Helmet of Horror

by Victor Pelevin

  IsoldA

  A girl right across the whole wall?

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  No, the fresco. Some kind of garden full of wonderful plants and birds. And the girl was at the very centre, life-size. Absolutely naked, but it suited her really well. She had green hair that looked like grass, fluttering in the painted breeze. And green eyelashes too. She was lying in a mother-of-pearl shell, barely concealing the lower part of her belly with a bouquet of flowers. There was one strange thing, though – the edge of the shell above her head was covered with projections that looked like horns. And there were black rubber handles attached to them. That is, the projections were painted, but the handles were real, like in a bus. I touched them and I could tell it really was possible to hold on to them. But I couldn’t understand what for.

  IsoldA

  How could you touch them? You said there were bars between the door and the fresco.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  That’s right. But it was easy enough to slip between the bars. So that’s what I did. They probably weren’t meant to keep out people.

  IsoldA

  Describe this girl.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  I suppose she was about eighteen, but she didn’t look any older than fourteen. I’d describe her pose as brazen, but entirely natural. What I mean is, the pose would have been absolutely brazen, if she’d been lying there like that, knowing that she was being watched. But if she lay around like that at home, especially if it was hot, then of course, there wouldn’t be anything brazen about it. But on the other hand, she was looking straight out of the picture at the spectator, which in this case meant straight at me. She had her eyes half-closed, as though she could see me and was taunting me, and she was smiling. And her eyes were as green as could be. I began to understand what the artist was trying to say. Either she’d posed like that knowing she was being watched, which meant she was absolutely shameless, which I didn’t want to believe. Or she’d been lying like that because she thought there was no one around, and she was smiling at the spectator simply out of inertia, because she’d only just noticed him. In that case the artist was a real genius, because he’d caught the precise moment when her brain had already given the command to scream, but the command still hadn’t reached the muscles of her throat. In that case, for as long as I carried on examining her, I was free of shame myself, so free in fact that it was actually arousing. In a word, genuine art. An absolutely enigmatic masterpiece. But I didn’t have time to study her properly, because the bouquet she was using to conceal the lower part of her belly trembled and started sliding downwards. And it wasn’t just the lower part of her belly she’d been hiding, but the lowest part of all, so low you can’t get any lower, only higher …

  IsoldA

  All right, Romeo, I get the idea.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  There must have been some kind of mechanism in the wall. The arm that was holding the bouquet began turning from the elbow, like the hand of a clock. But I didn’t get a chance to see what was behind the bouquet, because the light began to fade and soon it was completely dark. I went up to the wall and began feeling it with my hands. Where the bouquet had been quite a big gap had appeared. I put my hand into it carefully and suddenly felt something soft and alive that jerked away from me. I think it was another hand. I cried out in surprise and suddenly there was a spray of something acrid from the ceiling, like tear gas. I jumped back. The light started coming on. When it was bright enough to see, the bouquet was already back in place. My eyes were stinging really badly and I ran out of the room like it was a gas chamber.

  IsoldA

  Do your eyes still hurt?

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Not any more.

  IsoldA

  Now I see.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  What do you see, Isolde?

  IsoldA

  It seems I discovered the same amusement arcade from the other side. After the giant with the sun-mask disappeared, I went to the pavilion. The door was locked. And the windows too. I broke a window, lifted the latch and opened it. Behind the first door was the beginning of a dark, winding corridor like the one you told me about. From there I found my way into a large room with a light and no windows, just like you did. Instead of pictures it had mirrors painted over with white paint. Standing in the middle of the room was an absolutely huge steel ring as tall as the ceiling, with nylon mesh attached all around its edge – it hung down from the ring and trailed across the floor like a seine net. On the door there was a plaque about keeping silent, just like on yours. And on the wall behind the ring there was a mural, only it was very different from yours. It was a picture of something like the Grand Canyon. Through the mist I could make out the desert floor far below me. And on the edge of the red cliff, right up in front of the spectator’s eyes, there was a car with a cloud of painted dust settling around it. It all looked just as though the car had braked after a steep turn and stopped at the very last moment, with its wheels hanging over the edge of the precipice. It was a Rolls-Royce jeep, in perfect profile, like a photo in an advert.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Are you sure it was a Rolls-Royce?

  IsoldA

  Of course. It had the initials ‘RR’ and a little Oscar with wings on the radiator, like they all have.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Then it wasn’t a jeep. Rolls-Royce don’t make jeeps.

  IsoldA

  Romeo, I can tell my SUV from my elbow. I even saw the name of the model – ‘Full Drive Shadow’ I think it was. That’s the whole point. It was an artist’s fantasy, but it was so convincing I could see straight away that if Rolls-Royce decided to make an SUV they’d have to make the car that was painted there; circumstances would simply force them to do it. The jeep was made of gold and steel, like an exquisite watch. To say it looked impressive gives you no idea. If the space shuttle and the most expensive diamond necklace in the world could together produce a son, then it would probably look just like that when it grew up. In front of the jeep was a platform with steps. I mean the platform wasn’t in the picture, it was on the floor of the room, real, made of wooden boards. And the jeep’s windows were real too, tinted glass that looked black and there were skis and a surfboard on its roof.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Real ones?

  IsoldA

  The skis and the board were painted. But the rack they were attached to, or that they looked as if they were attached to in the painting, was real, made of steel and gold.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  What kind of rack?

  IsoldA

  I don’t know what its proper name is – the kind they make so you can tie on what you carry on the roof. There were loops of black leather hanging from it, like the ones used for doing gymnastics; they were real as well. And, apart from that, the door handles and the hub-caps were real – and they were made of steel and gold too.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Did you try opening the door?

  IsoldA

  I told you, there weren’t any doors, only handles. But I didn’t even get a chance to touch them. The moment I took a couple of steps towards the jeep, its window began slowly winding down. Some kind of mechanism must have switched on. I really wanted to find out what was behind the glass, but the light began to fade, and a few seconds later it was dark. Exactly the same thing as happened to you, in fact. I climbed up on the platform and touched the wall where the window of the jeep had been. There was a gap there now. I ran my hand round its edge. It really felt like a car window. But the window hadn’t opened all the way and the gap wasn’t big enough to climb through the wall. There was a slight draught from the window, as if there was an air-conditioner working inside. And I thought I caught a faint glimpse of light. I leaned down to look inside, but as soon as my face was level with the opening something bumped against my cheek and I heard a terrible howl. I leapt back, lost my balance and fell off the platform on to the floor. The light came on – dim at first, the
n brighter and brighter, like in the cinema after a film. By the time it got really light, the jeep’s window was already closed again. I went back out through the corridor into the open air and came back here. I was shaking all over at first, but I started feeling better on the way. It’s funny to think about it now.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Well, I’ve learned one lesson. Nice and easy does it.

  IsoldA

  Yes. Especially in your RR SUV.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  It’s your RR SUV.

  IsoldA

  Why?

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  It’s on your side!

  IsoldA

  But you’re the one inside it. That means it’s yours.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  How can it be mine if I can’t see it?

  IsoldA

  And how can it be mine if I can’t even get into it? Apart from sticking my head in the window.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Let’s say it’s ours then. Then we can’t be wrong.

  IsoldA

  Agreed.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Isolde … I want to tell you something. It will probably sound stupid, but I want you to hear it anyway. Whatever I’m thinking about, I always come back to you. As if all the thoughts that aren’t connected with you are heavy weights and as soon as my mind tries to deal with them, the effort becomes too much. But everything to do with you is light and happy, like the bubbles in champagne. I just want to go on and on thinking about it.

  IsoldA

  Yes, Romeo, that really did sound stupid. But I could say the same thing to you.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Why don’t we meet again at the same place? Say tomorrow afternoon? Calmly, without any fuss. Or any noise.

  IsoldA

  But what if we’re being followed? I mean there, inside.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  The light goes out when the window opens.

  IsoldA

  Haven’t you ever heard of infra-red cameras? They could do more than just watch us. They could shoot an entire movie.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Then who would they show it to?

  IsoldA

  Your wife, for instance. Or Ariadne in a dream.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  I haven’t got a wife. And I couldn’t give a damn for Ariadne and her dreams. If we start worrying about spies, pretty soon the world will be full of them.

  IsoldA

  You’re right. The only way to be alone is to behave as though we are already alone.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  So it’s a date then?

  IsoldA

  Tomorrow at three, Romeo. I date your car.

  Romeo-y-Cohiba

  Our car. My green-eyed Lolita. My lovely Mona Lita.

  IsoldA

  And now to sleep, Cohiba. Be seeing you.

  Nutscracker

  Be seeing you, be seeing you. Monster, are you there?

  Monstradamus

  Yes. Where else could I be?

  Nutscracker

  Well, what do you make of that?

  Monstradamus

  No doubt our master shed a great big sentimental tear. The twilight of Ancient Greek thought in a nutshell. Zeno’s paradoxes. Achilles can’t go riding in his big beautiful car. Because when he’s riding in it, he can’t see it. The passers-by can see it, so they’re the ones riding in it. And Achilles only imagines he’s driving it, but in actual fact it’s driving him.

  Nutscracker

  I feel a bit jealous. How about you?

  Monstradamus

  Not particularly. I don’t like jeeps. You’re too high above the road when you sit in them. And anyway an RR SUV is a bit OTT. Cohiba ought to have an Alfa Romeo.

  Nutscracker

  I don’t mean the car. Alfa Romeo, Beta Romeo – all that sounds like the stud ranking in a herd of chimpanzees to me. I mean the feelings.

  Monstradamus

  But you have them too. They have love, you have envy. As comrade Ariadne teaches us, these are merely different states assumed by past within the helmet of horror.

  Nutscracker

  And on that optimistic note …

  Monstradamus

  Yes indeed. Good night.

  :-))))

  Organizm(-:

  Who wants to chat?

  Ariadne

  I do.

  Nutscracker

  And I do.

  Monstradamus

  And I do I suppose.

  Organizm(-:

  An interesting team. Monstradamus, Ariadne, me and Nutcracker. Has anyone noticed that the four of us have something in common?

  Nutscracker

  It would be hard not to notice. We all use toilet paper with a little star on it.

  Monstradamus

  And we share a great passion for life.

  Organizm(-:

  That’s not all, though.

  Nutscracker

  We’ve all been fed garbage just recently as well. Did everyone get that putrid lasagne yesterday? And how did you like today’s vegetarian beefsteak, rare and bloody?

  Organizm(-:

  That’s not it either.

  Monstradamus

  I know what he means. None of us has said anything about our labyrinths.

  Ariadne

  Really? It’s just that no one’s asked me.

  Nutscracker

  And are you willing to tell us?

  Ariadne

  Of course.

  Nutscracker

  So what have you got outside your door?

  Ariadne

  A bedroom.

  Nutscracker

  What, just an ordinary bedroom?

  Ariadne

  No, not ordinary. If you ever leaf through those fashionable journals with all the chic interiors, you might have seen something of the kind. It’s a large room, and the bed takes up at least half of it. The mattress is so wonderful I don’t even know how to describe it. I should write more poems. When you lie down on it, it feels like you’re parachuting through the air, soaring along the pillows, the blankets and the sheets – everything is absolutely the very best. And there’s an air conditioner with heaps of different operating modes. You can set it so that a fresh breeze blows through the room as though it’s coming straight off the sea. And there are thick curtains on the window that …

  Nutscracker

  You’ve got a window? What does it look out on?

  Ariadne

  I don’t know. There’s some kind of garden, and the branches of trees. I can’t see anything else.

  Nutscracker

  Have you tried opening it?

  Ariadne

  The window doesn’t open. What else now? There’s a really elegant wall-lamp above the bed and a night-lamp in the corner. There’s a mini-bar too, only there aren’t any drinks in it, nothing but little boxes of sleeping pills. There are lots and lots of them, all beautiful kinds of colours, and inside each one there are instructions on how many pills you can take at once, which ones you can take with others, which ones you can’t, and so on. Only I don’t need any sleeping pills. I only have to lie down on the bed, and I’m gone. I just fly away.

  Nutscracker

  And is that all there is?

  Ariadne

  When I leave the bedroom for a long time – say an hour or more – someone changes the sheets and makes the bed. But I haven’t met anyone, not even once. And there aren’t any other doors in the bedroom, there’s only one way in.

  Nutscracker

  How do you explain that?

  Ariadne

  I don’t try. It’s less scary that way.

  Nutscracker

  A labyrinth like that could give you bedsores, Ariadne.

  Ariadne

  You weren’t listening to what I said, Nutcracker. The mattress I have is so wonderful I can’t even feel it. What bedsores? An angel could sleep on it without even creasing its wings.

  Monstr
adamus

  That’s an interesting subject. How angels sleep.

  Ariadne

  Probably like bats, on a coral perch. And they have special gold hooks on their slippers.

  Monstradamus

  Perhaps. Only they hang head-up, because they aren’t attracted by the earth’s gravity, only by the love of the Lord. Like Ugly said. Angels are non-material beings.

  Organizm(-:

  Then how did they manage to choose wives for themselves from among the daughters of man and beget children?

  Nutscracker

  Ugly probably knows about that. Or she can check with some of her friends. Ugly, are you there?

  Monstradamus

  By the way, on the subject of checking with your friends. Ariadne, you said we could ask you questions about the helmet of horror in case you have another dream about our management.