d.s. sulaitis_ if it's anyw

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Sulaitis: If It's Anywhere, It's Behind Us http://bostonreview.net/BR29.1/su

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If It's Anywhere, It's Behind Us

D.S. Sulaitis

8 I waited on the stairs, looking at him. I didn't want to go down. Hewas alone, but my mother was somewhere close by. He was waitingfor me; she was waiting for bells. She arranged these visits, invited

over nice Lithuanian boys from nice families, boys with a future inmedicine or law to fall in love with me, her 17-year-old daughter.

I looked down into our amber living room. Amber everywherelittleamber princess statues, amber crosses, huge chunks of amber boundtogether like rosary beads and hanging on the wall.

He was sitting on the couch with the embroidered pillows. I'd seenhim before. He was from Boston. I called him Luscious because ofhis lipsbig, like a clown's. I hate big lips.

Boston was far, which meant he was here for the weekend. I glanced

out the window. There was his car, a VW Rabbit. I knew hisovernight stuff was on the back seat.

He was holding a teacup, sitting with a straight back, facing theopposite wall, with its scenes of Trakai on plaques inlaid with amber.Trakaia castle on a lake island.

Luscious probably had one of those plaques at home, in Boston. Hewould have had the pillows, toored or blue, with embroideredtulip patterns.

He turned and smiled and put down his cup and saucer on the

amber table. He said my name in Lithuanian: "Agne." Anold-fashioned name. I was named after my mother's childhoodnanny, a woman who loved dogs.

We spoke in English. After all, we were born in America and hadthat in common.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Your mother asked me over."

I knew that.

"Are you still stealing things?" he asked.

"Sometimes."

"I couldn't believe it when you told me."

"Big deal."

"I've never known a thief."

"Drink your tea. I'm going out."


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I thought of those big lips slurping from our cup. I would neverdrink from that cup again. Then, worse, I thought of those lips onmine. I hated him. Outside I swatted at the tiger lilies with a stick. Iheaded down the road, then went through the woods. I was going tothe house with the guns on the wall, the house where I had sex.

* * *

Luscious and I met at a Lithuanian dance festival. He wore a gianthigh school ring with a blue stone, the deep blue of the embroideredpillows. He was standing around the hotel ballroom with the Boston

boys. Boston boys were blond, cute, and did a lot of drugs. Bostonboys liked New York girls. New York girls wore a lot of makeup andsmoked cigarettes. Except me. I was always alone in a corner, staringat nothing, bored.

Luscious came over to me.

"Go away," I told him. He stared at my dresscalico, gathered, tied

at the back. "It's stolen," I told him, then felt bad for saying it. Iimagined my mother appearing, saint-like, money in hand, smilinganxiously.

Luscious didn't go away. He was waiting to hang out with me thatnight. Later, he followed me to my room in the hotel. He stood stifflyin his white turtleneck, navy-blue blazer, and big ring, hair parted tothe side, styled like a pimp. "I'm going to be a doctor," he said. LaterI made the mistake of telling my mother I'd met a doctor.

The Lithuanian community is like that phone game. They all knoweach other from the old country, land of rain. Name someone in

Cleveland and your mother or father will dig in their memory bankand come up with "Oh, I was in sixth grade with her." Then comesthe networking and the call to Cleveland.

So seeing Luscious on the couch was no surprise. Boys appearedbefore me. My mother's anxiety brought them from afar. I was todate and then marry a Lithuanian.

* * *

I undressed in the cool, dark gun room of Liver Man. He was mucholder than mean American, with muscular, tattooed arms. He had

a beard and wore grass-stained jeans.

He was a mountaintop-tree expert with a truck and a crew andmachines that chopped up trees into chips. I met him when he waspruning our giant red oak. He asked me to get our old dog out of the

way. I was in shorts, legs all bitten from bugs, and I knew he wasstaring as I pulled the dog out of his dugout and went off throughthe field.

My parents didn't like him. My father said, "No-goodnik." I didn'tget that, since he did a good job with our oak tree. I'd think, why


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no-goodnik? and then sulk.

Maybe it was because his hair was long and his eyes were dark.Never trust a man with dark eyes.

* * *

We didn't talk much. We had nothing in common. His house was

never locked, so I just walked in, undressed, and stood naked by thewall with the guns.

When he came in from the back he was happy to see me and got twobeers. He took off his baseball cap and closed his eyes to kiss me. Hesucked my mouth.

"I want to do things with you," he said. That's how older men are.They want to take your hand and put it in their butt. They want you

bent over naked, hands on their kitchen sink, legs spread, while theydrop their pants and grab on to your thighs. He moaned, and I feltpowerful. In this house with not much in it, it felt exotic. American.

There was a shelf with canned goods, a lampshade with a picture ofa trout on it, a TV, a filing cabinet with frog magnets.

We kissed at the door for a long time. I tried to go, but he pulled meback, kissing me some more. Finally, as I left, he said what he alwayssaid: "Don't ever love a man with a bad liver."

I cut through the woods to get home. If my parents saw me, they'dthink I was out there doing nature thingscollecting rocks andleaves and sticks.

When I got back, Luscious was exactly where I'd left him in the

amber room. Only there was no teacup, but instead a plate ofpastries. My mother always brought boys plates of sweets. Theintoxicating, rib-sticking potato stuff came later, at the dinner table.

I thought of asking Luscious if he wanted to playplay in the woods,find caves or waterfalls or big, flat rocks to sit on. But I knew he wasa dud, his big, doughy hands used for calculators and microscopes.

Since he'd come to see me, I had to sit with him. He was interestedin me and raised his eyebrows. "Is there anywhere we can go? Amovie?"

"There's a diner. It's gross, though."

"Oh."

"We'll have dinner soon."

"Okay," he shrugged.

"My dog is covered in cement dust. You want to see her?"

He didn't. "Dogs can bite," he said.


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I took him to a guest room. There were many guest rooms, each witha white linen cover on the bed, a table, a chair, white curtains, anoval hooked rug next to the bed. And there was metal. Tons of it.Some of the guest rooms were like medieval museums, with suits ofarmor just like Duke Vytautas would have worn. There were metalplaquesVytautas on horseback with a sword. War scenes. This isthe sort of room I took Luscious to.

One of the other roomswhere I used to pretend I was already atcollege, far, far awaywas the juosta room. Juostas are wovensashes used as belts or for ceremonies or as decorations. They're

woven in geometric patterns of pine trees or little windows. In thisroom they hung on the walls like streamers, most of them in earthcolors: dark yellow, deep orange, blood red, brown.

I'd lay on the floor of the juosta room, on the hooked rug, same as inthe other guest rooms, and I'd imagine I was in college, meeting boys

who carried art stuffboxes of paint, brushes, and canvas.

* * *

Luscious stood there with his athletic bag. I was embarrassedbecause everyone knew my mother "solicited" boys for me.Embarrassed because I was ugly. No matter that people said, "Ta

Agne, tokia grazi" (Agnes is so pretty). I didn't see it. There was nobeauty in my braided hair, plain, pale face, and eyes too dark blue,like the too-deep part of the cold oceans.

The dining room table was covered in traditional raw linen withembroidered vines and leaves. My mother wore her gourmet'sapronbright white, full-bib style. She'd picked dahlias from her

garden for the centerpiece. The china was our fanciest. There werecandles in crystal holders. I'd folded the napkins into cones on theplates like I'd learned in the convent, where I spent all my summersgrowing up. This was my first summer home. My mother insistedthat I put what I'd learned to use. I had a book, a hardcover blue

book about etiquette for Lithuanian girls. "A young girl honors herparents. She is polite. Always aspiring to be helpful at home, she isinterested in keeping order, cleaning the rooms. She knows that ahouse filled with too many flowers makes one sleepy. Each roomshould be clean, neat and tastefully decorated. Windows, floors, and

walls are scrubbed with products designed for disinfecting. Wheneverything is clean, furniture dusted and put back into place, thehome is now in order.Sutvarkytas."

I ate and thought of Liver Man. I thought of tearing off my clothes inhis living room, under the wall-mounted guns. I couldn't wait to seehim. I was addicted. I sat at the table, listening to the click ofsilverware on plates, thinking,I will never love this kind of boy-manwith big lips and a big high school ring and plans of becoming adoctor.

I came out of this dinner sick. I wanted to run to my room, but


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everything was moving slowly. Dessert was tortas with layers ofwafers, jam, and chocolate, cut into tiny wedges. Luscious ate fourpieces. Growing boys eat lots of desserts, and we all counted. "Va,dar gabaleli": one more. Good. Smiles came to his blubbery lips,stretching them like wads of hot wax. I felt myself lean away. I couldhardly enjoy my tortas. He stank of pine cologne. His nails wereclean, perfect, like a G.I. Joe doll.

"Nori paziureti televizia?" My mother asked. Would you like towatch TV? But it wasn't a question. It was on the schedule.

"Nu gerai," he said. Okay.

He spoke perfect Lithuanian. My mother beamed, stood holding outher hands, welcoming him into her wide worldthe house, thegarden, the forest.

Luscious relaxed a little, took one more tortas slice and retired to theTV room, a room filled with handmade baskets.

* * *

The next morning I hung upside down from an apple-tree branch.The sky was everywhere. I stayed like that for a long time. Then Itook off.

Deep in the woods there was a small waterfall that fell into a widepool. Next to the pool, nestled between large, flat rocks, was a bed ofmoss, deep and luxurious.

I knew someone had followed me into the woods, and when I got tosome steep rocks I turned around. Luscious. He stood like the statue

of an oaf. He was holding a can of bug spray.

"Hello," he said, and lifted a hand to wave.

"Don't spray that around here. It'll kill everything."

"What about the mosquitoes?" he asked.

I wondered where he got the can. My parents knew better than tobuy that stuff.

"What kind of doctor are you going to be if you don't respect life?"

"I'll be a good doctor."

"And you know that at 17?"

"I'm 18."

"So?"

"So, what's in these woods anyway?" he asked.

"Look around." I used my nastiest tone.


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By now he'd come closer to me. He was wearing loafers. I wanted topull them off and throw them into the woods.

"Your mother set this up," he suddenly said. It was these words Ihated. Hearing that made me feel like shit.

"Your mother says you're going to art school. Design school," he

said.

"You want to see a moss bed?" I asked him.

"What?"

"My moss bed."

He smiled, thinking, this was it: the moment when I'd lay down forhim. "Beautiful," he said when we got there. I stood to the side of themoss, but he stepped right on it.

"Take off those shoes. No shoes on the moss."

He wore Gold Toe socks. He carefully rolled his cuffs up tomid-shin. The bug spray sat on a rock.

I was wearing overalls, a boy's undershirt, my heavy Swiss hikingboots, and thick wool socks.

"Lay down," I told him.

"Won't I get grass stains?"

"Moss stains. Go on. There's a surprise."

"Well," he said, and pulled his shirt out of his pants. He sat on theground.

"Lay down," I told him, standing over him.

"It's wet," he said. "It's like a sponge."

"Go on."

He lay down on the moss, the thick green bed, inches deep. Hestretched his arms out to his sides, palms up, Jesus-like.

He sank. Green rose up, moss sprouting between fingers, until hishands disappeared. His blue-and-white striped shirt vanished in thethick, wet place.

His eyes were closed, and he was smiling. He waited. I took hisshoes. Then I took the bug spray and went off for a while. When Icame back, he was sitting up, a little drugged-looking. Heat and sunhad made him sleep. He looked up at me, shielding his eyes. "Giveme my shoes."


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I stared at him. I held a bunch of fern leaves.

"What's the matter with you? Where are my shoes?"

I shrugged. I really didn't know. Sometimes I blanked out. I hadlearned to do this.

My mother thought that we'd gone for a romantic walk. Nothing badwould come of that. We owned acres of woods and surely we wereon our land, property that was familiar and safe.

We were on a walka hopeful walk, and she waited in her garden ofdays, on a pine bench near the bird bath, under a canvas umbrella,in her large sunglasses, her back to the woods. Every now and then,she'd glance back to see if her daughter and the future doctor wouldappear, hand in hand.

* * *

Following the family tradition, we all sat bunched up on the couchfor a formal farewell photograph. My mother clapped her hands.Smile, everybody! She had a nice smilesmall, perfect teeth. Mysmile was crooked, my eyes squinted. Luscious sat next to me. Bythen he hated me. It was more like repulsion. He was ready to driveoff earlier than scheduled.

Then it was over. The photographs proved that Luscious, son of Dr.So-and-so of Boston, had been here. My mother walked him to hiscar, expecting me to follow. She apologetically carried hismoss-stained clothes in a plastic bag. I'd ruined them. Then there

was the matter of the shoes. Everyone in Boston would hear about

this. The gossip would spread and flourish.

My mother had had enough. Back to the convent I went. And it wasthere, alone in my room, in the iron bed, that I first heard the voicein the ceiling. "If you can't marry rich, look into being a librarian."The next morning before breakfast, I ran through the field andtoward the stone chapel, crying, hoping for a branch through mychest, a skull cracked on a rockhoping that I would die.

* * *

I saw Luscious ten years later. I was on a Finnair flight waiting to

take off, and I saw him, across and up an aisle: Luscious, his headlike a mushroom, and then a turn of that mushroom and those lips.

I'd been spending a month each summer in Lithuania, and on thoseflights it was not uncommon to see people you knew or had metonce in your life, which was the same thing. It was August, and he

was in a bright canary-yellow sweater, and I wanted to take that littlepillow shoved under his neck and smother him.

I waited until we took off and the drinks came around, and then Igot up and came up behind him and bent over him, close to his ear. I


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didn't say anything because I couldn't think of what to say. Heturned a little with a sour face. Then stared at me. Smiled. "Wow,"he said.

"Wow what?"

"I never thought we'd meet again."

"We didn't meet, we're just on the same plane."

"Going for a visit?"

"For a month."

"I'm going to a conference," he said.

"Are you a doctor now?"

"A hepatologist," he said. I went to sit back down. I stared at him forthe next few hours, like you do on planes. I thought about how mylife would have been different if I had cooperated, married whoever

was introduced to me, expected nothing more of myself, made thebest of it. Once or twice Luscious turned back to look at me while Iwent on staring. "You're like a kid," he said at one point.

He'd filled out, a lean but strong body, and after he took off hissweater, I saw his shirt was the pale blue of professionals, starched,perfect. His hair was longer now, pulled back into a tight, shortponytail. His blond hair had turned darker, almost brown, like thehair of people in southern Russiamysteriously dark, overhangingglum faces.

Late at night, while I was up doing yoga arm rotations in the back ofthe plane, I heard the ceiling voice. It was loud, over the engine:"Brush your hair and put on a little lipstick." The blue book floatedabove me, as it did sometimes in my dreams:Hair that is messy,

falling over the eyes, has not been brushed for days will alwaysmake a girl ugly and ruin her overall appearance. I looked around.It was the dark part of the journey, lights dimmed, passengerssleeping. In front was a ridiculous map that showed the plane as adot moving over the ocean. I got scared and wanted to holdsomeone's hand. I looked around for a stewardess.

In the morning the sun came in bright and strong, the way it does

over the sea. My mother had put envelopes in a pouch that was tiedto my waist, tight against my skin, under my shirt. The envelopeswere marked with family names, money to help them pay forupcoming winter heating bills.

It occurred to me that Luscious might be carrying similar envelopes.I wondered about that, looking at the dot on the map, and I thoughtof my boyfriend back in Manhattan, an artist who defaced dollar

bills. As I looked at the dot and saw how close I was to land, Ithought about the safety of land, trees, and woods. My thoughts wentto the convent, to nuns in their thick dresses, walking with me,


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telling me about the importance of treesoak treeshow they aresacred and how only priests are allowed to burn their branches.

* * *

I went to the bathroom in the Helsinki airport. I stayed in there,hiding with all my carry-on stuff, waiting for the flight to Vilnius. I

was looking at myself in the mirror, in the eerie fluorescent light,

when Luscious came in. He stood in the doorway, sort of smiling,like I imagine he did with the sick.

"You look good," he said. He watched me as if amused, armscrossed, casual, seductive. We were alone.

"I'm tired."

"I heard about your designs," he said. "You design aprons?"

"What about them?"

"I heard you're doing well."

"Everyone wants aprons," I said. He knew nothing. "You'd betterclose the door," I told him. He stepped in, letting the door swingshut. Then he leaned back against it.

* * *

The blue book had sections on identifying poisonous mushrooms,boiling potatoes, counting rosary beads, tying knots, making casualintroductions, but nothing on sex. Much of the book was based ondisasterkeeping order, tying tourniquets, surviving in a forest filled

with wild beasts.

I remember suddenly wanting to kiss Luscious, kiss him the way I'dkissed Liver Man. I took a step closer to him. Then I lifted my shirt alittle and showed him my travel pouch.

"Armed, huh?" he said.

He actually looked normal with his shirt untucked, pants hanging offhim loosely, and when I looked down I saw he was wearing newhiking boots. He caught my glance.

"Maybe we can go hiking around Trakai," he said. "Or maybe we can

meet for dinner."

Suddenly I felt sick with a thought. I wondered if my motherarranged thisfor us to take this flight together. I wanted to throwup. I didn't know what to say. But then a woman walked into the

bathroom, pointed to Luscious and said, "You, out." As he left, I washit with strange feelingsinterest, curiosity. It occurred to me thatthings could have been a whole lot different if my mother hadn't

been involved.


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* * *

I didn't see him on the short flight over the Baltic. I slept. After welanded, one hundred relatives surrounded me with garden flowers,

wreaths, juostas, and candles, and photographed me with them.Luscious was out of sight, gone.

During that trip, I took a boat ride up the Nemunas River. Therewere army tanks along the shore. The Soviets lingered even thoughthe country was now free. The tanks were pointed at our boat.Behind the tanks were castles and green meadows, the same deep,lush green of my moss bed. I thought of Luscious. I hoped to see himagain. I didn't want our last conversation to be in a toilet. I heard theceiling voice. "Agne, negrazu." You were not nice. In the blue bookthe message was always clear. Love and beauty will help you survive.

The wind blew, and I held down my hat with a hand. Here and therestrangers stood on the shore waving at us, and I hoped to seeLuscious in his canary-colored sweater, but we moved quickly, going

north, heading toward the sea.

When the boat docked near Witch Hill, my relatives grabbed me,saying "Tikra mama."She is her mother. I was whisked away like aHollywood star, holding bouquets of soft garden roses. They took meto the graves of ancestors, buried among the oldest of oak trees. Iimagined Luscious on a similar route, somewhere in this country,standing over graves, looking somber, holding a lit white candle forsomeone never to be forgotten.

* * *

When I got back to Manhattan, to my boyfriend, who was busystitching crosses over the face of George Washington, I told himabout Luscious and how my mother had probably arranged for us tomeet again. He listened while working, then stopped. "If he hated

you so much, why would he have gone on the plane with you?"

I got back to my own workdesigning a survivalist's apron, withdeep pockets for flashlights, water bottles, and knives. I knew theanswer.

d.s. sulaitis_ if it's anyw

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