“The Leap of Faith” by Aldona Barysas

A friend insisted that I go on a blind date with a guy visiting from Lithuania. 

“He’s tall, blue eyes, athletic. He’s a good guy,” she told me.

I wasn’t interested.

“He saw you at the Lithuanian Hall this past Sunday. He thinks your beautiful.”

Yeah, that didn’t do much for me either because there were a lot of young men arriving from the Soviet Union who were suddenly struck by love, would offer several thousand dollars as a dowry payment to get married and help them get their paperwork to stay in Canada – lawfully.

I asked her how she met him. “He’s friends with my husband from the old country. They met up at The Bear.” I didn’t need to hear anymore. The Bear was a private, member’s only (meaning Lithuanian only) bar in the basement of our community centre.

I replied with a firm “no” and went off to visit my aunt, a woman who had been married three times. She’d also buried three husbands. She adored men of all ages, ethnic backgrounds and job descriptions. Her opening line with any man that she met was “Do you have a driver’s license?”  

To her, a potential suitor’s age or race or religion didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had a car and driver’s license to drive her to places like Goodwill – or God’s Will as she renamed it – and the cemetery where her second and third husbands were buried. Her space had been reserved and paid for. She’d be sleeping in eternity between No. 2 and No. 3 as she called them.

During dinner, I told her about the offer of a blind date with someone from the old county. 

She told me that I was an idiot. “Go out with him. You don’t have to sleep with him but get him to buy you a glass of champagne and dinner. You don’t know how to have fun.”

After a couple of more shots of vodka, she told me that she had sex with No. 3 in the garage and that’s when he proposed to her. After that, every time I went into that garage to get the lawnmower, I felt like a voyeur. “That’s how to have fun,” she told me.

That hurt. A lot. But she was correct. I had lost my sense of fun and adventure. Any ability to flirt, dance the night away, sit in a movie theatre and hold hands and kiss – all of that had disappeared from my life as I started to climb the corporate ladder and purchased my first home and car. 

Additionally, I was earning extra income as a translator for the federal government. After hours, I often attended an immigration lawyer’s office to translate for someone seeking refugee status in Canada. Occasionally, I’d be asked to translate for a politician who was meeting with Very Important Persons from the old country who were seeking support for an independent Lithuania.

In hindsight, I was grateful that my parents insisted on raising me bilingual. At home, we spoke only Lithuanian, although my parents spoke Russian or German to one another when we weren’t supposed to understand the conversation. My father also swore in Russian. I was my father’s shadow, and unwittingly acquired the talent to swear in Russian as well.

My aunt continued to berate me as we ate Chinese food and drank shot after shot of vodka, straight out of the freezer.

I relented and called my friend. Agreed, reluctantly, that I’d go on this blind date on the condition that she and her husband join us for our coffee date. I wanted a chaperone and an escape route in case my blind date turned out to be the ultimate creep.

I was nervous, my mind blank because my friend had failed to mention how handsome my blind date was. Taller than me (a big plus for a tall woman), blond, blue-eyed, a retired professional basketball player with big biceps, witty and funny and charming. He’d served in the Russian Army, as a parachutist, and was very meticulous.

Somehow, we managed to sit in a coffee shop for five hours and talk about everything from politics to family, to travel to sports. Neither of us noticed that my friend and her husband said their good-byes.

We were on our own. I was entirely myself, without pretense or worrying about what will he will think of me. I think the knowledge that he was on a visitor’s visa made it easier for me to just be myself. I wasn’t interested in pleasing him. I was only interested in being who I was.

He walked me home, and asked if he could call on me the following day.

I agreed.

In the morning, when I arrived at work, I went to my boss’ office to plan our schedule for the day. He was a kind, older gentleman who knew that I had reluctantly gone on a blind date the previous evening.

“How was your big date?” he asked with a wink and grin.

“I’m going to marry him,” I replied. 

“Does he know that he’s getting married?”

“Not yet.”

Even though my future husband wasn’t yet aware of my intentions, somewhere deep in my bones, I knew that we fit together like two puzzle pieces with slightly worn and torn edges. We had much in common: language, culture, food, a love of history and animals, a desire to travel. We both looked after our mothers.

On the other hand, he was funny, while I had a difficult time understanding “Knock, Knock” jokes. He was optimistic while I was a pessimist. Ah, well, half full, half empty, together we made a full glass.

For the next three weeks, Vik and I were inseparable. He waited for me every day outside my office to go home with me. We had dinner together, took long walks with my dog, talked about everything and anything, neither of us hiding any part of ourselves from the other.  I put aside my Catholic sensibilities and slept with him and felt free and reckless. 

His visa to remain in Canada was set to expire in about a week’s time. A cousin in Kitchener had sponsored him for his trip to Canada for a month-long visit, but he’d spent very little time with her and her husband.

My aunt wanted to meet the mysterious man from Lithuania. She thought it was in my best interests to interrogate him over our favourite dinner of Chinese food. The questions flowed quickly. She thought of asking questions that had never occurred to me.  

Did he have any children? Did anyone in his family ever commit suicide? Was he close to his siblings? What town was he from? Could she see his passport to verify his name and date of birth? Did he have any debts? How much money did he have? And the big question for people of my aunt’s generation: Was he a member of the Communist Party?

I was embarrassed by the questioning. Vik was not. He’d bought a bottle of Canadian whiskey to the dinner with my aunt, and steadily the two of them drank shot after shot. He politely answered her questions, thanked her for dinner, cleared the table, and continued to answer questions.

Unbeknownst to me, my aunt had a plan. She telephoned a relative in Lithuania and asked if they knew someone from Ukmerge, the town where my future husband lived. After several phone calls, she was able to verify that there was no sign of mental instability in his family tree, that he was good to his mother, that he was an important basketball player, disciplined and a hard worker.

My aunt’s advice, “Marry him. You can get to know him later.”

Perhaps I should mention that while I wanted to get married, Vik had made no mention of what would happen when his visa expired.  We’d both had a brief, first marriage that ended quickly and not amicably. Each of us had been single for almost a decade and had carved out our lives successfully as being “not part of a couple.”

I’d traveled to Europe, alone, and he’d traveled to Canada and other places, alone. We were both very independent, a character trait that was later to cause some strain in the marriage until we learned how to compromise.

One day, he casually mentioned that his visa was going to expire. He offered to ask for an extension if I was interested in seeing him for another month or two, and to see what the future could hold for us.

I made it clear that I was very interested in him staying for as long as possible, but secretly wondered why the word “marriage” wasn’t part of his vocabulary.

Vik suggested that he move in with me until we figured out the future. He had a business in Lithuania, but his brother could take care of things for another month or two. He couldn’t work in Canada legally, so he’d get a cash job as a pizza driver, like some of his friends.

His grand scheme was that we’d live together and find out whether we liked each other enough to get married.

My response to his offer to live with me was this: I told him that in Canada we have a saying – “Once you own the cow, you don’t have to buy the milk.” He was confused and asked for an explanation.

I replied, as politely as I could, my heart cracking a bit, that I was not prepared to live with a man.  I wasn’t prepared to cook and clean, warm his bed, bring in a pay cheque, help with his immigration papers, all in the hope that somehow, I would be good enough for him.

I wanted a ring and a priest and the words that mean something when said in front of an altar. I wanted vows that we would both honour, and a commitment.

His response was not positive. “It’s crazy. We’ve only known each other for three weeks. I don’t know this country. I don’t speak the language. I have no job.” All of which was true.

“Do you want to live in Soviet Lithuania?” he asked.

I shook my head, no.

Although I had visited many times, I didn’t want to live in a small, concrete apartment and wait in line to buy anything. I couldn’t move and be bound by rules and a societal structure that was completely foreign to me. So, reluctantly, I agreed with him, “Yes, it’s too soon to marry.” 

He thanked me for dinner and told me that he would remember the past three weeks with a great deal of fond memories.  I tried to remain stoic and dignified as possible, wished him well, and walked him to the door.  He drove off in his cousin’s car.

I went to bed to cry my eyes out.

Some four hours later, past midnight, the doorbell was ringing.  I was frightened because bad news usually comes in the darkest of hours.  I looked through the front window and realized that Vik was standing outside my door.

My heart soared. I told my heart not to be silly. Perhaps he had forgotten something and returned to pick it up.

It turned out that it was me that he had forgotten.

He had made it to Kitchener where his cousin lived, realized that he was willing to take a risk if I was, turned the car around and drove back to Toronto.

There was no proposal. My husband is no Mr. Romance – not even a bit. He said, “Ok. Let’s do it.” That was the extent of the marriage proposal. Not a Hallmark moment in sight. Some fifteen years into the marriage, and at the urging of my mother-in-law, I received an engagement ring.

We married a couple of weeks later, with the wedding reception in my aunt’s home, my brother as my man-of-honour, and my boss standing as witness for my husband.

The wedding was hurriedly put together. The priest asked me if I was getting married for money or because I was pregnant. I responded “no” to both questions. On a Friday evening, we showed up at the Church, with a handful of friends in attendance who I had telephoned the day before to surprise them with the announcement of my wedding.

There was only one vow that we made that was important to both of us and it was simply this: neither one of us would ever use the words “I want a separation” or “I want a divorce.” Never.

We both understood that if you say it once, it becomes easier to say it again and again until it becomes true. That no matter what we fought about, the idea of a divorce was not part of our future. We were in it for the long haul, for better or worse.

My aunt’s advice to marry first, get to know him later worked out.

We’ve had decades to get to know each other.

Some things I like. Some I don’t. He feels the same.

But I’m grateful that most of our life’s journey together has been for the better.

Gigi

Aldona Barysas resides in Ontario by a lake surrounded by woods and wild animals, with her husband and her dog, Gigi. Her favourite things include books and writing (obviously), Agatha Christie novels and movies, any foreign accent, hamburgers and tequila, beach life and cold-water swimming. Life is an adventure.

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