Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

Anna was standing downstairs at the foot of the broad curved staircase which I descended after leaving my room.

‘What kind of place is this?’ I asked. ‘It looks like an abandoned manor-house.’

‘So it is,’ she said. ‘This is our HQ. And not only our HQ - we live here as well. Since you became a squadron commander, Pyotr, a great deal has changed.’

‘But where is Chapaev?’

‘He is out of town just at the moment,’ Anna replied, ‘but he should be back soon.’

‘And what town is this, by the way?’

‘It is called Altai-Vidnyansk, and it is surrounded on every side by mountains. I cannot understand how towns appear in such places. Society here consists of no more than a few officers, a couple of strange individuals from St Petersburg and the local intelligentsia. The locals have, at best, heard something about the war and the revolution, while the Bolsheviks are stirring things up on the outskirts. In short, a real hole.’

‘Then what are we doing here?’

‘Wait for Chapaev,’ said Anna. ‘He’ll explain everything.’

‘In that case, with your permission, I shall take a stroll around the town.’

‘You must not do that under any circumstances,’ Anna insisted. ‘Think for yourself. You have only just come round -you might suffer some kind of fit. What if you were to faint out on the street?’

‘I am deeply touched by your concern,’ I replied, ‘but if it is sincere, you will have to keep me company.’

‘You leave me no choice,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Exactly where would you like to go?’

‘If perhaps there is some kind of hostelry,’ I said, ‘you know, the usual kind for the provinces - with a wilting palm tree in a tub and warm sherry in carafes - that would do very nicely. And they must serve coffee.’

‘There is one such place here,’ said Anna, ‘but it has no palm tree, and no sherry either, I expect.’

The town of Altai-Vidnyansk consisted for the most part of small wooden houses of one or two storeys set rather widely apart from one another. They were surrounded by tall fences of wooden planks, most of which were painted brown, and were almost totally concealed behind the dense greenery of neglected gardens. Closer to the centre, which Anna and I approached by descending the steep slope of a cobbled street, buildings of brick and stone appeared, also as a rule no more than two storeys high; I noted a couple of picturesque cast-iron fences and a fire-observation tower with something elusively Germanic about its appearance, it was a typical small provincial town, not without a certain unspoilt charm, calm and bright and drowned in blossoming lilac. The mountains towered up around it on all sides; it seemed to lie at the bottom of the chalice which was formed by them - with the central square with its repulsively ugly statue of Alexander II at its very lowest point: the windows of the ‘Heart of Asia’ restaurant to which Anna took me happened to look out on that particular monument. The thought came to me that it was all just begging to be put into some poem or other.

It was cool and quiet in the restaurant; there was no palm-tree in a tub, but there was a stuffed bear standing in the corner clutching a halberd in its paws, and the room was almost empty. At one of the tables two rather seedy-looking officers were sitting and drinking - when Anna and I walked past they looked up at me and then turned their eyes away with indifference. I must confess that I was not really sure whether my present status obliged me to open fire on them with my Browning or not, but to judge from Anna’s calm demeanour, nothing of the kind seemed to be required; in any case, the shoulder-straps had been torn off their uniform jackets, Anna and I sat at the next table and I ordered champagne.

‘You wanted to drink coffee,’ said Anna.

‘True.’ I said. ‘Normally I never drink in the daytime.’

‘Then why the exception?’

‘It is made entirely in your honour.’

Anna laughed. ‘That’s very kind, Pyotr. But I want to ask you a favour - for God’s sake, please don’t start courting me again. I do not find the prospect of an affair with a wounded cavalry officer in a town where there are shortages of water and kerosene very attractive.’

1 had expected nothing else.

‘Well, then.’ I said, when the waiter had set the bottle on the table, ‘if you choose to see me as a wounded cavalry officer, who am I to object? But in that case, how shall I regard you?’

‘As a machine-gunner.’ said Anna. ‘Or if you prefer to be more accurate, as a Lewis gunner. I prefer the disc-loading Lewis.’

‘As a cavalry officer, of course, I detest your profession. Nothing could be more depressing than the prospect of at-lacking a machine-gun emplacement in mounted formation. But since we are talking about you, I raise my glass to the profession of gunner.’

We clinked glasses.

‘Tell me, Anna.’ I asked, ‘whose officers are those at the next table? Who actually holds this town?’

‘Broadly speaking,’ said Anna, ‘the town is held by the Reds, but there are some Whites here as well. Or you might say it is held by the Whites, but there are some Reds here as well. So it is best to dress in a neutral style - much as we are dressed now.’

‘And where is our regiment?’

‘Our division, you mean. Our division has been dissipated in battle. We now have very few men left, a third of a squadron at the most. But since there are no enemy forces of any substance here we can regard ourselves as safe. This is the backwoods, everything is perfectly quiet here. You walk along the streets, you see yesterday’s enemies and you think to yourself is the reason for which we were trying to kill one another only a few days ago real?’

‘I understand you.’ I said. ‘War coarsens the sinews of the heart, but one only has to glance at the lilac blossom and it seems that the whistling of shells, the wild whooping of cavalrymen, the scent of gunpowder mingled with the sweet smell of blood are all unreal, no more than a mirage or a dream.’

‘Exactly.’ said Anna. ‘The question is, how real is the lilac blossom? Perhaps it is just another dream.’

Well, well, I thought to myself, but I refrained from expanding any further on the theme.

Tell me, Anna, what is the present situation at the fronts? In general, I mean.’

‘To be quite honest, I do not know. Or as they say nowadays, I’m not posted on that. There are no newspapers here and the rumours are all different. And then, you know, I have had enough of all that. They take and lose towns one has never heard of with wild-sounding names like Buguruslan, Bugulma and… what is it now… Belebei. And where it all goes on, who takes the town and who loses it, is not really clear and, more importantly, it is not particularly interesting either. The war goes on, of course, but talking about it has become rather mauvais genre. I would say the general atmosphere is one of weariness. Enthusiasm has slumped badly.’

I sat in silence, thinking about what she had said. Somewhere far away a horse neighed in the street, followed by the long-drawn-out yell of the coachman. One of the officers at the next table finally managed to get the needle into his vein: he had been trying unsuccessfully for the past five minutes, leaning far back in his chair to get a good view of his arms concealed under the table all this time his chair had been balanced on its two back legs and there were moments when I thought he was certain to fall. Putting the syringe back into its nickel-plated box, he hid it in his holster. Judging from the oily gleam that immediately appeared in his eyes, the syringe must have contained morphine. For a minute or two he sat swaying on his chair, then he slumped forward on to the table with his elbows, took his comrade by the hand and in a voice filled with a sincerity beyond my power to convey, he said: