The inside of the church was virtually unchanged: the same dirty walls, painted-over frescoes, broken benches, and unimaginably grubby floor. Gedis didn’t allow anything to be tidied. He invited only me, but apparently didn’t forbid the others from inviting people. The church was practically crammed to the gills; everyone sat wherever they could: on dirty boxes, bags of fiberglass, rotten benches. Some thoughtfully brought folding chairs along. An eerie silence reigned; a couple of lively girls who tried to chatter and giggle instantly quieted down. You really had no inclination to raise a racket. A dusty dimness hung over the church; it was somber, harsh, and depressing. Every cough was echoed by gloomy rumbles in the vaults. The grand piano stood right below the altar; big drums and little drums, boxes, pots of all sizes, sticks and rods were stacked around it. Wooden bells had been assembled and gongs set up. All of it stood against a backdrop of crumbling walls, debris, broken parts of some sort, and ruined holy sculptures. Gedis had picked an ideal spot: sitting there, beholding that grimace of chaos, you automatically expected something even more morose. At last, Gedis sat down at the piano and announced in a tired, detached voice:
“This evening I play for my friend Vytautas. We’ll play one thing. It’s called ‘Vilnius Poker’.”
Now I sit cowering in the middle of the church of garbage and wine, now I hear the first chords, they aim straight at the heart, still quivering from the strange name. For the time being, Gedis plays alone, testing himself and me, his hands and my ears. I still don’t know what he wants, I still don’t hear the sharp rhythmic blows, even though a lame drummer, with the pained face of a jester, stands at the foot of the altar, by now he’s selecting drumsticks, by now he’s striking the tightened hide of the drum, he widens his eyes and turns his pupils to the sky, flashing the whites, waving the drumsticks right by Gedis’s head, thundering a dozen rhythms together, while Gedis flings me an inexplicable warning, his hands run up and down like crazy, the alto roars angrily, and Gedis distorts the melody, escapes through modal improvisation, through the free, he’s flying into the realm of pure spirit, weaving a vision, and I suddenly feel the first gaze: only Gedis can create an illusion of such strength; the music itself is looking at me, it’s staring sullenly, with the stare of my childhood years, with the enervating stare of Vilnius’s streets; this music is truly meant for me, it looks, pries, stares, and leers at me, but not just at me — the others’ faces also darken and contort, some of them look around in fright, but quickly stiffen and hang their heads: they have deadened and faded, the way their lives fade and die, but the music does not cease, the bassist is furiously driving nails straight into my temples, now three are playing, now four, now five, the alto saxophonist and a stout girl are shrieking, they scream over one another, the two of them are grappling in all seriousness, apparently they must fight, I look at them, I hear them: this isn’t music anymore; they are fighting for real, a fight to the death that never ends, that no one wins and everyone loses: two or three whack the little drums, the big drums, the pots, it’s a real rattling racket; I follow Gedis’s hands, I don’t hear the melody so much as I guess it, it’s the nonbeing melody of our nonbeing lives: Gedis is dreaming now; a thunderous, raging dream, vague echoing towers (perhaps Čiurlionis?), confusing corridors, bookcases, plank beds, barracks, eyes of horror looking out from everywhere; cold spreads through my chest because it’s the void, it’s nonexistence looking at me, my fear looks at me, my past, the barbed wire of the camp, it’s naked Bolius gobbling down grass, he keeps gobbling it down, again and again he gobbles — grass, grass, grass, Gedis stubbornly repeats the same phrase over and over, there’s a mass of musicians beneath the altar by now, they all shriek, scream, wail, it’s a wail over a human being (Bolius? My father? My grandfather?); they wail so loudly because they can no longer do anything else, the music grows, seizes the entire space, it wants to drown out the world, it won’t let you think of anything, it imperiously stops time: everything takes only a second, an endless, timeless second, a second of penetration — I calm myself, I convince myself it’s just music, it’s just a concert, but the faces around me grow darker still, the debris under my feet trembles and rises from the floor, visions and dreams explode inside me, they glitter horribly with fragments of evil, I won’t let them, I won’t, I don’t want to remember anything, it’s a vision of death, it’s a dream of death, I won’t let them, I won’t — but they don’t listen, they, the musicians, they aren’t listening to anything anymore, they’ve caught us all in a trap; the vaults send back horrible sounds in different echoes, they’re playing a new phrase, but the vaults keep repeating the old — I concentrate, I concentrate even more, this is a nothing more than a concert, there they are: Gedis is practically poking the keyboard with his nose, the drummer tires and falls silent; at last, they let me catch my breath a bit, the saxophonists look at one another and converse gracefully in heavy, damp notes, I almost hear the melody again (some kind of blues?), the music shoves and thrusts itself inside of me, takes my breath away, it’s sad, terribly, terribly sad, I’ve lost something and I’ll never get it back, I’ll never be the same as I was, the saxophonists still sling lazy, indulgent notes, slower, still slower — that’s not allowed, that’s impossible, the music chokes and suffocates, the notes stumble over one another, save, save the music! Now Gedis is playing solitude, a sodden, slow Vilnius solitude, he plays so sadly, softly, sadly, almost Chopin, but the others don’t want to allow it; after an instant of rest, they join in again, the sounds push, squabble, shove their way in out of turn, the vaults send them back, the dirty walls, the ravaged stained-glass windows resonate, the fragments of chaos on the floor tremble and jump about, the church itself is playing — that’s what’s I find so horrible: if they rouse the church of garbage wine, it could play music that would drive us all insane, that’s mortally dangerous, but they don’t pay attention to anything, they play louder and louder still, all of them at the same time, the dusty dimness howls, all of my bones resonate — if you’d cover your ears, you’d hear with all of your body, every pore of your skin, your eyes and the tips of your fingers; they’re determined to break down all the doors, knock down all the walls, to show the nightmare that solitude turns into: it’s impossible to play any louder, but they keep getting louder, louder, and louder, in accord like a single instrument; Gedis truly has taught them miracles: the unified, constantly growing sound slowly pushes everything aside, it pushes me out of myself, it sucks out my blood, it extracts my brains (is this what Gedis was after?), I recognize Vilnius’s oppressive, destructive power, it appears you can
play it, but it’s dangerous: the menace is strangling, a universal menace, around me I see frightened faces distorted by pain, apparently by now they’re sorry they came here, while those others keep getting louder, even though there’s no way they can, the lame jester bashes pots on the floor, splinters scatter to the sides (perhaps that’s how our dreams shatter, our love, our spirit?), sweat pours down Gedis’s face (they keep getting louder, still louder!), the thunder destroys me, I’m losing my mind because it’s impossible to run from it, it’s everywhere, like Vilnius itself, I start to turn into something else: an imbecile, a naked crawling Bolius, a bat, a cockroach, while insane Gediminas angrily rips away all the covers, tears the skin off me, there are maws everywhere about, devouring the light and happiness, devouring the world, devouring people alive, me first of all, and then all who have gathered here, before I come undone I grin with bloody fangs, I beat repulsive wings, I must stop them, shut them up, break their instruments, but I can’t budge: the sounds have collapsed on me, overpowered me, pressed me to the floor, they can’t go on anymore either, they ooze sweat and tears, they’re wracked by spasms, they’ve lost sight of the world, the theme, harmony, everything — this cannot go on forever, they no longer have the strength, but Gedis suddenly grows a third hand, it plays that which no person with two hands could ever play: my pain and the despair of Vilnius, and Lithuania’s ruin, and my endless waiting, and the barbs poking out of Their eyes, and the ruins of a soul, and that which I know has not yet been, but inevitably will be, and love, and even Lolita, whom I have not laid eyes on yet. Gedis has stretched himself out on the sacrificial altar, he’s playing the real secret about the stares, about the stumpy phallus of Vilnius, about dangers, dangers, I’m probably weeping, because I’ve understood: I have to save everyone — from the stares, from doom, from the cockroaches (there they run between Gedis’s fingers: a mass of hoarse, unharmonious notes): Gedis has played it, he has shown how the soul vanishes, how it is no more — only screeches, screams, insanity, soulless ecstasy, chaos remain — that’s how Gedis imagines the eternal poker game of Vilnius. The two singers are no longer screeching — they’re roaring, one can’t stand it, she’s unbuttoned her blouse to the waist, the alto has crammed two saxophones and a clarinet into his mouth, the veins in his temples will burst at any moment, the jester is no longer of this earth, he jerks about as if he has St. Vitus’s dance, the bassist’s hand has cramped, he’s fallen out of the general fury, dazed, he looks around, while Gedis, that insane demiurge, rises from the keyboard, snatches at the piano strings and listens intently. He still hears everything, every note; he’s doing everything deliberately. The others have probably gone deaf, because the sound has reached its culmination, neither the instruments nor the voices can bear more, neither the ears nor the church’s walls can stand more. Wherever he swims to — there’s nowhere to swim to, as far as the eyes can see there is no solid ground — save him, save him, he’ll drown!