Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

I turned and set off down the incline of the boulevard, guessing at what it was in my appearance that constantly aroused the suspicions of all these scum. Of course, I was dressed in outrageously bad taste; I was wearing a dirty coat cut in the English style with a broad half-belt, a military cap (naturally, without the cockade) like the one that Alexander II used to wear, and officer’s boots. But it did not seem to be just a matter of my clothes. There were, after all, plenty of other people around who looked far more absurd. On Tverskaya Street, for instance, I had seen a completely insane gentleman wearing gold-rimmed spectacles holding an icon ahead of him as he walked towards the black, deserted Kremlin, but no one had paid him the slightest attention. Meanwhile, I was all the time aware of people casting sidelong glances at me, and on each occasion I was reminded that I had neither money nor documents about my person. The previous day, in the water-closet at the railway station, I had tried sticking a red bow on my chest, but I removed it as soon as I caught sight of my reflection in the cracked mirror; with the ribbon I looked not merely stupid, I looked doubly suspicious.

It is possible, of course, that no one was actually directing their gaze at me any more than at anyone else, and that my tight-strung nerves and the anticipation of arrest were to blame for everything. I did not feel any fear of death. Perhaps, I thought, it had already happened, and this icy boulevard along which I was walking was merely the threshold of the world of shadows. I had realized long before that Russian souls must be fated to cross the Styx when it is frozen, with their fare collected not by a ferryman, but by a figure garbed in grey who hires out a pair of skates - the same spiritual essence, naturally.

Suddenly I could picture the scene in the finest of detail: Count Tolstoy in black tights, waving his arms about, skates over the ice towards the distant horizon - his movements are slow and solemn, but he makes rapid progress, and the three-headed dog barking soundlessly in pursuit has no chance of overtaking him. I laughed quietly, and at that very moment a hand slapped me on the shoulder.

I stepped to one side and swung round sharply, feeling for the handle of the revolver in my pocket, when to my amazement I saw before me the face of Grigory Vorblei, an aquaintance from childhood. But, my God, his appearance! He was dressed from head to toe in black leather, a holster with a Mauser dangled at his hip, and in his hand he was clutching a ridiculous kind of obstetrician’s travelling bag.

T’m glad you’re still capable of laughter,’ he said.

‘Hello, Grisha.’ I said, ‘how strange to see you.’

‘Why strange?’

‘It just is strange.’

‘Where have you come from?’ he asked in a cheerful voice. ‘And where are you going?’

‘From Petersburg.’ I replied. ‘As for where I’m going, I’d be glad if I knew that myself

‘Then come to my place,’ said Vorblei, ‘I’m living just near by, with an entire flat all to myself

As we walked on down the boulevard we exchanged glances, smiles and meaningless snatches of conversation. Since the time of our last meeting, Vorblei had grown a beard which made his face look like a sprouting onion, and his cheeks had grown weathered and ruddy, as though his health had benefited greatly from several consecutive winters of ice-skating.

We had studied in the same grammar school, but since then we had seen each other only rarely. I had encountered him a couple of times in the literary salons of St Petersburg - he had taken to writing verse in a contrary style which was only heightened by its obvious self-satisfaction. I was rather irritated by his manner of sniffing cocaine in public and his constant hints at his connections in social-democratic circles; however, to judge from his present appearance, the hints must have been true. It was instructive to see someone who at one time was quite adept at expounding the mystical significance of the Holy Trinity now sporting the unmistakable signs of belonging to the hosts of evil. But then, of course, there was really nothing surprising in this transformation: many decadents, such as Mayakovsky, sensing the clearly infernal character of the new authority, had hastened to offer their services to it. As a matter of fact, it is my belief that they were not motivated by conscious satanism - they were too infantile for that - but by aesthetic instinct: after all, a red pentagram does complement a yellow blouse so marvellously well.

‘How are things in Petersburg?’ asked Vorblei.

‘As if you didn’t know.’

‘That’s right.’ agreed Vorblei, suddenly seeming to lose interest. ‘I do know.’

We turned off the boulevard, crossed the roadway and found ourselves in front of a seven-storey apartment house. It was directly opposite the Palace Hotel, in front of which two machine-gun installations were visible; they were manned by sailors smoking cigarettes, and a red flag flapped in the wind at the end of a long stick.

Vorblei tugged at my sleeve. ‘Look over there.’ he said.

I turned my head. On the street outside the entrance to the house stood a black limousine with a tiny cabin for passengers and open front seats, on which the snow had piled up.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘It’s mine.’ said Vorblei. ‘It goes with the job.’

‘Ah.’ I said, ‘congratulations.’

We entered the apartment building. The lift was not working and we had to make our way up a dark staircase, from which the carpet runner had not yet been ripped away.

‘What is it that you do?’ I asked.

‘Oh.’ said Vorblei, ‘it’s not something I can explain in a few words. There’s really a lot of work - too much, in fact. First one thing, then another, and then something else, and all the time you have to try to keep up. First one place, then another. Someone has to do it all.’

‘In the cultural line, is it?’

He inclined his head to one side in a rather indefinite fashion. I did not try to ask any more questions.

When we reached the fifth floor we approached a tall door on which there was a clearly defined lighter coloured rectangular area which showed where a name plaque had once been. He opened the door, and we went into a dark hallway when a telephone on the wall immediately began to jangle.

Vorblei picked up the receiver. ‘Yes, comrade Babayasin,’ he roared into the ebony cup of the mouthpiece. ‘Yes, I remember… No, don’t send them… Comrade Babayasin, I can’t do that, it will look ridiculous… Just imagine - with the sailors, it will be a disgrace… What? I will follow orders, but I must register a vigorous protest… What?’

He glanced sideways at me and, not wishing to embarrass him, I went through into the lounge.

The floor there was covered with newspapers - most of them banned long ago. I supposed there must have been files of them left behind in the flat. Other traces of the place’s former life were also visible: there was a delightful Turkish carpet hanging on the wall and below it stood a secretaire decorated with enamel rhomboids of various colours. As soon as I saw it I realized that a well-to-do bourgeois family must have lived there. A large mirror stood against the opposite wall. Beside it hung a crucifix in the art-nouveau style, and for a moment I pondered the nature of the religious feeling which might correspond to such a work of art. A considerable part of the space was occupied by an immense bed under a yellow canopy. The items that stood on the round table in the centre of the room seemed to me - possibly because of their proximity to the crucifix - to be a still-life composed of esoteric Christian motifs: a large bottle of vodka, a halvah tin shaped like a heart, a staircase leading into emptiness constructed out of pieces of black bread laid one on top of another, three tooth glasses and a cross-shaped can-opener.