‘And now you, Pyotr,’ he said.
I cast a glance of inquiry at Chapaev, who screwed up his eyes and nodded with an unusually powerful movement of his chin, as though he were forcing an invisible nail into his own chest.
I walked slowly towards the baron.
I must confess that I was afraid. It was not that I felt any real threat of danger hanging over me - or rather, it was precisely a sense of danger, but not of the kind felt before a duel or a battle, when you know that even the very worst that can happen can only happen to you. At that moment I had the feeling that the danger was not threatening me, but my very conception of myself. I was not expecting anything terrible to happen, but the ‘I’ who was not expecting anything terrible suddenly seemed to me like a man walking a tightrope across an abyss who has just sensed the first breath of a burgeoning breeze.
‘I will show you my camp,’ the baron said when I reached him.
‘Listen, baron, if you are intending to awaken me in the same way as you did the Chinese…’
‘Oh, come now,’ he interrupted with a smile. ‘Chapaev must have been telling you all sorts of horror stories. That’s not what I’m really like.’
He took me by the elbow and turned me to face the earthwork gateposts.
‘Let us take a stroll around the camp-fires.’ he said, ‘and see how our lads are getting on.’
‘I do not see any camp-fires.’ I replied.
‘You don’t?’ he said. Try looking a bit harder.’
I looked once again into the gap between the two sunken earthen mounds, and at that very moment the baron pushed me from behind. I flew forward and fell to the ground; the sheer rapidity of his movement was such that for a second I felt as though I were a gate that he had kicked off its hinges. A moment later I felt a strange spasm run across my entire field of vision; I screwed up my eyes, and bright spots appeared in the darkness ahead of me, as though I had pressed my fingers into my eyes or made too sudden a movement with my head. However, when I opened my eyes and rose to my feet, the lights still did not disappear.
I could not understand where we were. The hills and the summer breeze had completely disappeared; we were surrounded by intense darkness, and scattered all around us in it, for as far as the eye could see, were the bright spots of camp-fires. They were arranged in an unnaturally precise pattern, as though they stood on the intersections of an invisible grid which divided the world up into an infinite number of squares. The distance between the fires was about fifty paces, so that if you stood at one it was impossible to see the people sitting at the next one; all that could be made out were vague, blurred silhouettes, but how many people there were, and whether they were people at all, was impossible to say with any degree of certainty. The strangest thing of all, however, was that the ground beneath our feet had also changed beyond recognition, and we were now standing on an ideally level plane covered with something like scrubby, shrivelled grass, but without a single projection or depression anywhere on its surface - that much was clear simply from the absolutely perfect patterning of the fires.
‘What is all this?’ I asked in confusion.
‘Aha!’ said the baron. ‘Now, perhaps, I think you can see.’
‘I can.’ I said.
‘This is one of the branches of the world beyond the grave.’ said Jungern, ‘the one for which I am responsible. For the most part the people who find their way here were warriors during their lifetimes. Perhaps you have heard of Valhalla?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I said, feeling an absurdly childish desire welling up in me to grab hold of the baron’s robe.
‘Well, this is it. Unfortunately, however, it’s not only warriors who find their way here, but all kinds of other trash who have gone in for shooting. Bandits, murderers the range of scum we get is amazing, which is why I have to make the rounds and check on things. Sometimes I even feel as though I were employed here in the capacity of a forest warden.’
The baron sighed.
‘But then, as I recall,’ he said, with a faint note of sadness in his voice, ‘when I was a child I wanted to be a forester. I tell you what, Pyotr, why don’t you take a good grip on my sleeve? It’s not so simple to walk around here.’
‘I do not quite understand,’ I answered with relief, ‘but by all means, if you say so.’
1 took a tight hold on the cloth of his sleeve and we began moving forward. One thing immediately struck me as strange; the baron was not walking particularly fast, certainly no quicker than he was before the world had been so horrifyingly transformed, but the camp-fires past which we made our way receded behind us at a quite startling rate. It was as though he and I were walking at a leisurely pace along a platform which was being towed at incredible speed by a train, and the direction in which the train moved was determined by the direction in which the baron turned. One of the camp-fires appeared ahead, came rushing towards us and then stopped dead at our very feet when the baron stopped walking.
There were two men sitting by the fire. They were wet and half-naked, and they looked like Romans, with only short sheets wrapped around their bodies. They were both armed, one with a revolver and the other with a double-barrelled shotgun, and they were covered all over with repulsive bullet wounds. No sooner did they catch sight of the baron than they fell to the ground and literally began trembling with an overwhelming, physically palpable terror.
‘Who are you?’ the baron asked in a low voice.
‘Hit men for Seryozha the Mongoloid,’ one of them said without raising his head,
‘How did you get here?’ the baron asked.
‘We was topped by mistake, boss.’
‘I’m not your boss,’ said the baron, ‘and no one gets topped by mistake.’
‘Honest, it was by mistake,’ the second man said in a plaintive voice. ‘In the sauna. They thought Mongoloid was in there signing a contract.’
‘What contract?’ asked Jungern, raising his eyebrows in astonishment.
‘We had to pay back this loan. Slav-East Oil transferred the money on an irrevocable letter of credit, and the invoice didn’t go through. So these two hulks from Ultima Thule came down…’
‘Irrevocable letter of credit?’ the baron interrupted. ‘Ultima Thule? I see.’
He leant down and breathed on the flame, which immediately shrank to a fraction of its size, changing from a hot roaring torch into a pale tongue only a few inches in height. The effect this produced on the two half-naked men was astounding - they stiffened into complete immobility, and their backs were instantly covered in hoarfrost.
‘Warriors, eh?’ said the baron. ‘How do you like that? The people who find their way into Valhalla these days. Seryozha the Mongoloid… It’s that stupid rule about having a sword in your hand that’s to blame.’
‘What has happened to them?’ I asked.
‘Whatever was supposed to happen,’ said the baron. ‘I don’t know. But I can take a look.’
He blew once again on the barely visible blue flame and it flared up with its old energy. The baron stared into it for several seconds with his eyes half-closed.
‘It seems likely they will be bulls in a meat-production complex. That kind of indulgence is rather common nowadays, partly because of the infinite mercy of the Buddha, and partly because of the chronic shortage of meat in Russia.’
I was astounded by the camp-fire, now that I had the time to study it in detail. In fact, it could not really be called a camp-fire at all: there was no sign of firewood in the flames instead they sprang from a fused opening in the ground shaped like a star with five narrow points.
‘Tell me, baron, what is this pentagram beneath the flames?’
‘A strange question,’ said the baron. ‘This is the eternal flame of the compassion of Buddha. And what you call a pentagram is really the emblem of the Order of the October Star, Where else should the eternal flame of mercy burn, if not above that emblem?’
‘But what is the Order of the October Star?’ I asked,
peering at his chest. ‘I have heard the phrase in the most varied of cir cumstances, but no one has ever explained to me what it means.’
‘The October Star?’ Jungern replied. ‘It’s really very simple It’s just like Christmas, you know - the Catholics have it in December, the Orthodox Christians have it in January, but they’re all celebrating the same birthday. This is the same sort of thing. Reforms of the calendar, mistakes made by scribes - in other words, although it’s generally believed to have happened in May, in actual fact it was in October.’
‘But what was?’
‘You astonish me, Pyotr. it’s one of the best-known stories in the world. There was once a man who could not live as others did. He tried to understand what everything meant - all the things that happened to him from day to day; and who he himself was - the person to whom all those things were happening. And then, one night in October when he was sitting under the crown of a tree, he raised his eyes to the sky and saw a bright star. At that moment he understood everything with such absolute clarity that to this day the echo of that distant second
The baron fell silent as if he were seeking for words to express himself, but was unable to find anything appropriate.
‘You’d better have a talk with Chapaev.’ he concluded. ‘He enjoys telling people about it. The main thing though, the essential point, is that ever since that second this flame of compassion has been burning for all living beings, a flame which cannot be completely extinguished even in the line of administrative duty.’
I looked around. The panorama surrounding us was truly magnificent. I suddenly felt that I was viewing one of the most ancient pictures in the world - an immense horde which has set its camp-fires for a night halt in the open field, with warriors squatting at each of the fires, dreaming avidly into the flames, where they see the phantom forms of gold, cattle and women from the lands that lie in their path. But where was this horde moving, and what could its men be dreaming of as they sat beside these camp-fires? I turned to Jungern.
‘Tell me, baron, why are they all sitting apart, without visiting each others’ fires?’
‘You try walking over to one of them.’ said Jungern.
The distance to the nearest camp-fire, where five or six people seemed to be warming themselves, was no more than fifty paces. I looked quizzically at Jungern.
‘Walk over,’ he repeated.
I shrugged and began walking, without feeling any special or unusual sensation. Probably I had been walking for a minute or two before I realized that I had not moved any closer to the point of bright light towards which I had set off. I glanced around. Jungern was standing by the flames, three or four steps behind me, and watching me with a mocking smile.
‘The fact that this place seems similar to the world which you know.’ he said, ‘does not at all mean that it is the same world.’
I noticed that the two frozen figures had vanished from beside the fire, and all that remained were two dark stains on the ground.
‘Let’s get away from here,’ Jungern said. ‘After all, we wanted to pay a visit to my lads, didn’t we?’
I clutched at his sleeve and the camp-fires went hurtling past us once again - our speed was now so great that they extended into blurred zigzags and dotted lines. I was more than half certain that it must all be some kind of illusion, for I could not feel any wind upon my face; it was as though when the baron began to move, it was not us, but the world around us that was set into motion. I became completely disoriented and lost all concept of the direction of our movement. Sometimes we would halt for a few seconds and I could examine the individuals sitting round the nearest camp-fire - for the most part they were men with bushy beards and rifles who all looked very much like one another, and as soon as we approached they would throw themselves to the black ground beneath our feet. Once I was struck by the fact that they held spears instead of rifles, but our halt was too brief for me to be absolutely certain. After a while I realized what our manner of movement reminded me of: these crazy, unpredictable zigzags were precisely the movements of a bat flying in the darkness.
‘I hope you understand, Pyotr,’ the baron’s voice rumbled in my ear, ‘that you and I are not at present in a place where it is possible to lie? Or even not to be completely honest?’
‘I understand.’ I said, feeling my head beginning to spin from the flashing yellow and white streaks and broken lines.
‘Answer me one question.’ said the baron. ‘What do you want more than anything else in life?’
‘Me?’ I queried and began thinking.
This was a question which was hard to answer without telling a lie. I thought for a long moment about what I should say, but I couldn’t think of anything, and then suddenly the answer came by itself.
‘I want to find my golden joy.’ I said.
The baron laughed loudly. ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘But what does that mean to you - your golden joy?’
‘The golden joy.’ I replied, ‘is when a peculiar flight of free thought makes it possible to see the beauty of life. Am I making myself clear?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said the baron. ‘If only everyone expressed themselves so clearly and so much to the point. How did you arrive at such a precise formulation?’
‘It comes from my dream,’ I replied, ‘or rather, from my nightmare. I remembered the strange phrase by heart because it was written in a notebook from a mental home which I was leafing through in the dream - I was leafing through it because there was supposed to be something very important about me in there.’
‘Yes,’ said the baron, turning to the right at which the carousel of flames around us performed a movement like a side-somersault. ‘I’m very glad that you mentioned this yourself. The reason you are here is that Chapaev asked me to explain something to you. In essence, of course, he didn’t ask me to explain anything special that he couldn’t have told you himself. He has already told you it all before - the last time was during your journey here. But for some reason you still seem to think that the world of your dreams is less real than the space in which you get drunk with Chapaev in the bathhouse.’
‘You are correct.’ I said.
The baron came to a sudden halt, and immediately the camp-fires stopped dancing around us. I noticed that the flames had taken on a strangely alarming reddish tinge.
‘But why do you think so?’ he asked.
‘Well, if only because eventually I return to the real world.’ I said. To the place, as you put it, where I get drunk with Chapaev in the bathhouse. On the intellectual level, of course, I understand perfectly well what you are trying to say. More than that, I have even noticed that when I am actually dreaming the nightmare it is so real that there is absolutely no way of knowing that it is a dream. I can touch objects in the same way, I can pinch myself
‘But then how do you distinguish your dream from the waking world?’ the baron interrupted.
‘By the fact that when I am awake I have a clear and unambiguous sense of the reality of what is happening. As I have now.’
‘So you have that feeling now?’ the baron asked.
‘In general, yes, I do.’ I said, somewhat bemused. ‘Although I must confess that the situation is somewhat unusual.’
‘Chapaev asked me to take me you with me so that for once j at least you would find yourself in a place which has absolutely no relationship either to your nightmare about the mental home or to your nightmares about Chapaev.’ said the baron. ‘Take a good look around you - both of your obsessive I dreams are equally illusory here. All I have to do is leave you by one of the camp-fires and you will understand what I mean.’
The baron was silent for a moment, as though allowing me time to savour the full horror of such a prospect. I looked around slowly at the blackness studded with an infinite number of unattainable points of light. He was right. Where were Chapaev and Anna? Where was that fragile night-time world with the tiled walls and the busts of Aristotle that crumbled into white dust? They were nowhere now, and
furthermore I knew with absolute certainty that there was no place where they could exist, because I myself, standing here beside this strange man - if he was indeed a man - constituted the only possibility of being, the exclusive means by which all these psychiatric clinics and civil wars came into the world. And the same applied to this gloomy limbo, to its terrified inhabitants and its tall, stern sentry - all of them existed only because I existed.
‘I think I understand.’ I said.
Jungern looked at me doubtfully. ‘What exactly do you understand?’ he asked.
Suddenly there was a wild shouting from behind us: Me! Me! Me! Me!’
We both turned together at the sound.
Not very far away a camp-fire was burning, but it was quite unlike all the others. The colour of the flame was quite different - it was pale and gave off smoke - and something was crackling in the fire, with sparks flying off in all directions. Furthermore, this camp-fire was not aligned with the strict linear pattern of the others: it was quite obviously burniIng in a place where it should not be.
‘Right, let’s go and take a look.’ Jungern muttered, tugging me sharply by the sleeve.
The men sitting by the fire were quite unlike the baron’s other charges. There were four of them, of whom the most agitated was a big, burly fellow in a poison-pink jacket with a stiff crew-cut brush of chestnut hair on the top of his head that reminded me of a small cannon shell. He was sitting on the ground with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, as though his own body inspired him with an obscene passion.
‘Me! Me! Me!’ he kept roaring again and again.
The intonation of his shouts changed - when the baron and I first heard them, they had a certain note of feral triumph, but as we drew closer the single syllable ‘me’ became more like a question. Sitting beside the man who was shouting was a skinny type with a quiff, who was wearing something like a sailor’s pea-jacket and staring into the flames as though paralysed. He was quite motionless, and if not for the fact that his lips occasionally moved slightly, one might have assumed that he was unconscious. It seemed as though only the third man, with a shaven head and a neat little beard, was in control of himself - he was shaking both of his companions in turn with all his might as though attempting to bring them around; he was successful to the extent that the skinny blond with the quiff began intoning something and swaying to and fro, as though he were praying. The man with the shaven head was just about to start shaking his second companion awake when he suddenly looked up and saw us. His face was instantly distorted in terror - he shouted something to his companions and leapt to his feet.
Buddha's Little Finger Page 25