Виктор Пелевин - Babylon

‘What’s that Venus fly-trap plant between the goddess and the dog?’

‘It’s not a Venus fly-trap; it’s the Tree of Life. It’s also the symbol of the great goddess, because one of her forms is a tree with three roots that blossoms in our souls. This tree also has a name, but that is only learned at the very highest stages of initiation in our society. At your stage you can only know the names of its three roots - that is, the root names.’

‘What are these names?’

Farseikin solemnly pronounced three strange long words that had absolutely no meaning for Tatarsky. He could only note that they contained many sibilants.

‘Can they be translated?’

‘It’s the same problem of there being no appropriate glosses. The root names can only be rendered very approximately as "oral", "anal" and "displacing".’

‘Uhuh,’ said Tatarsky. ‘I see. And what society’s that? What do its members do?’

‘As if you really don’t know. How long have you been working for us now? All that is what its members do.’

‘What’s it called?’

‘Once long ago it was called the Chaldean Guild,’ Farseikin replied. ‘But it was called that by people who weren’t members and had only heard about it. We ourselves call it the Society of Gardeners, because our task is to cultivate the sacred tree that gives life to the great goddess.’

‘Has this society existed for a long time?’

‘For a very, very long time. They say it was active in Atlantis, but for the sake of simplicity we regard it as coming to us from Babylon via Egypt.’

Tatarsky adjusted the mask that had slipped from his face. ‘I see.’ he said. ‘So did it build the Tower of Babel?’

‘No. Definitely not. We’re not a construction firm. We’re simply servants of the great goddess. To use your terminology, we watch to make sure that Phukkup doesn’t awaken and attack; you understood that part right. I think you understand that here in Russia we bear a special responsibility. The dog sleeps here.’

‘But where exactly?’

‘All around us,’ replied Farseikin. ‘When they say he sleeps among the snow, that’s a metaphor; but the fact that several times this century he has almost awoken isn’t.’

‘So why do they keep cutting back our frequency?’

Farseikin spread his hands and shrugged. ‘Human frivolity,’ he said, going over to the altar and picking up the golden chalice. ‘Immediate advantage, a short-sighted view of the situation; but they’ll never actually cut us off, don’t worry about that. They watch that very closely. And now, if you have no objections, let us proceed with the ritual.’

He moved close to Tatarsky and put his hand on his shoulder. ‘Kneel down and remove your mask.’

Tatarsky obediently went down on his knees and removed the mask from his face. Farseikin dipped a finger into the chalice and traced a wet zigzag on Tatarsky’s forehead.

‘Thou art the medium, and thou art the message,’ he said, and Tatarsky realised that the line on his forehead was a double ‘M’.

‘What liquid is that?’ he asked.

‘Dog’s blood. I trust I don’t need to explain the symbolism?’

‘No,’ said Tatarsky, rising from the floor. ‘I’m not an idiot; I’ve read a thing or two. What next?’

‘Now you must look into the sacred eye.’

For some reason Tatarsky shuddered at this, and Azadovsky noticed it.

‘Don’t be scared,’ he put in. ‘Through this eye the goddess recognises her husband; and since she already has a husband, it’s a pure formality. You take a look at yourself in the eye, it’s clear you’re not the god Marduk, and we calmly get on with business.’

‘What god Marduk?’

‘Well, maybe not Marduk, then,’ said Azadovsky, taking out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter; ‘it doesn’t matter. I didn’t mean anything in particular. Farsuk, you explain to him; you’ve got it all taped. Meanwhile I’ll take a trip to Marlboro country.’

‘It’s another mythologeme,’ said Farseikin. "The great goddess had a husband, also a god, the most important of all the gods, to whom she fed a love potion, and he fell asleep in the shrine on the summit of his ziggurat. Since he was a god, his dreaming was so powerful that… In general, it’s all a bit confused, but all of our world, including all of us, and even the goddess, are apparently his dream. And since he can’t be found, she has a symbolic earthly husband, whom she chooses herself.’

Tatarsky cast a glance in the direction of Azadovsky, who nodded and released a neat smoke ring through the mouth-hole of his mask.

‘You guessed,’ said Farseikin. ‘At the moment it’s him. For Leonid, it’s naturally a rather tense moment when someone else looks into the sacred eye, but so far it’s been all right. Go on.’

Tatarsky went up to the eye on the stand and knelt down in front of it. The blue enamel iris was separated from the pupil by a fine gold border; the pupil itself was dark and reflected like a mirror. In it Tatarsky could see his own distorted face, Farseikin’s crooked figure and Azadovsky’s bloated knee.

‘Turn the light this way,’ Farseikin said to someone. ‘He won’t be able to see like that, and he has to remember for the rest of his life.’

A bright beam of light fell on the pupil, and Tatarsky could no longer see his own reflection, which was replaced by a blurred golden glimmering, as though he had just spent several minutes watching the rising sun, then closed his eyes and seen its imprint lost and wandering through his nerve endings. ‘Just what was it I was supposed to see?’ he wondered.

Behind him there was a rapid scuffle, something metallic clanged heavily against the floor and he heard a hoarse gasp. Tatarsky instantly leapt to his feet, sprang back from the altar and swung round.

The scene that met his eyes was so unreal that it failed to frighten him, and he decided it must be part of the ritual. Sasha Blo and Malyuta, wearing fluffy white skirts, with golden masks dangling at their chests, were strangling Azadovsky with yellow nylon skipping ropes, trying to keep themselves as far away from him as possible, while Azadovsky, his sheep’s eyes staring out of his head, was pulling the thin nylon rope with both hands towards himself with all his might. Alas, it was an unequal struggle: blood appeared on his lacerated palms, staining the yellow string red, and he fell first to his knees and then on to his belly, covering his fallen mask with his chest. Tatarsky caught the moment when the expression of dumbfounded astonishment disappeared from the eyes gazing at him and was not replaced by any other. It was only then he realised that if this was part of the ritual, it was an entirely unexpected part for Azadovsky.

‘What is this? What’s happening?’

‘Take it easy,’ said Farseikin. ‘Nothing’s happening any more. It’s already happened.’

‘But why?’ asked Tatarsky.

Farseikin shrugged. ‘The great goddess had grown weary of her mismatch.’

‘How do you know?’

‘At the sacred divination in Atlanta the oracle foretold that in our country Ishtar would have a new husband. We’d been having problems with Azadovsky for ages, but it took us a long time to figure out who the new husband could be. All that was said about him was that he was a man with the name of a town. We thought and thought about it, we searched, and then suddenly they brought in your file from the first section. Everything adds up: you’re the one.’

‘Me???’

Instead of replying, Farseikin gave a sign to Sasha Blo and Malyuta. They went over to Azadovsky’s body, took hold of his legs and dragged him out of the altar room into the changing room.

‘Me?’ Tatarsky repeated. ‘But why me?’