‘Why are we standing here?’ I asked Chapaev.
‘We’re waiting,’ he replied.
‘For whom? The enemy?’
Chapaev did not answer. I suddenly realized that I had left my sabre behind and only had my Browning with me, so that I would find myself in a somewhat uncomfortable position if we had to deal with cavalry. But then, judging from the calm manner in which Chapaev carried on sitting in the carriage, we were not in any immediate danger. I glanced behind me and saw the landau with Kotovsky and Anna standing beside us. I noticed Kotovsky’s white face; sitting there on the back seat with his arms folded across his chest, he looked rather like an opera singer poised to make his entrance. I could see Anna’s back as she fiddled with the machine-guns, but she seemed to be doing it less in order to prepare the guns than to relieve her irritation at sitting beside the insufferably solemn Kotovsky. Our mounted escort, apparently afraid of approaching the earthwork gateposts, kept a good distance, and I could make out no more of them than their dark silhouettes.
‘But who are we waiting for?’ I asked again.
‘We have a meeting with the Black Baron,’ replied Chapaev. ‘I expect, Pyotr, that this will be an acquaintance you will remember.’
‘What kind of terrible nickname is that? I suppose he has a name of his own?’
‘Yes,’ said Chapaev, ‘his real surname is Jungern von Sternberg.’
‘Jungern?’ I repeated. ‘Jung-ern…That sounds familiar…Does he have something to do with psychiatry? Has he not done some work on the interpretation of symbols?’
Chapaev looked me up and down in amazement.
‘No,’ he said. ‘As far as I can judge, he despises all manner of symbols, no matter what they might refer to.’
‘Ah, now I remember. He is the one who shot that Chinese of yours.’
‘Yes,’ Chapaev answered. ‘He is the defender of Inner Mongolia. They say he is an incarnation of the god of war. He used to command the Asian Cavalry Division, but now he commands the Special Regiment of Tibetan Cossacks.’
‘I have never heard of them,’ I said. ‘And why do they call him the Black Baron?’
Chapaev thought for a moment.
‘A good question,’ he said. ‘I really don’t know. Why don’t you ask him yourself? He’s already here.’
I started and turned my head to look.
A strange object had appeared in the narrow passage between the two hillocks. On looking closely I realized that it was a palanquin of a very ancient and strange design, consisting of a small cabin with a humped roof and four long handles on which it was carried. Both the roof and the handles appeared to be made of bronze which had turned green with age, and were covered with a multitude of minute jade plaques which glinted mysteriously, like cats’ eyes in the dark. There was nobody in the vicinity who could have brought up the palanquin without being noticed, and I could only assume that the unknown bearers whose palms had polished the long handles until they gleamed had already retreated.
The palanquin stood on curved legs, giving it the appearance of something between a sacrificial vessel and a small hut supported on four short piles. Its resemblance to a hut was actually stronger, and the impression was reinforced by blinds of fine green silk netting which covered its windows. Behind them I could just discern a motionless silhouette.
Chapaev jumped out of the carriage and walked over to the palanquin.
‘Hello, baron,’ he said.
‘Good day,’ replied a low voice from behind the blind.
‘I come with another request,’ said Chapaev.
‘I presume that once again you are not asking for yourself?’
‘No,’ said Chapaev. ‘Do you recall Grigory Kotovsky?’
‘I do,’ said the voice in the palanquin. ‘What has happened to him?’
‘I simply can’t explain to him what mind is. This morning he pushed me so far that I reached for my pistol. I’ve already told him everything that can be said, over and over again. What he needs is a demonstration, baron, something he won’t be able to ignore.’
‘Your problems, my dear Chapaev, grow a little monotonous. Where is your protégé?’
Chapaev turned towards the carriage where Kotovsky was sitting and waved.
The blind in the palanquin moved aside and I saw a man of about forty, with blond hair, a high forehead and cold, colourless eyes. Despite the drooping Tartar-style moustache and the cheeks covered with several days’ stubble, his features were highly refined. He was dressed in a strange garment halfway between a cassock and a greatcoat, cut in the style of a Mongolian robe with a low, semicircular neck. I would never even have thought of it as a greatcoat if it had not been for the shoulder-straps bearing the zigzag lines of a general’s rank. Hanging at his side was a sabre exactly like Chapaev’s in every respect, except that the tassel attached to its handle was not purple, but black. And on his breast there were no less than three silver stars, hanging in a row. He climbed quickly out of the palanquin – he proved to be almost a full head taller than me – and looked me up and down inquiringly.
‘Who is this?’
‘This is my commissar, Pyotr Voyd,’ Chapaev replied. ‘He distinguished himself in the battle of Lozovaya Junction.’
‘I have heard something of that,’ said the baron. ‘Is he here for the same reason?’
Chapaev nodded. Jungern held out his hand to me.
‘Pleased to meet you, Pyotr.’
‘The feeling is mutual, general,’ I replied, squeezing his powerful, sinewy hand in mine.
‘Just call me baron,’ said Jungern, turning to face Kotovsky as the latter approached. ‘Grigory, how very long…’
‘Hello, baron,’ Kotovsky replied. ‘I am very glad to see you.’
‘Judging from the pallor of your cheeks, you are so very glad to see me that all your blood has rushed to your heart.’
‘Why, not at all, baron. That is because I think so much about Russia.’
‘Ah, the same old thing. I cannot approve. However, let us not waste any time. Let us take a walk, shall we?’ Jungern nodded towards the earthwork gateposts.
Kotovsky swallowed hard. ‘I should be honoured,’ he replied.
Jungern turned inquiringly towards Chapaev, who held out a small paper package to him.
‘Are there two here?’ asked the baron.
‘Yes.’
Jungern put the package into the pocket of his robe, put his arm round Kotovsky’s shoulders and literally dragged him in the direction of the gateway. They disappeared into the opening, and I turned to face Chapaev.
‘What lies beyond that gateway?’
Chapaev smiled. ‘I wouldn’t like to spoil your first impression.’
The dull report of a revolver shot rang out. A second later the solitary figure of the baron appeared.
‘And now you, Pyotr,’ he said.
I cast a glance of inquiry at Chapaev, who screwed up his eyes and nodded with an unusually powerful movement of his chin, as though he were forcing an invisible nail into his own chest.
I walked slowly towards the baron.
I must confess that I was afraid. It was not that I felt any real threat of danger hanging over me – or rather, it was precisely a sense of danger, but not of the kind felt before a duel or a battle, when you know that even the very worst that can happen can only happen to you. At that moment I had the feeling that the danger was not threatening me, but my very conception of myself. I was not expecting anything terrible to happen, but the ‘I’ who was not expecting anything terrible suddenly seemed to me like a man walking a tightrope across an abyss who has just sensed the first breath of a burgeoning breeze.
‘I will show you my camp,’ the baron said when I reached him.
‘Listen, baron, if you are intending to awaken me in the same way as you did the Chinese…’
‘Oh, come now,’ he interrupted with a smile. ‘Chapaev must have been telling you all sorts of horror stories. That’s not what I�
�m really like.’
He took me by the elbow and turned me to face the earthwork gateposts.
‘Let us take a stroll around the camp-fires,’ he said, ‘and see how our lads are getting on.’
‘I do not see any camp-fires,’ I replied.
‘You don’t?’ he said. ‘Try looking a bit harder.’
I looked once again into the gap between the two sunken earthen mounds, and at that very moment the baron pushed me from behind. I flew forward and fell to the ground; the sheer rapidity of his movement was such that for a second I felt as though I were a gate that he had kicked off its hinges. A moment later I felt a strange spasm run across my entire field of vision; I screwed up my eyes, and bright spots appeared in the darkness ahead of me, as though I had pressed my fingers into my eyes or made too sudden a movement with my head. However, when I opened my eyes and rose to my feet, the lights still did not disappear.
I could not understand where we were. The hills and the summer breeze had completely disappeared; we were surrounded by intense darkness, and scattered all around us in it, for as far as the eye could see, were the bright spots of camp-fires. They were arranged in an unnaturally precise pattern, as though they stood on the intersections of an invisible grid which divided the world up into an infinite number of squares. The distance between the fires was about fifty paces, so that if you stood at one it was impossible to see the people sitting at the next one; all that could be made out were vague, blurred silhouettes, but how many people there were, and whether they were people at all, was impossible to say with any degree of certainty. The strangest thing of all, however, was that the ground beneath our feet had also changed beyond recognition, and we were now standing on an ideally level plane covered with something like scrubby, shrivelled grass, but without a single projection or depression anywhere on its surface – that much was clear simply from the absolutely perfect patterning of the fires.
‘What is all this?’ I asked in confusion.
‘Aha!’ said the baron. ‘Now, perhaps, I think you can see.’
‘I can,’ I said.
‘This is one of the branches of the world beyond the grave,’ said Jungern, ‘the one for which I am responsible. For the most part the people who find their way here were warriors during their lifetimes. Perhaps you have heard of Valhalla?’
‘Yes, I have,’ I said, feeling an absurdly childish desire welling up in me to grab hold of the baron’s robe.
‘Well, this is it. Unfortunately, however, it’s not only warriors who find their way here, but all kinds of other trash who have gone in for shooting. Bandits, murderers – the range of scum we get is amazing, which is why I have to make the rounds and check on things. Sometimes I even feel as though I were employed here in the capacity of a forest warden.’
The baron sighed.
‘But then, as I recall,’ he said, with a faint note of sadness in his voice, ‘when I was a child I wanted to be a forester. I tell you what, Pyotr, why don’t you take a good grip on my sleeve? It’s not so simple to walk around here.’
‘I do not quite understand,’ I answered with relief, ‘but by all means, if you say so.’
I took a tight hold on the cloth of his sleeve and we began moving forward. One thing immediately struck me as strange; the baron was not walking particularly fast, certainly no quicker than he was before the world had been so horrifyingly transformed, but the camp-fires past which we made our way receded behind us at a quite startling rate. It was as though he and I were walking at a leisurely pace along a platform which was being towed at incredible speed by a train, and the direction in which the train moved was determined by the direction in which the baron turned. One of the camp-fires appeared ahead, came rushing towards us and then stopped dead at our very feet when the baron stopped walking.
There were two men sitting by the fire. They were wet and half-naked, and they looked like Romans, with only short sheets wrapped around their bodies. They were both armed, one with a revolver and the other with a double-barrelled shotgun, and they were covered all over with repulsive bullet wounds. No sooner did they catch sight of the baron than they fell to the ground and literally began trembling with an overwhelming, physically palpable terror.
‘Who are you?’ the baron asked in a low voice.
‘Hit men for Seryozha the Mongoloid,’ one of them said without raising his head.
‘How did you get here?’ the baron asked.
‘We was topped by mistake, boss.’
‘I’m not your boss,’ said the baron, ‘and no one gets topped by mistake.’
‘Honest, it was by mistake,’ the second man said in a plaintive voice. ‘In the sauna. They thought Mongoloid was in there signing a contract.’
‘What contract?’ asked Jungern, raising his eyebrows in astonishment.
‘We had to pay back this loan. Slav-East Oil transferred the money on an irrevocable letter of credit, and the invoice didn’t go through. So these two hulks from Ultima Thule came down…’
‘Irrevocable letter of credit?’ the baron interrupted. ‘Ultima Thule? I see.’
He leant down and breathed on the flame, which immediately shrank to a fraction of its size, changing from a hot roaring torch into a pale tongue only a few inches in height. The effect this produced on the two half-naked men was astounding – they stiffened into complete immobility, and their backs were instantly covered in hoarfrost.
‘Warriors, eh?’ said the baron. ‘How do you like that? The people who find their way into Valhalla these days. Seryozha the Mongoloid…It’s that stupid rule about having a sword in your hand that’s to blame.’
‘What has happened to them?’ I asked.
‘Whatever was supposed to happen,’ said the baron. ‘I don’t know. But I can take a look.’
He blew once again on the barely visible blue flame and it flared up with its old energy. The baron stared into it for several seconds with his eyes half-closed.
‘It seems likely they will be bulls in a meat-production complex. That kind of indulgence is rather common nowadays, partly because of the infinite mercy of the Buddha, and partly because of the chronic shortage of meat in Russia.’
I was astounded by the camp-fire, now that I had the time to study it in detail. In fact, it could not really be called a camp-fire at all: there was no sign of firewood in the flames – instead they sprang from a fused opening in the ground shaped like a star with five narrow points.
‘Tell me, baron, what is this pentagram beneath the flames?’
‘A strange question,’ said the baron. ‘This is the eternal flame of the compassion of Buddha. And what you call a pentagram is really the emblem of the Order of the October Star. Where else should the eternal flame of mercy burn, if not above that emblem?’
‘But what is the Order of the October Star?’ I asked, peering at his chest. ‘I have heard the phrase in the most varied of circumstances, but no one has ever explained to me what it means.’
‘The October Star?’ Jungern replied. ‘It’s really very simple. It’s just like Christmas, you know – the Catholics have it in December, the Orthodox Christians have it in January, but they’re all celebrating the same birthday. This is the same sort of thing. Reforms of the calendar, mistakes made by scribes – in other words, although it’s generally believed to have happened in May, in actual fact it was in October.’
‘But what was?’
‘You astonish me, Pyotr. It’s one of the best-known stories in the world. There was once a man who could not live as others did. He tried to understand what everything meant – all the things that happened to him from day to day; and who he himself was – the person to whom all those things were happening. And then, one night in October when he was sitting under the crown of a tree, he raised his eyes to the sky and saw a bright star. At that moment he understood everything with such absolute clarity that to this day the echo of that distant second…’
The baron fell silent as if he were seeking for words t
o express himself, but was unable to find anything appropriate.
‘You’d better have a talk with Chapaev,’ he concluded. ‘He enjoys telling people about it. The main thing though, the essential point, is that ever since that second this flame of compassion has been burning for all living beings, a flame which cannot be completely extinguished even in the line of administrative duty.’
I looked around. The panorama surrounding us was truly magnificent. I suddenly felt that I was viewing one of the most ancient pictures in the world – an immense horde which has set its camp-fires for a night halt in the open field, with warriors squatting at each of the fires, dreaming avidly into the flames, where they see the phantom forms of gold, cattle and women from the lands that lie in their path. But where was this horde moving, and what could its men be dreaming of as they sat beside these camp-fires? I turned to Jungern.
‘Tell me, baron, why are they all sitting apart, without visiting each others’ fires?’
‘You try walking over to one of them,’ said Jungern.
The distance to the nearest camp-fire, where five or six people seemed to be warming themselves, was no more than fifty paces. I looked quizzically at Jungern.
‘Walk over,’ he repeated.
I shrugged and began walking, without feeling any special or unusual sensation. Probably I had been walking for a minute or two before I realized that I had not moved any closer to the point of bright light towards which I had set off. I glanced around. Jungern was standing by the flames, three or four steps behind me, and watching me with a mocking smile.
‘The fact that this place seems similar to the world which you know,’ he said, ‘does not at all mean that it is the same world.’
I noticed that the two frozen figures had vanished from beside the fire, and all that remained were two dark stains on the ground.
Buddha's Little Finger Page 25
