Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“Don’t get excited, in a minute he’ll add that not everything’s been done yet.”

“Of course, not everything’s been done yet. We still have unused resources.”

Martynas snorted and stopped cursing for a moment. It seemed to me that the pseudo-shoppers started going around faster and faster all the time, more and more nervously; the pseudo-mothers outside the window were practically running at a gallop; it seemed the entire mechanism was starting to turn more briskly all the time, that it was no longer possible to control it, that everyone would keep moving faster and faster, get carried away and start breaking the shelves, smashing the jars, and in the end sweep away and trample the procession of hats.

“Pineapple!” Martynas suddenly moaned, “I haven’t seen live pineapple in fifteen years!”

“As it happens, we’ve been carrying out an experiment in this particular store,” the guide lectured. “All of the saleswomen speak only Russian. The results are encouraging: an absolute majority of the inhabitants accept this innovation gladly.”

“That’s a positive sign,” the hoarse voice agreed. “I’ll report this to the Politburo. In other respects you have been dealing with the national question rather slowly.”

At last we both got to the cashier. Martynas, smiling wryly, paid for the lobster and pineapple. I knew I was behaving in a suicidal manner, but I slowly turned around anyway. I could not believe what I saw; I wanted to scream, but a scream wouldn’t have helped.

HE stood a few steps away from me. He had aged considerably: his chin shook a bit, and his unruly hair was quite thin. However, it really was HIM. I swear, for a few seconds my blood stopped. Bitinas’s bald head, stuck on a pike by the cash register, moving its lips scornfully, spat out:

“That’s the dragon. The dragon that’s devouring a hundred innocent virgins a day.”

I no longer grasped what was going on around me. I felt a hysterical movement, the barrels of pistols pointed at me from under jackets. HE stood with an indifferent expression and seemed to be chewing something with a slack jaw. Only now did I grasp what had brought me here, how They had decided to test me. I knew I had to do my duty, to fulfill my destiny. I wasn’t at all afraid of the invisible but fully apparent pistols. I wasn’t afraid of anything at all; it was perhaps the first time in my life I was so pure and empty, so impassive. HE stood right there and finally took notice of me. I felt that my life had to end in just exactly this way: I had to crawl and squirm through hideous swamps especially so I would at last end up in this deceptive store, and HE would be standing in front of me. The last instant had to be like this, a frozen instant: everyone staring at me in shock, with the baby carriages gliding past the windows. Unexpectedly, it cleared up, and the puddles shone in the sunlight. I thought about whether I had ever felt hate for HIM, or if I had thought about HIM at all. Probably not. With surprise, I sensed that in essence, I had never believed HE really existed at all. HE was just a metaphor, the embodiment of the indescribable smell of the camp, of the nameless letters scattered by the night trains, of mother’s darkened, shaven head hanging above grandfather’s altar, of the lame dog by the Narutis, and of Gedis moving his hands and legs like a bug. HE was nothing more than Bitinas’s induced fantasy, an oppressive dream we were all dreaming. But here he stood right next to me and soundlessly moved his lips. The dream came alive. I had to take revenge on him for everything and for everyone, I had to bite through his throat like a wolf, but I just stood there and thought about how his arrival needed an entirely different stage set: that square with the fountain full of laid-out corpses, one next to the other, some of them castrated. The puddles lit up by the sun and surrounded by optimistic high-rises — and the square completely full of corpses, with a procession of every, every, every last one sent to Siberia, and rotting live bodies, and the sweetish stench of the camp. At any moment I’ll jump forward, the faceless broad-shouldered men will press the pistol triggers in unison, and everything will be over. At last HE will no longer be, since I will no longer be. But he insanely wanted to live; I sensed this when he looked at me attentively, and — I could swear! — recognized me. He had never seen me, never heard of me, but he recognized me. I felt it in every nerve, smelled it like a scent, read it like an open book: how weak he was, how afraid. Unexpectedly, he stepped up to me, smiled ingratiatingly, and stretched out his hand. That’s what the fiery dragon’s breath was like.

“Hello,” his raspy voice croaked, “How’s it going? Is there anything you need?”

In the square the pseudo-mothers with baby carriages came to a standstill. Everyone stared at me. My heart paused. That was HIS futile attempt to avoid the inevitable, to stop me from doing my duty, to beg a miracle. The attempt was senseless; the dragon couldn’t stop everything forever, all the same someone had to move. Martynas’s lips moved first:

“It’s a wonderful life!” he said clearly. “The only thing missing is bird’s milk.”

“Ha, ha!” the guide laughed gently. “We manufacture this candy that everyone likes, called ‘Bird’s Milk.’ Apparently, we ran out of it today.”

HE continued to stand right there, I could stretch out my hand and strangle him, but I stood there unmoving and did nothing. I could have said something, I could have spat on him at least, but I did nothing. It was all pointless. He stood right there, and I did nothing. Next to us it reeked of the camp’s vomit, next to us crawled Bolius with his shaved head, next to us glared the straw-haired men’s kanukish eyes. My hands were free, I definitely knew what I should do, but at the same time I knew that no actual retribution would encompass even a millionth part of his guilt. Or perhaps — like a genuine Lithuanian — I literally stood there and waited for everything to slowly resolve itself on its own. And everything did resolve itself: he felt he was free, tipped his hat and slowly swayed off past the cash register. Martynas poked me with the pineapple and snorted. The broad-shouldered men bustled around us, the handles of their pistols finally released. The mechanism moved again; I was its only motionless detail. Fate had given me a single chance, and I did nothing. The procession crawled along the square, dissolved among the sun’s reflections in the puddles, climbed back into the black ZILs, and sailed off. Martynas and I already stood outside. The optimistic young men quickly parted, the young women abandoned the baby carriages, the broad-shouldered men collected them and slung them into a covered truck. Others, after locking the doors to the store, set about unloading the colorful boxes and cans from the shelves. The militia at the cordon lit cigarettes and released the real Vilnius crowd into the square. People rushed headlong to the door of the store and pressed up against the window, trying to discern, from a distance at least, the miraculous cans disappearing in front of their eyes, and stood there, disappointed.

The two broad-shouldered men, panting, caught up with us.

“Hand over that pineapple,” growled the dark one.

Yes, yes, despite it all we still had the pineapple. I watched indifferently as they looked around anxiously and wrenched it and the can of lobster away from Martynas.

“Give me back MY pineapple!” Martynas quietly babbled. “I paid money for it! Give me back my pineapple!”

The light-haired one marched off with the plunder, while the dark-haired one, intrigued, raised his eyebrows.

“Are you a complete fool? What money? The merchandise doesn’t belong to this store. They don’t even have a price. You really gave them money?”