The air over their table filled with silence. The goddess lifted her glass and downed her sixth cocktail in a single swig.
“So, you think I’m some kind of pervert?” she asked after a minute.
“I think that the worst perversion is to be what they call a ‘normal person,’” Maximus replied. “To get up every morning, shave or put on your makeup, go to the office, work all day long, fill your refrigerator and empty it again, spend your nights in front of the TV. People who live that way are the real sickos. That is what I think.”
Maximus lifted his own sixth cocktail and, like the goddess, downed it in one swig.
Outside the bar, Maximus embraced Maya tenderly, and she laid her head trustfully on his shoulder. The excess of emotion overflowing inside him brought Maximus close to tears. It occurred to him that in Russia, true love was actually pity. Perhaps that’s where the Russian soul most reveals its essentially feminine nature. They say that it’s when a woman feels pity that she truly loves. Though admittedly it’s only Russians who say that. Or maybe all love is really made up of pity, compassion. What else can a single, lonely soul, trapped in the cage of the material world and suffering a multitude of sorrows, feel toward another soul like itself? And don’t the Hindus say that all souls are by nature female?
Then, out of the middle of nowhere, he remembered the classic anecdote about Lieutenant Rzhevsky.
Lieutenant Rzhevsky goes into the officers’ club and says: “Gentlemen! What has Russia come to? I was walking down the street just now, and this little girl comes up to me, age twelve or so, a perfect little blue-eyed angel, but skinny as a toothpick and all in rags, and she says: ‘Uncle, give me a piece of bread, and I’ll do anything you want me to!’ And just imagine, gentlemen, I did—I fucked her and cried, fucked her and cried!”
That’s so disgusting, thought Semipyatnitsky. But it’s still pity, isn’t it. Pity and love. Love, Russian style.
FOREIGN POLICY
And Saat began his new life as the Khagan. First, as the Great Bek had instructed, he had to visit the harem. And in the harem there were ten sevens of women, one from each of seventy different tribes, the seventy peoples that Great Khazaria had united together on the bright path, just as it says in the Khazar national anthem. The Khagan’s couriers had gone out into the towns and villages, the forests and encampments, and requisitioned these women, selecting them in accordance with the ideal anthropological standard that had been set for each tribe. Only the most beautiful were brought to the Khagan’s palace.
At first Saat thought that he would try out a different bedroom each night: that is, one wife per night. But when he sat down and clicked the pearly beads of his silver abacus, he realized that that this wasn’t going to work. At that rate each noble princess would experience the bliss of love only four times a year. Or maybe five, for the ones early in the rotation, and if it was a leap year. The girls would get lonely. So he would have to steel his flesh and sacrifice himself on the altar of the state. Saat resolved to visit four wives every night.
A monumental labor. Every third night or so, of course, the demon in him would fully savor the pleasures of the flesh. But then he wouldn’t be able to stand any more, could not bear to look upon any more, any more breasts or thighs, any more heavy-lidded eyes! And when he again smelled their perfume, or that fishy smell between their legs, he would just get disgusted and feel like throwing up.
But this wasn’t about his pleasure: It was a matter of state. This much Saat learned on the first morning. He dragged himself on rubbery legs back to his gilded bed with its swan-down mattress, hoping to sleep it off until sunset. But a delegation appeared in his room unbidden, four scribes holding waxed slates, and the Bek himself at their head. They arranged themselves around the room, each on a special seat that had been prepared for him, styluses at ready, all ears. And the Great Bek spoke:
“Tell me, O Khagan, how it went with your wives. State first their name, then their tribe of origin and ID number. And spare us no detail!”
Saat hesitated, but the Great Bek encouraged him: “Bear in mind this is not an intimate, personal matter. These are noble maidens serving the welfare of the realm.”
So Saat then told them everything, keeping no secrets; he told how and how many; he told of contortions and positions, of breasts and thighs, of loud moans and passionate climaxes; he told of women who lay still and unresponsive like logs, and of those who craved all manner of debauchery or asked to be whipped, who summoned maidservants to watch, who ordered him to crawl about on all fours and to drink amber-colored urine; he told of the one who said she wanted the stag to drink deeply of her spring, who stroked his hair and called him Grandpa.
Saat told them everything, and the scribes wrote it all down, scratching it into their slates, and the Great Bek rested his head in his hand and thought various thoughts.
Afterward the Great Bek studied the scribes’ slates. He then summoned his ministers and warriors and issued instructions:
“Number One’s people are restless, they must be tamed. Take away their bread and beer—that will make them scrawnier and less likely to cause trouble. Number Two’s people are strong and hostile—bring in some border troops and have them needle away at them with small-scale banditry: Have them beat the men and ravish the maidens, though not so much as to cause any harm to the economy or to the glory of Khazaria in the land beyond the hills. Number Three’s people are lethargic, sleeping even when awake—send our musicians and actors forth to the bazaars, have them play loudly on their flutes and entertain the masses day and night. That may awaken them. As for Number Four’s people: Leave everything as it is. It’s best not to touch them—or you’ll cause a stink on both sides from the River Itil all the way to the Khazar Sea.”
The Bek departed with the scribes and the new Khagan collapsed on his bed, deeply moved: Great is the wisdom of tradition! What better way to get to know a country than by fucking all its crevasses? And to use for that purpose a sweet, noble girl. And by knowing the peoples of the realm in this way, it is easy to maintain power, and to preserve the unity of the mighty Khaganate.
PROSPECT OF ENLIGHTENMENT
Early the next morning Maximus sat at the open window of an apartment on Enlightenment Prospect, greedily gulping in the fresh air, which hadn’t yet become saturated with poisonous exhaust. Maya lay on the sofa bed, having kicked off the covers, with her arms, legs, hair, and breasts splayed every which way across the sheets.
Maximus looked over at her and felt that he no longer felt anything. Not love, not passion, not even pity. Well, maybe a touch of pity remained, but it was mixed with scorn, not love.
So, thought Maximus, does this mean that there’s no such thing as love? It’s all just pills?
How did we survive before, before the Dutch came up with their drug?
Or were the pills something like insulin—get hooked on them, and before you know it your heart loses the ability to process its own emotions without a fresh dose?
Or have the pills always been with us, just in some other form?
Maybe the girl was in fact beautiful. Yes, sure she was, even very much so. But it was a strange, deathly beauty! The beauty of a corpse. For she would be just as beautiful if she were to die right this minute. Maybe even more beautiful—a little pallor would add the perfect finishing touch.
Beauty is the promise of happiness. Semipyatnitsky had long known this maxim, and had even quoted it somewhere in one of his stories. But now he saw that the promise had become a lie. Everything is mere illusion, and beauty is the delusion that there is happiness to be had tomorrow, when you make it your own. But once you do, it all empties out. And you understand that possessing it wasn’t the point; that it’s impossible, in fact. The girl, fine; you can possess her in a social or physical sense, but not her beauty. Because beauty isn’t something that belongs to her alone. Beauty is from some other, celestial plane. Only there can beauty, and perfection, and happiness be realized.
&
nbsp; Four used condoms, full of semen, lay in a little pile on the doily on the table. And all the temptations of the flesh, all possible aesthetic achievements, even the great works of art from the portrait of Mona Lisa to the verses of Igor Severianin, from the architecture of Versailles to the music of the Beatles, appeared to Maximus in his present state like just so many used rubbers.
Maya’s head slipped off the pillow and gave out a refined, whistling snore. Maximus dressed and left the apartment. The door slammed behind him.
When he came out the front of the building, he found himself surrounded on all sides by identical concrete towers, rising like great cliffs pitted with rows and rows of identical, nest-like apartments. Whenever he found himself in the northern suburbs, Maximus felt as though he’d landed in some strange and alien place—if not a different planet, then at least an unfamiliar city.
Yes, the Cyclopean hulks of the buildings loomed up and blocked the sky. People emerged from the front doors of the towers and merged together to form a great stream, flowing toward the only point of egress, prosvet, sliver of light, sliver of dawn, Prospect of Enlightenment. They resembled the throngs of souls on Judgment Day, destined either to be borne up to Paradise or hurled on a downward spiral through the circles of Hell.
Must be heading for the metro.
Maximus lit up a cigarette and joined the crowd.
PART III
Serkel
HAKAN
Maximus had acquired a new hobby. During the day he obediently carried out his duties at the office: verified accounts, argued with brokers and shippers, persuaded suppliers to extend deadlines and raise credit limits, read e-mail, wrote messages, and drafted contracts and reports for the management. Then, after work, he frequented used bookstores or sat at home at the computer, searching the Internet for information about the history of the Khazar Khaganate. Before long he considered himself to be an expert on the matter and even toyed with the idea of writing an essay on the Khazars.
And there were no repercussions as far as Maya went. Nobody could have been more surprised than she herself at her precipitous decision to sleep with a mid-level manager from the next office over. Her social position, her tactical, technological, and physical specifications—they all made demands Semipyatnitsky couldn’t hope to meet, as a suitor. He’d gone out to dinner with her a couple of times since that night: once at the Barf Bar, another time at the Harbin. They had indulged in empty chatter about trivialities: just friends.
Before long Maximus saw her being picked up from work in a Porsche Cayenne with a conspicuous tricolored government pass on the windshield.
But this didn’t really bother him. He had become preoccupied with Khazaria. He felt that the secrets of that ancient land would hold the key to both his own fate and that of the Fatherland, as well as to a whole range of geopolitical and national problems. At times he would feel that the truth was close at hand, but soon this discovery would get caught up in a mass of contradictory historical facts and interpretations, and slip from his grasp.
Maximus wasted no time over lunch. He could take the elevator down to the first floor, put “today’s special” on a tray, pay, eat, have a smoke, and ride the elevator back up to the office all within the space of a half hour. That left the other half of his lunch hour open.
Semipyatnitsky considered it his right to be idle during that time. He surfed the web, beginning with news sites and gradually switching to chat sites and forums, following links further and further up the Internet’s esoteric asshole.
So it happened that one time he stumbled onto a blog post by someone who signed himself Hakan, with a bearded cartoon avatar instead of a photograph.
From then on Maximus even gave up TV. He could keep up with current events by reading Hakan’s blog: a never-ending flow of opinions on all the most striking and ludicrous events in Russian public life.
When pogroms occurred in the Karelian village of Kondopoga, Hakan posted a stirring manifesto:
Russians Out of Karelia!
The patience of the Karelian nation has reached its limit. The uninvited guests of this beneficent northern land interpret our inherent goodness and our gentle and kind natures as weakness and timidity. Hospitality is a good thing, but when the guest forgets his place and begins to act like the host, and even attempts to crowd the homeowner out of his own space, it’s time to send him packing!
Karelia, of course, is a vast and spacious land, but even here, space is finite. Tens of thousands of strangers have inundated us from the south. And of all the immigrants in Karelia, the Russian diaspora represents the most populous, disrespectful, criminal, and dangerous group.
Wherever we go, schools, workplaces, institutions of all kinds, everywhere we see the same old faces. I’m sick and tired of them, these ugly Slavic faces. These newcomers have infested all of Karelia! Conniving with the local authorities, who are in the hands of the Russians, these tumbleweeds spread their uncivilized ways across our homeland.
Even as they live on our land, they show no willingness to respect our laws and customs. They make no effort to learn the Karelian language, the beautiful, mellifluous tongue of our great epic Kalevala, and instead they force us to study their guttural, incomprehensible lingo, an impoverished mongrel tongue cobbled together from words and concepts stolen from other languages.
Karelia is a land of woods and lakes, a vast virgin wilderness! The indigenous population, the Karelians, always lived in harmony with their environment. In their interactions with nature, they acted with moderation, respecting ancient tradition. Karelians of all walks of life—fishermen, hunters, foresters—took from nature only what they needed, claiming no excess; instead of seeking quick profits, they ensured the preservation and renewal of the natural resources of the land.
Then the aliens, the greedy Russians, came and disfigured the pristine shorelines of our crystal lakes, building cellulose and paper processing plants that spew toxins into the air and water. The Russian timber industries are destroying our precious Karelian forests. These squatters show no inclination or ability to preserve even their own land, so why should they care about anyone else’s? Having long ago poisoned and sold off everything of any value in their own habitat, they now extend their greedy paws toward the riches of the north.
The immigrants’ predatory appetites know no bounds, great or small. And now the original natives of the Republic of Karelia can no longer can find work in their own country; all the jobs have been taken over by Russian gastarbeiter. The immigrants have taken over our stores and markets, so we Karelians can no longer practice our own traditional crafts. As a result, the ancient ways of our native people are falling into wrack and ruin.
Long ago, that great northern race, the Varangians, generously offered their protection to the slumbering Slavic tribes, created a state for them, and brought them into contact with European culture. The savages even took their name from the Varangians’ language, which identified the noble northern race that ruled the backward eastern territories as “Rus.” As such, the word “Russian” answers not the question “who” but rather “whose.” The peoples of Europe called these Slavs the slaves of Rus, of the Varangians. But now they have taken that name for themselves.
Today’s Russians haven’t even preserved the Slavic bloodline, which was improved and enhanced by its contact with the northern gene bank. The real Russians were exterminated during the Mongol invasion, the reign of the Oprichniks, and the Time of Troubles. Thereafter, all the Russian lands were overrun by the survivors, Muscovites, a bastardized mix of Tatars and Jews. And these are the Russians of today: nomads and money-grubbers, lacking any roots to the land.
And they display the most blatant historical ingratitude. Instead of meekly yielding before the superior northern race, who had first made human beings out of these bears and peasants, instead of kneeling before the Karelians, who preserved the purity of the true Rus bloodline, these bastard crossbreeds are now trying to take over our territory!
/> Their insolence surpasses all reason: First they incite bloody violence against other immigrants, whose diasporas just happen to be more sparsely dispersed, and then they divide our land, our markets, and our natural resources into “spheres of influence”! It’s as though the aliens have completely forgotten where they are—who is the host here, and who the guest.
Herewith I declare the establishment of the People’s Front for the Liberation of Karelia, whose goal it is to cleanse our native land of undesirable immigrants, to establish justice and order, and to improve the welfare of the working people of Karelia, who for centuries have been robbed and oppressed by these foreigners.
The People’s Front for the Liberation of Karelia hereby establishes lateral ties with the Fronts of the fraternal peoples of the republics of Sakha-Yakutia, of Tuva, and of Chuvashia, among others, and stands ready to coordinate its efforts to liberate these neighboring lands. There is no place here for the Russian plunderers!
We will not emulate the ignorant Asiatics and Russians and imitate their savage customs, will not instigate bloody brawls and pogroms or commit acts of arson. We Karelians are a civilized European nation, belonging to the sophisticated northern race. And we will solve our problems in a civilized manner.
All Russians are hereby invited to gather all their belongings and quit the territory of Karelia within forty-eight hours to return to their historical homeland. We know that entire villages in central Russia are dying out; fields stand fallow and vacant. Why shouldn’t the Russians go back where they came from, and plant potatoes and parsley? We will no longer permit them to cut down our forests and poison our lakes!
All material property and businesses on the territory of the Republic of Karelia are hereby declared the property of the Karelian people and will be distributed to native representatives of the republic according to the principles of social equality.
The Maya Pill Page 17