Ricardas Gavelis - Vilnius Poker

It’s too bad Elena didn’t let me finish my monologue.

For the thousandth time, listening to the divine Elena, I thought about whether homo lithuanicus really differs all that much from homo sovieticus : is it permissible to consider the former a separate anthropomorphous species, or is it merely a subspecies of the latter? Once more I decide it’s permissible. Homo lithuanicus has characteristics that are absolutely atypical of the species homo sovieticus. Homo lithuanicus says “they,” homo sovieticus says “we.” Homo lithuanicus considers only Lithuania his country. To him the remaining parts of the USSR are as distant and as foreign as Mars. Homo sovieticus considers the entire USSR his home country. Just look at the Russians living in Vilnius or Tbilisi. They feel at home, in their own place; from their point of view, all these Lithuanians and Georgians aren’t quite where they belong. Homo sovieticus doesn’t sense any difference between Mogilyov, Ryazan, or Dnipropetrovs’k. (And by the way, there is none.) According to homo lithuanicus’ understanding, Vilnius is as different from Saratov as the sky from the earth.

If a former homo lithuanicus quietly goes off to live in Moscow or Kiev — he’s changed his skin. Then he says “we,” and not “they.”

In our office, only Elena says “we.” Such converts are an intermediate product. Homo sovieticus talks in an Orwellian newspeak in which all the normal, age-old concepts are turned inside out and changed. The converts, like Elena, only speak newspeak from the rostrum. In other circumstances, they start talking in normal, human language despite themselves. They unconsciously drop their fake skin so the real one can breathe, for a while at least. They simply forget themselves.

This type isn’t completely done for. True, you won’t turn them back into humans anymore, but they’re not yet genetically ruined. You can at least try to turn their children around.

Incidentally, on the subject of the converts’ children. One rather highly-placed gentleman’s wife told me, in horror, of an incident that embellished my collection:

Her son, a four-year-old philosopher, thoughtfully looked at Vilnius’s identical buildings and unexpectedly asked:

“Mama, Lithuanians live in Lithuania, right?”

“Yes, my sweetheart.”

“And the French in France?”

“Of course, sweetheart.”

“And Americans in America?”

“Yes, of course, who else.”

The philosopher looked around once more, listened to the passersby talking, sighed, and asked:

“Mama, then why are there so many Russians living in Lithuania? They’ve lost Russia, haven’t they? They don’t have anywhere else to live, right?”

His communist mother told me this in horror. Her opinion was that someone had maliciously taught this to her child.

She was a convert, so she couldn’t grasp that there was simply still some good sense inside the child’s head.

The first priority is to beat every scrap of good sense from people’s heads as early as possible. In preschool, or in the first grades at the very latest. Comrade Molotov himself explained this to me. Yes, yes, the Iron Ass, Stalin’s right hand. When I met him in Moscow, he was some eighty years old. I was running from one high office to another and fighting for my dissertation, while he had come by to pay his Party dues.

He paid his Party dues regularly, even though he had long ago been shouldered out of the Communist Party. But the Iron Ass will most certainly be returned to the ranks of honor! At least after he dies. If Comrade Molotov isn’t returned to the ranks within the next five years, I’ll go into shock.

I have no fear that he’ll die too soon. I suspect that the Iron Ass will live to be at least a hundred and twenty.

Incidentally, the Iron Ass told me a sacred phrase:

“You Lithuanians never did understand anything!”

VV has his human ideal — the great ideologue Suslov. My eternal love is the Iron Ass.

On that occasion, he was suddenly overcome with sentiment for Lithuanians. When he found out that I was a Lithuanian, he took me home with him.

I must emphasize that in this respect the Iron Ass differs from the majority of Russians. He knew what Lithuania is, and didn’t confuse Lithuanians with Latvians. The majority of Russians don’t bother distinguishing Lithuanians from Latvians or Estonians. The name of their concocted generalization for all of them is pribalt , the people by the Baltic. In the minds of the majority of Russians, even Lithuanians themselves don’t particularly distinguish who they are — Estonians or Latvians. The Russians always like to combine everything. Besides “pribalt,” they’ve come up with other new races, for example, “caucasites.”

The Iron Ass stated right away that inaccuracies of that sort irritate him. And then he added one more sacred phrase:

“You Lithuanians always got terribly in the way of the inevitable progress of history.”

I’ll explain for those who don’t know what “the inevitable progress of history” is. That means the annexation of Lithuania and then the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia — in short, freeing up the land for those who are more worthy of it. The Iron Ass didn’t doubt in the least that this process was only temporarily halted.

I’ll never understand why he took me to his home. Maybe the Iron Ass is assembling a collection too, one analogous to mine? He was extremely interested in pedagogy. I myself can bring home a shabby, grizzled bum, even though I’ll have to disinfect all the furniture afterwards. It makes no difference to me, as long as the bum adds to my collection.

I didn’t recognize him at first. Nasty suspicions arose when I saw a militiaman, who jumped up and saluted the master of the house, in the entrance lobby of the building on Granovsky Street. It slowly started dawning on me. When I took a better look, I could have bet it was Molotov. True, not for a lot of money.

The Iron Ass lived in a five- or maybe six- or seven-room apartment, entirely by himself. Apparently he was bored out of his skull. His lower lip sometimes sagged, but overall he was fairly energetic and reasoned perfectly logically. Lord knows, even now he would embellish the ROF. However, at that moment he no longer belonged to the ROF. The Iron Ass was a fallen idol.

He immediately grabbed the bull by the horns.

“Twenty-five years ago I used to know this Lithuanian who didn’t understand anything, either,” he stated hoarsely. “Your breed interests me a great deal. You are unique in your failure to understand the inevitable progress of history.”

Never in my life — neither before, nor after — have I heard such perfect newspeak. There wasn’t a single human word in its usual sense in his speech. This Molotov was the ideal new man — the type you don’t even need to explain, just showing a good photograph is enough. No comment needed afterwards. I vividly pictured him saying, “There are no Red Army prisoners, there are only traitors.” I could just see him with Ribbentrop chopping up the map of Europe: von Ribbentrop a bit agitated, breathing in quick gasps, and the Iron Ass with the cosmic indifference of a perfect automaton. He was terrible in his inhumanity. Everything human was foreign to him.

“He was called, uh. . Krėva,” he declared, never offering me a seat. “Do you know him?”

He had Krėvė-Mickevičius in mind.

“I finally let him into my office. . yes, that was twenty-five years ago. Where is he now, that, uh, Krėva?”

“He emigrated to the U.S.” I was startled to hear my voice sounding entirely natural.

The Iron Ass, dissatisfied, shook his head: