Alexandre Vidal Porto - Sergio Y.

Now, after becoming acquainted with Angelus’s story, I can better reconstruct Sergio’s actions, how he interrupted his life story to start Sandra’s. Sergio Y. ceased to exist. He killed himself but his heart kept beating.

I carefully reread my notes on Sergio.

It became clear to me after doing so that in his therapy the references to New York were linked to a feeling of existential possibility that I, as a therapist, had wanted him to explore further. Now I understand that this, in fact, is what happened.

Angelus Zebrowskas’s story begins in Lithuania, at the time under Russian rule, in a small village called Gekodiche, which today no longer exists. Zebrowskas’s biography had been a joint effort, compiled by his stepchildren. It was based on personal diaries he had left behind so that his story would come to light after his death.

“I want to show other sad people who will come after me the way.” With those words, Angelus Zebrowskas explained the reason for his diary. The book was released in 1995 in what would have been the centennial of his birth.

In many ways, the lives of Angelus and Sandra were similar. Both abandoned their place of birth to seek happiness elsewhere, under a new guise, one that offered greater possibilities. They charted different paths through an analogous process held together, in both cases, by a central axis of optimism.

Sandra’s motives become much clearer and more justifiable when one knows the story of the man she named her restaurant after. Angelus was Sandra, and Sandra, somehow, was also her great grandfather Areg. They were all part of the same stubborn, lonely line who, in the face of adversity, preferred to believe a better life was possible.

Many manage to improve on the first drafts of the lives they are given. But for that they need the courage to jump off a diving board fifty meters high, blindfolded, not knowing if it is water or asphalt that awaits them below.

So, in the hopes of improving the reader’s understanding of my report, I will take a small detour and present a summary of the book that inspired the journey Sergio decided to undertake. I will tell you those elements of Angelus’s life which I believe are relevant to understanding the lives and deaths of Sergio and Sandra, as I have come to understand them.

I hope the reader will indulge me.

The first to depart were Antonas Kinklas and Jurgis Vytautas, who emigrated to the United States in 1904, made a fortune and inspired a whole generation of unhappy countrymen by their examples.

The idea that there existed a better life on the other side of the ocean spread, and many young people from Gekodiche and nearby towns embarked on the same voyage to Bremen, Danzig or Libau, where they would board ships that would take them to another world.

Unlike the Jews, who wanted to establish themselves definitively in America, the Christians of the region thought they would make it in America and return to Lithuania rich, with enough money to transform their lives, build additions to their houses, purchase a warehouse or even establish themselves in Vilnius, where life was better.

Five years after the first men left, the first women began leaving as well. The first single woman to leave alone for America was Anna Limiticius.

Anna had gone to the United States to marry a second cousin. Her departure caused an uproar and gave new hope to many of the young women of Gekodiche, who, as a result of the exodus of single men, had resigned themselves to the possibility that they might never find a husband.

Anna Limiticius was considered fortunate. Along with a passage from Danzig to New York, her husband had sent her a small dowry for a trousseau. In New York, she would continue her journey by train to her new life in Bridgeport, Connecticut, which she could barely find on the map in the church’s school library.

Anna was followed by Irena and Paula. They were followed in turn by others, and then came the turn of Adriana Simkevicius, youngest daughter of Old Simkevicius, the tailor.

Adriana was not pretty. She had thick eyebrows, brown eyes and black hair, which she invariably wore braided and in a bun. She was pale and if she became even slightly worried or sick, dark circles would appear under her eyes.

She was sad. Her sadness was apparent. Yet she never complained or blamed anyone for her woes. Her sadness pained her. However, over the years, she had learned to ignore the pain. It was the natural state of things for her. It was like living with a chronic disease.

For years, she cried every night, not knowing why. At fifteen, she learned to control the crying. To stop the crying. But then she became consumed by the desire for death.

She imagined a cold, bluish death for herself. She would have thoughts of filling the pockets of her apron with rocks and entering the river in early spring, just when the ice was thawing. She wanted to die beneath floating plates of ice.

She was taller than the other girls. At sixteen, she was as tall as her father. One of her grandfathers was Serbian, and they said that was the reason. She did not like it when her breasts began to develop. Instinctively, she began to drape a woolen shawl over her chest, until the day she menstruated and decided to stop.

To lead such a life in Gekodiche, even if she managed to get married, even if she managed to have children, even if she managed to establish a routine like everyone else, meant she would forever be unhappy. She knew this but resigned herself to her fate.

But she had a life plan. She would live for her parents. After they were dead, she would help her older sister. After her sister was dead, she — who was very religious — would go to a convent to work for the poor. She would cook, sew, clean toilets, do whatever was needed. She would live for others. Dedicate her life to others like someone who had made the decision not to live her own life, even though living such a life meant she could not avoid images of that early spring night when she would drown.

Franciskus Zebrowskas, her suitor, had apprenticed as a tailor at Old Simkevicius’s shop. In 1911, Franciskus, who had emigrated two years earlier, decided to open a small shop of his own in Chicago. The business prospered and he felt lonely and overwhelmed. He wanted a wife.

Franciskus’s thoughts had turned to Adriana, among the young ladies of Gekodiche, because she was a good seamstress and could help him run his business. In addition, she was the daughter of a man he admired. She was not the most beautiful woman in the world, but that, for Franciskus, was an advantage. She was serious, quiet and hardworking. She was young, she could give him healthy children. She would make a good wife for a man like him.

As was the custom among the Christians of Gekodiche, a priest conveyed Zebrowskas’s interest in Adrianna to Old Simkevicius:

“Simkevicius, you have to marry Adriana off. Carlota is too old. The fair thing is for her to stay home and take care of her parents. Zebrowskas is a good man. You know him. He will make your daughter happy in a country where there is a future. Where there are a lot of opportunities. Talk to her. It will be better for everyone. Then she will bring you over. Who knows, Franciskus might invite you to become a partner in his tailor shop in America. Who is to say Carlota won’t get married there too?”

Adriana was almost seventeen. She worked with her father at his tailor shop. Every day she would spend hours on end concentrating, sitting in front of the sewing machine, immersed in her sad thoughts. In her spare time, she would read and pray the rosary, which was her way of withdrawing from life. Franciskus Zebrowskas was honest, and he was also an excellent tailor. The twelve years’ difference between the two of them was part of the marriage of convenience package he proposed. For whatever reason, Franciskus Zebrowskas, at twenty-eight, was still single and wanted to get married. Not having succeeded in finding a wife to his liking in Chicago, his thoughts turned to someone who knew the customs and the ways of his homeland.