Excerpt from the short story „Susipažinkite: tie, kuriuos sutikti norėčiau dar kartą“ (“Those Whom I Would Like to meet Again: An Introduction”)
from the book Šiąnakt aš gulėsiu prie sienos (Tonight I Shall Sleep by the Wall)
translated by Elizabeth Novickas
And when I returned one time from Poland, I carried a heavy bag down the platform. I don’t know why I still haven’t bought a suitcase with wheels. I have yet another fault—if someone makes me upset, or I should say, agitated, I remember what I was wearing at the time, even if twenty years may have gone by since. I was hauling the bag through the railroad station and suddenly felt the pack rising upwards. I turned around—on the platform, sleepy-eyed, stood that man for whom the world opened up in brighter pieces being with me. “You’re waiting for someone here?” I asked. “I am,” he said, looking into my eyes. I looked at him too, but I saw my beige stockings twisted around twice, my face bedraggled from two border crossings, the beret on my greasy hair, and the bandage on the heel of my right foot. And if the bag were to continue the story, the events on the platform continued thusly: “The man carried me to the car and threw me into an empty trunk. The woman lifted me out again. ‘Don’t be silly. It’s Christmas, look at how many people are waiting at the trolleybus stop, I’ll take you to Panevėžys.’ The man remained sitting on the front seat, flicking the dangling toy spider with his finger, while the woman headed for the bus station. Waiting in line for a ticket, she put me down on the muddied floor and fell on top—I expected my ribs, piled up out of books, boxes, cans, and shoes, to tear the sides. Only I knew that fifteen hours ago, on the other end of the tracks, a different man saw her off. They kissed on the platform. Apparently, she thought the fact that a different one unexpectedly met her on this end of the tracks was a sin.” I thought about how I would behave now. I probably would have traveled to hell with that person to whom the naked body, unrelated to the soul, appeared to be just one material of many—clay, asbestos, silk. Does anyone really know where the tracks begin? Where they end, or what’s waiting there?
