Empire V

by Victor Pelevin

  Where the columns have faces of jade …

  Glamour concentrates were clear enough – let’s just say that I myself knew a couple of places where they bloomed. And I could also understand why Mind ‘B’ didn’t need to be paid. I could visualise a rose with its reflection in an endless corridor formed by a pair of mirrors, and then the green columns of Independence Hall on the back of the hundred-dollar bill leaping into the courtyard and beginning to tango with one another in imitation of Loki’s movements with his submissive partner. Indeed, they had the solemn faces of American presidents.

  By this time I was, of course, soundly asleep.

  LE YELTSINE IVRE

  All the next week I spent hanging in the late Brahma’s hamlet.

  I had an irresistible urge to crawl in there as soon as the car brought me home the morning after the party. I yielded to it, and immediately fell into the familiar crystal-clear state of suspended animation.

  I was neither awake nor asleep. During this time the heavy, dark sphere with which the presence of the Tongue normally signalled itself to my consciousness assumed a stability that felt exactly right, suppressing all the thoughts and desires that continually arose when my body was in its usual position, before they could develop into palpable form. I vaguely understood the reason for this sensation: a man’s actions are always directed towards eliminating the inner disharmony caused by the conflict between the true state of affairs and his ideal vision of them, in the same way as a guided missile closing in on its target progressively reduces to zero the discrepancies between the different readings supplied by its semiconductor brain. While I hung head downwards, the dark sphere rolled down to occupy the place that had formerly been the seat of the imbalances and conflicts. The ensuing harmony was proof against any disruption. I could not envisage any sense or purpose in ever attempting to emerge from the harmony the Tongue had established with itself.

  Yet staying there proved more of a problem than I had expected. On the seventh day I heard a melodious ringing sound. The light unexpectedly came on in the hamlet, and a woman’s voice, obviously recorded, could be heard expressively pronouncing somewhere very nearby:

  As my days draw to a close I regret nothing so much as the long years I spent without sense or profit, hanging head downwards in the mindless gloom. Hours and minutes vanish undifferentiated in this pallid nullity; the unintelligent may believe that they will find harmony, but in truth all they are doing is coming closer to death …Count Dracula, Reminiscences and Reflections

  I climbed down to the floor. It was clear that a device of some kind, having monitored the length of time I had spent in the hamlet, had activated itself. It was equally clear that I had exceeded the limit. I waited an hour or two, then resumed my perch. After five minutes the lights blazed on again, and just above my ear a bell started jangling.

  This time it was anything but melodious; in fact it sounded distinctly unpleasant. On came the tape-recorder once more. It announced in stentorian male bass tones:

  Having fallen into a state of paralysis the sons of the Mighty Bat were picked off one by one and destroyed by a pitiful tribe of apes who did not even understand what they were doing. Some died from being shot by arrows, others were consumed by fire. Vampires used to refer to their mute existence as the highest state of mind. But life – or rather death – showed that this was the most foolish of all their delusions …

  Witzipotzli Dunaevsky, The General History of Vampires

  I decided to try to outsmart my tormentor. I jumped down to the floor and immediately leapt back up the silver pole. A second later into my ear came a frenzied squeal from a clownish voice:

  What will history say of me? It will say this: here’s one more schmuck who’s been hanging in the lumber room! Boo-ha-ha-ha.

  I had had enough jousting with fate, so returned to the sitting room and lay down on the sofa. In fact all I wanted to do was go back to hang in the lumber room and allow my faithful black nucleus to continue to damp down the thoughts seething in my head. To hell with the judgment of history … But I was forced to accept that the prescribed limit could not be exceeded. Closing my eyes, I made myself sleep.

  I was awakened by the telephone ringing. It was Hera.

  ‘Let’s meet,’ she said without preamble.

  ‘OK, let’s,’ I said, without giving myself time to think.

  ‘Come to Le Yeltsine Ivre.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘A favourite hang-out restaurant for the cream of the crop. Or dream of the crap, if you prefer. My chauffeur will come and collect you if you don’t know where it is.’

  ‘You have a car and a driver?’ I asked in astonishment.

  ‘If you need one, you can have one too,’ she replied. ‘Ask Enlil about it. That’s all for now. Waiting for you. Mwah, mwah.’

  And she rang off.

  Half an hour after our phone conversation her driver rang the doorbell. In the interval I took a shower, put on my new charcoal-black uniform (it looked ascetic but had taken a small army of sales people at the Archipelago to make the final selection) and drank off half a glass of whisky to give me courage.

  The driver was a man, no longer young, wearing fatigues and an expression of mild offence.

  ‘What sort of place is this “cream of the crop” restaurant?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s that one out of town,’ he replied. ‘Forty minutes or so if there are no hold-ups.’

  Waiting for us down below was a BMW jeep, the latest model – I had not been in one like it before. However, the novelty of imagining that I might myself be in a position to acquire a similar container in which to pass my time in traffic jams failed to excite me. Either I was already taking for granted the financial opportunities offered by the clan of which I was now a member, or I was simply too nervous at the prospect of the forthcoming meeting.

  I had never heard of Le Yeltsine Ivre. The name seemed to have something in common with Arthur Rimbaud’s poem ‘Le Bateau Ivre’. Presumably the boat in question was our ship of state, as personified in the father and founder of the new Russia. It was odd, I thought, that Hera seemed so drawn to the Establishment, but perhaps this was the sort of response prompted by the mere appearance of a ministerial-level chauffeured bimmer …

  I began pondering how best to comport myself when we met.

  I could pretend that I attached no importance to the fact that she had bitten me and act as though nothing had happened. This would probably be a failure: I was sure to start blushing, this would make her giggle, and our encounter would get off on the wrong foot.

  Alternatively, I could simulate offence – or rather allow it to be noticed by dint of not concealing it. This would not work either. I remembered a saying of the team leader of the unloaders at the supermarket where I had worked: ‘The man who takes offence is good for nothing except carrying you on his back to the shithouse.’ I did not see myself competing with Hera’s driver in the matter of transportation services …

  Eventually I decided to stop cudgelling my brains before there was a need to, and to wait and go with the flow.

  The Drunken Yeltsin turned out to be a fashionable place – its parking lot was full of expensive wheels. I had never seen such an original entrance to a building: they had somehow managed to insert a real tank into the brick wall, and visitors had to climb up on to its turret in order to reach the entrance door at the top. This had been made easier by the addition of two latticework staircases, one on either side of the tank. However, a trail of footprints clearly showed that many guests with a taste for the extreme had chosen to climb up the tank from the front. A notice hung on the tank’s cannon:

  Please do not walk along the barrel. The Management.

  Once inside the actual building, the corridor was shaped like an aircraft fuselage. The new arrival was greeted by a smiling girl dressed like a stewardess who asked for your
boarding pass number. Only people on her list would be admitted to the establishment. The designer’s idea seemed to be that guests should enter from the tank turret directly into the belly of the Presidential airliner.

  I was met by a waiter dressed as a cabin crew steward, who invited me to follow him. The main dining hall of the restaurant was quite traditional in appearance except for an enormous stage with a sign announcing ‘conduct the orchestra (by request in advance) from 22:00’, and a circular pool, not particularly large but deep, with an arched bridge over it. On the wall nearby was a door bearing for some reason the legend ‘wet room’. This all presumably had some connection to Yeltsin’s biography, but I could not quite grasp its meaning. It had all happened too long ago.

  The way through to the private rooms was at the far end of the hall. As we approached the room where Hera was waiting for me, I experienced an acute loss of confidence.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said to the steward, ‘where is the toilet?’

  He indicated the door.

  I spent several minutes in the gleaming facilities, its urinals riveted to the chassis of the aircraft, before concluding that further inspection of my face in the mirror was unlikely to help matters. I went out into the corridor, and said to the steward:

  ‘Thank you. I’ll manage on my own now.’

  Waiting until he disappeared from view, I turned the handle of the door.

  Hera was sitting in the corner of the room on a pile of variously coloured plump cushions shaped like lengths of railway track. She was wearing a short black number with a high collar. It looked simple and chaste, but never had I set eyes on anything sexier.

  Against the wall stood a table with two untouched place settings, while on the floor in front of Hera was a tray with tea things and a half-eaten cheesecake.

  She raised her eyes to mine. In that second my confusion evaporated; I knew exactly what I was going to do.

  ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You’re looking rather solemn and determined today …’

  Before she had time to finish what she was saying I had taken two bounds towards her, dropped to my haunches, and …

  At this point something unexpected happened which almost knocked me away from my plan of attack. As our two faces closed on each other she suddenly closed her eyes and parted her lips as if expecting, not the bite which no power on earth could by now have prevented me from giving her, but something else. When my jaws snapped shut and she realised what had taken place, her face darkened in a grimace of disappointment.

  ‘Oof, you idiot. I’m so bored with the lot of you …’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, retreating to another corner of the room and sinking down on a hillock of rail-shaped cushions. ‘But once you … I had to …’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I understand,’ she said sullenly. ‘You don’t need to explain.’

  I could not hold off a moment longer. I shut my eyes, sealed myself off from the physical world and concentrated every atom of my being on what was now being revealed to me, the inner landscape that during so many long nights I had been able only to guess at. Now, at last, I was able to see everything with total clarity. However, I was not interested in the principal landmarks of her life, her secrets or her problems. I was tactful enough not even to glance in those areas. I was after something quite specific: her feelings about me. And those I established straight away.

  I was not mistaken. I could have kissed her just now; she would not have resisted, had been hoping for it. She would not even have objected if matters had gone further than kissing … how much further, she did not know herself. Perhaps, I thought, it was not too late? Opening my eyes, I moved diffidently towards her, but she divined what was in my mind.

  ‘No, darling,’ she said. ‘One thing you have to get straight. It’s either biting, or everything else. Today, please, you mustn’t come any closer to me than one metre.’

  I had no intention of giving up so easily, but I thought it would be politic to play a little for time.

  ‘Would you like something to eat?’ she asked.

  I shook my head, but she still tossed the menu over to me.

  ‘Have a look. They have some rather fun dishes.’

  I could see that she was trying to distract me from looking too deeply into her, but I had in any case resolved not to invade her world without asking. I already knew the answer to the only question that concerned me, and it would not help me to go digging around in other areas. To this extent Loki’s advice had been absolutely right and was confirmed by my own instinct telling me to resist the temptation.

  I buried myself in the menu. The first thing on it was an introductory paragraph that struck me as encapsulating the message of the restaurant’s name:

  Any long-term inhabitant of Russia will long ago have identified a cardinal characteristic of our life: however revolting the current regime, its successor will be such as to suffuse memories of its predecessor with a painful glow of nostalgia. And nostalgia is best indulged with vodka (pages 17–18), hors d’oeuvres (pages 1–3), and all that can be found between the two.

  I now realised what Hera had been referring to with her ‘fun dishes’ – the menu included a supplementary sheet of fish plats du jour with the wildest names. There was, for instance, ‘Carpaccio of Swordfish “Comandante Basayev”’, and ‘Euro Fish Soup “Freedom for Khodorkovsky!”’. My curiosity was piqued. I picked up the radio phone embellished with a picture of a tray-bearing waiter from the floor, and chose Freedom.

  I then set to studying the wine list, predictably enough entitled ‘Documents of State’, and laboriously read line by line through the interminable list until my crystalline view of Hera’s inner world began to fade. I then closed the book, congratulating myself on having allowed knightly courtoisie space to prevail over vulgar curiosity.

  However, victory was not total – there was something I could still see, and like a mountain seen through a window with the curtains drawn I could not ignore it. There had been a disagreeable event in Hera’s life. It had to do with Ishtar, whom Hera, like me, had been to see following her introduction to the Chaldeans (a procedure similar to mine, except that it was Marduk Semyonovich who had presented her to the company, and following the clairvoyance séance she had had to defend herself with a bottle against an enraged female pop singer.) Something had happened between Hera and Ishtar, and Hera was now in a state of depression. Not only that, but she had been severely frightened.

  But what had occurred in the depths of Heartland I could not see – it remained in some way hidden from me, as if part of her interior mapping had been obscured. I had not previously come across this phenomenon, so could not restrain myself from asking:

  ‘What happened when you were with Ishtar Borisovna?’

  She frowned.

  ‘I beg you, let’s not speak of it. Everyone asks me about it, Mithra, you …’

  ‘Mithra?’ I interrupted.

  The name suddenly made me pay attention, and I realised that Hera’s feelings towards Mithra were almost as warm as they were towards me. Almost. But Mithra …

  Mithra, I realised with a mixture of jealousy and rage, had bitten her not once but twice. She had bitten him once. Nothing more had taken place between them, but that was already more than enough. Evidence of their closeness had been the last glimpse I was able to see in the outgoing tide of her memory before the window finally closed. The moment it did so I desperately wanted to bite her again, to find out exactly what place Mithra occupied in her life.

  I also knew, of course, that this was something I should not do. It was clear as day: the second bite is followed by an irresistible need for a third, then a fourth … and so on without end … A name for the craving even came unbidden into my head: plasmaholism – although this had less to do with red liquid’s plasma than with ‘holism’, the pathological desire for totality, for unrestricted access to her soul
at the slightest suspicion of betrayal. If I were once to yield to the temptation, and then again, I thought, I could end up sucking the beloved being dry of all her red liquid.

  Something of this must have shown in my face, for Hera blushed and said:

  ‘What? What have you seen there?’

  ‘Mithra has bitten you?’

  ‘Yes, he has. That is why I do not want to see him. And I won’t want to see you, if you bite me again.’

  ‘Do you mean I can never bite you again?’

  ‘You and I have to trust each other,’ she said. ‘And if we keep biting one another there can never be trust between us.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What trust can there be if you know everything?’

  This was logical.

  ‘If it had been up to me,’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t have done it first. You’re the one who began it.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘Loki told me to. He said it is essential to be utterly cynical and ruthless about men, even if one’s heart tells you otherwise.’

  This was another area of her experience into which I had not looked.

  ‘Loki?’ I asked in astonishment. ‘What did you study with him?’

  ‘The art of combat and of love. The same as you.’

  ‘But he’s … he’s a man.’

  ‘When we were having lessons on the art of love, he came dressed as a woman.’

  I tried unsuccessfully to visualise Loki in a dress.

  ‘That’s extraordinary,’ I said. ‘He told me quite the opposite, that a vampire should not bite a woman in whom he … well, in whom he is interested. So as not to lose the interest.’

  Hera fiddled with her hair.

  ‘Well,’ she enquired, ‘did it survive? The interest I mean? You didn’t lose it altogether?’

  ‘Not the least bit,’ I replied. ‘But I hardly saw anything. You could say that I don’t know any more about you than I did before. All I wanted was to be quits with you. When you bit me by the museum …’

  ‘Don’t go on about it,’ said Hera. ‘Can’t we change the subject?’