Виктор Пелевин - Buddha's Little Finger

‘That’s right,’ said the gentleman. ‘That’s precisely why we have to think about how to sort things out here - so that it won’t happen again.’

‘As far as I am concerned, I have no need to think about it,’ I replied. ‘I know perfectly well how to sort things out in Russia.’

‘Oh yes? And how’s that?’

‘It is all quite simple. Every time the concept and the image of Russia appears in your conscious mind, you have to let it dissolve away in its own inner nature. And since the concept and the image of Russia has no inner nature of its own, the result is that everything is sorted out most satisfactorily.’

He looked at me carefully.

‘I see.’ he said. ‘That’s just what the American Zionists want to hear. That’s exactly how they poisoned the minds of your entire generation.’

The automobile began to move again and turned on to Nikitskaya Street.

‘I do not entirely understand what you are talking about,’ I said, ‘but in that case all that has to be done is to take all the American Zionists and sort them out as well.’

‘And just how would you go about sorting them out, I wonder?’

‘In precisely the same way,’ I replied. ‘And America should be sorted out as well. But then, why bother going into every particular case? If one is going to sort things out, one might as well sort out the entire world at once.’

‘Then why don’t you go ahead and do so?’

‘That is exactly what I intend to do today,’ I said.

The gentleman wagged his beard up and down condescendingly.

‘Of course, it’s stupid of me to try to talk to you seriously, but I should point out that you are not the first person ever to talk such drivel. Pretending that you doubt the reality of the world is the most cowardly form of escape from that very reality. Squalid intellectual poverty, if you want my opinion. Despite all its seeming absurdity, cruelty and senselessness this world nonetheless exists, doesn’t it? And all the problems in it exist as well, don’t they?’

I said nothing.

‘Therefore talk of the non-reality of the world does not signify a highly developed spirituality, but quite the opposite. In not accepting the creation, you also fail to accept the Creator.’

‘I do not entirely understand what «spirituality» is,’ I said. ‘But as for the creator of this world, I am rather briefly acquainted with him.’

‘And how’s that?’

‘Oh, yes. His name is Grigory Kotovsky and he lives in Paris, and judging from everything that we can see through the windows of your remarkable automobile, he is still using cocaine.’

‘And is that all you have to say about him?’

‘I think I can also tell you that his head is presently covered with sticking-plaster.’

‘I see. And would you mind me asking exactly which psychiatric hospital you escaped from?’

I thought for a moment.

‘I think it was number seventeen. Yes, there was a big blue board hanging by the door, with the number seventeen on it. And it also said that it was a model hospital.’

The automobile came to a halt.

I looked out of the window and saw the building of the Conservatory. We were somewhere close to the ‘Snuffbox’ already.

‘Listen, we should try asking someone the way.’

‘I won’t take you any further,’ the gentleman said. ‘Get out of the car and go to the devil.’

I shrugged, opened the door and got out, while the automobile shot off in the direction of the Kremlin. It was rather upsetting that my attempts to speak honestly and sincerely had met with such a reception. But then, by the time I reached the corner of the Conservatory, I had already completely sorted out the bearded gentleman and his devil as well.

I glanced around me on all sides - the street was definitely familiar. I walked along it for about fifty yards and saw a turn to the right and, almost immediately, the familiar gateway in the wall where Vorblei’s automobile had stopped on that memorable winter’s night. It was exactly the same as it had been, except that I think the colour of the house had changed, and standing on the road in front of the gateway were a great many automobiles of various different shapes and styles.

Quickly crossing the inexpressibly depressing courtyard, I found myself facing a door surmounted by a futuristic-looking canopy of glass and steel. A small signboard in English had been hung on the canopy:

JOHN BULL: Pubis International

Light was showing through the pink blinds drawn halfway down several windows beside the door. From behind them I could hear the mechanically plaintive note of some obscure musical instrument.

I tugged the door open, revealing behind it a short corridor hung with heavy fur coats and men’s overcoats, ending in an unexpectedly crude metal partition. A man in a canary-yellow jacket with gold buttons who looked like a convict rose from a stool to meet me; in one hand he had a strange-looking telephone receiver with the wire broken off to leave a stump no more than an inch long. I could have sworn that only a second before he got up he had been talking into it - moreover, he had been holding it incorrectly, with the broken-off wire sticking upwards. This touchingly childlike ability to become totally immersed in a fantasy world, so unusual in such a thug, inspired me with a feeling close to sympathy for him.

‘Entry is for club members only,’ he said.

‘Listen,’ I said, ‘I was here quite recently with two friends, remember? One of them hit you in the groin with the butt of his gun.’

The canary-yellow gentleman’s hostile face suddenly expressed weariness and revulsion.

‘You remember?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But we’ve already paid.’

‘I am not here for money,’ I replied. ‘I would just like to sit inside for a while. Believe me, I shall not be here for long.’

He gave a forced smile, then opened the metal partition to reveal a velvet curtain, which he pulled aside, and I entered a dimly lit hall.

The place had not changed very much - it still looked like a run-of-the-mill restaurant with some pretensions to chic. The public seated among the dense clouds of smoke at the small square tables was quite varied and I think someone was smoking hashish. It was all illuminated by a strange spherical chandelier which rotated slowly around its axis, and the spots of dim light it cast drifted around the hall like glimmers of moonlight. Nobody took any notice of me, and I sat at a small table not far from the entrance.

The hall was bounded on one side by a brightly lit stage on which a middle-aged man with a black, feral beard was standing behind the keyboard of a small organ and singing in a repulsive voice:

It was the chorus. The song appeared to be about the Christian commandments, but the treatment was rather original. The manner of singing, quite unfamiliar to me, was obviously popular among the audience - every repetition of the mysterious phrase ‘that’s where I really cut myself some slack’ was greeted with audible ripples of applause and the singer bowed slightly, without ceasing to caress his instrument with his immense hands.

I began to feel a little sad. I had always prided myself on my ability to understand the latest developments in art and recognize the eternal and unchanging elements concealed behind the unpredictable complexities of form, but in this case the rift between my customary experience and what I saw was simply too wide to be bridged. There could have been a simple explanation, of course; someone had told me that before he made Chapaev’s acquaintance, Kotovsky had been little more than a common criminal - this could well have been the reason for my inability to decipher the strange culture which had produced the manifestations that had baffled me so completely in the madhouse.