Buddha's Little Finger

by Виктор Пелевин

  ‘How’s things?’ he asked

  ‘I thought you were intending to resolve the problem of the weavers.’ I said.

  ‘I am resolving it,’ said Chapaev, filling two glasses with moonshine.

  ‘I can see that Kotovsky knows you very well.’ I said.

  ‘That’s right.’ said Chapaev, ‘and I know him very well, too.’

  ‘He has just left for Paris on the evening train. It occurs to me that we have made a serious mistake in not following his example.’

  Chapaev frowned.

  ‘But desire still burns within us.’ he chanted, ‘the trains depart for it and the butterfly of consciousness flits from nowhere to nowhere

  ‘So you have read it too? I am very flattered,’ I said and was immediately struck by the dreary thought that the word ‘too’ was somewhat misplaced. ‘Listen, if we leave straight away, we could still catch the train.’

  ‘So what’s new for me to see in this Paris of yours?’ Chapaev asked.

  ‘I suppose just what we’ll be seeing here soon.’ I answered.

  Chapaev chuckled. ‘Right you are, Petka.’

  ‘By the way.’ I said with concern, ‘where is Anna at the moment? It’s not safe in the house.’

  ‘I gave her a task to do.’ said Chapaev, ‘she’ll be here soon. You just take a seat. I’ve been sitting here all this time waiting for you - already drunk half the bottle.’

  I sat down facing him.

  ‘Your health!’

  I shrugged. There was nothing to be done. ‘Your health, Vasily Ivanovich.’

  We drank. Chapaev gazed moodily into the dim flame of the kerosene lamp.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about these nightmares of yours,’ he said, laying his hand on the file. ‘I’ve reread all these stones you wrote. About Serdyuk, and about that fellow Maria, and about the doctors and the gangsters. Did you ever pay any attention to the way you wake up from all of them?’

  ‘No.’ I said.

  ‘Well, just try to remember, will you?’

  ‘At a certain moment it simply becomes clear that it is all a dream. That’s all there is to it,’ I said uncertainly. ‘When I really begin to feel too bad, I suddenly realize that in fact there is nothing to be afraid of, because-’

  ‘Because what?’

  ‘I am struggling to find the words. I would put it like this - because there is a place to which I can wake up.’

  Chapaev slapped the table with his open hand.

  ‘Where exactly can you wake up to?’

  I had no answer to that question.

  ‘I do not know,’ I said.

  Chapaev raised his eyes to look into mine and smiled. He suddenly no longer seemed drunk.

  ‘Good lad,’ he said. ‘That’s the very place. As soon as you are swept up in the flow of your dreams, you yourself become part of it ail - because in that flow everything is relative, everything is in motion, and there is nothing for you to grab hold of and cling to. You don’t realize when you are drawn into the whirlpool, because you are moving along together with the water, and it appears to be motionless. That’s how a dream comes to feel like reality. But there is a point which is not merely motionless relative to everything else, but absolutely motionless, and it’s called «t don’t know». When you hit it in a dream you wake up. Or rather, the waking up pushes you into it. And then after that,’ - he gestured around the room - ‘you come here.’

  I heard a staccato burst of machine-gun fire beyond the wall, followed by the sound of an explosion, and the panes of glass rattled in the window.

  ‘There’s this point.’ Chapaev continued, ‘that is absolutely motionless, relative to which this life is as much of a dream as all your stories. Everything in the world is just a whirlpool of thoughts, and the world around us only becomes real when you yourself become that whirlpool. Only because you know.’

  He laid heavy emphasis on the word ‘know’.

  I stood up and went over to the window. ‘Listen, Chapaev, I think they have set fire to the manor-house.’

  ‘What’s to be done, Petka?’ Chapaev answered. ‘The way this world is arranged, you always end up answering questions in the middle of a burning house.’

  ‘I agree,’ I said, sitting back down facing him, ‘this is all quite remarkable, this whirlpool of thoughts and so forth. The world becomes real and unreal, I understand all that quite well. But any moment now some rather unpleasant individuals are going to arrive here - you understand, I am not trying to say that they are real, but they will certainly make us feel the force of their reality in full measure.’

  ‘Make me?’ asked Chapaev. ‘Never. Just watch.’

  He took hold of the big bottle, pulled a small blue saucer over to him and filled it to the brim. Then he performed the same operation with a glass.

  ‘Look at that, Petka. In itself the moonshine doesn’t have any form. There’s a glass, and there’s a saucer. Which of the forms is real?’

  ‘Both.’ I said. ‘Both of them are real.’

  Chapaev carefully drank the moonshine from the saucer, then from the glass, and threw each of them in turn hard against the wall. The saucer and the glass both shattered into tiny fragments.

  ‘Petka, watch and remember,’ he said. ‘If you are real, then death really will come. Even I won’t be able to help you. I’ll ask you one more time. There are the glasses, there’s the bottle. Which of these forms is real?’

  ‘I do not understand what you mean.’

  ‘Shall I show you?’ asked Chapaev.

  ‘Yes, do.’

  He swayed to one side, thrust his hand under the table and pulled out his nickel-plated Mauser. I barely managed to grab hold of his wrist in time.

  ‘All right, all right. Just don’t shoot the bottle.’

  ‘Right you are, Petka. Let’s have a drink instead.’

  Chapaev filled the glasses and then became thoughtful. It was as though he was searching for the words he needed.

  ‘In actual fact.’ he said eventually, ‘for the moonshine there is no saucer, and no glass, and no bottle - there’s nothing but itself. That’s why everything that can appear or disappear is an assemblage of empty forms which do not exist until they are assumed by the moonshine. Pour it into a saucer and that’s hell, pour it into a cup and you’ve got heaven. But you and me are drinking out of glasses, and that makes us people, Petka. D’you follow me?’

  There was another loud bang outside. I no longer had to go over to the window to see the reflected crimson glow flickering in the glass.

  ‘By the way, about hell,’ I said, ‘I cannot remember whether I told you or not. Do you know why these weavers have left us alone for so long?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they believe quite sincerely that you have sold your soul to the devil.’

  ‘Do they now?’ Chapaev asked in amazement. ‘That’s fascinating. But who sells the soul?’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, they say - he’s sold his soul to the devil, or, he’s sold his soul to God. But who is the person who sells it? He must be different from the thing he sells in order to be able to sell it, mustn’t he?’

  ‘You know, Chapaev,’ I said, ‘my Catholic upbringing will not allow me to joke about such things.’

  ‘I understand.’ said Chapaev. ‘I know where these rumours come from. There was one person who came here to see me in order to ask how he could sell his soul to the devil. A certain Staff Captain Lambovsky. Are you acquainted?’

  ‘We met in the restaurant.’

  ‘I explained to him how it can be done, and he performed the entire ritual most punctiliously.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Nothing much. He didn’t suddenly acquire riches, or eternal youth either. The only thing that did happen was that in all the regimental documents the name «Lambovsky» was replaced by «Serpentovich».’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘It’s not good to go deceiving others. How can you
sell what you haven’t got?’

  ‘Do you mean to tell me,’ I asked, ‘that Lambovsky has no soul?’

  ‘Of course not.’ said Chapaev.

  ‘And you?’

  For a second or so Chapaev seemed to be gazing deep inside himself, and then he shook his head.

  ‘Do I have one?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ said Chapaev.

  My face must have betrayed my confusion, because Chapaev chuckled and shook me by the elbow.

  ‘Petka, neither I, nor you, nor Staff Captain Lambovsky have any sort of soul. It’s the soul that has Lambovsky, Chapaev and Petka. You can’t say that everyone has a different soul and you can’t say everyone has the same soul. If there is anything we can say about it, it’s that it doesn’t exist either.’

  ‘I really do not understand a single word in all of that.’

  ‘That’s the problem, Petka… That’s where Kotovsky made his mistake. Remember that business with the lamp and the wax?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Kotovsky understood that there is no form, what he didn’t understand is that there is no wax either.’

  ‘Why is there not?’

  ‘Because, Petka - listen to me carefully now - because the wax and the moonshine can take on any form, but they themselves are nothing but forms too.’

  ‘Forms of what?’

  ‘That’s the trick, you see. They are forms about which all we can say is that there is nothing that assumes them. D’you follow? Therefore in reality there is no wax and there is no moonshine.’

  For a second I seemed to be balancing on some kind of threshold, and then a heavy drunken dullness descended on me. It suddenly became very difficult to think.

  ‘There may not be any wax,’ I said, ‘but there is still half a bottle of moonshine.’

  Chapaev stared at the bottle with murky eyes.

  ‘That’s true.’ he said. ‘But if you can only understand that it doesn’t exist either, I’ll give you the order from my own chest. And until I do give it to you, we won’t be leaving this place.’

  We drank another glass and I listened for a while to the sounds of shooting outside; Chapaev paid absolutely no attention to it all.

  ‘Are you really not afraid?’ I asked.

  ‘Why, Petka, are you afraid of something?’

  ‘A little,’I said.

  ‘What of?’

  ‘Death.’ I answered, before pausing. ‘Or rather, not death itself, but… I do not know. I want to save my consciousness.’

  Chapaev laughed and shook his head.

  ‘Have I said something funny?’

  ‘That’s a good one, Petka. I didn’t expect that of you. You mean you went into battle with thoughts like that in your head every time? It’s the same as a scrap of newspaper lying under a street lamp and thinking that it wants to save the light it’s lying in. What d’you want to save your consciousness from?’

  I shrugged. ‘From non-existence.’

  ‘But isn’t non-existence itself an object of consciousness?’

  ‘Now we’re back to sophistry again,’ I said. ‘Even if I am «i scrap of newspaper that thinks that it wants to save the light in which it is lying, what difference does it all make if I really do think that, and it all causes me pain?’

  ‘The scrap of newspaper can’t think. It’s just got the words written across it in bold italics: «I want to save the light of the street lamp.» And written beside that is: «Oh what pain, what terrible suffering…» Come on, Petka, how can I explain it to you? This entire world is a joke that God has told to himself. And God himself is the same joke too.’

  There was an explosion outside, so close this time that the panes of glass in the window rattled audibly. I distinctly heard the rustling sound of shrapnel ripping through the leaves outside.

  ‘I tell you what, Vasily Ivanovich,’ I said, ‘why don’t we finish up with the theory and try to think of something practical.’

  ‘To be practical, Petka, I can tell you that if you’re afraid, 11 ien both of us are for the high jump. Because fear always at-11 acts exactly what it’s afraid of. But if you’re not afraid, then you become invisible. The best possible camouflage is indif-lerence. If you’re genuinely indifferent, none of those who can cause you harm will even remember you exist - they just won’t think about you. But if you go squirming about on your «hair the way you are now, in five minutes’ time we’ll have a roomful of those weavers in here.’

  I suddenly realized that he was right, and I felt ashamed of my nervousness, which appeared particularly pitiful against (lie foil of his magnificent indifference. Had not I myself only recently refused to leave with Kotovsky? I was here because I had chosen to be, and it was simply foolish to waste what might be the final minutes of my life on anxiety and fear. I looked at Chapaev and thought that in essence I had never discovered anything at all about this man.

  Tell me, Chapaev, who are you in reality?’

  ‘Better tell yourself, Petka, who you are in reality. Then you’ll understand all about me. But you just keep on repeating «me, me, me», like that gangster in your nightmare. What does that mean - «me»? What is it? Try taking a look for yourself.’

  ‘I want to look, but…’

  ‘If you want to look, why do you keep on looking at that «me» and that «want» and that «look», instead of at yourself?’

  ‘Very well.’ I countered, ‘then answer my question. Can you give me a simple answer to it?’

  ‘I can.’ he said, ‘try it again.’

  ‘Who are you, Chapaev?’

  1 do not know.’ he replied.

  Two or three bullets clattered against the planks of the walls, splinters flew up into the air, and I instinctively ducked my head. I heard quiet voices outside the door, apparently discussing something. Chapaev poured two glasses and we drank without clinking them together. After hesitating for a moment, I picked up an onion from the table.

  ‘I understand what you are trying to say,’ I said, biting into it, ‘but perhaps you could answer me in some other way?’

  ‘I could.’ said Chapaev.

  ‘Then who are you, Vasily Ivanovich?’

  ‘Who am I?’ he echoed, and raised his eyes to my face. ‘I am a reflection of the lamplight on this bottle.’

  I felt as though the light reflected in his eyes had lashed me across the face; suddenly I was overwhelmed by total understanding and recall.

  The blow was so powerful that for a moment I thought a shell must have exploded right there in the room, but I recovered almost immediately. I felt no need to say anything out loud, but the inertia of speech had already translated my thought into words.

  ‘How fascinating.’ I whispered quietly, ‘so am I.’

  ‘Then who is this?’ he asked, pointing at me.

  ‘Voyd.’ I replied.

  ‘And this?’ he pointed to himself.

  ‘Chapaev.’

  ‘Splendid! And this?’ he gestured around the room.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said.

  At that very moment the window was shattered by a bullet and the bottle standing between us exploded, showering both of us with the last of the moonshine. For several seconds we gazed at each other in silence, then Chapaev rose, went over to the bench on which his tunic lay, unpinned the silver star from it and threw it across the room to me.

  His movements had suddenly become swift and precise; it was hard to believe that this was the same man who had just been swaying drunkenly on his stool and gazing senselessly at the bottle. He snatched up the lamp from the table, unscrewed it rapidly, splashed the kerosene out on to the floor and tossed the burning wick into it. The kerosene flared up, followed by the spilt moonshine, and the room was illuminated by the dim glow of a fire just beginning to take hold. Deep shadows were cast across Chapaev’s face by the flames from beneath, and it suddenly seemed very ancient and strangely familiar. He overturned the table in a single gesture, then bent down and pulled open a narrow trapdoor by a metal ring.<
br />
  ‘Let’s get going.’ he said. ‘There’s nothing left for us to do here.’

  I felt my way down a ladder into cold damp darkness. The bottom of the shaft proved to be about two yards below the level of the floor; at first I could not understand what we were going to do in this pit, and then the foot with which I was feeling for the wall suddenly swung through into emptiness. Coming down behind me, Chapaev struck my head with his boot.

  ‘Forward!’ he commanded. ‘At the double!’

  Leading away from the staircase was a low, narrow tunnel supported by wooden props. I crawled forward, struggling to distinguish anything ahead of me in the darkness. To judge from the draught I could feel, the exit could not be very far away.

  ‘Stop,’ Chapaev said in a whisper. ‘We have to wait for a minute.’

  He was about two yards behind me. I sat down on the ground and leaned my back against one of the props. I could hear indistinct voices and other noises; at one point I clearly heard Furmanov’s voice yelling: ‘Get back out of there, fuck you! You’ll burn to death! I tell you they’re not in there, they’ve gone! Did you catch the bald one?’ I thought of them up above, rushing about in thick clouds of smoke among the repulsive chimeras created by their collective clouded reason, and it all seemed incredibly funny.

  ‘Hey, Vasily Ivanovich!’ I called quietly.

  ‘What?’ responded Chapaev.

  ‘I just understood something.’ I said. ‘There is only one kind of freedom - when you are free of everything that is constructed by the mind. And this freedom is called «I do not know». You were absolutely right. You know, there is an expression, «a thought expressed is a lie», but I tell you, Chapaev, that a thought unexpressed is also a lie, because every thought already contains the element of expression.’

  ‘You expressed that very well, Petka.’ responded Chapaev.

  ‘As soon as I know,’ I continued, ‘I am no longer free. But I am absolutely free when I do not know. Freedom is the biggest mystery of all. They simply do not know how free they are. They do not know who they are in reality. They…’