Listening to these very interesting – especially to her – legends, my mother would occasionally spit out an ironic comment. That in the Caucasus, under the tsar, there were many impoverished princes and princesses, some of whom even worked as footmen, or waitresses in Tbilisi’s cheapest restaurants, where you could order nothing but grapes and cheese. But my father didn’t listen to these comments as he should have.
My father loved nature. I remember our walks along the Nemunas in Aukštoji Panemunė.{23 A suburb of Kaunas, on the left bank of the Nemunas River.} They were filled with obstacles. Flowers, juniper bushes, flowing water, clouds, the tangy smell of a pine forest – all of these would make him stop. And I found these static poses of my father’s to be the most aesthetic ones.
My father kneels before a simple daisy and counts its petals. Like a botanist, like a man in love, like an orphan in a children’s fairy tale.
My father stands on the bank of the Nemunas, watching it curve around Pažaislis Monastery.{24 A large Italian Baroque monastery complex on the outskirts of Kaunas.} His silhouette gives meaning to the landscape, and my imagination revives the past. Napoleon at the Berezina; Vytautas the Great watching the Battle of Žalgiris;{25 A battle in 1410 during the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War.} Genghis Khan on the Russian steppes; Nero reciting poetry as Rome burns; a pilgrim waiting for a boat to carry him to the other side, to a feast day at Pažaislis; someone about to commit suicide dismissing the final argument for the meaning of life.
My father lies on the grass, his eyes wandering among the clouds and the tips of the pines. He lies there a long time, chewing blades of grass, his chest rising rhythmically, the wind stirring his whiskers, and I expected him to utter momentous words, so all my fears and doubts would be dispelled.
I respected and loved my father when he was contemplating nature. I can only guess whether he loved it himself. He avoided conversations about it, and only spoke about it in fragments:
“Look, the sun, strange that there are six leaves, here in the marsh, when I was little I saw a lot of snakes, look, the cross is glimmering, let’s sit a little longer.”
And so I absorbed through my father the sadness that lies in nature, a feeling of alienation, a solitary silhouette; enveloped by the leaves, the trees, the water I would feel a million pinpricks, the loneliness penetrating my eyes, my mouth, my ears and skin.
Beautiful and terrifying – these are the first abstract words that took shape in my child’s mind as I observed my father, now that he was calm in the countryside.
Sometimes my father would beat my mother.
Number nine is a good elevator. It rarely gets stuck between floors and the door opens quickly. Antanas Garšva stands to the right, facing a metal plate with buttons and signal lights. Red square lights up – get ready; green arrow lights up – pull the handle. Guests enter. The starter directs them. The hotel is packed on Sundays. The eighteenth floor contains halls for balls and receptions, whereas the mezzanine has a conference hall and party rooms. The hotel hosts wedding celebrations, Masonic lodge gatherings, foreign national holidays, dentists’ conferences, young people’s dances, parties for “The Ladies of Hercules”, soirées for Russian Orthodox clergymen with red wine and tsarist songs, evenings for former alcoholics, events for Chiang Kai-shek officers, meetings of progressive Armenians, get-togethers for ageing boxers, dinners for the Cardinal and his retinue attended by Polish clerics, live chinchilla exhibitions… It commemorates, celebrates, assembles, dines, remembers, conspires, consults, honours, reviles…
The starter moves like an expressive dancer. “To your left – the expresses, from the tenth to the eighteenth floors, to your right – the locals, for the first to the tenth floors. Yes sir, the chinchillas are at the top, yes, madam, the Masons are on the mezzanine. Oh no, holy father, Parlour B is on the eighteenth, yes, the Masons are on the mezzanine, you are absolutely right – the chinchillas, forgive me, yes, the Cardinal and the chinchillas are on the same floor, Joe. To your left and to your right, yes, no, no, no, yes…”
And Antanas Garšva continues the ritual. The express – from the tenth to the eighteenth. Your floor, here we are, thank you, he presses the button, your floor, thank you, you’re welcome, the button, thank you, here we are, thank you… The green arrow lights up, Antanas Garšva extends a white-gloved hand, all done, going up. He gives the handle a push, the doors close and the elevator rises. The numbers of the passing floors twinkle above him: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Eleventh floor, here we are, thank you, a guest exits, hand to handle, we’re going up, someone has stopped the elevator on the thirteenth, the doors open, a guest enters, your floor, here we are, the button, thank you, hand to handle, going up, 14, 15, the sixteenth, here we are, thank you, a guest exits, hand to handle, we’re going up, 17, the eighteenth, here we are. All exit. Red square, green arrow, going down, the same ritual going down.
Up ir down, up ir down in this strictly defined space. This is where the new gods have put Sisyphus. These gods are more humane. Gravity no longer pulls the boulder. Sisyphus no longer needs sinewy muscles. A triumph of rhythm and counterpoint. Synthesis, harmony, up ir down, Antanas Garšva works elegantly. Here we are, and his teeth flash, thank you, they flash again, he extends his hand gracefully, his slim person is pleasing to the travellers. “You can always recognise a European,” the pleasant old lady once said. “Europeans read books,” she added with a sigh.
Chapter 3
The dimly lit reading room of the Kaunas Central Bookstore. Long, worn tables, yesterday’s newspapers on yellow sticks, lithographs of Gediminas, Mindaugas and Valančius on the walls.{26 Gediminas: the Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1316 to 1341. Mindaugas: the first Grand Duke and only king of Lithuania, who reigned from 1236 to 1251. Motiejus Valančius (1801–1875): a Catholic bishop and prominent nineteenth-century Lithuanian writer.} And the book section. Bookcases with their backs turned, and in the only opening between them at an unpainted table, a bespectacled clerk languished. Like wet sparrows, the regulars sat bent over their newspapers, unshaven and yawning from late morning boredom. Antanas Garšva was fourteen. He studied and lived alone in Kaunas, his father taught in the countryside. Sometimes Antanas Garšva would skip classes, pick out some books, and, holding his head in his thin hands, would wear out the elbows of his schoolboy’s blazer, his young brain soaking up the letters and sentences. Book spines covered in brown fabric, books sewn into hard black cardboard. Thick books and thin books. Antanas Garšva read one of the thickest ones multiple times, so that the clerk noticed and would ask ironically, “You’re not going to kill yourself, are you?” With a neophyte’s passion, he copied any phrase he grasped into his schoolboy’s notebook.