A few gulps of frosty air restored me to my senses, but I still had to lean against the wall – the walk along the corridor had been incredibly tiring.
The main door, from which I was separated by about five yards of snow-covered asphalt, swung open and two men came dashing out, ran over to a long black automobile and opened the lid of its baggage compartment. Terrifying-looking weapons suddenly appeared in their hands, and they ran back inside without even bothering to close the lid again, as if the one thing they were most afraid of in all the world was that they might be too late to join in what was happening. They did not even spare me a glance.
New holes appeared, one by one, in the dark windows of the restaurant; the impression I had was that several machine-guns must be working in there simultaneously. I thought that in my time people were hardly any kinder, perhaps, but the times themselves were certainly less cruel. However, it was time for me to be going.
I staggered across the courtyard and out into the street.
Chapaev’s armoured car was standing exactly where I had expected to see it, and the cap of snow on its turret was just as it should have been. The motor was working, and there was a grey-blue cloud of smoke swirling in the air behind the back of the vehicle. I walked up to the door and knocked. It opened, and I climbed inside.
Chapaev had not changed in the slightest, except that his left arm was now supported by a strip of black linen. The hand was bandaged, and I could easily guess that there was empty space under the gauze where the little finger should have been.
I was quite unable to say a single word – it took all the strength I could muster to drag myself on to the divan. Chapaev immediately understood what was wrong with me. He slammed the door shut, murmured a few quiet words into the speaking-tube, and the armoured car moved off.
‘How are things?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘it is hard to make sense of the whirlwind of scales and colours of the contradictory inner life.’
‘I see,’ said Chapaev. ‘Anna sends her greetings. She asked me to give you this.’
He stooped down, reached under the seat with his sound hand and took out an empty bottle with a gold label made out of a square of metal foil. Protruding from the bottle was a yellow rose.
‘She said you would understand,’ said Chapaev. ‘And it seems that you promised her some books or other.’
I nodded, turned towards the door and set my eye against the spy-hole. At first all I could see through it were the blue spots of the street lamps slicing through the frosty air, but we kept moving faster and faster, and soon, very soon we were surrounded by the whispering sands and roaring waterfalls of my dear and so beloved Inner Mongolia.
—Kafka-Yurt
1923–1925
Buddha's Little Finger Page 39
