Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

She finally shut her mouth and froze; she finally realized what my eyes, my entire pose, was screaming. But she wasn’t flustered in the least, she just shrugged her shoulders and buttoned up her blouse.

“I wanted to do what was best,” she uttered hollowly. She nimbly jumped up from the floor. “Don’t see me out, I’ll find my way.”

She hurried off just in time — in another minute I would have slapped her and forcibly thrown her out. I was boiling all over, until I was overcome by a boundless mortification and disappointment. Disappointment with the entire human race.

She dared to think that I’m a sighing lover, of all things! She dared to imagine that I’m swooning and spiritually masturbating while I’m looking at her!

Blows like that happen to a person once in a lifetime.

What let her think that? Perhaps I did love her in my own way — like a younger sister. Perhaps I was a bit afraid of her; I didn’t dare to drive her out when she got too tiresome.

However, I never gave her cause to humiliate me like that! I was accused of being a cat with its mouth vainly watering in front of some out-of-reach bacon.

I lost faith in the entire human race. People can’t believe anymore that it’s possible to help someone without expecting a concrete reward. People don’t believe in any honorable feelings anymore. People are despicable.

After that evening, Lord knows I almost started despising her. I tried to find excuses for her, but an angry feeling kept winning out. Even if she considered me a swooning ninny, she could have rewarded me some other way. She could have offered at least a smidgeon of human warmth and closeness, she could have trusted me with some sacred secret, with anything but her defiled body, even if it was a nymph’s body. I hated her.

Only her death settled everything at once. Death demands objectivity. I had put that undeserved wrong out of my mind until that faceless detective reminded me of it.

The detective spent a long time turning a roll of canvas, which he’d pulled out of the Iron Wolf, in his hands; he even sniffed at it. He started tracing over that canvas with a finger, as if he were reading a missive — line by line. I snuck a glance over his shoulder: it was a painting, a peculiar painting — countless tiny little faces in identical frames, very tidily arranged and painstakingly painted. All of them different, and at the same time unbelievably similar.

“The dispatch has been found,” the detective muttered indistinctly.

I was totally confused. The detective rolled up the canvas and stuck it into an inner coat pocket. It seemed he only now remembered I was there.

“Let’s go, pal,” he said in his usual brusque voice. “Let’s get out of here. And not a word about it to anyone.”

We went down the creaking stairs and through the crooked little yard. In a corner by the gate, some grubby kids were playing store. The five-year-old saleswoman was arguing furiously with customers of the same age.

“I told you, they didn’t bring it!” she yelled in a shrill voice. “I’m the only one here, and there’s lots of you! You should try working in my place!”

The detective stopped and with his hand outstretched announced very loudly:

“My sense of smell is no worse than that dog’s!”

Who knows how good that dog’s sense of smell was, but his body was horrific. Extended along the ground, deformed, of an indescribable color. His ears dragged; it looked like he’d step on them any minute. But that dog’s eyes were intelligent. They weren’t the eyes of an ordinary doggish intelligence.

While I was staring at that degenerate, the detective disappeared. I saw his back off in the distance already. He paused in front of a store and apparently exchanged words with some hunchbacked dwarf hanging around the entrance. That was a remarkably strange detective.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I didn’t have the slightest idea of where he had materialized from, or who he was. He didn’t show anyone any identification. Homo lithuanicus’s frightened respect for the authorities is so powerful that he’s immediately speechless as soon as some brazen guy casts a commanding eye. In amazement, I came to the conclusion that I have no reason whatsoever to consider him a representative of the KGB or the public prosecutor.

Absolutely no reason. Who knows who he was.

Behind my back, the children continued to skillfully imitate a Soviet store’s irritations and quarrels. If you want to get to know a country, then carefully observe what the children there play.

The children of the Ass of the Universe unfailingly play the Ass of the Universe.

The detective nonchalantly showed up a few days later at the library. He wasn’t in the mood to so much as greet me.

Stefa’s glommed on to me again. I’ve spent many lonely bachelor nights with her, so I can’t just rudely push her away. You might ask — why did I lay my hands on her? You need to get by somehow. If a person can’t stand all kinds of sexualizing, it doesn’t mean that. . Besides, it doesn’t have any greater significance for my mlog.

So, Stefa glommed on to me. She mysteriously rolled her eyes and whispered in a muffled voice:

“What do you think, would my testimony save Vytas? I know everything. I saw everything. Even though she’s dead, that slut wants to hurt him.”

The quieter two women’s fight over a man is on the surface, the meaner and crueler it is. I dampened Stefa’s heat somewhat. I decided to invite her over to my place after work.

“Don’t even ask, I can’t!” Stefa shot back, and turned her insulted little fanny at me. “You’re not at all concerned about Vytas!”

If she only knew how concerned I am about Vytas! He’s all I’m concerned about. I wanted to straighten her out, but I restrained myself.

I always did want to straighten everyone out. The last gasp of an educator’s talent hasn’t left me yet. I’m dying to teach children and grownups. I want to teach cats and dogs. I’m a teaching maniac. If I lived in a normal country, I would found my own sect.

What would I teach?

I would lecture everyone on the history of homo lithuanicus ; I’d explain that creature’s composition and structure. I’d attempt to elucidate why he doesn’t hunger for freedom. After all, everyone, absolutely everyone, seeks freedom. A bird struggles to escape its cage. A dog tries to break its leash. Even amoebae try to drift freely. It’s an instinctive desire. You have to have a brain, an intellect, to be able to destroy it. Only humans manage to do this. And homo lithuanicus manages best of all. That’s why it’s imperative to research this creature thoroughly. Perhaps he shows us all of mankind’s future. Perhaps in understanding his structure, we’ll realize what’s unavoidably awaiting all the rest.

And so forth, and likewise.

Thank God I live in an abnormal country, where it’s forbidden to found any organizations. My sect would dissolve after a month or so.

I’d bet no one would want to listen to me.

How is homo lithuanicus produced? Starting early in childhood — best of all, still in the cradle — is of prime importance. The core of this process is its essential three-pronged approach. The government teaches one thing and real life teaches something entirely different. And in addition, the parents, shutting the door, tell sad legends about some Lithuania, a nation, an honorable past, and similar oddities.

Opponents could maintain that such a situation is characteristic of all the nations of the Ass of the Universe. By no means. The Russian past can be praised out loud, without the door shut — and that’s where the essential difference lies.

So, the junior homo lithuanicus grows up in triplicity. He’s told about a nation, but the kid doesn’t find one. He’s told about socialism, but the kid can’t see it anywhere. He’s told to make a buck, but the authorities plant him in jail for that.