TE15 Lithuanian Honey Cake

Danutė Kalinauskaitė

pile of blood-curdling bodies? No! For all intents and purposes, a local wretch wearing a pig-color panama, no mustache, charisma that can’t even be mentioned, rotting teeth (despite rustling so much money), with a can of sprats opened on a newspaper, in a mine- shaft room smelling of fried onions, kilometers deep below the ground, a proletarian wolfram lightbulb buzzing above his head, and a jack-knife for slicing bread and giving himself a pedicure – such are the lumpen thieves of our flatlands. The wretched penury of our Lithuania… How does it happen? The money disappears and Butyrkinas wasn’t even at the scene of the crime. Justice, not having proof, only suspicions, even if not entirely unfounded suspicions, fluttered about in the air and tried with all its strength to nail him, clearly acting as a lone wolf (mad, of course!), to the wall. It pressed him there to confess, you see, he has nowhere to go, he’s cornered, he’s… he’s… And Butyrkinas… Listening to all this nonsense… His lips flickered with the blue flame of a gas stove. He gave himself up to studying the blood-bloated face of his childhood friend, sitting in front of him, taking part, not in a legal case, but a corrida. The forehead of a chess master, for once, powerless, the chubby cheeks of a peach in dissonant contrast to the manly four- square chin, sweat shining in the nook of his chin – feature by feature putting together his death-mask. How does it all happen? How does life generally

80