LITMIR.BIZ

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But most often I remember Irena. Irena, Irena, Irena. Scores of her portraits, a secret photo album that’s invisible to everyone but me. She smiles, having calmed my rage again. She sits with her chin on her hand. She speaks in a low, somewhat throaty voice, while I listen and understand that only she can give me meaning, that she herself is that meaning. She washes her feet in a large rusty basin, and I want to kiss her everywhere, all of her. I could think only of her; I experienced a miracle that was destined for no one else. The two of us really were the two halves of an apple that had miraculously found each other.

      There was only one thing that divided us—she liked to stare at the television. I’m afraid of it. I hate it. Television is Their magic weapon; with its help They surround you with troops, throngs, legions of hideously kanuked beings. They strive to convince you those beings are the real, normal representatives of the human race, and if you’re not like them—it’s your own fault, it’s you that’s abnormal. At that time my second eyes were only beginning to emerge. I watched those television creatures almost morbidly. Understandably, I can’t study American or Italian television, however, I firmly believe Their television traps encompass the entire world. They just subtly adapt to the country’s traditions and political system. Doesn’t an American or Frenchman experience the same fear and disgust—seeing some television beauty almost have an orgasm after taking a whiff of some toothpaste or tomato sauce—that I do? Doesn’t it arouse the most hideous suspicions in him? After all, those television beings have nothing human about them in any country; they’ve traveled here from Their soulless kingdom. Of course, our television beats them all. The announcer tries to persuade you that these are some kind of workers . . . some kind of farmers . . . some kind of writers . . . or scholars . . . There’s masses of them; they appear every hour, every second . . . planted on identical little chairs, by identical tables, frequently wearing medals or ribbons of honor, and most often with unhealthy, pudgy faces. There’s something essentially unalive in them, something inhuman, particularly the eyes—or more accurately, the place where the eyes should be: those narrow cracks without any expression, without a spark of spirit. In those cracks you can perceive the grim wasteland’s void, a pulsating swarm of innumerable cockroach legs. Those creatures repeat the same words over and over; they’re very pleased with themselves, they know everything and believe in everything. They fruitlessly try to act like people, to give their face expression . . . Probably they haven’t yet forgotten what a human should look like . . . And it’s totally irrelevant that on American television the beauties’ eyes are huge and the hosts’ faces aren’t fat—They know perfectly well how to disguise themselves . . . What matters most is the stare, the stare of the void. What matters most is that imbecilic ecstasy, no matter what provokes it in the television being—a slogan of the Russian plenary or a Japanese kitchen mixer . . . What matters is that they’re all so assured . . . So clever . . .So happy . . . Such idiots . . .

      I’m afraid of television; I’ve always been afraid of it. But Irena liked to stare at the screen—to her that spirit-crushing image was nothing more than chewing gum for the brain, as it is for most people. It doesn’t seem there’s anything so terrible about it. But for some reason everyone forgets that the brain is surely not the proper place to plaster with used chewing gum. Alas, alas . . . Every detail matters when you’re up against Them.

      Sometimes life’s time rushes along too fast. One day it struck me that I’m already forty, that Irena and I live in a new, somewhat larger apartment, and that I am a programmer. (Gedis convinced me to finish in mathematics at the university.) Everything was getting on well, it seemed; I slid smoothly down the path of life, but somewhere years upon years had disappeared as if they had never been—I remember much less from those times than I do from the Narutis period. I was stuck in a calm, healthy, everyday bliss. It seems to me that I was almost happy—Irena at my side, in the midst of intelligent books and my memories. But one morning I woke up and suddenly realized that something had happened. Something, something, had happened. I don’t know who was to blame for that. Maybe Gediminas. It was just then that he started acting strange, stranger and stranger all the time. Perhaps it was Vilnius. Just at that time it was sprouting the new, nothing neighborhoods; for the first time it occurred to me that my city had died and would never rise from the dead again. Perhaps it was Irena. I suddenly noticed her gaze was worn and dazed, that more and more often she didn’t hear what I was saying to her. Something, something, had happened; I had overlooked an incident of monumental importance and realized it only when everything began to change. I began to sense smells I’d never noticed up until then. I smelled the trees, the dust of the streets, my writing desk, and the sound of a distant airplane. I began to see things I hadn’t noticed before: a grimy cat cowering under the balcony, or a hunchbacked dwarf quietly hobbling home along the wall. An abundance of details, details which had meant nothing to me earlier, mysteriously whispered something; they wanted to warn me that something fundamental and horrible had happened.

      Then I had a terrifying dream. In this dream I sluggishly made love with a plump, overripe beauty. I didn’t feel the least pleasure, but she kept pestering me, embracing me, virtually sucking me dry. At last I escaped by force, withdrew my penis in relief from the sodden damp space, and abruptly went into shock when I looked at it. It was studded all over with dark, moving spots; it was crawling, teeming, with disgusting brown cockroaches. There were hordes of them. They twitched their thin whiskers and rolled their unseeing eyes. My penis was covered with cockroaches, the way a rotten banana is covered with fruit flies. Hysterically I tried to shake them off, to clean them off, to pick them off one by one, but in vain. I had fallen into a trap; the cockroaches were in control. Meanwhile the plump, overripe beauty glanced at me sullenly; sharp, leaden barbs protruded from her eyes. When I awoke, I got really scared that something, something, had happened. I didn’t feel like myself all day. Lord knows, I went to the toilet several times and determinedly searched for marks on my masculinity. Of course, I found only the old scars Stadniukas had burned on it, but that didn’t reassure me. I went home early and waited for Irena, anxious to talk it over with her; finally I saw her through the window, but I didn’t feel the slightest joy, much less relief. Something, something, had happened. Irena wasn’t what she had been until then, even her walk was strangely altered. She didn’t notice me; she didn’t notice black Jake, either, the neighbors’ dog, and our family’s great friend. He ran up to Irena, sniffed her knees, and suddenly barked at her sharply. His entire pose showed horrified disgust and fear at the same time. I didn’t get it: Jake? Irena? She stopped and fixed the dog with a serious gaze. She didn’t pet him, but she didn’t raise her arm, either; however, Jake instantly jumped back, curled up pathetically, and started to whine, as if he wanted to warn the entire building, his entire doggy world, about something horrible and sinister. He announced a great danger. I thought Jake had simply gone nuts. Irena continued to calm him with a serious look and smiled wanly. That was not her smile. She went on walking in that unfamiliar manner. Jake has gone nuts, I kept repeating to myself, but I didn’t believe it. Irena was radically different. Her thighs rubbed together revoltingly under her dress. The joints of her fingers were unnaturally thickened and pale.

      Suddenly I realized that the poor dog didn’t recognize Irena’s scent. She no longer smelled like herself. Jake barked at a strange, intimidating intruder, whose stench aroused a boundless doggy horror in him. But it was far worse that suddenly I didn’t recognize Irena myself. I didn’t say anything to her, I didn’t complain. I merely began to secretly observe her.

      All the gods in the world know how difficult it was for me: I was spying on the person who was closest to me—not just her behavior, but she herself, even her body. I didn’t know which direction to turn, what to look for. I feared giving myself away inadvertently, I feared hurting Irena. I was still afraid of hurting her. I was afraid of many things, most often myself. It’s always easier to be ignorant; the search for truth is fraught with mortal dangers. Something is invariably lost—either faith, or happiness, or the past. Or everything at once.

      I started with what seemed like insignificant details. Visiting (I never did understand why we visited all those people), or at home when her so-called friends came over, I secretly listened to what she was talking about when she thought I didn’t hear her. I was overcome with horror. Her melodious voice grew hoarse; it was left dull and hollow, like an echo in a mossy old cellar. It lost its colors and hues; it became a monotone, like tapping on a

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