Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

We looked into each other’s eyes for a while.

‘I was going to give him some champagne,’ I said, putting the bottle on the table.

The visitor shifted his gaze to Mikhalich.

‘Brought your daughter, have you?’ he asked.

‘Nah,’ Mikhalich croaked from his armchair and even moved his arm (evidently the presence of the visitor had helped him to gather his wits). ‘Nah . . . the whore . . .’

‘Ah,’ said the visitor and looked back at me. ‘So this is the one . . . who offended our consultant?’

‘That’s her.’

‘And what happened to you?’

‘Boss,’ Mikhalich mumbled in reply, ‘the tooth, boss! Anaesthetic!’

The young man sniffed at the air and a grimace of disapproval appeared on his face.

‘So they used ketamine for your anaesthetic, did they?’

‘Boss, I . . .’

‘Or did you call the vet in to have your ears docked?’

‘Boss . . .’

‘Again? I can understand it, out on the job. But why here? Didn’t we have a talk on the subject?’

Mikhalich lowered his eyes. The young man glanced at me and it seemed to me his glance was curious.

‘Boss, I’ll explain,’ said Mikhalich. ‘Word of . . .’

I could physically feel what an effort the words were costing him.

‘No, Mikhalich, I’ll do the explaining,’ said the visitor. He picked up the bottle of champagne off the table and hit Mikhalich over the head with it with all his strength.

This time the bottle broke and a geyser of white foam washed down over Mikhalich from his head to his toes. I was quite certain that after a blow like that he would never get up out of the armchair again - I know a thing or two about human anatomy. But to my amazement, Mikhalich just shook his head from side to side, like a lush who’s had a bucket of water thrown over him. Then he raised his hand and wiped the spatters of champagne off his face. Instead of killing him, the blow had brought him round. I’d never seen anything like it before.

‘All right, then,’ said the young man, ‘take a shower, then get in a taxi and go home. They can give you light broth. Or strong tea. But really Mikhalich, to do things right you ought to go on a barbiturate drip.’

I didn’t understand what that phrase meant.

‘Yes sir,’ said Mikhalich. He struggled to his feet and staggered into the bathroom, leaving a trail of champagne drops behind him. When the door closed the young man turned to me and smiled.

‘It’s stuffy in here,’ he said. ‘Please allow me to show you out into the fresh air.’

I liked his polite manner.

We went out of the flat a different way. The steel pole I’d seen in one of the rooms turned out to lead to the ground floor. You see similar poles in fire stations and go-go bars. You can slide down a pole like that to a big beautiful fire engine and receive a medal ‘for bravery at the scene of a fire’. Or you can rub your bottom and your breasts against it erotically and receive a few moist banknotes from the audience. So many different roads through life lie before us . . .

Fortunately, today I didn’t have to do either of these things. Beside the pole there was a narrow spiral staircase - obviously for less urgent occasions. That was the way we went down, into a dark garage where there was a fantastic black car - an absolutely genuine Maibach. There couldn’t be more than a few of those in the whole of Moscow.

The young man stopped beside the car and raised his head - so that his nose was pointed at me - then took a powerful breath in. It looked weird. But after that his face assumed a blissful expression - as if he’d been really moved by something, in fact.

‘I’d like to apologize for what happened,’ he said, ‘and ask you to do me a favour.’

‘What sort of favour?’

‘I need to choose a present for a girl of about your age. I have no idea about ladies’ jewellery and I would be very grateful for some advice.’

I hesitated for a second. Generally speaking, in situations like this, you should clear out at the first opportunity - but somehow I felt I wanted to continue the acquaintance. And I was wondering what the interior of the car looked like.

‘All right,’ I said.

But the moment I got into the car I forgot all about the interior - I was so struck by the pass on the windscreen.

I’d noticed a long time before then that the Russian authorities had a certain tendency towards kitsch: they were always attempting to issue themselves a charter of nobility and pass themselves off as the glorious descendants of empire with all its history and culture - despite the fact that they had about as much in common with the old Russia as some Lombards grazing their goats amid the ruins of the Forum had with the Flavian dynasty. The pass on the Maibach’s windscreen was a fresh example of the genre. It had a gold double-headed eagle, a three-digit number and the inscription:

Lo and behold, this sombre carriage

Can travel everywhere in this town

A. S. Pushkin

What can I say? Okay, an eagle. Okay, Pushkin. (I think it was a quotation from A Feast in the Time of Plague .) But the feeling of pride in our great country that the FSB copywriters had been counting on failed to materialize. The problem was probably a wrong choice of period for the references. They should have gone for feudal chronicles, not imperial eagles.

‘What are you thinking about?’

‘Ah? Me?’ I said, coming to my senses.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When you think, you wrinkle up your little nose in a very touching sort of way.’

We were already driving along the street.

‘By the way, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet,’ he said.

‘Alexander. You can call me Sasha. I’m Sasha Sery.’ That was interesting - ‘sery’ is the Russian word for ‘grey’.

‘And what’s your name?’

‘Adele.’

‘Adele?’ he asked, opening his eyes wide. ‘You’re not joking?’

I shook my head.

‘Incredible. There’s so much in my life that’s linked with that name! You can’t even imagine. Our meeting like this is fate. It’s no accident that you’ve ended up in my car . . .’

‘Do you have a fishing reel with you?’ I asked.

‘A fishing reel? What for?’

‘You can wind me on to it after you finish stringing me along.’

He laughed.

‘You don’t believe me? About Adele?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I can explain what it’s all about. If you’re interested.’

‘I am.’

And I really was interested.

‘Do you know that game on PlayStation - Final Fantasy 8?’

I shook my head.

‘I got almost all the way through it once - and that takes a long time. And then just before the end the enchantress Adele appeared. Very beautiful, a lot taller than a man. The animation’s spectacular - she wakes up and opens her eyes, and she’s covered in these rays of light, radiating out, a lot like the logo for Universal Studios, and she flies to Earth in her sarcophagus.’

‘Where does she fly from?’

‘The Moon.’

‘Aha. And how does it all end?’

‘I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘That’s the point. I couldn’t defeat her. I did for all the rest, but not her, no way. So the game ended there . . .’

‘Why is this memory so important to you?’ I asked. ‘There are plenty of games.’

‘Before that I’d always succeeded at everything,’ he said.

‘Absolutely everything?’

He nodded.

‘Oh, sure,’ I said. ‘Of course.’

‘You don’t believe me?’

‘Why not? I believe you. I can tell from the car.’

A few seconds passed in silence. I glanced out of the window. We were approaching the beginning of Tverskoi Boulevard.