Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

An evil thought immediately began gnawing at me: They destroy every speck of our trust in other people. It’s horrible to live without trust, but it’s even more horrible when trusting no one most often turns out to be correct. That’s the sad experience of the kanukaworld. I didn’t count on Martynas a bit. I was almost convinced that he was hiding my kanukish dossier. It must exist; this is easy to prove. They keep me alive only because they aren’t omniscient. They can’t do away with me because they suspect I know too much. That’s the paradox of The Way: as long as I’m alive, I’m forced to be silent; however, it’s possible to find the means to proclaim your findings after your death. They can’t destroy me as long as they haven’t precisely ascertained how much I know and how I hid my information. My dossier in Their files is really worth a fortune. I decided Martynas was gathering data about me. I observed him and became all the more convinced he was Their agent: he touched upon dangerous themes without being punished; with Elena listening, he denigrated the most sacred topics of the Soviet religion. You must always be most on your guard around the quiet ones and their antipodes — the chatterboxes that speak boldly and insolently. These types fear nothing because They protect them. The poor guy thought he had guarded his writing by encryption, codes, and triple safeguards. He forgot the fundamental law: that which can be written can also be read. All it takes is time and intelligence.

Reading writings of that sort is even more disgusting than reading a stranger’s diary. When a person writes something down in black on white, he is aware, at least unconsciously, that a stranger’s eye might see it. Frequently he may even secretly desire this. Martynas’s writings were in essence designed for him alone. I mucked straight into someone else’s soul with dirty shoes, and by then it was impossible to erase the traces. Unfortunately, in the battle with Them it’s impossible to keep to moral standards. I had to read those writings. I certainly would not use my knowledge for evil. With an enormous effort of will, I forced myself to forget everything, to literally erase it from my brain. I must go down my Way cleanly, without the theft of a stranger’s soul. There was only one thing I didn’t forget, one thing I took note of with joy: I could rely on Martynas.

Understandably, up to a certain point.

No one can be relied upon completely. I can walk this earth only as long as They merely suspect me. If I were to tell someone everything I know — I’d be dead the same instant.

Probably I’ll perish one way or another. Perhaps They are restrained only by mysterious kanukish rituals or the commandments of some unknown religion. Or maybe it’s quite simply because my turn has not come yet; maybe They are extremely scrupulous and pedantic.

We were set up royally in the bar: no one flitted in front of us. A single fellow next to us was drowning himself in drink: he’d order two drinks at a time, toast himself by banging the two glasses together, and in one gulp down the right-hand one. Then he’d sit there like a ghost for a long time, and suddenly coming alive, down the second one. Then he would order two more. He was a stocky, somewhat overweight man of uncertain age with coarse black hair. His hands were thick-fingered and clumsy and overgrown with thick fur. It hardly seemed he could have been sent to spy on us: he’d already been sitting there for quite some time. Besides, he didn’t pay the least attention to us. The bartender was another story — a lively, elegant swell. His forehead, underneath his thickly curled hair, was unnaturally white. I acutely sensed him secretly squinting at us as he snuggled up behind a column. I wanted to go to a different bar, but a gulp of cognac settled me down somewhat. I looked around carefully, trying to sense what was hiding in the bar’s twilight. The mood of a bar frequently testifies to what has gone on there once upon a time, and sometimes it even gives away what is only still to be . Places designed for human gatherings speak a strange language when they’re deserted. This bar was just silent and waiting. A drunken couple made their way out of the restaurant, newcomers no doubt. From some Moscow or another: provocatively fashionable clothes, glaring make-up on the girl, and something essentially alien about them — the movements weren’t right; the expressions weren’t right; they had an unpleasant intrinsic vulgarity. People like that think they’re masters everywhere and at all times. (Gedis explained that this is characteristic of Americans too.) The guy casually looked over the bar, shooting insolent looks at both of us. The bored girl leaned against his shoulder, embracing his hips. Unexpectedly nimbly, Thickfingers jumped off the barstool and, with a lynx-like step, stalked over to the newcomers. The guy looked at him as if he were an empty spot. I observed their strange pantomime attentively: Thickfingers authoritatively explained something to them, the guy tried to argue, but suddenly the newcomers quieted down as if they’d been shut off and obediently turned back to the restaurant. The victor, with a strange smile, returned to the bar and immediately grabbed a drink.

“You’re Lithuanians!” he declared unexpectedly, turning to the two of us and pronouncing the word as if it were a curse — I had heard that tone a million times in the camp. “I can tell right off. This is my third time in Vilnius.”

He spoke Russian carefully, enunciating his words — the way people talk who are accustomed, even after five drinks, to doing their work and demonstrating that alcohol doesn’t affect them at all. He immediately turned away again.

“Thank God,” the bartender accommodatingly hovered over us. “I was starting to think that you were from there too.”

“From where?” Martynas inquired belligerently.

“That guy over there isn’t letting anyone out of the building,” the bartender announced furtively. “He’s KGB. There’s a pistol under his arm. He’s stopping everyone going to work and checking them out. Maybe it’s one of their conventions?”

“Stop it,” Martynas boldly shot back. “They hold their conventions in ruins and garbage dumps.”

“Well, thank God,” the bartender smiled indulgently, “At least there’s a couple of normal people.”

He walked off to the battery of bottles and then hid himself behind the column again. I was disappointed. The bartender was an innocent bystander, and Thickfingers was just an ordinary KGB agent, the type that serves Them without even knowing who they’re serving. Vilnius thrusts total solitude on you when you don’t want it, but snatches away any hope of hiding when that’s what you’re after. It will invariably stick you with a girl who brazenly pokes you with her breasts, or a depressing citizen who insistently treats you to drinks you don’t like. And sometimes it plants a KGB agent with a pistol under his arm next to you.

“The worst of it,” Martynas spoke up sadly, “is that the Lord God is a humorist. At one time I considered God a madman, a sadist, and a criminal. Then I decided he suffers from an inferiority complex; that’s why he tries to deride people as much as possible, so he can feel how great he is in comparison. But I’ve caught on at last. God is a global comedian. There’s no need to search for meaning or depth in the world. The world is a black comedy, whose ONLY purpose is to make God laugh.”

I wanted, for at least a little while, to believe that all the forced labor camps are nothing more than a giant comedy, that all of Vilnius is just a giant comedy, a silly joke in honor of God. But for some reason I kept seeing the children of the camps: it seemed at any moment sickly children with shaven heads would start climbing out from under the bar, from behind the brown curtains, from underneath the carpet, begging for help with their toothless mouths.