And yet another one, some philosopher’s; even in a cattle wagon he wants to appear wise to himself:
Lord God! Everyone is throwing letters out here, so I’m throwing one out too. I don’t want to write to people anymore. I’m addressing this to Thee, Lord, surely Thou seest that Lithuania is on the brink — tell me that doesn’t worry Thee at all? What have the honest, hard-working plowmen of Lithuania done to offend Thee, why are people who think, who have a heart and who believe in Thee no longer loved? Why take the side of the faceless mass pouring out of the East? Don’t tell me Thou dost not hear what they say? They have no brains. Don’t tell me Thou dost not see what they’re doing? They have no heart. They’re not made in Thy image. Why are they chasing us out of the land of our fathers? Maybe Thou hast proclaimed the end of the world by now, maybe the Revelation is already being fulfilled? Maybe. .
The letters rustle on my belly. There’s no need to try to understand anything. There’s the sun, there’s the creek, over there’s a rock overgrown with moss. It’s just somehow unsettling; my heart is troubled. And Giedraitis Junior is looking at me so strangely too. I know he secretly hates me — because I’m so big and strong, because I have known a woman, because I’m already a man, while he, a year older, is still a puny little kid. And I envied him his dandy of a music teacher, the entire class envied him: he would meet junior Giedraitis by the school, put his arm around his shoulders and lead him off, whispering something in his ear. And I’m also envious of him because everything is always obvious to him. He doesn’t reproach himself over the love of humans or unsent letters. Every human resembles some sort of animaclass="underline" a bird, a long-legged hunting dog, a rat. Giedraitis Junior doesn’t resemble anything, he’s completely lifeless: he reminds you of drab ruins that absolutely no one visits. Sometimes it seems like there’s bats flying around in his belly. Nature shorted him something; everything others take openly and honestly, he’s forced to snatch secretly — like today’s wine. He’s missing something; something very, very important. No one likes him. All the more reason I should love him. They’re packing up Lithuanians as fertilizer for the fields of Siberia; there’s fewer of us all the time, we have to love one another. They’ll take him among the first — he tried to buddy up to the Nationalist youth. I almost love him — as if he were a younger sister, neither pretty nor interesting, whom no one will marry no matter what dowry you’d offer. Robis smiles pitifully — he always instantly senses sympathy in another’s eyes. He wants to be good to me, very, very good — like an affectionate puppy. He rubs against me, he’s a puppy, and I’m a naked god knocked to the ground, great and unhappy in equal parts. Apparitions are writing letters to me about Lithuania. Robis blinks rapidly, he watches with a devoted gaze. I’m sorry for him, I want to do something nice for him. I stretch out my hand and tousle his hair — that dandy of a music teacher used to do that. He suddenly blushes, smiles pitifully, looks at me with an ever stranger stare. I don’t get it right away when his hand starts feeling around below my belly, carefully strokes my hair, suddenly as lightly as a little mouse slides down even further and, quivering, embraces my penis. My face suddenly gets hot, my thoughts jumble, I should say or do something, but the wine is swirling in my head so pleasantly. I never imagined that Robis’s hands are so soft — like velvet, like willow buds.
“It’s so handsome!” says Robis in a thick voice. “It’s so big and handsome!”
Yes, a strange inner voice whispers, yes, it’s big and handsome, all of you is big and handsome, you are like a god. I don’t understand what Robis is doing, my thoughts wilt, I don’t think anything, I just wait to see what will happen. He sighs quietly, slides somewhere lower down, I wait, I keep waiting, and suddenly I feel a damp touch there, below, in the most tender of spots. I subside into a sticky, warm sweetness, and the strange voice keeps warbling: only for you, only for you can it be this sweet, because you are like a god. It’s really hard to tear my stuck eyelids apart, I can barely see: Robis has lain down on my hips, his eyes are like a beaten dog’s, it’s some kind of a painting, in reality it’s not like that, there’s no such impossible sweetness, even my bones grow soft and mushy — any moment I’ll close my eyes, helpless. Yes, the strange voice beckons, only gods dream such dreams, wait a bit, it’ll be even better. I throw a last glance at the giddy dream, but my eyes stumble on the sheets of paper on my belly, suddenly I understand that this is no dream, that everything is for real!
Suddenly I realize what’s going on here. Giedraitis Junior, sensing something bad (he always senses things), arduously tears himself away from me, panting heavily. I don’t know what to do, I just assure myself that nothing happened, nothing, nothing, has happened and couldn’t have happened. I want just one thing: that he too, would understand that nothing happened here; nothing, absolutely nothing, has taken place.
“Is it nice?” Giedraitis Junior asks quietly. “If you want, I’ll kiss your feet. . I collect things that you’ve touched. . Let me finish. . Soon, to the end. .”
He looks at me again with big eyes, like I’m one of his own. It’s green around me, everything is green, except for the white of the undelivered letters on my belly. What would those apparitions think of me, seeing their naked, spread-eagled god? I find myself thinking of what my grandfather would do to me and it takes my breath away. I’m completely calm; I’m just sorry that Giedraitis Junior spoke. I’m sorry for his voice, sorry for him himself, because now I will have to kill him. If he spoke up like that, it means everything really did happen. Now I will have to kill him, otherwise I’ll never wash off the shame.
He’s gone in an instant; I see only a helpless lump of a body, splatters of blood on the grass, and my beaten knuckles. He’s choking on snot and blood, wheezing, slinging little whitish papers to the side. I need to calm down, otherwise I really will kill him. Giedraitis Junior is all bloody, even his glance is bloody; his words are bloody too.
“You screwed my mother!” he screams, “I know everything! You screwed my mother! I’ll tell father! He’ll kill you! Cut you into pieces! Tear out your eyes! Rip off your shitty peewee!. .”
He eyes me so furiously that it seems he’ll strangle me with his very eyes, his very look. Everything in my head is muddled: the night trains, the game with strangers’ fates, the babbling of the creek, Madam Giedraitienė’s limp breasts and commanding voice, starving grandfather’s sluggish stare, Junior Giedraitis’s doggish gaze, and a white ceiling which looms above me, presses down on me; I have to shake my head roughly so it will rise up a bit and grant me just a speck of freedom, just the slightest chance of remaining alive. For the time being still alive.
“What’s the matter with you?’ Lolita asks. “Have you been beset by ghosts?”
She is calm and good-natured, there’s only a note of curiosity in her voice. By now she has put on a robe, only her legs are severely naked; they bother me. Her body should be different, perhaps old and tired — then neither her intelligent eyes nor her strange wisdom would surprise me. Sometimes it seems she should have been born a man. It’s practically pathologicaclass="underline" I want to turn the most beautiful of my women into a man — into an elderly giant who’s seen everything, who could truly be relied on. She could substitute for both Gedis and Bolius — if not for those intoxicating legs, if not for those breasts rising up and forcing their way out of her clothes, like fish out of a net.