Victor Pelevin - Helmet of Horror

Nutscracker

So the Lord loves sinners more then?

UGLI 666

Why?

Nutscracker

They have more sins, so their centrifugal force is stronger. For them to stay in orbit, the force of God’s love has to increase to balance it.

UGLI 666

But it happens in families too, that the best-loved children are the naughtiest.

Nutscracker

Then that means, if you want the Lord to love you, pull as many dirty tricks as you can?

UGLI 666

Yes it does, according to logic. But I’m not really sure that’s what the Lord is actually guided by.

Nutscracker

Okay, we’ll check that one out. What happened next?

UGLI 666

Next? The second canon folded his arms and fell silent and withdrew humbly into the shadow. I began walking around the cathedral arm-in-arm with the first one, examining the plans of the various spiritual labyrinths, while the canon quietly explained their function and symbolic meaning to me. I thought the labyrinth from Poitiers Cathedral was particularly beautiful. It’s shaped like a tree with a spreading crown and arranged so that the same threshold serves as its entrance and its exit. It works out like that because the path only divides in two once, at the very centre, and its two halves twist and turn to form the right and left parts of the tree’s crown. The canon said it was the Tree of Life, and the meaning of the labyrinth was that we enter life and leave it through the same door, naked and taking nothing with us.

Nutscracker

And where’s that inscription with the secret message from, the one you asked us to translate?

UGLI 666

From an ancient basilica in Algeria.

Monstradamus

Does it have a labyrinth too?

UGLI 666

Yes. It surrounds a central square containing the holy inscription. The canon told me to copy it out and assured me there was a secret in the inscription. He said I would only be able to read it when I had the key. In exactly the same way, he said, I would not be able to understand the predestined purpose of people and things in this world until the moment when the wisdom that comes with true faith opened my eyes to the transcendental meaning of creation. And the key to that wisdom was the same as the key to the inscription. He also told me not to be seduced by the empty talk about Theseus, which he knows all about. In time, he said, I would see for myself that the true Theseus is the One whom he serves. And that’s all. Is Monstradamus still there?

Nutscracker

Later. Go on with your story.

UGLI 666

I’m not going to tell you any more until he translates for me.

Nutscracker

Monster, are you there? Translate for her, please.

Monstradamus

The whole point is in the way the letters are arranged. In French it’s called a jeu-de-lettres .

UGLI 666

But do you have the key to the inscription the canon was talking about?

Monstradamus

Of course.

UGLI 666

What is it?

Monstradamus

It’s a cross.

UGLI 666

My Lord! Thy will be done!

Monstradamus

Yes. You have to start from the very centre. Find the letter S there and trace a cross through it. If you read the text in any direction of the cross and then along any line from it at right angles, you get SANCTA ECLESIA, which means ‘the holy church’, with one mistake.

UGLI 666

Are you saying the inscription was made with a spelling mistake? Or does the inscription refer to a mistake made by the holy church?

Monstradamus

What I’m saying is there should be two C’s in the word for church – ecclesia. But in olden times they might have thought that was excessive.

Nutscracker

Then what happened, Ugly?

UGLI 666

Wait a moment. Let me see if it works with the letters. It really does. How profound! Now I understand what the canon was trying to say, Monstradamus. This world will remain a meaningless conglomeration of absurdities and riddles, where we continue to wander aimlessly about in the dark, until we accept the teachings of the Holy Church. But as soon as that happens, the holy cross will shine out at the centre of life’s labyrinth, and the fullness of the purpose concealed in all things will instantly be revealed! The world will be miraculously transformed, the harmonious scheme of things will emerge from the chaos and insanity, and whichever way we direct our gaze, we shall see Hosannah to the Lord on every side! Is that right, Monstradamus?

Monstradamus

But of course. And we shall hear the radiance of his glory.

Nutscracker

Amen. So what happened next?

UGLI 666

The canon led me over to the labyrinth laid out on the floor and said ‘My daughter, the One whom I serve wishes you to walk The League and repent.’ I went down on my knees and set off. The canon said that while walking through a labyrinth like that the correct thing to do is to meditate intensely on everything that you have done in your life. I didn’t have to try very hard. I only had to glance at the grid by the altar for pictures of my childhood to start floating past my inner eye like coloured balloons, magically transforming what I saw around me. With every new second I was immersed deeper and deeper into the past. The majestic columns soaring upwards to meet the distant vaults took on the appearance of the lime trees in the park in xxx where I spent the first few years of my life. It’s not surprising – in those distant days the trees were every bit as huge in relation to me as those columns are now. The images of the saints watching me from niches in the walls had the faces of grown-ups from my childhood. I sensed that some of them were strict and others were indulgent, but they all loved me equally, even though they knew absolutely everything about me. Then the path turned a corner and I began walking, or rather crawling, in a different direction; now I remembered the time of my youth. The stone boatman decorating the preacher’s pulpit came to life and sailed across the waters of my memory, transformed into the only friend of my life’s brief springtime. He looked exactly as he did on the lake in xxx, where we swore to love each other forever. A new turn, and sin had swept him into oblivion – I no longer knew him and did not wish to know him. Yet another turn and the time of maturity had arrived. My stockings were worn into holes, my knees were scratched, but I didn’t feel any pain – tears of repentance and hope were flowing down my cheeks. And the Lord sent me word, yes He did! A little miracle occurred – I don’t know how it happened that in my blindness I only realised it afterwards, when I came back to my cell. I mean my room. As I circled through the labyrinth, no matter which way I turned within it, I could always see the crucifixion with a ray of sunlight falling on it through a stained-glass window, suffusing it with ruby, emerald and sapphire light! And that unearthly radiance made my heart feel so happy, so bright and calm that I wanted to cry and sing, cry and sing …

Nutscracker

And?

UGLI 666

Cry and sing.

Nutscracker

And is that it?

UGLI 666

Yes, that’s more or less everything. When I’d crawled all the way through the labyrinth, the canons were no longer anywhere to be seen. I walked out of the cathedral and found myself in my room.