Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“You’re impotent! A damned impotent!” Lolita shrieked. “You’ve got no balls! I’ll tell everyone! Tomorrow. Immediately. I’ll hang out posters. An impotent and a madman! I’ve read your writings. I’ve secretly read your blatherings. I’ll publish them too. Why are you reaching out your hands? Don’t touch me!”

I couldn’t intrude, I couldn’t suddenly show up and calm her down: she screamed again and again, screamed horrible words — she was stretched out, standing in a rapacious pose, she worked Vargalys over, her fingers really were twisted like a beast’s claws, disgusting globs of flesh as slimy as a jellyfish really did quiver between her thighs, under her breasts, on her hips — that was how her evil erupted, it barged and busted out of her; Vargalys stood up too, and Lolita kept screaming, I didn’t pay attention to the words anymore: Vargalys turned pale, his entire body turned white, practically transparent, then he roared like a beast and jumped out, ran off through the bushes stark naked, between the trees, leaving shreds of skin on the sharp branches. My feet calmly lead me towards the station; I’ll get into a trolleybus and ride to the library, my rear hurts, it’s burning all over, it won’t let me forget the whole thing really did happen, I’ll have to continue to live, the worst of it is that I’ll have to continue to live: Lolka stood there like a post, like a perverted monkey-man statue, she didn’t see anything around her, didn’t hear anything, didn’t sense me; she collapsed gradually, it seemed she slowly, comfortably, laid herself down, trying not to hurt herself; meanwhile, Vargalys was running around the garden naked. He returned much later, when she had already started to stiffen: he didn’t have anything to do with it, I could testify to this, even at the heavenly judgment; when Lolka collapsed, my heart didn’t race, I smoked a cigarette and carefully fastened my purse for good measure, so it wouldn’t fall out. I nearly ran right into Vargalys, he returned from the side where I had been standing, but he didn’t see me, he didn’t see anything, he didn’t smell the smoke from my cigarette, he was completely out of his mind, he collected himself only when he saw Lolita lying already dead on the floor; he probably doesn’t remember anything, it wouldn’t be hard to convince him he killed Lolka, Vargalys would believe it whole-heartedly, especially since from that moment on he acted consciously, he knew all too well what he was doing: I was condemned to see it, I had to watch everything to the end, apparently that’s the way it was written in the great Book of Life; he wasn’t at all sadistic about dismembering Lolka’s body, not at all; not at all, he did his ghastly work carefully and attentively, looking for something; he didn’t disfigure that body just any old way, he was looking for something, something he was certain was there; you’d think he was digging in the ground trying to come across something, but not a treasure — I understood that from his expression — surely not a treasure: more like a terrible bomb that could blow up all of Vilnius, maybe even the whole world — I don’t know if he found it, but he stood up slowly, looking down at the dismembered body with a wooden expression, the way he had looked once before, thirty-five years ago, on the hill next to our village, next to Bezrečjė. Only then did I retreat from the window; I went to the bus stop, just like I’m going down the station platform to the fifth track now; I don’t know anything, I can’t testify to anything, because I’m no longer here, all that remains is a burning rear and a fresh memory of the coming generation; I don’t know any Vargalys, I know now who I am and what I’m doing, I’m going home, here’s track five, my train, it’s waiting obligingly, the clock shows there’s two minutes left before it departs: I’m going home, I’m a village girl from the swamps, without a nationality and without an education, I never lived in Vilnius, I don’t have a single acquaintance here, I’m as alone as alone can be, a silly, bestial, genuine tuteiša from the swamps — I’m calm, I’m all right, Vasilis said more than once that people like that have it easiest. The train moves, I sit down on the left side, so I won’t need to see Vilnius disappearing in the distance, that dying city I’ll never visit again; empty cars slowly move by, gloomy figures; suddenly I’m afraid Vasilis might not recognize me, very afraid, but in time I remember that I have a sign, a password he will surely remember, even lying in a coffin; I pull it out of my purse, it accomplished one great deed; I carefully stroke the three-sided blade, there are still traces of hated blood on it, three dried rust-colored spots, and that’s all — how ordinary it all is. I put it back in its place — what a fancy purse, and my clothes are strange, like some city lady’s, but it’s nothing, at home I’ll change in the blink of an eye; beyond the window the last houses of the city have already gone by, I cast a farewell glance at my past, which probably never was; for some reason it seems as if someone should see me off, wave a handkerchief, but there’s nothing behind me; only by turning all the way around — at the very last moment — does it occur to me that a long-bodied, perverted dog, hopelessly lagging behind, is scurrying after the train, but it’s just a thought — there’s really nothing there, in the entire world there hasn’t been anything real for a long time; only the three rust-colored spots on the three-sided blade of the dagger, they’ve held fast on that blade for the entire three weeks.

Trees have become particularly significant — each one is like a different person. Some stand there naked, only their bark smells; others still spread the scent of profuse foliage. The scent is always different: some trees are bland and a bit dry, others are as juicy as the aroma of just-opened buds. But perhaps the multifarious trees are the most significant: a part of them are luxuriantly crowned, a part dried and weakened, yet another part is as red as blood. They’re multifaceted. They’ve crumbled inside; they live like people who have lost their harmony. Like the real people of Vilnius.

I find it difficult to look at the crowns of trees. They’re too high up.

We look at trees entirely differently than we once did. Before they were just plants that could provide shade or bestow fruit. We didn’t sense that just about any tree could be one of us. We didn’t sense that every one of us is at least somewhat a tree. Now we sense it; we look at them as one of our own. Nothing happened; it’s just that people became a bit more wooden, or the trees became a bit more human. And in any event. .

And in any event — there’s nothing to be seen in the empty autumn road. And the road itself leads nowhere. Don’t drag yourself down it; it doesn’t lead to the secret, to the unknown, not even to ruin. It doesn’t lead anywhere at all, because every road in Vilnius always leads nowhere.

I can no longer brush my hand over my face. I no longer want to look in a mirror. Vilnius was a city of churches, but now no one prays in them. Vilnius was a city of lindens, but now the lindens have been ravaged by acid rain. Even I cannot bathe in the insatiable waters of the Neris. The really awful thing is that I can’t play the piano. Sometimes I hear jazz pouring out of some window. I want to weep. But I can’t even cry anymore.

Who am I? I’m called Gediminas Riauba; I was born in 1930. . That’s funny; it’s funny and meaningless. I’m not called Gediminas Riauba. I wasn’t born. It’s more like I died.

We don’t remember our death. That’s natural — after all, we don’t remember our birth, either. The beginning and the end are always covered in fog; that’s why every ending can turn into a new beginning.