“Always at your service, madam,” and he opens number seven.
“But just in case – keep riding, Tony. You know, if the manager…”
“I understand. Thanks.”
Garšva gives the handle a push, and they start going up.
“It’s a nice elevator,” says Elena.
“Yes. Because it’s a nice hotel.”
“My ears are ringing a bit.”
“They’re fast elevators,” says Garšva, and stops the elevator on the seventeenth floor. He doesn’t open the door. He looks at Elena.
“You came. That’s good. You came. Lift up the veil.”
And Elena lifts up the veil, and it lies back on the top of the beret. Garšva stares at the familiar face.
“You came,” he repeats.
They don’t move.
“Why didn’t you let me in?” asks Elena. Garšva is still looking at the beloved face. The same eyes, curve of the lips, the same lipstick, layer of light powder. Standing under the light of the matt bulb she looks as though she has just returned from a lost world. A Baldovinetti Madonna. Time has turned around, the past is coming back. He no longer has to listen to the fists pounding on the closed door. The steps in the stairwell fade, a small grey woman walks along the street and disappears around the bend. The past is still coming back. Garšva puts his left arm around Elena, pulls her close and kisses her on the lips. Slowly, softly, like a mother. A miracle has occurred. And the miracle is gentle, like Elena’s lips, her face, her body, her breath. And at the same time, without looking at the control board, Garšva switches the buttons. They descend and stop on the twelfth.
“Forgive me,” says Garšva. “I didn’t let you in. You can imagine what I felt when I didn’t let you in. And you know why. I was afraid of my illness. Forgive me. I love you. So much. I overdid it, Elena. But now I’m sure. I’ll get better. I really believe I’ll get better. And I’ll be with you. I know that I deceived your husband, I’ll speak to him again. Definitively. And you’ll be mine, I believe that you’ll be mine, if you came here, to the elevator.”
“I’ll be yours,” says Elena, and they rise again. To the seventeenth.
“When we meet next I’ll tell you everything. Too many thoughts. Too many shards. Too little happiness.”
The small grey woman and uniform number 87. The bare, polished walls of the elevator shine. The past is still coming back. All the women come back. All in one.
“You can’t imagine how worried I was. You’re ill, you don’t love me, you were taken to the hospital, you were hit by a car, you found another woman.”
“Please, come back, come back to my room,” says Garšva and presses the handle. They swoop downward and stop on the sixth.
“Tomorrow I’ll go to the doctor. The day after tomorrow I’m off work. Come the day after tomorrow. Early. I can’t wait to see you again. You have no idea how happy I am. The day after tomorrow we’ll drink – oh no, don’t worry, just a little, and we’ll make love a lot. And, if it isn’t enough for us, I’ll get a few days off. And… I think, I’m sorry, you have to go now. O’Casey’s a good starter, but I don’t want to abuse his kindness. It’s the second time he’s helping me out today.”
When they arrive at the bottom, Elena asks:
“You haven’t been to the doctor?”
“Once. And I didn’t go back a second time, even though he insisted I must.”
“See him tomorrow. Alright?”
“Like I said, I’ll go to the doctor’s,” and Garšva opens the door.
O’Casey approaches and Elena reaches out her hand.
“I know that in America it isn’t customary to shake hands to say goodbye. But I am very grateful to you. Today…” she doesn’t finish and smiles. O’Casey takes her hand and kisses it.
“I’m Irish, madam, so I respect European customs. I wish you all the best,” and O’Casey withdraws discreetly.
“You’re stunning today,” says Garšva. “And your stockings are on straight.”
“I was thinking about you. Goodbye. I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”
“Goodbye.”
And Elena walks away. Down the dark red carpet. Exquisite in her fine proportions, as though she had been created by a female god. She disappears beyond the corner, and she’s gone.
O’Casey comes up and asks, “Who is she?”
“My fiancée.”
“Nice woman. And very attractive.”
“Thanks, O’Casey.”
And O’Casey claps Garšva on the shoulder.
“Go back to number nine, Tony. And wipe your lips. She gave you some colour.”
Number nine rises, number nine falls. The express from the ninth to the eighteenth. Your floor, here we are, thank you, the button, thank you, here we are. The green arrow lights up, Antanas Garšva reaches out a white-gloved hand, that’s it, we’re going up. Hand on handle. And the floors twinkle above his head. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.
A splendid up ir down. This is how the departed fly around in the afterlife. Children’s kites, summer butterflies, planets, dandelion fluff. This is how a fairy tale flies, that most serious kind of nonsense, unique to humans.
Here we are, thank you, a guest exits, hand to handle, we’re going up, someone stopped the elevator, the door opens, a guest enters, we’re going up. Going up, going up. The eighteenth, here we are. Everyone exits.
The bare, polished elevator walls glisten. Adam and Eve have returned to Paradise. But there are no fantastic flowers or docile panthers, no ambiguous serpent. Between the plastic walls, under the light of the matt bulb and the floor numbers, the first two humans stand, embracing.
We wait for a red square and a green arrow. And we go down. Going down, going down. The same ritual. Up ir down, up ir down.
I’m an elevator angel in a uniform from an operetta. Those kinds of angels tend to be cheery. They have pink bottoms. They’ll even dare to tug at God’s coat-tails, while He is busy with the tragic problems of the universe. And God smiles benevolently. “Hey, you kids, off you go to the Holy Virgin – she’ll give you a cookie in My Name.” And the angels fly in a group, pinching each other, filling Heaven with a great racket, so that even Saint Thomas Aquinas raises his head from the letter he is writing to Jacques Maritain, explaining that the God of the Exodus is not a being but He is Being itself – as every being can either exist or not exist.
I’m a transplanted acacia bush. My roots draw the new earth’s sap, and, though some of my branches have wilted, my crown is verdant, and a graceful bird has landed on my viscous leaves. It lifts its grey-stockinged feet up and down and cheerfully screeches a song.
I’m an experienced hermit sick and tired of the desert, the sackcloth, the cane, meditation and my mossy lair. I’m a hermit who travels to the big city and then remembers that there are still gold coins buried in his basement, and chats up a young girl.
I’m a Lithuanian kaukas who has found himself a female companion. And we’ll find ourselves a master who’ll give us some new linen pants for all the jobs we do.
I’m manikin number 87 in eight-million-strong New York.
I’m happy.
Five past one. Garšva leaves the hotel. It’s a warm night. The advertising lights have gone out. His shoes clack on the pavement, like they did in Kaunas. The same freshness, the same stars, occasional passers-by. Kaunas has stretched up to the clouds. The skyscraper towers sway, the marshy town’s church bells have gone silent, the old ghost has slipped his willow flute under his coat and gone off to sleep somewhere on 3rd Avenue. The becalmed ocean no longer murmurs. The tugboats and ships have nestled against the coast. Sailors sleep embracing their cheap girlfriends. Tomorrow two blonde girls will jump into the blue Baltic. The glass windows of Gimbels department store are dark. Stairs, stairs, stairs. The mannequins sleep standing, like horses, and the subway echoes. A drunk sways by the door to the Men’s, talking to himself. “I’m clever. Tomorrow I’ll show him, that son-of-a-bitch!” The subway’s night crew, cleaning women and young men going home after their dates, are waiting on the platform, as is Antanas Garšva. The noise intensifies and the train careers from around the corner. Two green eyes, two red ones, a white window. Brakes screech, doors open. Beyond them – wicker benches, sleepy faces, returning home. Home. BMT Broadway Line. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. Tomorrow and the day after tomorrow – magical words.