Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Others, bolder in spirit, used to visit me for a little wanton lechery among the ancient graves. The Chinese artists and poets valued a secluded rendezvous with a fox, especially in a state of intoxication. And in the morning they liked to wake up in the grass beside a mossy gravestone, jump to their feet and scream in horror as they ran to the nearest shrine with their hair fluttering loose in the wind. It was very beautiful - I used to watch from behind a tree and laugh into my sleeve . . . And a couple of days later they would come back again. What exalted, noble, subtle people there used to be then! Often I didn’t even take money from them.

Those idyllic times flew past quickly, and they left me with the very best of memories. Wherever life cast me up after that, I always felt slightly homesick for my cosy little grave. And so for me it was a delight to move into this little nook in the forest. I thought the old days had come back. Even the floor plan of the double burrow in which we lived reminded me of my ancient refuge although, of course, the rooms were smaller and now my days were not spent in solitude, but with Alexander.

Alexander quickly grew accustomed to the new place. His wounds healed - it was enough for him simply to turn into a dog for one night. In the morning he stayed like that and went off for a walk along the gully. I was glad he wasn’t ashamed of this body - he seemed to find it entertaining, like a new toy. What he liked was evidently not the form itself, but its permanent stability: he could only be a wolf for a short while, but now he could be a dog for just as long as he wanted.

Apart from that, this black dog could even speak after a fashion, although the way it pronounced the words was very funny and at first I used to laugh until I cried. But Alexander didn’t take offence, and I soon got used to it. During the early days he ran around in the forest a lot, getting to know the surrounding area. I was concerned that his ambitions might lead him to mark too large a sector of the forest, but I was afraid to wound his pride by telling him so. And if anything happened, we could stand up for ourselves. ‘We’ . . . I simply couldn’t get used to that pronoun.

It was probably because our home reminded me of the place where I had spent so many years striving for spiritual self-improvement that I felt the desire to explain to Alexander the single most important of all things that I had understood in life. I had to try at least - otherwise what was my love worth? How could I possibly abandon him alone in the glacial glamour of the progressively advancing hell that began just beyond the edge of the forest? I had to offer him my tail and my hand because, if I didn’t do it, no one else would.

I decided to reveal the innermost essence of things to him. This required him to master several ideas that were new to him and then use them, like steps, to ascend to the higher truth. But even explaining these initial notions was difficult.

The problem is that everybody knows the words that express the truth - and if you don’t, you can easily find them in five minutes via Google. But hardly anyone at all actually knows the truth. It’s like one of those ‘magic eye’ pictures - a chaotic jumble of coloured lines and spots that can be transformed into a three-dimensional image by focusing your vision correctly. It all seems very simple, but you can’t focus someone else’s eyes for them when they look, no matter how well-disposed you are towards them. The truth is a picture just like that. It is there right in front of everybody’s eyes, even the tailless monkeys’. But there are very few who actually see it. Although many think that they understand it. This, of course, is nonsense - the truth is like love, there is nothing to understand. And what is usually taken for the truth is some kind of intellectual dross.

One day I noticed a tiny grey pouch hanging round Alexander’s neck on a grey string. I guessed that the colour had been chosen to match a wolf’s fur - so that the pouch would not be visible when he turned into a wolf. But now it stood out against his black fur. I decided to ask him about it that evening, when he was in a benign mood.

He was in the habit of smoking a malodorous Cuban cigar before bed - a Montecristo III or Cohiba Siglo IV. I knew the names, because I had to go to get them. That was the best time to talk to him. In case you didn’t know, smoking triggers a discharge of dopamine into the brain - and dopamine is the substance responsible for a feeling of well-being: a smoker borrows this well-being against his own future and transforms it into problems with his health. That evening we settled down in the doorway of our home and he lit up (I wouldn’t allow him to smoke inside). I waited until his cigar was half burnt away and asked:

‘Tell me, what have you got in that little pouch hanging round your neck?’

‘A cross,’ he said.

‘A cross? You wear a cross?’

He nodded.

‘But why hide it? It’s okay to wear them now.’

‘It may be okay,’ he said. ‘But it burns my chest when I transform. ’

‘Does it hurt?’

‘It doesn’t really hurt. It’s just that every time there’s a smell of scorched fur.’

‘If you like, I can teach you a mantra,’ I said, ‘so that no cross will ever burn you again.’

‘Oh, sure! I’m not going to recite your infernal mantra so my cross doesn’t burn my chest. Don’t you realize what a sin that would be?’

I looked at him incredulously.

‘Hang on. So maybe you’re a believer too, are you?’

‘What of it,’ he said. ‘Of course I’m a believer.’

‘In the sense of the Orthodox Christian Cultural Heritage? Or for real?’

‘I don’t understand the distinction. In the Holy Writ it says:

“Even the demons believe and tremble!” That’s about us, and that’s what I do - believe and tremble.’

‘But you’re a werewolf, Sasha. So according to all the Orthodox precepts your road leads straight to hell. Tell me, I’d like to know, why would you choose a faith in which you have to go to hell?’

‘You don’t choose your faith,’ he said morosely. ‘Just like you don’t choose your motherland.’

‘But the reason religion exists is to offer hope of salvation. What are you hoping for?’

‘That God will forgive my evil deeds.’

‘And what evil deeds have you got?’

‘That’s obvious. I’ve lost the image of God. And then there’s you ...’

I almost choked in indignation.

‘So you don’t think I’m the brightest and purest thing in your entire lupine life, on the contrary, I’m an evil deed for which you’ll have to atone?’

He shrugged.

‘I love you, you know that. It’s not a matter of you personally. It’s just that the two of us live, you know . . .’

‘What do I know?’

He released a cloud of smoke.

‘In sin . . .’

My anger instantly evaporated. And instead I felt more like laughing than I had for a long time.

‘No, come on, tell me,’ I said, feeling the bubbles of laughter rising in my throat. ‘So I’m your sin, am I?’

‘Not you,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘it’s that . . .’

‘What?’

‘Tailechery,’ he said in a very quiet voice and lowered his eyes.

I bit my lip. I knew that whatever I did, I mustn’t laugh - he had shared his most intimate feelings with me. And I didn’t laugh. But the effort was so great it could easily have made a new silver hair appear in my tail. So he’d even invented a term for it!

‘Don’t take offence,’ he said. ‘I’m being honest with you, saying what I feel. I can lie if you like. Only then there won’t be any point in talking to each other.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘you’re right. It’s just that this is all rather unexpected. ’