“Oh yeah, it’s not so bad. You get a few dozen dollars. Sometimes there’s overtime. Do you do overtime? Want a cigarette?”
“Thanks. I’ll smoke it later. It’s not allowed in the elevator.”
“Stupid box.”
“Pretty stupid.”
Garšva puts the cigarette in his breast pocket. I want to be happy, I want to live. Up ir down, forty dollars, happiness. There are counterarguments. It could be worse.
Cancer, labour camps, torture, losing loved ones. What’s a breakup in comparison? I split up with Jonė, but I remember her when I feel sad. Sadness only lasts so long. It’s a self-defence mechanism. A confession after which, for a while, it’s a little more pleasant to live. My memory of Elena will fade away sadly like that. I’ll write. And I should be happy. I’m alive and free. An absurd man, in Camus’s terms? So be it. An absurd man who speaks to Christ. And with philosophers. That’s okay. Philosophy is also an art. Fine. I’ll see reality as material from which my soul will create eternity. Which will die with me, and which another newborn will glance at briefly before creating his own eternity. It doesn’t matter that I won’t have anyone to love. Hello, Professor Spinoza! There’s a rumour that you threw yourself into philosophy after you were dumped by a girl?
Fine. My eyes are binoculars through which everything appears backwards. The world recedes as it comes into focus. I can make a stone sing about spring. I can order tulips to play a Gregorian resurrection. And what if Saint Anthony stands on the roof of a skyscraper in the moonlight, crossing himself because two shabby and obsequiously smiling kaukai have brought him a Lithuanian Ophelia. “Saint Anthony, you should give us some new pants – you’re a saint after all.” And my childhood friends could gather in Stevens’s tavern: a girl who made me urinate in a wooden cup when we were pretending to be guests drinking tea, a kid with whom I used to bang telegraph poles, and then all my lovers, escorted by the three senior wives of the harem: Jonė, Ženia, Elena.
And Christ. We’ll greet Him reverently. We’ll kneel and kiss the edge of His garment. And Stevens will serve everyone the most expensive scotch, knowing that the bottle will always remain full. And we’ll sing a hymn about childhood, life and death. And Christ will challenge His rival, Buddha. “Very well,” Buddha will say. “I am a free, educated spirit. You are the Son of God. And I’ll drink with You, even if this means I’ll be haunted by nightmares in nirvana. And Christ will touch Buddha’s forehead with the palm of His hand and say: “No, they will not haunt you. You will rest in peace, Buddha.” And Christ will serve Buddha, who had spoken earlier than He had.
Fine. My entire universe fits within me. Past, present, future. But I am not a superman. I am a manikin, swaddled in a dirty cotton apron, who wants to devote himself to self-revelation. I will ignore apparent reality. I won’t be afraid of auto-da-fé. Let them lead me, barefoot, covered in a yellow mantle with a diagonal cross, let them hang long scapulars around my neck and press a yellow candle into my hand. I believe that eternity’s inquisition will spare me, and its sentence will be the same as the one Giordano Bruno received.
“Execute most mercifully. Without drawing blood. Burn alive.” Fine.
92 Displaced persons (DP) camp. At the end of the Second World War, refugees from Lithuania and other Eastern European countries, and survivors of Nazi concentration camps, were housed in DP camps located in Allied-controlled Germany, Austria and Italy. Here they awaited visas to the countries accepting post-war refugees/immigrants, primarily the United States, Canada and Australia. The Lithuanian DP community included members of the intelligentsia, business and government leaders, who quickly established their own social, cultural and political organisations, as well as publications, sports teams and schools.
93 UNRRA: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.
94 See note 61 re. “Forest Brothers”.
Chapter 15
A marsh, too, can be beautiful. When the morning sun hovers over the tips of the firs. When gleaming arrows, shot by the bog’s revelling spirits, fly down through the puddles into a deep sky. When the grassy hummocks along the edge sway with asthenic daisies, sickly girls who get better in the spring. When shimmering lapwings make you jump on to the windowsill, dangle your legs and whistle. When the locomotive hoots like a child playing hide-and-seek, and the church bells hang right here, on the telegraph posts, ringing invisibly. And their peals fall on to the greening earth, and the earth steams.
Garšva recalled the joy he felt after transforming his parents’ night table into an altar. He pushed the little table up to the window, covered it with a clean tablecloth that shimmered with his mother’s embroidered lilies and tulips. He found himself a white candle in a clay candlestick. He put on his father’s summer coat, draped a linen towel around his neck, the red fringe swaying. And Garšva lit the candle. The pale flame quivered in the sunshine. He spread out his arms and raised his head, like a real priest at a real altar. Christ was right there, invisible, just like the church bells. Several Christs were there. The lapwing feathers, the pealing bells, the locomotive whistle, the daisy hummocks, the pale flame.
Dominus vobiscum, said Garšva.
Et cum spiritu tuo, came the reply.
Gloria, Gloria.
Deo gratias, amen, amen.
Son – Redeemer of the world.
Asperges me, gloria ad Confiteor.
His missal was a fat book called Advice for Cooks. He repeated by heart the Latin words, mysterious and beautiful to him in their foreignness.
And when young Garšva couldn’t remember any more Latin words, he added his own to the prayer.
Et cum spiritu tuooo…, he sang forth. Young Garšva had run out of prayer. He threw off his father’s coat, blew out the candle, wrapped the towel around his neck, raised his head even higher and sang out at the top of his lungs.
The falcon comes soaring, above the green woooo…
Palanga. A quiet summer resort. The wide, flat, yellow beach, where the poet Maironis still strolled. The small, crooked pines, distant relatives of the conifers that once dripped yellow sap capturing insects for all time. The motionless Ronžė River. The wooden villas and the smaller houses calling themselves villas. The pebble-strewn paths. The Lourdes of fake caves eternalised by photographers. The Kurhauzas leftover from tsarist times, where dances were held in the evenings, where they picked a king for the season, usually some actor, dance instructor or wrestler. The seaside restaurant, whose steps reached down to the sea, writers, artists, couples and the odd single person lounging at its small tables. Count Tiškevičius’s decaying stately palace stands proud in its antiquity, the red roses, and a stone Christ blesses the roses.{95} On a wooden platform in the pine forest, a military brass band plays a medley from La Traviata, “In a Persian Market” or especially energetic military marches, all arranged by a red-cheeked, round-bellied conductor who was fond of jokes, women and vodka. The little chapel on Birutė’s Hill, the sparse pines on Swedes’ Hill.{96} Famous spots familiar in the finest detail, the same every summer but missed and longingly rediscovered by the same holidaymakers summer after summer. And the sun, slicing open a strip of horizon on calm evenings, paints it in blood, just as a calm sunset ought to. And the moon’s night-time path to the other side, to that land once inhabited by blonde, bearded Vikings. And the sea’s soft moans, and the sea’s fierce whispers. And the stars, the same ones, of course, as those seen by embracing lovers. And the sand. On the shore, the dunes, the paths. Shaken out of shoes, brushed off bodies, the dry and damp, yellow and brown sands of Palanga. The million grains that one would like to take back to the city. So as not to forget Palanga, the most peaceful summer resort in Northern Europe. And the pier.{97}