were rising in his chest like heartburn. “And how has life treated you, tell me?”
Silvia hesitated. “I shouldn’t complain, really. It’s just that my mother is still in Lithuania.” Her chin quivered. “I worry.” Jurgis could see that she wanted to say more but was afraid her emotions would spill over. Silvia smiled weakly. “Enough of these sad stories. This is a party for my dance troupe, so let’s have a drink to the old days and old friends reunited.” There was something curious in Silvia’s eyes that Jurgis liked. It was a spark, an amusement that life had not been able to extinguish.
Felius the Poet insinuated himself between the reunited friends, asking for an introduction to Silvia. When Willy picked up his accordion and started playing the sorrowful but sexy “Tango of the Roses,” Jurgis asked Silvia to dance.
Silvia continued, “The hell with Stalin, I say. He’s killed so many already, and if you spend the rest of your days mourning, well, then he’s taken your life as well. But not me! I’m going to dance and laugh enough for ten people. I owe the dead that much.” Silvia gave Jurgis a kiss on the cheek and smiled. “By the way, did you hear what Stalin said recently during one of his speeches?” They tangoed listlessly around the room.
“No, what?” Jurgis didn’t really want to hear it.
She lifted her fist in mock oration: “I am prepared to give my blood for the cause of the working class—drop by drop.”
Jurgis frowned. “Yes, so?”
“A note got passed up to Stalin at the podium. It read: ‘Dear Comrade Stalin, why drag things out? Give it all at once!’” Silvia winked and chuckled, going off to join the rest of the Detroit crowd. Felius the Poet, who had been standing nearby, followed Silvia into the back room like her shadow.
Left on the dance floor, Jurgis felt strangely abandoned. He wanted to talk to Silvia some more, but his head was spinning from too many drinks. The accordion music started wailing a new tango and dancers slithered around him. It felt crowded and hot. Tonight, like so often before, the past was threatening to bleed into the present.
Suddenly, Jurgis needed some air to clear his head. It was time to go home to his children. Leaving the stifling warmth of the bar, he stepped into the cold and foggy night filled with streetlights surrounded by yellow haloes. In the fog, he stumbled into a mailbox, and a dog started barking loudly in a backyard. As he staggered down the dark street, the accordion music slowly faded away.
Oddly, it felt as if he had never seen these streets before, as if he had suddenly woken from one dream into another. He wanted to find Talman Street, but there were no familiar landmarks; nothing was recognizable. The streets were utterly deserted as Jurgis trudged on, stumbling and lost like an orphan until he finally saw someone coming toward him. Perhaps this person might help him find his way. He stopped to watch, realizing that the person looked familiar. The man turned onto the walkway of a nearby house and banged loudly on the front door with his fists. Soon, the lights turned on, and Mr. Gudauskas came to the front door. The stranger kept saying something, but Jurgis couldn’t hear it. Then, Mr. Gudauskas slammed the door, muttering curses under his breath. He watched the man walk to the next house and bang on that door. As he got closer, Jurgis noticed his Russian uniform. Just like the NKVD, he thought, who only come in the middle of the night. Jurgis felt an unexplained wave of terror and numbness as he remembered a night in June 1941 when the NKVD had come to his farm. It was a warm night, so he had gone to sleep in the hayloft where it was cooler. His wife and daugh
ter were visiting at her mother’s farm. To Jurgis’ horror, the Bolsheviks took his brothers and parents into the back of a truck and drove away. He had cowered in the hayloft, hiding as he quivered in fear, afraid they would find him. Later, he learned that many thousands had been taken on those June nights and put in cattle cars to Siberia. The NKVD hadn’t found him, but sometimes Jurgis wished they had. The burden of his cowardice weighed heavily on him. Not that he could have saved his family, but he hadn’t even had the courage to try.
Jurgis felt his guilt sitting on his chest like a giant boulder, so heavy he could hardly breathe. He crouched down behind a hedge and watched the man walk toward him, stalking him from house to house until he finally recognized him—the bushy mustache, the thick eyebrows. How could it be? Yet, there was no mistaking him. It was Stalin himself, trudging down Talman Street, knocking on every door. The blood rushed to Jurgis’ head as Stalin walked right by him, beating his breast as he softly muttered, “gospodi pamili, gospodi pamili,” the Russian Orthodox prayer for God’s mercy.
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