The Maya Pill

by German Sadulaev

  Soon he would be able to afford a bribe to pay for Kung’s documents. Kung would gain all the rights of citizenship, would have access to health care, and would be able to marry.

  All Ni had to do was keep on working. And observe the utmost thrift in everything he did.

  If Ni was to marry and start a family, he would no longer be able to put away money, and his brother would remain only a half-person. Which was why Ni Guan was still a bachelor, even though he was already over thirty—not by much, but still . . .

  Ni Guan thought about Tsin Chi. Tsin was a good girl, nice-looking, full of life. Maybe a little too full of life. Ni knew that she liked him. And he liked her too, but what was the hurry? She had only just turned twenty-two, the age at which Chinese girls were permitted to marry. On the streets you could see posters depicting an older couple holding a newborn baby with the slogan “Better later, and later better!” No need for haste when it came to marrying and procreating.

  Ni would do the right thing; Ni would right his parents’ wrong; Ni would give Kung a new, legitimate identity. To realize this goal he would work, and then he would sin before the state, would bribe the official in the registry office.

  But that would be the end to it: no more criminal acts. Ni Guan would eventually be able to marry and have a child, but not yet. If Tsin wanted, she could be patient and wait with him. If she wasn’t up to it, then all right; to each his own Tao. Everyone treads their own pathway to hell. She could find another guy to marry.

  Still, Ni Guan thought that it would be a good idea to have a talk with Tsin, to explain his situation to her, without revealing, of course, his secret. The poor girl didn’t understand why he was avoiding her, and it hurt her feelings.

  Ni Guan decided to go out for a smoke; he felt for the packet of cigarettes in his pocket and got up from his desk.

  My egg yolk jiggled and slithered out of Ni’s skull—back into the monitor, and from there into the wires, the way it had come. In the next instant I was conscious again, as though waking from a dream, and found myself back where I’d started, in the Import Department of the Cold Plus Corporation.

  * An instant messaging program. I-C-Q = “I seek you”.

  * “Teacher of Perfection.” Europeans pronounce his name “Confucius.”

  THE ROAD HOME

  The rest of the day passed without incident. I have to admit that until evening I felt as though someone had dumped a bag of dust on my head. That’s how my Khazar grandmother would have put it. Of course, she’d been known to use stronger language too. My brain was foggy, and I saw the world through something like warped bottle glass. If I turned my head, the picture didn’t change right away; the objects in my field of vision left smeared trails of color in their wake as I moved.

  The pills were wearing off, presumably.

  Without enthusiasm I checked a few invoices from shipping companies, then went out to the Harbin, a Chinese eatery, to utilize fully the lunch hour allotted me by my employment contract.

  Why the Harbin? Did it have anything to do with my “business trip” into the head of my distant Chinese colleague?

  Maybe yes, maybe no. I often ate Chinese. Not too expensive, and filling, if you get the special, immodestly labeled “Business Lunch,” and ask for a double serving of Hong Kong Fried Rice. I’m good with chopsticks and I use a lot of soy sauce.

  In the restaurant, while I sat and waited for my order, my eyes rested on the manager behind the counter, a Chinese man. He worked with sober dignity, writing out the checks with furrowed brow and giving meticulous instructions to the waitresses, Russian girls draped in some colorful garment that was supposed to represent a Chinese national costume. It might have actually been authentic, but on our girls the effect was lost.

  The waitresses went from table to table with an expression of excruciating boredom on their faces, taking orders with an air of poorly suppressed annoyance and spite. Russians in general are terrible at service. Griboyedov put it best: “I’m happy to oblige, but serving others makes me sick!” Waiting tables, and service of any kind, makes Russians sick, and they can’t conceal this instinctual nausea even at the prospect of lavish tips.

  A trip east gave me the opportunity to experience the difference myself—viscerally, you might say. In an Indian restaurant—I mean, in a real Indian restaurant, in India—a waiter, a young boy, will lick you all over, from head to toe, for a couple of extra rupees. He’ll serve you with enthusiasm; he considers this to be his professional duty. Blame the caste system. The boy is at your beck and call; it wouldn’t cross his mind to dream of becoming a doctor or government official; his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, every last one of them, were in service. He, too, will serve. It is his natural state. If he advances in his career and makes senior waiter by forty, he will consider himself a complete success. He gives practically no thought to the idea of becoming a government minister, say, a deputy, or financier. He might perhaps dream of becoming a movie star; that’s Bollywood at work, poisoning the minds of poor Indians with hopes that can never be fulfilled.

  I’m speaking of the hope of becoming someone different here and now, in this life. As far as the next life is concerned, the sky’s the limit; the Indian guy can desire whatever comes into his head.

  What is most surprising is that nothing prevents this hereditary servant, this Sudra, from taking pride in his work and respecting himself. He pours his creative spirit into his labors, working with dignity and precision, but without the slightest hint of servility.

  Once in India I took a ride with a poor rickshaw driver, negotiating a price beforehand. When I reached my destination, I foolishly gave him more than the sum we had agreed on, just out of spite. The driver took me rather roughly by the sleeve as I was climbing out, and firmly pressed the change into my palm. His entire being said “I need nothing extra, I ask only the set fee established by my union.”

  A Russian waiter or waitress, even while serving your food, will always let you know, subconsciously, by way of his or her face or posture, that he or she is doing you an enormous favor. He or she considers his or her current predicament to be a temporary and unnatural state: I may be a student right now, supporting myself by working in this restaurant, but just you wait. I’ll graduate and the moment I do I’ll become a top manager or rich businessman, or at the very least, will marry an oligarch.

  Assuming the whole time, of course, that they will achieve this goal in their current lifetime. They have no faith in a future life. It’s not about belief; the possibility of some future life simply doesn’t cross their mind. And at the same time they naively take for the truth the theory that if you “want something badly enough” or if you “just try really hard,” then “everything will work out fine.”

  And in fact that is the way it is.

  This formula has become the catechism of modern Western man, conveyed through Hollywood films, articles in glossy magazines and books by the ubiquitous and all-knowing Paolo Coelho. But the wise men of the East who originally came up with the formula proceeded from the premise that we have more than one life to live.

  True, the art of customer service is not very advanced in Russia. That said, if a Russian starts licking someone’s posterior, then he will find himself getting deeper and deeper in filth, wallowing around in there without the slightest need or profit. And not only that, he’ll fight an army of other guys tooth and nail for the right to lick even deeper. A nationwide case of mass sadomasochism.

  I watched the Chinese guy ordering the white girls around and marveled at his skill. He was clearly in his element. Before long the ancient Eastern man will come into his own, and when that time comes, we, white tailless monkeys, lazy self-satisfied creatures that we are, will do his bidding in the utmost tedium and servility.

  After work I started to make my way home. The traffic was horrendous as usual; the line of cars barely moved. Some drivers, like me, kept to their own lane, creeping submissively along in short lurches and long pauses
, surfing the radio dial and glancing dumbly out the side windows, first right, then left, or fixing a blank stare, devoid of emotion or thought, through their front windshields. Others fidgeted, jockeyed for position, or drove up on the sidewalk, attempting to pass on the right, but at the next stoplight found themselves inevitably in the same position as before, relative to the rest of us.

  Without particular rancor I muttered my habitual curses at the impatient ones. You’d think they were all rushing to some super-important, earthshaking appointment, or that every wasted minute was costing them a thousand dollars.

  I’m quite sure, though, that they’re simply going home to collapse on their sofa and watch some TV. The more energetic among them might have something to eat first, or engage in sexual activities with their domestic partners. So what’s the big hurry? An hour earlier or later won’t change anything.

  Soon everything will be perfect: They’ll fix the roads, fill in all the potholes, lay down new pavement, set up roundabouts, repaint the white lines, add a parking lane so that parked cars won’t clutter up the entire right side of the road, and they’ll construct a triple layer of high-speed beltlines around the city for heavy trucks. And everything will be perfect. Maybe not right away. But someday.

  In the meantime, the speed of every individual car in a line of traffic is ultimately reduced to the same average speed as the rest of traffic. Showing excessive individuality just gets some more scratches and dents on your car, and more resentment from everybody else.

  Traffic is no different from the rest of life.

  KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR

  I made it home and parked the car in the improvised for-profit lot next to the supermarket. A polite, solicitous man with an Armenian air about him guided me in between a Volkswagen and a Toyota. The lot was full as usual. I handed the guard (I can’t for the life of me recall his name, let’s call him Ashot) forty rubles, the fee for his services overnight.

  I used to park by the entrance to the apartment building but in no time the side-view mirrors were stolen. Savvy neighbors explained that it might have nothing to do with the night security guards, but then again, it might. In general, you could do without paying the forty rubles to the guys running the unlicensed parking lot. But then parts of your car might go missing: windshields, mirrors, fenders, and the like. It’s simpler just to pay.

  Sometimes when I came out to get the car at night, there would be no guard at the lot at all. The services of the bottom feeders on site, evidently under instruction from the guys in charge, were strictly limited to making sure nothing was “disappeared” from the cars under their protection. The cars parked at the entrance, though, were fair game.

  Anyway, I began parking my car by the supermarket, paying their paltry tribute and enjoying relatively undisturbed sleep at night.

  Ashot took the money in his left hand, with an air of sincere regret on his haggard face.

  His cell phone rang and he raised it to his ear with the other hand.

  “Hello? Hello? Galya? I come today. Money? I bring it. Wait up, don’t sleep, we go to movie. The money? I got some—I bring it.”

  Let it be said in his defense that Ashot is the most reliable of all the lot’s watchmen. He does disappear now and then, naturally, but there are times when he spends the whole night pacing from one end of the lot to the other, humming verses of some Armenian song. I’ve seen it myself, quite often.

  When our locals are on duty, they might as well not be there at all. They just drink themselves into a stupor and sleep the night away in their jalopy right there on the lot.

  It occurred to me that Russian women could organize a movement in support of illegal immigration. Those Galyas, Liubas, Klavas, and Nadyas—ladies who have crossed into their forties and who tip the scales at eighty kilos plus—wouldn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of catching a partner in life who’s occasionally sober, capable of working and bringing home a salary, and of giving her some good times in bed, if it weren’t for these Ashots, Tigrans, Dauds, and Sulemans.

  Such ladies should lock arms and come out in full force to confront the assembled demonstrators of the Anti-Immigration Movement, forming an impenetrable wall with their massive breasts. They could say, so you want all these non-Russian elements to leave our country? Fine, out they go. But can you satisfy your womenfolk? How about right now? Bring it on, defenders of the Motherland, give it to us till we can’t take any more. All these dark-skinned immigrants will be out of the picture, so you can plow us every night like Young Communists conquering virgin lands, all night long. Work all day, and then bring home the bacon and potatoes. How do you like that version of Russia, fellow citizens?

  That would put an end to the patriotic Russian Orthodox struggle against the so-called black-assed invaders; our valiant warriors would scatter into the alleyways with their tails between their legs, hiking up their ripped trousers with one hand and crossing themselves plaintively with the other.

  This is the sort of serious matter that preoccupies me when I’m out walking. Sometimes I even move my lips or laugh out loud. Looking like a real moron.

  But it only looks that way. Fact is, I’m pretty smart.

  Just sensitive.

  Sensitive to people, to life, to justice, truth, and art.

  Home at last, I turned on my computer and launched the universal player. Opened the special “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” file and moved all the MP3 files in there onto the player.

  I said before that I hate oldies. Well, all except for this one. I never get tired of listening to Bob Dylan’s “Knock-knock-knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.” I even have a collection of different cover versions. You can’t imagine how many artists have recorded “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”! I have thirty-nine on my computer: U2 (live concert), Dana Robbins, Bryan Ferry, Randy Crawford, Daniel Lioneye, Wyclef Jean, Roger Waters (yes, you know the one, from Pink Floyd), Warren Zevon, Avril Lavigne (pop crossover!), the Leningrad Cowboys (worth a listen if only for the group’s name), Jerry Garcia, solo, and another one with his band (the Jerry Garcia Band), Calva Y Nada (don’t ask), Seliq (from the album of the same name, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door); and then Ed Robinson recorded it twice, Guns ’n’ Roses seven times, Sisters of Mercy five times (just imagine the Sisters of Mercy snarling out the words!), Eric Clapton seven times (IMHO the best is the one on Crossroads); and then of course Bob Dylan himself—four times. Especially touching is his creaky old man’s voice on the MTV Unplugged version.

  And of course I have a DVD of the German movie Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, the story of two guys living with terminal cancer and indulging in a no-holds-barred, hedonistic megabinge before they kick off.

  No need to listen to a lot of different songs or read a stack of different books. One is enough, so long as you get to its essence. Take the Hari Krishnas, all they do is sing “Hari Krishna, Hari Rama” and read the Bhagavad Gita, but they each perceive and comprehend more than a full professor.

  The main thing is that it be the right song or book. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is the right song. That is my opinion. If Old Bob had written nothing else, the pearly gates would still swing open before him.

  When I’m done writing my one and only masterpiece, I’ll just spend the rest of my days working in an office, and my nights drinking beer, like a regular guy. Hmm . . .

  I sipped my beer and meditated to the sound of the song as it cycled through all the different versions. Then I undressed, shut down the computer, and curled up on the sleeper sofa. My insomnia was long gone, a feature of the distant past when I didn’t work in an office from nine to six, led a bohemian lifestyle, and had sex whenever, with whomever.

  Within ten minutes I was back in that strange dream about long-lost Khazaria.

  FALLING STAR

  A falling star appears out of the cosmos and, whipping its tail like a cat, traces a trail across the yawning blackness of the southern sky.

  Every night closer, hotter.

>   Saat lies on his back on a hillock with his hands crossed behind his head and stares up at the sky. Misfortune, the old people would say, woe.

  What kind of misfortune can befall Khazaria? You name it. A bad harvest. Or the opposite, one that’s too good—that too is woe. One year the grain grew as tall as a horse. They harvested with sabers, used maces for threshing. Couldn’t eat it all! Piled it on carts until it spilled over the tops, hauled it over the mountains, begged the people on the other side: Take our grain, we have too much! Swap it for your heavy stones! The neighbors traded, helped. Carts clogged the high roads, grain going one way, stones the other. The roads were too narrow, so the carts traveled across the fields. Trampled the rich black earth. No one could get through, on foot or by cart. The milk spoiled in the nomad camps, and mountains of stones filled the cities—nothing to eat or drink! The sick couldn’t get through to the znakhar healers, they fell to the ground between the carts and died there on the road.

  No one was left to do the winter plowing and tend the livestock.

  The Khazars spent their days carting grain and piling up stones. Weeds overtook the fields, the livestock ran loose. And they still couldn’t get all the grain out! The sheds burst from inside. Attracted by the excess of grain, invisible baby mice multiplied under the floorboards and turned into huge, sleek, nasty adults. They’d attack a man by his shed, gnaw his flesh to the bone, and leave him to groan and rot what was left of his life away. Out of pure malice, but also for a little fun. Every living creature needs more than bread alone. Circuses, the ancient tsar-emperors used to say. Just to entertain themselves; even mice get bored eating the same old thing. So the mice cubs devoured the grain, and famine set in. The Khazars had nothing left—no seed grain, no livestock—for the next spring. They tried to eat the stones, but the stones broke their teeth and ruined their stomachs. Some food is just too heavy.