Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

Now I no longer stand naked in front of the mirror; I don’t keep asking myself what she sees in me. But I still doubt it’s me she really needs. We’ve never become completely intimate; an invisible wall looms between us. Sometimes I want to break it down, to smash it to pieces, but I hardly clench my fist before I suddenly take fright. In this world fulfilled happiness isn’t possible. With all the walls broken down, becoming one with Lolita, I would either have to die, or to kill her. Maybe it’s a good thing that her spirit keeps escaping and hiding itself in a cave, like a frightened little animal. From behind that wall she surprises me with the weirdest stories and with her unpredictable behavior.

“I’d like to be your sister,” she says unexpectedly, looking out the window at the slanting rain. “I’d like to feel we’re part of the same seed. . Although I’m more to you than a sister. . We’re doing something forbidden; we’re enjoying spiritual incest. It’d be better if I really were your sister. At least I’d know what it was I’d decided on. . Now I don’t know anything anymore. . It’s bad enough that we both are, each of us on our own. But it’s a hundred times worse that we’re together. . When I touch you, I melt completely. To me it seems like you’re my death. . We’re doing something God has forbidden. We’re closer than a brother and a sister. . We shouldn’t be together. . I know I’ll pay dearly for it, but I want you anyway — more than anything in the world. And at the same time I want to run away from you, run, run, run, as far away as possible. .”

She wants to leave me, because I am her love and her death. These enigmatic horrors aren’t even necessary — she could simply leave me for another. That possibility alone drives me out of my mind. Our love itself is insane. Suddenly I want something terrible to happen to Lolita. I long for her to break her legs and spine, for her face to be mutilated, so that no one, absolutely no one, would need her. So that everyone who saw her would feel pity for her, or better yet — revulsion. No one, no one would need her anymore — but I would need her no matter what shape she was in. Only then, when the entire world has turned away from her, will she understand how much I love her. I literally relish the insanity of this desire, before my eyes I see a Lolita who belongs to me alone —inseparable, for ages upon ages. And somewhere, at the very bottom, writhes a disgusting, stinking worm: my insanity calmly confirms that I could do this myself , mutilate her myself . All it would take. .

She finally turns from the window and looks at me with her deep brown eyes. My supposed insanity bursts like a soap bubble. A stinking soap, boiled from the corpses of the camp. What right do I have to seize her for myself? What right?

Can a person want God to belong to him alone?

“We talk too much,” she says. “We try to be too intelligent. . Why can’t we do whatever we want and not worry about it? Why do people want to justify their existence so badly, why can’t they simply be, and that’s it?”

I could tell her what happens when a person longs to simply be. In the labor camp we all wanted to simply be , to simply survive. They are preparing an existence like that for us all. I could tell her why I can’t stand Beckett, the most moral writer of our times. (I can’t stand Beckett, even though picking up a book of his I feel a quiver of respect. He is perhaps the only one who was able to look at man with God’s indifferent eyes. He quite honestly showed the sorry state of the kanuked man the way it really is. He showed that which is, but refused to even hint at why it’s that way, who is to blame for it. He categorically refused to make even vague mentions of Them . He left man on his own, because he looked at him with God’s eyes. You need to look at a human with a human’s eyes!)

Lolita stands in front of me like a dream come true. I don’t know if I want to pray to her, but I really do want to kiss her feet. How pathetic I am compared to her! She needs someone much more pure, more worthy, more powerful. I’ll find her someone else myself, someone who would be worthy of her. I’ve practically no will of my own anymore. I merely catch at the slightest hint of her desires; I literally no longer am, I want only to please her, to do whatever she may want. I really no longer am — there’s nothing I want for myself anymore; I am nothing but her reflection. I don’t see anything anymore — just her. She takes up the entire world for me, she herself has become the entire world, and Lord knows, that is my good fortune. A dangerous fortune — one person isn’t allowed to take the place of the entire world.

But we’re already going down the street, so nothing matters — neither the wet sidewalks, nor the rain, nor the long-bodied bow-legged dog, my old acquaintance, sticking to the two of us. Her wet hair shines like blocks of coal; under her raincoat the sturdy hips move furiously. I do not know this woman in her entirety. She doesn’t talk about her former husband. She refuses to move in with me, much less — to marry me. She categorically does not want to have children — best not to even mention it to her. But she won’t explain why. She hides from me.

Don’t tell me she doesn’t sense what I could do on her account? If she were a miserable leper with rotten fingers, I would kiss those stumps all over one by one, infecting myself with leprosy, knowing full well what I was doing. If she were to turn into a chrysanthemum (she resembles a chrysanthemum), I would be the grave on which she would grow. Whatever she would be, I would recognize her immediately and turn into her shadow. Even if she were to turn into an intangible fabrication of the mind, a mysterious dream, I would be her dreamer.

We’re going down a neglected path in the park to the foot of the hill, and for the hundredth time I think of how we don’t fit in here. An overaged Romeo and Juliet in the heart of black Vilnius. We don’t fit in with the quietly weeping city, with the spiritless kanukish life. Vilnius doesn’t accept such passions, such thoughts, or such behavior. Soon it will start to hate us (it already hates us). It will laugh at us with a drab, barking laugh. Love is impossible in Vilnius. We are partially digested pieces of flesh — can things like that be allowed to love? Can you imagine Romeo and Juliet suffering their tragedy in a sewer pipe, up to their waists in a stream of excrement, unable to move, armless and legless?

We approach the river; I feel the sad breath of the water. The secret wall continues to loom between us, a wall of treacherous rain. A cold mist rises from the water; the other shore is barely visible. The mist enshrouds Lolita’s legs, slowly rises to her waist, and caresses her with damp fingers. I envy even that mist. Lolita is mine; no one is permitted to caress her. I can destroy even that mist, even the wind raging between her breasts. I get the urge to burn the books she likes, that she thinks and talks about. I get the urge to destroy the music she listens to alone. I envy everything. Our love is truly insane. I keep remembering how two wolves fought over a bitch with a white neck next to the camp fence. They forgot everything, even their fear of humans. They thrashed and bit each other as if they were alone in the entire world. The old one won, the pretender shamefully limped off, but heaven didn’t take pity on the winner, either. Half the camp witnessed his end. The old gray was angry at the entire world. He scurried after the white-throated bitch and defended her from everything. He showed his fangs and growled at us. He attacked dry twigs and the gigantic Siberian mosquitoes. Sometimes, snapping his teeth, he grabbed at the emptiness, at phantoms no one could see; he’d battle with drops of rain. Perhaps I am that wolf.