PART FOUR. VOX CANINA
Trees have become particularly significant — each one is like a different person. Some stand there naked, only their bark smells; others still spread the scent of profuse foliage. The scent is always different: some trees are bland and a bit dry, others are as juicy as the aroma of just-opened buds. But perhaps the multifarious trees are the most significant: a part of them are luxuriantly crowned, a part dried and weakened, yet another part is as red as blood. They’re multifaceted. They’ve crumbled inside; they live like people who have lost their harmony. Like the real people of Vilnius.
I find it difficult to look at the crowns of trees. They’re too high up.
We look at trees entirely differently than we once did. Before they were just plants that could provide shade or bestow fruit. We didn’t sense that just about any tree could be one of us. We didn’t sense that every one of us is at least somewhat a tree. Now we sense it; we look at them as one of our own. Nothing happened; it’s just that people became a bit more wooden, or the trees became a bit more human. And in any event. .
And in any event — there’s nothing to be seen in the empty autumn road. And the road itself leads nowhere. Don’t drag yourself down it; it doesn’t lead to the secret, to the unknown, not even to ruin. It doesn’t lead anywhere at all, because every road in Vilnius always leads nowhere.
I can no longer brush my hand over my face. I no longer want to look in a mirror. Vilnius was a city of churches, but now no one prays in them. Vilnius was a city of lindens, but now the lindens have been ravaged by acid rain. Even I cannot bathe in the insatiable waters of the Neris. The really awful thing is that I can’t play the piano. Sometimes I hear jazz pouring out of some window. I want to weep. But I can’t even cry anymore.
Who am I? I’m called Gediminas Riauba; I was born in 1930. . That’s funny; it’s funny and meaningless. I’m not called Gediminas Riauba. I wasn’t born. It’s more like I died.
We don’t remember our death. That’s natural — after all, we don’t remember our birth, either. The beginning and the end are always covered in fog; that’s why every ending can turn into a new beginning.
I don’t mourn. And I don’t torment myself. And I’m not glad. All emotions are either similar or completely the same. The truth of it is, we don’t feel emotions — they are, after all, based on the effect of glands. The effect of human glands — and we’re no longer human. We feel only memories of emotions or remember the feelings of emotions. These remarks are no more than a pathetic tautology, but I don’t know how to express it better. The language of humans isn’t suited to our non-world, to our timeless non-life.
The little bushes by the railroad bed are scraggly, their leaves are miserable, but they’re still alive. Their smell is the smell of the abused. A person would smell the same way if he were secretly splashed with gasoline, fuel oil, and other chemicals. Through all of those odors, a smell of shock, injury, and misery emerges. Perhaps those bushes were once happy and carefree. The people of Vilnius were never carefree and happy, at least I’ve never seen any like that. They’re depressed and upset — most of the time because of trivial concerns. I was exactly the same: I can assess this objectively because I’m dead. To me it’s no longer worth lying. We don’t lie at all, because the truth is always simpler than lies, however complicated it may be. See, the truth already exists, while a lie needs to be invented and constructed without contradictions. So we never resort to lies. The state of the dead has its advantages; it’s just really different. When we’re alive, we don’t at all worry about what we’ll do when we’re dead. That is a huge mistake. The world is extremely deficient in schools about life after death. The paradises of Christians, Muslims, or the other religions that are popular on earth are very funny and absolutely pointless. We are acutely aware of this here.