Outside at last, Maximus gazed, enchanted, at the world around him and breathed in deep lungfuls of the intoxicating air of freedom and the unknown.
PILLS AGAIN
Wait!
That’s not all.
I admit I was tempted to end not just Part III, but the whole book, with that elegant if slightly clichéd turn of phrase about “freedom and the unknown.”
What happened next? You might well ask. Maximus quit his job; the part of his life during which he functioned as a contributing member of society was over. He made his choice. He left, and brought his story to an aesthetically satisfying conclusion. The story is over, the protagonist’s fate has been decided, the curtain has come down . . . The house lights come on in the dark theater. The audience rises to their feet; the folding seats snap back into place. Empty plastic soda bottles lie conveniently “forgotten” on the floor, together with cardboard boxes half full of cold, soggy popcorn.
But no!
There’s still some unfinished business.
Maximus realized this the moment he stepped outside.
How could he have forgotten?
Given all the fuss, all of his discoveries and worries, such inattention is understandable, but still: How could he have forgotten about the pills?
Peter had taken the pills to the hotel with him. When Maximus met him there, Peter didn’t have the pills, only his small carry-on bag. After their visit to the Tribunal, Peter hadn’t gone back to the hotel. Maximus had taken him to the train station himself.
So where were the pills?
Maximus got in his car, started the engine, and—following instinct—turned onto Nevsky. Semipyatnitsky muscled his way through the traffic to the Nevsky Palace, then pulled up halfway onto the sidewalk. Ignoring the prominent No Parking sign with its eloquent silhouette of a tow truck at work, he turned off the engine and climbed out.
Maximus walked up to the hotel entrance and stood there for a couple of minutes. Then, still in the grip of the same subconscious impulse, he headed for the Fontanka Embankment. He turned onto the embankment and descended the granite ramp to the canal. At the water’s edge he thought, “What am I doing here?” and glanced around.
The answer to his question was immediately obvious. A scrap of paper was stuck on the granite wall on the Fontanka side—part of a label from a carton. The letters were still legible: a big PTH followed by some other letters and numbers.
Interesting. How much time had passed since the Dutch partners’ visit? A few weeks at least. But the label, which the waves had pasted onto the granite wall, was still there; it hadn’t washed away, hadn’t dissolved in the acidic-alkaline solution of the Fontanka canal wastewater. As though it had been placed there for some special purpose, for Maximus himself to come and find it. To find it, to see it, to learn the truth.
And, indeed, as if to confirm Semipyatnitsky’s conjecture, the scrap of paper suddenly peeled off the granite, dropped into the water, and disappeared into the cold black depths of the canal.
So Peter had simply dumped the pills in the nearest canal! Tossed them in, box and all! A disaster!
Maximus had a rough idea of how the water circulation system works in a big city: The water goes through a complete cycle. It flows into the sewer pipes, and from there to the wastewater plants where it’s purified and sent back into the water supply. Today’s urine is tomorrow’s tea, and the day after tomorrow it’s urine again.
The sanitation process captures the majority of pollutants and toxins and destroys microbes with chlorine, but it was highly unlikely there were any filters effective against PTH. Someone needed to notify the Ministry of Emergency Situations! Warn people of the imminent danger!
Semipyatnitsky’s impulse to sound the alarm subsided within a couple of minutes. He climbed back up the steps onto the embankment and took a fresh look at the city around him.
Neon advertisements gleamed on the walls of the surrounding buildings, and the shop windows emitted blinding light; weirdly shaped metal conveyances sped along on the streets with pompous-looking passengers inside, while people strutted by on the sidewalks flaunting their designer clothing. Everyone looked happy. Or almost. At least they knew what had to be done to achieve the happiness they desired. And were highly motivated to take the next step on that path.
Maximus felt sad and relieved at the same time. There was nothing he could do. The pills had already permeated the city’s air and the people’s blood long before Peter’s visit. A couple dozen kilograms more or less wouldn’t make any difference. People would stay the same. They wouldn’t be willing to return to a life without the narcotic. It made no sense to try and fight it.
There was only one thing left to do: go home and go to bed. Dream dreams. If no more dreams of Khazaria came, then there would be others; Maximus could be sure of that.
So this really is the end.
Our story is over.
But the reader will note that the book doesn’t end here; there are a few more pages. What else is there to tell?
Sometimes an author and his readers find it hard to part with characters they’ve come to know and love. And I’ve gotten quite attached to Maximus. What about you?
I’d be curious to know what happened after Semipyatnitsky left the office. Besides which, it looks like my contract stipulates a higher word count. Seriously now, only the exterior, visible part of the story has ended. The most important thing still lies ahead. So let us turn the page . . .
PART IV
Poppies
INSOMNIA
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
The little metal alarm clock ticked in the silence of the dark room.
Just tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . . Normally when authors describe clocks ticking, they write “ticktock.” But my clock said tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . . on and on without end, with no “tock” to be heard.
I lay on my bed on top of the covers, and stared blankly into the nowhere of the ceiling. My insomnia was back.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
I hate the sound of clocks ticking in the middle of the night. It keeps me up. My ears snag on the rhythm, noting each tick, anticipating the next.
Every tick is in the right place, each pause measured out precisely, not a single one rushing ahead, not a single one falling behind. But my ear keeps on mistrustfully monitoring the intervals, sound and silence, and the mechanism keeps on ticking.
I needed to get up and silence the damn clock. I could smother it in a pile of laundry or move it out into the kitchen, or I could simply remove the battery and let it fall silent forever. That’s what I usually do. Or used to.
One night I was alone in my apartment, which was, I guess, my home, or would have been if I’d been myself at the time, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock, but the noise was deafening. I collected all the clocks in the apartment (there were three) and disabled them. And fell asleep.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
I used to have a home, there used to be people around. But now I’m alone. Alone. Home alone, alone, no home.
The clock might very well have made a different noise if it had been bigger—say, the size of my cupboard. Ticktock, tick-tick-tick. Alone at home, at home alone . . . better alone.
I remembered one of my old jobs, the one before the last, when I—or it might have been someone else—used to be sent on various trips around the country. Pack, unpack, pack, unpack, planes, buses, trains. From plane to bus to train and back again, unpack, pack, unpack, pack.
Life. No, life isn’t some kind of show. It’s not a game. And not a dream, either. Life is a business trip. Only your company ID has gone missing, and you can’t remember what you’re there for. You’re in some strange place, trying to get something done, but you’re not sure what exactly they sent you to do. And so you’re waiting for the management to contact you. While also being afraid they w
ill. And even more afraid they won’t.
Even without all the baggage, it’s not exactly a vacation. And you’re dragging around all your things, bags and suitcases full. It’s easier to travel light, but before you know it, you’ve accumulated even more stuff—wife, kids, relatives, friends.
So you kill time, looking for things to do in the evening. You get used to the place, you can find your way around now, and soon you’ve even forgotten who you are and who sent you and where you’re actually from.
And only then do they contact you and tell you it’s time to go home.
So it’s better to be alone.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
The resolve to try to change something in your life dwindles with every passing year. I used to be able to stop the flow of time. Now I was simply lying around without getting up; I took no action against the clock—it wouldn’t make any difference; I wasn’t going to fall asleep anyway.
I’d been given the clock at the annual reception that the St. Petersburg branch of one of the maritime shipping companies organized every year for its partners. OOCL. The acronym—the company’s logo—was engraved on the top. The clock was shaped like one of those navigation instruments, maybe some kind of chronometer, I don’t know; I’ve never been on one of those big ships. All I know is that the toilet is called the head, the kitchen the galley. That much I know for sure. Though I have no idea where I learned it. Or, more to the point, why.
OOCL is a Chinese company. People had come from their headquarters to serve as hosts for the reception: short Asians wearing European suits and very conservative, embossed neckties. The senior executive gave a brief presentation enumerating the company’s achievements over the past year, notably a forty percent increase in container shipments to Russia. Yes, their business was thriving. How could it not, with the yearly increase in imports from Southeast Asia? Russia imports everything: food, clothing, technology; the only growth here is in new shopping centers. Nothing is being assembled here these days except for criminal cases; nothing being invented except new ways to fleece the population.
But what difference did that make to me, naked little creature that I was, lying there in a dark apartment unable to sleep, listening: tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
At the reception I was introduced to a little man with a pockmarked face that resembled the surface of the moon; must be smallpox, or maybe some other pox, since European medicine eradicated that long ago. I seem to recall the man’s name was Nick, and he worked in one of the Chinese company’s European offices. I exchanged a few words with him in English, and his Russian colleagues hurriedly, with obvious relief, abandoned him to my care for the rest of the evening.
Nick told me about his office in England, which was located, of course, not in London—it’s too crowded and noisy there—but in some little town out in the country. Nick told me about his wife and two little kids, about his dog Lassie and his Toyota. Nick invited me to go to a bar with him after the reception, some place that had music, German beer, and beautiful Russian girls. His eyes gleamed in the darkness like two swamp lights, but I politely declined.
At the reception I ate a whole kilo of salmon and drank four bottles of light white Italian wine. In the process of entertaining Nick, I managed to make a few additional useful acquaintances, told them how thrilled I was with the hotel, complimented the hosts, shook hands with the directors, made eyes at the female managers, and smiled gallantly at the older women who ran companies that did business with or competed with Cold Plus.
I was the very image of comme il faut, or so I thought. I floated in the waters of this tastefully dressed and fragrant society like a fish, like that same salmon I’d been consuming, and by the end of the evening I felt as though I’d been washed up onto the shore, onto its scorching sand, into sizzling oil in a red-hot frying pan.
I’m not really a people person.
I staggered out of the hotel and made it somehow to the metro. I descended into its womb and found myself in a car in the company of an entirely different sort of person, hungry-looking, pasty-faced, bad-tempered, reeking exhaustion and beer from plastic bottles. And I realized that I was no better with these people than with the elect.
I’ve always felt like someone from another planet, from some parallel universe. With some effort I’ve learned how to smile and hold up my end of a conversation. I read up on soccer and sports cars, visit a couple of vacation spots, and make a point of following the daily weather reports. So I’ll always have something to talk about, and I won’t appear too antisocial.
I’ve learned how to keep up appearances.
There are only a few people in the whole world, or I only know of a few, anyway, who are on the same wavelength as I. In their company I can blurt out any heresy that comes into my head, the kind of thing that would send any “normal” crowd into a stupor.
We are a secret society. We recognize one another by smell. We have all lost something, and we are seekers.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
But this isn’t about us. We are on a quest, we are on the verge of discovering some great spiritual treasure; in our pockets we carry spiritual gold cards with no credit limits, as yet unused. The time shall come when we will activate them.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick . . .
I wonder what kind of man that Hakan is. I’d guess he’s on the wrong side of thirty—anything over thirty is the wrong side—a little overweight, chronically unshaven, and with an unpretentious haircut. Or maybe he’s thin and wears plastic-rimmed glasses like a retiree.
Back when I only read his reports on current events, I sensed—by his smell—that he was someone I could get along with. Then I rummaged around on the Internet and found some more of his work, and it turned out to be completely deranged. And this only confirmed my feelings of kinship.
I found his e-mail address in one of his entries and sent him a short note with my essay about Khazaria attached. I got an answer a week later. Hakan wrote:
Nice work, bro! Dug your credo. First thing I thought was, that’s a helluva lot of words, no way Ill get thru it. But the end was right on—sweet, bro. Score. Flames of Hell! Write back!
Keep m shakin,
Hakan
PS You ask why I call myself Hakan? Who the fuck knows? Some Armenian guy in tradeschool gave me the name (among other things. Have no idea what, even now). Cause my beard is red and comes in uneven. Like some Khagan. I told him to go fuck himself, banged him up good. Later I was dicking around on the net and realized that there’s nothing wrong with the word. It’s even a compliment. Some big shot Tatar or Viking somebody was named that. Anyway, I don’t dye my beard and I don’t shave, and I go by Hakan. That’s the fucking long and short of it.
P.P.S. I was surfing the web just now and saw something about Khazar chemists on some shitty site. I can’t make sense of the damn thing, but maybe you’ll be interested. Here’s the link:
THE SECRET OF FISH PASTE
In thirteenth-century Venice there lived a Khazar by the name of Abongaldyr, who was known as Fish Eye. This nickname was due to a physical deformity; one of his eyes was completely covered by a cloudy film. The name was also due to his profession: This Khazar used to buy fish guts; he’d poke around in them and boil them. Maybe he ate them, maybe they served some other purpose.
This Khazar was believed to be a Jew, most likely because he didn’t wear a cross or attend church. He didn’t associate with Jews, or with good Christians either for that matter, and he didn’t observe Hebraic law. It was whispered that Fish Eye was in fact a sorcerer who practiced black magic.
His eye problem had begun during a time of plague; the black queen of the pox had come to Venice, brought by sailors arriving from distant lands. The sailors infected the harlots working the ports; from them the entire city soon came to know the wrath of God. The people infected with this plague all die
d because no one knew how to cure the pox. But Fish Eye was different. Though he fell ill, he survived, most likely through some miracle or sorcery. But he retained the mark of Satan, that dead eye, which gave his entire face a ghoulish appearance.
The Jews in Venice were primarily merchants and moneylenders, like the Khazars who fled here from their native land. But Fish Eye didn’t lend money and didn’t engage in trade; he didn’t even own a shop.
But he was wealthy nonetheless. Fish Eye lived in a big house with a garden where he grew brilliant scarlet flowers, which reminded him of his lost homeland. When he went to the market he would buy, in addition to his fish guts, special spices that cost several times their weight in gold, and from the travelers who were always coming and going he bought special stones, which he crushed for some purpose.
Fish Eye wore on his left hand a heavy silver and black enamel ring with a dragon pictured on it, biting his own tail—the sure sign of an alchemist and wizard. It was believed that alchemists could turn any metal into gold. But Fish Eye didn’t make gold from lead; his gold came from merchants.
The merchants came to him secretly at night, bringing bags of gold coins, and when they left they took vessels filled with a slimy gelatinous substance that was known as fish paste.
Fish paste used to be produced only in Khazaria. Fugitive Khazars brought the secrets of their craft along with them to Europe, and of them all Fish Eye was the most notorious and successful.
The merchants who bought the fish paste made huge profits, and their business thrived.
Fish Eye sold his paste to anyone who could afford it, but he kept the formula to himself. One Jew was desperate to get the formula at any price, and he offered a huge sum of money. But Fish Eye refused.
Then the Jew bribed some Christians he knew, and they denounced Fish Eye to the Holy Inquisition. The Khazar was accused of trafficking with the devil, and someone even claimed to have found a contract with the Enemy of Humanity in his house, with all its terms spelled out in great detail and sealed with an imprint of the Khazar’s ring, inked with his blood.
The Maya Pill Page 22