Buddha's Little Finger

by Victor Pelevin

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I did rather.’

  ‘Better put yerself right then,’ said the Cossack, holding out the glass.

  I drank. It was vodka, and I really did begin feeling better almost immediately.

  ‘Thank you. That was just the thing.’

  ‘Well now,’ said the Cossack, taking back the empty glass, ‘you and the baron on friendly terms, are ye?’

  ‘We are acquainted,’ I said evasively.

  “He’s a strict one,’ the Cossack commented. ‘Everything by the book. We’re going to chant now, and then answer questions. That is, the others is going to answer questions. I’ve already hit the target. I’m leaving today. For good.’

  I looked at him – on closer inspection there no longer seemed to be anything fierce about his face, it was just that his features were coarse, weathered by the wind and scorched by the mountain sun. Despite this coarseness, his face bore a thoughtful, even dreamy expression.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked the Cossack.

  ‘Ignat,’ he replied. ‘And you’d be called Pyotr.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but how do you know?’

  Ignat smiled ever so slightly.

  ‘I’m from the Don,’ he said. ‘And you’d be from the capital, I reckon.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘from Petersburg.’

  ‘Well now, Pyotr, don’t you go over to the camp-fire for the time being. His lordship the baron don’t like anyone interfering with the chanting. Just let’s you and me sit here and listen a while. And whatever you don’t understand I can explain.’

  I shrugged and sat on the ground, crossing my legs Turkish-style.

  Something rather strange was taking place around the camp-fire. The Cossacks in the yellow astrakhan hats had sat down in a semicircle and the baron was standing in front of them exactly like a choirmaster, with his hands raised.

  ‘Oh, the nights, the weary nights,’ their powerful male voices sang out. ‘And I have slept hardly at all…’

  ‘I am very fond of this song,’ I said.

  ‘How could your lordship be fond of it, if he’s never heard it before?’ asked Ignat, squatting down beside me.

  ‘What do you mean, of course I have. This is an old Cossack song.’

  ‘No,’ said Ignat. ‘You’re mixing things up. This is a song his lordship the baron wrote specially for us so that chanting it would make us think. And so it’d be easy for us to remember, the words in it are just the same as in the song you’re talking about, and the music too.’

  ‘Then what does his contribution consist of?’ I asked. ‘I mean, how is it possible to distinguish the song that existed earlier from the one that the baron composed, if the words and the music are both the same?’

  ‘Well, the song his lordship the baron wrote has a completely different meaning. Just you listen and I’ll explain. Hear them singing: “And I have slept hardly at all, but I have seen a dream.” You know what that means? Although I couldn’t sleep, I still dreamed just like as if I was sleeping, understand? That means, it makes no difference whether you sleep or you don’t, it’s all a dream.’

  ‘I understand,’ I answered. ‘What comes next?’

  Ignat waited for the couplet.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said, ‘listen: “And in my dream my black steed gambolled, danced and pranced beneath me.” There’s great wisdom hidden in them words. You’re an educated man, you must know that in India they have a book called the Oopsanyshags.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, immediately recalling my conversation with Kotovsky.

  ‘Well, it says in that book a man’s mind is like a Cossack’s horse. Always carrying you forward. Only his lordship the baron says as nowadays people is riding horses of quite a different colour…Nobody can manage his steed, so it’s taken the bit in its teeth, like, and now it’s not the rider as controls the horse, but the horse as carries him off wherever it fancies. So the horseman’s not even thinking any more about how he has to get any place in particular. He just goes along wherever the horse wanders. His lordship the baron even promised to bring us this special book – The Headless Horseman, it’s called – seems like it was written specially all about this. But he keeps on forgetting. He’s just too busy. We have to be grateful for…’

  ‘And what comes next?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Next? What comes next? “And our captain quick of wit, heard my dream then read me it…Oi, your wild and woolly head you are bound to lose, he said.” The captain, like – well, that’s clear enough, that’s the way his lordship the baron writes about himself, he really is smart all right. And the bit about the head is clear enough, too – that’s straight out of the Oopsanyshags. If the mind has worked itself up into such a lather that it don’t know where it’s going itself, it’s clear enough it’s done for. And there’s another meaning here, too, one as his lordship only whispered in my ear not long ago. The meaning is as all this human wisdom will have to be left behind here anyway, like. But that’s no cause for regretting, ‘cause all that don’t apply to the most important thing of all. That’s why the song don’t say that you’re done for, only your wild and woolly head. And that’s a gonner anyway.’

  Ignat rested his chin thoughtfully on his hands and fell silent as he listened to the song.

  And, oh, the bitter winds did roar

  From out the East so cold and heavy,

  And the yellow hat they tore

  From off my head so wild and woolly…

  I waited some time for his commentary, but it did not come, so I decided to break the silence myself.

  ‘I can understand the part about the winds from the East myself,’ I said, ‘Ex orienta lux, as they say. But why does the hat get blown off?’

  ‘So as he won’t have any more attachments.’

  ‘But why is the cap yellow?’

  ‘That’s because we’re Gelugpa. So we have yellow hats. If we was Karmapa, they’d be red hats. And if we was Bon-po, like down on the Don, then they’d be black. But the reality behind them all is the same anyhow. If the head’s a gonner, then what’s it care what kind of hat it used to wear? Or if you looks at it from the other side – where freedom begins, colours don’t mean nothing no more.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘the baron has certainly taught you well. But what exactly is that most important thing of all which starts after the wild and woolly head is gone?’

  Ignat gave a deep sigh.

  ‘Ah, that’s the tricky bit,’ he said. ‘His lordship the baron asks that one every evening, and no one can answer him, no matter how they all try. D’you know what happens when one of the lads answers that one?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘His lordship immediately transfers him to the Special Regiment of Tibetan Cossacks. That’s a very special kind of force, that is. The pride and joy, so to speak, of the entire Asian Cavalry Division, although if you think about it, a regiment like that doesn’t really belong in any cavalry division, because those who serve in it ride elephants, not horses.’

  It occurred to me that the man before me was probably one of those natural-born liars who can momentarily invent a story of any degree of improbability, but who always adorn it with such an abundance of detail that they make you believe it, if only for a second.

  ‘How can you slash with your sabre from up on an elephant?’ I asked. ‘That would be most awkward.’

  ‘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 to 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 on to 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’s 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 baron, ‘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 the ground.

  ‘In reality I understand very far from everything,’ I said. ‘For 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 “inside” 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 which 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 n
odded 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 darkness.’

  ‘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 camp-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.’