That summer, the one during which Garšva orated, sang, danced, and stared at the tree, he also swam around the end of the pier. It was the final heat. The L-shaped structure shimmered with multicoloured robes, bathing suits, girls’ hair ribbons, rubber caps, sparkling eyes. The sun exploded above all of their heads. There had been a storm the day before, and though the wind had died down, substantial waves still crashed between the eroded posts supporting the pier, broke once, frothing, and then, diminished, rolled diagonally towards the women’s beach. Garšva glanced at the open sea. It was painful to look at the glistening foam. The horizon crawled towards Sweden. The first, barely visible waves disappearing in the sky. Garšva wanted to turn around, but then he heard the girls’ voices, and was left staring at the spraying waters, at the waves’ determination to erode the wooden bridge posts.
“Garšva won’t win,” said a high-pitched voice.
“He’s so thin.”
“Yeah,” agreed a lower voice.
“Mažeika will win. Garšva will come in second or third.”
“I don’t think Garšva will be able to handle it – when he gets around the end of the pier and has to battle the waves,” the lower voice concluded.
Garšva turned his head. Two blonde girls, tanned and ruthless with their sparkling white teeth, stood nearby. Two tall girls, solid and proud in their awareness of their own bodies. Garšva puffed out his chest and walked by.
“Well, someone’s sure of himself!” he heard the lower voice say.
Mažeika was leaning against the railing, waiting. The champion three seasons in a row. A typical swimmer, with a broad chest, lumps of muscle in his arms, legs and back. His brown hair was faded from the sun, and his humped nose, bristly eyebrows, square chin and the black amber in his silver ring all stood out aggressively. The third contender sat on the ground massaging his legs. A handsome, dark-haired young man. Well-proportioned, rounded, his flowing muscles still covered by a layer of childish fat.
“On your marks!” shouted the referee.
The threesome got into position. A shot, and they jumped into the waves. Garšva used the crawl, a stroke his opponents had not yet learned. They were swimming on the side of the open sea, the perpendicular section of the bridge pier lay parallel to the shore. It was possible to swim the crawl. He just had to dive through the occasional wave to avoid being thrown against the posts. Garšva’s opponents were swimming breaststroke and, without realising it, he reached the end of the pier, turned around, and started back in the opposite direction. Now the real battle began. The crawl was no longer an option. He had to plough into the waves with his chest as they mercilessly dragged him towards the beach.
Garšva looked up. On the pier, at the rails, stood the spectators, a multicoloured band in the blinding glitter of the sun. Garšva thought that he could see the blonde girls standing nearby, waving their arms. Garšva swam breaststroke, breathing deeply and rhythmically, bowing his head when a wave that had broken through the posts tried to carry him to the shore. He glanced back. Mažeika was getting closer. When Garšva had rounded the end of the pier, Mažeika had been so far away, and now, suddenly, he was approaching. “My arm muscles aren’t strong enough,” the thought flashed through his mind. Garšva felt fear – the childish kind, and the kind he had felt while looking at the tree. And then he saw the band of spectators break up. A brown body hung in the air. The round boy was being hauled up with a rope. He couldn’t make it. Garšva looked back once again. Only Mažeika was left behind him.
Garšva squinted. He ploughed forward, towards his goal, towards the ladder that one climbs to get up on to the pier. He no longer felt his arms, legs or abdomen. Only his head and his heavy, slowing breath. And the longing to lose. By turning to the right and shouting “Rope, rope!” But Garšva kept swimming. How far was the ladder – that one climbs to get back up on to the pier? It was far away. An eternity away.
He felt a sudden stab in his brain. To his left, right alongside him, swam Mažeika. Muscles dove in and out of the water and foam, and Garšva could clearly see the open mouth, the whites of the eyes. While Garšva floated in place, Mažeika swam. Terribly slowly. The head, armpits and ribs crept forward, then the orange trunks, and then the legs, spreading out and back together like scissors. “He’s passing me,” thought Garšva. He raised his head. The ladder was just ahead. Maybe ten metres away.
Then Garšva took a deep breath and plunged down into the water. The realisation hit him. He does have arms and legs. He scissored rapidly, the water pressing down on him. Then he would breathe out a little and scissor again. The layers of water became even heavier, there was no air left in his lungs, and then Garšva came up. The ladder was in front of him. He grabbed it, but didn’t have the strength to climb up. Someone prodded him. Mažeika was hanging there next to him.
“Can’t you go up?” he asked.
Garšva wanted to say “No,” but he couldn’t even do that. There was no air left in the world, and his heart pounded in his chest. Mažeika put his arm around him and they climbed up the ladder together.
Now back up on the wooden boards of the pier, Garšva took several deep breaths. Someone covered him in a robe. The world was nauseously green and Garšva wanted to sleep, to stop existing. His body shook in a delicate quiver. Someone shoved a silver statue of a woman into his hands and said something. And then, only after a few minutes, did he understand that he had won, that he had beaten Mažeika by half a body length.
He walked home with two assistants, a blonde girl on each arm. And Garšva told them all about the crawl, the newest style of swimming. If the sea had been calmer he would have beaten Mažeika by fifty metres. His bare feet dug into the warm sand of the dunes and he realised that winning is great fun. He put his arms around the girls’ shoulders, smiled charmingly, and said:
“Maybe you two would like me to train you?”
“We would, we would!” cried the higher voice.
“We’ll meet tomorrow at one on the bridge, okay?” decided the lower voice, taking the statue from Garšva because it was awkward for him to carry it.
“Very good,” Garšva agreed, sounding like an old master.
Three blonde heads swimming at Palanga. A peaceful summer resort.
There were quiet nights in Kaunas as well, in June, when barely a couple of hours separate dusk from dawn. On one of those nights, having seen Jonė home, Antanas Garšva was walking back along Laisvės alėja. The lights in the shop windows had already gone out. Halos radiated from the boulevard’s lanterns, the mature linden trees lit up like women who’ve put on their make-up. The policemen’s colourful uniforms faded, the white-coated sausage sellers rolled their carts and the Soboras dominated the slowly brightening sky. Garšva’s shoes clacked on the pavement. Snubbed prostitutes sadly scanned the alleys. Two unlucky drunks climbed up to the Rambynas beer hall only to be shoved back down by a broad-shouldered bouncer. The morning’s roses waited in the flower store’s dark display window, and the lanterns like an alchemist’s hands turned the roses into little glass statues and you could see dead women’s faces in their blooms. A distinguished gentleman in a light-coloured suit stood on Mickevičius Street, smoked a cigarette and waited for a bus.