The Last Girl Read Online Free PDF

restaurant, McDonald’s. It was crowded and I had to wait in a queue to be served. I sat by the large plate-glass windows and watched the department store doors. She did not reappear. Maybe, standing in the queue, I had missed her. The coffee was tasteless and the seat hard. I did not stay long.
    I dreamed of her that night. She was walking down the road with her child in her arms, imploring me. I could read in her eyes the fear and desperation. I saw too, in the corner of my eye, the men approaching. I turned my back. But each time I turned she was in front of me again, and behind me the men drew closer. I awoke a number of times but each time my eyes closed heavily again, I had to turn from her once more. In the morning I was exhausted.
    Shortly after sunrise I pulled on my coat and walked across the grass, beneath the trees, to the top of Zydu Street. I stopped by the bust of the Gaon and rested my head against the cold stone. My blunt fingers felt the sharp edge of the engraved Semitic sentences. I tried to find words to say to him, but I couldn’t. I stood for some time, my back resting against him, glad to have that solid presence behind me. I smoked three cigarettes one after another and then went home.
    The next time I saw her was in fact quite by accident. She was again pushing her child. I had been in the bookshop on Gedimino when, through the window, I saw her pass by. I slipped out of the store and hurried after her. I caught up with her at the door of the McDonald’s restaurant. I was able to hold it open for her. Only then did I affect to recognise her. “’Hello,’ I said. She smiled, remembering me.
    â€˜You’re eating here?’ she asked somewhat incredulously.
    â€˜The coffee’s good,’ I lied.
    â€˜The coffee’s terrible,’ she laughed.
    â€˜Well, maybe I can buy you a cup of America’s worst coffee?’ I asked. She smiled but seemed to hesitate.
    â€˜Why not?’ she said.
    Sitting once more by the plate-glass windows, I was able to watch her now across the table. She spooned yogurt into her child’s mouth. The baby was blonde. Her small blue eyes sparkled clearly. She watched me while her mother fed her. She was not at all like that baby. That had been dark, its skin sallow and its hair fine. It lay quietly in its mother’s arms, in the dark Vilnius alleyway. Had it ever grown?
    â€˜And what’s your name, young lady?’ I asked to clear my mind. The baby looked at me suspiciously, continuing to eat the yogurt fed into her mouth.
    â€˜Rasa,’ the mother answered for her.
    â€˜Rasa, a good Lithuanian name,’ I said. ‘A beautiful fresh droplet of dew. And yours?’ I asked.
    She hesitated a moment again before answering. She looked into my face, as if she would find there whether to trust me or not. ‘Jolanta,’ she said. So there it was. Jolanta. Not Rachael. Jolanta. I breathed in deeply, inhaling that name which was not her name, allowing it to fill my lungs with a fresher air than the putrid air of painful dreams.
    â€˜And you?’ she asked.
    I stood up formally and held out my hand. ‘Steponas Daumantas.’ She took my hand and I pressed it. I held it a second. ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance.’
    She nodded and withdrew her hand. ‘Very pleased to make your acquaintance too,’ she said, ironically, but with humour and a smile.
    â€˜And what do you do, Mr Daumantas?’
    I laughed. ‘Me, I’m an old man, a pensioner. What did you think I was, a soldier?’
    â€˜You don’t look so old and anyway, age is in the mind,’ she said with the simple-minded confidence of the young.
    â€˜I’m old in the mind too.’
    â€˜Well, what did you do then, Old Mr Daumantas?’
    I toyed with the idea of lying, of creating another person for her. Her eyes were upon me and I did indeed once more feel young in my mind. If being young means