I followed behind her like a robot. Stupefied, I watched her carefully take the head off of some animal sculpture. Only after a few seconds did I realize it was the Iron Wolf. It really was iron; on the sides in crooked letters was written the entire legend of Grand Duke Gediminas’s dream. Like an automaton, I fixated on the wavy lines: “and he dreamed an iron wolf howled on the hill. . establish a city here, Duke, and news of it will spread throughout the world, like the howling of the wolf. .” Was Teodoras also of the opinion that the secret lay hidden within Vilnius itself?
“Look,” Lolita nervously lit a cigarette and spread two rolls of canvas in front of me. “These are Tedis’s only paintings. Ordinarily he never painted. He guarded these canvases like the apple of his eye. The Iron Wolf was his safe.”
Fumbling, I unwound the rolls and weighed down the corners with some clay animals. The field of the paintings slowly stopped rippling before my eyes. Now I saw.
From the left, not directly at me, but somewhat to the side, gazed the pale green face of a woman, taking up the entire painting, squeezed within the borders of the canvas. The woman’s eyes were large and lifeless; no soul, no personality hid behind them. And from the pupils, like the thorns of some poisonous plant, vague gray cones protruded — calm and indifferent, but not hunting for a victim, because every last thing was to be their victim.
Out of the right painting — this time straight at me, at all of us — stared a legion of little faces — each one out of its own cage or frame. A legion of little faces, all arranged in much too orderly a fashion, all piercing me with identically insolent eyes. They were seemingly different — with beards and mustaches and without; with hats, caps, and bareheaded; bald, disheveled, and plastered down. But I immediately realized that the face was always the same — a weak-willed, but at the same time insolent face, repeated over and over. Changing its makeup, disguising itself — but always identicaclass="underline" the horrifying, flat as a pancake face of a kanukas.
I didn’t sling the paintings aside. I didn’t get dizzy, and I didn’t lose my breath. I didn’t fly home like mad, and I didn’t lock myself in with seven locks. I simply turned to Lolita — and only then was I really petrified.
She sat leaning forward somewhat, her legs spread apart awkwardly, as if she were just about to stand up or was already beginning to stand up, and had suddenly stiffened. Her lips were opened unevenly; in their right corner hung a thread of spit. Her face was crooked, her fingers twisted unnaturally. It looked as if she’d been paralyzed. And it wasn’t just her: the cigarette smoke was frozen too, and the flame in the fireplace had turned to stone. I first thought it was a vision, a momentary illusion, but everything stayed that way. Only I alone could move. I worked my fingers and looked around. I don’t know how long this took. The raindrops outside the window hung suspended next to the glass. A filthy Vilnius pigeon, maneuvering between the church towers, hung leaning to one side, right by the cross.
I wasn’t afraid of anything anymore. It was all the same to me. I sensed how They had pervaded everything, penetrated all of our brains like a virus, shackled even Vilnius itself. Vilnius loomed outside the window, surrounded me from all sides, its power lost, deprived of the slightest will to resist, renouncing everything — even motion, even time itself. Its own soul, that which drove and moved everything. That frozen moment reminded me of something — maybe a wicked fairy tale, maybe a dream, a vision, or a nightmare. It didn’t take long; suddenly everything moved again. Even then I didn’t believe my senses. I tried to convince myself that nothing had happened; I looked at Lolita slowly rising from the chair, at the filthy Vilnius pigeon disappearing from sight, sensing a acrid bitterness in my mouth. They had encompassed everything. It was impossible to hide.
“So, what did you find out?” Lolita asked hoarsely.
The sun shines, that’s the worst of it. Darkness would save you. But a streak of light falls through the barracks window and caresses your beaten knees. Your entire body aches. If you could manage to close your eyes, if you closed your eyes and forgot everything, you’d think you were sitting on a bench at home. The sun is the same everywhere. The sun heals wounds. The sun invites you to live.
“Well,” says the one who sits on the bunk like a king, “shall we try again?”
His Russian bandit’s eyes look at you gently, gently. Again a darkened, dented bucket appears before your eyes. The bitter stench of urine spreads from it; it worms its way into your nostrils, into your throat. It would turn your guts inside out, but you don’t have any guts. They have beaten the guts out of you.
“Drink, my child,” a gravelly, lame little voice says to you. “You drink it — it’s over. Don’t tell me you don’t want to live?”
This one, as tall as a pole, sticks the bucket under your nose, pours the tepid, reeking liquid over your chin.
“He won’t drink it, Vaska,” says a voice that sounds like it’s coming out of a barrel.
“He’ll drink it with pleasure,” the king on the bunk lifts his eyebrows. “Is he made of iron? He’ll drink piss, and suck all of our little pricks too. He just doesn’t know it yet.”
And immediately it starts up again. For the second day they no longer beat you. Now they’ve found themselves a cross-eyed Korean. He presses a bit somewhere under the heart with his fingers and smiles. That’s the face of pain: a smiling Korean with cross-eyed slits. It’s not just you that hurts — it’s the entire world. If you had a voice, you’d scream, but they’ve torn out your voice. The Korean suddenly releases his fingers; that’s the worst moment. You don’t hurt anymore, you’re all right. You only need to drink — and the torture would be over. If you don’t drink — this will go on forever. Should you drink?
“I’m tired of this,” says the voice out of a barrel. “He’s iron. What do you need this for, Vaska? If you don’t like his mug — let’s slice him up and be done with it.”
The king on the bunk scowls, picks his words without hurrying.
“He walks around with his head up. And he looks proud. Whether he’s beaten or not. And what does he have to look proud about? Because he’s a political? Because he’s a shitty Lithuanian? He has to understand. He has to bow. Bow to us.”
“So, he walks around with his head up. Goga has it right — chop off that head — he won’t walk around that way anymore. Do you want to see your own chopped-off head?”
You can’t understand. After all, you’re sitting in the same camp. You walk behind the same barbed wire. Why are they torturing you? True, they’re criminals, they’re Russians — but why? And furthermore you don’t understand: why don’t you give in? All that’s needed is one little instant. Why are you holding out for the third day? Or the fourth? Or the fifth?
Their king, the famous Vaska Jebachik, climbs down from his throne and comes closer. He looks at you with his large, beautiful eyes and chews on his lips. The Korean will soon press other spots in his particular way, then still others. There is an entire galaxy of painful spots in you. Should you drink?
“I need to understand this shitbag,” says the king quietly, as if to himself. “I want to climb into his kidneys and liver. And see what sort of little things are lying there. What’s assembled there. But what could be assembled there? There’s nothing there out of the ordinary. After all, he’ll drink the pee, he’ll lick us in front and in back too. I like it when Lithuanians lick. Their tongues are softer.”