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LiTerature. Books from Lithuania
Documents needed for Translation Grant application: ▸ Filled application form ▸ Short cover letter substantiating the proposed work ▸ Brief presentation of the publishing house ▸ Evidence of the translators qualification (e.g. CV, list of previous translations, etc.) ▸ Copy of the contract between the publisher and the copyright owners ▸ Copy of the contract between the publisher and the translator ▸ Publishers may also wish to present their catalogues Documents needed for Sample Translation Grant application: ▸ Filled application form ▸ Short cover letter substantiating the proposed work, ▸ Evidence of the translators qualification (e.g. CV, list of previous translations, etc.) ▸ Agreement with copyright owner to translate chosen work ▸ Copy of proposed text might be asked additionally ▸ The maximum size of proposed text should be no more than 40 000 signs including space for prose, and no more than 120 lines for poetry The deadlines for both applications: 1st April and 1st October annually. 2014 B O O K S F R O M L I T H UA N I A Translators and Publishers are kindly invited to participate at the Lithuanian Literature Translation Grant Programme supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. The programme is committed to encourage t ranslators and publishing houses to choose Lithuanian literature: entire works as well as sample extracts. The grants will be awarded for the translation of fiction such as prose, poetry, children’s literature or nonfiction such as literary works and humanities, publications about the Lithuanian culture and cultural heritage. Publishers may wish to apply for partial or total grant to cover expenses on translation from Lithuanian of entire works and sample extracts. Translators from Lithuanian may apply for grant to cover expenses of sample translation. l kloniais pam ais išlindo vasarą svei kaimene blusų Mus ja šo. Tuo pulkai jų pro p meškos, ir vilkai šokin t, bet linksmintis visi s s, ošims pasikėlė. ir ir ulk i su im p et a o žs d B o . ’u tu ų u t pulkam n gė b i, e! ne verk yt la ez la n is a m el V ėdami bešūkaujan . Bet ir valgių dėl skūp s ir vab esugrįžo; N bei ką p in i, sė n g p u st o Ir yt ų k M k o si s n ė. o av m la yr rb lo s g ag a vą o u p ty d i ie ip m s e d ėt s ta ri lu o p k m žd ir šilumą n a in b i Ir d ti a ri t rb t u k do. O št ams ga ar dūsa pabudin liai visi i medžio ra s ėd g ą vo ša m in Ir a a m p sa ė p d o ą d k žu k m a er ų yn au in ta m k V s k im s o še alu lko vo op nt ša o tarš o asirodė. Tu iš didelio pu dėdami verp ėjo; O kits a Ir pasisotint ant laukų ai ant kraik šk ri o d a sp kampuos sė okie dyvai — nei viens asaris ant visų laukų p ams ik debesių kopin ą a sur didei d yd k arnešė kuo nksmas Ir g av Kraiką jie vi ėjai su traukės. Ale u buvo sugaišę Irgi p ėdams Ir linksmai lakst ls lopytą parlėkdams p is kaimynais parlėkė li lingą sveikino draugą. V rų a ų sp r ja ok g naujinteli ras su kita snapu mei nudilę; O tū d au n d vo žiemos visu kits laibai dainuoti m ems gasa vo ir sa u G ri b k s s. su ti u tu gė Ir ja ik čy s O didei as ir rado i džiau u, kaip re ab o tu m abu, Viens storai, kundė. Rūbai šio ir to r sumišai šokinėdam gaspados vėl išlindusi mier pagadintus. Sien ėl d o dės; To ė. Taip p ta ogau ro is s su p er o es p si vi lo lt n u i ų p si s p ša ia vi ry m en Iš ag k a et vi ė d iš k sų nei o, B žm sur man adin ieks nedejav t jam štai jau ir jo gasp budavotus, Rado ant vi puolę; Ogi troba visa vi gaspadinė jo pūstynes sos vienai dėkavojo. Tu mbino n parvargęs n t a u vi O k ia n sk s ti g į; s i b ie vo a au lė va u rd n ži g b ie ši er ė id p is iš ia užp bes rneš Dievui visur bei s ę, u av k g u damos snapą. Taip o; Ogi namus naujus, rys su langais ir slenksč s žagarų budavonei pa ra la ty a O ū p eš s; d ė Irgi b o daino rupuižes u u ėl n ra D ja ei k . ši o b sį si o šę u tu a s es p s lė sk io rl i p k ri yr a u va d V št n so s su ai. ia inėdams vo s vi auk sukosi greit reitai Ir, kel o kraiko bu mus ir giria dyvinai kop kštelių is sparnais sparnais nu lab vėl taisyt ir provyt ejot pas klaną nulėkė g žmiršk savo dievą. Krū ė. Kregždės su lengva vins ik debesių juodų au Ir p Vis mi gyr didė galybė u sužv vo. Ger aus n’u padoriams, ėję, Valgį sa pasisotindams gardži ertojį linksmai rykauda os pliuškėjo pasaką sa r pamokint, kaip dievo lakštingala, dar ikšiol n si ū tr ei b ę o Ir daug dirb idė Ir sutv asikakint asivalgiusi s, Ne! jis n dievą.“ Bet įsigūžtęs, kstydami ža vų valgė Ir p ip skambina šaukdam inė taip jau vis šlovina , kad sviets jau miegt okinkis čia p ta niekings! m s ir strazdai sumišai la lgius prastus be pripro se ve, kaip s im ji ie čė g d s nakties , — mū ovings smai, kad žė Ir šl rė va u t rk i k ta u eg A au ve — . k G e sk is s, a i. n šū i a d p rd a o ta rs O ši „R et a ga s, dai, Bet ded udė per oru ino dangų; B žius girdėdami tokius: skiaus kasmets vis pra mus ir mūsų linksmin i miels, pas mus nesiro arbus d a a d nei kulkos ša s irgi dejuodams skamb el p žo in št ęs. Todėl ji čiam Ir savo i su vaikais Kartais bud i ir tu, pauk Ir nei verkdam ei stebuklinga. Žvirblia s bus savo dainą pabaig mes iš patalo kopam, ą kakalį krankiam, Ta l linksmi pavasarį šven t ir mūsų lengvini id iki kožna as meiling ad mes vė pasidžiaug s jau, kad s, ar balsuos yr d Ragini mus a savo? Juk sviets visa s, Laukė vis, arbina dievą, O išaušu pasislėpę Ir susirietę p dama gaudai. O štai, k u is a ėp rs sl a si g a ų p i k im o g se u galų a sa av n a čė in m p in p kytria s a št a o sa k d su ėd s la balsais ir msoj bud linksmų pas muse ei slapais enyj ar žiem Sau viena ta taikyms! Kad mes rud lindai Ir mažu savo glū usi vamzdį, Su visokiais šūkaut? Kodėl taip did ą, Kad tu mums dyvus paplakt, nuvažiuot su ėr si s ktyj, paderi garbina dain pakeli balsą Ir kinkyt, dyvins tavo mes, tamsoj pasislėpu , savo skambantį nutv ė Vis dailiau a temt ar na kiekvienas tavo šauną ed tu d ip ir a ra k o p , u nei karalien i padarytų, T u d savo saldų , a ja ių k m tu ir el , o a s Ir št is a taip k s am ta u žn au d si o p ėp a K ia au ik s pasisl Kad ryk u dirbt p iedai, — tarp kitų ų poniškų, pu ant laukų ja kyk, gaidel! dėl ko tu vi uksvų, ir krunėdami d klys tur su gėda nutilti, patalą virstam, Tai tu Tu sermėgų ad ant svieto šio main i. a d į b ro sa u e an si b k ja le a i ę A p ir a K s v rg ik d , a a ta a va va k šk d si ai o Ir ri O ri , u ik ū ; darbus. p d u b o ęs g d s si m jau nu mes dau uturę ro ei žvirbli i garsą. S ip ons įsirėm ia n O p ta in s r sk s, k k a m ti , ie u k rų sy n rs o ū g m ū b lų m ju b au o i tu u t ai mb bū ių d ded s tarp glūp ą pamatom, T rgonų bei ci sislėpus pra ir tarp žmon ievaitis kok s kaip pons čiauški. Tu va Kad prieš vakarą tu pa kartais kobotą mes tavo ešėdama čiauški. Ak! asdien išsirėdęs, Nei d dievą Ir besišypsodam ingai jis savo į! ad iekina rastai vi ška, Kad šird nenori. Tu nčiais k n p a s au a zg k či li rk to b išbudini Jurg savo šūkteri šūtką. O k ū la is b a is g ėl a ei k b in ūsų kšt Ir su rū s Bet vis n kad apje ostogu nei la eptų bei virtų valgių m ir šlovingiau turbonų niekini rėdą; mieste didei pasipūtęs ei nusidyvyt; Ypačiai er daug gied k prastu savo p o Ir ! P , a au id s, ų k s, d id k n ly a vę ir ti iš g p o a n , o yt o im d ži ep šk yk u s n žs ir lg n u ia u a a žm V ta sp ėt Ir žiup s, r ’u s ą! eš n sa būrišką vi ojam. Dik ai ir būrs tu okšti. Tikt dyviną žiog žiuok“ iai bei dešro tikrai padab glūpą girdime kalbą, T inėręs Ir savo skrandą lgai. Riebūs mūs lašin rastai, tikt vandenio tr rikvabalius, muses ir įs g paplak, nuva p jo s va si yk si yk ža es u ut, kink , kramto, O kitsai, rgą! Valg zas, į vy asisotin niškai pri a p rg kartais m ri o , u K m p „J et e ių lą B Ir a n k ; i ! b ų sy ls ęs n va k o ie kie iną rą šv op ori, im u, paukštel ožiji gardžiausio gėrim lgyk sau sveika, kad n a dar ilgiaus savo vasa ūrėk! Viens prastą kirm ados nesiskundžia. parodo. Ak! a garbint. T a m k ži V ev a ed ie s n d d s. n i o iu a s g u ra lv šč Ir p in en a k a g vi ių vą d au a iš ei ie d išai besilgyt. Į p jus, Kad s birbin ėl tikt n eigi raga d va rė m n a u si to p ų ri m i, ę p i? Taip sum ysim.“ s ag ir i ve a a g a yr d k O p p , m ū sų i a; ū yk ra d sk g n m s ėd į į a ra ij eč in į ėk p n k p neliūbij ar o , u in sa tr u kartais es jums pa . Imk drąsa ir mūs pam sulaukęs, ši kstantį pavas dama valgyt negimusią veislę; Bet is čia pasikakint, Kad ta keliavę, Kūdą vis ir al dieną Ar skūpus čėsus Ir tikrai klausykit, ką m tsiliepdams jiems a jų su k ą šti skruzdėles ir iekings žmogau! mokin e kasmets, mus atlankyt rni, kad, kartais alkan i susirinkę, liaukitės o sų malonė?“ — „Mes, — a sudraskė, Mažu a iu n jū ji ėd n lk u s r el ir u T a ly p p k i. d a ve Ju — g ys . tu jis, ,O i! Ką lelę risiėst aisin pasak do, gnyba žo gių daugiaus dovanojo s pasirodė. „Tič, — tarė dė: „Štai mes, jūs tarna o? Rasi ką šeškas ar b yvą pakorė, O paskui p rū g s am d o iš m k g a au ro a d sto pag aud pasi ir linksmai orius, ! miels dievs us erelis rėk susilėkę jam okot ko? ar kas tarp jūsų r kytriai, nei koks klast iodams vis n ų li lo ik ša a es p b Tau, žmogau ūžims pasikėlė Ir tuoja yrė; Juk sų ei B atąNpaIsk yvA ėt. Ar prist šaudams A uksmą, Iš vi ai ei gU FlėRtęasO Mvo LvaIlgT A s išSsisp į bH onK s pO girėse okO juokiant, št si pulkai, girdėdami ša ta žiemos bėdoj išsilaik žmogus mums numušė lizdo nei kB is a sa ži m po med is s vi vo Ir kožn yl s tų iu o sa u m ik el t id ja a n et o d sų le a ri tu ų jū ų s i ep ra yv ip im n ta g d a Š tropijas ėr n K g ką tin. Kartais ų gyvų sutv rinėjant, Ga rime tardyt, vanojo. Dau augė, Mažu erelis, — no iaunė kopinėdama sm i klausiant ir aštriai ty ams, Daugel tūkstanči orų plaukt sparnus do vs vis su pasimėgimu so gsyk mus gandina t ie od iu rk s dau and Memoir ką vanags a epė biedžių.“ Taip erel šį sutverdams ir budav denį siuntė, O anam an i burzda! O vei kožną d . Neprietelis žmoguFiction lę. Sykiais m tą k n a tą ie iš d va pavagia veis raugams j ie sv į sė o sv ių a s p ji in šč čy — to k , rg ų er rė au m va skaurad p tv ta ie s vs ones ant k „Dievs, — . Pulką šį su kopinėdam Su tinklais glūpiems d draugą s griekų die šokinėdams: m tikt, dyvai pasirodo endami laksto Ar pas žm ška Ar kad dėl žmogau kiria tėvus Ar aukštai n, si rą d si a vo numuša p ri ts ū zd te a st as ką le eilingus slaptoms sa k t m visur, kur ži ant laukų linksmai ple aug baisybės darganų sų ės ų ū si ik m ri va p i rp o a u ži d k kad ta ais n us, Kurs gard slapos; O kie ną dieną, Kad visur per numuša daugel. Kart ragina valgyt; O štai, ndasi sukči ra s a s s m lk m u ra a a m yt d ir k t ų ty k ls či rs u n a ge jb sula ds tū dus patvory paukščių ro i bičiulių bei šaudams Irg nei koks geradėjas Grū muša, tikt muša. Ir tarp s kt vargstantiem Ar su provyta pūčka ti ro a d a p ą d a k iš For more information, please, visit www.booksfromlithuania.lt Books from Lithuania B O O K S F R O M L I T H UA N I A Fiction and Memoir Eugenijus Ališanka ∙ ∙ ∙ 5 A Street between Two Churches Romualdas Granauskas ∙ ∙ ∙ 13 Lives of the Saints Grigorijus Kanovičius ∙ ∙ ∙ 21 A Small Town Romance Sigitas Parulskis ∙ ∙ ∙ 31 The Fangs of My Convictions Undinė Radzevičiūtė ∙ ∙ ∙ 39 Fish and Dragons Tomas Rekys ∙ ∙ ∙ 47 In the Soviet Army B O O K S F R O M L I T H UA N I A Fiction and Memoir Danas Sėlis ∙ ∙ ∙ 55 A Mystery in the Provinces Dalia Sruogaitė ∙ ∙ ∙ 65 The Archaeology of Memory Alvydas Šlepikas ∙ ∙ ∙ 75 My Name is Marytė books from lithuania: fiction and memoir Eugenijus Ališanka, Romualdas Granauskas, Grigorijus Kanovičius, Sigitas Parulskis, Undinė Radzevičiūtė, Tomas Rekys, Danas Sėlis, Dalia Sruogaitė and Alvydas Šlepikas Selection and introductions by Jūratė Čerškutė Translated by Jūra Avižienis, Dainius Šileika, Medeinė Tribinevičius, Laima Vincė and Jayde Will Edited by Violeta Kelertas Graphic design by Jokūbas Jacovskis Supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania Published by the International Cultural Programme Centre | www.koperator.lt Design and layout by Inter Se | www.interse.lt Printed in Lithuania by Kopa | www.kopa.lt Circulation 300 © The International Cultural Programme Centre, 2014 ISBN 978-609-8015-46-1 EUGENIJUS ALIŠANKA Gatvė tarp dviejų bažnyčių | A Street between Two Churches Photo by Vladas Braziūnas E Eugenijus Ališanka | b. 1960 s e l e c t e d t r a n s l at i o n s English: City of Ash: poems, translated by H. L. Hix and Eugenijus Ališanka, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000 From Unwritten Histories: poems, translated by H. L. Hix, Austin: Host Publications, 2011 German: Aus ungeschriebenen Geschichten: poems, translated by Klaus Berthel, Köln: DuMont, 2005 Die Rückkehr des Dionysos: Chthonisches, Postmodernismus, Stille: cultural study, translated by Klaus Berthel and Markus Roduner, Oberhausen: Athena, 2008 Exemplum: poems, translated by Claudia Sinnig, Frankfurt: Zuhrkamp, 2011 ugenijus Ališanka is the busy bee of Lithuanian literature: a well-known poet, author of six poetry books, one of the first of the creative minds of Lithuania to bring home postmodernism and reconsider the meaning of a city’s culture (he published a culture almanac called Miestelėnai: miestas ir postmodernioji kultūra (Townspeople: the City and Postmodern Culture); and two books of cultural essays), a translator of note, constantly translating the poetry of foreign authors and faithfully editing, consistently, patiently, and responsibly curating The Vilnius Review, the only space in Lithuania where English and Russian translations of the most important contemporary literary works of Lithuanian authors are published. Ališanka’s work stands out for its clear and distinct structure, moderation, intellectuality and harmonious, albeit unique, language. In 2012, Ališanka’s Jeigu (If) collection of poems won him the most important poetry award in Lithuania – he became the Spring Poetry laureate. His poems are constantly being translated into other languages. A Street between Two Churches is Ališanka’s first collection of essays, into which he collected various topical and circumstantial texts united by an extraordinary sense of poetic time. Ališanka’s texts are often termed intellectual essays as if emphasizing that subjectivity is required in the essay genre. A certain distant interpretation of the author’s life, presented as if through a glass, from the other, impersonal side, also reflects a wide range of cultural artefacts. Personal stories and memories are woven into the essay seamlessly or seemingly haphazardly, as if the wrong colour thread had been picked up. That’s exactly why nostalgia is one of the most important actors in Ališanka’s cast, which was described well by Lithuania’s most famous essayist, Giedra Radvilavičiūtė, who termed it as “unsentimental, a simple stating of facts.” And this, you must admit, is still a rare thing in Lithuanian literature. keywords: an essay ideal in both form and content; grace fully calculated memories and proportions of cultural context; perfect nostalgia with no whining, crying, or weeping; marvellous rendering of time creating a light-hearted flow of life. Eugenijus Ališanka gatvė tarp dviejų bažnyčių: essays Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2012, 210 p. www.tytoalba.lt 7 A Street between Two Churches By Eugenijus Ališanka T H E I N T E RV I E W What was first: the question or the answer? Can there even be a question that doesn’t contain the slightest hint of an answer, however unclear, ambiguous, flawed, or even absurd? This morning, with a heavy autumn fog hovering outside my window, I knew what the day promised, even before I could ask. If the fog descended from the hills, thickening and growing darker, it would turn into an impenetrable protective shield of cloud, like a sodden, dripping sponge. If it started to lift slowly, dissipating, allowing more light to enter, then the sun would shine through. This time the answer within the question was ambivalent, but often it’s multivalent, chaotic and scattered about, like pieces of Lego. Make it yourself. But even when you’re improvising, you always know what you’re doing with some part of your consciousness that’s yet to be illuminated by the sun. Today the clouds lifted. Indeed, what came first: the chicken or the egg? It’s not such an absurd question, if you ask it as you break an egg on the side of a frying pan. It’s a good philosophical prolegomenon for farmers and single men. But I have to answer the questions. The virtual interview leaves no room for the unintended word, digression or stammering—I usually cast several handfuls of these into the literal airwaves. The questions have travelled a great distance, originating on a large island where it’s usually raining, and where everyone speaks English from an early age. The questions are eloquent, even correct, because what else is there for a journalist to ask once she has scrutinised my long CV and my predictably slim volume of poetry in English. But I get the feeling that I’ve heard these questions before. And it’s not long before a line of poetry from the Polish poet I’m translating at the moment comes 8 Books from Lithuania to mind: ‘The journalist’s questions seem astonishingly familiar.’ It’s from the self-portrait of an ageing poet. Indeed, the only time I feel young these days is just before I drift off to sleep, or when I’m lacing up my hiking boots. But after a few hours, I always ask myself the same question that my wife recently put to me at an adventure park in Druskininkai: having noticed her Tarzan, suspended from the black zipline (I’d only planned to take on the red one), she asked, ‘Do you have any idea how old you are?’ I do. I’m younger than the date stamped on my passport, but not as wise as my years. That’s why even the journalist’s questions seem familiar. I have changed little during all these years. I haven’t gained any weight since my student days. I’ve cut my hair, but it has always grown back. The lines of my CV have slowly but inevitably accumulated, but their quantity has never turned into quality. So how can an English journalist say anything new to me, anything that hasn’t already been said by a German, Dutch or Finn? This time even the first match of the game is not going so well. Even worse, it’s forcing me to listen to my repetitions, to notice how words often repeated become empty; how my indifference to what I’m saying echoes in these empty words; how mechanically, passionlessly, I am returning the ball. Because even the answers to the astoundingly familiar questions are astoundingly familiar. The first question is, as is to be expected, about the beginning of my beginning, my Adam and Eve period, my birth in Siberia, which I do not remember, which I can never remember. But I already know that the answer lies within the question. That’s why I respond according to what the question expects. Well, perhaps not what it expects, but what I expect from this game of question and answer articulated in noughts and crosses: you can never tell where it began and where it will end, or even who needs it. That’s why I write the following: My grandparents’ families were deported to Siberia in 1941. My two grandfathers were immediately separated from their families, and both were sent to the same Russian prison. This was done to all the men. The fatherless families were then transported in cattle cars, further away, to Siberia, where they were housed in barracks, where they endured cold and famine. Both my grand fathers died in prison. One was executed as an enemy of the state [Which state? The occupiers’ state? To this day, the plot seems E u g e n i j u s Al i š a n k a 9 better suited to a Greek tragedy or an absurdist play by Beckett or Kafka]. The other one starved to death a year later. I don’t think they ever met [We can only guess what prison was like]. I doubt their families met before their deportation either. My father was eleven and my mother was seven when they were deported. That’s where they grew up. Later, when exiles were allowed to move to nearby cities, they ended up in Barnaul, one of the larger cities in Altai. That’s where they went to university, and that’s where they met at a Lithuanian gathering. That’s where they married, and that’s where I was born. In 1962 when they were permitted to return to Lithuania, they did. As I write this, I wash my hands clean like Pontius Pilate. These are not my words: this is only a summary of a life, written quickly by a distracted student, like many other summaries in this classroom. I wasn’t there; I’m not there. Just signed in for my grade, honourable professor. In almost every sentence the verb ‘to be’ is lifeless, as if that writing of mine, my summary, were inscribed on the tombstone of the past tense. As if nothing from the beyond can touch me, a non-believer who doesn’t believe in the afterlife. Elias Canetti, in his memoirs, tells the story of a close friend, to be more precise, his wife, who meets the writer thirty years after his death, and, with a great smile, tells him, ‘Oh Mr C! Remember the old times? Just think! Alban still asks after you!’ An inability to distinguish between the past and present tenses is a mark of illiteracy, maybe even illness. Canetti, however, doesn’t see illness in that oddity, or even metaphysical illiteracy, but an extraordinary love. Well, that’s the truth, because only love has managed to create a kingdom of eternal life; no one else has, neither theologians nor philosophers. Regarding our own past, we need only to remember another story, one by Bradbury, about a grandmother whose childhood was stolen by the children of strangers. Her own, loving children would never have done that. But there’s no need for children. I can deprive myself of my past by closing myself off in ambiguous future promises, by distancing myself from friends, by firing back with empty words. By giving interviews. When will I finally get some questions to answer that don’t make me feel like a fool, that don’t require me, yet again, to peel the increasingly difficult-to-remove fake smile off my face, washing off the 10 Books from Lithuania thick make-up of self-confidence, rinsing my mouth with red wine or cheap bourbon? When I reach St Peter, waiting by the Pearly Gates? I remember my first interview. (How could I forget?) I had just published my first book, and a radio show invited me for a discussion at their offices. I arrived much too early, much earlier than the journalist, but I didn’t dare go inside. I found a bench outside in the square. I pulled out some booze in a brightly coloured bottle, and took a swig for courage. Because it was frightening, because it was the first time, because every single question would be unfamiliar, because until then I had never heard any questions, because I was afraid of the microphone, because I was afraid of the journalist, because I was afraid of people. Because I am a misanthropist, because my tongue was stuck between my teeth, because I didn’t have a toothpick to release it, because my head was as empty as a basketball, because it was leaking air, because my last thoughts were escaping through the valve. It wasn’t I who came to the editor’s office, but someone else, who was a bit braver, but, I think, not much smarter. He confused names, he couldn’t control his thoughts: they were getting away from him, stumbling here, there, behind the chair, under the table. No, he wasn’t drunk, there hadn’t been enough booze; he answered the questions. What more do you expect? That he’d remember what he said about the anguish of creation? About connecting sentence to sentence, but they weren’t binding together? That they were disintegrating like asteroids into the stratosphere, burning out before they reached the microphone? That he’d wanted to appear spiritual, profound, but had only managed to look ridiculous? That he wanted to list some famous poets who were important to him, but those were precisely the names that slipped his mind? That he was already regretting his venture into the public domain, holding that slim paperback with brown paper covers? That he wanted to run, but didn’t know where? That afterwards he answered the same questions over and over again to himself? That he continues to do so to this day? Only now the order has switched: first the interview, then the drink. Now the make-up of self-confidence and the fake smile. Now I know that I’m lying. Now it wouldn’t be only St Peter who wouldn’t publish my life story. My interview with him would be short, over even before it began. My autobiographical Siberia is no less vast than the geographical one. Only the contours are not as pronounced: they are more expansive, fractured by memory’s tectonic plates, sinking like Atlantis in E u g e n i j u s Al i š a n k a 11 some places, rising like insurmountable cliffs in others. More often it’s like the real thing, covered by glaciers and impenetrable taiga, where the tracks of every journey are immediately overgrown with grass that covers every footprint, every signpost. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell the story of my parents and grandparents, because it can’t be contained in my memory. It scatters into isolated images and events. These rest one on top of the other, like children on top of parents in a family burial plot. They decay, losing their distinguishing features. All bones are the same. I remember almost nothing about my grandmother. We called her Bobune in our childhood stories, and there were as many of them as balls of yarn in her room, which she’d pull and it would twist with no end. Mother would spin quite a few stories as well. And father, after a few shots, would turn into a teenager, stamping through the taiga as it freezes at minus fifty degrees, through Kaipagorod, through dug-outs, where the dead, buried, wrapped in shrouds, await the spring. But these are already different stories, the many stories that cannot be contained in one. When all is said and done, how can you ask me to tell a story about a place I’ve never seen, never heard about, never been to, where I never drank beer or mead, only mother’s milk, and this never dribbled down my bearded chin, but streamed through my childhood dreams. You could ask Bobune. She saw it all. She wouldn’t mind if you asked her in the beyond. Even my parents could ask her a question or two. They’d like to learn something about their youth. They’d certainly know what to ask, to entertain them during long winter nights. I’d do my best then to remember what it was like there: who died first, who died later, who was first through the Pearly Gates, who never bothered to register, what came first – the question or the answer? They wouldn’t care how I told it, for them a summary would be fine – a sketch, or a rough draft. Perhaps it would be better that way: they could add something of their own. Translated by Jūra Avižienis R O M UA L DA S G R A NAU S K A S Šventųjų gyvenimai | Lives of the Saints Photo by Ramūnas Danisevičius R Romualdas Granauskas | b. 1939 s e l e c t e d t r a n s l at i o n s Czech: Obětování býka; Život pod javorem, translated by Alena Vlčková, Praha: Odeon, 1990 German: Das Strudelloch: novel, translated by Gila Rom, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2010 Italian: La vita sotto l’acero, translated by Guido Michelini, Nardò: Besa, 2007 Latvian: Kenotafs; Ar taureni uz lūpām, translated by Talrids Rullis, Rīga: Neputns, 2006 Russian: Жизнь под кленом, translated by Virgilijus Čepaitis, Москва: Советский писатель, 1989 Spanish: La vida bajo el arce, translated by Akvilė Galvosaitė and Bautista Serigós, Buenos Aires: Libros de la Araucaria, 2011 Swedish: To fortellinger fra Litauen, translated by Paal Arbo, Oslo: Gyldendal Norsk, 1991 omualdas Granauskas is a star of Lithuanian literature, a master of prose, one of the most productive authors of his generation, the now quickly dwindling “old guard” of writers. Without the works of Granauskas it would be difficult to map out Lithuanian literature of the late 20th century. Granauskas’s texts look back at the archaic Lithuanian worldview, its relationship with the land, with its own language, mythology, and history. He painfully opens up relics of the soviet era, and shows us gaps left in the fates of men. It is often said that the writer was one of the last ambassadors of Žemaitija to Vilnius. The people of Žemaitija have a way of thinking and speaking that is not rushed: this careful, thorough, considerate nature permeates his entire body of work. Granauskas is one of the bestselling authors of Lithuanian literature. In 2000 he earned the National Culture and Art award, and in 2013 Lives of the Saints was acclaimed by literary scholars as the most creative book of the year. The collection of short stories in Lives of the Saints is an innovative version of hagiography, in which the author rethinks the concept of sanctity and the saints according to the most important cataclysms of the 20th century, especially in light of the Second World War. The saints in Granauskas’s texts are the simple people of a village, each of whom has to try to survive in his own dark moments: one secretly records the history of murdered partisan fighters; another falsifies family origins to try to win just a bit more of life. This is truly influential and exciting prose, charming in its moderate and calm tone of storytelling, leaving it to historical reality to create special effects, with a quick-paced style and attention to the dramatic circumstances of the times. Basically, the real life of a mid-20th century Lithuanian is conveyed in Granauskas’s short stories, which merge into a single tale, overflowing with an original interpretation of sanctity and scenarios of the most various experiences. keywords: creative and innovative adaptation of 20th century hagiography; masterful storytelling; moderation and coherence of the internal story; detailed character descriptions that recount their tragedy and pain; a deceptively simple and lively style. Romualdas Granauskas šventųjų gyvenimai: novel of short stories Vilnius: Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishers, 2013, 136 p. www.rsleidykla.lt 15 Lives of the Saints By Romualdas Granauskas SA I N T M I C H E LI NA Teacher Michelina was not from lowland Samogitia; she came from somewhere in the Highlands and had moved to town the year the German’s closed Kaunas University. She was studying there with a certain Povilas Beržonskis, and maybe he was even the one to tell her that the school was in need of a teacher, though certainly there were teacher shortages in the small towns much closer to her hometown. And here, of all places, this backwoods of backwoods where they spoke the strangest of dialects, where you couldn’t understand what a child was asking nor what an adult was saying, full of terribly rough people, coarse in their ways. But she didn’t leave, and as to why not—well, you couldn’t just up and ask her. When she arrived—tall, young, beautiful—all the youngish men sucked in their stomachs, straightened their shoulders, and all the more frequently hoisted up their sagging trousers when they caught sight of her. At first the town’s women watched her every move, but there wasn’t any point to it: on Sunday, leaving church she would stand a pause under the chestnut with that Beržonskis, talking very quietly, and afterwards, graciously shaking hands, they would part. She would return to her small flat above the post office where she would read. In the evening, when the weather was fine, she’d go out past the town limits and walk along the gravel road, sometimes humming while she walked. The women questioned the parish priest, wasn’t she perhaps some kind of secret nun, but his answer was, no. The post office was a two-storey wooden house, crammed in between more of the same type of houses. On the first storey was the post office, on the second—two small flats. Understandably, the postmaster lived in one flat and the other belonged to Michelina. Even though the postmaster was a morose, bald bachelor, wizened and 16 Books from Lithuania even a bit twisted by his bachelorhood, the women held out some hope: “When they’re in each other’s way, right under each other’s noses all the time, just wait and see, they’ll sniff each other out.” “Not a chance! It’s going on four decades and nothing, don’t wish for something that’s not going to happen! Maybe he’s missing a ball or something…” “Don’t tell tales out of school! My husband was in the sauna with him and let me tell you both balls are there!” The postmaster was one of the first ones to be detained. In his albums they found English, American, and Brazilian postage stamps. They wrote him up as a spy and the man disappeared. After that lieutenant Per Bliuska moved in, but he rarely made it home. He spent most of his nights in the cellar at the doctor’s house interrogating prisoners. And Teacher Michelina no longer walked out beyond the town limits in the evenings, and she no longer hummed to herself. And though life in the small town was small to begin with, it now totally withered away, shrank, curled into itself like a nut in its shell. Bread was scarce, as were kerosene and clothing, but the town was not yet short of children and school was in session. Placing her palm over their little hands, Michelina taught them to write “m” and “a” and all the other letters. Later they would grow up into all kinds of (different) men and women, but they all had felt the touch of her palm and smelled the scent of her blonde hair. That hair of hers smelled like sweet-flag, millpond sweet-flag. Everyone saw and everyone knew what her days were like, but what about her nights? Both the windows of her flat looked out almost directly onto the town square. In its centre, no, maybe it was closer to one of the side streets that ran into it stood a wooden cross. Two fir trees, already taller than the cross, shone green on either side. If there were firs, those mournful trees, that meant they were there to memorialize some tragic event, she just wasn’t aware yet of what that was. Perhaps some volunteer from the battles for indenpendence had died there, or perhaps it was someone else because a fir cannot outgrow a cross in only a few years. And in any case there had been no independence battles near the town, only in 1918, making use of the inter-rule period, four Bolsheviks had created their own “revolutionary” council, but after a few weeks Plechavičius rode in with his men from Seda way and dispersed the little Bolsheviks, pushing Romualdas Granauskas 17 the fiercest one out beyond the town limits and shooting him. This she knew from the school watchman. She did not have beautiful long curtains on her windows, only those light cotton ones that covered half the glass. If you stood on the cobblestones below you couldn’t see much of anything, only a patch of the ceiling. And so when she first got up, she didn’t have to go to the window to pull the curtains open. Just like that light shone through them the whole day, even though they were closed. She just glanced out the window at the immured grey sky and took an umbrella with her. Down below, on the damp cobblestones, she pulled up short, as though she’d been nailed in place. Of itself her eye caught sight of something white lying under the cross. Two lay there, undressed to their undershirts and barefoot. There was no red blood to be seen. Not on the bodies, not on the stones. The night rain had washed everything away. She averted her gaze, lowered her head, and hurried off towards the school. The whole while she walked she kept repeating without stop: “Don’t go and stand in front of the blackboard today, don’t go and stand in front of the blackboard today, against the black background the children will see right away how pale and scared you are…” The children themselves were pale and scared, but in time they would get used to it. Already the very first winter she was there, when she remained after classes on her own in the school left without heat to cut out white snowflakes for the school Christmas tree, the school watchman came in quietly and invited her for tea. He and his wife were a lovely old couple who did everything together: tended the stoves, washed the floors, swept the paths, sprinkled the sand, and they had planted lilac and jasmine under the windows. Almost right up until All Saint’s Day dahlias kept blooming in the huge flower bed. The two of them took shelter at the school and their home was always warm and clean and even in the evenings it smelled of freshly washed floors. Perhaps they were the only ones in the village who understood how difficult it was for a young woman to live amongst strangers, and moreover it was winter and the longest night, and even more so her not knowing the dialect everyone spoke around her and always being afraid of making a fool of herself. Perhaps they weren’t the only ones who understood all this, but they were the only ones who kept inviting her over for tea. Later she would begin popping by without being invited. The elderly couple were eager and curious, interested in where she 18 Books from Lithuania was from, who her parents were, what they call one thing or another where she was from, as though they were linguists of some kind. She answered them happily and listened to them gladly, because after all they had both been born in the village, grew up there, and now were growing old there. They knew everything about it and everyone in it and even back then that idea had flashed in her mind, but it flashed and then disappeared… That morning she couldn’t start her lessons. She warned the children off going to the square by the cross anymore, told them not to stare at the ones dumped there. Then she went and knocked on the elderly couple’s door and without waiting to be asked in sat down, put her elbows on the table, buried her face in her hands and wept. No one comforted or quieted her; she cried until she had no more tears. The elderly couple sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the window. Then, as though talking to himself, the watchman said: “Vaškys and Ruginis are lying there.” She took note of this. And the elderly woman added: “Moreover, Vaškys had smashed a window at the school. He was throwing snowballs—and he broke it.” This time they didn’t offer her any tea. How could they drink tea now? And the watchman said some more: “We, Lithuania’s volunteers in 1918, we were all recorded. The ones who died, the ones who survived. They didn’t forget a single one.” She walked home slowly, keeping her head down the same way, and when she crossed the bridge, the old planks rattled underfoot and along with their rattling a thought pierced her head and stuck there: “A country that has forgotten its dead children is itself destined to die. Sooner or later.” And another thought came out of the blue: “How can you even call them old? I mean, they’re not even sixty yet!” She used to really like the smell of freshly washed floors. She would wash her own floors three times a week. Afterwards she would sit doing nothing and daydream. That’s how her real home would smell, the one she would live in and grow old in. And may the last scent that reached her be that of cold well water and burning candlewax. And the scent of a bug accidentally crushed in her granddaughter’s palm, when she ran in quickly when called from the yard. Now standing next to her bed, hiding her little palm behind her back guiltily. She’d wash the stairwell too, but only once a week. Washing the stairs was not a very pleasant job. It seemed to her that Per Liuska, Romualdas Granauskas 19 who would return home from the doctor’s cellar in the predawn hours, could track blood in on his shoes. The old, widowed teacher lived there before her. One summer’s day taking a book with him, he and went off to Prudgalius, the millpond. They found the book on the shore and him already afloat in the water next to the patch of sweet-flag. A death like that during the war didn’t seem at all terrible to her. Everything in the flat was as he left it: the furniture, the books, the made up bed, a small frying pan on the brick stove with a slice of bread thrown in it, the bread even bore his toothmarks. She cried when she saw the toothmarks, but then she calmed down: in his own way the old teacher had passed his books and his daily bread to her. Tie it up in a knot and wear it around your neck. The first time she washed the floors she did her best to reach all of the corners, all the nooks and crannies behind the furniture. There was a narrow gap between the brick stove and the wall; all that fit into the gap was a crumpled trashcan. And that had been pulled out, moulding at its bottom were two eggshells. She lifted the bucket and placed it upright behind her. That gap had to be the dirtiest place. And it seemed to her that one of the floorboards was aslant, as though it had come loose. “Good God!” she said, horrified. “The mice will get in through there!” She rattled the board with her fingers, trying to push it to the left, to the right, then pull it towards herself, but there was no way to get ahold of it. When she shoved the teacher’s breadknife underneath, it raised up quite easily. Two little wooden spikes protruded from underneath and there were two small holes visible in the floorboard. A gap into which you could stick your hand darkened before her. She easily set the floorboard back into place. Let the hiding place be. She didn’t have anything to hide. Yet. She knew why she was remembering that hiding place now, why she was walking home so slowly across that bridge, why she walked even more slowly across the cobblestones up the hill. They would still be lying there and she would not dare to glance at them one more time. It was enough that she now knew their surnames. She would write them down that evening. She’d also write down that Vaškys had once broken the window at the school and that now, on the 12th day of October, he lay dumped in the town square, shot dead. Translated by Medeinė Tribinevičius G R I G O R I J U S K A N OV I Č I U S Miestelio romansas | A Small Town Romance Photo by Rita Stankevičiūtė G Grigorijus Kanovičius | b. 1929 s e l e c t e d t r a n s l at i o n s English:Candles in the Wind: trilogy, translated by Helena Isenberg, Toronto: Lugus, 2001 German: Tränen und Gebete der Einfältigen, translated by Waltraud Ahrndt, Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992 Ein Zicklein für zwei Groschen, translated by Waltraud Ahrndt, Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1993 Ewiger Sabbat, translated by Waltraud Ahrndt, Berlin: AB-Die Andere Bibliothek, 2014 Hebrew: Candles in the Wind: trilogy, translated by David Krol, Tel-Aviv: Sifriat Hapoalim, 1983 A Kid for two Pennies; Smile upon Us, Lord: duology, translated by David Krol, Tel-Aviv: Motivim, 1995 rigorijus Kanovičius (Grigory Kanovich) is a prominent figure in Lithuanian literature: first, because of his three working languages: Lithuanian, Russian, and Yiddish; second, a no longer existent Jewish lifestyle, from the 18th century to today, comes alive in his works. Often Kanovičius is said to be the last classic of Lithuanian Jewish writing, and obviously he was the one to bring it to life and immortalize it. The writer won a variety of honours, and in 1995 was awarded the Medal of the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas, third degree. It is worth noting that the best of the writer’s texts on Jewish life in Lithuania were written in Russian. Kanovičius’s works have been translated into 14 languages around the world; in excess of one million copies of his books are in print. Since 1993 he has been living and working in Israel. A Small Town Romance is Kanovičius’s newest work, translated into Lithuanian from Russian in 2013. The novel revolves around the writer’s own family and their life in Jonava, featuring his grandmother, Rocha, mother, Henka, and father, Šleimkė, as well as a variety of others close and not so close to the Kanovičius family. Essentially, it is an excellent, authentic memoir-novel. The text covers nearly two decades (1920–1941), intent on relaying the entire reality of every resident, event, mood, success, and misfortune of the period to the reader. Kanovičius achieves his style of storytelling through rich language and by building fascinating characters that often seem taken from biblical allegory. It’s a true romance – a sensual, subtle, and real memorial (but not a sob story) of times past, which come alive once again and forever in the light of these memories. The writer himself called the work “a reflection of the pre-war days”, “like a Lithuanian Titanic brought up to the surface with all of the victims and their colourful pasts and problems, which are still pertinent today”. keywords: a chronicle of Jewish life and its reflections in interwar Lithuania; rich narrative language and style; a subtle sense of humour; unmistakable, pronounced, and differentiated figures; a bright melancholy preserving the past through narrative. Grigorijus Kanovičius miestelio romansas: novel Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2013, 429 p. www.tytoalba.lt 23 A Small Town Romance By Grigorijus Kanovičius Oh, Jewish mother! Oh how you have suffered! There is no one better in this world—only you! Illustration by Mark Kanovich From a Jewish folk song I’ve been meaning to write about my mother for a long time already. Overcome by that sense of joy one has when thinking about one’s parents, the closest and dearest people in one’s life, I feel compelled to write about my parents as they were without the necessity to be comprehensive. However, I am ashamed to admit that I have not fulfilled this noble intention until now. I always seemed to put it off, writing about them episodically instead, or incidentally including them in scenes I write to describe the people of my region or my relatives. In an attempt to appease my conscience, which seemed to eat away at me more and more by the hour, I began to put scenes together even in my dreams; however, when I’d wake up the next morning all my dreamed up words were erased by the sun rising outside my window. Therefore, now, having lived well into my old age, I have decided that after all I do not have the right to put the task off any longer. I should not eat myself up with guilt, but instead I should hurry up and write, so that I can buy off part of the guilt I feel towards my mother. After all, dear Lord, what if I run out of time… Once I found the resolve to write, and went over everything I could find in my fading memory about my mother’s life up until her untimely death, I could not quite imagine where, truth be told, to begin. Even before I began writing I understood that the story of my mother will be neither coherent nor complete because my mother’s life was not a peaceful nor smooth one. I resolved that it would be best for me to begin my story in those long ago years, when I was not yet on this earth. I would begin with Grigorijus Kanovičius 25 the riddle that has not been solved to this day—how did my mother manage to become the daughter-in-law of my controlling and picky grandmother Rachel Dudak-Kanovich. Even the men of the town were afraid of my grandmother. There was good reason why the town’s doctor, Icchak Blumenfeld without much thought dubbed her with the strange and frightening nickname—Rocha the Samurai. Grandmother Rocha considered her son Sammy, Solomon, who was as slight as a tailor’s pin in an expansive universe, the most desirable and most attractive young man in the town of Jonava. She did her best to protect him from making a fatal mistake. In her opinion, all of Jonava, not to mention all of Lithuania from the Latvian border to the border with unfriendly Poland had never seen such an attractive young man. Especially not Poland. For her that was the land from where free-thinking black-coat-tailed Hassidim would wander into conservative Jonava belting out their prayer hymns off-key, zigzagging across the cobblestones with their nimble rubberlike legs in a dance never seen in these parts danced to the glory of God, who had bidden the entire tribe of Israel to reproduce and multiply. Mama enjoyed returning to the memories of her faraway and almost imagined youth; she relished delving into the past like a squirrel dives into its cosy burrow. Out of her scraps of memory I have pieced together this rough portrait of her story. Her recollections begin with her, the unwanted Chenka Dudak’s, difficult relationship with my Grandmother Rocha, and with the circumstances surrounding her wedding and my arrival into this world. It occurred to me that I should begin my story here. “David, do you happen to have a clue as to where our dearest son Sammy goes off to in the evenings?” Grandmother Rocha demanded of her husband, who was as dark and bitter as the Lithuanian late autumn weather. At the sound of her voice he hunched in more over his cobbler’s bench. Lost in thought, David rubbed his sparse brown beard and with a hesitant movement, as though there were no other living creature in the room besides him, poked his awl through the toe of a wornout shoe. As was usual for him, he avoided answering any questions that did not have anything to do with his trade, and if he did deem it necessary to answer, he would answer only with a glance from his watery eyes or with a nod of his head. “So why are you silent? Isn’t Sammy your son?” 26 Books from Lithuania My grandfather’s eyes, which were filled with the sadness of autumn, did not reveal any reaction; however, from behind the faded lenses of his horn-rimmed glasses a stingy smile flashed momentarily. David did not waste words. He earned his living with his tools and did not believe it right to hide a single cent of his earnings from his wife. But give away words? Who cared about words anyway? Only unpleasantness and misunderstandings came from words. If you tell those close to you the truth, not only will they be angry with you, they might even put their fists to work at you, too. And if you lied, then you had to hide that lie deep in your heart. It was best to remain silent. It was for good reason that God above bit his tongue. And we sinners too should keep our tongues hidden behind our teeth – you wouldn’t have words enough to express everything you needed to anyway. If he were to emulate anyone it would be God above, and not their neighbour Taibe, who did not shut her mouth the entire day long. “You, Rocha, exercise your brain a moment and think about what would happen if God answered everybody’s questions every day? Our Taibe alone would drive God out of his mind!” “You’ve completely lost your mind, you old fool!” Rocha shouted. “What does God have to do with any of this? I wasn’t asking you about God. That God lives in heaven and that God is not a talker is something I knew already without your having to tell me so. God sits up there in his palace on His golden throne, surrounded by cherubs and angels and holds pleasant conversations with them. He manages at the same time to keep an eye on us sinners from the corner of his eye. Aren’t we polluting his creation, the earth, with our stupid deeds? God does not spend his nights slinking around town with cheap girls and doesn’t hang around the riverside. Leave God alone. His days wear him out as much as a shoemaker’s do. You’d be better off telling me where our beloved son Sammy has gone off to?” Whenever Mama recalled Grandmother Rocha’s monologues, she became inspired and excited. She would tell us of her endless war of words, of her father-in-law; she would pepper the details with little jokes. And in those times it was as though the pain and loss of the war years would wash away and she would grow younger in our eyes. When she told her stories, it was as though she departed from wartorn Vilnius and returned to the pastoral shores of the Vilija River, whose bubbling waters blessed many a pair of lovers. Grigorijus Kanovičius 27 “Has it never occurred to you, oh clever one, that one fine day your son may just bring home a blonde goy with a cross on her chest? He’ll bring his beauty inside, poke you with his elbow and spit out, ‘Dad, this is Morta (or Antanina). Give us our blessing while you’re at it!’ And then what will we do? Will we give our blessing? Or will we chase them out of the house? Will we travel to the church together with Sammy’s brothers, Motlis and Aizikis, and with his sisters, Leja and Chava, to see your old client, Father Vaitkus! Before our eyes the priest will marry them, sprinkle them with some holy water, and we will then ask him and his parishioners to forgive us because we horrible Jews at some time in the ancient past nailed their oh so good God Jesus to the cross with iron nails, which were not even sold or used at that time!” David would calmly listen to his wife’s ranting. He was interested neither in goys nor Jews at that point. Day in and day out he bent his long head with its oval bald pate and gray frizzled hair over his work and puzzled over stranger’s heels and soles, thread, the price of leather, and about his nasty relentless cough that just would not go away. Eventually, for the sake of peace and quiet, he crawled out of his quiet corner and gather his courage to answer her: “Every normal man of Sammy’s age, according to the laws of nature, Rocha, must find the woman he is looking for. Otherwise, how would we breed and multiply? Sometimes the hunt takes a while. Sometimes it happens very quickly.” Satisfied for the peaceful respite he earned from his talk, he wiped his awl on his patched apron, and then added: “I found you right away without even looking for very long. Although, you should have seen how many girls were chasing after me then. I had my eyes full. Our son will find his Rachel. Not even an armed guard could keep him from the matter.” “What matter?” “From the… the kisses and the other thing…” David said nervously. Unlike his waspish wife, whose mouth let loose streams of complaints, curses and dirty words like hornets from a nest, Grandfather David’s talk was clean and pure, like a Passover skullcap. He never spoke meanly because, as he explained to his foul-mouthed clients, when one spoke badly of others, then weeds took root and grew in their soul. 28 Books from Lithuania “Have you forgotten how you and I… Until dawn… Under the Vilija bridge… And then in the spring on the grass. I’ll never forget the pleasure of that. In a word, don’t forget that we made innocent use of our bodies.” “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” Grandmother Rocha spat out angrily. “Innocent use, bodies!” “It’s no shame to speak the truth,” Grandfather David shot back. “Your mother-in-law, my late mother, also did not want you as a daughter-in-law. Oh, how they didn’t want you. They said that you were as nasty as a witch, and that you were too short, and that your chest was flat, too flat to nurse an infant properly, and that you have a mole on your face the size of a ripe strawberry, and that your ass sticks out too far.” He almost choked from having to say so many words. The effort silenced him for a while. However, no matter how much he worked his tongue, it was impossible to change Rocha. She did not dream of a shoemaker’s daughter for her darling son, she dreamt of a princess. She had her sights on the Rothschild’s distant relative or in the worst case scenario Jonava’s miller’s daughter, Zlata. She was set up to inherit her father’s, Mendel Wasserman’s, wealth. She also considered the pharmacist’s, Notas Levit’s step-daughter, Hannah. If that were the case, she, Rocha, who was the victim of dozens of diseases, could buy her medications at a discount… Every single day these hilarious memories of days long past dissipated the clouds in our crowded communal flat on Generalissimo Stalin Boulevard in Vilnius. The local government had placed us, along with two other very different impoverished families, who also had returned to the Motherland from a miserable foreign land, together in one apartment. In the evenings all of us liked to share our memories of our lives before the War. We’d pull out of our memories anything that could push aside the horrific memories and also our new fears and anxieties, which seemed to grow by the day. Crowds of friends and neighbours who had disappeared during the War seemingly without a trace would come crowding in, pushing themselves inside, lining up along the empty hastily painted walls of our communal apartment, which was devoid of any decorations, paintings, mirrors or memorabilia. The faces of murdered mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, preserved in yellowed photographs or family albums that had survived the War through a miracle, poked out at Grigorijus Kanovičius 29 us from all corners, which were stuffed with bundles and bags. They gazed at us, as though they had risen out of the mass burial ditches where they had been shot down. The dead rushed to meet the living in a long awaited reunion. They rushed to meet with those of us who had survived the War by hiding in a foreign land. Here various fates intertwined in a strange manner. There was a bottomless longing and unrequited hope. The past merged with the present. It all promised unexpected new challenges and at the same time was full of cruel and unexpected dangers. And yet, this consuming past, which to the Jewish soul since time immemorial has been a wellspring of comfort and solace, was something much more than an uncertain future. All the people in our communal apartment waded into their pasts with a joyful eagerness, as one wades into the sun-warmed River Vilija. This river flowed peacefully downstream, carrying with it all our lost memories, as well as memories of a life that could never be returned to us. The river of our past invited us to dive into the ragged bushes that grew along its shores, back into the wilderness of first rendezvous.and first loves. Evenings, in the courtyard of the communal flat on Generalissimo Stalin Boulevard both sets of my grandparents, my parents, all my aunts and uncles – and along with them all of our dead—sat down together at one table. Their voices, their manner of expressing themselves, which my playful mother never got enough of parodying, rings like a faraway echo. Often those voices did not die down until dawn. My mother would efficiently turn back time like a clock as far back as possible from the frozen steppes of Siberia, from the cries of hungry jackals, from the poisonous coal-dust covered Urals, from Vilnius, which was crowded together and so foreign to us. “A person is alive as long as he can remember that which he should never forget,” my mother liked to say. Translated by Laima Vincė S I G I TA S P A R U L S K I S Mano tikėjimo iltys | The Fangs of My Convictions Photo by Vladas Braziūnas S Sigitas Parulskis | b. 1965 s e l e c t e d t r a n s l at i o n s German: Drei Sekunden Himmel: novel, translated by Claudia Sinnig, Berlin: Claassen, 2009 Hungarian: Mormogó fal, translated by Laczházi Aranka, Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2012 Italian: Tre secondi di cielo, translated by Birutė Žindžiūtė-Michelini and Guido Michelini. Milano: Isbn Edizioni, 2005, 189 p. Latvian: Trīs sekundes debesu, translated by Dace Meiere, Rīga: AGB, 2004 Polish: Trzy sekundy nieba, translated by Izabela Korybut-Daszkiewicz, Warszawa: Czytelnik, 2008 Swedish: Tre sekunder himmel, translated by Jonas Öhman, Lund: Ariel, 2005 En hund av marmor: poems, translated by Mikael Nydahl, Liana Ruokytė, Gunnar Wærness, Carina Nynäs, Anna Harrison, Lund: Ariel, 2005 igitas Parulskis is a cult writer, one of the most popular and most read contemporary Lithuanian authors. He has been active in the Lithuanian literature scene for over twenty years. He made his debut in 1990 with his book of poetry titled Iš ilgesio visa tai (It’s All Based on Longing), and wrote poetry, plays, and dramatizations during the first decade of independence. His work became popular and reached cult status after his first novel about the Soviet Army, titled Trys sekundės dangaus (Three Seconds of Heaven, 2002), and Nuogi drabužiai (Nude Clothes, 2002), a collection of essays. The author was awarded the National Literature Prize in 2004. Parulskis’ writing frequently finds itself ranked highly on lists of the best or most popular books. The collection of essays titled Sraigė su beisbolo lazda (The Snail with the Baseball Bat) was nominated as the book of the year in 2007. Parulskis’ work stands out by its roughness an unflattering tone, its unadorned language, its sharp irony and self-irony, often giving way to coarse cynicism, a strong sense of existentialism, and reflections on the plight of man in today’s postmodern or post-humanistic epoch. The Fangs of My Convictions is a multi-layered and multi-genre book. With documentary-like detail, this often existential and ironic Parulskis essay describes the recollections of a Soviet, i.e. a twentieth-century, man, and additionally includes I am Love, a theatrical monologue. The writer himself suggests to the reader that these words come from observation, experience, and imagination. Within them, behind the dense (self-conscious) irony and veil of light sarcasm lies solid life experience and emotion, a variety of manifestations of being, reflections, realities, and recollections. The better part of the texts display Parulskis’ usual clear and evident thinking and writing style, next to which appears a new, and almost cynical fatigue of the narrator, that doesn’t stand-out, but reveals itself slowly – after all, convictions have fangs, but hold no promises. keywords: writing that comes from observation, experience, and imagination; life’s existentialism, accompanied by irony and self-irony, sarcasm; a degree of fatigue; a little bit of hope(lessness) about life; many recollections from the twentieth century. Sigitas Parulskis mano tikėjimo iltys: essays Vilnius: Alma littera, 2013, 212 p. www.almalittera.lt 33 The Fangs of My Convictions By Sigitas Parulskis I’d like to recount a tragicomic incident. It happened a few years ago when my children, having just entered their pre-teen years, asked me to take them to the Vichy Water Park. Of course, an excursion to a place like that over the waters instilled in me a sense of despair, but when your t-shirt says “Divorced Daddy,” it’s accompanied by a feeling of guilt that requires fitting, and sometimes even extra-ordinary, degrees of sacrifice. I won’t tell you about all the various forms of torture found at the water park. They resemble one of your nightmares where all your chances of waking have been used up. Just the idea that everyone is loafing about half-naked (keeping in mind women’s clothing fashions, which sometimes have them traipsing around almost completely naked is horrible and a form of torture). Ever since I was a child I had a fear of getting stuck in a pipe, and here, if you please – at the water park one is perpetually stuffed into coloured tubes that look like pipes, as if you were nothing more than sausage filling—without ever being certain that the devil doesn’t await you at the other end, a butcher’s knife and a bag of spices at the ready. I don’t remember the name of that one terrible water slide, just the long, drawn-out queue of parents and children beside it. There you wait for the next person to come down on this dish that resembles a raft, and then you take this dish-raft and climb the stairs to who knows where. If hell exists, then it must be more or less like this—a state of perpetual humiliation and embarrassment; besides you’re surrounded by the damp and everyone’s naked. When our turn came, the woman who’d just descended, seemingly overcome by ecstasy, didn’t even plan to surrender her cursed piece of rubber. A typical Jurate, a mermaid from Lithuanian mythology: all scaly, green-haired and shiny. I’ll wager my shitty pants that those weren’t legs below the piss and 34 Books from Lithuania phlegm-filled water, but a fish’s tail. And this mythological Jurate digs her shining Swarovski crystals into the rubber and won’t let me have it because, you see, she wants to slide down one more time with her dreadful, mermaid descendants. The man standing behind me says sorry, bro’, but the next raft is mine. Meaning that now I’ll have to go to the end of the long line and wait once more for that damned piece of rubber. Because the faces of the other parents standing in line are fierce and stony, “the next one’s mine!” engraved on their faces like gravestones, too. Give the masses the smallest opportunity, and they will immediately trounce you, take you down, tear you into bits, and pull your guts out with their teeth. Meanwhile, my children with their sad eyes contemplate their father (damnit! if I could just disappear!), and in their eyes the question shines forth, “What now, Dad? Are you going to screw us over once more?” Hell. So there it was, I had to stand up and fight. “Miss,” I piped up, as politely as I could, “This raft legitimately belongs to me. I’ve conscientiously stood in line for it for five hours. There’s no other way,” and I tore the rubber object from her claws. S i g i ta s P a r u l s k i s 35 She gave me a look as if I had just violated her innocence in the most vulgar way imaginable. Her eyes paled and then filled with bloody fury. “Edvardas!” she shrieked suddenly, “Eddie! Come here quickly! Hurry, you rotten asshole!” Shame. Humiliation. The naked masses behind me are enjoying themselves. And there I am, a hundred kilo male, with a yellowed university diploma in some drawer back home, behaving like a common criminal, robbing the weaker sex in front of the whole world. And then there’s still Eddie! What if he’s double my weight? What if his fists are like pieces of lumber, and his head is filled with concrete instead of brains? There must be a reason why this creature in front of me is calling him an asshole. It could be that that’s exactly what he is, and he’s not embarrassed by it one bit nor cares what anyone thinks of him. With his enormous ass he’ll sit on me, submerge me under the water right here, until my lungs fill with piss and phlegm. And the masses will roar and shriek in satisfaction. On the other hand, how can I let myself look like such a loser in front of the kids? Already the fact that I live with someone other than their mother is a monstrous blow to my reputation as a father, and now there’s this wretched raft and the mythological creature tearing it from my hands, and somewhere between the coloured pipes the wandering brute, named Eddie. That’s how you can lose what shred is left of any dignity and honour. Say what you like, but even a hundred hamburgers and Coca Colas won’t win me back any respect. I tore the raft from the woman’s clutches and took off running up the slippery and steep steps towards the garishly painted purple artificial sky. Driving home, I unsuccessfully rationalized with my children: “Hey kids, in truth, I don’t know the best way to behave in such a situation. We usually want both the wolf to be fed and the sheep to be healthy, but often life presents us with situations where there is only one choice; when you have to choose whether to turn the other cheek and wait for the blow, or whether – turning the other cheek – to strike your opponent with your head so that blood gushes from his nose. Does the term, “conscientious citizen” suggest only a naked egoism? That if things go well for me, things are going well for others too. Because when I am doing well, I try to do good for others and 36 Books from Lithuania so on? Because if I’m doing poorly myself, how can I do something good? If I fare badly, then I fall into a rage, I spread poison and pollute my surroundings and myself as well. Perhaps real awareness only comes to us at a time, when being in a bad way ourselves, we still want to do good for others?” From such a pseudo philosophical tautology I begin to feel badly. I swat myself across the face with my ears and fall silent. The kids are silent too and stare out the car windows. Both of them. No support. In any event, those water parks are Satan’s invention on this earth. For a few days I didn’t feel like myself. Finally, unable to take it any longer, I spoke about this with a representative of Christian philosophy, a theology teacher, a person on whom even flies avoid landing. I asked him – no, I didn’t ask him anything, as I recall; I just complained and reproached him: “It’s all very well for those saints of yours who lurk in those monasteries. It’s all very well for them to do good, it’s all very well for them to commit no sins! There are neither rafts for them to snatch away from women, nor the chance to drink too much, nor over-eat, nor to pass gas when visiting. There, in a smoky cell, I too could be a saint.” “Everyone has their own path;” he answered, “some are called to live in monasteries, others – in the world” Just you try to learn something from these people. In my cellphone next to his name I wrote… yes, a not very polite word, but certainly a funny one, and now, every time he calls, it never fails to improve my disposition. At least those holy men are good for something. I told the story about the raft and my kids to a Buddhist. He remained silent, then he smiled. “And what is it you want anyway?” he asked. “I want to be virtuous, but I don’t want to be a louse.” “So what do you do?” “I suffer.” He quietly took a chunk of brick, found a rock lying nearby, and began to rub the piece of brick against the rock. “What are you doing?” I asked. I’m posing the question, but I already know that he’s preparing to play some dirty trick on me. “I’m trying to make a mirror out of the brick” S i g i ta s P a r u l s k i s 37 “Ridiculous,” I said, “You can rub and rub as much as you want, and you won’t make a mirror.” I’m talking, but again I’m aware that this is some sort of fucking allegory. “Is this some sort of fucking allegory?” I ask. “Yes,” he confirms. “So that’s your answer?” He threw away the piece of brick and left. How all those meek and wise people of the world on whom even flies won’t land piss me off! Meanwhile, you should stand there with a rubber raft in your teeth, destroying your grey matter with the vague poison of repentance and shame. I’m going to go and deliberately make a mirror from a brick. Covered in flies, from head to toe. Translated by Dainius Šileika UNDINĖ RADZEVIČIŪTĖ Žuvys ir drakonai | Fish and Dragons Photo by Algimantas Aleksandravičius U Undinė Radzevičiūtė | b. 1967 tr a ns l ati ons English: There will Be no Baden-Baden; Walter Schultz: short stories, translated by Ada Valaitis, Vilnius: The Vilnius Review, 2011 (29) ndinė Radzevičiūtė débuted in 2003 with her short novel Strekaza, which in the Lithuanian literary scene of the time appeared as something new and unexpected, sobering from the prevalent emotional romanticism, thus a breath of fresh air. It is remarkable that after more than a decade, the author’s writings still retain and reward their reader with that same refreshing gulp of good literature. Radzevičiūtė stands out as a master of sparing yet meaningful word usage, gifted not only with a subtle sense of humour, exceptional style, but also a detached and individualistic bearing, that is said to be “far from the beaten path of standard Lithuanian literature.” Despite this, the author’s writing often appears on lists of the most creative and best books, which are determined by the votes of both readers and literary critics. The novel Fish and Dragons was published in 2013, and stands out from the rest of Radzevičiūtė’s work not only for its size – it is her first novel of such length (407 p.), but also for its scope – having brought together the ways of the East and the West, to show the different and not always consistent ways they existed together at different times. The novel is made up of two different stories: that of the Jesuit Giuseppe Castiglione, who lived at the Chinese emperor’s court in the 18th century, and the everyday needs of three generations of city women in the 21st century. Through these discordant narratives, their intersection and collision, the unique cosmopolitan nature of the novel is achieved, recounting how the West meets the East, and vice versa. keywords: economy of thought, irreproachable irony and the sting of sudden cynicism; concentration and a pointed essence; multi-layered meaning; the mastery of literary fragments, passages, and details; subtle cultural lining; attention to cultural uniqueness. Undinė Radzevičiūtė žuvys ir drakonai: novel Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2013, 408 p. www.baltoslankos.lt 41 Fish and Dragons By Undinė Radzevičiūtė The French Jesuits say: Chinese pavilions are now being built in a number of places. In Europe. But the Chinese themselves do not in the least desire to conquer the world with their pavilions. Or by any other means. Castiglione needed fifty years to understand: one can take only material things or discoveries to China from the West. Discoveries, in particular. The Chinese like discoveries very much, just that they don’t at all like a discovery that “hangs in the air.” This is why the sixth Qing emperor did not allow the building of interior staircases in the palaces that were designed, or to be more precise, copied, by Castiglione. The Chinese can’t live or sleep on the second floor. But standing on the balcony of the second floor, leaning his silken stomach against the balustrade, was something that the sixth Qing emperor rather liked. The Chinese can live only on the earth. Europeans, in their opinion, differ from the Chinese in that they agree to “live in the air.” But in the opinion of most Chinese, no one lives in the sky. It is only possible to bring things or discoveries to China, while it is impossible to bring faith. Perhaps that is the way it is because the Jesuits brought their faith to China on sea trade routes? Perhaps they needed to look for special routes – perhaps routes of faith? 42 Books from Lithuania After all, it’s said that Khan Buddhism was brought to China by one man. On foot. The Chinese enjoy Western achievements like a ripe plum, while they cleverly spit out faith on the ground like an unnecessary pit. They spit it out and cover it up with their foot in an infertile spot, where it gradually gets mixed in with the dust and becomes it. The emperor’s palaces and higher classes don’t need religion. Culture is enough for them. Their own. The ancient one. And those that are foreign are only for the emperor’s entertainment. They live with their past. And they consider any and all changes unavoidable. However totally unnecessary. It took Father Castiglione fifty years to lose his faith. To lose his faith that Sino-Christian civilization is possible. Most likely… Most likely no one will manage to convince the Chinese that they also… That they are also to blame for Jesus being nailed to the cross. It took Castiglione fifty years to understand: neither the Portuguese nor the French have influence in China, and never will. Chinese culture is like a porous sponge: it absorbs all innovations and nothing changes in the least. And it absorbs not only innovations, but also the people that come there. And yet another thing became totally clear to Castiglione – he arrived here as a Jesuit, and would most likely die as a painter. The emperor’s painter. That which was merely a tool, merely a tool to reach a goal once his strength was sapped, became the only attainable reachable goal. After all, the Chinese emperors regarded the clergy who arrived there… Not as those bringing teaching, not as teachers, but as talented barbarians. Almost as children. Undinė Radzevičiūtė 43 You won’t move Europe to China and you won’t demonstrate the true strength of the Church. The emperor will always see only the envoys that have changed into Chinese clothing. The emperors were not afraid of allowing them in because they knew: they won’t be able to cross yet another, invisible wall of China… “What are you doing here?” asked Grandmother Amigorena, once again entering Shasha’s room without knocking. “I’m writing,” Shasha said. “Writing what?” “This and that.” “Perhaps it would be best if you didn’t write anymore,” said Grandmother Amigorena. As any person who has tried to create something can attest: there never were, there aren’t and, quite likely never will be any conditions for creative work, Shasha thought. And he said it aloud. To himself. “There’s a bombing, then a flood, then revolution, then love, then something else. *** For fifty years in China his brain was being coated with a transparent lacquer. Each day that lacquer was brushed on with thin, Chinese strokes. Layer after layer. At the beginning Castiglione didn’t even notice it. But it was being brushed. Layer after layer, until it couldn’t be peeled off or damaged. And to Castiglione, and not only just to him at the mission, it seems that Chinese wisdom and rituals are from there. At the mission when you say from there, you look up at the ceiling. Many agree: Confucius could be considered a saint. Many agree with the idea that the Chinese are a nation that received a certain vision. It received a vision and created a religion of wisdom equal to Christianity in strength. Many agree: the Chinese way of life is the best of all possible ways. 44 Books from Lithuania Castiglione understands: fifty years have passed. And in spite of it all he hasn’t turned from a fish into a dragon. Neither he, nor any other. Jesuit. Perhaps only a few barely visible marks have appeared. But he won’t manage to fully become a dragon anymore. And perhaps also… he never could have. Although. The Chinese lacquer is still being brushed on his soul. Every day. With thin Chinese strokes. The little lacquerer is most likely Leng Mei. And the great one? Perhaps he hadn’t even touched him. *** He no longer dreamed about the ship. This most likely meant that he wasn’t waiting for it anymore. But he was still tormented by nighttime wheezing. The nighttime herbal tea from the Chinese doctor would calm him. But only somewhat. But could you trust Chinese doctors? After all, they made medicine from snake oil and tiger genitalia, black bear bile and people’s nails, earwax and dental plaque. Castiglione thought so much about his own suffering that he didn’t even notice that the peaches had finished blossoming. Now he awaited only one thing. The Chinese call this waiting preparation. Preparation for turning into a strange creature. But not anytime soon. Or was it very soon? Through his long life Castiglione understood yet another thing: the inner distances between people change all the time. Now they are close, then they are far away, now they are far away, then they are… Now he wanted to be buried with Attiret. Undinė Radzevičiūtė 45 After all, he won’t return either, right? Now Castiglione wanted them to be buried next to each other, as one would be buried with one’s wife. So it wouldn’t be so lonely lying in China. *** One morning he awoke feeling totally different. Calm and unable to repeat Loyola’s words anymore. Even those he knew well. The struggle with himself was over. *** Grandmother Amigorena sat in front of the television and cried. She was crying quietly. Using only her eyes. “What happened?” asked Miki tenderly. “Yves Saint Laurent has died,” said Grandmother Amigorena. Translated by Jayde Will TOMAS REKYS Sovietų armijoje | In the Soviet Army Photo from the personal archive of Tomas Rekys T Tomas Rekys | b. 1954 omas Rekys is a philologist who has been living in Chicago for more than a decade. He is familiar to Lithuanian readers through the essays he has published in the Lithuanian Writers’ Union journal, Metai, such as “A Philologist’s Letters from America” and “In the Soviet Army.” These were collected in the memoir, In the Soviet Army, which was published in 2013. In the memoir, Rekys documents his two years of service in the Soviet army (1973–1975) from beginning to end. The absurdity of the Soviet system and its sobering ironies are laid bare, fascinating the reader through the artful reflections of calculated memory and internal feelings. The focus of the book is on the most important of Soviet ideology’s goals: the formation of a decent Soviet individual, or in other words – ideological indoctrination. When asked during an interview if he learned anything useful in the army, Rekys replied that he got no use out of his time there, “other than that it aged me by two years. That’s it.” In light of recent political events, along with the fearful tension created around the world by the Ukrainian/Russian conflict, this book can serve as a kind of guidebook for understanding the Russian mentality, and an ideology which hasn’t changed since the Cold War. keywords: authentic memories, unique experiences, methodic and systematic description of the reality of Soviet life, a detailed and precise documentation of Soviet army life, emphasizing its absurdity. Tomas Rekys sovietų armijoje: memoir Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2013, 264 p. www.baltoslankos.lt 49 In the Soviet Army By Tomas Rekys A CAREER IN DECLINE Once the honourable zampolit became concerned about my spiritual state. Perhaps because his noble mission of educating was coming to an end, he needed to hurry and finish his days in a meaningful manner. “Aleksandr, join the Komsomol! What’s going on with you – everything’s fine with you, no reprimands, you serve well, but you’re not in the Komsomol?” said the ideological leader with wonder. “In other words, it’s not fine, if you’re not a Komsomolets,” I said, trying to resist. “Yeah, right – don’t contradict me. I see you refused to go AWOL to see the girls at night…” he continued with a knowing smile. Even I had to laugh – nevertheless because of that stupid incident there were rumours and it reached the ears of the leadership. They had, in other words, a first-year weak-spirited recruit reporting on us. However, laughter brings people closer together. The zampolits knew their methods of recruiting and getting information very well, and Tiulpanov was on the whole an example that was unmatched. Of course, this entertaining misunderstanding was not the primary argument for my political consciousness, but it was still something – at least material that serves as an introduction. I was raised anti-Soviet, I wasn’t even a Pioneer, all the more my becoming a Komsomol youth would already have been against the rules – a disregarding of the levels of subordination. To not become a Pioneer was hard, almost impossible, because no one asked you. They would line up the entire class in the gym and register you with all the fanfare. But I was somehow able to get out of it and I was proud of that. I was a rare exception! Of course, I kept quiet about it, precisely because it was an exception. 50 Books from Lithuania An unofficial assessing of political subordination had become commonplace under the Soviets. You were a Little Octobrist simply because you were born. You were a Pioneer because you simply were. You were a Komsomolets because you were respectable, and respectability was necessarily linked to political consciousness. And this was already a noticeable narrowing of the ranks of values. From the common masses up to the chosen, the best. That’s who the communists were! Thus, not everyone was worth the latter two initiations, it wasn’t just anyone to whom they would be offered. You needed to earn them, and if a person knew “his place”, was serious and decent, then some concerned representative would accost you – why weren’t you totally perfect yet? I didn’t resist Tiulpanov’s cajoling and persuasion for long, though his tactics were rather primitive (which is why they were so convincing…). So all of this reeked of a certain Gestapo-like spirit, which is known from movies, however modest life experience sufficed. At the beginning they talk nice, later they imply that if you don’t agree with the good they are offering you, then you aren’t so good after all. Perhaps you are actually bad? Then it’s only the last statement that is missing – perhaps you are anti-Soviet then? They wouldn’t say it like that, but they would create an atmosphere, leaving out implied things with a weighty tone. Then again the persuasion, talking nice… Cheap tricks, but they affect your psyche. And all the more the authority of the one speaking! It was Tiulpanov himself, such a big-wig, devoting so much attention to you – a person becomes uncomfortable responding, putting him in a difficult situation. Apparently he was very concerned about some check mark in his papers, or so I thought. For his biography and his career. See how many souls he’s saved! I decided – alright, be a hero. And I joined… On that occasion I also got the rank insignia for an Efreitor. Wonderful. The total degradation of the individual, capitulation and collapse… On the day of joining a few officers sat down at the table in a festive manner in the Lenin Room, with all the soldiers free from guard duty herded into the chairs just opposite. There weren’t any nonKomsomolets, it seems the only one that was left was Abdula. I remember that Batia wasn’t there either. Perhaps it was a coincidence, but it could also have been on purpose – in observation of one politically subtle nuance. It was thought that the spheres of the activities of the leadership and the ideological party were separate, though Tomas Rek ys 51 they were united by a common principle and goals. The autonomy of the party and the leadership was expressed during ceremonies with certain specific actions that marked freedom and democracy. The highest-ranking leaders would yield to the rank and file in the party elections, while they were totally unnecessary in the modest issues of the Komsomol Youth. Soviet democracy was expressed by a conscientious people (which is what the slogans proclaimed), which is why they chose only the best when they voted, i.e. party representatives (communists, as there were no other parties). However the campaign slogans declared: “Let Us Vote for the Communists and Non-Party Bloc Candidates!” So theoretically non-communists could aspire to the government. Thus the participation of the government in some closed party meetings accordingly was not always welcomed or in that case the government was equal to the rank and file. Well, these are really subtly intertwined nuances of democracy and demagogy. It’s worth mentioning separately here the specifics of Soviet voting. For today’s generation it might seem unbelievable that there was only one name written in the voting ballot… It would seem, what kind of voting is this, but they all went – and even all dressed up, smiling. Voting was first and foremost a celebration of the people, but most important – just try to not go… However, that by no means meant that non-Party names couldn’t be on the ballot. And that’s not a paradox. In any case the name was chosen (decided upon!) by the most conscious of the party strata. And after that – there was elementary existential reality: having gotten into the upper echelons of the government you had to act accordingly, i.e. join the Party… That piece of paper essentially called you there. This kind of political reality is characteristic not only of the Soviets. Each of the chosen ones that passed over the threshold of the ruling ideology’s (or in general the government’s) palace was forced to forget his promises, if they sometimes didn’t totally suit the essence of the system. The chosen one’s mind, honour and conscience already began to be controlled by the so-called Law, the Constitution and the all-encompassing lofty setting. These subjects embodied the well-being and justice of the people, and it was precisely because of this you could not change anything. Or, in putting it in the more blunt terms of our day, it meant impeachment… This is the kind of phenomenon whereby an unsuitable leader is removed by tacking whatever you want on him, 52 Books from Lithuania without saying the real truth. This was particularly characteristic of Soviet times – he became ill or went on his well-deserved rest. Now in these times of openness, impeachment is generally accompanied by moral and criminal indictments, which in general high society never lacks, though the essence can be expressed with a simple folk saying – the pushing and shoving at the trough… And at the same time it’s ideological consciousness. The people endorse the party’s chosen ones! That is the essence of real voting. And it’s not even that. The highest form of consciousness would express itself by putting the ballot in the ballot box without even having read it at all! It is similar to what goes on during open voting – the vote is unanimous, though not all have heard what was talked about. It goes without saying that it was only the party leadership that needed this kind of “voting”, in order to turn a blind eye to things. Everyone play-acted life, democracy to one another, filled out reports, checked things off in journals concerning the plans and initiatives that had been carried out. And the “conscious” people simply didn’t fight with the powerful. Today ballots are read and even discussed out loud, hoping for some sort of changes. They, of course, do occur (with voting as an example of this), the names change, just for some reason nothing essentially changes. Through my initiation, everything also took place in a democratic manner, according to the rules. Supposedly it still wasn’t clear whether I was worthy to be accepted into the Komsomol Youth. It wasn’t just simply blind voting, as my candidacy was suggested by Tiulpanov himself. Into the ranks of the Komsomol with the ideological consideration of the Party! One of the officers stood up and said some sort of important introduction for the opening of the gathering. He stated that my candidacy had to be confirmed by the collective, indicating their motivation. A necessary requirement was the recommendation of three Komsomol Youth or two Communists. However it was pure formality, as Tiulpanov stood for a dozen party members – and that was a fact, which had to be ensured by a formal discussion of the collective. The first to do it unasked was Liocha, who cast his motivational remark in the strange style of that gang of rascals: “Svoj paren’!” (He’s our man!) Someone laughed, but the zampolit, having already managed to become flushed, demanded sobriety. Tomas Rek ys 53 “He strums the guitar good,” Denis quipped, then the zampolit became totally red, and Denis avoided punishment only because it would have ruined the festive mood. They asked some young Muslim soldier to provide an argument, and that was the right solution, because as a first-year recruit he wouldn’t have the courage to make jokes. “Um… weee…” he said timidly and afraid to anger the leadership, “Aleksandr is a good person, he isn’t mean to us…” Then the first-year recruits nodded their heads in agreement, and began whispering to one another. Just that the zampolit was still not convinced. He himself took the initiative. “Well, I understand,” he began lecturing with a put-on seriousness, “your personal sentiments, however a Komsomol member cannot be decided upon only due to aspects of character alone. A Komsomol member is something more. It’s first of all ideological consciousness, an understanding of the call of serving the Fatherland…” By no means do I remember everything, just that some of the officers continued to speak, and they were already carrying on accordingly, according to party consciousness, adding to the zampolit’s thoughts in one way or another. So I was accepted, naturally, with the unanimous vote of the collective. It was only Denis that dared to whisper to Dubin who was sitting next to him, joking that perhaps they could abstain – I mean – it’s a democracy! However with that joke he got smacked in the back of the neck fron Liocha who was sitting behind him – enough of acting stupid already! I still had to show the most important motive for this behaviour of mine myself. To this end, a specific book of Komsomol Youth rules proved useful, which Tiulpanov himself had slipped to me before the meeting. From the many important sentences – slogans – in it I had to choose one. On Tiulpanov’s recommendation I chose one: “I want to meet our bright future – Communism – in the first ranks of the youth!” So onwards! The rank of Efreitor had been achieved… That Tiulpanov is such a bastard, I thought to myself. While coercing me he based his argument on my personal qualities, but when the collective needed an argument – the requirement for party consciousness appeared from out of nowhere. He needed a check mark, and everything else he could have cared less about. Translated by Jayde Will DA NA S S Ė L I S Provincijos detektyvas | A Mystery in the Provinces D Danas Sėlis | b. 19 anas Sėlis, who debuted in 2013, is the most mysterious of contemporary Lithuanian writers, having decided to remain anonymous and to hide his real identity under a modest pen name. Having a double meaning, the pen name is a play on words: the first means “to sneak, or to stalk”, which may indicate to the inquisitive that the author likes to stalk the lives of others, noticing the details of their existence. In its second meaning, the name refers to a Baltic tribe which inhabited the northern part of Lithuania up to the fifteenth century – most of the action takes part in this part of Lithuania – is this a hint to the author’s identity? The eventful intrigue of A Mystery in the Provinces takes place within this former Sėlis territory, in the modern town of Rokiškis and its environs. The action of the novel captures the reader right from the beginning, and the fast-paced story unfolds before the reader’s eyes with all its surprising and frightening events lying under the facade of a sleepy provincial town. For the female journalist named Tilda, the unremarkable story of the Palaukė Nursing Home (where two women residents have gone missing) will twist itself into an unpredictable tangle in which danger and a breathless series of events will dominate until the final page, and beyond. This lively and attractive novel bears witness to the fact that every small town contains crime stories worthy of a TV serial. A Mystery in the Provinces might be the Lithuanian equivalent of the British Midsomer Murders – the excellent text of the novel proves the point. keywords: a compellingly-woven plot; crime-fiction suspense; sympathetic characters; strong narrative drive; focus on the life of a town and its inhabitants. Danas Sėlis provincijos detektyvas: crime fiction Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2013, 272 p. www.tytoalba.lt 57 A Mystery in the Provinces By Danas Sėlis Needle stepped into Tilda’s house exactly twenty minutes later. “I hope this won’t be a wasted trip,” he grumbled, pulling out a treat for Bee from the pocket of his jumper. Like some sort of slut turned over on its back, Bee was sprawled out on the floor, and out of the corner of its eye began watching whether Needle was planning on scratching its belly. “I don’t understand how a dog you’ve seen barely two or three times ends up liking you so much,” said Tilda in astonishment. “Dogs sense good people,” said Needle wheezing, bending over with difficulty near the female dog wagging its tail, aiming to please. After stroking Bee’s stomach a few times, Needle finally gave it a treat. The dog seized its gift and ran to its bed satisfied. Tilda led Needle into the living room. Tomas was getting ready to go back to the village, where evening chores were awaiting him, and besides, he did not want to make Needle feel embarrassed. After Needle got comfortable in the armchair, Tilda asked if he wanted something to drink. The man nodded silently in the direction of the tea cup and looked at the girl with a questioning glance. This time she didn’t need to be forced to talk. Before the inspector’s arrival, she had promised herself to tell him everything she knew. “I didn’t tell you everything about the missing women after my first visit to the pension,” Tilda said, throwing herself brusquely into the armchair. “Is that so? You didn’t have to. I’m not a priest,” Needle said, shrugging his shoulders. For a moment, it seemed to Tilda that Needle didn’t care about her observations and suspicions. Afterwards she remembered the inspector’s tactics: acting as if he didn’t care about the story at all, this man would encourage people to rush to prove their case. In this 58 Books from Lithuania way many a person had confided things to him that just a minute before they hadn’t even planned on telling him. “I know. All the more since what I noticed could be total nonsense,” Tilda said, ensuring herself just in case. Needle sipped his tea in silence and didn’t ask anything, as if he didn’t care at all about Tilda’s story. “When I went to the pension the first time, an old woman, a ward of the pension, made a nuisance of herself,” Tilda said and fell silent. “Oh dear,” she thought, “that sounds stupid. After all, psychiatric patients are often curious like kids and they aren’t scared of anything, so getting into people’s faces is normal for them.” “To you, she stood out from all the other inhabitants of the institution?” Needle asked. Breaking his own rules, Sidas Guoba decided to help Tilda out this time. “She stuck to me and kept on claiming that her friend Ela had disappeared. Supposedly someone had kidnapped her friend Ela.” Needle was all attention. Danas Sėlis 59 Photo by Asta Uldukytė Rokiškis, Central Square “So…,” after a short pause the girl spoke up once again. “Hana ordered me to go to the pension and talk with Bona.” While telling her story, Tilda became more and more surprised at herself. The thought came to her: “And why was I such a fool from the very beginning? Why did I judge the events to be like separate beads instead of a necklace?” “You know, Needle, Lena, the pension psychiatrist, didn’t want to let me go in alone to visit either Ela or Bona. However, I was able to get rid of the psychiatrist, and I did visit Ela alone.” “In other words, Ela didn’t disappear anywhere?” Getting interested, Needle leaned forward. “She most likely had disappeared,” Tilda replied. “In Ela’s apartment complex I saw a woman sitting in a wheelchair and being cared for by a nurse. I became convinced that it was Bona’s friend Ela, I just was surprised that the woman had make-up on her face. A kilo of make-up… and her eyebrows… Sidas, her eyebrows had been pencilled on.” “And?” 60 Books from Lithuania “That woman reminded me of someone, I just couldn’t remember who and I didn’t ascribe it any importance. I wanted to bring that annoying little Bona into the room of the woman who had supposedly vanished and show her that no one had disappeared anywhere. However, it turned out that at that time Bona had been taken away in an ambulance because she had had a heart attack. Afterwards the gardener assured me that supposedly Ela was well taken care of there. It was only today I found out that Bona had died in the hospital, and before her death sent me the message through the caregiver that the disabled woman in the wheelchair was not her friend Ela at all, but some other woman. And then I remembered who that woman they tried to pass off on me reminded me of.” “Ok, so get it out then!” Needle urged impatiently. “She looked like Ela Uta Lenekerė, the wife of the owner of our newspaper.” Needle looked at Tilda in admiration. “I can’t help but be amazed at your ability to notice details and pull them together into a whole,” he said. “You think so? But the penchant to connect details sometimes gets in the way or even leads you off track, because the result can be illogical or downright ridiculous. For example, the way Ela Uta Lenekerė turned up in the pension. If she was put up in Palaukė, that means that she experienced adventures at the time that we don’t know about. After all, people end up in Palaukė only after compulsory treatment in a specialized psychiatric hospital and when they are allocated outpatient treatment by court order.” Tilda and Needle stared at one another for some time, as if they were listening to the grinding of the cogs turning in the other’s head. Tilda was the first to say something. “At one point there were rumours that Lenekeris’ wife was having some health problems. For this reason she supposedly up and disappeared from public life and the pages of the glamour magazines of the elite. From that one could infer that she perhaps had some sort of mental illness and at first found herself in a psychiatric hospital, then in the Palaukė pension.” “That’s logical,” Needle said in agreement, “however why was a woman with make-up planted there instead of her? Where did the original disappear? You think Bona’s stories weren’t just delusions? I mean, that Ela disappeared or was kidnapped?” Danas Sėlis 61 “Now a number of things come to my mind. We would need to check them. However, I won’t get anything out of anyone at the pension. No one will tell me pleading confidentiality, but for you the door is wide open.” Needle gave a wry smile and inquired: “There’s just one tiny problem: on what basis does the police have the right to be interested in Ela Uta Lenekerė?” Tilde snorted. “Needle, you surprise me. You think that’s a problem?” “Alright then, alright. I’ll think of something,” Needle grumbled. He took the last sip of his tea and began shifting around in his armchair, trying to get up. Tilda kept him back with a wave of her hand. “Wait, wait. Where are you rushing off to? I think I have the right to at least ask how it’s going in the search for the other two missing women.” “You’re allowed to ask,” Needle bleated. “So I will ask: how’s it going in the search for the two missing women from the Palaukė pension? Let me remind you that I presented you, on a silver platter, part of a piece of jewelry from one of them that was found near Lake Sartai.” Strange, but it appeared to Tilda that Needle was avoiding her gaze. “Aha… Nothing new for the time being. We partially searched the area. We also surveyed Liucija Novak’s farmstead. The widow, and the potter, and his friend claimed they hadn’t seen the elderly women there. However, I feel that they were there, so definitely we’ll find some traces of something. For the time being we are on the lookout…” “Why don’t you go and look for them instead of just watching?” Tilda said angrily. “Because both farmsteads had already been officially searched,” Needle said slowly, as if he were explaining it to a school girl. “You need to search a little bit differently there. I hope that you won’t demand that I reveal the subtleties of criminal intelligence work?” “Heaven forbid!” Tilda said, waving her hands dismissively. “We haven’t arrested anyone yet, because there are preparations going on for a big event at Oktavijus Kuolas’s farmstead. The daughters of our senior inspector will be there,” Needle said with a crooked smile. “What are you making those silly faces for?” Tilda said in surprise. 62 Books from Lithuania “The government won’t allow a raid on the farmstead? It’s not a lost cat we’re looking for, it’s people. Wait a minute, you’re hiding something!” Though Tilda only had a hunch that the inspector was keeping mum about something, as always she trusted her intuition. “Nothing that I can tell you,” Needle said, still struggling in the armchair and trying to free his hundred and twenty kilo body. “Listen, I don’t believe that Novak said she didn’t see any women, who were at least somewhat similar to those who went missing from the pension. I mean, I talked with her recently after all. She told me the total opposite. I don’t understand why she would have to hide what she had seen from the police.” “One can’t get away from you so easily, can one?” Needle, who had in one way or another gotten himself out of the armchair, appeared to contemplate whether he was breaking the rules if he revealed undisclosed official information. “Just let’s don’t start this, after all you know: if it hasn’t been disclosed yet, I will keep as silent as the grave,” Tilda said and felt like a child nagging for a piece of candy. “We didn’t talk with Novak,” the inspector grunted, still avoiding Tilda’s gaze and looking over at Bee. You see, he wanted to scratch under her ears before saying goodbye. “What?” Tilda sensed a body signal that was understandable to her alone. It told her in advance that she would soon find out something unpleasant. “We found her dead.” “Dead? Or maybe murdered?” “Hey, train, put on the brakes. Your guess is only one of the versions, and by the way, it’s not the primary one. There are no external signs of violence. It’s as if she fell asleep on the chair on the terrace outside. Maybe it was her heart? An investigation is already being carried out to determine the cause of death.” “And the dogs?” “What dogs?” Needle said, even ceasing to scratch under Bee’s ear, who was seeking his attention. “She had three dogs: a Caucasian sheepdog, a dachshund, and a French bulldog.” “Yes, the dog bowls were there; however, we didn’t pay attention Danas Sėlis 63 to the fact that there were no dogs. Perhaps because dogs from a farmstead can roam around anywhere.” The girl considered whether to tell the inspector about her meeting with the widow and her strange predilection for snooping around her neighbours. In the end she decided to keep it to herself. If the widow died a non-violent death, the story about her predilection for observing others as if she were looking through a keyhole would seem like the smearing of the poor woman. Together with Bee Tilda accompanied Needle to the door. In the doorway, he suddenly stopped and turned to the girl. “Listen, why didn’t your friend Lena Ivanova show her cards and tell you everything straight?” Tilda shrugged her shoulders. Lena’s behaviour surprised her as well. “She’s sleeping with my neighbour,” she answered dryly. “So there won’t be any cards – neither face up nor face down.” “And what’s wrong with her sleeping with him?” Needle said surprised. “Unless…that guy is one of those that it would be better not to talk about?” “No, it’s just that he’s about fifteen years younger than she is,” Tilda replied, following Needle into the courtyard. Lena’s car, with a license plate number reading wow and a Toyota with a toy in the shape of a surprised eye hanging on the rear-view mirror, stood right under Markas’ windows like some kind of couple cooing over one another in the courtyard. Translated by Jayde Will DA L I A S RU O GA I T Ė Atminties archeologija | The Archaeology of Memory © Maironis Lithuanian Literature Museum D Dalia Sruogaitė | b. 1925 a b o v e : Dalia Sruogaitė and her father, the writer Balys Sruoga, on the balcony of their family house. Kaunas, 1939 alia Sruogaitė is the daughter of one of the most important Lithuanian writers of the twentieth century, Balys Sruoga, whose famous memoir-novel, The For est of the Gods tells the story of survival in a Nazi concentration camp. Born and raised in the intellectual and cultural milieu of Kaunas between the wars, she moved to Vilnius with her parents when this city was returned to Lithuania. There she suffered not only through the Second World War under the German and Russian occupations, but also the arrest and incarceration of her father in the Stutthof concentration camp. In the fall of 1944, Sruogaitė and her mother, the historian professor Vanda Daugirdaitė-Sruogienė, withdrew to the West, first to Germany and then, after a few years, to the United States. She returned to Lithuania in 2001 and continues to live there to this day. The Archaeology of Memory is an exceptional book, an authentic testimony to life during the Second World War and the attempt to retain one’s humanity without surrendering to despair. Sruogaitė describes in detail how her family lived between the wars, their interpersonal relations, who among the cultural and social elite visited their home, what topics for discussion were relevant then. The modestly brief interwar and pre-war period episode leads to the most important “archaeological” exhibit of the book – everything that happened to the author and her mother (using her own and her mother’s notes) after 1942, when Balys Sruoga was taken hostage in Stutthof as a Nazi resister. This book is an important testimony – the story of the experiences of one family separation, a story which permits the reader to reconstruct historical reality and the existential manner in which many people chose to survive, being led through difficult ordeals in several countries. keywords: true events and a personal story set on the stage of world history; the Second World War; lessons in humanity learned while attempting to survive; reminiscences about those who were important both personally and for the country’s cultural history. Dalia Sruogaitė atminties archeologija: memoir Vilnius: Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, 2012, 231 p. www.llti.lt The Archaeology of Memory By Dalia Sruogaitė A new era had begun. Vilnius belonged to us once again, but the government was ours, and yet it wasn’t ours. On the day of commemoration of the October Revolution all the gymnasiums and schools marched in even rows through the city, and as we came up to the balcony of some large building we had to shout “hurrah” to the men/ the Comrades in black hats that were standing there. Only no one explained to us what they had done to merit this. Enlarged photographs of Stalin the powerful leader were already hung in the classroom, and to the horror of the teachers, we often decorated his head with horns. Earlier on we had laughed on hearing that the Red Army felt pity for the starving Lithuanians and brought gifts in the form of trucks full of watermelons. Now the food shops had truly gotten much worse, but Emilė, our servant, would bring butter, sour cream, and eggs from the open market. A high-ranking officer’s family moved into the next building. His wife would occasionally talk with our Emilė. Once I heard Emilė laughing loudly and telling my mother about that woman’s culinary skills. Supposedly she had complained about the good-for-nothing Lithuanian eggs. She wanted to make soft-boiled ones, boiling them for a whole hour, but they remained hard, and they remained so with their hard shells. In the winter of 1941, the only remaining form of entertainment were concerts at the Philharmonic and there was the theatre. The few movie theatres didn’t appeal to us: the foreign films had disappeared somewhere, while the Russian ones weren’t interesting at all. The Opera was particularly attractive to the Russian newcomers. The beautiful wives of the officers flooded the opera, dolled up in delicate dresses – these were nightgowns still from the times of President Smetona. Studies at the gymnasium were going relatively well, just that I and a few other girls that had just arrived were done in by Latin. We had never studied that language, as the 68 Books from Lithuania beginning of it was supposed to be in the sixth form. However, the girls from Vilnius, who had already had it for two years, fired off poetry in Latin from memory. A question arose: to catch up to the locals, or somehow get out of it without getting a grade of D. Our warmhearted teacher Tijūnelytė was near-sighted and was not able to see even through the thickest of lenses how we were copying our answers from the textbooks when we had to take written tests. Writing answers on the blackboard was somewhat worse. Having no idea how to speak Latin we would bleat like sheep lost in the woods. This is why the lone C in my gymnasium graduation certificate was in Latin. A spindly beanpole of a woman who never smiled came to teach Lithuanian. Very quickly we nicknamed her Juozapota, without even catching her last name. Once this Juozapota came to me during a break and asked if I wanted to edit the gymnasium’s wall newspaper, telling me that soon I could also lead the drama club. She said that it would be a huge honour for me, I just had to join the Komsomol Youth. I was almost speechless from joy… Dalia Sruogaitė 69 The paper! The drama club! What wonderful enticement! As to who those Komsomol Youth were, I had no idea, and drunk from my future title of editor, I did not care at all to find out. Having run home, I bragged to Balys right away. Goodness, I had never experienced such an attack of anger before. For the first time my good Balys even turned green, forbade me to belong to any sort of club and without explaining anything demanded that I sober up in my room. The punishment was huge, because I had never been driven out like our Dachshund Dzingulis, whom we would order to run “to his bed,” when he got in trouble. As the spring of 1941 raged, strange rumours began to spread about some sort of deportations of people to Siberia, just no one was able to say who and why they were to be transported. But people began to worry, because supposedly there were kilometres of trains that had been herded to the train station, their wagons had small barred windows with strong locks on the doors. They were only suitable for transporting animals. One of my classmates said that her mom had already taken care to get food for the trip and warm clothes for the whole family. Another friend Valė said in a low voice that they were only transporting criminals and no deportations would threaten us at all. My parents were so busy with their work that we hardly saw one another, but while we had lunch together there was no talk about any sort of politics. Once, wanting to call my friend by phone I hadn’t even managed to dial the number, when I heard total strangers speaking. Another time, again while calling that same friend, I heard her talking with a mutual friend of ours. What is this now, is our telephone broken? I complained to mom, hoping that she would inform the telephone company. My mom only turned pale and advised me to not speak on the phone at all. This friend Živilė lived on the third floor in the next building, so we found some string, made our own “telephone” and sent messages on pieces of paper. Once Balys brought me along to the Štralis Café. Soon two Antanases – the writers Gustaitis and Rūkas – sat down at our little table. While talking with them, we saw a truck with several soldiers through the window. The truck stopped in front of the building next door where, as I understood, Antanas Rūkas lived. And in a totally calm voice he said: “Most likely they came to take me away.” He said it like it was an unavoidable reality; however, he neither ran to hide, nor sighed because of his fate. Balys fell silent together with 70 Books from Lithuania Gustaitis, but for me it still wasn’t clear what those deportations were. I thought, perhaps it’s nothing bad, perhaps they’re taking them to a different workplace… Nevertheless, every day we were already getting wind of the fact that they took away this or that person against their will, as if they were the worst of criminals. However it was just a few people and it didn’t cause widespread panic. At least that’s how it seemed to me, though I already felt that a wave of dark disturbances was approaching. And one morning while going to the gymnasium with Živilė, we saw a truck full of people choking and slowly sputtering along at the foot of the hill on Tauro Street. It appeared they were being closely guarded or accompanied by armed slit-eyed men. Suddenly Živilė grabbed me by the sleeve and shouted “They’re taking Valė!” Our classmate Valė really was sitting there among people of all kinds and ages, a scarf pulled almost up to her nose, red from crying, her coat torn. Seeing us, she screamed “Morons, what are you standing there for? Run…” Valė soon disappeared from our sight, we didn‘t see her anymore and didn’t hear anything about her. As we came to class, we couldn’t recognize our classmates’ faces anymore; fright and fear ebbed and flowed in them. We didn’t utter a word, because the ever-silent black-haired older girls were sitting in the last row, whom we unconsciously avoided. We had already noticed that even during lessons and breaks one of them was always writing something in her notebook, not trying to make friends with us at all, just listening very closely to our conversations. The first lesson was the USSR constitution. The teacher, forever hung-over, dishevelled and smelly, today looked like a poor copy of the devil. He began to take roll call. Two female pupils had been ill for a long time, so he put minuses next to their names; however, he crossed off Valė’s name in one fell swoop. Živilė and I went numb. So it meant he knew, he had already known earlier… After crossing out her name, he announced we were to write a paper. We were just barely able to contain our anger: our friends were being taken who knows where, and we had to write about Soviet law. Luckily, the teacher dozed off as soon as he laid his head on the table, and finally fell fast asleep. Using the opportunity, we pulled out our books and began copying from them word-for-word. Stasė, who was sitting next to one of the older girls, saw that she wasn’t taking part in any sort of paper at all, but was just scanning the class and continued marking Dalia Sruogaitė 71 something down in her notebook. Stasė couldn’t hold it in, grabbed the notebook, tore it from her hands, screaming: “You traitor! You’re horrible!” Then a melee ensued, and the older girl tried to retrieve her notes; however, Dana and the other girls held Stasė back, and the notebook immediately ended up in someone’s sock. Our ruckus woke up the teacher: “What’s all that noise for? Did you finish your assignment already?” Suddenly like a sign sent from a guardian angel the bell rang and saved us from threatening and particularly unpleasant repercussions. During the break we checked the notes that had been taken away and seeing what had been written in them, tore them up into little pieces and threw them into the stove. The next day Stasė reported that the older girl had come down with a touch of cholera which at the time was rampant in Vilnius, and she didn’t come to lessons anymore. Then I understood why Balys punished me by sending me to sober up in my room. On the night of March 16, 1943 I closed my trigonometry notes, thinking that it wasn’t worth the suffering, making myself crazy with unsolved math problems, getting myself ready for the final gymnasium exams. Perhaps tomorrow my class friends Nelė or Irena would help me out of this mess and, pleased at such a hopeful thought, I lay down. My parents had not yet gone to bed, they didn’t turn the light off, as if they were waiting for something. I was already diving into the world of dreams, when a heavy noise in the stairwell shook me out of bed. Wrapping myself in my robe, I opened the door of my room just a crack. Through the crack I saw Balys and mother looking at each other in surprise. The noise echoed even more in the building that had fallen silent in the night. I heard Balys saying to mom: “You open it.” She had barely opened the door, and two German soldiers in uniform forced their way into the corridor. They asked Balys, if he was Sruoga and ordered him to get dressed, because he had to go with them. Mom asked if it would be for long, should he take something along. I didn’t catch the response, she just whispered to me to make him a few sandwiches. While the Germans snooped around the papers on Balys’s writing desk, I quietly cut a few thick slices of bread and did not spare putting thick pieces of the best sausage that we had been saving between them. A terrible silence swirled in the apartment. Balys was silent, mom was silent, paralyzed by horror, I was also silent, speedily wrapping up the snack for his journey. Also the Germans rifling through 72 Books from Lithuania the papers made us shiver even more. We hoped that having found nothing of interest, perhaps they would apologize and get out. Unfortunately, though they were polite, they prompted Balys to hurry and we didn’t have time to say goodbye to him Brief hugs like silent oaths to take care – for Balys, and mom, and me. Balys left calmly, obediently, escorted by the heel-clicking of the Germans’ boots. The door slammed, and my mother and I were left alone. No tears, no cries, no moaning. Mom told me to go to bed, while she looked around and ran downstairs to the Krėves. They had heard the commotion in our apartment and were waiting for the knock at their door as well. The Krėves were ready for all sorts of unexpected things, but that night calamity passed them by, and very early the next morning, urged on by my mom, they managed to escape to a temporary hiding place in Žvėrynas. A few days later I found out why the professors didn’t go into hiding, though rumours about alleged arrests were on the lips of many. Vilnius University rector, Professor Mykolas Biržiska, along with his wife lived on the third floor of our building. A week or so prior mom had gone to their place to ask for advice, inquiring, whether they needed to be more careful. The rector said that their dignity didn’t allow them to retreat from their apartment. After such talks, my parents and other colleagues from the university almost had to bow to the most senior person, so everyone stayed in their dwellings enveloped in worry. It was similar to the Bolshevik years, during the first deportations. At that time Mrs. Biržiska showed me a few packages with fresh clothes, bread rusks and some other small necessities, explaining that she along with the rector were not hiding, that everything was ready both for being arrested as well as for deportation. In the morning my mother and I began to discuss why we gave in so easily to the Germans. Perhaps Balys would have managed to escape if he had jumped from the balcony into the yard, and then from there made for the empty hill where we had taken shelter not all that long ago during the bombing of Vilnius, thinking that it‘s safer there than in the basement of the building. The thought about escaping flashed in our conscience that night; however, after all it was already clear that the entire building was surrounded by armed soldiers, so any, even the slightest noise would have been followed with accurate shots. Alas, alas... there were only two soldiers who came to make Dalia Sruogaitė 73 the arrest, and no one had been lurking with their backs pressed to the wall and with rifles. This indecision of ours tortured mom for a very long time, and drove her into ever deeper depression. And it was only in 1967 when I visited Mrs. Emilija Mykolaitis, Putinas’s widow, who still lived in our former apartment, that I took a look from “our” balcony, and was sure that jumping from such a height Balys’s bones would not have remained unharmed. And the days rolled by, the sun rose and set, the rain melted the snow, the wind whispered about the fast-approaching spring, bringing who knows what kind of disaster. We both needed to hang on with all our might. The strain of being the gymnasium principal weighed heavily on mom’s shoulders, and for me the nightmare of final exams was fast approaching. Translated by Jayde Will A LV Y D A S Š L E P I K A S Mano vardas — Marytė | My Name is Maryte Photo by Eugenijus Ališanka A Alvydas Šlepikas | b. 1966 tr a ns l ati ons English: The Vixen: short story, translated by Darius James Ross, Vilnius: The Vilnius Review, 2006 (19) lvydas Šlepikas is one of the most multi-talented contemporary Lithuanian writers, moving among the worlds of literature, theatre, film, and television – he is a poet, prose writer, playwright, screenwriter, actor, and director. His works include two books of poetry, Taika tavo kraujui (Peace for Your Blood, 1997) and Tylos artėjantis (Approaching Silence, 2003); a short story collection, Lietaus dievas (The God of Rain, 2005); and a novel, Mano vardas – Marytė (My Name is Maryte, 2012). Šlepikas is an active participant in the literary milieu – he has frequently edited editions originating from the annual Spring Poetry Festival, edited the cultural weekly, Literatūra ir menas, and currently oversees the fiction section of this journal. My Name is Maryte, Šlepikas’s first novel became the most read novel of 2012 and has gone through five printings. At the novel’s heart lies a long ignored and suppressed story of a German girl named Renate, who was given the name Maryte – the twists of fate she endured and how these twists bring the history of the wolf children to light. This was the name given to post-war German children, frequently orphans, who came across the Nemunas River from East Prussia in order to survive and work in Lithuania, and often ended up living there. The novel is compelling for its strong narrative and cinematic nature, written almost like a screenplay, which the author says, “... was necessary to develop the storyline quickly so that the details of facts and history would not make the book long or slow.” This novel was chosen as the “Book of Year” in 2012. Upon receiving this award, the author said that his goal was simple – “To tell a story in which the reader could breathe the atmosphere of the period, and feel the twists and turns of fate, cold, heat, fear, and hope.” The continuing high sales of this novel demonstrate that the author achieved his goal. keywords: based on the true story of the wolf children, a subject long neglected or suppressed; cinematic and elegantly written, the plot is compellingly told; subtle and sensitive characterization. Alvydas Šlepikas mano vardas — marytė: novel Vilnius: Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishers, 2012, 181 p. www.rsleidykla.lt 77 My Name is Marytė By Alvydas Šlepikas Fragments from the past appear as if coming out of the darkness, like the play of shadows and light, like a black and white film. The year is 1946. It is winter. A cold and grim post-war winter, full of horror. The bridge hangs between heaven and earth above the frozen Nemunas River. The wind carries flakes of snow like down some highway. In some places the ice lies dark as white as if it were marble. It is cold, more than twenty below Celsius. There are many metal constructions here. They criss-cross like some strange type of net, and the wind whistles through the gaps. The bridge is metal, solid, howling and singing the songs of the winds. Blending with the wind, we hear a strange, eastern, soldier’s song. Through the bridge’s metal, in the distance, some sort of small, dark, moving dots can be seen. Hanging from the bridge there are posters, adverts, newspapers, proclaiming victory, encouraging people to show no mercy, to go ahead and murder. They warn about the necessity of having a license from the military leadership. One of the posters is torn at its edge. It quivers in the wind. The mournful song grows louder. On the bridge there are two sentries: one is the singing Asian, the other is a Russian. The Russian is trying to light a hand-rolled cigarette, but the wind extinguishes his matches. He is angry. He is also annoyed by the Asian’s singing. The dark little dots on the other bank now move closer—they are children of the Germans, trying to cross the frozen Nemunas River. There are about seven of them … The Russian can’t take it anymore: 78 Books from Lithuania ‘Fuck, shut it, China-man.’ The Asian smiles to himself. He stays quiet for a while, then mutters under his breath: ‘China-man, China-man, you’re the China-man.’ The wind is howling, and his homeland is far away. His cigarette comes apart, the match breaks in his hand, numb from the cold. The Asian breaks into laughter: ‘Hey, Ivan …’ ‘My name isn’t Ivan, it’s Yevgeny, Geny for short.’ ‘Look, Ivan, little German to run …’ The German children run across the ice like partridges. A few of the smaller ones lag behind. The Russian soldier shouts at them: ‘Stop, back, stop, obey the command, stop you Fascist pigs!’ But the bridge is high. The guard’s voice is lost in the wind. The children continue to run. They see the soldier gesticulating on the bridge, but they do not understand his words. ‘Hey, Ivan …’ ‘I’m not Ivan, you China-man …’ ‘They dick you over, Ivan.’ ‘I’ll kill you …’ ‘Calm down, you fool …’ The Russian pulls out a grenade, releases the pin, and throws it at the group of children. The two soldiers duck, hiding from the shrapnel sent flying by the powerful explosion. The smoke from the explosion subsides. A child struggles to climb out of the hole in the ice made by the explosion. It is cold, and steam rises from the water. The other children run back, doing their best to outrun death. When the explosion subsides, in the absolute silence, a strange sound is heard, reminiscent of the sound an animal makes before it dies. It is a high-pitched, endless sound. The other child, heavily injured, spins around awkwardly on his back, aiming to get a grip on the ice with his legs. The sound is coming from him. As he spins red blood flows from underneath his body, painting a bigger and bigger circle of red on the ice. A coloured splotch in a black and white world. A terrified tot of maybe six stands between the wounded boy and the boy struggling to climb out of the hole in the ice. He looks as though Alv y d a s Šl e p i k a s 79 he were made of stone. He is rendered immobile by the wounded boy’s piercing howl. There is terror in his eyes. We will recognize this boy later. He is the young Hansel. The Asian lifts his rifle, takes aim, and fires. The howling ceases and the wounded boy stops moving. The noise brings Hansel back from his stupor and he runs, screaming something as he goes. But he doesn’t run back to the shore, but over the ice further down the river. A few gunshots follow him, but Hansel continues to run anyway. After missing his shot, the Asian soldier shakes his head. The boy struggles with the last of his strength in the hole in the ice. The Russian soldier spits, and watches the small child barely struggling in the river. The child’s head goes under water, but his hand still clutches the icy edge of the hole. Finally, it too disappears into the mixture of snow and ice. The Russian soldier finally lights his rolled cigarette. The wind whistles. Again the sad, wild song is heard. Translated by Laima Vincė
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Dviejų gaidelių kelionė
Ducks gir-gir-gir, gar-gar-gar ;
Geese ga-ga-ga-ga ;
Chicken kud-kuda, kud-kuda.
