‘How do we do that?’
‘You’ve been through the Discourse and Glamour course. That’s how. If you want to research specific methodologies, you’ll have to ask the Chaldeans. But the general idea is that the non-productive part of the Mind “B” operating cycle should take up as little time as possible. If things are set up as they should be, people will not spend time seeking God. All the God they need is waiting for them in church – next to the collection box. Nor will a man seek meaning in art. He knows that truth is to be found only in the box office. And so on. It’s just as you were taught in school: the struggle to increase the power coefficient, or, as they say in physics, cosine phi, is a national priority.’
‘What then is the purpose of existence?’ I asked. ‘Or is life entirely empty, with no purpose?’
‘Why should it be? It’s always possible to find many different reasons to live. Take your choice. Live your life so that it should be whole, full of inspiration and meaning. But know also that at the end, when you turn the final page, all these meanings will vanish like chaff before the wind.’
‘So what is the point of it all?’
Osiris leaned forward, picked up something from the table and put it under my nose.
‘What is this?’ he asked.
I looked at the object he held in his fingers. It was a nail. An old nail, somewhat rusty round the head. Obviously used, it was bent and battered from having been pulled out.
‘That? It’s a nail.’
‘Quite right,’ said Osiris. ‘A nail. An old nail. We can take the simplest, most basic object like this old, rusty nail. We can look at it carefully. And we can think: what is it?’
‘It’s a nail,’ I shrugged. ‘What is there to think about?’
‘It depends on what you are talking about. Are you talking about this insignificant scrap of metal? Or about something that happens in your perception? Or about the fact that the nail is nothing more than a concept that you have? Or about the fact that your perception of this concept becomes the nail? In other words, are we talking about the nail as reflected in our consciousness, or the fact that we project the word “nail” on to the surrounding world in order to bring about that particular sum total of its elements which we have agreed to identify with the sound that particular word makes? Or, perhaps, you are speaking of the dark and terrible belief some people have that a certain nail exists in and of itself beyond the limits of anybody’s consciousness?’
‘I’m already lost,’ I said.
‘Right you are. You’re lost, and will never find your way out.’
‘What had all that to do with my question?’
‘This. You were asking: what is the point of existence? The point is this,’ Osiris brandished the nail in the air. ‘Here is a piece of iron picked up from a dump. And the non-productive part of your money gland’s cycle cannot even tell you what it is, even though you can touch it, bend it or drive it into someone’s palm. And you are asking me about something that has no existence anywhere except in the imagination, and not even there permanently: wispy word-clouds that arise for a second, cast their imaginary spell of meaning, and then disappear without trace the moment Mind “B” starts thinking about money. Understand?’
‘No.’
‘Quite right too. Get used to it, Rama.’
I nodded.
‘When a man – and between ourselves, a vampire is simply an enhanced man – starts thinking about God the creator of the world, and what this might mean, he is like a monkey wearing a field marshal’s tunic, strutting round a circus ring while flashing his bottom. The monkey has an excuse because that is how people have dressed him up. But for you, Rama, there is no excuse.’
Throwing the nail on to the table, Osiris pressed the bell next to the telephone. I could hear it jangling in the corridor.
‘It’s time for me to dine. Grigory will show you out.’
‘Thank you for the explanations,’ I said, rising to my feet. ‘Although I must admit I didn’t understand much.’
‘No need to strain yourself,’ smiled Osiris. ‘The most important thing you should understand is that you don’t understand. What is the point of trying to understand something when you already know everything? One drop of bablos will explain more than ten years of philosophical discussions.’
‘Why then did you change from bablos to red liquid?’
Osiris shrugged.
‘Some dance to remember,’ he said, ‘some dance to forget.’
The Moldavian with the moustache entered the room and I understood that the audience was at an end.
As he had done last time, the Moldavian showed me out. But this time, for some reason, he came out with me on to the landing of the staircase and closed the door to the apartment behind us.
‘The lift is not working,’ he informed me in a quiet voice. ‘I’ll come down with you.’
I had no objection, but all the same as I went down I hugged the wall, keeping as far away as I could from the banister rail beyond which was the drop into the stairwell.
‘Excuse me for seeming importunate,’ said the Moldavian. ‘I am, as it happens, a Professor of Theology from Kishinev. I’m just working here to earn a crust. At the moment there is no great call in Kishinev for Professors of Theology.’
‘I don’t suppose there is,’ I said sympathetically.
‘You know,’ went on the Moldavian, ‘quite a lot of young vampires come here to talk to our employer. I wait outside the door in case the boss wants to call me in. Well, one overhears things from time to time, so I know what ideas are current in your world. I don’t usually intervene in the discussions, but today you were talking about God, and I feel obliged to add an important amplification to what you have just been hearing. As a theologian, I mean. But I do ask you to repeat nothing of our conversation to my Chief. In fact, don’t discuss it with anyone until your next supervision bite. By then I shall be away on holiday. Will you promise me that?’
‘You seem to know a lot of detail about our practices,’ I observed, ‘even about supervision bites. It’s the first I’ve heard of them, personally speaking.’
‘Irony doesn’t suit you, young man. In your circle all bites are supervision bites. There is no other kind.’
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ I sighed. ‘All right, I promise. You have my word. What is the amplification you referred to?’
‘It concerns what in your circles is known as Mind “B”. Young vampires are told that human Mind “B” is simply the money gland. But this is not the case.’
‘What, then, is the case?’
‘Have you ever been to Pompeii, in Italy?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I know it’s a Roman city preserved under layers of volcanic ash. I’ve read a lot about it.’
‘Yes, that’s it,’ said the Moldavian. ‘And the most interesting thing about Pompeii is the Villa dei Misteri – the Villa of the Mysteries.’
‘I remember. It’s a villa on the edge of the town. The name comes from the frescoes, which depict an initiation ritual into the Dionysian Mysteries. Our Discourse studies even included some images of them. Very beautiful, they were. But what made you think of this villa just now?’
‘You see, the villa had existed from the middle of the third century BC until the destruction of Pompeii – that is, for three hundred years. Today, of course, nobody knows what mysteries were enacted there. But the frescoes have so captured people’s imagination that disputes and speculations about them still rage. To my mind, the really interesting thing is not the frescoes themselves, but the little details in the murals on the walls of the passage: enigmatic Egyptian symbols on a black background, signs, snakes – similar to what you see on old Singer sewing machines … I don’t know if you have ever come across any machines like that?’
‘You do jump about rather. You started off talking about Min
d “B”, then on to the villa, and now Singer sewing machines …’
‘Give me just a second or two, and all will be clear. You cannot see it in the photographs, but if you actually go to the villa you will see many incongruous things there. On the one hand, yes, you have the frescoes, but on the other, in among these splendours you find the crudest and most primitive wine press … and then you start to notice all kinds of ugly agricultural outbuildings in the most inappropriate places. Tourists are told that the villa was definitely dedicated to the mysteries at some point in the distant past. But after the first underground tremors, which occurred long before the fatal eruption of the volcano, the owners sold the building and left. And the villa became a farm which made wine.’
‘What point are you making in telling me this?’
‘My point is, man is like the Villa of the Mysteries. You vampires believe that you yourselves did much the same: creating the farm in order to extract bablos. Therefore you regard the frescoes on the walls as by-products of agricultural activity. You imagine that they somehow emerged of their own accord from the mud and the splashes from the vats of fermenting juice …’
We stopped at the doorway leading out of the building.
‘All right, then,’ I said, ‘do you have an alternative version?’
‘I do. Mind “B” – what you call the money gland – is a receptacle for abstract notions. You will not find them anywhere in the world around you. Nor is God to be found anywhere in the world. Mind “B” was created expressly in order to provide a dimension in which God can appear to people. Our planet is no prison. It is a very large house. A magical house. It may have a dungeon somewhere in the basement, but taken all in all it is God’s palace. There have been many attempts to kill God, various calumnies have been spread about him, some even appearing in the mass media – that he married a prostitute, and that he died. But none of this is true. It is simply that no one knows in which rooms in the house he lives because he is constantly moving. All that is known is that any room that he enters is clean, and bright, and has a light burning in it. But there are also rooms into which he never goes, and as time goes by there are more and more of them. The first thing to happen is that a draught sweeps in, bringing glamour and discourse with it. And when glamour and discourse coalesce and start to rot, the bats scent them and fly in.’
‘I suppose you mean us?’
The Moldavian nodded.
‘I see,’ I said. ‘That’s how it always goes. Let’s heap all the blame on to those filthy, scabby vampires. It’s a no-brainer, isn’t it?’
‘Why must you use loaded words like filthy and scabby?’ asked the Moldavian.
‘Well, you can always find a reason to hate us,’ I replied, and flapped my arms a few times as if they were wings. ‘We can fly, you know, and all those wingless mediocrities will never forgive this. You always try to destroy us by one means or another; it lies so deep in your culture …’
‘Who do you mean by “you”?’
‘Mankind, of course,’ I replied, getting more and more heated and wound up. ‘Who else? And what else would you expect, given that your entire history began with genocide?’
‘What genocide?’
‘Who do you think slaughtered the Neanderthals? Thirty thousand years ago? Did you think we would forget? We will not forget, and we will not forgive. With genocide it began, and with genocide it will end, you mark my words. So don’t go heaping all the blame on us vampires …’
‘You have not understood me,’ said the Moldavian, alarmed. ‘I am not blaming it all on vampires. Each room must answer for its own conduct. It may invite God to come in. Or your associates. Every room naturally inclines to the divine. But the majority of them, as a result of the glamour and the discourse, have come to the conclusion that it all comes down to interior design. And if that is what a room believes, you can be sure the bats are already flying about in it. God is not likely to enter such a room. But I am not blaming vampires. You are not, after all, rooms in the palace. You are bats. You have your work to do.’
‘And what, in your view, will become of the palace in the end?’
‘God has many palaces. When all the rooms in a palace have been occupied by bats, God destroys it. That is to say, he stops creating it, which comes to the same thing. It is said that this event resembles a light of such inconceivable power that it burns up the whole world. But what in fact happens is that matter, which is an illusion, disappears and the nature of God, which then will permeate everything, is finally seen as it really is. Much the same, it is believed, happens at the end of each individual life. Our own palace is now experiencing bad times. Almost all of the rooms are populated by bats. Everywhere one hears the crunching and squelching of a wine press squeezing out Aggregate “M-5” …’
‘You are well informed,’ I said.
‘The question comes down to this: what are we to do when God finally loses patience and abandons this project?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps we shall be sent to another planet to continue our work there. But something else interests me. You are a trained theologian. You speak of God as if he were an old acquaintance. Please then tell me why he made our lives so empty and senseless?’
‘If your life had any meaning,’ said the Moldavian, emphasising the word ‘your’, ‘it would follow that those rooms which welcome the bats were following the right path. And God would have nowhere to live.’
‘I see. Why, then, are you telling me all this?’
‘I want to give you a telephone number,’ replied the Moldavian, handing me a gold-edged card. ‘If you would like to, come to one of our prayer meetings. I cannot promise you an easy way back. But God is merciful.’
I took the card. On it was written:
The Way to God through the Word of God
Logos CataCombo House of Prayer
On the back was a telephone number.
As I put the card away in my pocket, my hand passed over the place on my belt where the little case with the death candy should be. It was not there. Once again I had come out empty-handed. Even had it been there, however, I would certainly not have followed Osiris’s advice. It was a reflex movement.
‘That’s clear,’ I said. ‘Instead of a wine press we shall install a candle-making cottage industry in the Villa of Mysteries, shall we? Your attempts will not succeed: the Chaldeans won’t allow it. At best you’ll muddle away with your hackwork in a corner. If, that is, there’s anywhere left for you to do it …’
‘Don’t be facetious. You’d do better to reflect on this at leisure.’
‘I will think about it,’ I replied. ‘I can see you are a good person. Thank you for involving yourself in my life.’
The Moldavian smiled a melancholy smile.
‘I have to go now,’ he said, touching the plaster on his neck. ‘The Chief doesn’t like to be kept waiting. Please remember that you promised not to mention our conversation to anyone.’
‘I doubt anyone would be interested. Although … you know what? Why not have a go at recruiting Ishtar Borisovna? She’s ripe for it. I’m giving you inside information.’
‘Think about it,’ repeated the Moldavian. ‘The way back is still open to you.’
He turned and started walking up the staircase.
I went outside and shuffled back to the car.
The way back, I thought. But where to? Will there be anything left there?
Settled in the car, I raised my eyes to look at Ivan in the driving mirror. He smiled, artfully managing to keep up his resentful expression while doing so.
‘I was just thinking about life,’ he said, almost suffocating me with the pungent aroma of mint pastilles. ‘And I thought up a Chinese proverb. Or maybe it’s a quotation from Mao Zedong. Would you like to hear it?’
‘Tell me.’
‘However long you suck a dick, it will never make you an emperor.’
The argument was irrefutable, but the use of the verb ‘suck’, even in this neutral context, bordered on the offensive. I suddenly realised he was drunk, and may have been since morning. Perhaps he had not been sober on any of our previous meetings. This frightened me. I had no idea what was in his mind.
‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously leaning forward in my seat, ‘social mobility is definitely on the wane in our society. Yes, something really should be done about it. On the other hand … no, you’re not going to be an emperor. But an empress, well, that might be possible …’
In the middle of the phrase my head jerked back in its accustomed manner. Then I leant back in my seat and spent a little while analysing Ivan’s personality map.
There was nothing to fear there. Except a car crash. But Hera … How humiliating to flirt with a driver …
But then, I thought scornfully, what else would you expect? It’s just an occupational habit …
THE LORD OF THIS WORLD
At eight o’clock in the morning Loki rang up to tell me that the duel had been scheduled for today.
‘We will come to you at eleven o’clock,’ he said. ‘Make sure you’re ready. And don’t drink a lot of liquid.’
He hung up without waiting, and I had no time to ask for any details. When I tried to ring back, there was no reply.
In the remaining three hours my imagination worked at double speed.
Firearms or blades?
In my mind I tried to picture what it would feel like to be killed by a bullet. I thought it might be something like a blow from a white-hot rod. Vampires are forbidden to shoot one another in the head, so Mithra would aim at my stomach, as happened to Pushkin …
Empire V Page 33