Where did the birds go?
The same smell of rotting leaves hovers over the city again. On the way to work I’m again accompanied by the exact same stares. The day is exactly the same again (or maybe it is the same?). Two stupefied pigeons should perch next to the announcement post across from the library. Today is marked by their three-toed feet, a heap of yellowish leaves, and the dusty intestine of the library’s corridor. And Lolita’s exhausted face — a memory or reality? When was this already? When was it exactly the same (or maybe the same) day? The bright bluish-gray sun outside the window and Lolita divining with cigarette smoke? Her legs are truly a work of art. Her breasts are every man’s dream. Beauty must be limited; otherwise it inevitably turns evil.
Evil? I don’t know what evil is. They are not evil; perhaps They are an inevitable part of the world, without which it couldn’t exist at all.
I look at Lolita and for the hundredth time it occurs to me that I never have guessed her secret. Lolita, Lilita, the ruler of demons. “Lilith” means a devourer. What is my Lolita Lilita devouring?
An evil premonition presses at my heart, presses convincingly — shouldn’t I take some drops? But instead of drops, coffee awaits me. Stefa has already stuck her head in the door; she smiles charmingly and bumps me with her plump hip as she goes by. Powerful hips and three rolls of fat on the stomach. Giedraitienė’s hips and flat belly, the hips of all the world’s women, the common body of all the world’s women sprawling in front of me — it’s faceless; I hid its face myself, because I wanted to have all the women in the world at the same time. Stefa flies forward: today everything is speeded up, time itself hurries, as if it wanted to reach a secret boundary and suddenly come to an end. Even the current of the Neris is probably speeded up, the murky water, with its last strength, attempts to wash away, to destroy my encyclopedia. Lolita smiles at me, her teeth are even and as white as can be. Teeth hungering to bite. I fruitlessly try to remember what I dreamed of today before I woke up, what image the day began with, what inaudible morning chord should be ringing in my head.
No, today the city doesn’t ring — by now I’m going down the street, by now I’m smoking a bitter cigarette and counting the slovenly pigeons of Vilnius.
At what moment did the birds show up again?
Are the pigeons of Vilnius the dirty spirits of the dead, or simply Their disgusting envoys? No other bird would dare perch on your windowsill and pierce you with the hideous stare of their glassy eyes. There really is something kanukish about pigeons.
The streets of Vilnius are kanukish today too. The sun shines, it’s bluish-gray, like cigarette smoke, like the star Metallah, which will smash into the earth any moment and shatter into a thousand fragments, poisoning all of weary Vilnius’s streets. Or maybe it’s already poisoned them, since it’s so empty everywhere — only a miserable dog apathetically trots over the pavement. In all likelihood he was once the Iron Wolf. Or maybe I was once the Iron Wolf myself, but now I’m walking all alone and the wind angrily glues muddy tree leaves onto my face. Although no, I’m not alone, Gedis is walking next to me and whistling one of his rondos of Vilnius.
I have no itinerary. Gedis and I have no itinerary today. Perhaps that wet day has returned again, maybe in an instant the black-haired Circe will appear from around the corner, grab us both, and force us to forget everything: grandfather, father and mother, the camp and Bolius, my church and the Narutis, everything and everybody — even Lolita.
But how would she suck the Neris dry — could her vagina really manage to devour my entire flowing, whirling, stinking encyclopedia?
The wind blew passersby from out of a gateway; no, Vilnius hasn’t died yet, it still shows its convulsively distorted face. Why is there such a plethora of old people in Lukiškių Square? Why did they choose today to crawl out of their slovenly, cobweb-ridden holes? Probably something really does have to happen today. I walk down the boulevard, but it seems I’ve stumbled into a museum of wax figures. The old people’s faces are unmoving, almost dead; even the wind doesn’t stir their sparse gray hair. Wouldn’t you think they’ve gathered for a secret convention, where no speeches are made and no one socializes, they just sit for a while and stand for a while, without even looking at one another?
“Young man, come wit me!” a ringing, remarkably familiar voice suddenly says.
Once again I see the Ahasuerus of Vilnius, wrapped up in a moth-eaten scarf, rhythmically tapping the worn-down ends of his shoes. His shrewd eyes blink frequently; his gap-toothed smile sends me a secret message.
“Here, vere da bronze Lenin now stands, der vas a market square once,” this guide of mine explains, “And even earlier, or maybe later, I don’t remember anymore, gallows stood here. . Dis square is magical. Dose who tink dat ghosts appear in Vilnius’s underground are wrong. Dey’re not dere!”
“I know. I’m familiar with Vilnius’s underground.”
“Ja, ja, dey’re not dere! People are wrong to search for secrets at da extremes. Black und white! Underground und up in heaven! Black und white aren’t vat’s most important, it’s gray! Neither da roots nor da top are da most important, it’s da trunk! Don’t search underground, don’t search in da heavens, search on earth. .”
I begin to remember him; his name is Šapira. He’s already been part of my life, before he turned into an Ahasuerus — but what? I might remember, except that he keeps hurrying more and more, dragging me along; we’re a really fine pair. A broad-shouldered, nearly six-foot-five man with a haggard gaze and a shabby Jew, two heads shorter, with bright little eyes. Yes, it’s Šapira; once upon a time we drank wine at the railroad station. But where are we going now?
“Far! Very far!” he shoots back. “To hell!”
Ahasuerus flies with the wind (or against the wind?), holding on to his slumping hat. But I still can’t get those old waxen men in the square, with their somnolent eyes and the gray stubble on their unshaven cheeks, out of my head. Maybe I’ve turned into an old man with trembling hands myself; maybe that’s why I’m panting, why I can’t keep up with that flyer? I want to grab him by his flapping scarf, but he’s already turning to the right, brushing the sidewalk with his coattails, then suddenly turning to the left, maneuvering between leafless bushes. I know these little paths well; we’ve come to the clinics. What will he show me here? Dying people, deformed bodies? Yet another grandfather of mine, come down from the heavens? But by now Ahasuerus has dragged me inside, he’s weaving through the corridors, descending all the stairs, climbing only downwards, heading towards hell; finally he leans against an iron-clad door with all his weight, bursts into a cramped little room, and, not even winded, fires out:
“I’ve brought someone, you’ll find you have tings to talk about.”
Šapira and I really did know each other. I’ll have to ask Stefa.
The man sitting at the table slowly turns to me; instead of a greeting he says in a low, distinct voice:
“Just don’t ask me if I’m Jewish. I don’t even know myself. My name sounds Polish — Kovarskis. But I learned Polish when I was already grown. I don’t know Yiddish, not to mention Hebrew. You can consider me a Lithuanian or a citizen of the universe, if that improves things. Do you believe in God?”
“No.”
“It’s a hopeless business. I don’t believe, either. Without a doubt God exists, but I see no reason to pollute the brain with the idea of God. Do you smoke?”
I take the proffered cigarette and finally get a good look at the room’s owner. He’s impossibly thin: nearly my height and probably weighs half as much. On a long neck perches a proud face overgrown with a beard and hair — an ascetic, truly Semitic face. The face of a man who’s crossed the desert and fed on the manna of heaven, who’s been persecuted and suffered for thousands of years. And on that face — an ideally straight Roman nose and pale, pale, barely visible gray pupils. I look around uneasily, but my guide has disappeared.