by Andrei Bitov
No complaints against the author, however! What is the title of this piece? AWAITING MONKEYS. So wait!
Ominously I dated the first page, above the title. By now it was the morning of the next day—August 19, 1991.
Papa was believed to be working upstairs. Ordinarily my wife’s voice woke me from below, as she shouted at the children not to make noise and disturb Papa.
But I was wakened by a suspicious silence. My first impression, when I saw them downstairs, was that they were kneeling and praying to the television. Later this impression was corrected and explained, but only in part. They simply weren’t dressed yet, and their long nightshirts and … Oh, children know full well when to keep quiet! The announcer’s voice alone sufficed. The kind of announcer ousted by democratic changes, he had been brought back to read the text of an urgent emergency message from the government. It was not yet a declaration of war, but it was already a sentence. I suddenly felt that my whole life, overnight, had been made into a not very esoteric film, with cliche layered on cliche: nightshirts, frightened children, wife clinging to the stirrup … I couldn’t bear it even a second longer.
I drove out to the highway—but the movie continued. A wind that was not wind, silence that was not silence. Desert. All it lacked was a camel. It did have sand. Somehow the sand began by crunching in my teeth. I put up the window—but then the serpentine swish against the glass became especially audible. As if there were a dune up ahead where I was going, and all these curling strands were blowing from its crest … I was driving alone. The absence of traffic in either direction was inexplicable. The air was opaque, despite clear and cloudless weather. And actually there wasn’t even a wind. The sand simply hung in the air, and I drove through it. Moreover, the sand grains were coarse: you could almost say they were pebbles drumming on the windshield. I wanted to wipe it clean. But what needed to be wiped was the sky. The dusty sky crackled around me like an old movie, in which I, apparently, had been filmed, going somewhere over there … Strictly speaking, my car was standing still, and the threadbare landscape was rushing past on either side, as is proper in a film studio. As though I were driving. I pretended to turn the steering wheel. I was going nowhere. I was waiting. Waiting as I once had …
Wait—it doesn’t matter what for. For a bus, for the woman you love. It’s a formula, not a reason. You wait because you are predestined, because you have been described, because you are inside the description. I wasn’t waiting for the monkeys themselves. I had landed in a text that described waiting for them. This was it—the state when it’s not you but something happening to you. The state from which all literature comes. Its essence. You don’t write literature, or read it, when you become an element in it. This was the elegantly termed déjà vu, when you feel that this exact instant has already happened, and this space, and this time, and you in it, that you were left hanging in this familiar and unrecognizable instant forever. It has happened, already happened … Of course it has! The ordinary recognition of the unwritten text.
I seem to remember having had a vehement squabble with HIM. I was stuck over there in that glade, trampling leaves redolent of cognac—although I had long since crossed to this bank and was unburdening myself on the subject of silence, in conversation with the drummer. “I understand you,” he said, agreeing. “Otherwise, why would I drum?” They all understood me now, agreed with me. I was exceptionally right. This irritated HIM.
By now I was drinking alone, without HIM. Today I could indulge, and I was quickly getting drunk. This, too, could only irritate HIM—that he wasn’t being served. They came and sat beside me by turns, first Pavel Petrovich, then Million Tomatoes, then Doctor D., and then Valery Givivovich, making sure everything was in order. It was. Victoria hummed her arias to me. I found a kind word for everyone, I who today, toward morning, had successfully led them all out to the Pontine shore!
“But Simyon … ”
“Yes, we lost Simyon,” I said, ignoring HIS rejoinder, “and nevertheless we endured all the hardships of narration and came to the sea, because we were together.”
“Together? … ”
Again I ignored HIS empty, pleading glass. “Yes, yes, precisely. Together.”
“Well, and what next?”
“The free element! … What’s the matter, freedom’s not enough for you?”
“Freedom your mother … What next, I ask you?”
And HE went off to gather brush for the dying campfire.
Something made me turn abruptly toward the river. A large baboon on the other bank had come right down to the water and was looking in our direction. I thought this was the leader, and it struck me that he was staring at us. Of course, his eyes were impossible to make out at such a distance, but I could feel that stare. It was the same stare with which he had first met me, wary and fearless, submissive and burning. As though he had averted it so quickly not because he feared us, but in order to keep us from guessing that he did not. Now he wasn’t afraid that I would understand this … Finally, as if having made sure that I was looking in his direction, he picked up a fallen tree from the bank and carried it to one side, where he threw it on a pile. And another baboon promptly aped him, adding his mite.
They’re building a fire! I guessed.
They were copying HIS movements!
Doctor D. undertook to disabuse me of this.
“Understand, it’s not a fire they’re building, but a pile! You’re not about to claim he’ll strike a spark now by rubbing two sticks—”
“Beat a jackrabbit and he’ll learn to light matches,” Pavel Petrovich said, seconding me in his own way.
“These Russians!” Million Tomatoes said. “They always have to beat a jackrabbit, break a birch tree.{103} Where else? What other nation? A leafy tree, so you go out and break it—”
“Shall I tell you what you are?!” HE broke out indignantly. “You … you are a person of the Abkhaz persuasion!”
HE could not have said anything more offensive. But Million Tomatoes possessed one unfortunate characteristic: he was so strong that he couldn’t hit a man without killing him. Therefore people were always hitting him. Therefore he did not take offense but started laughing, as if at a joke.
“An unlucky nationality we are … ’ ”
“You, an unlucky nationality?” Givivovich flared. “We are the unluckiest nationality—because of you!”
“Who will dispute that the Armenians are the unluckiest nation?”
The opinion sounded so indisputable that everyone fell silent. Who else had a territory so small that it consisted of history alone?
“And who will pity Greece?” said our own Greek, the monkey-colony electrician. “Greece, which created the whole of culture, the whole of Europe, the whole of the present-day world?”
“The whole of it?” we asked in surprise.
The Greek presented his proof, and the Armenian’s ironic glance was as nothing to him.
“What about it, were the ancient Greeks really the same as present-day ones?”
“They were blond and blue-eyed.”
“The Armenians were blond and blue-eyed, too!”
“Then surely it’s not the Russians,” Pavel Petrovich said. “What do you mean, it’s not the Russians?”
“I mean, it’s not the Russians who are to blame for everything. The Russians were blond and blue-eyed, too.”
“As were the Jews, however.”
“Even now there are more blond and blue-eyed people in Israel than in the homeland of the blond knaves.”
“That’s what I’m saying, the Russians are the unhappiest nation.”
“We’re an unhappy nation?!”
“Unhappiest of all are the Germans,” the drummer said in a sorrowful whisper.
He understood the nature of sound, and everything became quiet.
One of us said, however, “Why don’t we quarrel about which of us is happiest?”
Can it be that language began directly with the vowels? But then
how was the first vowel born? A-a-a-argh! This is pain. O-o-o-ow.
“But do you know,” Million Tomatoes said, “what became of the horse? Do you remember the horse?”
“The one who ate the apples?”
“Why, yes. They shot him.”
“Shot such a horse!” Again, HE took the whole thing personally. “Out of envy, was it? Or before the races? … Right at the races!?” His imagination was running riot.
Million Tomatoes laughed. “Certainly not. They simply shot him. He broke his leg, and they shot him.”
“And ate him, I suppose?” HE said angrily. “The only thing you pity is the Russian birch tree?”
“But the doctor has eaten a crow!” Pavel Petrovich said, settling the ethnic conflict then and there in Doctor D.’s favor.
We talked a while about horsemeat and pork, about the great land where the cow is not eaten—and about religions, naturally. Our religious disagreements again developed into ethnic ones, and Pavel Petrovich led the conversation into the homestretch: cannibalism{104} … Now, that was a topic! I had never thought people gave it so much thought …
It became clear that what distinguished civilized men, among whom, I will note in parentheses, were all who had gathered here, both the Armenian and the Georgian, both the Georgian and the Abkhaz, both the Abkhaz and the Russian, both the Russian and the Jew, and also the sole Greek among us, because, I will note in a second parenthesis, there were two of each of us, and sometimes even three … the difference between civilized men and the savage, of whom, I will note in still another parenthesis, there was for some reason just one, and imaginary at that, but for some reason identically imagined by all: a black man, in a little skirt and a nose ring, which to all appearances uniquely prevented him from eating a man … well, it became clear that the savage kills his enemy and eats him, but neither kills nor eats a person like himself, while the civilized man kills his enemy but does not eat him, yet devours a person like himself willingly, and moreover alive, by very diverse methods, such as the family, society, and other so-called human relationships … Moreover, to my great displeasure, HE was the one who took the initiative in this discussion. How had I let HIM slip past me?
“Now, would you eat an Armenian?” HE asked.
“Me? eat an Armenian? never!” Valery Givivovich said indignantly.
“And would you eat Valery Givivovich?” HE asked Million Tomatoes.
Et cetera. And Pavel Petrovich again stopped the gastronomic disagreements from becoming ethnic, the squabble from becoming slaughter. He reined in the headstrong argument at full gallop, over the abyss of the Jewish question.
“I,” he stated categorically, “would never classify meat according to an ethnic criterion. I’d eat everyone indiscriminately … This would be useful in every respect, the ecological above all. I’d eat man if he were tasty. But he tastes revolting, I’m sure, for a more rotten creature does not exist in nature. Yes, I will venture to say that he is also by nature the most imperfect creature. Perfection follows a descending curve in relation to evolution: the fly is more perfect than the elephant, and the infusorian more perfect than the fly. And everything that tears itself from its habitat and runs is more imperfect than that which is rooted—more imperfect than a plant. Only a plant abides in the earth and in the sky, in darkness and in light, in death and in life … And everything is more perfect than man! Man’s imperfection is indeed his sentence. He’s a failure! A failure. Creation was abandoned at this stage. Evolution was discontinued. The only thing left to us is degeneration, mutation—”
“Pavel Petrovich,” HE put in suddenly, with ingratiating courtesy. “Remove the hair from your lip—”
Pavel Petrovich automatically pinched his lip, in search of—
“—lest it hinder you from bullshitting,” HE said distinctly.
“What, what?” I hadn’t quite heard.
“Turn off the kettle and simmer down.”
In the ensuing silence Doctor D. could be heard sobbing. “I don’t want to talk about evolution! I don’t want to talk about mutation! I want to talk about diplodoci! They were jolly and kind, they rejoiced in life … loved to dance … ”
“Sure. Blond, blue-eyed.”
Something flashed on the other bank, then flashed again. Impossible to make it out in the gathering dusk. They couldn’t have struck a spark?
“What did YOU just say??” I didn’t recognize my own voice.
“I simply said, didn’t you forget to turn off the kettle.”
“But didn’t YOU turn it off?”
“I did not.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Those were eyes glinting! The eyes of the leader on the other bank … But how brightly!
“I can’t believe you wouldn’t eat me,” I heard from the bushes.
“I wouldn’t eat YOU even on a desert island!” My voice rang with pride.
“Too squeamish?!”
The bushes were snapping, the leader’s eye was glinting, and the boiled-dry jezve on the windowsill was growing red-hot … I, HE, Pavel Petrovich, and Doctor D … .
“A ban on a particular meat, the imposition of a taboo on particular animals, is essentially that same membrane—the preprohibition against eating the meat of man … ”
“The membrane from a beefsteak? Ha, ha … There’s no commandment ‘Thou shalt not eat.’ The commandment is ‘Thou shalt not kill … ’ Why doesn’t the number of commandments match the number of deadly sins?”
“If it’s gluttony, if you go ape over meat—only then is it a deadly sin. You have to want terribly to eat a man!”
“A glutton is not a gourmet.”
“Man is like a tower. There’s a reason why he’s vertical, walks upright … An animal keeps its eyes on the ground … But our tower has holes. Mouth, nose, eyes, ears, and so on. Seven holes for the seven sins … The holes are armed with membranes … Commandments, prohibitions, taboos, chastity … If a membrane is ruptured, man is dehermeticized—temptation, sin, and evil enter freely through the hole. The devil leads the assault … Battering rams, ladders. Arson. The man flames up from within … A conflagration … The tower blazes … Sparks fly from the windows and embrasures, flame shoots out … Bruegel has these towers, Bosch has them. As many as you wish … ”
“Does the number of holes match the number of sins?”
“If you count a pair as one, there are six. But there are seven sins.”
“The eyes don’t have holes.”
“As a child I was sure that the pupil was a tiny hole. I even tried to insert a needle in it, in front of the mirror.”
“Well? What happened?”
“I got scared. Everything’s backward in the mirror.”
“Man is imperfect because he’s supposed to perfect himself. On his own. With God’s help, of course. It’s not a sentence, to be a man. It’s a purpose.”
“You don’t mean to say that man is a profession?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“A profession, a purpose, a tower—next you’ll say a vessel of sin. Holes … The doctor is right. The worm invented our body.”
“I am slave, I am king, I am worm, I am God!”
“Two holes. In one, out the other.”
“Two men … The one was a publican, and the other a Pharisee … ”
“You’re a Pharisee, Pavel Petrovich!”
“Who, me?! I have tasted of tribulation in public houses all over this land!”
“It makes no difference what hole pride enters by. You’ve got no reason to boast. Nowadays the Pharisee is much more of a publican than you. The Pharisee has become a publican, and the publican a Pharisee.”
“Two men went up into the temple … ”
“And neither came out.”
“No, both came out. Two publicans went into the temple, and two Pharisees came out.”
“And what we got was Prometheus!”
“Not Prometheus, but Danko. Prometheus
was before the Birth of Christ.”
“Oh, go sit on your progress! Fire, the wheel, the lever … Slavery—that’s man’s only invention.”
“Prometheus didn’t invent fire, he invented the home still. That’s why he had liver trouble. Cirrhosis is ‘eagle,’ in translation.”
“Translation from … ?”
“The medical.”
“Is drunkenness gluttony?”
“A controversial question. ‘Eat, drink. This is my Body and my Blood … ’ Who said that?”
“On first thought—”
“There’s never just one. Two holes—”
“There’s only one. How does that go? ‘Until the alive becomes the dead, and the dead the alive … ’ ”
“The outer the inner, and the inner the outer … ”.
“The man a woman, and the woman a man … ”{105}
“And has this already happened?”
“Why, of course. All of it has. You just think you’re turning yourself inside out with effort. You’ll no more see the Kingdom of Heaven than your own ears!”
“Is the ear, at least, a hole?”
“You’re talking damned nonsense, but you yourself took meat from children, wine from old men, and fruit from monkeys! … And you ate your God.”
“Beg your pardon? Ate?”
“Literally. As a body. He descended, and you ate Him.”
“Will you finally shut up!”
“Ate Him! Ate Him!”
“Don’t blaspheme, you fool!”
“Pharisee! I hate—”
I lunged for HIM. He went crashing through the bushes like an animal fleeing pursuit. A large one, though … Suddenly, in silence and darkness, I was groping around on all fours as if I had lost my glasses. Suddenly, I heard …
Sobbing, on all fours, rear end sticking up in unseemly fashion, face buried in the moldering leaves …
“O Lord, if I am a formula, I curse Thee, that I may continue to believe in Thee.
“O Lord, if Thou art not, I curse Thee, that Thou mayest exist at least in my curse.
