Buddha's Little Finger

by Виктор Пелевин

  ‘Awkward all right, but that’s the army for you.’ Ignat said, and he looked up at me. ‘Don’t you believe me, your lordship? Well, it doesn’t matter if you don’t. Until I answered his lordship the baron’s question, I didn’t believe it either. And now I don’t have to believe anything, because I know it all.’

  ‘So you answered that question, did you?’

  Ignat nodded solemnly in reply.

  ‘That’s why I can walk around the steppe like a man, and not have to stick close by the camp-fires.’

  ‘And what did you say to the baron?’

  ‘What I said isn’t no use to you,’ said Ignat. ‘it’s not your mouth you have to answer with. Nor your head, neither.’

  We said nothing for a long time; Ignat seemed to be sunk deep in thought. Suddenly he raised his head.

  ‘There’s his lordship the baron coming over. That means it’s time for us to say goodbye.’

  I looked round and saw the tall thin figure of the baron approaching. Ignat rose to his feet; to be on the safe side I followed his example.

  ‘Well, then.’ the baron asked Ignat when he reached us, ‘are you ready?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Ignat replied, ‘I am.’

  The baron stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled like a street hooligan, following which something absolutely unexpected happened.

  An enormous white elephant suddenly emerged from behind the low line of bushes behind us. It actually did appear tо emerge from behind the bushes, even though it was ten times their height, and I was entirely unable to explain how it

  could have happened. It was not as though it was small when it appeared and then increased in size as it approached, nor did it emerge from behind some invisible wall that was aligned with the bushes. When it appeared the elephant was already quite incredibly huge - and yet it came from behind a tiny row of bushes behind which even a sheep would have

  had difficulty in concealing itself.

  I experienced the same feeling I had several minutes earlier

  I felt as though I were on the verge of understanding something extremely important, that any moment now the levers and cables of the mechanism that was concealed behind the veil of reality and made everything move would become visible. But this feeling passed, and the enormous white elephant was still standing there in front of us.

  It had six tusks, three on each side. I decided I must be hallucinating, but then realized that if what I was seeing was an hallucination, it was not very different in nature from everything else around me.

  Ignat walked over to the elephant and scrambled briskly onto its back, climbing up the tusks as though they were a ladder. He acted as though he had spent his entire previous life doing nothing but ride round plateaux created by someone’s fantastic imagination on the backs of white elephants with six tusks. Turning towards the fire where the figures in khaki uniform and yellow hats were sitting, he waved, then struck the elephant’s sides with his heels. The elephant began to advance, taking a few steps forward - then I saw a blinding flash of light, and he disappeared. It was so very bright that for almost a minute I could see nothing at all except its yellow and purple imprint on my retina.

  ‘I forgot to warn you there would be a flash.’ said Jungern. ‘It’ actually very bad for the eyesight. In the Asian Cavalry Division we used to protect our eyes with a blindfold of black material.’

  ‘You mean such occurrences were common?’

  ‘They used to be,’ said the baron. ‘There was a time when it happened several times a day. At that rate you could easily go blind. These days the lads are getting a bit thin on the ground. Well, has it passed off? Can you see?’

  I could just make out the forms of objects around me again.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Would you like me to show you how it was before?’

  ‘But how do you intend to do that?’

  Instead of replying the baron drew his sabre from its scabbard.

  ‘Watch the blade,’ he said.

  I looked at the blade and saw a moving image on it, as though it were a cinema screen. It was a hill of sand, with a group of about ten officers standing on it; several were wearing normal military uniform, but two or three were in astrakhan hats and Cossack camouflage overalls with something that looked like cartridge-pouches instead of breast pockets. They were all wearing black blindfolds, and their heads were turned in the same direction. Suddenly I recognized Chapaev among them, despite the blindfold that concealed his eyes: he seemed a great deal younger and there were no grey hairs at his temples. With one hand he was pressing a small pair of field binoculars to the cloth over his eyes, and with the other he was slapping a riding-whip against his boot. It seemed to me that the figure in the Cossack uniform close to Chapaev was Baron Jungern, but I had no time for a good look at him because the blade turned over and the men on the hill disappeared. Now I could see the infinite and smooth surface of a desert. In the distance two silhouettes were moving against the bright sky; looking closer, I managed to discern the outlines of two elephants. They were too far away for me to be able to make out the riders, who were no more than tiny bumps on their backs. Suddenly the horizon was flooded with bright light, and when it faded, only one elephant remained. Back on the hill they applauded and immediately I saw a second flash. ‘Baron, at this rate I shall have no eyes left,’ I said, averting them from the blade. Jungern put the sabre away in its scabbard. ‘What is that yellow thing over there in the grass?’ I asked. ‘Or do I still have spots in front of my eyes.’

  ‘No, it’s not a spot,’ said the baron. ‘It’s Ignat’s hat.’

  ‘Ah, the raging winds have torn it off? The winds from the East?’

  ‘It’s a genuine pleasure to talk with you, Pyotr.’ said the h.iron, ‘you do understand everything so well. Would you like to keep it as a memento?’

  I bent down and picked it up. The hat was exactly my size. I wondered for a while what I should do with my own - I couldn’t think of anything better than simply dropping it on I he ground.

  ‘In reality I understand very far from everything.’ I said. I or instance, I simply cannot understand at all where an elephant like that could appear from in this forsaken spot.’

  ‘My dear Pyotr,’ said the baron, ‘there are quite incredible numbers of invisible elephants wandering around us all the time, please take my word for it. They are more common in Russia than crows. But allow me to change the subject - it’s time for you to be getting back, you see, so permit me to tell you one more thing before you go. Perhaps the most important one of all.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It is about the place a person goes to when he manages to ascend the throne that is nowhere. We call that place «Inner Mongolia».’

  ‘Who are «we»?’

  ‘You can take me to mean Chapaev and myself.’ the baron said with a smile. ‘Although I hope that in time we will also be able to include you in our number.’

  ‘And where is it, this place?’

  ‘That’s the point, it is nowhere. It is quite impossible to say that it is located anywhere in the geographical sense. Inner Mongolia is not called that because it is inside Mongolia. It is inside anyone who can see the void, although the word «in side» is quite inappropriate here. And it is not really any kind of Mongolia either, that’s merely a way of speaking. The most stupid thing possible would be to attempt to describe to you what it is. Take my word for this, at least - it is well worth striving all your life to reach it. And nothing in life is better than being there.’

  ‘And how does one come to see the void?’

  ‘Look into yourself.’ said the baron. ‘I beg your pardon for the unintentional pun on your name.’

  I pondered for several seconds.

  ‘May I be honest with you?’

  ‘Of course,’ Jungern replied.

  ‘The place we have just visited - I mean the black steppe with the camp-fires - seemed rather gloomy to me. If the Inner Mongolia of whic
h you speak is anything similar, then I would hardly wish to be there.’

  ‘You know, Pyotr.’ Jungern said with a chuckle, ‘when, to take an example, you unleash mayhem in a drinking-den like the «Musical Snuffbox», you may perhaps reasonably assume that what you see is approximately the same as what the people around you see - although even that is far from certain. But in the place where we have just been, everything is very individual. Nothing there exists, so to speak, in reality. Everything depends on who is looking at it. For me, for instance, everything there is flooded in blinding light. But my lads here’ - Jungern nodded in the direction of the little figures in the yellow astrakhan hats who were moving around the camp-fire - ‘see the same things around themselves as you do. Or rather, you see the same things as they do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Are you familiar with the concept of visualization?’ the baron asked. ‘When so many believers begin to pray to some god or other that he actually comes into existence, in the precise form in which they have imagined him?’

  ‘I am familiar with it,’ I said.

  ‘The same applies to everything else as well. The world in which we live is simply a collective visualization, which we are taught to make from our early childhood. It is, in actual fact, the only thing that one generation hands on to the next. When a sufficient number of people see this steppe, this grass and feel this summer wind, then we are able to experience it all together with them. But no matter what forms might be prescribed for us by the past, in reality what each of us sees in life is still only a reflection of his own spirit. And if you discover that you are surrounded by impenetrable darkness, it only means that your own inner space is like the night. It’s a good thing you’re an agnostic, or there would be all manner of gods and devils roaming about in this darknoss.’

  ‘Baron…’ I began, but he interrupted me:

  ‘Please do not think that there is anything in any way demeaning to you in all this. There are very few who are prepared to admit that they are exactly the same as everyone else. But is not this the usual condition of man - sitting in the darkness beside a camp-fire kindled through someone else’s compassion and waiting for help to arrive?’

  ‘Perhaps you are right,’ I said. ‘But what is this Inner Mongolia?’

  ‘Inner Mongolia is precisely that place from which help arrives.’

  ‘And so…’ I asked, ‘you have been there?’

  ‘Yes.’ replied the baron.

  ‘Then why did you return?’

  The baron nodded without speaking in the direction of the ramp-fire, where the silent Cossacks were huddled.

  ‘And then,’ he said, ‘I never really did come back from there. I am still there now. But it really is time for you to be getting back, Pyotr.’

  I glanced around.

  ‘But where to, precisely?’

  ‘I’ll show you.’ said the baron.

  I noticed that he was holding a heavy burnished-steel pistol, and I shuddered at the sight.

  The baron laughed. ‘Pyotr, Pyotr. What’s the matter? You really should not be so very mistrustful of people.’

  He thrust his other hand into his pocket and took out the package which Chapaev had given him. He unwrapped it and showed me a perfectly ordinary ink-well with a black stopper.

  ‘Watch carefully.’ he said, ‘and do not look away.’

  With that he tossed the ink-well into the air and when it was about two yards away from us, he fired.

  The ink-well was transformed into a cloud of blue spray and minute fragments which hung in the air for a moment before scattering across the table.

  I staggered backwards, and in order to avoid falling from my sudden dizziness, I braced myself against the wall with one hand. I was facing a table covered with a hopelessly stained map, beside which Kotovsky was standing, his mouth wide open. Glycerine from the shattered lamp was dripping on to the floor.

  ‘Right then.’ said Chapaev, toying with his smoking Mauser, ‘now you understand what mind is, Grisha, eh?’

  Kotovsky covered his face with his hands and ran out of the room. It was clear that he had suffered a powerful shock. The same, indeed, could have been said of myself.

  Chapaev turned towards me and looked at me closely for a while. Suddenly he frowned. ‘What’s that on your breath?’ Chapaev barked. ‘Well, well, less than a minute goes by, and he’s drunk already. And why are you wearing a yellow hat? Trying to get yourself court-martialled are you, you bastard?’

  ‘I only had one glass’

  ‘Qui-et! Quiet, I tell you! The weavers’ regiment is here, we have to settle them in, and you’re wandering around drunk! Want to put me to shame in front of Furmanov, do you? Go and sleep it off! And if I catch you pulling tricks like this again, it’s a court-martial, straight off! Do you want to know what my court-martials are like?’

  Chapaev raised his nickel-plated Mauser.

  ‘No, Vasily Ivanovich, I do not.’ I answered.

  ‘Sleep!’ Chapaev repeated. ‘And on your way to bed don’t you dare breathe on anyone.’

  I turned on my heels and walked to the door. When I reached it I glanced around. Chapaev was standing by the table and following my movements with an expression of menace.

  ‘I have just one question,’ I said.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I just wanted to say… I have long known that the only real moment of time is «now». But I cannot understand how it is possible to fit such a long sequence of sensations into it. Does it mean that if one remains strictly within the bounds of this moment, without creeping over into the past or the fu-lure, it can be extended to such a degree that phenomena like those I have just witnessed will become possible?’

  ‘And just where are you thinking of extending it to?’

  ‘I have expressed myself incorrectly. Does it mean that this moment, this boundary between the past and the future, is itself the door to eternity?’

  Chapaev jiggled the barrel of his Mauser and I fell silent. He looked at me for some time with an expression of something close to mistrust.

  ‘This moment, Petka, is eternity, and not any kind of door,’ he said. ‘So how can we say that it takes place at any particular time? When will you finally come round?’

  ‘Never,’ I replied.

  Chapaev gaped at me, wide-eyed.

  ‘Well, look now, Petka,’ he said in astonishment. ‘Have you really understood at last?’

  Finding myself back in my room, I began wondering how I could occupy myself to best calm my nerves. I recalled Chapaev’s advice to write down my nightmares, and I thought about my recent dream on a Japanese theme. There was a great deal in it that was incomprehensible and confused, but even so I could recall almost every detail. It began in a strange underground train with an announcement of the name of the next station - I could remember the name and even knew where it had come from: there could be no doubt that my consciousness, following the complex rules that govern the world of dreams, had created it in the instant before I awoke from the name of the horse that some soldier was shouting under my window. Furthermore, this shout had been reflected in two mirrors simultaneously, becoming transformed, in addition to the name of the station, into the name of the football team from the conversation with which my dream had ended. That meant that a dream which had seemed to me to be very long and detailed had in reality lasted no longer than a second, but after that day’s meeting with Baron Jungern and the conversation with Chapaev, nothing could amaze me any more. I sat at the desk, set several sheets of paper in front of myself, dipped my pen into the ink-well and traced the following words in large letters across the top of the first sheet: ‘Next station «Dynamo»!’

  I worked for a long time, but even so I managed to write down less than half of what I could remember. The details that flowed out from my pen on to the paper possessed such a glimmer of decadence that towards the end I could no longer be certain whether I was actually writing down my dream or already improvising on its conten
ts. I wanted to smoke; I took my papyrosas from the desk and went out into the yard.

  Downstairs everything was in a state of bustling activity, as some of the newly arrived men formed themselves into a column; there was a smell of pitch and horse sweat. I noticed a small regimental orchestra standing at the back of the column - a few battered and dented trumpets and a huge drum hung on a strap round the neck of a tall strapping lad who looked like Peter the Great without his moustache. For some reason which was incomprehensible to me, the sight of this orchestra filled me with an inexpressible, aching melancholy.

  The formation was commanded by the man with the sabre scar across his cheek whom I had seen from my window. I re called the sight of the snow-covered square in front of the station, the platform covered with red cloth, Chapaev slicing the air with his yellow-cuffed gauntlet and this man at the barrier nodding thoughtfully in response to the monstrous, meaningless phrases which Chapaev was showering on to the square formation of snow-covered soldiers. It was definitely Furmanov. He turned in my direction, but I ducked back into the doorway of the manor-house before he could recognize me.

  I went upstairs to my room, lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling, I remembered the fat man with the shaven head and the beard who had been sitting by the fire in that world beyond the grave, and I recalled his name - Volodin. From somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory a large tiled loom emerged with baths secured to the floor, with this Volodin squatting naked and wet like a toad on the floor beside one of them. I felt as though I were just on the point of recalling something else, but then the trumpets sounded in the yard, the regimental drum boomed out, and the choir of weavers that I remembered so well from that night on the train roared out:

  The deadly black baron and the white hussars

  Want us to bow to the throne of the Tsars,

  But from Siberia to the North British Sea

  The strongest of all is the Red Army.

  ‘Idiots,’ I whispered, turning my face to the wall and feeling tears of helpless hatred for the world welling up in my eyes. ‘My God, the idiots… Not even idiots - mere shadows of idiots… Shadows in the darkness…’