Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

Kolyan seemed to recede into himself. He closed his eyes and his small square face, which normally wore an expression of gloomy annoyance, no longer bore the imprint of any feeling at all and looked more than anything like a swollen lump of old meat. The standard-issue chestnut crew cut on top of his head also seemed to have softened, so that it looked like the fur trimming of some absurd cap. In the dancing light of the camp-fire his double-breasted pink jacket resembled some ancient Tartar war costume, with the gold buttons on it like decorative plaques from a burial mound.

Shurik had become even skinnier, more fidgety and terrifying. He was like a frame cobbled together out of rotten planks of wood, on which many years ago someone had hung out their rags to dry and then forgotten about them; in some inexplicable fashion a spark of life had been kindled in the rags, then taken such firm hold that it made life thoroughly uncomfortable for almost everyone else anywhere in the neighbourhood. He bore little resemblance to a living being, and his cashmere pea-jacket only made him look like the electrified dummy of a sailor.

No sudden changes had taken place in Volodin. Some invisible chisel seemed to have smoothed out all the sharp corners and irregularities of his material exterior, leaving nothing but soft lines that flowed smoothly into each other. His face had become a little paler, and the lenses of his spectacles reflected rather more sparks than were flying into the air from the camp-fire. His movements had also acquired smoothness and precision - in short, it was clear from many signs that he had eaten mushrooms a good many times before.

‘Whoah, hea-vy,’ said Shurik, breaking the silence, ‘but heavy! Kol, how’re you doing?’

‘Nothin’ much,’ said Kolyan without opening his tightly glued eyelids. ‘Some kind of lights.’

Shurik turned to Volodin and after the fluctuations produced in the ether by his sharp movement had settled down, he said:

‘Listen, Volodin, d’you know how to switch on to this eternal high yourself?’

Volodin said nothing.

‘Nah, I’ve got it now,’ said Shurik. ‘Seems like I’ve realized why no one knows and why no one’s allowed to spiel about it. But you tell me, ah? I ain’t no lunk. I’ll just s p e n d my time quietly tripping out at the dacha, that’s all.’

‘Stop that,’ said Volodin.

‘Nan, you mean you don’t trust me, for real? Think I’ll cause trouble?’

‘No,’ said Volodin, ‘that’s not it. It’s just that nothing good would come of it.’

‘Aw, come on,’ said Shurik, ‘don’t be such a tight-wad.’

Volodin took off his spectacles, wiped them carefully with the hem of his shirt and put them back on again.

‘The main thing is you’ve got to understand,’ he said, ‘but I don’t know how to explain… You remember our talk about the inner public prosecutor?’

‘Yeah, I remember. The guy who can put you away if you step over the line. Like Raskolnikov when he topped that dame, and he thought his inner prosecutor’d let him go on the nod, only it didn’t work out that way.’

‘Exactly. And who do you think the inner prosecutor is?’

Shurik pondered the question.

‘I dunno… probably it’s me myself, some part of me. Who else?’

‘And the inner brief who gets you off?’

‘Probably me as well. Only it sounds a bit odd, me taking a case against myself and then getting myself off.’

‘Nothing odd about it. That’s the way it always is. Now try imagining this inner prosecutor of yours has arrested you, all of your inner briefs have screwed up, and you’ve been put away in your own inner lock-up. Then imagine that there’s some other guy, a fourth one, who never gets dragged off anywhere, who you can’t call a prosecutor, or the guy he’s trying to get behind bars, or a brief. Who’s never involved in any cases at all.’

‘Okay, I’ve imagined it.’

‘Right, then this fourth guy is the one that goes tripping on the eternal high. And there’s no need to explain anything to him about this high, get me?’

‘Who is this fourth guy, then?’

‘No one.’

‘Can I get to see him somehow?’

‘No way.’

‘Maybe not see him then, but feel him at least?’

‘Not that either.’

‘So that means he don’t really exist?’

‘If you really want to know,’ said Volodin, ‘all these prosecutors and briefs don’t really exist. And you really don’t exist either. If anyone really does exist, then it’s him.’

‘I still don’t catch your drift. Why don’t you just tell me what I have to do to switch on to this eternal high?’

‘Nothing,’ said Volodin. ‘That’s the whole point, you don’t have to do anything. Just as soon as you start doing anything, the court’s in session, right? That’s so, isn’t it?’

‘Seems to make sense all right.’

‘You see. And once the court’s in session, that means prosecutors, briefs and the whole works.’

Shurik fell silent and became quite motionless. The energy that lent him life passed momentarily to Kolyan, who seemed to be suddenly roused from sleep - he opened his eyes and glared with hostility at Volodin, then he bared his teeth, revealing a gleaming palladium crown.

‘You sold us a line, Volodin, with that inner prosecutor of yours,’ he said.

‘Why’s that? ‘ Volodin asked in amazement.

‘Because. Afterwards Vovchik Maloi gave me this book with it all laid out straight down the line. Nietzsche it was wrote it. The bastard’s tied it all up in knots so’s no normal person can suss I ‘I, but it all adds up right enough. Vovchik hired this hungry prof, special and sat him down with a young guy as talks the spiel, and in a month the two of them sorted the whole thing so’s all the brothers could read it. Translated it into normal language. Turns out all you gotta do is take out that inner pig of yours, and (hat’s it. Then no one don’t finger no one, get it?’

‘Ah, come on, Kolyan,’ Volodin protested gently, almost pityingly. ‘Think what you’re saying. D’you know what you’ll get for taking out the pig?’

Kolyan laughed loudly.

‘Who from? The rest of the inner pigs? That’s the whole idea, you take them all out.’

‘Okay, let’s just suppose you’ve dropped all the inner pigs. I hat just means the inner swat team gets on your ass.’

‘I can see where you’re comin’ from a mile away,’ said Kolyan. ‘Next you’ll be givin’ me the inner State Security, and then the «Alpha» team, and on and on. What I’m sayin’ is you gotta take them all out and then make yourself internal president.’

‘Okay,’ said Volodin, ‘let’s assume you’ve made internal president. Then if you have any doubts, what do you do about it?’

‘No problem,’ said Kolyan. ‘Put them down and move on down the line.’

‘So you still need the internal pigs for putting down your doubts? And if the doubts are a bit bigger, will it be the internal State Security?’

‘They’ll be working for me now,’ said Kolyan. ‘I’m my own internal president. And you all ain’t shit!’

‘Yes, Vovchik Maloi did a good job on you. Okay, let’s assume you’ve made internal president and you’ve got your own internal pigs and a huge internal security service with all those Tibetan astrologers and the works.’

‘That’s it,’ said Kolyan. ‘So’s no one can even get close.’

‘So then what’re you going to do?’

‘Whatever I wanna,’ said Kolyan.

‘Like for instance?’

‘Like for instance I take a dame and split for the Canaries. ‘

‘What do you do there?’

‘Like I said, whatever I wanna. If I feel like swimmin’ I go swimmin’, if I feel like screwin’ the dame I screw her, if I feel like it I smoke dope.’