Arva had enough of Klaipeda, so the next morning we decided on a change of scenery. After a large breakfast of eggs and bacon (the princess was upset there had been no pickled snake next to the herring), we hopped in the Golf and went for a drive. I told her we could go check out the Palanga pier, the amber museum, the splendid oak tree park in Kretinga. Or, if she was in a romantic mood, we could go hold hands while gazing at the labyrinthine pipe system at the Mazeikiai oil refinery. No, she said; she preferred to go to Mosedis. She wanted to spend the day walking around the rock museum.
"Rocks?!?" I cried in astonishment. Outside the sun was bleeding energy and the birds were singing melodies I'd never heard. Spring was bursting with life, and if there had been even a small mound nearby, I would've surmounted it and hit a high C. The hills are alive with the sounds of music…
Alas, I was in the distressingly flat Baltics, stuck with a 600-year-old princess keen on boulders. Some day this was going to be.
"You want to spend a day like this looking at…rocks?" I asked.
"What's wrong with that?" the princess said defensively. She was dressed in white slacks, a white silken blouse and a white windbreaker. As opposed to yesterday, she let her hair down, and the endless waves of blonde covered her back. She looked stunning, breathtaking, and yet instead of strutting her stuff she wanted to gaze upon little heaps of pebbles.
Arva explained. "Every rock is a lifeforce, a shell of primordial mystery containing unlocked powers…"
I started gagging.
"From surface to core, every stone is riveted with secrets as old as time itself…"
Pieces of scrambled egg and bile revolted in my stomach.
"If properly stacked and piled, a composition of rocks can harness more power than's"
I quickly opened the window and pretended to blow breakfast on the A13.
"Professor, are you alright? Are you sick? I warned you not to eat all that fatty food."
"No, I'm not sick," I said, rolling down the window. "I'm just had to complete my usual post-breakfast ritual."
The princess shook her head in dismay. "You're weird, American crusader."
"Me? Weird? Next to you I'm a bedrock of sanity." I smiled. "No pun intended."
"Listen, professor, rocks contain the answers to the mystery of the universe. From the dawn of man we have been trying to find the right combination of rocks that will open up a new dimension of knowledge and powers for humankind."
"Sorry, princess, but I think you're mistaken. I was at Stonehedge's"
Arva jumped in her seat. "You were at Stonehedge?" Judging by her facial expression you would've thought that I'd just shared tea and cookies with Perkunos himself.
"Sure. Believe me, it's nothing special."
"But that's the closest mankind has come to cracking the riddle."
"Well, I hate to say it, then we're still in the dark ages."
"You mean it didn't inspire you, didn't lift your lifeforce?"
"Sorry, but again, it was just a tribe of daft Picts with too much time to kill!"
"Heresy!" cried Arva. "You're hopeless!"
"And you're warped. I ought to introduce you to Shirley Maclaine."
"Oh, that's just great. First you insult the greatest object every sculpted by human hand, and now you're going to bore me with talk of Hollywood movies."
I laughed. "You know, they just made a new movie about you?"
"Oh?"
"Land of the Dead."
"Ha-ha."
"There's a whole series of 'em. Called zombie flicks. Next one is Bog of the Living Dead."
True to form, Arva was ready with a rejoinder. "Kind of funny that you mentioned that, because I saw one at the video store that reminded me of you."
I steeled myself. "And what would that be?"
"The Nutty Professor."
"Nice try, but video stores in the Baltics don't carry Jerry Lewis movies."
"Oh, yeah? What about Dumb and Dumber."
I blanched. "Now you're just being mean." Can you believe the gall of this woman? "Okay, let's make a deal. You stop calling me American, and I'll stop pestering you with word histories."
"Okay, Yankee…. sounds like a deal…. On second thought, I'll just call you Doodle-Dandy."
If I had to gun at that moment, I would've shot myself.
