Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

“Young man, come wit me!” a ringing, remarkably familiar voice suddenly says.

Once again I see the Ahasuerus of Vilnius, wrapped up in a moth-eaten scarf, rhythmically tapping the worn-down ends of his shoes. His shrewd eyes blink frequently; his gap-toothed smile sends me a secret message.

“Here, vere da bronze Lenin now stands, der vas a market square once,” this guide of mine explains, “And even earlier, or maybe later, I don’t remember anymore, gallows stood here. . Dis square is magical. Dose who tink dat ghosts appear in Vilnius’s underground are wrong. Dey’re not dere!”

“I know. I’m familiar with Vilnius’s underground.”

“Ja, ja, dey’re not dere! People are wrong to search for secrets at da extremes. Black und white! Underground und up in heaven! Black und white aren’t vat’s most important, it’s gray! Neither da roots nor da top are da most important, it’s da trunk! Don’t search underground, don’t search in da heavens, search on earth. .”

I begin to remember him; his name is Šapira. He’s already been part of my life, before he turned into an Ahasuerus — but what? I might remember, except that he keeps hurrying more and more, dragging me along; we’re a really fine pair. A broad-shouldered, nearly six-foot-five man with a haggard gaze and a shabby Jew, two heads shorter, with bright little eyes. Yes, it’s Šapira; once upon a time we drank wine at the railroad station. But where are we going now?

“Far! Very far!” he shoots back. “To hell!”

Ahasuerus flies with the wind (or against the wind?), holding on to his slumping hat. But I still can’t get those old waxen men in the square, with their somnolent eyes and the gray stubble on their unshaven cheeks, out of my head. Maybe I’ve turned into an old man with trembling hands myself; maybe that’s why I’m panting, why I can’t keep up with that flyer? I want to grab him by his flapping scarf, but he’s already turning to the right, brushing the sidewalk with his coattails, then suddenly turning to the left, maneuvering between leafless bushes. I know these little paths well; we’ve come to the clinics. What will he show me here? Dying people, deformed bodies? Yet another grandfather of mine, come down from the heavens? But by now Ahasuerus has dragged me inside, he’s weaving through the corridors, descending all the stairs, climbing only downwards, heading towards hell; finally he leans against an iron-clad door with all his weight, bursts into a cramped little room, and, not even winded, fires out:

“I’ve brought someone, you’ll find you have tings to talk about.”

Šapira and I really did know each other. I’ll have to ask Stefa.

The man sitting at the table slowly turns to me; instead of a greeting he says in a low, distinct voice:

“Just don’t ask me if I’m Jewish. I don’t even know myself. My name sounds Polish — Kovarskis. But I learned Polish when I was already grown. I don’t know Yiddish, not to mention Hebrew. You can consider me a Lithuanian or a citizen of the universe, if that improves things. Do you believe in God?”

“No.”

“It’s a hopeless business. I don’t believe, either. Without a doubt God exists, but I see no reason to pollute the brain with the idea of God. Do you smoke?”

I take the proffered cigarette and finally get a good look at the room’s owner. He’s impossibly thin: nearly my height and probably weighs half as much. On a long neck perches a proud face overgrown with a beard and hair — an ascetic, truly Semitic face. The face of a man who’s crossed the desert and fed on the manna of heaven, who’s been persecuted and suffered for thousands of years. And on that face — an ideally straight Roman nose and pale, pale, barely visible gray pupils. I look around uneasily, but my guide has disappeared.

“Šapira’s always like that,” the light-haired Semitic face says calmly. “He emerges from underground at the most unexpected moment and always vanishes without saying goodbye.”

He speaks as if we’ve already known each other forever. I have seen him, I have heard his name. And I’ve seen this room, but not in this world — in a vision or a dream. I’ve been lured into a trap, a trap of my own visions. On the walls (it seems to me even on the ceiling) hang glass cabinets; inside them, neatly arranged, are countless nameless torturer’s instruments. Glistening lancets with mirrored blades are lined up by size; the smallest is the size of a match and the largest is designed to disembowel giants. But all those knives are merely a small part of the horror show; there is still an infinity of saws upon saws, sharp pincers, and needles upon needles. You could hide the tiniest little saw in a coin, like a prisoner; with the big one it would be possible, with two quick thrusts, to cut a live person in half. A bit further on glitter pliers upon pliers, hooks, and little hatchets. Whether I want to or not, I see them covered in blood, sticking into a live body. That’s what they’re made for: they scream for blood and live flesh. Those instruments are arranged carefully, with love. A strange love lurks within them. There are scores of them, there’s no end to them; I look around and suddenly realize this many cannot fit into such a small room. I’ve been lured into a trap. Unconsciously, I retreat backwards and quickly turn around, but behind my back is the iron-clad door. Knives upon little knives, sharp pincers to rip intestines apart, everything shines and glitters, everything streams blood. I quickly turn to the door and see that it has no handle. How simple it all is! I’ve ended up where I had to end up sooner or later; they’ll carry me out of here ripped to pieces and feed me to the pigeons of Vilnius.

“Yes, you could call me an anatomic pathologist,” the low distinct voice suddenly says. “I dissect the stiffs and announce the final diagnosis. I earn buckets of cognac if my enlightened colleagues were mistaken. Five mistaken diagnoses, that I will refute, and someone’s career is over. Do you like cognac?”

The light-haired Semite finally moves, casually opens a cabinet door. I take the proffered glass and take a sip without sensing the taste.

“I see you don’t care for instruments of destruction,” the owner says calmly and pushes open another door. Beyond it, I see a tangle of glass tubes and hoses, instruments with a number of little handles and numeric indicators. “Maybe it’ll be more comfortable in here?”

“An entire laboratory,” I say — feeling better that I’ve recovered my voice, that the cognac has a taste again, that I’m still alive. For the time being still alive.

“It’s a hopeless business. The number of times I’ve demanded an basic spectroscope! But what of it. . And I need a spectrometer. I need a laser. . For cryogenics. . I knock around all of Vilnius with a piece of someone’s ass. They fear me in every laboratory, in every institute. I’m a beggar. . But let’s not whine. You’re not afraid of corpses?”

I could tell him about how I hid out in Vilnius’s underground. My quarters were piled up with a gigantic stack of corpses. It was summer and they stank hideously. It was even more unpleasant when they started heaving from the gas. Maybe they were Lithuanians shot by the retreating Russians, maybe Jews murdered by the SS — I didn’t have the time to investigate. And for the most part we didn’t bother one another. We were each engaged in our own business: I in hiding, they — in decomposition.

And he asks me if I’m afraid of corpses.

“I see,” the light-haired Semitic face states, looking at me carefully. “Just put on a gown. And gloves. Stick your fingers somewhere you shouldn’t and your fingers will have to be cut off. A classic thing it is, dissecting fingers. Reducing them to little pieces. When you disassemble a single lone finger, when you arrange all of the veins, muscles, cartilage on the table, your eyes can’t take it all in at once. You just can’t believe that so many parts of all sorts fit into such a small mechanism. . And actually, it’s not just fingers I’ve dismantled, I’ve done an entire man. Every little piece of him. I’ve reduced a man to a million bits, strings, lumps. . it’s an unbelievable sight, I’d never even suspected it myself. . The laboratory absolutely full of ONE MAN: thousands of glass jars with little pieces of flesh or splinters of bones, a dozen or more flasks of various liquids. . And you just keep reducing it and reducing it, reducing it again and again. . If I was a hero of Dostoevsky’s, I’d probably announce that’s how I’m looking for where a man’s soul hides. . That shitty soul. . But I’ve always just cut up the dead; maybe that’s why I still haven’t found a soul. It’s already flown off to heaven. I need to cut up LIVE people. Good Lord, how I’d love to see how the entire mechanism works. .”