LITMIR.BIZ

      Copyright

      Copyright © Ričardas Gavelis, 1989

      Translation copyright © Elizabeth Novickas, 2009

      Originally published as Vilniaus pokeris by Vaga, 1989

      First edition, 2009

      First digital edition, 2013

      All rights reserved

      This work was published with support from Books from Lithuania, using funding from the Cultural Support Foundation of the Republic of Lithuania.

      Gracious acknowledgments to Professor Violeta Kelertas for her assistance.

      An excerpt of Vilnius Poker originally appeared in Two Lines #15.

      ISBN-13: 978-1-934824-55-9

      ISBN-10: 1-934824-55-0

      Design by N. J. Furl

      Open Letter is the University of Rochester’s nonprofit, literary translation press:

      Lattimore Hall 411, Box 270082, Rochester, NY 14627

      www.openletterbooks.org

      PART ONE

      THEY

      Vytautas Vargalys. October 8, 197. . .

      A narrow crack between two high-rises, a break in a wall encrusted with blind windows: a strange opening to another world; on the other side children and dogs scamper about, while on this side—only an empty street and tufts of dust chased by the wind. An elongated face, turned towards me: narrow lips, slightly hollowed cheeks, and quiet eyes (probably brown)—a woman’s face, milk and blood, questioning and torment, divinity and depravity, music and muteness. An old house entangled in wild grape vines in the depths of a garden; a bit to the left, dried-up apple trees, and on the right—yellow unraked leaves; they flutter in the air, even though the tiniest branches of the bushes don’t so much as quiver . . .

      That was how I awoke this morning (some morning). Every day of mine begins with an excruciatingly clear pictorial frontispiece; you cannot invent it or select it yourself. It’s selected by someone else; it resonates in the silence, pierces the still sleeping brain, and disappears again. But you won’t erase it from your memory: this silent prelude colors the entire day. You can’t escape it—unless perhaps you never opened your eyes or raised your head from the pillow. However, you always obey: you open your eyes, and once more you see your room, the books on the shelves, the clothes thrown on the armchair. Involuntarily you ask, who’s chosen the key, why can you play your day in just this way, and not another? Who is that secret demiurge of doom? Do you at least select the melody yourself, or have They already shackled your thoughts?

      It’s of enormous significance whether the morning’s images are just a tangle of memories, merely faded pictures of locations, faces, or incidents you’ve seen before, or if they appear within you for the first time. Memories color life in more or less familiar colors, while a day that begins with nonexistent sights is dangerous. On days like that abysses open up and beasts escape from their cages. On days like that the lightest things weigh more than the heaviest, and compasses show directions for which there are no names. Days like that are always unexpected—like today (if that was today) . . . An old house in the depths of a garden, an elongated woman’s face, a break in a solid wall of blind windows . . . I immediately recognized Karoliniškės’s cramped buildings and the empty street; I recognized the yard where even children walk alone, play alone. I wasn’t surprised by the face, either, her face—the frightened, elongated face of a madonna, the eyes that did not look at me, but solely into her own inner being. Only the old wooden house with walls blackened by rain and the yellow leaves scattered by a yellow wind made me uneasy. A house like a warning, a caution whispered by hidden lips. The dream made me uneasy too: it was absolutely full of birds. They beat the snowy white drifts with their wings, raising a frosty, brilliant dust, the dust of moonlight.

      How many birds can fit into one dream?

      They were everywhere: the world was overflowing with the soundless fluttering of delicate wings, sentences whispered by faces without lips, and a sultry yellow wind. The dream hovered inside and out, it didn’t retreat even when I went outside, although the yard was trampled and empty, and parched dirt covered the ground in a hard crust. It seemed some large, slovenly animal had rolled around there during the night. A scaly, stinking dragon scorching the earth and the asphalt with its breath of flames. Only it could have devoured the birds: they had vanished completely. There wasn’t a single bird in the courtyards between the buildings. The dirty pigeons of Vilnius didn’t jostle at their feeding spots outside the windows of doddering old women. Ruffled sparrows didn’t hop around the balconies. There wasn’t a single bird left anywhere. It seemed someone had erased them all from the world with a large, gray eraser.

      People went on their way: no one was looking around with a stunned face, the way I was. They didn’t see anything. I was the only one to miss the birds. Perhaps they shouldn’t even exist, perhaps there aren’t any in the world at all, and never were? Perhaps I merely dreamed a sick dream, saw something menacing in it, and named it “birds”? And everything I remember or know about birds is no more than a pathological fantasy, a bird paranoia?

      These thoughts apparently blunted my attention. Otherwise, I would have immediately spotted that woman with the wrinkled face; I would have sensed her oppressive stare. I consider myself sufficiently experienced. Unfortunately . . . I walked down the path that had been trampled in the grass, glanced at the green stoplight, and boldly stepped forward.

      Instinct and a quick reaction saved me. The side of the black limousine cleaved the air a hair’s breadth away from my body. Only then did I realize my feet weren’t touching the ground, that I was hanging in the air, my arms outstretched. Like a bird’s wings.

      My body saved me. I jumped back instinctively; I won against the car fender by a fraction of a second. My heart gave a sharp pang; I quickly looked around and spotted that woman. Her wrinkled face yawned like a hole against the background of the trampled field. Her stare was caustic and crushing. She gave herself away: none of the people at the trolleybus stop were standing still; they looked around, or glanced at their watches. She stood upright, as motionless as a statue, and only her cheeks and lips moved—you couldn’t mistake that motion, like sucking, for anything else. I also had time to notice that her gray overcoat was frayed (severely frayed). Without a doubt, an ordinary peon of Theirs, a nameless disa. She suddenly shook herself as if she were breaking out of shackles and nimbly leapt into a departing trolleybus. There wasn’t any point in following her (there’s never any point).

      I glanced at her for a second perhaps—the black limousine was still quite close. As if nothing had happened, quietly humming, the limousine sailed over the ground. The back window was covered with a small, pale green curtain. They really had no need to cover themselves. I knew perfectly well what I would see if the little curtain weren’t there: two or three pudgy faces looking at me with completely expressionless, bulging eyes.

      The birds came back to life only when I got to the library. Two dazed pigeons perched by the announcement post. They practically ignored the passersby, merely rolling their deranged eyes from time to time, without moving their heads. They could neither fly nor walk. Perched on three-toed feet, they listlessly bulged from the grayish cement, as if they were in a trance. The ancient Sovereign of Birds had forsaken them.

      O ancient sovereign of winged things, shepherdess of a thousand flocks, give all those hiding in the thickets to me, throw a skein of wool before the man who is searching, tracking the footprints; lead us forward in the eye of day and in the light of the moon, show the way no human knows!

      She waited for me in the library corridor. I say “me,” because sometimes it seems that everything in the world happens for me. The grimy rains fall for me, in the evening

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