Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“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.