Vilnius Poker Page 16

  No, I haven’t invented Lolita, she is: she walks around the room naked, and then puts on a robe . . . She sits across from me in the tub and splashes my chest with white foam . . . She is, she doesn’t disappear anywhere, she won’t vanish like smoke, here she is: kneeling at the end of the bed she helplessly nibbles at my thighs and belly, she wants to take a bite of her god’s body, ritually taste of it, so that at least a particle of mine will remain within her, because if she were to lose connection with me, she would instantly crumble into a little pile of ashes. I lie on my back, and with all of my pores and veins I feel her take my scarred masculinity into her hands, stroke it with her palms, press it to one cheek and the other, brush it against her lips, look at it, no longer at me—only at it.

  “My handsome one,” she says in a hoarse voice, “It’s like a flower . . . It’s my prettiest flower . . . And it smells like a flower . . . A scarred warrior . . .”

  Her head has fallen on my hips while she caresses and kisses her prettiest flower; I actually feel weak, and an emptiness spreads through my innards. She sucks me, sucks out my insides, it seems she is pulling everything out of me, only a sugary bliss remains inside; it should be very good, but for some reason it’s dreary—for some reason I see a blue sky above me, it’s not darkened by the least little cloud. The clearest of clear summers returns again, the summer of horror, the summer of the cattle cars. Grandfather’s angry predictions are coming true; I don’t understand anything anymore, I live as if in a dream, I rise and go to bed as if in a dream. Barely a year has gone by since the Russians came, and the world changed the way it doesn’t change in centuries. Now I’m lying completely naked in a bed of luxuriant grass, the sun glares, right nearby a little creek swirls, and on my belly scrawled sheets of paper quietly rustle. Giedraitis Junior is naked too, still guzzling a half-empty bottle swiped from home. The wine we’ve drunk gently intoxicates, and I feel like I’m in a double dream, Lord knows, as if I’m dreaming in a dream, but there’s no peace in it, either; the wheels of the cattle cars keep rumbling in my head. Everything is a dream—it’s so easy to convince yourself of that. The trains to the East thunder by in the black darkness. The Russians are hidden, they do their black work in the blackness, but I know the secret. Every morning I run to the railroad tracks, where Giedraitis Junior is already waiting for me. After the night, the embankment looks like it’s been covered in snow; it’s white, white as far as the eye can see—as if the cattle cars were spreading a deadly frost. We quickly scoop up and gather that dirty snow, but oddly—it doesn’t freeze, but rather scorches the fingers. It’s probably not the paper that scorches (that snow is made of paper), but what’s written on it. We gather up those damp little papers, but we don’t manage to take even a hundredth part of them: the entire embankment is strewn with those moaning, wailing, screaming sheets that the trains of ghosts, rolling to the East, scattered during the night. This is the only place where everyone throws their little messages out—apparently, this is an enchanted spot. And I am the king of that enchantment.

  I play a strange game, as if I were playing chess with strangers’ fates. Every night people disappear without a trace, and then thunder off into a boundless void by the thousands. The Shit of All Shits is devouring Lithuanians; everyone is waiting for their turn to come. And when it comes—they throw out their ghostly letters, like sailors from a sinking ship. They believe someone will pick up their cries, tears, and groans from the ground and send them off as addressed. A naïve, naïve, hope: to once see the morning railroad embankment strewn with hundreds, thousands of little letters, is enough to be overwhelmed by a bottomless fear, a horror of the mute trains of apparitions dissecting the blackness. You couldn’t manage to send out even the smallest part of those letters, so we play a strange game: we skim through them, and he who wins is the one that finds the most interesting one . . . or the most horrible . . . or the funniest . . . We haven’t selected today’s yet:

  Elena,

  I know you won’t get my letter, I’m writing into the void. I’m sitting in the corner of the car with my pants wet because the guards won’t let us near the opening. So no one will see there’s people in the cars. No one knows where they’re taking us, maybe to shoot us. Maybe I’ll be gone soon, but you won’t be around for long, either. If that’s the way it is—the Russians will shoot everyone. We’ll die out from them like from the plague. It actually makes me feel better, that you’ll die too. We’ll meet in paradise, no one will separate us there . . .

  I watch Robertas guzzle the wine; I try to guess what he’s thinking. What does father think, drawing nothing but bloody trains that are descending into horrible, gigantic, tunnel-like sexual openings? What does grandfather think, he who doesn’t eat, drink, or say anything? What does mother think, she who shaved her head bare yesterday? What do I think myself? Maybe that the end of the world is here? That I’m a human and that I should love other people? In other words, those aliens too, the ones who load the trains of apparitions at night? I cannot love them, for the very reason that I am a human. Actually, I could add that they aren’t human. Yes, that’s the only possibility: those aliens are not humans.

  Maryt, we’re still alive. They stuffed us into black cars last night, they’re taking us to Rushia, we’ll be like servants there for the Balshevik masters. Don’t you worry, I’ll write you a letter as soon as I can. You just learn Russkie, Russkie will be all they’ll let you speak and write, so learn it. Let Kazelis run like hell from Kaunas, they’ll take everybody from the cities to Rusland, maybe out in the country they’ll leave some. The two of you just lie low, then maybe everything will be okay. I had a slab of bacon so I’m fixed up a bit better than the others. The Russkies aint never seen bacon, so it was like manna from heaven to them. Only one guy didn’t eat it, he said at home they make it better, in factories, out of speshal stuff. Teach Kazelis to say miravaja revoliucija and tavarich stalin nash atec, and he ought to learn a Russkie song too, they like it a lot when you sing their songs. When some Russkie shows up in the yard, start singing out loud right away, then they’ll leave you alone. I’m throwing this letter out next to some kind of bonfires, maybe some good people will pass it on to you. Luv and kisses, Stanislovas

  And yet another one, some philosopher’s; even in a cattle wagon he wants to appear wise to himself:

  Lord God! Everyone is throwing letters out here, so I’m throwing one out too. I don’t want to write to people anymore. I’m addressing this to Thee, Lord, surely Thou seest that Lithuania is on the brink—tell me that doesn’t worry Thee at all? What have the honest, hard-working plowmen of Lithuania done to offend Thee, why are people who think, who have a heart and who believe in Thee no longer loved? Why take the side of the faceless mass pouring out of the East? Don’t tell me Thou dost not hear what they say? They have no brains. Don’t tell me Thou dost not see what they’re doing? They have no heart. They’re not made in Thy image. Why are they chasing us out of the land of our fathers? Maybe Thou hast proclaimed the end of the world by now, maybe the Revelation is already being fulfilled? Maybe . . .

  The letters rustle on my belly. There’s no need to try to understand anything. There’s the sun, there’s the creek, over there’s a rock overgrown with moss. It’s just somehow unsettling; my heart is troubled. And Giedraitis Junior is looking at me so strangely too. I know he secretly hates me—because I’m so big and strong, because I have known a woman, because I’m already a man, while he, a year older, is still a puny little kid. And I envied him his dandy of a music teacher, the entire class envied him: he would meet junior Giedraitis by the school, put his arm around his shoulders and lead him off, whispering something in his ear. And I’m also envious of him because everything is always obvious to him. He doesn’t reproach himself over the love of humans or unsent letters. Every human resembles some sort of animal: a bird, a long-legged hunting dog, a rat. Giedraitis Junior doesn’t resemble anything, he’s completely lifeless: he reminds you of drab ruins that absolutely n
o one visits. Sometimes it seems like there’s bats flying around in his belly. Nature shorted him something; everything others take openly and honestly, he’s forced to snatch secretly—like today’s wine. He’s missing something; something very, very important. No one likes him. All the more reason I should love him. They’re packing up Lithuanians as fertilizer for the fields of Siberia; there’s fewer of us all the time, we have to love one another. They’ll take him among the first—he tried to buddy up to the Nationalist youth. I almost love him—as if he were a younger sister, neither pretty nor interesting, whom no one will marry no matter what dowry you’d offer. Robis smiles pitifully—he always instantly senses sympathy in another’s eyes. He wants to be good to me, very, very good—like an affectionate puppy. He rubs against me, he’s a puppy, and I’m a naked god knocked to the ground, great and unhappy in equal parts. Apparitions are writing letters to me about Lithuania. Robis blinks rapidly, he watches with a devoted gaze. I’m sorry for him, I want to do something nice for him. I stretch out my hand and tousle his hair—that dandy of a music teacher used to do that. He suddenly blushes, smiles pitifully, looks at me with an ever stranger stare. I don’t get it right away when his hand starts feeling around below my belly, carefully strokes my hair, suddenly as lightly as a little mouse slides down even further and, quivering, embraces my penis. My face suddenly gets hot, my thoughts jumble, I should say or do something, but the wine is swirling in my head so pleasantly. I never imagined that Robis’s hands are so soft—like velvet, like willow buds.

  “It’s so handsome!” says Robis in a thick voice. “It’s so big and handsome!”

  Yes, a strange inner voice whispers, yes, it’s big and handsome, all of you is big and handsome, you are like a god. I don’t understand what Robis is doing, my thoughts wilt, I don’t think anything, I just wait to see what will happen. He sighs quietly, slides somewhere lower down, I wait, I keep waiting, and suddenly I feel a damp touch there, below, in the most tender of spots. I subside into a sticky, warm sweetness, and the strange voice keeps warbling: only for you, only for you can it be this sweet, because you are like a god. It’s really hard to tear my stuck eyelids apart, I can barely see: Robis has lain down on my hips, his eyes are like a beaten dog’s, it’s some kind of a painting, in reality it’s not like that, there’s no such impossible sweetness, even my bones grow soft and mushy—any moment I’ll close my eyes, helpless. Yes, the strange voice beckons, only gods dream such dreams, wait a bit, it’ll be even better. I throw a last glance at the giddy dream, but my eyes stumble on the sheets of paper on my belly, suddenly I understand that this is no dream, that everything is for real!

  Suddenly I realize what’s going on here. Giedraitis Junior, sensing something bad (he always senses things), arduously tears himself away from me, panting heavily. I don’t know what to do, I just assure myself that nothing happened, nothing, nothing, has happened and couldn’t have happened. I want just one thing: that he too, would understand that nothing happened here; nothing, absolutely nothing, has taken place.

  “Is it nice?” Giedraitis Junior asks quietly. “If you want, I’ll kiss your feet . . . I collect things that you’ve touched . . . Let me finish . . . Soon, to the end . . .”

  He looks at me again with big eyes, like I’m one of his own. It’s green around me, everything is green, except for the white of the undelivered letters on my belly. What would those apparitions think of me, seeing their naked, spread-eagled god? I find myself thinking of what my grandfather would do to me and it takes my breath away. I’m completely calm; I’m just sorry that Giedraitis Junior spoke. I’m sorry for his voice, sorry for him himself, because now I will have to kill him. If he spoke up like that, it means everything really did happen. Now I will have to kill him, otherwise I’ll never wash off the shame.

  He’s gone in an instant; I see only a helpless lump of a body, splatters of blood on the grass, and my beaten knuckles. He’s choking on snot and blood, wheezing, slinging little whitish papers to the side. I need to calm down, otherwise I really will kill him. Giedraitis Junior is all bloody, even his glance is bloody; his words are bloody too.

  “You screwed my mother!” he screams, “I know everything! You screwed my mother! I’ll tell father! He’ll kill you! Cut you into pieces! Tear out your eyes! Rip off your shitty peewee! . . .”

  He eyes me so furiously that it seems he’ll strangle me with his very eyes, his very look. Everything in my head is muddled: the night trains, the game with strangers’ fates, the babbling of the creek, Madam Giedraitienė’s limp breasts and commanding voice, starving grandfather’s sluggish stare, Junior Giedraitis’s doggish gaze, and a white ceiling which looms above me, presses down on me; I have to shake my head roughly so it will rise up a bit and grant me just a speck of freedom, just the slightest chance of remaining alive. For the time being still alive.

  “What’s the matter with you?’ Lolita asks. “Have you been beset by ghosts?”

  She is calm and good-natured, there’s only a note of curiosity in her voice. By now she has put on a robe, only her legs are severely naked; they bother me. Her body should be different, perhaps old and tired—then neither her intelligent eyes nor her strange wisdom would surprise me. Sometimes it seems she should have been born a man. It’s practically pathological: I want to turn the most beautiful of my women into a man—into an elderly giant who’s seen everything, who could truly be relied on. She could substitute for both Gedis and Bolius—if not for those intoxicating legs, if not for those breasts rising up and forcing their way out of her clothes, like fish out of a net.

  Lolita reads my mind: she carefully covers her legs, sinks into a shadow. Her profile is a bit predatory, it’s one that could be a man’s too. Maybe I should dress her in men’s clothes for conversations? No, they would make it even more obvious that she is a woman, a woman of women.

  “Talk about something. That’s the only way to drive the ghosts away. Tell me about your mother. You promised.”

  It’s true, I promised; I actually thought up a bargain. An eye for an eye, a death for a death. A story for a story.

  “And you tell me about your husband. Even though you didn’t promise.”

  “I didn’t think you’d be interested,” she says, and falls silent for a long, long time.

  I see my mother standing in the intersection of the hallways, not knowing which way to turn. What can I say about her? Would she herself let me? I ask, even though I know it’s all the same to her. Everything’s all the same to her. She would listen to a story about herself as if it were the tale of some stranger. And immediately forget it all.

  “She was rich. She married against her family’s will. It’s understandable—there a fattened burgher’s family, and here—a crazed genius with flashing eyes. My mother was very pretty . . . or maybe not . . . I don’t even know. It probably doesn’t matter . . . She relied on father absolutely, that’s what was the worst. No friends, no gatherings, no charity work. Her husband was the entire world to her; she existed only when he was next to her, afterwards she would seem to disappear, and all that was left was waiting until he would show up again . . . That’s worse than death. To blindly rely on someone—that’s worse than a slow, painful death . . . Without father she lived as if she were in a dream, she would drift up and down the corridors, she didn’t even talk . . .”

  Mother comes into the room; it seems she badly wants to say something—it always seems she wants to say something important. But she’ll be quiet, she’ll just stretch her slender arms out to me, and drops of blood will drip from her fingertips. She’s killed something again, she’s always killing something; you’d think she wanted to make the world smaller so it wouldn’t be so complicated.

  “You rely on someone . . .” I say quietly, quietly. “And then that someone spits in your face . . . I don’t know why father turned away from her. They didn’t interact at all; they lived in different ends of the house so they wouldn’t, God forbid, meet . . . She was suddenly left a
lone, facing the world she had never tried to understand. Her world was her parents’ family, then her husband and his affairs . . . She didn’t know how to live, understand, she didn’t have anything of her own: no goals, no aspirations, no worries. Can you imagine what it means for a forty-year-old woman to begin to get to know the world—like a child, like a naïve teenager? . . . And she was utterly determined to understand the world—by herself, independently . . . I don’t know how to explain it . . . Well—we all know how our day will begin tomorrow, what we will need to do, what we want . . . She didn’t know anything.”

  “She didn’t adapt?” Lolita asks carefully.

  “Not that, no, not that, Lola! She took on the world like . . . like a game . . . like a miracle . . . I don’t know . . . She didn’t try to adapt to it, she just as calmly as you please created her own universe with inexplicable, spontaneous laws. Whatever came into her head, that was a law of the universe. She was up to her ears in money; she had the complete freedom that all artists and thinkers in general can only dream about. It was just that she didn’t know what to do with that freedom. She spat on society, family, children, making money, and all rules, and decided to try some kind of experiment. No one could predict what she would think up next. The worst of it was that she didn’t know herself. She could sleep days and stay awake nights. Week after week, from morning till night, cook up fancy meals, and then dump everything out. I mean dump it out, understand—not parcel it out to some villager, or to us, or to some guest, but dump it out . . . You’d think she was trying to find the slightest minutiae that could concern her. But to her it was all absolutely the same. Her husband had turned away . . . I was of no concern . . . no activity concerned her . . . religion didn’t attract her . . . nor any amusements, either . . . And yet she still tried to live . . .”