That’s why I took note of Martynas’s unexpected unveiling and his ideas, though they’ve been heard elsewhere many times before. That’s why the image, yet another vision of my non-past, engraved itself: Martynas, the thin little deity of all those with crew cuts, stands leaning sadly against the wall; cigarette ashes billow indifferently at his feet, and walleyed Carp tiptoes outside the window, stinging my tired non-heart.
It was all too much for me already: the morning’s half-witted pigeons, the Russian Orthodox churches, the girls in cocoa-colored coats, Vilnius’s stray dogs, the flat kanukish faces. That day (if that was one day) had tired me to death. A crushing, stunningly lucid despair came over me. All I wanted was to die on the spot. Nothing in heaven or on earth had the power to drown out that desire.
All there is left to do at moments like that is to wait. To wait for who knows what, because there is no hope whatsoever. It’s as if you were sprawled all alone in a broken-down dinghy with your legs and arms paralyzed, and a mountain stream was quickly carrying you closer to a waterfall; not a soul about — only steep rocky shores and the thunder of water plunging into the nearby abyss. The spray from the waterfall hangs above the foaming rapids, the end is near, and you can’t even roll out of the boat and sink to the bottom with a rock, to finish everything in an instant. You have to suffer until the chasm snatches your body for itself: the stream of the waterfall will smash it against the splinters of sharp rocks, and then cast you, still alive, into the boiling cauldron of the gray vortices. You’re already dead, but you can think; that’s the worst of it: you grasp everything.
Danger hid everywhere, just about anything could determine the outcome: the grim, hunched-over laborer on the scaffolding, the books on the shelves, the smell of linoleum. They watched me all the time, themselves invisible, inaudible, indiscernible. I was absolutely alone, but I couldn’t for a moment be by myself; I couldn’t avoid Their hellish guardianship.
It seemed to me that the office was slowly widening, that the walls were receding from me — or perhaps I was the one cowering and shrinking and growing ever smaller. I knew I was sitting in my office, that the wide dirty window yawned behind me, but the inner vision was stronger: the room slowly turned into a desert, a scorched, sallow expanse where no plants grow and no animals wander. This landscape of gloom was more real than the view of the real office. It was empty inside of me, so the surroundings became empty too. I was suffocating; I was so alone and unhappy that all that remained was to die immediately. I was already on the verge of dying. Some life, even the most miserable desert creature, could have saved me — anything. But the desert was absolutely empty — only a distant thunder reminded me that the thunderlord is also always alone.
It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t thunder, but just a knock at the door. Somebody’s knuckles ordered me to come to my senses, tapped to a swinging rhythm, one of many of Gediminas’s swinging rhythms. Creaking, the door opened; Lolita stood on the threshold.
“May I come in?”
She carefully closed the door, awkwardly fixed her hair, and smiled guiltily:
“If you only knew how sick I am of those women. . Is it okay if I sit with you for a bit?”
Somewhat flustered, she settled on the sofa, stretched out her long legs and leaned back, lowering her eyes. She probably expected that her pose, her slender waist, and her loose hair would explain everything on their own. She had never been to see me like this before; we rarely exchanged so much as a word. But there she sat on the sofa with her eyes lowered; with her forefinger she gently caressed her other hand. That defenseless caress completely did me in. Lolita, it seemed, begged me to sit down next to her, to help her, so she wouldn’t have to caress herself. She showed up just in time; she came true, the way an intoxicating dream comes true. A moment ago I really could have died. She saved my life. My dream came calling on me, even though I had never dared to summon it.
And I stood there like a blockhead and got even more breathless. The silliest of all possible thoughts ran through my head: it’s not proper for a boss to turn red like a teenager in front of his employee. That was how much was left of my intellect. I was probably hallucinating. Her appearance was much too unexpected, entirely impossible. It was a miracle, although she sat there in an exceptionally earthy and ordinary way: a somewhat irregular oval face, not particularly symmetrical features, legs that had blundered their way out of my dreams, rather large, upright breasts. But the brown eyes, always turned in towards herself, towards her own inner being, suddenly looked at me. They spoke to me of plain and simple things, so plain and simple that I couldn’t believe it. I ought to have rushed to kiss those nearly unfamiliar (so familiar, so wished for and dreamed of!) woman’s hands, to tell her everything — not silly words of love, no — to scream that she is everything to me, that she had saved me from death. . that I had conceived her during sleepless nights. . That without her the world wouldn’t exist, the stars would stop moving. . I ought to lick her feet, to crawl in front of her. . I needed to at least temporarily go out of my mind and risk it, but I stood there like a statue and felt I would ruin that miracle myself. I didn’t believe the signs in her eyes. I believe in nothing.
I probably gave her a terrible look — she bit her lip and again smiled guiltily. Unfortunately, my eyes don’t give away any feelings, they simply look. At the very best they frighten or insult. She fidgeted as if she were sitting on hot iron, then suddenly leaned forward with her entire body, closed her eyes, and murmured despairingly:
“Vytautas! Vytautas, t. . t. . touch me. .”
Some sort of gigantic bubble instantly burst, splattering me with its hot spray. My gigantic bubble of fear and absurd doubts. In that instant, I understood everything I should I have understood some time ago. A difficult, hysterical happiness took my breath away. Why, she had been searching for me for some time already, searching for me herself! She would wait in the corridor for me to pass by, aim to stand as near as possible, to catch my glance with all of her body. Why, she had been searching for me herself: suddenly I saw her breast heaving in fear and her hands desiring caresses with entirely different eyes. That divine woman was desperately searching for me! Crazy circles swam before my eyes, and when they cleared, I saw her smile, Lolita’s familiar, dear smile. Everything was so plain and simple that I was mortified, and felt some other, nameless sensation — perhaps shame. After all, she had walked next to me for a year, for two, for three; I saw her a long time ago, but I was blind and an idiot, and a coward, and. .
“Lord of mine,” I squeezed out by force, “Lord of mine. . A hundred times, a thousand times. . What nonsense. .”
“Jesus. At last. .” She kept smiling; that smile cut me like a scourge, punished me for the lost time, for my blindness and my wretched fear.
I still didn’t believe that her hands, her lips, her breasts finally belonged to me, that she was perhaps even happier than I. . that here she is. . that here is Lolita. . that I, wretched fool, could have ruined everything today as well. .
I didn’t hear what she said afterwards. She glanced archly with her brown eyes and spoke as if we were old lovers who had no end of common memories, as if no wall had been left between the two of us for quite some time. And still I feared that I was only imagining it all, that I had concocted that miracle while sitting in the sallow, empty office, trying to save myself from death, that I had put my faith in a hallucination and would soon pay for it dearly. .