Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

Without bothering to finish, he clapped his hands and the girls danced forward in close formation, gazing straight ahead into empty space as they moved directly towards Serdyuk.

‘Sixth rank, fifth rank, fourth rank, and now our horses turn to the left, and the longed-for palace of Suzdaku emerges from the mist,’ said Kawabata as he buttoned up his pants, gazing attentively all the while at Serdyuk.

Serdyuk raised his head from the floor-covering. He must have fallen asleep for a few minutes - Kawabata was obviously continuing with some story, but Serdyuk couldn’t remember the beginning. He took a look at himself. He was wearing nothing but an old washed-out T-shirt with Olympic symbols; the rest of his clothing was scattered about the room. The girls, tousled, half-naked and passionless, were fussing around the electric kettle that was boiling in the corner. Serdyuk started getting dressed quickly.

‘Further on, by the left wing of the castle,’ Kawabata continued, ‘we take a turn to the right, and there are the gates of Blissful Light rushing towards us… And now everything depends on which poetic style is in closest harmony with your soul at this moment. If you are inwardly attuned to simplicity and joy, you will gallop straight forward. If your thoughts are far removed from this frail and perishable world, then you will turn to the left and see before you the gates of Eternal Peace. And finally, if you are young and hot-headed and your soul thirsts for delights, you will turn to the right and enter in at the gates of Enduring Joy.’

Squirming under Kawabata’s unwavering gaze, Serdyuk pulled on his trousers, his shirt and his jacket, and began knotting the tie round his neck, but his fingers got tangled up in the knots and he gave up, dragged the tie off over his head and shoved it back into his pocket.

‘But then,’ Kawabata continued, raising one finger in a solemn gesture - he seemed so absorbed in what he was saying that Serdyuk realized there was no need to feel embarrassed or hurry - ‘then, whatever gateway you may have chosen to enter the imperial palace, you find yourself in the same courtyard! Think what a revelation this is for a man accustomed to reading the language of symbols! Whatever road your heart has followed, whatever route your soul may have mapped out, you always return to the same thing! Remember what is said - all things return to the one, but where does the one return to? Ah?’

Serdyuk raised his eyes from the floor.

‘Well, where does the one return to?’ Kawabata repeated, and his eyes narrowed into two slits.

Serdyuk coughed and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak Kawabata had clapped his hands in delight.

‘Oh.’ he said, ‘profound and accurate as always. And especially for those rare horsemen who have risen to the height of this truth, growing in the first courtyard of the imperial palace there is an orange-blossom tree and a… What would you plant to pair with an orange blossom?’

Serdyuk sighed. There was only one Japanese plant he knew.

‘What’s it called… Sakura,’ he said. ‘A blossoming sakura.’

Kawabata took a step backwards and added yet another bow to the long sequence he had already made that evening. There seemed to be tears gleaming in his eyes,

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kawabata. ‘Precisely so. Orange blossom and cherry blossom in the first courtyard, and further on, by the Chambers of the Drifting Scents there is a wistaria, by the Chambers of the Frozen Flowers there is a plum tree, by the Chambers of the Reflected Light there is a pear tree. Oh how ashamed i am that I have subjected you to the insult of this interrogation! Please believe me, I am not to blame for this. Such are…’

He glanced across at the girls sitting round the electric kettle and clapped his hands twice. The girls gathered up the kettle and their scattered clothes and quickly disappeared into the broom cupboard from which they had emerged; the screen closed behind them and nothing, apart perhaps from a few spots of something white on the fax machine, was left to remind Serdyuk of the bonfire of passion that had been blazing in the room only a few minutes earlier.

‘Such are the rules of our firm,’ Kawabata finished his sentence. ‘I’ve already told you that when I use the word «firm» I am not translating absolutely accurately. In actual fact it would be more correct to say «clan». But if this term is used too early, it may arouse suspicion and fear. We therefore prefer first to find out what kind of man we are dealing with and then go into the details. Even though in your case the answer was clear to me from the moment when you recited that magical poem…’

Kawabata stood absolutely still and closed his eyes, and for several seconds his lips moved silently. Serdyuk guessed that he was repeating the phrase about the stars in the sky, which Serdyuk couldn’t remember exactly himself.

‘Quite remarkable words. Yes, from that moment on everything was absolutely clear to me. But there are rules, very strict rules, and I was obliged to ask you the required questions. Now I must tell you the following,’ Kawabata continued. ‘Since I have already mentioned that our firm is in reality more like a clan, it follows that our employees are more like members of a clan. And the obligations which they take upon themselves are also different from the usual obligations that hired hands accept. To put it simply, we accept you as a member of our clan, which is one of the most ancient in Japan. The title of the vacant post which you will occupy is «Assistant Manager for the Northern Barbarians’’. I understand that the title might possibly seem offensive to you, but this is a tradition older than the city of Moscow. It is a beautiful city, by the way, especially in summer. This is a post for a samurai, and a layman may not occupy it. Therefore, if you are willing to accept the post, I will make you a samurai.’

‘But what kind of work is it?’

‘Oh, nothing complicated,’ said Kawabata. ‘Papers, clients. From the outside it all looks just the same as in any other firm, except that your inner attitude to events must match the harmony of the cosmos.’

‘And what’s the pay like?’

‘You wilt receive two hundred and fifty koku of rice a year,’ said Kawabata, and frowned as he calculated something in his head. ‘That’s about forty thousand of your dollars.’

‘In dollars?’

‘However you wish,’ Kawabata said with a shrug.

‘I’ll take it,’ said Serdyuk.

‘As I expected. Now tell me, are you ready to accept that you are a samurai of the Taira clan?’

‘I should say so.’

‘Are you willing to link your life and your death with the destiny of our clan?’

All these crazy rituals they have, thought Serdyuk. Where do they find the time to make all those televisions?

‘I am,’ he said.

‘Will you be prepared, as a real man, to cast the ephemeral blossom of this life over the edge of the abyss and into the void if this is required of you by your giri?’ Kawabata asked with a nod in the direction of the print on the wall.

Serdyuk took another look at it.

‘I will,’ he said, ‘of course. Chuck the blossom down the abyss - no problem.’

‘You swear?’

‘I swear.’

‘Splendid,’ said Kawabata, ‘splendid. Now there is only one small formality left, and we’ll be finished. We must receive confirmation from Japan. But that will only take a few minutes.’

He sat down facing the fax machine, rummaged through a pile of papers until he found a clean sheet, and then a brush appeared in his hand,

Serdyuk changed his position. His legs had gone numb from sitting too long on the floor and he thought it would be a good idea to ask Kawabata whether he would be allowed to bring a stool - just a small one - to work with him. Then he looked around for the remains of the sake, but the bottle had disappeared. Kawabata was busy with his sheet of paper and Serdyuk was afraid to ask - he couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t disrupt the ritual. He remembered the oath he had just taken. God almighty, he thought, the number of oaths I’ve sworn in my life! Promised to struggle for the cause of the Communist Party, didn’t I? Half a dozen times, probably, going back to when I was just a kid. Promised to marry Masha, didn’t I? Sure I did. And yesterday, after the Clear Ponds, when I was drinking with those idiots, didn’t I promise we’d get another bottle on me? And now look where it’s got me - chucking blossoms down an abyss.