Vilnius

by Robert Strasser | 2009

The castle on a hill. I'm on the Pied Piper's trail. A parade of children causes me to slow, but what else am I doing, so I just take in the tranquil green shade and leisurely trudge up the stone walkway to the ruins. A beggar has claimed her spot by the rail. Her kerchief flat on the ground ready for deposits. Near the top a young Kenny G sits waiting for royalties. I find him later, and for a Lita, he plays me "I just called to say I love you." His choice, not mine. It brings the girls, and I feel like I've done him a favor. As I head back down, I notice he's squandered his opportunity, and the gaggle of would-be groupies has dispersed.

I start a tradition of mid-afternoon beer, and leave the cafe table feeling a buzz. I wander unpurposefully for a while. I follow one sweet Lithuanian ass covered tightly in denim until I lose sight of it. But no worries. I turn and find another, and take up that trail, like some drunk Calvary scout trying to get to Sitting Bull by tracking every print left by all the buffalo. Not stalking as much as using a randomizer to determine my destination. The Vilnius "Old Town" is small compared to Krakow, but its streets still wind and weave as was the fashion before urban planning tried to make the world make sense. Three or four booties in I find myself alone but content.

I have come to the land of my great-grandparents. I will leave knowing no more about them than when I started, but the fact that I stepped foot on their soul, walked ankle deep into the freezing Baltic Sea, and drank their light bitter beer causes me to smile even today.

I shared a smile on that lazy, ass-tracking afternoon with the stones of the street, alone in some narrow lane deep in "Old Town." I looked up, and there it stood, silent and with quiet grace—the old synagogue. I would visit Auschwitz later and mourn the dead more fully, but the Vilnius synagogue stays with me. It is not a monument to genocide, just a forgotten reminder of the 95% of the Lithuanian Jews who never were heard from again. No street performers here. No panhandlers looking for tourist money. No ceremonies to commemorate it. Just an old building wedged between other old buildings offering nothing but its place in history to someone who follows the buffalo.

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