The statues and the trees, the belfry of the cathedral and the square, every single thing slides by my eyes; suddenly I grasp that I’m walking along calmly, as always. Vilnius stands still, as always. It’s locked in paralysis, as always. The corpse of corpses, as always. Perhaps only the worms inside its guts are still moving.
By now I’m standing in front of the Narutis; a hunched-over old lady with a basket in her hands had set one foot on the sidewalk, carefully climbing down the stairs from the delicatessen. Two staggering red-nosed men had stiffened and were leaning in opposite directions, seemingly dancing an unearthly dance. A blond-haired child, dressed up as if for a parade, inquisitively stretched a hand towards a dirty rag. I turn into the courtyard and my heart throbs with a surprising fear. The first ones wait here. Even when they’re frozen stiff I’m afraid of them. Two of them stand together, pressed together conspiratorially, as if they had been lying in wait for me for some time now. Their straw-colored hair looks like it’s glued to their skulls; their eyes look right at me but see nothing. What should I do? Smash their heads open? Destroy them one at a time? The same way I could smash cockroaches one at a time, hoping to overcome them.
I go past the straw-haired kanukai; I even bump them with my elbow, and nothing happens. I slip over to the courtyard’s stone well, and nothing happens. I look over the walled-over ancient stairwell; I even touch the bricks with my hand. And nothing, absolutely nothing, happens. My arms and legs are wracked with pains, with my entire body I sense I’ll never escape from here, but I won’t retreat either, not until I have come to the very end.
Isn’t this where I’ve been going all my life? Isn’t it my Way that led me here? I press my ear to the brick wall and listen carefully. I’d rather pretend, I’d rather not hear it, but all that remains is to be truthfuclass="underline" I plainly hear the throbbing of a gigantic heart.
That’s not how Vilnius’s heart beats; no real heart beats that way. Only the poisonous heart of Vilnius’s Basilisk could thump like that. I’ve cornered it at last. I’ve come like a warrior to cut off its head, but I don’t have a sword. But that’s not what matters. I will overcome it. Man is invincible.
“And just exactly what are you looking for?” asks a loud, clear voice.
At first I thought I was hallucinating. Unfortunately, it’s for reaclass="underline" a woman, her head wrapped in a heavy tawny scarf, glares at me intently. That’s all. The Basilisk escaped, leaving me with a perfectly ordinary Old Town slut. Startled, I glance towards the street. The Indian summer sun is shining there; sparrows hop by on the sidewalk. A fleshy, mean-eyed old woman turns a bag of garbage right onto the heads of some scrawny cats. Vilnius is moving again. It’s alive again. I step forward, inhaling a full chest of air, but the farther I go, the slower my steps become. They had lured me right up to the threshold of the secret, and cheated me at the last minute. I’m a genuine Lithuanian: I smashed into the ground a step away from the final goal.
Suddenly I turn around and manage to catch sight of a pudgy little face, with beady little eyes, jumping back from the window. I’ve been caught. They understood everything. I have stepped outside the safety zone; now I will have to pay dearly for it all. I still manage to creep into the street and turn a corner, where my strength gives way altogether. I lean against the wall and fumble for a cigarette. I’m a corpse already. It’s weird to feel like a corpse. I see neither people nor the rumbling cars; I sense no smells. They certainly won’t let me go now. I’m dead. There’s only one thing I repeat to myself: you must not lose your cool. A calm, sound mind. That’s what matters most. A sound mind and sober analysis always saved me.
What can they do to me?
1. Kill me one way or another. They could have done that a long time ago. Apparently, that isn’t enough for Them.
2. Break me spiritually, turn me into an imbecile. It won’t work. I’m invincible.
3. Take hostages and blackmail me with them. It won’t work. That’s exactly the reason why I didn’t have children, ignoring even my family’s curses.
4. Accuse me of an imaginary crime. Rubbish. I’m accustomed to prison. You can continue on The Way while sitting in a camp.
5. Lock me up in a secret psychiatric hospital. It’s a popular alternative, but you can escape from it.
6. Inject me with drugs and get everything I know out of me. It won’t work. I’ve been preparing for a long time. They will hear only incoherent ravings, but nothing important.
7. Do nothing concrete. Wait and intimidate. Torture me with the unknown. That’s practically the worst. Only I can demoralize myself.
It’s no use guessing. There’s only one thing I want: to see Lolita as soon as possible. The world is no more, I am no more; only Lolita is left. Maybe They intend to take on Lolita?
For the time being, They haven’t started on Lolita. She stands next to me and smiles entrancingly. I see an old house, entwined in wild grape vines and set in the depths of a garden, with a shriveled apple tree off to the right. A gust of wind comes tearing along from the left, the yellow unraked leaves rise from the grass and silently tumble in the air. The wind carries the leaves of the trees easily, but it doesn’t stir even the smallest twigs of the bushes. This is my first time here, but I’ve seen this before — both the leaves flying in the air and the old wooden house — perhaps in a dream or a vision.
“My parents’ garden plot. One of the first collective gardens in Vilnius. No one looks after it now.”
I simply don’t believe she’s really here. Just now I was wandering the streets of Vilnius, bumping into the passersby, frightening children and dogs. All the streets smelled of autumn cobwebs. Yes, it’s the height of Indian summer now. Lolita emerged from around a corner and walked straight up to me, as if we had agreed to meet at just that spot. For some reason it occurred to me that it was my own destiny coming towards me. She walked gracefully, her head raised proudly, and then suddenly threw her arms around my neck, as if she had thought she’d never see me alive again. She said she didn’t know why she had acted that way.
Did she really not know? Why did she unexpectedly lead me here, to her parents’ garden plot? The gust of wind has died down, but the leaves still flutter in the air. Other small houses are lined up nearby; a gray-haired man sits smoking a cigarette on the nearest porch steps.
“A neighbor?”
”Yes. The neighbors here are incredible. It’s a magic spot. On the right, there’s a lieutenant colonel of the KGB. On the left, that gray-haired man — a KGB colonel. Colonel Giedraitis.”
The name pricks my heart like a needle. I try to remember what Giedraitis Junior looked like then, but only Bitinas stands before my eyes, his bald head and narrow lips spitting out the words: take him this offal.
“He’s always sitting there like that and smoking,” Lolita says hoarsely, “Just sitting and smoking, all the time. . Probably remembering his victims. . In a minute, you’ll ask what his eyes are like. Colorless, expressionless. His gaze is like a beaten dog’s.”
A portrait of the junior Giedraitis. I should go over there and check it out, but there have been enough ghosts for today. The gray-haired man doesn’t even turn his head in our direction, and Lolita keeps smiling; she’s strange today. All of Vilnius, moving again, is new and strange, as if it had only just now been born.
Inside the little house everything is tidy, it’s even been dusted, but the room is lifeless — a clean, nicely fixed-up corpse. The air is thick with the smell of the people who used to live here. Neglected houses always smell that way.