Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

Mikhalich was looking at me with insane hope in his eyes. I knew that look too. What a long time I have spent in this world, I thought sadly.

‘It would be like living on your own island,’ Mikhalich said in a husky voice. ‘Or you could really live on your own island if you like. Your very own coconut Bounty bar. I’ll do everything for you.’

‘And what’s this island called?’ I asked.

‘How do you mean?’

‘An island has to have a name. Ultima Thule, for instance. Or Atlantis.’

‘We can call it whatever you like,’ he said with a grin. ‘Is that really a problem?’

It was time to wind up the conversation.

‘Okay, Mikhalich,’ I said. ‘This is a serious decision. I’ll think about it, okay? For a week or so.’

‘Do that,’ he said. ‘Only bear this in mind. In the first place, now I’m the big shot in the apparat when it comes to oil. That’s a fact. It’s my stopcock all those oligarchs suck their oil out of. And they’d suck the other thing too, if I so much as frowned. And in the second place, just remember this. You like wolves, don’t you? I know about that. I’m a wolf, a real wolf. But the comrade colonel general . . . Of course, he holds a superior post, with immense responsibility. The whole department idolizes him. But just between you and me, my thing is twice as big.’

‘Please don’t go into detail.’

‘Okay then, no detail. But you think about it anyway - maybe it’s better with a decent detail after all? You know all about the comrade colonel general anyway . . .’

‘I do,’ I said.

‘And bear in mind that he’s vowed never to turn back into a man as long as the country has any external or internal enemies. Like comrade Sharikov did before . . . The whole department was in tears. But to be honest, I don’t think the enemies have anything to do with it. He just gets bored now being a man.’

‘I understand, Mikhalich. I understand everything.’

‘I know.’ He said. ‘You’re a clever one.’

‘All right. You go now. I want to be alone for a while.’

‘Why don’t you teach me that thing,’ he said wistfully, ‘you know, the tailechery . . .’

‘He told you about that as well?’

‘Nah, he didn’t tell me anything. We’ve got no time to waste on you now. We’re up to our eyes in work, you ought to understand that.’

‘And what sort of work is it?’

‘The country needs purging. Until we catch all the offshore fat cats, there’s no time for yapping.’

‘How are you going to catch them, if they’re offshore?’

‘Nagual Rinpoche has a nose for them. He can smell them through the wall. And he really didn’t tell me anything about the tails. I heard it on the instrument. You were arguing about them, about ... e-egh ... the best way to twist them together.’

‘You heard it on the instrument, I see. Okay, go now, you shameless wolf.’

‘I’ll be waiting for your call. You be sure to keep in touch with us. Don’t forget what country you live in.’

‘As if I could.’

‘All right then. Call me.’

He got up and walked towards the forest.

‘Listen, Mikhalich,’ I called to him when he was already a few metres away.

‘Eh?’ he asked, looking back.

‘Don’t wear that T-shirt. Andy Warhol died in nineteen eighty-seven. It makes it too obvious that you’re getting on a bit.’

‘I heard you have a few problems in that area yourself,’ he said imperturbably. ‘Only I still like you anyway. What difference does it make to me how old you are? Not going to shag your passport, am I? Especially since it’s a fake.’

I smiled. I had to admit that he did have charm - a werewolf is a werewolf.

‘Right Mikhalich, not the passport. You’ll be shagging dead Andy Warhol.’

He laughed.

‘Personally speaking, I’ve got nothing against it,’ I went on. ‘But it dismays me to think that you’re looking for him in me. Even though I like you so much as a human being .’

I had hit him with the most terrible insult possible in our circles, but he simply roared with laughter. The dumb stud was probably totally impervious.

‘So don’t wear that T-shirt, Mikhalich, really. It positions you as a gay necrophile.’

‘Can you say that in Russian?’

‘Sure. A stiff-shagging faggot.’

He chuckled, stuck his tongue out, waved the end about suggestively in the air and repeated:

‘Call, I’ll be waiting. Maybe we’ll get the entire department to think up an answer for you.’

Then he swung round and set off towards the forest. I watched the black square of his back until it dissolved into the greenery. Malevich sold here . . . But then, who needed these allusions any more.

I only have a very little left to say. I have lived in this country for a long time and I understand the significance of accidental meetings like this, of conversations ending with advice to keep in touch with the security services. I spent a few days sorting out my old manuscripts and burning them. In fact, the only sorting I did was to run my eye diagonally over the pages covered with writing before I threw them into the flames. I had accumulated an especially large number of poems:

She’s not a wingless fly on someone’s Thule,

He’s not a one who fears the night around.

The two night prowlers are the fox A Hu-Li

And her dark friend, the sudden Pizdets hound.

It saddened me most of all to burn the poems: I never had a chance to read them to anyone. But what can I do - my dark friend is too busy. I have only one task left to carry out now, and that is already close to completion (which is why my narrative is shifting from the past tense into the present). It is the task of which the Yellow Master spoke to me twelve centuries ago. I must reveal to all foxes how they can attain freedom. In effect, I have almost done this already - it only remains to draw together everything that has been said into clear, precise instructions.

I have already said that foxes use their tails to implant the illusion of this world in their own minds. This is expressed symbolically by the sign of the uroborus , round which my mind has been circling for so many centuries, sensing the great mystery that is concealed within it. A snake biting its own tail . . .

The inviolable link between the tail and the mind - that is the foundation on which the world as we know it stands. There is nothing that can intervene in this circle of cause and effect and disrupt it. Except for one thing. Love.

We werefoxes are significantly superior to people in all respects. But like them, we almost never know true love. And therefore the secret path leading out of this world is hidden from us. But it is so simple that it is hard to believe: the circuit of self-hypnosis can be broken by a single movement of the mind.

I shall now transmit this unsurpassed teaching in the hope that it may serve as the cause of the liberation of all those who possess a heart and a tail. This technique, lost since time immemorial, has been discovered anew by me, the fox A Hu-Li, for the good of all beings, under the circumstances described in this book. Here is a full and complete exposition of the secret method of ancient foxes known as ‘tail of the void’.

1. First the werefox must comprehend what love is. The world that we create by inertia day after day is full of evil. But we cannot break out of the vicious circle because we do not know how to create anything else. The nature of love is entirely different, and that is precisely why there is so little of it in our lives. Or rather, our lives are like that because there is so little love in them. And in most cases what people take for love is physical attraction and parental instinct, multiplied by social conceit. Werefox, do not become like a tailless monkey. Remember who you are!