Vilnius Poker. Ricardas Gavelis

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      “They take everything away, you know. In Kaunas some men soldered freight cars, bound for Moscow with meat, to the rails . . .”

      “Haven’t you been to Russia? You’ve seen how thing are there? Completely . . .”

      “Things have always been like that in Russia, that’s why it’s Russia. What do we have to do with it . . .”

      “Don’t worry, Moscow is choking on Lithuanian sausage . . .”

      “As if stuffing your face is what matters most . . .”

      “A Lithuanian always eats his fill . . .”

      “Like there was anything else. There isn’t anything else . . .”

      “Ladies, just wait for eighty-four.” That’s Martynas now. “Orwell’s ghost will appear, the system will disintegrate like a house of cards.”

      “Comrade Poška, think of what you’re saying!” There’s Elena’s hippopotamus alto.

      My eyes start hurting from this talk. Of bread and circuses, only bread is left today. I sneak a look at her. She doesn’t sit with the others, she stands leaning against the shelves and is the only one who is quiet. Her dress lies softly on her thighs, just hinting, just letting you know how perfect they are. Her calves are covered with high boots, but I’ve observed them carefully; in front of my eyes I see the long thin calves of summer, the skin as soft as willow buds. Strange currents, menacing fluids of beauty, flow through her legs. They rise upward, to her waist, caress her flat belly and curvaceous hips, fall downward, turn a circle around the knees, slide down the calves and pour through slender heels into the delicate feet, all the way to the toes. Her legs are a work of art. It seems to me that at night they should glow, enveloped by the fluid’s tender halo. It’s dangerous for me to look at them; I ought to lower my eyes, to cover my face with my hands, to hide from myself—but I greedily eyeballed them, nearly losing consciousness.

      She felt my look; she feels everything. At intervals she would slowly raise the cup to her lips and freeze. She didn’t glance at me even once; she didn’t glare angrily. She didn’t hide from me; I was allowed to admire the barely visible wrinkles of thin material in that place where the legs secretly join the flat, even belly. Her beauty is full, it breathes with real life. It’s dangerous. She is like a live rose in this garbage-pit of deformed bodies. That’s why an ominous doubt slowly creeps into my heart. Can it possibly be, I think involuntarily, is it at all possible? Beauty should be limited; otherwise it inevitably turns into evil. This was etched into my brain by an incident from long ago, the first bell that invited me to the great spectacle. A wretched spectacle, where all of the roles are tragic and bloody; an intricate and brutal performance, whose rules will sooner or later drive me out of my mind.

      Gediminas was still alive then, and I was only forty years old. Was, is, could be . . . I don’t know if Gediminas could be alive. I don’t know if I would want him to be more alive than he is now. A person’s non-being isn’t absolute: the thread of fate breaks, but after all it doesn’t burn up, it doesn’t melt in the air; it remains among us, the living. Every one of us could seat our own dead in front of the hearth: our own Gediminas, our own grandfather, constantly griping sullenly about God and all of his creation. There shouldn’t be such a feeling on earth as “lost to the ages.” Only you yourself can be lost to the ages. Loss merely freezes a person’s existence, as if in a piece of clear ice. Now Gediminas will never turn gray or be sickly; he can’t be that way anymore. Now he’ll never climb the Tibetan peak he dreamed of; he’ll always just want to climb it. Perhaps it’s for the best, that now he can’t do what he didn’t do, say what he didn’t say, turn into that which he wasn’t (now isn’t). I don’t need to be afraid he drinks too much—he will always drink and always enjoy it, now he really won’t turn into a doddering wreck who can’t hold a glass. He won’t betray me or neglect me in misfortune. He is the way he is, now he will never change. Maybe it’s better that way: it would be better, it could be better, it will be better . . . Gediminas hasn’t vanished anywhere; even now he’s standing on the corner of the sidewalk (that evening he stood). The impassive Vilnius autumn lingers about; the air smells of damp dust—like a giant whale pulled out of a sea of dust. The evening wraps itself in a barely noticeable mist and the wet glitter of lights. No one drives by, everyone has forgotten us, Vilnius has abandoned us. A gust of wind carries off the mist, the ripples in the puddles slowly settle down, the pale reflections of the lights float again. This quietly steaming broth of autumn quietly intoxicates. On evenings like this, Vilnius, with its toothless whale-mouth, whispers hoarse, mysterious words, entices and lures you, swallows you up and spits you out—appreciably the worse for wear and soaked in the smells of the whale’s guts: vapors of wine, vodka, and rum.

      When you’ve been spat out, you see the damp, dusk-enveloped buildings of Vilnius lurking in the dark corners of the streets in an entirely different way (that evening I saw it that way). It seemed they were lying in ambush. It seemed Vilnius no longer breathed at all; it crouched and settled down, grimly waiting. The drab monuments and the dirty, smoke-ridden lindens of Vilnius waited too. Something had to happen; this the two of us, deluded into the depths of Old Town and saturated with the city’s fine rain, realized particularly well. We stood (now we stand), waiting for something to happen. For a mangy, wet dog to cling to us (all stray dogs love Gediminas; they all consider him their only leader and master). For the wind to suddenly whistle like a bird, and a vengeful moon, marked with mysterious crooked symbols, to show up in a rift in the clouds. But nothing happened; the toothless whale spat the two of us out, and forgot us.

      Gedis saw that woman first. She emerged as if from the earth, or perhaps she was born of the fall dampness—she hadn’t even managed to wipe the dew off her cheeks yet. It seemed an eddy of wind had brought her here from a gloomy side street. She swiveled to the sides, as if finding herself in this world for the first time. This can only happen in dreams or at night in Vilnius: just now, as far as you could see, the street was empty, but here a black-haired woman in an expensive elegant overcoat is standing next to you, and you aren’t in the least surprised. She’s one of yours now; she had to show up here, according to the imponderable laws of the dream of Vilnius. A gust of wind whisked the thick black hair from her face, but a shadow hid her eyes. It was the clothes I saw most clearly—the kind sewn by only the most expensive of tailors. I had no doubt she was the something we were waiting for. Vilnius’s Greek gift, immediately attracting the eye (and not just the eye). You would instantly spot a woman like that in the thickest forest or crush of people; you would see her dressed in any fashion, hidden under a dark veil, or disfigured.

      There didn’t seem to be anything special either about her oval face, or in the predatory thighs, visible even through the cloth of the coat, or in her indolent breasts. There wasn’t that mysterious harmony in her that sometimes links coarse details into a wondrous whole. However, she attracted me (attracts me) like a large, warm magnet. She wanted touching. She wanted us to think only of her. Gedis and I had just been getting ready to go somewhere, to do something, and now we stood there, forgetting all of our plans, completely stunned. The woman smiled and waited for us to come to our senses. A beautiful, long-legged, perhaps twenty-five-year-old, with dreamy breasts and hair tousled by the wind. A strange, damp warmth, like that from a heap of rotting leaves, emanated from her.

      She really did want touching. She craved this herself, she entwined us both with long, invisible arms; you wanted to obey her, but within that sweet obedience a melancholy fear flared—it seemed as if this Circe of Vilnius’s side streets could at any moment turn you into a soft, brainless being.

      An automobile, apparently lured by her, stopped next to us. Naturally and inescapably, she turned up inside it with us, naturally and inescapably, she got out at Gediminas’s building and went up to the fifth floor. She smiled the entire time. I leaned on an armchair, secretly watching her, and still СКАЧАТЬ