I’m not allowed to close them; the mlog obliges me to look at absolutely everything with wide-open eyes.
That Sunday I got ready to go visit Gediminas. We’d arranged this earlier. He had brought me books from Paris. In the Ass of the Universe that’s a normal thing — even the tiniest crumb of truth has to be brought in from outside as contraband. It was a wonderful morning. The sun warmed gently, but it wasn’t hot. The entire city was merry and playful. Vilnius likes to put a person into this kind of mood when it’s setting him a horrifying trap. Vilnius brings to mind the hangman who treats his unsuspecting victim to bonbons before the execution.
No one opened the door, but it wasn’t locked. In the front hall, your nostrils were struck by the smell of some strange herb or incense; I actually got a bit dizzy.
Lolita emerged from the bedroom wearing only black stockings and a narrow little garter belt. That was the only time in my life I saw her naked. That could have been a heavenly sight, but instead it was revolting, downright nauseating. Lolita was completely out of it; her tiny breasts were bitten all over and her pubic hair was disgustingly gummed up with sperm. She glanced at me with glassy eyes, got a cigarette, and returned to the bedroom, where an exhausted Gediminas was lolling about on the couch. It was only then that I saw VV sitting in the armchair, stark naked. He was totally tanked, or maybe he had snorted some drugs. Either way, he was talking to the angels.
“Circe, the black Circe,” he said, sounding like a sleepwalker. “Who sent her?”
Then he swayed off to the bedroom, where Gediminas was already bonking Lolita. I don’t know if they had planned that filth in advance, or just simply went on a rampage. The two of them defiled her by turns all night, or maybe at the same time too. They could do something like that! They broke her down, crushed her, turned her into trash. I know she loved Gediminas, and that was how he thanked her for her love.
I will never forget the look she gave me on Monday morning when she came into the office. There was despair and pleading in her eyes; she remembered it all. Unfortunately, she remembered it all.
Lolita started showing a strange kindness towards me after that wretched Sunday. Perhaps because the two of us were unexpectedly allied by the blackest black of blacks.
Perhaps it will seem to some that with a beginning of that sort VV could only have finished the way he did. No, things are by no means that simple. The two of them fell in love later, much later. It was always possible to fall in love with Lolita as if she were an innocent girl. No dirt could smear her. She was divine. VV understood this. So he was obliged to defile that divinity, as he was obliged to destroy every deity. But later he inevitably had to fall in love with Lolita. Did he consider that she would have to love him too? Love him, remembering all of his depravities?
VV really didn’t worry about others’ opinion of him. In this respect (as in many others), he was the complete antipode of the creature known by the name of homo lithuanicus. This type strives to not stand out in the least, so what others think of him matters a great deal to him. Similar objectives are typical of many nations, of all civilizations. An American will invariably install himself a swimming pool no worse than his neighbor’s. His car must be a model no worse than his neighbors’. But while an American tries not to be left behind, homo lithuanicus just tries not to stick out. The percentage of Lithuanians who are maniacs or fanatics is the smallest in the world.
I’ve digressed from the subject matter again. Evidently, it’s because I’m afraid to assert anything categorical about Lolita. It’s difficult to comprehend any woman, but this one is particularly difficult. What did VV, the great monster of Vilnius, use to charm her? Why did she willingly suffer the torments of hell, surrendering to his will?
When she came to visit me, Lolita liked to sit right on the carpet, leaning up against the sofa with her divine legs folded up, blinking her innocent eyes. She used to talk a lot, but even more often she would be quiet.
“Martis,” she would say sadly, “a person really is the author of his own misfortune. I sank into this mess myself. No one is forcing me into it, Martis. If I were being forced, everything would be much easier.”
She was right. If you are forced into doing something, you are in all respects a victim of spiritual tyranny. It’s much worse if they give you freedom and you continue to do what you’ve been doing. If homo lithuanicus were to suddenly get his freedom, he wouldn’t know what to do with it. If you want to know what to do with it, you can’t be a homo lithuanicus.
Lolita would come to visit me to cry and talk things out. Not that I was her confidant; to her, I was simply a blank spot. That was the only reason she told me so much — the way you talk to a dog, a mirror, or the empty walls of a room.
Why was it me she chose to visit? Maybe because the two of us were connected by yet another blackest black of blacks.
I never imagined I would carry deadly secrets around, ones I wouldn’t be able to reveal to anyone — except perhaps my mlog.
I was born and raised in a small town in Žemaitija. My parents were ordinary civil servants and my fortune wasn’t marked by any preordained events. My fate wasn’t influenced by any planets, or metals, or signs of the Zodiac. When I was born, the stars had temporarily gone out.
Every proper homo lithuanicus could say the same about himself.
I doubt if I will ever finish my mlog. After all, if you want to study wolves, you can’t be a wolf yourself. If you want to study fish, you can’t be a fish. Homo lithuanicus can only be described by someone who isn’t a homo lithuanicus himself.
And I really cannot say that about myself.
I am an idiot. What else can you call a person who threw away his family, his future, and even his career to write a dissertation that absolutely no one needs? And now writes an mlog dedicated to no one. To the void. Or to the decrepit Lithuanian God, who lives in a tree and lays rotten eggs. He stopped thinking about anything or doing anything a long time ago; he just bolts down those eggs of his and empties his bowels.
If you should go out looking for him, watch out so he doesn’t fall over on you in his sleep.
But perhaps the will of a God like that could explain things, if nothing more than VV and Lolita’s story. This Lithuanian God, gorged on moldering eggs, started to crap, whine, and flail his arms around in his tree, forgetting that every one of his movements, every sound coming out of his mouth, determines people’s fates, their lives, and their deaths. It was exactly this meaningless flailing and whining that determined Lolita’s and VV’s story.
And my life was determined by that Lithuanian God’s farting.
I saw this with my own eyes, so once again I have no right to be silent. I ended up next to them quite by accident. Accidents have followed me all of my life. Once, when I had set up my tent next to one of the Ignalina lakes, I saw Lolita with Gediminas in the distance. Any decent person would have moved to the next lake. But I’m not a decent person. I’m as curious as a child and I’m not ashamed of it. Anything left in us from childhood is a good thing. People are born decent, truthful, and natural. All of the awful stuff overruns them later.