Buddha's Little Finger

Penguin Books

Chapter One

Tverskoi Boulevard was exactly as it had been when I lastsaw it, two years before. Once again it was February, withsnowdrifts everywhere and that peculiar gloom which somehowmanages to infiltrate the very daylight. The same oldwomen were perched motionless on the benches; abovethem, beyond the black latticework of the branches, there wasthe same grey sky, like an old, worn mattress drooping downtowards the earth under the weight of a sleeping God.

    Some things, however, were different. This winter the avenueswere scoured by a blizzard straight off the steppes, andI should not have been in the least surprised to have comeface to face with a pair of wolves during the course of mywalk. The bronze Pushkin seemed a little sadder than usual ? nodoubt because his breast was covered with a red apronbearing the inscription: `Long Live the First Anniversary ofthe Revolution'. I felt not the slightest inclination for ironicalcomment on the fact that the cheers were intended for anevent which could not by definition last longer than a singleday ? just recently I had been afforded more than ample opportunityto glimpse the demonic face concealed behind suchlapidary absurdities inscribed on red.

    It was beginning to get dark, but I could still make outStrastnoi Monastery through the snowy haze. On the squarein front of it were two open trucks, their tall side walls tightlystrung with bright scarlet material; there was a crowd jostlingaround them and the orator's voice carried to where I stood. Icould scarcely make out anything of what he said, but thegeneral meaning was clear enough from his intonation andthe machine-gun rattle of the `r' in the words `proletariat' and`terror'. Two drunken soldiers walked past me, the bayonetson their rifles swaying behind their shoulders. They werehurrying towards the square, but one of them fixed hisbrazen gaze on me, slowed his pace and opened his mouth asthough about to say something; fortunately ? for him and forme ? his companion tugged him by the sleeve and theywalked on.

    I turned and set off down the incline of the boulevard,guessing at what it was in my appearance that constantlyaroused the suspicions of all these scum. Of course, I wasdressed in outrageously bad taste; I was wearing a dirty coatcut in the English style with a broad half-belt, a military cap(naturally, without the cockade) like the one that Alexander IIused to wear, and officer's boots. But it did not seem to be justa matter of my clothes. There were, after all, plenty of otherpeople around who looked far more absurd. On TverskayaStreet, for instance, I had seen a completely insane gentlemanwearing gold-rimmed spectacles holding an icon ahead ofhim as he walked towards the black, deserted Kremlin, but noone had paid him the slightest attention. Meanwhile, I was allthe time aware of people casting sidelong glances at me, andon each occasion I was reminded that I had neither money nordocuments about my person. The previous day, in the water-closetat the railway station, I had tried sticking a red bow onmy chest, but I removed it as soon as I caught sight of my reflectionin the cracked mirror; with the ribbon I looked notmerely stupid, I looked doubly suspicious.

    It is possible, of course, that no one was actually directingtheir gaze at me any more than at anyone else, and that mytight-strung nerves and the anticipation of arrest were toblame for everything. I did not feel any fear of death. Perhaps,I thought, it had already happened, and this icy boulevardalong which I was walking was merely the threshold ofthe world of shadows. I had realized long before that Russiansouls must be fated to cross the Styx when it is frozen, withtheir fare collected not by a ferryman, but by a figure garbedin grey who hires out a pair of skates ? the same spiritualessence, naturally.

    Suddenly I could picture the scene in the finest of detail:Count Tolstoy in black tights, waving his arms about, skatesover the ice towards the distant horizon ? his movements areslow and solemn, but he makes rapid progress, and the three-headeddog barking soundlessly in pursuit has no chance ofovertaking him. I laughed quietly, and at that very moment ahand slapped me on the shoulder.

    I stepped to one side and swung round sharply, feeling forthe handle of the revolver in my pocket, when to my amazementI saw before me the face of Grigory Vorblei, an aquaintancefrom childhood. But, my God, his appearance! He wasdressed from head to toe in black leather, a holster with aMauser dangled at his hip, and in his hand he was clutchinga ridiculous kind of obstetrician's travelling bag.

    `I'm glad you're still capable of laughter,' he said.

    `Hello, Grisha,' I said, `how strange to see you.'

    `Why strange?'

    `It just is strange.'

    `Where have you come from?' he asked in a cheerful voice.`And where are you going?'

    `From Petersburg,' I replied. `As for where I'm going, I'd beglad if I knew that myself.'

    `Then come to my place,' said Vorblei, `I'm living just nearby, with an entire flat all to myself.'

    As we walked on down the boulevard we exchangedglances, smiles and meaningless snatches of conversation.Since the time of our last meeting, Vorblei had grown a beardwhich made his face look like a sprouting onion, and hischeeks had grown weathered and ruddy, as though hishealth had benefited greatly from several consecutive wintersof ice-skating.

    We had studied in the same grammar school, but sincethen we had seen each other only rarely. I had encounteredhim a couple of times in the literary salons of St Petersburg ? hehad taken to writing verse in a contrary style which wasonly heightened by its obvious self-satisfaction. I was ratherirritated by his manner of sniffing cocaine in public and hisconstant hints at his connections in social-democratic circles;however, to judge from his present appearance, the hintsmust have been true. It was instructive to see someone who atone time was quite adept at expounding the mystical significanceof the Holy Trinity now sporting the unmistakablesigns of belonging to the hosts of evil. But then, of course,there was really nothing surprising in this transformation:many decadents, such as Mayakovsky, sensing the clearly infernalcharacter of the new authority, had hastened to offertheir services to it. As a matter of fact, it is my belief that theywere not motivated by conscious satanism ? they were too infantilefor that ? but by aesthetic instinct: after all, a red pentagramdoes complement a yellow blouse so marvellouslywell.

    `How are things in Petersburg?' asked Vorblei.

    `As if you didn't know.'

    `That's right,' agreed Vorblei, suddenly seeming to lose interest.`I do know.'

    We turned off the boulevard, crossed the roadway andfound ourselves in front of a seven-storey apartment house. Itwas directly opposite the Palace Hotel, in front of which twomachine-gun installations were visible; they were manned bysailors smoking cigarettes, and a red flag flapped in the windat the end of a long stick.

    Vorblei tugged at my sleeve. `Look over there,' he said.

    I turned my head. On the street outside the entrance to thehouse stood a black limousine with a tiny cabin for passengersand open front seats, on which the snow had piled up.

    `What?' I asked.

    `It's mine,' said Vorblei. `It goes with the job.'

    `Ah,' I said, `congratulations.'

    We entered the apartment building. The lift was not workingand we had to make our way up a dark staircase, fromwhich the carpet runner had not yet been ripped away.

    `What is it that you do?' I asked.

    `Oh,' said Vorblei, `it's not something I can explain in a fewwords. There's really a lot of work ? too much, in fact. Firstone thing, then another, and then something else, and all thetime you have to try to keep up. First one place, then another.Someone has to do it all.'

    `In the cultural line, is it?'

    He inclined his head to one side in a rather indefinite fashion.I did not try to ask any more questions.

    When we reached the fifth floor we approached a tall dooron which there was a clearly defined lighter coloured rectangulararea which showed where a name plaque had oncebeen. He opened the door, and we went into a dark hallwaywhen a telephone on the wall immediately began to jangle.

    Vorblei picked up the receiver. `Yes, comrade Babayasin,'he roared into the ebony cup of the mouthpiece. `Yes, I remember... No, don't send them ... Comrade Babayasin, Ican't do that, it will look ridiculous ... Just imagine ? with thesailors, it will be a disgrace ... What? I will follow orders, butI must register a vigorous protest ... What?'

    He glanced sideways at me and, not wishing to embarrasshim, I went through into the lounge.

    The floor there was covered with newspapers ? most ofthem banned long ago. I supposed there must have been filesof them left behind in the flat. Other traces of the place's formerlife were also visible: there was a delightful Turkish carpethanging on the wall and below it stood a secretairedecorated with enamel rhomboids of various colours. Assoon as I saw it I realized that a well-to-do bourgeois familymust have lived there. A large mirror stood against the oppositewall. Beside it hung a crucifix in the art-nouveau style,and for a moment I pondered the nature of the religious feelingwhich might correspond to such a work of art. A considerablepart of the space was occupied by an immense bedunder a yellow canopy. The items that stood on the roundtable in the centre of the room seemed to me ? possibly becauseof their proximity to the crucifix ? to be a still-life composedof esoteric Christian motifs: a large bottle of vodka, ahalvah tin shaped like a heart, a staircase leading into emptinessconstructed out of pieces of black bread laid one on topof another, three tooth glasses and a cross-shaped can-opener.

    Lying on the floor beside the mirror was a pile of packageswhose shapes put me in mind of contraband; a sour smell ofleg-wrappings and stale drink hung in the air, and there werealso a great many empty bottles in the room. I sat on the table.

    Shortly afterwards the door squeaked open and Vorbleicame in. He took off his leather jacket, exposing an emphaticallymilitary tunic.

    `The things they give you to do,' he said as he sat down.`That was the Cheka on the phone.'

    `You work for them as well?'

    `I avoid them as much as I can.'

    `How did you get involved with such company anyway?'

    Vorblei smiled broadly. `It couldn't have been more simple.I had a five-minute telephone conversation with Gorky.'

    `And straight away they gave you a Mauser and that limousine?'

    `Listen,' he said, `life is a theatre. That's a well-known fact.But what you don't hear said so often is that every day thetheatre shows a new play. And right now, Petya, I'm puttingon a show the like of which you can't imagine ...'

    He raised his hands above his head and shook them in theair, as though he were jingling coins in an invisible sack.

    `And it's not even the play that's the thing,' he said. `Tocontinue the analogy, in the old days anyone who felt like itcould fling a rotten egg at the stage. Today, however, it's theactors who are more likely to rake the hall with machine-gunfire ? they might even toss out a bomb. Think about it, whowould you rather be right now? An actor or a member of theaudience?'

    This was a serious question.

    `What can I say? The action at this theatre of yours startsmuch further back than you suggest,' I said thoughtfully. `Besides,I think that the future really belongs to the cinematograph.'

    Vorblei chuckled and nodded. `All the same, you thinkabout what I said.'

    `I promise I will,' I answered.

    He poured himself some vodka and drank it.

    `Ah,' he said, `about the theatre. Do you know who theCommissar for Theatres is now? Madame Malinovskaya. Ofcourse, you never knew her, did you?'

    `I don't remember,' I replied, a little irritated. `Who the hellwas she?'

    `Vorblei sighed. He stood up and walked across the roomwithout speaking.

    `Petya,' he said, sitting down facing me and gazing up intomy eyes, `we keep on joking away, but I can see that something'swrong. What's happened to you? You and I are oldfriends, of course, but even setting that aside I could probablyhelp you.'

    I decided to risk it.

    `I will be honest with you. Three days ago in Petersburg Ihad visitors.'

    `Where from?'

    `From that theatre of yours.'

    `How do you mean?' he asked, raising his eyebrows.

    `Just as I said. Three of them came from the Cheka, one introducedhimself as some kind of literary functionary, andthe others had no need to introduce themselves. They spokewith me for about forty minutes, mostly the literary one; thenthey said our conversation had been most interesting, but itwould have to be continued in a different place. I did notwant to go to that other place because, as you know, it's notone from which one very often returns ...'

    `But you did come back,' Vorblei interrupted.

    `I did not come back,' I said, `I never went there. I ran awayfrom them, Grisha. You know, the way we used to run awayfrom the doorman when we were children.'

    `But why did they come for you?' asked Vorblei. `You'vegot absolutely nothing to do with politics. Was it somethingyou did?'

    `I did absolutely nothing at all. It sounds stupid even to talkabout it. I published a poem in a newspaper, but it was anewspaper which didn't meet their approval. And there wasone rhyme in it they did not like either: "Red" and "mad".Can you imagine that?'

    `And what was the poem about?'

    `Oh, it was completely abstract. It was about the stream oftime washing away the wall of the present so that new patternskeep appearing on it, and we call some of them the past.Our memory tells us that yesterday really existed, but howcan we be sure that all of these memories did not simply appearwith the first light of dawn?'

    `I don't quite understand,' said Vorblei.

    `Neither do I,' I said. `But that is not the point. The mainthing I am trying to say is that there was no politics in it at all.At least, that was what I thought. But they thought differently,they explained that to me. The most frightening thingwas that after the conversation with their consultant I actuallyunderstood his logic, I understood it so well that ... Itwas so frightening that when they led me out on to the street,I ran away not so much from them as from this new understandingof mine ...'

    Vorblei frowned.

    `The entire story is a load of arrant nonsense,' he said.`They're nothing but idiots. But you're a fine fool yourself.Was that the reason you came to Moscow?'

    `Well, what could I do? As I was running away, I fired. Youmay understand that I was firing at a spectre created by myown fear, but that is hardly something I can explain to themat the Cheka.'

    Vorblei looked at me seemingly engrossed in his thoughts.I looked at his hands ? he was running them across the tableclothwith a barely perceptible motion, as though he werewiping away sweat, and then suddenly he hid them underthe table. There was an expression of despair on his face, andI sensed that our meeting and my account had placed him inan extremely awkward situation.

    `Of course, that makes it worse,' he muttered. `But still, it'sa good thing you've confided in me. I think we'll be able tosort it out ... Yes, yes, I'm sure we can sort it out ... I'll giveGorky a call straight away ... Put your hands on your head.'

    I did not take in the meaning of the final words until I sawthe muzzle of the Mauser lying on the tablecloth. Incrediblyenough, the very next thing that he did was to take a pincenezout of his breast pocket and set it on his nose.

    `Put your hands on your head,' he repeated.

    `What are you doing?' I asked, raising my hands. `Grisha?'

    `No,' he said.

    `"No" what?'

    `Weapon and papers on the table, that's what.'

    `How can I put them on the table,' I said, `if my hands areon my head?'

    He cocked his pistol.

    `My God,' he said, `if you only knew just how often I'veheard that phrase.'

    `Well, then,' I said, `the revolver is in my coat. What an incrediblebastard you are. But then I've known that since wewere children. What do you get out of all of this? Do youthink they'll give you a medal?'

    Vorblei smiled. `Into the corridor,' he said.

    When we were in the corridor he kept the gun trained onme while he rummaged through the pockets of my coat, tookout the revolver and put it in his pocket. There was a furtivehaste about his movements, like a schoolboy on his first visitto a brothel, and the thought occurred to me that he had probablynever had to commit an act of treachery in such an obviousand commonplace fashion before.

    `Unlock the door,' he ordered, `and go out on to the landing.'

    `Let me put my coat on,' I said, feverishly wonderingwhether there was anything I could say to this man, so excitedby his own baseness, that might be capable of changingthe unfolding course of events.

    `We're not going far,' said Vorblei, `just across the boulevard.But put it on anyway.'

    I took the coat down from the hanger with both hands,turned slightly to thrust my arm into one of the sleeves, andthe next moment, to my own amazement, I had flung the coatover Vorblei ? not simply tossed it in his direction, but actuallythrown it right on top of him.

    To this day I do not understand how he failed to shoot me,but a fact is a fact. He pressed the trigger only as he wasfalling to the floor under the weight of my body and the bulletmissed my side by a few inches and struck the door of theapartment. The coat covered Vorblei's head where he hadfallen and I grabbed hold of his throat through the thick fabric.I managed to pin the wrist of the hand clutching the pistolto the floor with my knee, though before his fingersopened he had fired several more bullets into the wall. I wasalmost deafened by the thunderous noise. I think that in thecourse of the struggle I must have butted his covered face; inany case, I can clearly recall the quiet crunching of his pincenezin the interlude between two shots.

    Even after he had stopped moving, it was a long time beforeI could bring myself to release my grip on his throat. Myhands scarcely obeyed me; in order to restore my breathing Iperformed an exercise, but it had a strange effect, inducing amild fit of hysterics. I suddenly saw the scene from the perspectiveof an outside observer: a figure sitting on the corpseof a newly strangled friend and assiduously breathing accordingto Yogi Ramacharaki's method as described in thejournal Isida. As I stood up, I was overwhelmed by the realizationthat I had committed murder.

    Of course, like anyone else who did not entirely trust theauthorities, I carried a revolver, and two days before I hadhad no qualms about using it. But this was something different,this was some dark scene out of Dostoevsky: an emptyflat, a corpse covered with an English-style coat, and a doorleading to a hostile world ? a door perhaps already being approachedby people attracted by idle curiosity. By an effort ofwill I banished these thoughts from my mind. The Dostoevskianatmosphere, of course, was not created by the corpseor the door with its bullet hole, but by myself, by my ownconsciousness, which had assimilated the forms of another'srepentance.

    Opening the door on to the stairs slightly, I listened for afew seconds. I could hear nothing, and I thought that perhapsthe sound of a few pistol shots might not have attracted attentionafter all.

    My revolver was still in Vorblei's trouser pocket, but I reallydid not feel inclined to retrieve it. I picked up his Mauserand looked it over. It had an excellent mechanism, and wasquite new. I forced myself to search his jacket and discovereda packet of `Ira' papyrosas, a spare cartridge clip for theMauser and a pass for a member of the Cheka in the name ofGrigory Fourply. Yes, I thought to myself ? that was a typicaltouch; but his true character had already been clear evenwhen we were children.

    I squatted down on my haunches and opened the lock ofhis obstetrician's bag. Inside there was an official-looking filefull of blank arrest warrants, another two cartridge clips, a tinbox full of cocaine, some extremely unpleasant-looking medicalforceps (I immediately flung them into the corner) and athick wad of money, with rainbow-coloured one-hundred-roubleDuma notes on one side and dollars on the other. Itwas all just what I needed. In order to restore myself a littleafter the shock I had suffered, I stuffed a generous amount ofcocaine into my nostrils. It slashed across my brain like arazor and I instantly became calm. I did not like cocaine, itmade me too sentimental, but just now I needed to recovercontrol rapidly.

    Taking Vorblei under the arms, I dragged him along thecorridor, kicked open the door into one of the rooms and wasabout to push him inside when I froze in the doorway. Despitethe devastation and neglect, signs of the room's formerlife were still visible, illuminated by a light still there from beforethe war; it had been the nursery, two small beds withlight bamboo railings stood in one corner and on the wallthere was a charcoal drawing of a horse and a face with amoustache. There was a red rubber ball lying on the floor.When I saw it, I immediately closed the door and draggedVorblei further along the corridor. I was startled by the funerealsimplicity of the next room: standing in the centre was ablack grand piano with its lid open, and beside it a revolvingstool. There was nothing else.

    At this moment a strange sensation came over me. LeavingVorblei half-sitting in the corner (all the time I had been movinghim I had been very careful to make sure that his face didnot peep out from under the grey fabric of the coat), I satdown at the piano. How strange, I thought, comrade Fourplyis here ? and he is not here. Who knows what transformationshis soul is now undergoing? I remembered a poem by him,published three years earlier in the New Satiricon ? it took theform of a retelling of a newspaper article about the disbandingof some parliament or other and its acrostic read as `ManeTekel Fares', the words on King Belshazzar's wall. He wasalive; he thought; he pondered over things. How very strange.

    I turned towards the piano and began quietly playing apiece by Mozart, my favourite fugue in F, which always mademe regret that I did not have the four hands the great musicalmadcap himself had dreamed of. The melody that engrossedme had nothing to do with the shocking incident with Vorblei:the image that appeared before my eyes was of the smallbamboo beds in the next room, and for a second I imaginedsomeone else's childhood, someone else's pure glance directedat the sunset, someone else's world, deeply movingbeyond all words, which had now been borne off into oblivion.I did not play for very long, though, the piano was out oftune, and I knew I should be leaving as quickly as possible.But where should I go?

    It was time to think about how I would spend the evening.I went back into the corridor and glanced doubtfully at Vorblei'sleather jacket, but there was nothing else. Despite thedaring nature of several of my literary experiments, I was stillnot enough of a decadent to put on a coat which had now becomea shroud and, moreover, had a bullet hole in its back. Itook the jacket off the hook, picked up the obstetrician's bagand went through into the room with the mirror.

    The leather jacket was just my size ? the dead man and Iwere almost exactly the same height. When I tightened thebelt with the holster dangling from it and looked at my reflection,what I saw was the very image of a Bolshevik. I expectthat an inspection of the packages lying by the wallwould have made me a rich man in the space of a few minutes,but my squeamishness won the upper hand. Painstakinglyreloading the pistol, I checked that it sprang easily fromits holster and was just about to leave the room when I heardvoices in the corridor. I realized that all this time the frontdoor of the apartment had been open.

    I dashed over to the balcony. It looked out on to TverskoiBoulevard and the twenty or so yards of cold dark emptinessbeneath it held nothing but swirling snowflakes. In the circle oflight from a street lamp I could see Vorblei's automobile, and aman wearing a Bolshevik helmet who had somehow appearedin the front seat. I decided that Vorblei must have summonedthe Cheka when he was on the telephone. It was impossible toclamber down on to the balcony below, so I dashed back intothe room. They were already pounding on the door. So be it, Ithought, all of this had to come to an end sooner or later. Iaimed the Mauser at the door and shouted: 'Enter!'

    The door opened and two sailors in pea-jackets and rakishlyflared trousers came tumbling into the room; they werehung all over with bottle-shaped hand grenades. One ofthem, with a moustache, was already elderly but the otherwas young, although his face was flaccid and anaemic. Theypaid not the slightest attention to the pistol in my hand.

    `Are you Fourply?' asked the older one with the moustache.

    `I am.'

    `Here,' said the sailor, and he held out a piece of paperfolded into two.

    I put the Mauser back in its holster and unfolded the paper.

Com. Fourply! Go immediately to the `Musical Snuffbox' to propound our line. To assist you I am sending Zherbunov and Barbolin, experienced comrades. Babayasin'

    Below the text there was an illegible seal. While I wasthinking what to say, they sat down at the table.

    `Is that driver downstairs yours?' I asked.

    `Yes,' said the one with the moustache. `But we'll take yourcar. What's your name?'

    `Pyotr,' I said, and then almost bit my tongue.

    `I'm Zherbunov,' said the older one.

    `Barbolin,' the younger one introduced himself. His voicewas soft and almost womanish.

    I sat facing them at the table. Zherbunov poured out threeglasses of vodka, pushed one across to me and raised his eyesto my face. I realized that he was waiting for something.

    `Well then,' I said, taking a grip on my glass, `let us drink tothe victory of world revolution!'

    My toast was not greeted with any great enthusiasm.

    `Of course, victory's all very well,' said Barbolin, `but whatabout the works?'

    `What works?' I asked.

    `Don't you try playing the fool with us,' Zherbunov reproachedme, `Babayasin told us you were issued a tin today.'

    `Ah, you're talking about the cocaine,' I said, reaching intothe obstetrician's bag. `Works is a word with many differentmeanings. Perhaps you'd like some ether, like WilliamJames?'

    `Who's he?' asked Barbolin, grasping the tin in his coarse,broad palm.

    `An English comrade.'

    Zherbunov cleared his throat dubiously, but for a momentBarbolin's face reflected one of those feelings that nineteenth-centuryRussian artists loved to depict when they were creatingnational types ? the feeling that somewhere out there is awide and wonderful world, filled with amazing and attractivethings, and though you can never seriously hope to reachit yourself, you cannot help sometimes dreaming impossibledreams.

    The tension disappeared as though by magic. Zherbunovopened the tin, picked up a knife from the table, scooped upa monstrous amount of the white powder and rapidly stirredit into his vodka. Barbolin did the same, first with his ownglass, and then with mine.

    `Now we can do the world revolution justice,' he said.

    My face must have betrayed an element of doubt, becauseZherbunov chuckled and said: `This goes right back to theAurora, brother, back to the very beginning. It's called "Baltictea".'

    They raised their glasses and drained them at a gulp, andthere was nothing left for me but to follow their example. Almostimmediately my throat became numb. I lit a papyrosaand inhaled deeply, but I could not taste the smoke. We satthere without speaking for about a minute.

    `We should get going,' Zherbunov said suddenly and rosefrom the table. `Ivan'll freeze to death down there.'

    In a state of numb torpor, I put the tin back into the bag. Ihung back in the corridor, trying to find my fur hat, then puton Vorblei's peaked cap instead. We left the apartment andset off in silence down the dimly lit staircase.

    I was suddenly aware that my spirits were calm and easy,and the further I went, the calmer and easier they became. Iwas not thinking about the future, it was enough for me that Iwas not threatened by any immediate danger, and as wecrossed the dark landings I gazed entranced at the incrediblybeautiful snowflakes swirling in the air outside the windowpanes.It occurred to me that I myself was like one of thosesnowflakes, and the wind of fate was bearing me onwards inthe wake of the two other snowflakes in black pea-jackets whowere stomping down the stairs in front of me. However, despitethe euphoria that had enveloped me, I remained capableof a sober assessment of reality and was able to make one interestingobservation. While I was still in Petrograd I had beencurious about how the sailors managed to keep up thoseheavy bullet harnesses they wore. On the third-floor landing,where a solitary electric bulb was shining, I spotted severalhooks on Zherbunov's back which held his machine-gun beltstogether, rather in the manner of a brassiere. I immediatelyhad a vision of Zherbunov and Barbolin preparing themselvesfor their next killing and helping one another with this difficultelement of their toilet like two girls in a bathing hut. Itseemed to me yet another proof of the feminine nature of allrevolutions. I suddenly understood several of AlexanderBlok's new moods; some involuntary exclamation must haveescaped my throat, because Barbolin turned around.

    `And you didn't want to try it, you nelly,' he said, exposinga gleaming gold tooth.

    We went out into the street. Barbolin said something to thesoldier sitting in the front seat of the car, opened the door andwe climbed in. The car immediately moved off. Through therounded windscreen of the passenger cabin I could see asnow-covered back and a sharp-pointed felt helmet. It was asthough our carriage were being driven by one of Ibsen'strolls. I thought that the construction of the automobile wasmost uncomfortable and, moreover, humiliating for the driver,who was always exposed to the elements ? but perhapsthis was a deliberate arrangement, so that the passengerscould enjoy not only the view through the window, but alsosavour the inequality of the classes.

    I turned towards the side window. The street was emptyand the snow falling on to the roadway was exceptionallybeautiful. It was illuminated by widely spaced street lamps;by the light of one of them I caught a glimpse of a phrase ofgraffiti boldly daubed on the wall of a house: `LENINE ESTMERDE'.

    When the automobile braked to a halt, I was already feelinga little more normal. We alighted on an unfamiliar street besidean entirely undistinguished-looking gateway in a wall, in frontof which stood a couple of automobiles and several smart cabs.A little further off I noticed a frightening-looking armoured carwith its machine-gun turret buried under a cap of snow, but Ihad no time for a closer look, for the sailors had alreadyplunged into the gateway. We walked across an inexpressiblybleak courtyard and found ourselves facing a door surmountedby a protruding canopy with volutes and cherubs inthe old merchant style. A small signboard had been hung onthe canopy: `THE MUSICAL SNUFFBOX: LITERARY CABARET'.

    There was light showing through the pink curtains drawntightly across several windows beside the door: from behindthem I could hear the plaintively beautiful note of some obscuremusical instrument.

    Zherbunov tugged the door open sharply, revealing behindit a short corridor hung with fur coats and greatcoats,which ended in a heavy velvet curtain. A man wearing a simpleRussian shirt and looking like a convict rose from a stoolto meet us.

    `Citizen sailors,' he began, `we don't ...'

    With the agility of a circus acrobat Barbolin swung his riflearound his shoulder and struck him with the butt in the baseof his belly; the attendant slid down the wall and on to thefloor, his hostile face suddenly expressive of weariness andrevulsion. Zherbunov pulled aside the curtain, and we entereda dimly lit hall.

    Feeling myself fired by an unusual burst of energy, Ilooked around. The place looked like an ordinary run-of-the-millrestaurant with some pretensions to chic, and the publicseated among the dense clouds of smoke at small round tableswas quite varied. There was a smell of opium. Nobodytook any notice of us, and we sat at a small table not far fromthe entrance.

    The hall was bounded on one side by a brightly lit stage, onwhich a clean-shaven gentleman in evening dress, with onebare foot, was sitting on a black velvet stool. He was slidingthe bow he held in his right hand across the smooth edge of along saw, one handle of which was pressed against the floorby his foot while the other was gripped tightly in his lefthand, so that the saw bent into a trembling curve. When heneeded to dampen the vibration of the gleaming strip ofmetal, he would press his bare foot against it for a second. Besidehim on the floor stood a patent-leather shoe with a blindinglywhite sock protruding from it. The sound which thegentleman extracted from his instrument was absolutely unearthly,at once doleful and enchanting. I think he was playinga simple melody, but that was not important; whatmattered was the timbre, the modulations of a single notethat faded away over an eternity and pierced straight to thevery centre of my heart.

    The door-curtain at the entrance quivered and the man inthe Russian shirt stuck his head and shoulders out from behindit. He clicked his fingers somewhere off into the darknessand nodded towards our table. Then he turned towardsus, gave a short, formal bow and disappeared back behindthe curtain. Immediately a waiter emerged out of somewherewith a tray in one hand and a copper teapot in the other (therewere identical teapots standing on the other tables). The trayheld a dish of small pies, three teacups and a tiny whistle. Thewaiter set the cups out in front of us, filled them from theteapot and then froze in motionless anticipation. I held out abill drawn at random from my travelling bag ? I think it wasa ten-dollar note. I could not understand at first what thewhistle was doing on the tray, but then I heard a melodicwhistling from one of the neighbouring tables, and saw awaiter come dashing over at the sound.

    Zherbunov swallowed a mouthful of liquid from his cupand grimaced in distaste. Then I tried a sip from mine. It waskhanja, a bad Chinese vodka made from kaoliang. I startedchewing on a pie, but I could not taste it at all; the freezing effecton my throat of the cocaine had still not worn off.

    `What's in the pies?' Barbolin asked gingerly. `People keepdisappearing these days, after all. I don't feel like breakingmy fast that way.'

    `I tried it once,' Zherbunov said simply. `It's like beef.'

    Unable to bear any more of this, I took out the tin box andBarbolin set about stirring the powder into our cups.

    Meanwhile the gentleman in evening dress finished playing,donned his sock and shoe with elegant rapidity, stoodup, bowed, picked up the stool and quit the stage to thesound of scattered applause. A handsome-looking man witha small grey beard got up from a table beside the stage. Histhroat was wrapped in a grey scarf as though to conceal alove bite. I was astonished to recognize him as the poetValery Briusov, now old and emaciated. He mounted thestage and turned to face the hall.

    `Comrades! Although we live in a visual age, in which linesof printed words are being supplanted by sequences of imagesor ... hmm ...,' he declaimed, `still tradition does notabandon the struggle, but seeks to discover new forms. Tothis day the immortal Dostoevsky and his novel Crime andPunishment continue to inspire young seekers of truth, bothwith axes to grind and without. And so now a little tragedy ? thatis the precise definition of this play's genre, according tothe author himself, the chamber poet Ioann Pavlukhin.Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please for the littletragedy Raskolnikov and Marmeladov.'

    `Your attention please,' echoed Zherbunov, and we drank.

    Briusov left the stage and returned to his table. Two men inmilitary uniform carried a massive gilded lyre on a stand anda stool out on to the stage from the wings. Then they broughtout a table, stood a pot-bellied liqueur bottle and two glasseson it, and pinned up two pieces of cardboard at either side ofthe stage, bearing the words `Raskolnikov' and `Harmeladov'(I immediately decided that the misspelling of the secondname was not a mistake but a symbol of some kind), and finallythey hung a board bearing the incomprehensible word`yhvy' in the centre of the stage. Having duly situated all ofthese objects in their places, they disappeared. A woman in along tunic emerged from the wings and began runningleisurely fingers over the strings of the lyre. Several minutespassed in this fashion before a quartet of individuals in longblack cloaks appeared on stage. Each of them went down onone knee and raised a black hem to conceal his face from theaudience. Someone applauded. At the opposite end of thestage two figures appeared wearing tall buskins, long whiterobes and Greek masks. They began slowly moving towardseach other, but stopped before they came close. One of themhad an axe hanging under his arm in a noose entwined withroses ? I realized that he was Raskolnikov. This, in fact, wasobvious enough without the axe, because the board bearinghis name was hanging by the wings on his side of the stage.

    The other figure halted, slowly raised his arm in the air andbegan intoning in ponderous hexameters. In almost exactlythe same words as his drunken prototype in the novel, heconfessed that he had nowhere left to turn, then declared thatRaskolnikov's blazing eyes betrayed a keen sensibility of thewoes of the downtrodden and oppressed, and immediatelysuggested that they should drink to that (this was indeed arevolutionary innovation).

    The actor with the axe declined curtly. Marmeladov quicklydrained his glass and continued his oration, paying Raskolnikova long and confused compliment, in which I found severalof the images quite effective ? for instance that of thearrogant strength of emptiness blossoming behind the hero'seyes and lending his face a semblance of the visage of God.

    On hearing the word `God', Zherbunov nudged me withhis elbow.

    `What d'you reckon?' he asked in a low voice.

    `It is still too soon,' I whispered in reply. `Carry on watching.'

    Marmeladov's meaning grew more and more ambiguous.Dark hints began to surface in the flow of his words: a comparisonof the grey St Petersburg morning with a blow froman axe to the back of the head, of his own world-weary soulwith a dark closet in which the bodies of dead women lay. Atthis, Raskolnikov began showing clear signs of nervousness,and he enquired what Marmeladov wanted of him. In someconfusion, Marmeladov asked him to sell the axe.

    In the meantime I surveyed the hall. There were three orfour people at each round table; the customers were a verymixed bunch, but as has always been the case throughout thehistory of humanity, it was pig-faced speculators and expensivelydressed whores who predominated. Sitting at the sametable as Briusov, and grown noticeably fatter since the lasttime I had seen him, was Alexei Tolstoy, wearing a big bowinstead of a normal tie. The fat that had accumulated on himseemed to have been pumped from the skeletal frame ofBriusov: together they looked quite horrific.

    Looking further, at one of the tables I noticed a strange mansporting a military blouse criss-crossed with belts and an upturnedhandlebar moustache. He was alone at his table, andinstead of a teapot there was a bottle of champagne standingin front of him. I decided that he must be a big Bolshevik boss.I do not know what it was in his calm, powerful face thatstruck me as unusual, but for several seconds I was unable totake my gaze off him. His eyes met mine, but he immediatelyturned away to face the stage, where the meaningless dialoguewas continuing.

    Raskolnikov attempted to discover for what purposeMarmeladov required the axe and received replies couched invague, flowery phrases about youth, the Grail, eternity, power,hope and ? for some strange reason ? the phases of the moon.Eventually Raskolnikov capitulated and handed over the axe.He was counting the wad of bills that Marmeladov had givenhim in payment, when he suddenly swayed back and froze inastonishment. He had noticed that Marmeladov was standingthere in front of him wearing a mask. Still speaking in the samelaboured hexameters, he began asking Marmeladov to removethe mask. I was particularly struck by one image which heused, `Your eyes are like two yellow stars' ? Briusov broke intoapplause at the words, but overall it was far too long anddrawn out. After Raskolnikov had repeated his request for thethird time, Marmeladov paused in silence for a long, terriblemoment before tearing the mask from his face. Simultaneouslythe tunic attached to the mask was torn from his body, revealinga woman dressed in lacy knickers and a brassiere, sportinga silvery wig with a rat's-tail plait.

    `Oh God! ... The old woman! And I am empty-handed ...'Having pronounced these final words in an almost inaudiblevoice, Raskolnikov slumped to the floor from the full heightof his buskins.

    What followed made me blench. Two violinists leapt outon to the stage and began frenziedly playing some gypsymelody, while the Marmeladov woman threw her tunic overRaskolnikov, leapt on to his chest and began strangling him,wiggling her lace-clad bottom to and fro in excitement.

    For a moment I thought that what was happening was theresult of some monstrous conspiracy, and that everybodywas looking in my direction. I glanced around like a beast atbay, my eyes once again met those of the man in the blackmilitary blouse, and I somehow suddenly realized that heknew all about the death of Vorblei ? that he knew, in fact, farmore serious things about me than just that.

    At that moment I came close to leaping up from my chairand taking to my heels, and it took a monstrous effort of willto remain sitting at the table. The audience was applaudingfeebly; several of them were laughing and pointing at thestage, but most were absorbed in their own conversationsand their vodka.

    Having strangled Raskolnikov, the woman in the wigbounded over to the front of the stage and began dancingwildly to the insane accompaniment of the two violins, kickingher naked legs up towards the ceiling and waving the axe.The four figures in black, who had remained motionlessthroughout the play, now took hold of Raskolnikov, still coveredby the tunic, and carried him into the wings. I had a faintinkling that this was a reference to the very end of Hamlet,where there is a mention of four captains who are supposed tocarry away the dead prince. Strangely enough, this thoughtbrought me to my senses straight away. I realized that whatwas happening was not a conspiracy against me ? nobodycould possibly have arranged it all in the time which hadpassed ? but a perfectly ordinary mystical challenge. Immediatelydeciding to accept it, I turned to the two sailors, who hadby this time retreated into themselves.

    `Time to call a halt, lads. This is treason.'

    Barbolin looked up at me uncomprehendingly.

    `The agents of the Entente are at it again,' I threw in at random.

    These words seemed to have some meaning for him, becausehe immediately tugged his rifle from his shoulder. I restrainedhim.

    `Not that way, comrade. Wait.'

Continues...
Excerpted from Buddha's Little Fingerby Victor Pelevin Copyright © 2001 by Victor Pelevin. Excerpted by permission.
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