Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“You’ve lived only in nameless houses?”

“The labor camps were named very astutely,” I say. “Metaphorically! Above the gates there they write: work makes life sweet. . Or: abandon hope, ye who enter here. .”

We talk about the camp mostly when we’re walking up Didžiosios Street. She starts the conversation herself, but I hardly get a word out when she gets scared, pushes me into a gateway and kisses and kisses me, shutting my mouth. And now she moves uneasily, curls up her legs, her body is ungracefully broken. I feel guilty that I’ve disfigured the ideal painterly lines of a nude: I’m a vandal, hacking at Goya’s Maya with a knife.

“Before the war I lived in a haunted house. It surely wasn’t nameless. That was a crazy house, no less so than the Lord God. And it created horrors no worse than God manages to.”

I spoke of ghosts and horrors quite unnecessarily. The fear that Lolita is nothing more than my invention darts through me once more. Demented Vilnius willingly gives birth to fantasies: I simply thought her up, I just very much want her to be, that’s why I see her, when in actuality she doesn’t exist. I’m consorting with a phantom of fantasy. But who I am talking to? To myself? It seems not — I don’t think the way Lolita does; her words frequently surprise me.

“There you go again,” she says carefully, “your eyes are LIKE THAT again.”

I’ve concocted a sad, melodious voice for her; it’s a bit intoxicating. I’ve concocted amazing girlish breasts for her, breasts like I’ve never seen before. Is it possible to invent a form you’ve never seen? Then there are her eyes — real or concocted? Her legs, Lord, her legs — could they really be concocted? I carefully come closer; I try to walk slowly and smoothly, because a sudden movement could dissolve Lolita, woven out of thickened air. I’m afraid to touch her — my fingers could go right through her. I close my eyes — now I don’t see, don’t hear, don’t touch her, but the scent is still there, the scent of the garden of Paradise, caressing my nostrils. I close my nose with my fingers, but there’s the sixth, and seventh, and tenth sense; all the same I feel her, and I can’t destroy that feeling. (Maybe that’s what they call love?) Whatever I do, Lolita exists; I cannot hide myself from her. I could not see her, not smell her, not touch her, but she unavoidably remains both inside me and outside of me — if I still separate my inside from my outside at all.

I quickly open my eyes, draw in her scent, caress the long toes one by one, embrace the slender ankles — hesitantly, as if it could turn out that they’re not the same as always. I stroke the velvet of the calves’ skin, feel every little hair — everything is in place. With my palms I slowly fondle the thighs, the firm waist, the flat, smooth belly, where unseen little veins pulsate. All of her is waiting for me, the way the parched earth waits for rain. I sense her sweet warmth, caress the slender hands — their joints have actually softened from expectation. I know every one of her fingers. I love the elongated sharp nails of the hands. I adore the rounded porcelain of the toenails. I love the mole under the breast and the other one, large and light brown — on the nape of the neck, where the spine ends. I love the crooked scar on the right hip. I love the cracked skin of the lips. I love her forehead, the two wrinkles cutting deep; they grow distinct when she scrutinizes me. I love her breasts, formed of light and honey (they even thrash when I touch them). She is my song of songs, I’ve long since learnt her by heart, but she cannot bore me or seem, even for an instant, to be known, to not be hiding something unexpected. Her breasts that are always the same are different every time. I’m amazed that Solomon attempted to compare his loved one’s body to something. Lolita isn’t comparable to anything; she’s not even comparable with herself, because she is different every time. She is like an entire world, like a universe — with stars, nebulae, and comets. Her flavor is heavenly: I lick her cheeks; with the tip of my tongue I brush the neck and shoulders. There are more flavors in Lolita than in the entire rest of the world. A tart grape sugar behind the ears, and the salty sweat of passion under the breasts. A choking September apple flavor on the mounds above the knees and a mixture of love herbs covering the entire length of the spine. There are a thousand varieties of flavor hiding in her skin, and I distinguish them all: the wrinkled skin of her nipples is one kind, a completely different kind between her thighs — an impossible, supernatural smoothness. Her dry lips attempt to moisten my tongue, while the belly’s skin softly fondles it. It slides down the thin hair below the belly and unexpectedly gets entrapped in the hidden, damp space, where by now a slightly bitter flavor of desire is nascent, the flavor of Lolita’s tumult. The secret space is like the gates to the unknown, with my tongue I feel all of the little wrinkles, the slightest mounds, I strive to plunge into Lolita as if into an abyss, she is my goddess and my ruler. She writhes like a ball of enchanted snakes, her trembling thighs caress my cheeks, convulsively clutch my head, the space of mystery nearly suffocates me, but I relish it, I relish it. I leave that bottomless unknown; I lick Lolita’s nostrils, bringing her the flavor of her own desire, and then the wordless caress of the tongues begins. By now I hardly know where I am; I only feel her breasts pressing marks on my body. I hardly see anything, but I know that her face hinders me — it’s too much of a face, too much eyes, too much spirit. I cover it with a corner of the gray curtain, as if in a dream I feel that faceless woman loving me like a panther, as if in a dream I see her body, now it is the body of all the women in the world. It no longer belongs to Lolita; it doesn’t belong to anyone — only to me. I make love to all the women in the world at the same time. I can love that way — I have enough strength. This universal woman body is made up of that which I have never experienced; it isn’t the body of my other women. I have never touched such overripe breasts, so fearfully pressed together. I have never felt such a flat, smooth goddess’s belly with my belly. I have never penetrated into such a winding, multifold, branching sexual space. This is the body of all the women in the world. A changing, faceless, sightless body, my song of songs, my death and my resurrection. I die and I am resurrected, again I die and am resurrected, everything recedes from me, even now I am left completely alone. Does Lolita really exist?

Perhaps it’s possible to dream up that giddiness, that apocalyptic melody of bodies. . that beastly desire, those floods and ebbs. . probably it’s even possible to invent the sightless, universal woman body, her heavenly orgasm, when the entire skin becomes pure white and as thin as parchment. . when every last vein shines through it — blue or dark red. . to invent that supernatural, impossible vagina, in whose multifold space you go astray, which is different, unrecognizable, mysterious every time. . you can invent even yourself, but it’s impossible to fabricate that boundless closeness , it embraces all of me like a nirvana, more perfect than death. . It gives me meaning; you can’t invent that kind of closeness by yourself . Another person is essential here, in all of his wholeness. . I am no longer alone. . She doesn’t let me be alone. . It’s a true closeness, a true connection. . with her. . with the trees. . with all of oceans of the world. . with hallucinating Vilnius. . with me myself. . A true connection, one that has nothing in common with the sexual dance of the body, little in common even with the erotic, it’s a true connection. As long as such things exist in the world, they alone make life worth living. (Maybe that’s what they call love?)