Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

‘Me?’ said Serdyuk, rising to his feet. ‘Me?’

‘Why yes,’ said Kawabata, also rising and fixing Serdyuk with his blazing eyes. ‘Who will cut off your head? Not Grisha, I suppose?’

‘Who’s Grisha?’

‘The security guard. You were just talking to him. He’s no good for anything except breaking heads with his truncheon. The rules say it has to be cut off, and not just any old way, it has to be left hanging on a scrap of skin. Imagine how terrible it would look if it went rolling across the floor! But sit down, sit down.’

There was such hypnotic power in Kawabata’s gaze that Serdyuk involuntarily lowered himself on to a bamboo mat. It was all he could do to tear his eyes away from Kawabata’s face.

‘And anyway, I suspect you don’t know what the doctrine of the direct and fearless return to eternity tells us about seppuku,’ said Kawabata.

‘What?’

‘Do you know how to slit open your belly?’

‘No,’ said Serdyuk, staring blankly at the wall.

‘There are various ways of doing it. The simplest is a horizontal incision. But there’s nothing special in that. As we say in japan, five minutes’ dishonour and Amidha’s your Buddha. Like driving into the Pure Land in an old Lada. A vertical incision is a little bit better, but that’s the lower-middle-class style, and it’s a bit provincial too. You can use crossed incisions, but I wouldn’t advise that either. If you cut vertically, they’ll pick up a Christian allusion, and if you cut on the diagonal, you get the St Andrew’s Cross, which is the Russian naval flag. They’ll think you’re from the Black Sea Fleet - but you’re not a naval officer, are you?’

‘No, I’m not,’ Serdyuk confirmed in an expressionless voice.

‘That’s what I’m saying, there’s no point. Two years ago a double parallel incision was all the fashion, but that’s difficult. So what I would suggest is a long diagonal cut from the lower left to the upper right with a slight turn back towards the centre at the end. From the strictly aesthetic point of view it’s quite beyond reproach, and when you’ve done it, I’ll probably do it the same way.’

Serdyuk attempted to stand up, but Kawabata placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him back down.

‘Unfortunately, we shall have to do everything in a rush,’ he said with a sigh. ‘We don’t have any white blinds or anything suitable to smoke. There are no warriors with drawn swords waiting at the edge of the platform… We do have Grisha, I suppose, but then, what kind of a warrior is he? Anyway, they’re not really necessary, they’re only there in case a samurai betrays his oath and refuses to commit seppuku. Then they beat him to death like a dog. There haven’t been any cases like that in my time - but then, it’s really beautiful when there are men with drawn swords standing around the border of the fenced-off area, the sun glinting on i heir steel. Yes, perhaps… Do you want me to call Grisha? And maybe Shura from the first floor as well? To bring it closer to the original ritual?’

‘Don’t bother,’ said Serdyuk.

‘That’s right,’ said Kawabata, ‘that’s right. Of course, you understand that the most important thing in any ritual is not the external form, but the internal content that fills it’

‘I understand, I understand. I understand everything,’ said serdyuk, staring with hatred at Kawabata.

‘I am therefore absolutely certain that everything will proceed excellently.’

Kawabata lifted the short sword he had bought from the floor, drew it out of its scabbard and sliced through the air a couple of times.

‘It will do,’ he said. ‘Now let me tell you something. There are always two problems. Not to fall over on your back after the incision - that’s really most inelegant, but I can help you there -and the other problem is not to catch the spinal column with the blade. Therefore the blade should not be inserted too far. Let’s doit this way…’

He picked up several sheets of paper with fax messages on them - Serdyuk noticed that the sheet with the drawing of the chrysanthemum was among them - stacked them into a neat pile and then carefully wrapped them round the blade, leaving four or five inches of steel projecting.

‘That’s it. So, you take the handle in your right hand, and you hold it here with your left hand. You don’t need to push it in very hard, or it might get stuck and then… All right, and then upwards to the right. And now you probably want to focus your mind. We don’t have much time, but at least there’s enough for that’

Serdyuk was sitting there in a kind of a trance, staring at the wall. Feeble thoughts ran through his head about pushing Kawa-bata aside and running out into the corridor and… But the door out there was locked, and there was Grisha with his truncheon. And there was supposed to be someone called Shura on the first floor, too. In theory he could phone the police, but Kawabata was right there beside him with his sword… And the police wouldn’t turn out at this hour of the night. But the most unpleasant thing of all was that any such course of action would bring an expression of astonishment to Kawabata’s face, to be followed rapidly by a grimace of fierce contempt. There was something in what had happened that day which Serdyuk didn’t want to betray, and he even knew what it was - it was that moment after they’d tethered their horses, when they recited poetry to each other. And even though, if he really thought about it, there hadn’t actually been any horses or any poems, the moment had been real, and so had the wind from the south that brought the promise of summer, and the stars in the sky. There couldn’t be the slightest doubt that it had all been real - that is, just the way it should have been. But as for the world waiting for him behind that door which was due to be opened at eight in the morning…

Serdyuk’s thoughts paused briefly, and he could suddenly hear quiet noises all around him. Kawabata’s stomach was gurgling as he sat there beside the fax with his eyes closed, and Serdyuk thought that his companion was sure to complete the entire procedure with brilliant ease. And the world that the Japanese was preparing to quit - if by ‘world’ we mean everything that a man can feel and experience in his life - was certainly far more attractive than the stinking streets of Moscow that closed in on Serdyuk every morning to the accompaniment of the songs of Filipp Kirkorov.

Serdyuk realized why he’d suddenly thought of Kirkorov - the girls sitting behind the wall were listening to one of his songs. Then he heard the sounds of a brief quarrel, stifled weeping and the click of a switch. The invisible television began transmitting a news programme, but it seemed to Serdyuk that the channel hadn’t realty changed and Kirkorov had simply stopped singing and begun talking in a quiet voice. Then he heard one of the girls whispering agitatedly:

‘He is, look! Pissed again! Look at him embracing Chirac! I tell you, he’s pissed as a newt!’

Serdyuk thought for a few more seconds.

‘Ah, to hell with the lot of it,’ he said decisively. ‘Give me the sword.’

Kawabata walked quickly over to him, went down on one knee and held out the handle of the sword to him.

‘Hang on,’ said Serdyuk, and he unbuttoned his shirt under his jacket. ‘Can I do it through the T-shirt?’

Kawabata thought for a moment.

‘It has been done on occasion. In 1454 after he lost the Battle of Okehajama, Takeda Katsueri slit open his belly through his hunting costume. So it’s okay.’

Serdyuk took hold of the sword.

‘Na-ah,’ said Kawabata, ‘I told you, take the handle in your right hand and use your left hand to grip the blade where it’s wrapped. Like that.’