I sensed that the catastrophe couldn’t hide only inside her. I knew I had to investigate what she did outside of the house, whom she met with and where she went. I had already caught on to a few things, but I still couldn’t entirely grasp what path I was taking, my thrashing heart squeezed into a fist.
She didn’t sense she was being followed (I had opportunities to convince myself of this), but she always escaped from me. This stunned me: even without sensing the real danger, she maintained an absolute conspiracy. She would disappear through courtyard passageways, or simply turn a corner and vanish, as if she had floated off into the air. I would search for at least a door, a window, a crack in the wall where she could have disappeared. Unfortunately, always unsuccessfully. She was attracted, drawn into the old part of Vilnius, closer to the narrow little streets and churches, the neglected buildings and gloomy, filthy courtyards. You’d think it was only in Old Town that she could disappear, in league with the spirit of Vilnius itself. That spirit of the city intimidated me. All of Vilnius grew faint and muffled, all there was left of it was crooked, fly-stained little streets and dirty courtyards with whitewashed toilet stalls. The city shrank into the narrow, decrepit buildings, into the realm of the ground-floor dives. In the courtyard passageways I would be met by bandy-legged dogs and dirty chickens. The entire motley pack would furiously sniff me over. Dazed men staggered along the walls. Shrill women hung laundry on sooty clotheslines. In the squares, sullen groups guzzled the cheapest garbage wine out of bottles. Hoarse, drunken cries bounced between the thick walls; I practically didn’t hear a word of Lithuanian anywhere. It seemed I was no longer in Lithuania, that at any minute I was going to have to speak a narrow gutter language I didn’t know. My ancient, sacred city was beset by the lowest order of lumpen. I had to shove my way through them to follow the waddling woman’s figure. She felt at home between the fly-stained walls, even her walk would improve. But I was an alien here, and not welcome. Bleary-eyed men looked at me with surprise and a strange malice. Surprised dogs would sniff at me, unable to understand what that smell was doing here. I was shocked: it had been many years since I had seen this Vilnius. But after all, my own old spirit had to linger here; I myself, as I was ten or fifteen years ago. Perhaps she was intentionally attempting to lure me back to the past.
There was no peace left at home, either. Increasingly weird characters began visiting, as if bugs had converged on my apartment from unknown cracks and corners. They beset my house like apparitions. They were seemingly different, even very different, but at the same time exactly the same as her. My practiced eye already distinguished the critical details: the unusual movements, the emptiness of the gaze. All of their hands were chubby, with swollen joints, and covered in small, tawny freckles. From every one emanated the familiar sour smell of decay. One sturdy fellow, by the name of Justinas, seemed especially typical to me. (He was some sort of party functionary, a representative of the nomenklatura, a person from a special world where everything is different than it is in our life: things, and food, and hospitals. Even bread is baked specially for them. Even the rules of the road are different for their cars.) I kept trying to talk to him, even though I didn’t know what I needed to question him about. I simply tried to earn his confidence, to encourage him to chat freely. I would fix the coffee and make toast myself, leaving Justinas in the room with her. I would secretly listen to what the two of them talked about. But he didn’t give himself away: not a word about Old Town, the Narutis neighborhood, or the courtyard passageways.
Justinas immediately made himself completely at home; it seemed entirely natural to hug my wife in a friendly (or not just friendly) way, or to pat her on the knee. Once, when I had stayed a bit longer in the kitchen and returned quietly, I caught him pressing her breasts in his hands. We were all a bit drunk. I pretended I hadn’t noticed, but before going to bed I threw a jealous fit. I was stunned by her reaction. Suddenly she got really nasty and launched into an attack. I was the one who was to blame. I had invited Justinas over. I had created an unhealthy atmosphere. I alone. I listened to her croaking voice, looked at the pimply face, the deformed fingers, the bloated breasts, the globs of flesh between her thighs, which she hid under a thick nightgown but weren’t difficult to infer; I looked and I couldn’t help but be charmed. This time she played the part perfectly. She smeared her face all over with mascara, writhed like a snake, and heaved in the most disgusting convulsions of kanukism. She truly had not lost the talents with which she had deceived me our entire life together.
She didn’t lose her ability to disappear, either. It seemed I should have given up my useless stalking long ago, but my determination never knew any limits. Determination sooner or later pays off. One time, as usual, I lost sight of her and aimlessly went in circles around the neighborhood of the Narutis; finally I went out into Didžiosios Street, stopped, and lit up a smoke. Apparently, the tension was already accumulating within me; the second sight was already emerging. I sensed that I had to look to the right; I sensed this command coming from within. First I saw her; then that creature too. She slowly crept towards him; without turning his head he muttered something to her and continued to stand there, as if he were rooted to the spot. She hunched over even more, and, obediently, as if she had received a blessing, hobbled off. She no longer concerned me; I fixed my eyes only on him. He was stocky and square. He stood by the wall next to the door of a store. Next to the scurrying, rushing figures he looked like a hole in a colorless carpet. He had no neck at all. His massive head was set directly onto his shoulders; if he wanted to look to the side, he had to turn his entire body. But he didn’t turn; he merely devoured everything with his eyes. That neckless thing had grown into the paving stones, into the grim walls, into Old Town’s close air. Passersby would slow when they passed him; it seemed they forgot for a moment where they were going. But this didn’t interest him; he simply stood there and devoured everything with his eyes. He riveted my attention, riveted even my willpower. The eyes in his pudgy, flat face were like two holes — if it’s possible to imagine holes in a hole. His face was completely expressionless, but it was just this lack of expression that broadcast his oppressive menace, his universal scorn, and his firm belief that this was his domain. Superficially, he looked like an imbecile, but I didn’t doubt for a second that inside him an iron, dispassionate intellect was working like a machine. His head jutted out of his shoulders and was bent somewhat forward; he seemingly charged forward, but at the same time remained as unmovable as a rock. He was like a wolf poised just before a leap, but firm in the knowledge that it would be unnecessary to pounce — the victim would climb into his jaws on its own. A pathological threat, indescribable in words, was hidden inside him. It was only possible to feel it; it penetrated my innards like a plague bacilli, like a sense of impending doom. At intervals, faceless figures would approach him for a blessing; he would growl something, and they would slink off again. I saw he was the secret king here, whom everyone obeyed without knowing whom they were obeying, and naïvely thought that they were acting independently. He held all the strings in his hands (whose strings, what strings?); he loomed above Old Town like a gigantic octopus, connected by innumerable threads to the mass of drab figures who were crawling here and there. His proboscises reached everywhere; they reached my innards too — my chest was encompassed by a torpid weakness. I felt I had already found it, but I still couldn’t understand what I had found. I was alone — frightened and helpless. I was and I remained alone.