Your technique is improving. The rhyme ‘sigh’ is more perfect that ‘cry.’ Congratulations.”
Simutis looked at Zuika askance.
“Did you know that the head of the Riflemen’s League threatened me?” squealed Zuika. “And not just me – my elderly parents too! He said he would drive them out of their little farm and make beggars of them. So I had to give in, but you should know: the first version was the second one, and I changed the words. I was forced to. I’d been writing about Stalin for several years, while you were still chasing decaying isms!”
“How many times did I see you in a restaurant with the head of the Riflemen’s League? I suppose he paid your tab by force?!” asked Garšva, grinning.
“Lies!” was all Zuika could manage.
Simutis took the manuscript sheet and began to read.
“I don’t quite understand it,” he said in a weary baritone.
“And you won’t understand. It’s all verbal acrobatics, encoded with bourgeois propaganda,” said Zuika, cutting in.
Simutis stared at the sheet as though it were illegible.
“I’m pulling myself together. I have to find a way out of this,” thought Garšva, and said, “The matter is simple, Comrade Simutis. What you see here is something in an embryonic state. I want to write a poem on the topic of folk song. But unfortunately, my technique is weak – I can’t compare myself with dear Zuika – so I need multiple drafts. When I’m done, the poem will be accessible to the people.”
“He’s trying to get away with it. He’s sitting on two chairs,” said Zuika, glancing towards Simutis. His plump hands rested on the table, their soft dimples and carefully filed nails more distinct under the table lamp.
“It appears that dear Zuika takes very good care of his nails – something that is not typical of a proletarian poet,” said Garšva softly. Zuika twisted his delicate fingers. Simutis put the sheet on the table and spoke.
“I don’t understand everything, but I like it. When I was a child, in the countryside, I heard folk singing. It was nice. It was nice to listen to them in the evening. This is also a song. A folk song, I’m thinking. If you show the people suffering under their masters, and the people are singing… And if at the end Stalin’s sun shines bright, then I think it will do. All the great poets wrote about the people. Strazdelis, Donelaitis?”{55}
“That is correct, Comrade Simutis.”
“Very well. Give it a go. But don’t forget. There is no more oppression. The future is bright. I’d like to read this poem when you’re done with it. How long will it take you?”
“I suppose a week, maybe two.”
“Good. Then let’s say that in two weeks you bring me your poem, Comrade Garšva,” decided Simutis. He got up, as did Garšva. Zuika stayed seated, his little fingers now still.
“I hope you’ll be one of us,” said Simutis warmly, pressing Garšva’s hand.
“Comrade Simutis, I’ll explain…” sputtered Zuika, getting up.
“We’ll sort everything out in two weeks. Let’s go. Goodnight, Comrade Garšva.”
“Goodnight.”
The single window was covered with a grate. On either side of it hung once-bright cotton curtains. An enamel spittoon stood in the corner. Yellow cigarette butts floated in a yellow mucous porridge. Cigarette butts also lay on the long-unpolished parquet. Simutis caught Garšva’s eye.
“Now you’re going to kneel down at the spittoon and lick up those butts with your tongue,” he said, and sat down on the edge of the table. Garšva sniffled. The blood was still flowing. He heard a car horn and noticed a blue fly. It was crawling, slowly, up the window grate.
“Faster!”
The nightingale trilled. She wasn’t the secretary of a proud or overly emotional poet. She was just a nightingale. Lole palo eglelo – a polyphony. The gliding mists – spirits of the dead. A fairy tale – a forgotten language.
Antanas Garšva wrote. A calm inevitability flowed back into his unconscious. The nightingale fell silent. Above the fence it brightened. In the nightingale’s song, in himself, Garšva was searching for a lost world. Just as this modest bird had sung a thousand years ago. Its song a cipher, the first communicated code.
Garšva whistled, imitating the sleeping bird. “I’m writing a fairy tale. I believe in Ariadne’s thread, I believe in intuition. I’ll leave resurrecting the past to scholars of ancient religions. They can argue amongst themselves.” Two stanzas of a poem lived on a piece of cheap paper. Trees and shrubs grew in a lost world. Fir, pine, linden, oak, birch, juniper.
Simutis slipped off the table and stood facing Garšva.
“I’m waiting.”
Garšva was silent. He took a blow to the hollow of his stomach and collapsed to the ground. Consciousness faded and returned. He noticed a stench. He had lost control of his bowels.
“Did it in your pants, Mister Poet?”
The two men left. The little gate swung shut. A reddish glow gushed over Artillery Park. Garšva crumpled the page of manuscript and stuffed it into his pocket. “I’ve got to run, get away. To the country.” He turned off the lamp. Went back into the house. Opened the door of his father’s bedroom. His father’s nightshirt was unbuttoned, a tuft of grey chest hair rising rhythmically. His father slept with his mouth open. It reeked of old man’s sweat. A red blanket shifted at his feet. Let him sleep. I’ll take off without saying goodbye. Garšva closed the door. He put on an old jacket and went into the kitchen. He drank two glasses of milk. Ate a slice of bread. Then he lit a cigarette and went out into the street. He walked along the Nemunas, ripping up the crumpled sheet. He threw the shreds of paper into the water. The shreds floated, whirling, towards the bridge.
Garšva tried to get up. He could barely breathe. He could not move his torso or legs. Then he began to walk on his hands, dragging his lower body. Like a dog whose back legs had been hit by a car. Towards the spittoon. He even growled, like a dog. Just two more metres to the spittoon. Garšva paused.
“Faster!”
“Long live Babochkin,” Garšva muttered.{56}
“Who’s that?”
“He did a good job playing Chapaev.”
Simutis grabbed the heavy paperweight from the table.
“Are you going to crawl?”
“Don’t hit me! Don’t hit me!” shrieked Garšva. He crawled another few inches. The spittoon was right there. His arms began to shake, and he collapsed to the floor.
“Get up,” said Simutis.
“Long live Babochkin,” Garšva whispered.
Quivering, he raised himself. All he could feel was fear. I’ll do anything, anything, even stick my tongue in it, for him not to hit me!
Simutis’s shoe was right by his nose. The smell of shoe polish was sharper than that of Garšva’s faeces. Garšva looked up, smiled childishly and, staring at Simutis’s noble chin, said, “Don’t want to.”
Simutis smashed the paperweight on to the top of his head.
Antanas Garšva came to in the veranda. He was lying on the bench, Simutis and a man in a white coat stood before him.
“Are you awake?” asked Simutis.
Garšva blinked.
“Good. I spared you. Do you hear what I’m saying?”
“I hear. You spared me.”
“Good. Now listen. You were walking along May 1st Street. You wanted to cross to the other side. You can’t remember anything else. Repeat what I said.”