Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“Give me back my pineapple,” Martynas repeated, louder this time.

The dark-haired one’s expression suddenly changed and he hissed like a snake:

“You’re still talking? Get lost, you rat, or I’ll write you up for provocative activities. Understand? Get lost while you still can.”

I believe I was the one who dragged Martynas off to the side. I believe I mumbled something to him; maybe to calm him and keep him quiet, but he kept going on like a broken record:

“Why did he take my pineapple away? He ought to give my pineapple back. Why did they take my pineapple?”

“Listen,” I finally said. “Was that really Suslov, or was I just imagining it?”

Martynas looked at me as if he had just now awoken.

“You didn’t recognize him?”

“That REALLY was Suslov? REALLY?”

“Of course. I completely forgot. . You know, everyone was talking about it. . His first visit after who knows how many years.”

Martynas suddenly started shaking all over. Shocked, I stared at him, while he kept trembling harder and harder, slowly swayed forward and grabbed at the air with his arms, until he finally fell to his knees on a wet, dirty bench and started jerking as if he was being wracked by spasms. The shocked face of an elderly woman looked at us through the window of a nearby house. She blinked frequently, as if she were trying to chase a hallucination away. It seemed to me that anything could happen now. I expected that woman to fly straight out through the glass and flutter above my head. I expected a monstrous patrol of Theirs to jump out of the stairway and devour me. Or a tank, caterpillars smiling, to crawl out from around the corner and crush us. Anything could happen, but nothing happened, absolutely nothing. The sun shone like it was summer; a gust of wind drove a few yellowish leaves towards us. It was quiet, except that somewhere someone panted and moaned as if they were being strangled. I didn’t realize at first that it was Martynas.

“Jesus, Jesus!” He finally stuttered out through his tears. “What artistic powers! I practically believed it!. . Some Peter Brook mounts a production of Orghast at an Iraqi shrine in some invented language and thinks he’s creating great theatre art! He’s an ignoramus! A mangy dilettante. Could he have managed to mount a spectacle like this? No! I’m completely certain — no! He couldn’t get the stench! Poor Brook. Poor, naïve Brook!”

He gasped for breath again, it seemed his laugh was a hard, choky thing that just couldn’t get through his throat — neither in nor out.

“There’s true theater for you! There’s the art of arts! Did you see all of it? Did you feel the rhythm? Did you see those babes pushing the baby carriages? What was in them — walkie-talkies or machine guns? Have you ever dreamed of anything like that, eh, boss?”

He fell silent, sobered up in an instant, and jumped up from the bench. He came up to me, he even stood up on his tiptoes, and, looking me straight in the eyes, spoke quietly. It seemed he was turning over every word, literally pleading with me to understand him, wanting to convey something or other to me.

“Listen, what’s Kafka. . What’s Orwell. . The number of participants, the way everything was arranged. . What a show: a member of the Politburo inspects a run-of-the-mill store. . Where did they get all those cans from? A government hoard?. . Go on, tell me — isn’t God a comedian of the absurd? What was that? A tragedy? A folk lament? Prometheus Bound ?. . The folk, as you saw yourself, just ran headlong to pick over the leavings, but they didn’t even get that. . Go on, answer me, what was that?”

“A nightmare.” I surprised myself that I could speak in a completely normal voice. “An offering to Their god, to the Shit of All Shits.”

“What, what?”

“It’s just a single line from the poem of universal drivel. How does it differ from the interminable speeches no one believes? How does it differ from the list of slogans for a demonstration, printed in the newspapers in advance? How does it differ from the election farce? It’s the same genre.”

“Maybe,” Martynas suddenly backed off and gave in. “Probably. It’s just that it was a new one to me.”

“Me too.”

It was new to me that Their net could encompass me like this. They stuck Suslov on me, thinking I wouldn’t control myself and I’d do myself in. They decided to exchange me for a mangy, worthless kanukas magistrate. There are no coincidences in Their system. If the dragon, for no reason whatsoever, came to Vilnius, then apparently that suits the laws of pathologic. If I ran into him, then apparently that suits the laws of pathologic.

I was overtaken by horror at these thoughts. I no longer heard what Martynas was saying; I didn’t even see the sun. I was wracked by spasms of fear. I wanted to burrow into the ground, to turn into a blind worm that no one would find, that no one cares about. It seems you can wait out danger. Lord knows, getting as far away as possible from any light whatsoever, burrowing into the earth, relentlessly attracted me. But the sun, as if on purpose, glared like crazy. They could start anything. If the slope of the mountain moved, the avalanche must surely follow; the only unknown: would it bury me, or roar on by. Identical buildings, stamped out of a duplicating machine, loomed all around, surrounding me, preventing me from breaking out into freedom. I hate the new neighborhoods. When you find yourself inside one of them, you have no idea where you’ve ended up — it could be Vilnius, or it could be any other city. In neighborhoods like that you feel like you’re in a trap. They don’t have a face, they don’t have a soul, and anything can happen in them. There are good-natured neighborhoods and angry neighborhoods, dangerous neighborhoods and dour neighborhoods. You recognize them, you have some idea of what to expect from them. But faceless neighborhoods are no different than people in whose eyes you can’t read anything. It’s no big deal to be on your guard when you see an angry spark in a person’s eyes; it’s easier to escape in time when you see a sullen threat in them. The worst is when there’s no expression at all, when the shape you simply took for a pole, a rock, or a withered tree suddenly comes to life and bares its bloody fangs. It’s worse because you’re not expecting it. After all, you can’t go around being afraid of every pole, every rock, and every withered tree.

Now They could start in on me at any minute. I felt I was a target in a gigantic bombing range, where every shot is precisely on target. Martynas’s fussing distracted me somewhat, but I kept thinking about Their notorious schemes. When necessity compels, They aren’t choosy about the means. They can assassinate the Kennedys, even while they’re sitting in the White House. (I always felt a pang reading the news about the investigations of those infamous murders. Not just because I was sorry for John and Robert, but mostly because I knew very well that no one will ever come across the real killers. No one. Never.) They can pretend to be anything — terrorists, madmen, maniacs. They can blow up a subway train so that a single person They found inconvenient would die. Manson, who declared himself the servant of Satan, was selected for Polanski. He intentionally disguised himself as the Prince of Darkness, to turn everyone’s attention away from his true color — a complete colorlessness. They won’t even bother arranging a grand attempt for me. I’m not a Kennedy, nor even a Polanski. I’m called Vytautas Vargalys, I’m already fifty-three years old, but I am completely, utterly unknown. Although that may just be what saves me. At least for the time being.