End to Ordinary History

by Michael Murphy

  Having expected the Scientific Secretary to be perplexed and angry about the government mandate to study the capsule incident, Kozin had revealed his disgust without inhibition. Strelnikov’s even manner surprised him. “Yes,” he said with deliberate calm. “Kirov is our leading man, but that presents other problems. Can we keep a confidence?”

  Strelnikov remembered Kozin’s habit of collecting secrets about people he disliked, a habit he had already developed when they worked together twenty years before. “Please, Yakov,” he said. “Don’t tell me about his religious beliefs or his sex life. I don’t care if he has a mistress.”

  “Unfortunately, this does concern his religious beliefs,” Kozin said. “His superiors in Directorate T are worried. You may check on this yourself.”

  “And why are they worried?” Strelnikov asked, remembering similar conversations with Kozin in the 1950’s.

  “He has traveled alone in Europe for over a year without gathering anything useful. Some people in Directorate T suspect he might be plotting something. You know he dreams of a new Soviet nation.”

  “I didn’t know that.” Strelnikov sighed. “What does his dream consist of?”

  “No one is certain.” Kozin leaned close to the desk. “But his religious sect would join Socialism and mystic disciplines in some kind of religious state. Its members have secret passwords and a plan to win sympathy in Moscow. We must see what effect they have on Kirov’s study. This commission gives him great prestige, a scientific standing he hasn’t enjoyed before. You should realize that.”

  “Do you think I’m stupid? I know that perfectly well. But I doubt he will propose that the Academy of Sciences recommend the formation of a religious state! He’s not a lunatic. Yakov, what are you saying?”

  “There’s no telling what he will recommend. His superiors in Directorate T only say he should be watched. They know he belongs to a sect with social ambitions.”

  Strelnikov suppressed his growing irritation. “Thank you for the warning,” he said, “but I think you worry too much about subversive plots. Yakov, remember that this is 1972, not 1932. The cabals and conspiracies you fear are mainly a thing of the past. Do you actually believe that a man of Kirov’s intelligence would think he could overthrow the state?”

  Kozin stared at the wall behind Strelnikov’s desk. “I remember you said something like that in 1953,” he said quietly, “when I uncovered a plot against Stalin. Even then, you said I imagined too many cabals. Events soon proved I was right.”

  “But things have changed. You should give our nation credit for progress! The kinds of conspiracies that existed then, the kind you helped uncover, simply don’t exist now. Our intellectuals and government leaders may disagree, but they don’t try to kill one another. Kirov might entertain strange ideas about progress or science or some government policy, but he can’t possibly plan to overthrow the state. You must see that, Yakov. Your kind of suspicion does not help our country. It only forces legitimate discussion underground—where it might become dangerous, indeed!”

  Strelnikov had always been naive about these matters, Kozin decided. He would report the man’s blindspot to his KGB bosses. “Arguments are futile,” he said softly. “Are you giving Kirov’s study a deadline?”

  “He has four weeks to finish his report.”

  “And will he be monitored?”

  “This is an Academy study. We are not the police.”

  “Then you are taking a risk.” Kozin paused, shaking his head with regret. “You should know that Kirov has taken an American with him to a mosque near Samarkand where his secret school is located. We are watching them because the American has discovered Project Elefant. We have evidence that he works for the CIA.”

  “Are you sure?” Strelnikov asked with disbelief. “Did they send you here to tell me this?”

  “Yes. They think we should have him followed, and they want me to supervise the job. Here is a letter from his chief.”

  Strelnikov read the letter. It recommended that Kozin monitor Kirov’s activities, and asked for the Academy’s consent. “My people will follow his activities closely,” Kozin said, “and monitor the American’s rooms.”

  Strelnikov knew he could not refuse this police request. Attempting to conceal his anger, he granted the permission.

  “None of this will reflect upon the Academy,” Kozin said. “We have watched Kirov for three days already, but with discretion. We will continue to be discreet.” With a grave expression, he rose to leave, but Strelnikov didn’t look up. Ignoring the insult, Kozin left the room.

  Strelnikov sat cursing his predicament. He had known that Kirov’s commission might embarrass the Academy; its subject matter alone would cause controversy. But now that the police were involved, its problems would be compounded. Yakov Kozin had a genius for making trouble.

  Strelnikov leaned on his desk, covering his face with his powerful hands. Over the weekend, he had thought of Kirov more and more, finally deciding to work with him closely in the weeks ahead. Kirov’s intelligence and subtlety, so apparent in all his reports, would serve the Academy well in responding to the State Committee’s mandate. No one else had so much experience in studying these controversial matters. And yet, Kirov might want to use his new position to further some extravagant program. His KGB bosses must know something about his aims. Strelnikov shook his head sadly. In spite of his attraction to the man, he would have to view his work with distrust. If Kirov used the Academy’s prestige to further some hidden agenda, he might cause a scandal.

  20

  FROM A PLATFORM ON the courtyard’s southern wall Fall and Kirov could see the rocky plateau some three hundred feet below. Beyond its western edge, the plateau dropped sharply to the valley a thousand feet lower. “North of the valley,” said Kirov, “you come to the Kyzyl Kum. There is desert in that direction for two thousand kilometers or more. And there is wilderness all around us.” He pointed south. “Those ridges run to the Pamirs and the Himalayas. So you see, no one comes to this place unless they want its secret badly.”

  Fall held the rail for support. Every movement seemed dangerous now, for his body had uncertain boundaries. With the slightest shift of focus, he could see the shimmering filaments he had discovered in the Well of Light.

  Then, as the first edge of gold appeared above the eastern hills, a call came from the minaret: Allah, Allah . . . The cry cut the air like a sword. “Allah is great,” Kirov murmured in English, kneeling on the platform. Fall watched him face Mecca and bow. Voices were chanting beneath them now, praising God and His eternal splendor. The glistening desert seemed a sea of music.

  When the chanting stopped, Kirov knelt in silence. No one moved in the courtyard, no sound came from the wilderness beyond the fortress walls. Fall watched the sun appear above the mountains. Finally Kirov rose. Fall followed him down to the courtyard, holding the wall for security. He felt he could step out in midair, light as a bubble, carried by the light around him.

  Fire burned in a rough stone hearth outside the countyard gate. Nearby, loaves of bread and a huge bronze urn filled with tea were propped against a rock. One of the old caretakers unwrapped a bundle of dates and cheese. Fall sat down beside him. Six caretakers ate—one an Uzbek boy in his teens, the others men in their sixties, all wearing Western-style work shirts and trousers with the traditional skullcaps of Uzbekistan. All but the boy, Kirov said, had studied with Ali Shirazi.

  The distant valley shimmered in a light-blue haze. Along a river some ten miles distant, mist rose like a long velvet snake.

  The caretakers studied Fall shyly. “This has always been a secret place,” Kirov said. “None of them has seen an American here before.”

  “Does it have a name?” Fall asked.

  “The school has never taken a name. Only a location. It is sometimes called the Gate to Hurqalya.”

  “Hurqalya . . .” Fall savored the word. “Isn’t it a Persian word for heaven?”

  “It meant ‘the celestial ear
th’ to some of the sheiks in Iran, or ‘the world of the illumined.’ The term goes back to Suhrawardi and beyond, perhaps to the old Persian religions. But our school has widened its meaning.” Kirov patted the ground at his side. “A larger Earth holds this one. The skies may open, and the ground give way into the vistas you saw inside the Well of Light. But for that a new body is needed. The body you saw in the dark. Have you heard the old prediction, that humans would make three great migrations?”

  Fall looked around. Though they were not looking at him, the others were listening carefully, as if through his inflections they could follow his words. No, he said, he hadn’t heard the prophecy.

  “The first migration was across the continents, until we went round the globe. The second was to other heavenly bodies.” Kirov paused. “And the third will be to the space of Hurqalya. We have finished the first and have just begun the second. No one is certain when the third will start. But here, in this crumbling mechet, we keep an opening to it.”

  Kirov wrapped some bread around a piece of cheese. Everyone waited for the American stranger to respond, but he did not. With the slightest wrong turn of his mind, the marvelous suspension he felt could turn to vertigo.

  “Chasing other planets will not get us there,” Kirov continued. “In outer space we are still underwater. Spaceships are only superfish. There are skies beyond our earth sky, but spaceships will not fly there. And a new range of elements. Our bodies, though, when they become vehicles of light, can make the journey. Some UFOs, we think, can do it. Some, in fact, would like us to be their companions. Like fishermen, they try to hook us! But we must leap through the sky to take the bait and breathe their air, as you did today.

  “If you want to use Indian language, we can call the larger Earth the World of the Gods. There, the devas are the shining ones in a high samsara. But that is forcing our language. The idea of samsara, that the universe is only a cycle of death and rebirth, can obscure our vision that matter might open this way.”

  “That is what I argue in my book,” Fall said. “The asceticism of the mystical traditions has helped hide the body’s secret.”

  Kirov produced his battered copy of the Greenwich Press catalogue. Holding it up for the others to see, he told them in Russian that without knowing it, Fall was a member of their school. The six men grinned, and one said something in Russian that made them all laugh.

  “He asked if this makes you a Soviet citizen,” Kirov said. “He wonders if you would like that.”

  “Tell them yes,” Fall answered. “But it makes them American, too!”

  Kirov translated his remark, and all six nodded in agreement. Though the old man’s question had been asked with irony, Fall’s straightforward answer touched a truth they recognized.

  The boy said something in Uzbek. “He wonders,” Kirov said, “if you see that the Hammer and Sickle, the Star and Crescent, and the symbol on the grotto entrance are alike.”

  “Yes!” Fall nodded. “Last night I had a dream that Brezhnev was showing me the secret!”

  Kirov translated the words, and the six men seemed delighted. “Brezhnev is our friend,” one said in English.

  “But we didn’t think he knew the secret,” someone said in Russian, causing another round of laughter.

  For a long while the group drank tea and enjoyed the warmth of the sun. But Kirov was in a mood to talk. “You know, Ali Shirazi understood the other traditions. He was a learned man. But he never accepted the idea that the world was some kind of illusion. For him, every particle of matter contained the power of God. That is why the human body is filled with miracles. That is why it can mutate like yours did today inside the Well of Light.”

  Fall still felt too precarious to answer. It would be better to listen and see. Better to follow Aitmatov into the next perception. For as the Russian nodded at him, Fall saw the skies grow dark. Through the sun another sun was shining.

  He leaned on a rock for support. With the slightest permission, he might drop through the ground at his feet. Everything cohered through some playful and tenuous agreement. Kirov made a cradle with his hands. “We must find a body for the larger Earth,” he said, “as if we were an amphibious species. To come into this Hurqalya we need the new form you sense. Your Atabet has been doing this all his life, I think, through all his troubles and adventures.”

  Fall looked past his wistful eyes. The sky, it seemed, was opening to another light. Were there faces watching? And figures moving with the sun? Blinking the impression away, he looked at Kirov for support. He would fasten on his remarkable face until he got his bearings.

  21

  FALL’S STATE HAD PERSISTED for nearly eight hours, and even now in this wind-whipped distraction, his boundaries seemed uncertain. He could not shake the impression that a hand or a foot might pass through the walls of the bouncing jeep.

  “How far to Samarkand?” he shouted.

  “Not far!” Kirov said over his shoulder.

  A precipitous drop had appeared, and as they started down it, the last edge of the sun dropped below the western horizon. The hills ahead were filled with blazing light.

  Fall still heard the zikhr, its powerful beat echoing in the fortress walls. First the six caretakers, then Kirov, then a truckload of men from Bukhara had taken up the holy chant—al-Allah, al-Allah, it is up to Allah—as they moved in a circle to the sound of drums. While a guard stood watching for intruders, they had called the name of God all day until their departure at three o’clock. The ceremony, Kirov told him, was performed on the school’s holy festivals, sometimes with thirty or forty people taking part.

  “How long will the zikhr last?” Fall shouted.

  “Until sundown,” Kirov said. “About ten minutes from now. But look! There’s Samarkand.”

  The city’s silhouette appeared on the horizon. With its modern, high-rise buildings, it seemed another world from the one they had departed. Conversation being an effort, Fall sat back for the view. Caravans had approached this oasis at dusk for thousands of years, he thought. Marco Polo might have traveled this very road. Behind them, the barren hills were on fire in the sunset. The mosque, the zikhr, the Well of Light formed a surging tapestry around him. Mechet, mazar and Hurqalya—the names summoned memories of Sufi tales and Persian Mysteries. Half-closing his eyes, Fall sensed the light around him. It seemed a permanent presence now, like a second body . . .

  The Earth of Hurqalya. Ali Shirazi had said that ordinary telescopes might discover its worlds someday. They might discover entire planets swallowed in their own Wells of Light. Some unexplained things in the sky might come from parts of the universe that were open to a new kind of matter. They might be beckoning, he had said, inviting our world to join their unimaginable adventure.

  Suddenly the trail ended. The driver eased the jeep over a rise and onto pavement. They were on the main road to the city.

  “Is the school part Sufi?” Fall asked.

  “You saw the entrance to the grotto,” Kirov shouted back. “That was there before Islam. And the Well of Light was there before that. My grandfather thought it might be as old as the caves of Lascaux.”

  A military truck shot past—the first vehicle they had seen since the previous day. As he turned to watch it, Fall felt his body growing more intact. The sense of uncertain boundaries was fading. But in its stead there was an effervescence, a subtle streaming near his heart. Another truck shot past. His body had changed, he thought. Never had it felt so elastic.

  Fifteen minutes later they parked on a crowded street and went to their rooms in a guest house near the city’s market. As he showered, Fall’s whole body glowed as if it had been rubbed with alcohol. In the presence of Atabet’s trances, he had sometimes felt a similar elation. As he toweled himself, he saw sparks fly off his skin. Half-closing his eyes, he watched the space around him fill with spores of light. Then a deep, familiar mood impelled him to remember . . .

  A year before, Atabet sat on his Captain’s Seat before the luminou
s painting. For twelve or thirteen hours he had occupied the same position, standing occasionally to walk across his studio or look out to the bay. All night he had sat there, building the membrane of oil paint he called his ‘second body.’ Fall remembered the joy and fatigue he had felt watching his mentor work, hour after hour, day after day, while the painting grew in power.

  For three days they had sat there together, entering the atmosphere Atabet generated. He was building a passageway, he said, an altered time and space through which they could travel to other places . . .

  As Fall watched the spores of light around him now, Atabet was vividly present. Their project of the last two years, their search for the secret of matter, had broken open in this unexpected way. They had found allies and traditions that would strengthen and illumine their work—allies where they had suspected enemies.

  Kirov sat in the guest-house dining room studying three men near the door. Their backgrounds and personal idiosyncrasies, their strengths and weaknesses seemed obvious to him, and he tried to guess their business in Samarkand. In the clarity he felt, everyone he looked at seemed transparent.

  “Who are they?” Fall asked, leaning across the table. “Do you recognize them?”

  “They are engineers. Probably here to work on restorations of Tamerlane’s mosques. The one in jeans is Jewish and will go to the West someday. He hates life in Uzbekistan.” Kirov smiled. “The desert, the zikhr—they clear my eyes. The Earth of Hurqalya is more apparent.”

  Kirov decided to lighten the conversation to save Fall from embarrassment. For he could read him now with startling clarity. “Samarkand,” he sighed. “Its charm is ruined by progress. They are planning a new hotel that will look like the Samarkand Hilton.”

  Fall smiled at the image, and for a moment they talked about the city’s becoming a tourist center. As they talked, Fall’s past became present to Kirov in detail. He could see his mother, hear her voice, feel her presence. Kirov could see her in Fall’s awkward physique, in his widely set blue eyes, in his stubbornness and honesty. And he could see the father, too—irritable, brilliant, quick to begin new businesses and quick to end them, always ready to see the absurdity in men’s great works. Kirov could see him in Fall’s skeptical smile, in his restlessness, in his hint of nervous instability. Fall’s rough, choleric complexion seemed a battlefield where his mother’s refined and persistent will took on his father’s untamed energies.