Buddha's Little Finger

3

The melody seemed at first to be floating up the staircase to wards me, briefly marking time before it dashed in desperation on to the landing - that was when I could hear the short moments of quietness between its sounds, Then the pianist’s fingers picked up the tune, set it back on the steps, and the whole thing was repeated one flight of stairs lower. The place where all this was taking place seemed very much like the staircase in house number eight on Tverskoi Boulevard, except that in my dream the staircase extended upwards and downwards as far as the eye could see and was clearly infinite. I suddenly understood that every melody has its own precise meaning, and that this was one of the proofs of the metaphysical impossibility of suicide - not of its sinfulness, but precisely of its impossibility. And I felt that all of us are nothing more than sounds drifting through the air from the fingers of some unknown pianist, nothing more than short thirds, smooth sixths and dissonant sevenths in a mighty symphony which none of us can ever hear in its entirety. This thought induced a profound sadness in me, which remained in my heart as I came plummeting out of the leaden clouds of sleep.

For several seconds I struggled to understand where I actually was and what was taking place in this strange world into which some unknown force had been thrusting me every morning for the past twenty-six years. I was dressed in a heavy jacket of black leather, riding breeches and boots, and there was a pain in my hip where something was sticking into me. I turned over on to my side, reached under my leg and felt the holster with the Mauser, and then I looked around me. Above my head hung a silk canopy with astoundingly beautiful yellow tassels. The sky outside the window was a cloudless blue, and the roofs in the distance glowed a dull red in the rays of the winter sun. Directly opposite my window on the other side of the boulevard I could see a dome clad in tin-plate, which for some reason reminded me of the belly of a huge metal woman in childbirth.

Suddenly I realized that I had not been dreaming the music

I could hear it playing clearly just beyond the wall I began trying to grasp how I had come to be here and suddenly; like an electric shock, yesterday’s memories came flooding back in a single second, and I realized that I was in Vorblei’s apartment. I leapt up from the bed, dashed across to the door and froze.

On the other side of that wall, in the room where I had left Vorblei, not only was someone playing the grand piano. they were playing the very Mozart F Minor fugue which cocaine and melancholia had drawn to the surface of my own mind only the evening before. The world quite literally went dark before my eyes as I imagined the cadaver pounding woodenly on the keys, fingers protruding from beneath the (oat which I had thrown over him, and I realized that the previous day’s nightmare was not yet over. Glancing round the room I spotted a large wooden crucifix hanging on the wall, with a small, elegant silver figure of Christ, the sight of which briefly induced in me the strangest sense of deja vu, as though I had seen this metal body in some recent dream. I took down the crucifix, drew my Mauser and tiptoed out into the corridor. My approximate reasoning was that, if I could accept that a dead man could play the piano, then there was some likelihood that he might be afraid of the cross.

The door into the room where the piano was playing stood ajar. Trying to tread as quietly as possible, I went up to it and glanced inside, but I could see no more than the edge of the grand piano. I took several deep breaths and then kicked open the door and stepped into the room, grasping the heavy cross in one hand and holding my gun ready to shoot in the other. The first things I saw were Vorblei’s boots protruding from the corner; he was still lying at peace under his grey Fnglish shroud.

I turned towards the piano.

Sitting at the keyboard was the man in the black military tunic whom I had seen the day before in the ‘Musical Snuffbox’. He appeared to be about fifty years old, with a thick black handlebar moustache and a sprinkling of grey at his temples. He gave no sign of having noticed my appearance; his eyes were closed as though he were entirely absorbed in the music, and his playing was truly excellent. Lying on the lid of the piano I saw a tall hat of the finest astrakhan fur with a red ribbon of watered silk and a sabre of an unusual form in a magnificent scabbard.

‘Good morning,’ I said, lowering the Mauser.

The man at the piano raised his eyelids and looked me up and down. His eyes were black and piercing, and it cost me a certain effort to withstand their almost physical pressure. Noticing the cross in my hand he gave a barely perceptible smile.

‘Good morning.’ he said, continuing to play. ‘It is gratifying to see that you give thought to your soul at such an early hour.’

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, carefully placing the crucifix on the lid of the piano beside his sabre.

‘I am attempting.’ he replied, ‘to play a rather difficult piece of music. But unfortunately it was written for four hands and I am now approaching a passage which I shall not be able to manage on my own. Perhaps you would be kind enough to assist me? I believe you are acquainted with the piece in question?’

As though in a trance, I thrust the Mauser back into its holster, stood beside him and waited for the right moment before lowering my fingers on to the keys. My counterpoint scarcely managed to limp along after the theme, and I made several mistakes; then my gaze fell once again on Vorblei’s splayed legs, and the absurdity of the entire situation came home to me. I shrank sharply away from my companion and stared at him wide-eyed. He stopped playing and sat motionless for a while, as though he were deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. Then he smiled, reached out his hands and lifted the crucifix from the piano.

‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘I could never understand why God should manifest himself to people in the ugly form of a human body. It has always seemed to me that the perfection of a melody would have been far more appropriate - a melody that one could listen to on and on for ever.’

‘Who are you?’ I asked.

‘My name is Chapaev,’ the stranger replied.

‘I am afraid it means nothing to me,’ I said.

‘Which is precisely why I use it.’ he said. ‘My full name is Vasily Ivanovich Chapaev. I trust that means even less to you?’

He rose from the stool and stretched himself. As he did so his joints gave out a loud cracking sound. I caught a slight whiff of expensive English eau-de-Cologne.

‘Yesterday.’ he said, looking intently at me, ‘you left your travelling bag behind at the «Musical Snuffbox». There it is.’

I glanced down at the floor and saw Vorblei’s black bag standing by the leg of the grand piano.

‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘but how did you manage to get into the apartment?’

‘I tried ringing,’ he said, ‘but the doorbell appeared not to be working. And the keys were in the lock. I saw that you were sleeping and I decided to wait.’

‘I see.’ I replied, although in actual fact it all remained a complete mystery to me. How had he discovered where I was? Who had he actually come to see - me or Vorblei? Who was he and what did he want? And why - this was the question that tormented me beyond all endurance - why had he been playing that cursed fugue? Did he suspect something? (Apropos of suspicion, I was discomfited least of all by the corpse beneath the coat in the corner - that, after all, was a perfectly ordinary element in the decor of many a Chekist apartment.)

Chapaev seemed to have read my thoughts.

‘You must obviously have guessed.’ he said, ‘that I came to see you about more than just your travelling bag. I am leaving today for the eastern front, where I command a division. I need a commissar. The last one… Well, let us simply say that he did not justify the hopes placed in him. I saw your agit-performance yesterday and you made quite an impression on me. Babayasin was very pleased as well, by the way. I would like the political work in the units entrusted to me to be conducted by yourself.’

With these words he unbuttoned the pocket of his tunic and held out to me a sheet of paper folded into four. I unfolded it and read the following:

To Com. Fourply. By order of Com. Dzerzhinsky you are immediately transferred to the staff of commander of the Asiatic Division Com. Chapaev in order to intensify political work. Babayasin.

Below the message stood the now familiar blurred and-fuzzy purple stamp. Who is this Babayasin, I thought in confusion as I raised my eyes from the sheet of paper.

‘So what exactly is your name?’ Chapaev asked, screwing up his eyes as he looked at me, ‘Grigory or Pyotr?’

‘Pyotr,’ I said, licking my dry lips. ‘Grigory is my old literary nom de plume. It constantly causes confusion. Out of habit some people still call me Grigory, others call me Pyotr…’

He nodded and picked up his sabre and astrakhan hat from the grand piano.

‘Very well then, Pyotr,’ he said, ‘It may not seem very convenient for you, but our train leaves today. There is nothing to be done about that. Do you have any unfinished business here in Moscow?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘In that case I suggest that you leave with me without delay. I have to attend the embarkation of the Ivanovo weavers’ regiment immediately, and I would like you to be present. You might even be required to speak. Do you have many things?’

‘Only this,’ I said, nodding towards the travelling bag.

‘Splendid. I shall give orders today for you to be issued your allowances at the staff carriage.’

He walked towards the door.

I picked up the travelling bag and followed him out into the corridor. My thoughts were in a state of confused chaos. The man walking ahead of me frightened me. I could not understand who he was - the very last thing he reminded me of was a Red commander and yet, he very clearly was one of them. The signature and stamp on today’s order were exactly the same as those which I had seen yesterday, which indicated that he possessed enough influence to extract the decision he required from the bloody Dzerzhinsky and the shady Babayasin in the space of a single morning.

In the hallway Chapaev halted and took down from the coat-stand a long dove-grey greatcoat with three stripes of shimmering scarlet watered silk running across the chest. Greatcoats ornamented in this manner were the latest Red Guard fashion, but normally the strip fastenings on the chest were made out of ordinary cloth. Chapaev put on his greatcoat and hat and fastened on a belt from which hung a holster with a Mauser, clipped on his sabre and turned to face me. On his chest I noticed a rather strange-looking medal, a silver star with small spheres on its points.

‘Have you been decorated for the New Year?’ I asked.

Chapaev laughed good-naturedly.

‘No.’ he said, ‘that is the Order of the October Star.’

‘I have never heard of it.’

‘If you are lucky, you might even earn one yourself.’ he said. ‘Are you ready?’

‘Comrade Chapaev.’ I said, deciding to take advantage of the informal tone of o u r conversation. ‘I would like to ask you a question which you might find rather strange.’

‘I am all attention.’ he said and smiled politely, tapping the long yellow cuff of a glove against his scabbard.

‘Tell me,’ I said, looking him straight in the eye, ‘why were you playing the piano? And why precisely that piece?’

‘Well you see.’ he said, ‘when I glanced into your room you were still sleeping, and you were whistling that fugue in your sleep - not entirely accurately, I am afraid. For my own part, I am simply very fond of Mozart. At one time I studied at the Conservatory and intended to become a musician. But why does this concern you?’

‘It is nothing of importance,’ I said. ‘Merely a strange coincidence.’

We went out on to the landing. The keys really were hanging in the door. Moving like an automaton, I locked the apartment, dropped the keys into my pocket and followed Chapaev down the stairs, thinking that I had never in my life been in the habit of whistling, especially in my sleep.

The first thing that I saw when I emerged on to the frosty, sunny street was a long grey-green armoured car, the same one that I had noticed the previous day outside the ‘Musical Snuffbox’. I had never seen a vehicle like it before - it was clearly the very latest word in the science of destruction. Its body was thickly studded with large round-headed rivets, the blunt snout of the motor protruded forwards and was crowned with two powerful headlights; on its high steel forehead, sloping slightly backwards, two slanting observation slits peered menacingly towards Nikitsky Square, like the half-closed eyes of a Buddha. On the roof was a cylindrical machine-gun turret, pointing in the direction of Tverskoi Boulevard. The barrel of the machine-gun was protected on both sides by two long plates of steel. There was a small door in the side.

A crowd of boys was swarming around the vehicle, some of them with sledges, others on skates; the thought automatically came to mind that while the idiot adults were busy trying to rearrange a world which they had invented for themselves, the children were still living in reality - among mountains of snow and sunlight, on the black mirrors of frozen ponds and in the mystic night silence of icy yards. And although these children were also infected with the bacillus of insanity that had invaded Russia - this was obvious enough from the way in which they looked at Chapaev’s sabre and my Mauser - their clear eyes still shone with the memory of something which I had long ago forgotten; perhaps it was some unconscious reminiscence of the great source of all existence from which they had not yet been too far distanced in their descent into this life of shame and desolation.

Chapaev walked over to the armoured car and rapped sharply on its side. The motor started up and the rear end of the car was enveloped in a cloud of bluish smoke. Chapaev opened the door and at that precise moment I heard a screeching of brakes behind me. An enclosed automobile drew up right beside us and four men in black leather jackets leapt out of it and disappeared into the doorway from which we had emerged only a moment before. My heart sank - I thought they must have come for me. Probably this idea was prompted by the fact that the foursome reminded me of the actors in black cloaks who had borne Raskolnikov’s body from the stage the previous day. One of them actually paused in the doorway and glanced in our direction.

‘Quickly,’ shouted Chapaev from inside the armoured car. ‘You will let the cold in.’

I tossed in my travelling bag, clambered in hastily after it and slammed the door behind me.

The interior decor of this engine of doom enchanted me from the very first glance. The small space separated from the driver’s cabin reminded me of a compartment in the Nord-Express; the two narrow leather divans, the table set between them and the rug on the floor created a cosy, if rather cramped, atmosphere. There was a round hole in the ceiling, through which I could see the massive butt-stock of the machine-gun in its cover; a spiral staircase ending at something shaped like a revolving chair with footrests led up into the turret. The whole was illuminated by a small electric bulb, by the light of which I could make out a picture fastened to the wall by bolts at the corners of its frame. It was a small landscape in the style of Constable - a bridge over a river, a distant thundercloud and romantic ruins.

Chapaev reached for the bell-shaped mouthpiece of the speaking tube and spoke into it: ‘To the station.’

The armoured car moved away gently, with scarcely any sensation of motion inside. Chapaev sat on a divan and gestured to me to sit opposite him.

‘A magnificent machine,’ I said in all sincerity.

‘Yes.’ said Chapaev, ‘this is not at all a bad armoured car. But I am not very fond of machinery in general. Wait until you see my horse…

‘How about a game of backgammon?’ he asked, putting his hand under the table and taking out a board.

I shrugged. He opened up the board and began setting out the black and white pieces.

‘Comrade Chapaev,’ I began, ‘what will my work consist of? What questions are involved?’

Chapaev adjusted his moustache with a careful gesture.

‘Well, you see, Pyotr, our division is a complex organism. I expect that you will gradually be drawn into its life and find your own niche, as it were. As yet it is still too early to say exactly what that will be, but I realized from the way you conducted yourself yesterday that you are a man of decisive character and at the same time you have a subtle appreciation of the essential nature of events. People like you are in great demand. Your move.’

I threw the dice on to the board, pondering on how I should behave. I still found it hard to believe that he really was a Red commander; somehow I felt that he was playing the same insane game as myself, only he had been playing longer, with greater skill and perhaps of his own volition. On the other hand, all my doubts were founded exclusively on the intelligent manner of his conversation and the hypnotic power of his eyes, and in themselves these factors meant nothing at all: the deceased Vorblei, for instance, had also been a man of reasonable culture, and the head of the Cheka, Dzerzhinsky, was quite a well-known hypnotist in occult circles. And then, I thought, the very question itself was stupid - there was not a single Red commander who was really a Red commander; every one of them simply tried as hard as he could to emulate some infernal model, pretending in just the same way as I had done the previous day. As for Chapaev, I might not perceive him as playing the role suggested by his military garb, but others evidently did, as was demonstrated by Babayasin’s order and the armoured car in which we were riding. I did not know what he wanted from me, but I decided for the time being to play according to his rules; furthermore, I felt instinctively that I could trust him. For some reason I had the impression that this man stood several flights above me on the eternal staircase of being which I had seen in my dream that morning.

‘Is there something on your mind?’ Chapaev asked as he tossed the dice. ‘Perhaps there is some thought bothering you?’

‘Not any more,’ I replied. ‘Tell me, was Babayasin keen to transfer me to your command?’

‘Babayasin was against it,’ said Chapaev. ‘He values you very highly. I settled the question with Dzerzhinsky.’

‘You mean.’ I asked, ‘that you are acquainted?’

‘Yes.’

Perhaps, comrade Chapaev, you are acquainted with Lenin as well?’ I asked with a gentle irony.

‘Only slightly.’ he replied,

‘Can you demonstrate that to me somehow?’ I asked.

‘Why not? This very moment, if you wish.’

This was too much for me to take in. I gazed at him in bewilderment, but he was not embarrassed in the slightest. Moving aside the board, he drew his sabre smoothly from its scabbard and laid it on the table.

The sabre, it should be said, was rather strange. It had a long silver handle covered in carvings showing two birds on either side of a circle containing a hare, with the rest of the surface covered in the finest possible ornament. The handle ended in a jade knob to which was tied a short thick cord of twisted silk with a purple tassel at the end. At its base was a round guard of black iron; the gleaming blade was long and slightly curved. Strictly speaking, it was not even a sabre, but some kind of Eastern sword, probably Chinese. However, I did not have time to study it in detail, because Chapaev switched off the light.

We were left in total darkness. I could not see a single thing, I could only hear the low, level roaring of the engine (the soundproofing on this armour-plated vehicle, I noticed, was quite excellent - not a single sound could be heard from the street), and I could feel a slight swaying motion.

Chapaev struck a match and held it up above the table. ‘Watch the blade,’ he said.

1 looked at the blurred reddish reflection that had appeared on the strip of steel. There was a strange profundity to it, as though I were gazing through a slightly misted pane of glass into a long illuminated corridor. A gentle ripple ran across the surface of the image, and I saw a man in an unbuttoned military jacket strolling along the corridor. He was bald and unshaven; the reddish stubble on his cheeks merged into an unkempt beard and moustache. He leaned down towards the floor and reached out with trembling hands, and I noticed a kitten with big sad eyes cowering in the corner. The image was very clear, and yet distorted, as though I were seeing a reflection in the surface of a Christmas-tree ball. Suddenly a cough rose unexpectedly in my throat and Lenin - for undoubtedly it was he - started at the sound, turned around and stared in my direction. I realized that he could see me. For a second his eyes betrayed his fright, and then they took on a cunning, even guilty look. He gave a crooked smile and wagged his finger at me threateningly.

Chapaev blew on the match and the picture disappeared. I caught a final glimpse of the kitten fleeing along the corridor and suddenly realized that I had not been seeing things on the sabre at all, I had simply, in some incomprehensible fashion, actually been there and I could probably have reached out and touched the kitten.

The light came on. I looked in amazement at Chapaev, who had already returned the sabre to its scabbard.

‘Vladimir Ilyich is not quite well,’ he said.

‘What was that?’ I asked.

Chapaev shrugged. ‘Lenin,’ he said.

‘Did he see me?’

‘Not you, I think,’ said Chapaev. ‘More probably he sensed a certain presence. But that would hardly have shocked him too much. He has become used to such things. There are many who watch him.’

‘But how can you… in what manner… Was it hypnosis?’

‘No more than everything else.’ he said, and nodded at the wall, evidently referring to what lay beyond it.

‘Who are you really?’ I asked.

‘That is the second time you have asked me that question today.’ he said. ‘I have already told you that my name is Chapaev. For the time being that is all that I can tell you. Do not try to force events. By the way, when we converse in private you may call me Vasily Ivanovich. «Comrade Chapaev» sounds rather too solemn.’

I opened my mouth, intending to demand further explanations, when a sudden thought halted me in my tracks. I realized that further insistence from my side would not achieve anything; in fact, it might even do harm. The most astonishing thing, however, was that this thought was not mine - I sensed that in some obscure fashion it had been transferred to me by Chapaev.

The armoured car began to slow down, and the voice of the driver sounded in the speaking tube:

‘The station, Vasily Ivanovich!’

‘Splendid,’ responded Chapaev.

The armoured car manoeuvred slowly for several minutes until it finally came to a halt. Chapaev donned his astrakhan hat, rose from the divan and opened the door. Cold air rushed into the cabin, together with the reddish light of winter sunshine and the dull roar of thousands of mingled voices.

‘Bring your bag.’ said Chapaev, springing lightly down to the ground. Screwing up my eyes slightly after the cosy obscurity of the armoured car, I climbed out after him.

We were in the very centre of the square in front of the Yaroslavl Station. On every side we were surrounded by an agitated, motley crowd of armed men drawn up in the ragged semblance of a parade. Several petty Red commanders were striding along the ranks, their sabres drawn. At Chapaev’s appearance there were shouts, the general hubbub grew louder and after a few seconds it expanded into a rumbling ‘Hoorah!’ that resounded around the square several times.

The armoured car was standing beside a wooden platform decorated with crossed flags, which resembled, more than anything else, a scaffold. There were several military men standing on it, engaged in conversation: when we appeared they began applauding. Chapaev quickly ascended the squeaky steps; I followed him up, trying not to lag behind. Exchanging hurried greetings with a pair of officers (one of them was wearing a beaver coat criss-crossed with belts and straps), Chapaev walked over to the railing of the scaffold and raised his hand with the yellow cuff in a gesture calling for silence.

‘Now, lads!’ he shouted, straining his voice to make it sound hoarse. ‘Y’all know what you’re here for. No bloody shilly-shallying about the bush… You’re all stuck in there and you’ve got to get your fingers out… Ain’t that just the way of things, though? Once you get down the front you’ll be up to your neck in it and get a bellyful soon enough. Didn’t reckon you was in for any spot of mollycoddling, did you?’

I paid close attention to the way Chapaev moved - as he spoke, he turned smoothly from side to side, incisively slicing the air in front of his chest with his extended yellow palm. The meaning of his ever more rapid speech escaped me, but to judge from the way in which the workers strained their necks to hear and nodded their heads, sometimes even grinning happily, what he was saying made good sense to them.

Someone tugged at my sleeve. With an inward shiver, I turned round to see a short young man with a thin moustache, a face pink from the frost and voracious eyes the colour of watered-down tea.

‘Fu fu.’ he said.

‘What?’ I asked him.

‘Fu-Furmanov,’ he said, thrusting out a broad hand with short fingers.

‘A fine day.’ I replied, shaking the hand.

‘I'm the co-commissar with the weavers’ regiment,’ he said. ‘We’ll b-be working together. If you’re go-going to speak, k-keep it short if you can. We’re boarding soon.’

‘Very well.’ I said.

He glanced doubtfully at my hands and wrists. ‘Are you in the p-p-party?’

I nodded.

‘For long?’

‘About two years now,’ I replied.

Furmanov looked over at Chapaev. ‘An eagle,’ he said, ‘but he has to be watched. They s-s-say he often gets c-c-carried away. But the s-s-soldiers love him. They understand him.’

He nodded at the silent crowd above which Chapaev’s words were drifting. ‘You’ve got to go, no two ways round it, and here’s my hand-deed to you as a commander on the nail… and now the commissar’s going to have a word.’

Chapaev moved back from the railing.

‘Your turn, Petka,’ he ordered in a loud voice.

I walked over to the railing.

It was painful to look at those men and imagine the dark maze woven by the pathways of their fates. They had been deceived since childhood, and in essence nothing had (hanged for them because now they were simply being deceived in a different fashion, but the crude and insulting primitiveness of these deceptions - the old and the new - was genuinely inhuman. The feelings and thoughts of the men standing in the square were as squalid as the rags they wore, and they were even being seen off to their deaths with a stupid charade played out by people who were entirely unconnected to them. But then, I thought, was my situation really any different? If I, just like them, am unable to understand, or even worse, merely imagine I understand the nature of the forces which control my life when I do not, then how am I any better than a drunken proletarian sent off to die for the word Internationalism’? Because I have read Gogol, Hegel and even Herzen? The whole thing was merely a bad joke.

However, I had to say something.

‘Comrade workers!’ I shouted. ‘Your commissar comrade Furmanov has asked me to be as brief as I can, because boarding is due to begin any moment. I think that we shall have time to talk later, but now let me simply tell you of the flame that is blazing here in my heart. Today, comrades, I saw Lenin! Hoorah!’

A long roar rumbled across the square. When the noise had died down, I said:

‘And now, comrades, here with his parting words is comrade Furmanov!’

Furmanov nodded gratefully to me and stepped towards the railing. Chapaev was laughing and twirling his moustache as he talked about something with the officer in the heaver coat. Seeing me approach, he clapped the officer on the shoulder, nodded to the others and climbed down the steps from the tribune. Furmanov began speaking:

‘Comrades! We have only a few minutes left here. The final chimes will sound, and we shall set sail for that mighty shore of marble - for those cliffs on which we shall establish our bridgehead-’

He spoke now without stammering, intoning smoothly.

We made our way through the ranks of workers which parted before us - my sympathy for them almost evaporated when I saw them at close quarters - and set off towards the station. Chapaev walked quickly, and I found it hard to keep up with him. Sometimes, as he responded to greetings from someone, he would raise a yellow cuff briefly to his astrakhan hat. To be on the safe side, I began copying this gesture and had soon mastered it so well that I actually began to feel quite at home among all these super-neanderthals scurrying about the station.

On reaching the edge of the platform, we jumped down on to the frozen earth. Ahead of us on the shunting lines and sidings stood a labyrinth of snow-covered carriages. There were tired people watching us from every side; the grimace of despair repeated on all of their faces seemed to form them into some new race of men.

I turned to Chapaev and asked: ‘Can you explain to me the meaning of «hand-deed»?’

‘What?’ Chapaev asked with a frown.

‘«Hand-deed»’, I repeated.

‘Where did you hear that?’

‘If I am not mistaken, only a moment ago you were speaking from the platform on the subject of your commander’s hand-deed.’

‘Ah,’ said Chapaev with a smile, ‘so that’s what you are talking about. You know, Pyotr, when one has to address the masses, it is quite unimportant whether one understands the words that one speaks. What is important is that other people understand them. One has simply to reflect the expectations of the crowd. Some achieve this by studying the language in which the masses speak, but I prefer to act in a more direct fashion. In other words, if you wish to learn what «hand-deed» means, then it is not me you should be asking, but the men standing back there on the square.’

I thought I understood what he was saying. Indeed, I had long before come to very similar conclusions myself, only in regard to conversations about art, which had always depressed me with their monotony and pointlessness. Since I was obliged by virtue of my activities to meet large numbers of chronic imbeciles from literary circles, I had deliberately cultivated the ability to participate in their discussions without paying any particular attention to what was being spoken about, simply by juggling with such absurd words as ‘realism’ ind ‘theurgy’, or even ‘theosophical value’. In Chapaev’s terminology this was learning the language in which the masses speak. However, I realized that he himself did not even burden himself with the knowledge of the words which he pronounced; of course, it was not clear to me how he was able to do this. Perhaps, having fallen into some kind of trance, he could sense the vibrations of anticipation projected by the crowd and somehow weave them into a pattern which it understood.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. Chapaev led me on, further and further; two or three times we stooped to dive under empty, lifeless trains. It was quiet, with no sound except the occasional frenzied whistling of steam locomotives in the distance. Eventually we halted beside a train which included an armoured carriage in its complement. The chimney above the roof of the carriage was smoking cosily, and an impressive Bolshevik with an oak-stained Asiatic face was standing on guard at the door - for some reason I immediately dubbed him a Bashkir.

We walked past the saluting Bashkir, climbed into the carriage and found ourselves in a short corridor. Chapaev nodded towards one of the doors.

‘That is your compartment,’ he said, taking his watch out of his pocket. ‘With your permission, I shall leave you for a short while, I must issue a few instructions. They have to couple us to the locomotive and the carnages with the weavers.’

‘I did not like the look of their commissar,’ I said, ‘that Furmanov. He and I may not be able to work well together in the future.’

‘Don’t go worrying your head about things that have no connection with the present,’ said Chapaev. ‘You have yet to reach this future of which you speak. Perhaps you will reach a future in which there will be no Furmanov - or, perhaps you might even reach a future in which there will be no you.’

I said nothing, not knowing what reply to make to his strange words.

‘Make yourself comfortable and rest,’ he said. ‘We shall meet again at supper.’

I was astounded by the absolutely peaceful atmosphere of the compartment; the window in the armoured wall was tightly curtained, and there was a vase of carnations standing on the small table. I felt absolutely exhausted; once I had sat down on the divan, it was some time before I felt able to move again Then I remembered that I had not washed for several days, and I went out into the corridor. Amazingly enough, the very first door that I opened led into the shower room and toilet.

I took a hot shower with immense pleasure (the water must have been heated by a coal stove) and returned to my compartment to discover that the bed had been made and a glass of strong tea was waiting for me on the table. Having drunk my fill, I slumped on to the divan and almost immediately fell asleep, intoxicated by the long-forgotten scent of stiffly starched sheets.

When I awoke the carriage was shuddering to a regular rhythm as its wheels hammered over the joints of the rails. On the table where I had left my empty tea glass, in some mysterious fashion a bundle had now appeared. Inside it I found an immaculate two-piece black suit, a gleaming pair of patent-leather shoes, a shirt, a change of underwear and several ties, clearly intended to offer me a choice. I was no longer capable of surprise at anything that happened. The suit and the shoes fitted me perfectly; after some hesitation, I selected a tie with fine black polka dots and when I inspected myself in the mirror on the door of the wall cupboard I was entirely satisfied with my appearance, although it was spoilt just a little by several days’ unshaven stubble. Pulling out a pale-purple carnation from the vase, I broke off its stem and threaded the flower into my buttonhole. How beautiful and unattainable the old life of St Petersburg seemed at that moment!

Going out into the corridor, I saw that it was almost dark already. I walked up to the end door and knocked. Nobody answered. Opening the door, I saw the interior of a large saloon car. At its centre stood a table set with a light supper for three and two bottles of champagne; above the table candle flames flickered to and fro in time with the swaying of the train. The walls were covered with light-coloured wallpaper with a pattern of gold flowers; opposite the table there was a large window, beyond which the lights of the night slowly cut their way through the darkness.

There was a movement at my back. I started and looked round. Standing behind me was the same Bashkir whom I had seen outside the carriage. After glancing at me without the slightest expression of any kind, he wound up the gramophone with the glinting silverish horn that was standing in the corner and lowered the needle on to the record that had begun to revolve. Chaliapin’s solid cast-bronze bass began singing - it was something from Wagner, I think. Wondering for whom the third place was intended, I reached into my pocket for a papyrosa.

I was not left to wonder for very long before the door opened and I saw Chapaev. He was wearing a black velvet jacket, a white shirt and a scarlet bow-tie made of the same shimmering watered silk as the red stripes on his greatcoat. He was followed into the saloon car by a girl.

Her hair was cut very short - it could hardly even be called a style. Down across her scarcely formed breasts, clad tightly in dark velvet, there hung a string of large pearls; her shoulders were broad and strong, while her hips were a little on the narrow side. Her eyes were slightly slanted, but that only added to her charm.

Beyond the slightest doubt, she was fit to serve as a model of beauty - but a beauty which could hardly have been called womanly. Not even my uninhibited fantasy was capable of transporting that face, those eyes and shoulders to the passionate, furtive gloom of a lovers’ alcove. But it was easy to imagine her, for example, on an ice-rink. There was something sobering about her beauty, something simple and a little sad; I am not speaking of that decoratively lascivious chastity with which everyone in St Petersburg was already so thoroughly fed up even before the war. No, this was a genuine, natural, self-aware perfection, beside which mere lust becomes as boring and vulgar as the raucous patriotism of a policeman.

She glanced at me, then turned to Chapaev, and the pearls gleamed against the skin of her neck.

‘And is this our new commissar?’ she asked. The tone of her voice was slightly flat, but pleasant nonetheless.

Chapaev nodded. ‘Let me introduce you.’ he said, ‘Pyotr, Anna.’

I got up from the table, took her cold palm in my hand and would have raised it to my lips, but she prevented me, replying with a formal handshake in the manner of a St Petersburg emancipee. I retained her hand in mine for a moment.

‘She is a magnificent machine-gunner,’ said Chapaev, ‘so beware of irritating her.’

‘Could these delicate fingers really be capable of dealing death to anyone?’ I asked, releasing her hand.

‘It all depends.’ said Chapaev, ‘on what exactly you call death.’

‘Can there really be any difference of views on that account?’

‘Oh, yes, indeed.’ said Chapaev.

We sat down at the table. With suspicious facility the Bashkir opened the champagne and filled our glasses.

‘I wish to propose a toast,’ said Chapaev, resting his hypnotic gaze on me, ‘for the terrible times in which it has been our lot to be born, and for all those who even in such days as these do not cease to strive for freedom.’

His logic seemed strange to me, because our times had been made terrible precisely because of the striving, as he had put it, of ‘all those’ for their so-called ‘freedom’ - but whose freedom, and from what? Instead of objecting, however, I took a sip of champagne - this was the simple precept which I always followed when there was champagne on the table and the conversation turned to politics. I suddenly realized how hungry I was, and I set about the food with vigour.

It is hard to express what I was feeling. What was happening was so very improbable that I no longer felt its improbability; this is what happens in a dream, when the mind, cast into a whirlpool of fantastic visions, draws to itself like a magnet some detail familiar from the everyday world and focuses on it completely, transforming the most muddled of nightmares into a simulacrum of daily routine. I once dreamed that through some exasperating contingency I had become the angel on the spire of the Peter and Paul Cathedral and in order to protect myself against the bitterly cold wind I was struggling to fasten my jacket, but the buttons simply would not slip into the buttonholes - and what surprised me was not that I had suddenly found myself suspended high in the night sky above St Petersburg, but the fact that I was incapable of completing this familiar operation.

I was experiencing something similar now. The unreality of what was happening was somehow bracketed out of my consciousness; in itself the evening was entirely normal, and if it had not been for the gentle swaying of the carriage, I might easily have assumed that we were sitting in one of St Petersburg’s small cafes with the lamps of cabs drifting past the windows.

I ate in silence and only rarely glanced at Anna. She replied briefly to Chapaev when he spoke to her of gun-carts and machine-guns, but I was so engrossed by her that I failed to follow the thread of their conversation. I felt saddened by the absolute unattainability of her beauty; I knew that it would be as pointless to reach out to her with lustful hands as it would be to attempt to scoop up the sunset in a kitchen bucket.

When supper was finished, the Bashkir cleared the plates from the table and served coffee. Chapaev leaned back on his chair and lit a cigar. His face had acquired a benevolent and slightly sleepy expression; he looked at me and smiled.

‘Pyotr,’ he said, ‘you seem thoughtful, perhaps even - pardon me for saying so - a little absent-minded. But a commissar… He has to carry people along with him, you understand.,. He has to be absolutely sure of himself. All the time.’

‘I am entirely sure of myself.’ I said. ‘But I am not entirely sure of you.’

‘How do you mean? What can be bothering you?’

‘May I be candid with you?’

‘Certainly. Both Anna and I are absolutely counting on it.’

‘I find it hard to believe that you really are a Red commander.’

Chapaev raised his left eyebrow.

‘Indeed?’ he asked, with what seemed to me to be genuine astonishment. ‘But why?’

‘I do not know,’ I said. ‘This all reminds me very much of a masquerade.’

‘You do not believe that I sympathize with the proletariat?’

‘Certainly I believe it. On that platform today I even experienced a similar feeling myself. And yet…’

Suddenly I no longer understood what exactly I wanted to say. Silence hung over the table, broken only by the tinkling of the spoon with which Anna was stirring her coffee.

‘Well, in that case, just what does a Red commander look like?’ asked Chapaev, brushing the cigar ash from the flap of his jacket.

‘Furmanov,’ I replied.

‘Forgive me, Pyotr, but that is the second time today that you have mentioned that name. Who is this Furmanov?’

The gentleman with the voracious eyes,’ I said, ‘who addressed the weavers after me.’

Anna suddenly clapped her hands.

‘That reminds me,’ she said, ‘we have entirely forgotten about the weavers, Vasily Ivanovich. We should have paid them a visit long ago.’

Chapaev nodded.

‘Yes, yes,’ he said, ‘you are quite right, Anna. I was just about to suggest it myself, but Pyotr set me such a puzzle that everything else entirely slipped my mind.’

He turned towards me. ‘We must certainly return to this topic. But for the present, would you not like to keep us company?’

‘Yes, I would.’

‘Then, forward,’ said Chapaev, rising from the table.

We left the staff carriage and went towards the rear of the train. Events now began to seem even stranger to me: several of the carriages through which we walked were dark and seemed entirely empty. There was not a single light burning anywhere and not a sound could be heard behind their closed doors. I could not really believe that there were Red Army soldiers sleeping behind those walnut panels which reflected the glow of Chapaev’s cigar in their polished surface, but I tried not to ponder too much on the matter.

One of the carriages did not end in the usual little lobby, but in a door in the end wall, beyond the window of which the dark winter night rushed away from us. After fumbling briefly with the lock the Bashkir opened it and the corridor was suddenly filled with the sharp clattering of wheels and a swarm of tiny, prickly snowflakes. Outside the door there was a small fenced-in area beneath a canopy, like the rear platform of a tram, and beyond it loomed the heavy carcass of the next carriage. There was no way of crossing over to it, so it remained unclear just how Chapaev had intended to pay a visit to his new men. I followed the others out on to the platform. Leaning on the railing, Chapaev drew deeply on his cigar, from which the wind snatched several bright crimson sparks.

‘They are singing,’ said Anna, ‘can you hear?’

She raised an open hand, as though to protect her hair from the wind, but lowered it immediately - her hairstyle made the gesture entirely meaningless. The thought struck me that she must have worn a different style only a very short time before.

‘Can you hear?’ she repeated, turning to face me.

And indeed, through the rumbling of the carriage wheels I could make out a rather lovely and harmonious singing. Listening more closely, I could even catch the words:

Blacksmiths are we, our spirit is an anthill, We forge the keys of happiness. Oh, hammer mighty, rise up higher still, Smite harder, harder yet upon this iron breast!

‘Strange,’ I said, ‘why do they sing that they are smiths, if they are weavers? And why is their spirit an anthill?’

‘Not an anthill, but an anvil,’ said Anna.

‘An anvil?’ I echoed. ‘Ah, but of course. It is an anvil because they are smiths - or rather, because they sing that they are smiths, although in actual fact they are weavers. One devil of a confused mess.’

Despite the absurdity of the text there was something ancient and bewitching about this song ringing out in the winter night. Perhaps it was not the song itself, but the strange combination of innumerable male voices, the piercingly bitter wind, the snow-covered fields and the small stars scattered sparsely across the night sky. When the train curved as it went round a bend we could make out the string of dark carriages. The men travelling in them must have been singing in total darkness - and this filled out the picture, making it even more mysterious and strange. For some time we listened without speaking.

‘Perhaps it is something Scandinavian.’ I said. ‘You know, they had a god there, and he had a magic hammer that he used as a weapon. In the Old Edda saga I think it was. Yes, yes, see how well everything else fits! This dark frost-covered carriage before us, why should it not be Thor’s hammer hurled at some unknown enemy! It hurtles relentlessly after us, and there is no force capable of halting its flight!’

‘You have a very lively imagination.’ Anna replied. ‘Can the sight of a dirty railway carnage really arouse such a train of thoughts in you?’

‘Of course not.’ I said. ‘I am simply endeavouring to make conversation. In actual fact I am thinking about something else.’

‘About what?’ asked Chapaev.

‘About the fact that man is rather like this train. In exactly the same way he is doomed for all eternity to drag after him out of the past a string of dark and terrible carriages inherited from goodness knows whom. And he calls the meaningless rumbling of this accidental coupling of hopes, opinions and fears his life. And there is no way to avoid this fate.’

‘Why not?’ asked Chapaev. ‘There is a way.’

‘Do you know it?’ I asked.

‘Of course.’ said Chapaev.

‘Perhaps you would share it with us?’

‘Gladly.’ said Chapaev, and he clicked his fingers.

The Bashkir seemed to have been waiting for precisely this signal. Setting his lamp on the floor, he ducked nimbly under the railings, leaned out in the darkness over the invisible elements of the carriage coupling and began making rapid movements with his hands. There was a dull clanging sound and the Bashkir returned to the platform with the same alacrity with which he had left it.

The dark carriage wall facing us began slowly receding.

I looked up at Chapaev. He met my gaze calmly.

‘It is getting cold,’ he said, as though nothing had happened. ‘Let us return to the table.’

‘I will follow on after you,’ I replied.

Left alone on the platform, I went on gazing into the distance for some time. I could still make out the singing of the weavers, but with every second that passed the string of carriages fell further and further behind; suddenly they seemed to me like a tail cast off by a fleeing lizard. It was a beautiful sight. Oh, if only it were really possible, as simply as Chapaev had parted from these men, to leave behind me that dark crowd of false identities which had been tearing my soul apart for so many years!

Soon I began to feel cold. Turning back into the carriage and closing the door behind me, I felt my way along by touch. When I reached the staff carriage I felt such a great weariness that without even pausing to shake the snowflakes from my jacket, I went straight into my compartment and collapsed on to the bed.

I could hear Chapaev and Anna talking and laughing in the saloon car.

‘Pyotr!’ Chapaev shouted. ‘Don’t go to sleep! Come and join us!’

After the cold wind which had chilled me through on the platform, the warm air in the compartment was remarkably pleasant. It even began to feel more like water than air, as though at long last I were taking the hot bath I had been dreaming about for so many days. When the sensation became absolutely real, I realized that I was falling asleep, which I might have guessed anyway from the fact that instead of Chaliapin, the gramophone suddenly began playing the same Mozart fugue with which my day had begun. I sensed that I should not on any account fall asleep, but there was no longer anything I could do to resist; having abandoned the struggle, I hurtled down headlong between the minor piano chords into the same stairwell of emptiness which had so astounded me that morning.