Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

‘And do you promise to take me for a ride?’

The gentleman smiled.

‘Grigory.’ said Anna, ‘I love you.’

The gentleman turned to me and held out his hand. ‘Grigory Kotovsky.’

‘Pyotr Voyd,’ I replied, shaking his hand.

‘So you are Chapaev’s commissar? The one who was wounded at Lozovaya? I have heard a great deal about you. I am truly glad to see you in good health.’

‘He is not entirely well yet.’ said Anna, casting a brief glance in my direction.

Kotovsky sat at the table.

‘And what exactly happened between you and those gentlemen?’

‘We had a quarrel concerning the metaphysics of dreams.’ I replied.

Kotovsky chortled. ‘That is what you deserve for discussing such matters in provincial restaurants. Which reminds me, did I not hear that at Lozovaya everything started from a conversation in the station buffet too?’

I shrugged.

‘He remembers nothing about it,’ said Anna. ‘He has partial amnesia. It happens sometimes with serious concussion.’

‘I hope that you will soon be fully recovered from your wound.’ said Kotovsky, picking up one of the revolvers from the table. He slipped the drum out to one side, then raised and lowered the hammer several times, swore under his breath and shook his head in disbelief. I was astonished to see that there were rounds set in all the chambers of the drum.

‘God damn these Tula revolvers,’ he said, looking up at me. You can never trust them. On one occasion they got me into such a pickle

He tossed the revolver back on to the table and shook his head, as though he were driving away dark thoughts. ‘How is Chapaev?’

Anna gestured with her hand.

‘He drinks.’ she said. ‘God knows what is going on, it really is quite frightening. Yesterday he ran out into the street with his Mauser, wearing nothing but his shirt, fired three times at I he sky, then thought for a moment, fired three times into the ground and went to bed.’

‘Stunning, absolutely stunning,’ muttered Kotovsky. ‘Are you not afraid that in this state he might bring the clay machine-gun into action?’

Anna gave me a sideways glance, and I instantly felt that my presence at the table was superfluous. My companions evidently shared this feeling - the pause lasted so long that it became unbearable.

‘Tell me, Pyotr, what did those gentlemen think about the metaphysics of dreams?’ Kotovsky asked eventually.

‘Oh, nothing significant,’ I said. ‘They weren’t very intelligent. Excuse me, but I feel a need for some fresh air. My head has begun to ache.’

‘Yes, Grigory,’ said Anna, ‘let us see Pyotr home, and then we can decide what to do with the evening.’

‘Thank you.’ I said, ‘but I can manage on my own. It is not very far, and I remember the way.’

‘Until later then.’ said Kotovsky.

Anna did not even look at me. I had scarcely left the table before they launched into an animated conversation. On reaching the door I glanced round: Anna was laughing loudly and tapping Kotovsky’s hand with her open palm, as though she was begging him to stop saying something unbearably funny.

Stepping outside I saw a light-sprung carriage with two grey trotters harnessed to it. It was obviously Kotovsky’s equipage. I turned the corner and set off up the slope of the street along which Anna and I had so recently been walking.

It was about three o’clock in the afternoon and the heat w a s unbearable. I thought of how everything had changed since the moment of my awakening - there was not a trace left of my pacific mood; most unpleasant of all was the fact that I simply could not get Kotovsky’s trotters out of my head. It seemed absurd that such a petty detail could have depressed me so much - or rather, I wished to regain my normal state, in which such things appeared absurd to me, but I could not. I was in fact deeply wounded.

The reason, of course, did not lie in Kotovsky and his trotters. The reason lay in Anna, in the elusive and inexpressible quality of her beauty, which from the very first moment had made me invent and ascribe to her a soul of profound and subtle feeling. I could not possibly have dreamed that an ordinary pair of trotters might be capable of rendering their owner attractive in her eyes. And yet it was so. The strangest thing of all, I thought, was that I had assumed that a woman needs something else. But what might that be the riches of the spirit?

I laughed out loud and two chickens walking along the edge of the road fluttered away from me in fright.

Now that was interesting, I reasoned, for if I were truthful with myself, that was precisely what I had thought - that there existed in me something capable of attracting this woman and raising me in her eyes immeasurably higher than any owner of a pair of trotters. But the very comparison already involved a quite intolerable vulgarity - in accepting it I was myself reducing to the level of a pair of trotters what should in my view seem of immeasurably greater value to her. If for me these were objects of one and the same order, then why on earth should she make any distinction between them? And just what was this object which was supposed to be of immeasurably greater value to her? My inner world? The things that I think and feel? I groaned out loud in disgust at myself. It was time I stopped deceiving myself, I thought. For years now my main problem had been how to rid myself of all these thoughts and feelings and leave my so-called inner world behind me on some rubbish tip. But even if I assumed for a moment that it did have some kind of value, at least of an aesthetic kind, that did not change a thing - everything beautiful that can exist in a human being is inaccessible tо others, because it is in reality inaccessible even to the person in whom it exists. How could it really be possible to fix it with the eye of introspection and say: ‘There it was, it is and it will be?’ Was it really possible in any sense to possess it, to say, in fact, that it belonged to anyone? How could I compare with Kotovsky’s trotters something that bore no relation to myself, something which I have merely glimpsed in the finest seconds of my life? And how could I blame Anna if she refused to see in me what I have long ago ceased to see in myself? No, this was genuinely absurd - even in those rare moments of life when I have perhaps discovered this most important of things, I have felt quite clearly that it was absolutely impossible to express it. It might be that someone utters a succinct phrase as he gazes out of the window at the sunset, and no more. But what I myself say when I gaze out at sunsets and sunrises has long irritated me beyond all tolerance. My soul is not endowed with any special beauty, I thought, quite the opposite - I was seeking in Anna what had never existed in myself. All that remained of me when I saw her was an aching void which could only be filled by her presence, her voice, her face. So what could I offer her instead of a ride with Kotovsky on his trotters - myself? In other words, my hope that in intimacy with her I might discover the answer to some vague and confused question tormenting my soul? Absurd. Had I been in her position myself, I would have chosen to ride the trotters with Kotovsky.

1 stopped and sat down on a worn milestone at the edge of the road. It was quite impossibly hot. I felt shattered and depressed; I could not recall when I had ever felt so disgusted with myself. The sour stench of champagne that had permeated my astrakhan hat seemed at that moment truly to symbolize the state of my spirit. I was surrounded on all sides by the indifferent torpidity of summer, somewhere there were dogs barking lazily, while the overheated machine-gun barrel in the sun was strafing the earth in a continuous, never-ending burst of fire. No sooner had this comparison come to mind than I remembered that Anna had called herself a machine-gunner. I felt tears well up in my eyes and I buried my face in my hands.