“You were studying literature the last I heard of you,” said Rimantas. “Did you keep that up?”
“No, I went into the forest. You must have known.”
“Oh, students were disappearing one after another in those days. I didn’t know if you’d run away, been deported or been killed, not that I put much thought into it. I just kept my head down and hoped no one would think of me. I suppose I got lucky.”
Lukas now remembered so well the mixture of rueful delight and exasperation that Rimantas used to excite in him, but because the emotions went back so far, to his student life, he enjoyed them more than he used to in the past.
“Why do you want to join the partisans?” he asked.
“I wanted to do something, you know, for my country. I thought I could contribute my talents to the underground press—unsigned, of course.”
“The press needs help. We’ve lost a lot of our writerly types. We could certainly use another one, although you’d probably have to print the paper as well as write it and edit it.”
“I’m not very technical, you know, but I’m a good critic and a good writer.”
“Tell me a little about your life since I last saw you.”
“Well, I finished my studies and wanted to do graduate study, but the university is all about engineers and statisticians now. They don’t give a damn for the humanities. They told me I was going to be a teacher in some godforsaken provincial town, but first I had to do my military service. Now, there was a comedy. They never did find clothes that fit me, not even shoes. The sergeants were all bullies and it was just terrible what they put me through. By then the war with the Germans was long over, of course, so they didn’t have a front to throw me against, and I ended up peeling potatoes in Ukraine, which was dangerous enough in its own way. They have partisans too, you know, and to them anyone in a Red Army uniform is a Red. I’m lucky I didn’t get shot. By the time I got back I thought the authorities would have dreamed up something better for me to do, but it doesn’t look like it. It’s gotten worse. They assigned me to a hamlet on the Byelorussian border, all swamps and illiterate peasants, and I’m to teach in an elementary school. In any case, I’m not going to put up with that. So I came down here, where I have an uncle, and let out the word that I wanted to join the partisans.”
Lukas listened to Rimantas with a mixture of annoyance and wonder. It was said that God loved drunkards because he saved them from so many accidents, but if that was true, God must love fools too, because Rimantas should have been imprisoned or deported long ago. To be so unaware and yet survive was a kind of crime.
“Joining the partisans isn’t going to make your life any easier than teaching in a provincial school,” said Lukas. “You’d have to live in hiding and on the run most of the time. I don’t think you’re up to that.”
“Don’t underestimate me. I’m tougher than I look.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but maybe you could help us while living above ground instead of going underground. How is it that you’re not at the school right now?”
“I knew a doctor who sold me a medical condition, but I couldn’t afford anything longer than half a year. I’ll have to go to Byelorussia by next September.”
“Maybe in the meantime you can just help us out.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“Well, I know we have a drum copier and some alcohol, but we don’t have any stencils or paper. Do you think you could get us some paper?”
“How much?”
“Whatever you can. Maybe a thousand sheets, if possible, even if you can’t get the stencils. If worse comes to worst, we’ll type out triplicates with carbon paper. Do you think you could do that?”
“To tell you the truth, it’s a little disappointing. I was hoping you could assign me to a partisan group where someone like me could be head of propaganda.”
“Maybe we should just start with this. But you must be very secretive and tell no one what I’ve asked.”
Rimantas gave him a withering look. “I am not as stupid as I seem.”
“I’m sure you’re not.”
“I know partisans have code names. What’s yours?”
“It wouldn’t be much of a code name if I told it to you when you already know my real name.”
“I see. Well, maybe I could choose a code name of my own.”
“Be my guest.”
“I’d like to be called Poe.”
“Like the Italian river?”
“No, like the American writer, with an e on the end. Poe. Do you understand?”
“I think I do.”
“Do you live here, in this barn? Should I come here when I have the paper you want?”
“No. This is a neutral place. Someone will contact you to check and we’ll choose another meeting place.”
“It sounds a little like you don’t trust me.”
“Nothing personal. These are just operating procedures.”
“Do you still read poetry?”
“When I can.”
“Would you like it if, when I came, I brought some of my poetry?”
“I’d like that very much.”
“I’ve had a few things published in a journal called Lighthouse. Have you heard of it?”
“I don’t get magazines very often.”
“Well, try to see if you can find it. I’ve always valued your opinion.”
Lukas and Lakstingala left soon after Poe made his way down the wet road.
“He sounds like an idiot,” said Lakstingala when Lukas explained the conversation they had had.
“He was always eccentric. He’s a narcissist. But maybe he can help us.”
“Fools are dangerous. They mean no harm but get you killed anyway.”
“We can take another look at him later and reassess.”
“Just don’t let him anywhere near the bunkers. I don’t trust him yet and winter is no time to go digging new holes in the earth.”
“The ground isn’t even frozen.”
“No, but it’s wet. Every shovelful weighs twice what it would in the summer.”
Shortly after Lakstingala left on one of his sorties, it snowed heavily in the night and then a cold front came in. The dripping of the water stopped, but it was impossible to go outside because Lukas’s feet would break through the crust of snow and then there would be no way to mask his tracks. Lakstingala would not be coming back any time soon for the same reason.
Lukas opened the trap door and looked out onto the blindingly white snow. He felt pale and grey and would have liked to climb out and bathe himself in sunlight, but it was some consolation to be looking out on the brightness from the passageway, even if it meant that he needed to keep a blanket over his shoulders to protect himself from the cold.
He could see only tree trunks and some open meadow beyond them. There were no houses visible, but somewhere within a few kilometres lay Merkine, the town they had once taken and where his brother had died. And somewhere beyond that, he didn’t know where, Elena was apparently living.
He would need to get word out to Zoly somehow, to have a rubber raft come to pick them up at Palanga. But Lukas had no radio, and was not sure a raft would come even if he asked for one. Could he and Elena live somewhere in the country with false documents? Perhaps, but the drunken forger was long gone and Lukas did not know where one got false documents now.
They could give themselves up and hope to have some sort of life if they survived deportation, but Lukas had not heard of anyone coming back. Besides, he had killed too many Reds and would not be pardoned unless he betrayed others, such as Lakstingala. Maybe not even then.
Just as Lakstingala had said some things were not to be talked about, so some things did not bear much thought. This must be the way animals lived, in the here and now. He would wait and see. He would deal with his future as it came at him.