The Maya Pill

by German Sadulaev

  The road was clear. Traffic was jammed up on the opposite side, the one leading from the port to the city. I made it to Kanonersky Island in no time and entered the tunnel.

  This is one of the darkest, scariest tunnels in the whole wide world, take my word for it. The Kanonersky Island Tunnel is long, poorly illuminated, unventilated, and filled not with air but pure, unadulterated automobile exhaust.

  I recalled one time a few years ago when I actually had to go through the tunnel on foot. I needed to get to the St. Petersburg Customs office, to certify some payments or confirm a certificate of origin, I can’t remember which. It was before I started working at Cold Plus. I used to earn money on the side processing shipping declarations.

  I had to get to the customs office, but I’d missed the bus, or maybe there wasn’t a bus—anyway, I had set off walking from Baltic Station in the direction of Kanonersky Island and had entered the tunnel. I think I must be one of very few people who’ve actually made it through that tunnel as a pedestrian.

  I pressed up against the wall like the shade of a dead man in Hades; diesel trucks roared past, deafening me. I could hardly breathe; the exhaust made my head spin and dulled my thoughts. I walked on and on, barely managing to put one foot down in front of the other. It seemed like it would never end. Or that I was already dead. “This is all there is. It will go on like this forever,” wrote the poet Nikolai Gumilyov, though at the time I was not thinking of poetry. My mind was completely blank and I just lurched blindly along through the tunnel. And at first I couldn’t believe it when the tunnel finally ended and I emerged, squinting into the faded northern sun suspended in the pale northern sky above the faded northern sea. And this drained, pale world blinded me with its brilliance and color!

  This time I entered the tunnel by car and surfaced on the other side within a matter of minutes.

  * Translator’s note: The word mak (as in the nickname “Mack”), in Russian, means “poppy,” as in the poppy plant.

  “GIVE ME TWO TABLETS”*

  I parked in a lot in front of a water treatment plant, descended a set of concrete steps to the shore, and sat on an old tree branch that had fallen near the rippling water.

  I knew the place well. I used to go there to wait while the customs officials inspected some document I’d brought, or if I’d shown up during their lunch break. I used to have lunch there myself, whatever I could scrounge up, or takeout from the shop at the bus stop. Those were lean times, even worse than now. But still, I remember those days fondly. I was young, after all. In youth, everything—even poverty—is an adventure. In middle age, poverty is just poverty, pure and simple.

  Before clicking on the car alarm I opened the back door and dug around inside the box. I scooped out a few of the pink pills and put them in my jacket pocket. I was in no hurry. And then it occurred to me: What if it was poison, what if it was fatal in the long term? I’m scared of death, but not because I regret leaving life behind; the life I’m leading isn’t worth fighting for. But dying itself is scary. And painful too, probably. Even when the person shows no external signs of suffering, even when it looks like he’s just going to sleep. That’s how it seems to the people around him, sure, but how are they supposed to know what the man himself is experiencing? Maybe every death brings agony and suffering, whether or not anyone else can tell from the outside.

  But what will be, will be. I reached into my pocket, took out one of the pills, and held it on my palm. I inspected it for a couple of seconds, then popped it into my mouth and swallowed it. I gave it another moment’s thought, then gulped down a second one for good measure. Based on my body weight, I usually need a double dose of anything.

  Done. Now all I had to do was wait for the rush. Or some other, less pleasant effect. I leaned back and closed my eyes, tilting my face up into the feeble sunlight.

  I’d only tuned out for maybe a minute or so. But I came to with a jolt. I’m not sure whether what I felt had anything to do with the pills; I might just have dozed off for a moment. One way or another, when I opened my eyes . . .

  . . . Nothing out of the ordinary.

  The gulf water came in little waves that lapped at my feet. Seagulls circled overhead and filled the air with their shrill cries. The northern sun bathed me in warm rays; a cool sea breeze brought fresh air.

  I thought, “All is well. Why all the gloom and doom? I’m still young; my whole life is ahead of me. And what I have isn’t all that bad! A steady, well-paying job in an office, some potential for professional advancement. A literary debut. That’s nothing to sneeze at: I’m alive, healthy, and free—all the prerequisites for true Russian happiness. It’s nothing to sneeze at. True success. So chin up. Maintain a positive attitude, and good things will come your way. Right. You know all this already. That demented idea of quitting your job, of selling the pills, it’s pointless. No good can come of it. Just get right back in that car and make a beeline for the office. Blame traffic for the delay. Take the box straight to Cold Plus and hand it over, and everything will be fine. Perfect. It’s just . . . the potatoes—potatoes everywhere! Viktor Stepanovich is right, we’re ordering too many.”

  Lo, before my very eyes: pallets laden with frozen potatoes, row upon row of them, filling the walk-ins and piling up in the warehouse aisles. And when I got into my car, the interior was packed with boxes of potatoes as well, solid stacks of them rising from the back seat to the roof.

  But I blinked, and the vision dissipated.

  There was just that one box of pills, right where I’d left it on the back seat. It had an unsteady look to it, though; its outlines were blurry and it was sort of hovering a couple of inches above the seat.

  It was bound to happen: There I was, standing, waiting for the elevator, all sweaty, the top buttons of my shirt undone, my tie draped over my shoulder, holding that stupid box in my hands, with my face twisted into an idiotic grin (where did that smile come from?). And sure enough, there she was again: the Goddess of Spring, Sex, Fertility, and Related Stuff.

  “Making a delivery?” she asked, smiling back at me.

  “Yes yes,” I said. “I’m the idea delivery man. I travel from ear to ear through the hallways of the mind, spreading profound thoughts.”

  Hardly my best witty banter. But the goddess seemed to appreciate my little word game. She even gave a little wave—see you!—on her way out of the elevator.

  Now I have to talk to you about sex.

  It’s page 65 already, we’re well into the plot, but not a word yet about sex. People might start to wonder about me.

  I declare, being of sound mind and body: I Maximus Semipyatnitsky, am neither a pederast nor a metrosexual (is there a difference?), nor indeed am I into cyber-sex or chat-sex or whatever other perversions. Your basic normal guy. At least I used to be, before I went to work at Cold Plus.

  I even have a girlfriend. Had, rather. Not all that long ago.

  She packed her things and went home to her mom’s.

  To be more precise, she packed my things and threw me out. Because she’d been living in the apartment before I came into the picture; her mother had given us a break on the rent because we were family.

  It was really hard for her. I mean the girl, not her mother. Though maybe it was hard for her mom too, how should I know? But it’s more likely she was relieved. Anyway, to hell with her, the mom, serves her right for sticking her nose in. (Forgive me, Lord.)

  The girl, I mean. She even cried. “Mack!” she wailed. She was the only one who was allowed to call me that. My name is Maximus, and no one—you hear me?—no one has the right to use nicknames with me: Maxim! Maxi! Max! I’m a human being, not a dog. But she called me Mack, and I let her do it.

  So she says, “Mack, Pops, I love you so much, I really do.”

  Hear that? She loves me, said so herself.

  “Mack, I love you. But I can’t go on this way.”

  “Why not?”

  “I need sex, wild sex every day, ideally four times a day
, every single day, not once every two weeks after some three-hour fight! I can’t go on this way! We both know it. Would it really be better if I started cheating on you, picking up men in clubs, sleeping with guys my girlfriends introduce me to at birthday parties and shish-kebob weekends at the dacha, or screwing some guy from work? I moved in with you so we could have more sex. I mean with each other, you idiot, because I love you, I still do, but I’ll get over it. I thought that if we lived together, nothing would keep us from having sex all the time. I was dreaming of the day! But it turned out just the opposite. First we had sex every day, even when I had my period, then we abstained during my period, and then on Mondays, because Mondays are tough, right? Then the only time left was the weekends, you get so worn out at work. Now even weekends are too much for you. But I’m only twenty-four. I’m still young, I need sex—it’s perfectly normal. So good-bye, Mack! So long, don’t say anything, not a word, just go, it’ll be easier for both of us that way. Just go, Mack!”

  Now there’s no one to call me Mack anymore.

  On the second floor of the Mega Mart I saw a booth where you could order a T-shirt with any slogan you want written across the front, and I spent a long time trying to make up my mind. There were some great options, all in English: “I Hate Love and Sex,” hm-m-m . . . too direct, don’t you think? “Sex is boring me to death”—interesting, but too long. “Sex sucks”—just the thing! How come no one ever thought of it before?

  Of course, ultimately, I ordered something completely different. Now I have a T-shirt with “Jesus hates me” written across the chest in bold black letters. And if I walk past, and you happen to look at my back, you’ll see: “U2.”

  * To quote a song by a Petersburg rock group.

  BEAUTY WILL GRAZE THE WORLD

  The world is full of ugliness. Yes, this world is ugly. Disgusting, nasty, foul. And of all the creatures populating this sickening world, the most disgusting and nasty are the human beings.

  Take any group of people. Will you see a lot of beautiful, classical, or even just generally nice-looking faces? No way. We are surrounded by freaks. Fat, irregular, clumsy, or gaunt, with gray and sallow faces, their cosmetics—cheap or high end—peeling off like old plaster. Crooked, cross-eyed, wrinkled, pimpled, disgusting, revolting creatures.

  Take anyone! Aunt Valya? A creature from a nightmare! Uncle Styopa, the wino next door? I’ve seen better looking turds. Those prostitutes on the next block? One look and you’re impotent for life. Coworkers? Where on earth does our company do its recruiting? The formaldehyde room at the Museum of Natural History?

  People don’t look at all the way people should. The Winter Garden has statues of creatures that look like people. Some of them are supposedly gods, though we have it on good authority that there are no gods, that sculptors in antiquity used their own friends, neighbors, and acquaintances as models. A centurion served as a model for Mars, the god of war, and a streetwalker posed for a statue of Aphrodite. That’s what people were like back then. Look at the classical sculptures and you’ll get an idea of what ordinary people looked like a mere couple thousand years ago.

  Imagine sculpting statues of the gods using your contemporaries as models. You couldn’t even manage a Bacchus or satyr. Not even a parody. Anything you could come up with would be pathetic and disgusting.

  A writer is a kind of sculptor. That is why the novel and the epic are dead. Big genres need larger-than-life heroes. All you’ll get from our scrawny and mean souls and ratty, ugly bodies will be cheap comedies à la Petrosyan.* Mix in some foul language and a pederast or two and you’ve got a cheap stand-up routine. Even serious writers—take me, for example—just produce superficial, bloggy stuff.

  The Eastern gurus taught: Look not into the faces of the worldly. One glance will earn you a berth in hell.

  There’s beauty for you.

  People are more like animals. The most disgusting and vile ones, in fact. Take a look around: rats, moles, pigs, chickens, frogs—these are our companions.

  People are also kind of like Tolkien’s mythical creatures. When I’m out on the street I can categorize them by sight: trolls, gnomes, orcs, and of course goblins. Long-eared, evil elves are also out and about.

  Beauty is extremely rare in this world. That’s why it’s so treasured. Beauty commands a high price, in any currency. If you want to find a truly beautiful prostitute, you have to shell out some serious cash. One night will set you back three months’ salary. Anything cheaper is counterfeit, a tasteless sham.

  If a person, male or female, is born beautiful, then everything will fall into his or her lap. No other virtues or assets are necessary. With minimal effort you can sell beauty anywhere at top price.

  Everyone is willing to pay a premium for true beauty, anytime, anywhere. But we can’t afford true beauty. Admit it, be honest, your life has abounded in sexual adventures, but how many truly beautiful women or handsome men have you slept with in all that time? Three? Two? I wouldn’t be surprised if there hadn’t been a single one.

  Long ago, in my distant youth, my classmate Vaska—we called him the Fireman —encapsulated the entire tragedy of our existence, devoid as it is of aesthetic value. We were watching one of the new Russia’s first televised beauty contests, and the Fireman pronounced mournfully, with great profundity, “Damn! And there are guys out there who get to fuck those beauties!”

  We find no real perfection around us, and so we compromise and accept half-beauty, cheap imitations. If a girl isn’t disgusting looking, has some marginally decent features, we’re ready to marry her and take care of her for the rest of her life. But even a girl like that is hard to find. So we marry freaks. And we almost love them. Of course we do; we try to be decent human beings.

  Still, we always long for beauty, the kind of beauty that we can never really touch.

  This fills our lives with suffering—yet another reason for our inner disharmony. We don’t realize that true beauty is incredibly rare, that our chances of coming into contact with it are close to zero.

  If we just accepted it, things might be easier. We don’t suffer, for example, from the knowledge that we will never personally make it to Alpha Centauri. Very few people are disturbed by that realization; those of us with some sense, the majority, know that it’s impossible, and so there’s no point in worrying about it.

  But it’s different with beauty. Beauty seems so close, so accessible!

  Blame technology.

  Art, culture, mass media, advertising—they all disseminate myriad images of the sort of beauty that is in fact extremely rare, creating the illusion—and it is an illusion!—that you can find it anywhere.

  Photographers ferret out the one and only beautiful girl out of one hundred thousand ugly ones, and they spend days on end photographing her in an infinite variety of poses and angles, against all kinds of different backgrounds. Then they enlarge the photos into posters and suddenly she’s multiplied into a million beautiful girls on billboards, magazine covers, and labels.

  But it’s a thin, paper image, a product of technology. As a million duplicated images, she can only exist within various forms of media, whereas there’s only one original version of the real beauty, the actual girl. And she can only belong to one man at a time. Or two. Three, maximum—there are only so many orifices.

  But we forget that. We are deluded, led astray by this reproduction of a beautiful image. We cling to the hope that we will see a beautiful girl in real life; that she’s just around the corner or down at the bus stop; we’ll run into her in a store and strike up a conversation, and then we’ll go home and screw, or, in the rare exception, we’ll make her our wife.

  In the meantime we sit and wait, we live with our half-beauties, girls we can’t love the way we should because of our belief that perfection is within reach. In the depths of our souls we consider them to be temporary measures, stopgap solutions until the day we meet the Aphrodite reserved for us by fate.

  It would be better to acc
ept the truth that rejecting our Claudia for the sake of some future magazine-cover Venus makes about as much sense as not changing the oil in our little Hyundai, figuring that in no time we’ll have our very own Porsche Boxster. Listen, dude, where are you going to get your hands on a two-hundred-thousand-euro Porsche if you still have five years left on the ten-thousand-euro loan you took out for your Accent?

  We understand this, and though we dream of a Porsche, we treat our actual car like a member of the family. We don’t have any illusions about trading in the Accent for a Porsche, and yet we cling to the belief that we can plausibly trade Claudia in for Venus.

  Venus seems more accessible than the Porsche. There she is, smiling at us from all those advertisements. And unlike a Porsche, absolutely free!

  But, listen pals, uh . . . I don’t want to startle anyone here with an original thought, but nothing in this world comes for free.

  Beauty costs money. Real money. More than people like you and me can scrape together in an entire lifetime. If a shitty Boxster is beyond your means, don’t even bother thinking about Aphrodite. Let it go.

  To summarize: “Don’t believe what you see in art, in advertisements, in beautiful pictures; forget those unrealizable dreams about happiness and perfection. You will never have all that. Value your wives and girlfriends. Love the one you’re with.”

  * Translator’s note: Evgeny Petrosyan (b. 1945) is a famous Soviet/Russian comedian of Armenian and Jewish ancestry.

  CHINA TRIP*

  All of these thoughts were inspired by my encounter with that Venus-Aphrodite, the goddess of all pleasurable things, in the elevator at the office—but only in retrospect. At the time my mind was far from such abstractions. Aphrodite exited on her floor, and I continued on up to mine, with the box in my hands and that idiotic smile plastered on my face. To avoid trouble I stowed the box in the utility room near the tea stash and the cartons of printer paper. The pills had clearly taken effect, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on how, exactly. There had been a shift in my consciousness, but my perceptions hadn’t changed. No spatial disorientation or physical effects—just a light euphoria, a sense of gentle optimism. And those persistent images of Dutch potatoes.