The Maya Pill

INSOMNIA

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

The little metal alarm clock ticked in the silence of the dark room.

Just tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick… Normally when authors describe clocks ticking, they write “ticktock.” But my clock said tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick… on and on without end, with no “tock” to be heard.

I lay on my bed on top of the covers, and stared blankly into the nowhere of the ceiling. My insomnia was back.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

I hate the sound of clocks ticking in the middle of the night. It keeps me up. My ears snag on the rhythm, noting each tick, anticipating the next.

Every tick is in the right place, each pause measured out precisely, not a single one rushing ahead, not a single one falling behind. But my ear keeps on mistrustfully monitoring the intervals, sound and silence, and the mechanism keeps on ticking.

I needed to get up and silence the damn clock. I could smother it in a pile of laundry or move it out into the kitchen, or I could simply remove the battery and let it fall silent forever. That’s what I usually do. Or used to.

One night I was alone in my apartment, which was, I guess, my home, or would have been if I’d been myself at the time, tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock, but the noise was deafening. I collected all the clocks in the apartment (there were three) and disabled them. And fell asleep.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

I used to have a home, there used to be people around. But now I’m alone. Alone. Home alone, alone, no home.

The clock might very well have made a different noise if it had been bigger—say, the size of my cupboard. Ticktock, tick-tick-tick. Alone at home, at home alone… better alone.

I remembered one of my old jobs, the one before the last, when I—or it might have been someone else—used to be sent on various trips around the country. Pack, unpack, pack, unpack, planes, buses, trains. From plane to bus to train and back again, unpack, pack, unpack, pack.

Life. No, life isn’t some kind of show. It’s not a game. And not a dream, either. Life is a business trip. Only your company ID has gone missing, and you can’t remember what you’re there for. You’re in some strange place, trying to get something done, but you’re not sure what exactly they sent you to do. And so you’re waiting for the management to contact you. While also being afraid they will. And even more afraid they won’t.

Even without all the baggage, it’s not exactly a vacation. And you’re dragging around all your things, bags and suitcases full. It’s easier to travel light, but before you know it, you’ve accumulated even more stuff—wife, kids, relatives, friends.

So you kill time, looking for things to do in the evening. You get used to the place, you can find your way around now, and soon you’ve even forgotten who you are and who sent you and where you’re actually from.

And only then do they contact you and tell you it’s time to go home.

So it’s better to be alone.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

The resolve to try to change something in your life dwindles with every passing year. I used to be able to stop the flow of time. Now I was simply lying around without getting up; I took no action against the clock—it wouldn’t make any difference; I wasn’t going to fall asleep anyway.

I’d been given the clock at the annual reception that the St. Petersburg branch of one of the maritime shipping companies organized every year for its partners. OOCL. The acronym—the company’s logo—was engraved on the top. The clock was shaped like one of those navigation instruments, maybe some kind of chronometer, I don’t know; I’ve never been on one of those big ships. All I know is that the toilet is called the head, the kitchen the galley. That much I know for sure. Though I have no idea where I learned it. Or, more to the point, why.

OOCL is a Chinese company. People had come from their headquarters to serve as hosts for the reception: short Asians wearing European suits and very conservative, embossed neckties. The senior executive gave a brief presentation enumerating the company’s achievements over the past year, notably a forty percent increase in container shipments to Russia. Yes, their business was thriving. How could it not, with the yearly increase in imports from Southeast Asia? Russia imports everything: food, clothing, technology; the only growth here is in new shopping centers. Nothing is being assembled here these days except for criminal cases; nothing being invented except new ways to fleece the population.

But what difference did that make to me, naked little creature that I was, lying there in a dark apartment unable to sleep, listening: tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

At the reception I was introduced to a little man with a pockmarked face that resembled the surface of the moon; must be smallpox, or maybe some other pox, since European medicine eradicated that long ago. I seem to recall the man’s name was Nick, and he worked in one of the Chinese company’s European offices. I exchanged a few words with him in English, and his Russian colleagues hurriedly, with obvious relief, abandoned him to my care for the rest of the evening.

Nick told me about his office in England, which was located, of course, not in London—it’s too crowded and noisy there—but in some little town out in the country. Nick told me about his wife and two little kids, about his dog Lassie and his Toyota. Nick invited me to go to a bar with him after the reception, some place that had music, German beer, and beautiful Russian girls. His eyes gleamed in the darkness like two swamp lights, but I politely declined.

At the reception I ate a whole kilo of salmon and drank four bottles of light white Italian wine. In the process of entertaining Nick, I managed to make a few additional useful acquaintances, told them how thrilled I was with the hotel, complimented the hosts, shook hands with the directors, made eyes at the female managers, and smiled gallantly at the older women who ran companies that did business with or competed with Cold Plus.

I was the very image of comme il faut, or so I thought. I floated in the waters of this tastefully dressed and fragrant society like a fish, like that same salmon I’d been consuming, and by the end of the evening I felt as though I’d been washed up onto the shore, onto its scorching sand, into sizzling oil in a red-hot frying pan.

I’m not really a people person.

I staggered out of the hotel and made it somehow to the metro. I descended into its womb and found myself in a car in the company of an entirely different sort of person, hungry-looking, pasty-faced, bad-tempered, reeking exhaustion and beer from plastic bottles. And I realized that I was no better with these people than with the elect.

I’ve always felt like someone from another planet, from some parallel universe. With some effort I’ve learned how to smile and hold up my end of a conversation. I read up on soccer and sports cars, visit a couple of vacation spots, and make a point of following the daily weather reports. So I’ll always have something to talk about, and I won’t appear too antisocial.

I’ve learned how to keep up appearances.

There are only a few people in the whole world, or I only know of a few, anyway, who are on the same wavelength as I. In their company I can blurt out any heresy that comes into my head, the kind of thing that would send any “normal” crowd into a stupor.

We are a secret society. We recognize one another by smell. We have all lost something, and we are seekers.

Blessed are the poor in spirit.

But this isn’t about us. We are on a quest, we are on the verge of discovering some great spiritual treasure; in our pockets we carry spiritual gold cards with no credit limits, as yet unused. The time shall come when we will activate them.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick-tick…

I wonder what kind of man that Hakan is. I’d guess he’s on the wrong side of thirty—anything over thirty is the wrong side—a little overweight, chronically unshaven, and with an unpretentious haircut. Or maybe he’s thin and wears plastic-rimmed glasses like a retiree.

Back when I only read his reports on current events, I sensed—by his smell—that he was someone I could get along with. Then I rummaged around on the Internet and found some more of his work, and it turned out to be completely deranged. And this only confirmed my feelings of kinship.

I found his e-mail address in one of his entries and sent him a short note with my essay about Khazaria attached. I got an answer a week later. Hakan wrote:

THE SECRET OF FISH PASTE

In thirteenth-century Venice there lived a Khazar by the name of Abongaldyr, who was known as Fish Eye. This nickname was due to a physical deformity; one of his eyes was completely covered by a cloudy film. The name was also due to his profession: This Khazar used to buy fish guts; he’d poke around in them and boil them. Maybe he ate them, maybe they served some other purpose.

This Khazar was believed to be a Jew, most likely because he didn’t wear a cross or attend church. He didn’t associate with Jews, or with good Christians either for that matter, and he didn’t observe Hebraic law. It was whispered that Fish Eye was in fact a sorcerer who practiced black magic.

His eye problem had begun during a time of plague; the black queen of the pox had come to Venice, brought by sailors arriving from distant lands. The sailors infected the harlots working the ports; from them the entire city soon came to know the wrath of God. The people infected with this plague all died because no one knew how to cure the pox. But Fish Eye was different. Though he fell ill, he survived, most likely through some miracle or sorcery. But he retained the mark of Satan, that dead eye, which gave his entire face a ghoulish appearance.

The Jews in Venice were primarily merchants and moneylenders, like the Khazars who fled here from their native land. But Fish Eye didn’t lend money and didn’t engage in trade; he didn’t even own a shop.

But he was wealthy nonetheless. Fish Eye lived in a big house with a garden where he grew brilliant scarlet flowers, which reminded him of his lost homeland. When he went to the market he would buy, in addition to his fish guts, special spices that cost several times their weight in gold, and from the travelers who were always coming and going he bought special stones, which he crushed for some purpose.

Fish Eye wore on his left hand a heavy silver and black enamel ring with a dragon pictured on it, biting his own tail—the sure sign of an alchemist and wizard. It was believed that alchemists could turn any metal into gold. But Fish Eye didn’t make gold from lead; his gold came from merchants.

The merchants came to him secretly at night, bringing bags of gold coins, and when they left they took vessels filled with a slimy gelatinous substance that was known as fish paste.

Fish paste used to be produced only in Khazaria. Fugitive Khazars brought the secrets of their craft along with them to Europe, and of them all Fish Eye was the most notorious and successful.

The merchants who bought the fish paste made huge profits, and their business thrived.

Fish Eye sold his paste to anyone who could afford it, but he kept the formula to himself. One Jew was desperate to get the formula at any price, and he offered a huge sum of money. But Fish Eye refused.

Then the Jew bribed some Christians he knew, and they denounced Fish Eye to the Holy Inquisition. The Khazar was accused of trafficking with the devil, and someone even claimed to have found a contract with the Enemy of Humanity in his house, with all its terms spelled out in great detail and sealed with an imprint of the Khazar’s ring, inked with his blood.

The Khazar was led out to the great cleansing fire. When bound to the stake he raised his arms to the heavens and cursed: “Woe upon ye, inhabitants of Venice and of all cities! Ye will yet come to know the power of the stolen delights, the seductions of the Prince of this world! And ye will lose your eternal souls!”

Before he perished in the flames, Fish Eye had experienced the rack and a multitude of other contrivances utilized by the Holy Church for the purposes of taming the flesh and saving the souls of sinners who had strayed from the path. But whether the Khazar gave up the secret recipe and whether the Jew who had betrayed him got the secret from the church officials—on that subject nothing is known.

LIFE AFTER DEATH

A Western pop singer wails on MTV. I can’t remember her name; if I get curious I can watch the whole clip; eventually a credit will show up at the bottom of the screen giving her name and the titles of the song and of the album it’s from. But I’m not that curious. I’m not much of a connoisseur, frankly. I just listen. I just keep it on out of boredom.

The credit is sure to be there at the end of the clip. Like a label, like a toe tag at the morgue.

“Earthly glory is like a toe tag on a corpse.”

Some Buddhist lama said that, I think. I don’t remember his name either. But I do remember the quote, more or less. I like it. I didn’t even bother to write it down in my special notebook (you have one of those too, don’t you?); it just stuck in my mind. And it’s true. A man dies, and all that’s left is a slab with his name and the high points of his biography: He was born, studied somewhere, got married, won eight Oscars, and then died.

This hag should have kicked the bucket long ago. Or left show business and spent her final days sitting on a bench in front of her house, or puttering around in her garden. Anything but gyrating up there on stage in front of everyone. She’s an old lady, same age as Marilyn Monroe would be now, probably, but Marilyn died at the right time. This one, though, just keeps on singing. Won’t shut up. Dances too.

I can’t wrap my head around that. You’ve already shown what you’ve got, said everything you can say, and earned huge piles of money; why keep on writhing around on stage like a clown? Go over your bank statements, count your money, and enjoy the rest of your life.

I always liked Britney Spears. Now there’s someone who did it right! I recall her debut. A nymphet, a pedophile’s dream, in a school uniform and flimsy little white skirts. She danced on a dock by the sea. Sang words of love, first love, pure, timid, and innocent love. And the planet quivered, pierced through by an ultrasound wave of unprecedented force—the sound of men’s balls buzzing, the whole world over.

She made it big, became a superstar, sold millions of albums, earned millions of dollars, got up on stage with the whole world watching and sucked face with Madonna. And then sent everything to the devil.

Started having babies, eating sandwiches, getting fat, and vandalizing cars in parking lots, pounding on their hoods like a madwoman.

Of course, malevolent critics will remind you, before this she bombed in the movie Crossroads, ruined her personal life, started in on alcohol and drugs. But, hey, up theirs. They’re just jealous.

No, Britney isn’t like that old bag, who will cling to the stage till the day she dies. Look at her, a veritable cyborg! After all the plastic surgery, liposuctions, and implants, there’s nothing left of her original body. Like the robot cop from that movie. Robocop, that’s it. Robo-singer.

The Russian stage has its share of this particular brand of mutant. When they come out on stage for the Police Day concert, it’s downright terrifying. These aren’t real people, they’re some sort of pale zombie who’ve risen up from their dank graves, called forth by some voodoo sorcerer who fed them a poisonous powder. Or pills, maybe.

To hell with that kind of career! Everyone has to die someday. Sure, you have to be in the right place at the right time to strike it rich. But you also have to know when to make your exit.

Every year new stars appear on the stage. What happens to the old ones? Nothing—they’re still up there too. If things keep going on like this, there won’t be any room left for the living; all the space will be taken up by walking corpses. The devil should definitely reconsider the terms of his standard contract.

There’s no place for the living among the dead, just as there’s no place for the dead among the living. I learned that from my wise old grandmother.

What the hell is this song about, anyway? I can’t get it out of my head. The zombie is howling mournfully. What is she really trying to say? Probably something like.

Like, say, her love is over, but she has to go on living. I will survive. So many songs by women can be boiled down to that one idea. But what I hear is:

Yes, that’s more like it. And I do believe:

Love that lasts till death, to the grave, is a fairy tale, an illusion, a lie. Love after the grave, though—that’s real, it gives me hope. Lines from my own song, something I wrote when I was sixteen:

I think that I sang that song once, drunk, to a one-eyed old man, shitface drunk himself, on Zayachy Island near the Peter and Paul Fortress. And he shoved a piece of paper into my hand with his phone number on it, told me to call, promised that he would find me a band, would set up an audition, would make me a star.

Of course I didn’t call. People say all kinds of things when they’re drunk.

Or, no, maybe what she means is exactly what she’s saying:

If so, it’s clearly autobiographical; the song must be about her experiences after the zombie master hauled her out of the grave.

Though I died too, in a certain sense. I died for the world of advanced capitalism and industrial-trade corporations, the day I walked out of Cold Plus.

The heroes of my favorite books always had “something in reserve” waiting for them before they told everyone to go to hell and set out to pursue their own destinies. Something to “tide them over” for a while.

But when I wrote my resignation and walked out on the company that had fed me, for better or worse, for so many years, I had no savings. Just debts. I stepped into emptiness, pustota.

Jumped without a parachute, as one of my friends put it. He’d been complaining to me about his life for as long as I could remember. He didn’t love his wife, his job was monotonous and boring, and he was stuck out in some provincial town. I suggested he quit, give everything up at once and move away.

He answered, “I’m already too old to jump without a parachute.” Too old. And he wasn’t even thirty!

But I jumped. It wasn’t a big deal, just a completely meaningless little act of protest. The least a man can do if he wants to live his own life. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t scared.

When I quit my job without even picking up my last paycheck, I didn’t have the slightest idea how or on what I would live. All I had in my wallet was small change enough to cover my immediate needs.

But God, or fate, or the devil—one of them anyway, or maybe all of them together—come to a man’s aid when it’s time to make a big decision. The next day I went to the bank, which I hadn’t visited for along time, and learned that some money had been transferred to my account—a commission for this deal I’d made with some Chinese guys for a friend of mine, using my Cold Plus connections. I took some of it out in cash and went to the supermarket, which was practically empty (it was early and all the usual shoppers were at work). The only people there were stay-at-home wives, retirees, and a couple of young people doing their shopping. I went up and down the aisles and gathered food and drink, four plastic bags full, using up almost all my money.

I left the car outside my building, went up to my apartment, and put all the groceries away neatly on the kitchen shelves and in the refrigerator. Grains on one shelf, save for pasta, which got its own place; processed foods in the freezer; milk products in the fridge door; cheese and butter in the upper rack closest to the freezer; jars of jam and other preserves on the next shelf down; and then finally, on the bottom, fresh vegetables and salad greens. That would last me a week.

Once I’d put everything away, I went into my bedroom and surveyed the familiar disorder. The sight brought a strange sense of relief. Here was something to keep me busy.

First I made the bed. Then I picked up the various objects that were strewn around the room and sorted them out: clean clothes on the cupboard shelves, shirts on hangers. I stuffed my dirty laundry into paper bags: underwear in one, the rest sorted by color.

Then I put on some music and started in on my books. I cleared them all off the shelves, dumped them onto the floor, and started dusting each one individually, then putting them back on the shelves in alphabetical order by author.

The purpose of man’s existence is to create order out of chaos. I’m convinced of it. I’m no longer plagued by the need to find the meaning of life; I know the one and only, universal, correct answer to the question of “why.” Man lives in order to create order out of chaos.

A Sisyphean task, that’s for sure. Across the universe, chaos is growing, expanding every second. This is a principle of physics that follows from the second rule of thermodynamics. The level of entropy increases in any closed system. The time shall come when the entire world will grind to a halt. The stars will go out and the galaxies will disintegrate, leaving no trace. Just dust and stones, flailing in disorder throughout the dead expanse of the cosmos.

But man, himself a chaotic fluctuation of elements, creates his own little world around himself—itself a transitory fluctuation with its own set of rules—and the cheese goes on the upper rack of the refrigerator, and ironed shirts go on hangers in the closet.

Chaos creeps into human existence, into the crannies of a man’s apartment, into the dark alleyways of his life. Chaos has its own rules. But man grabs a broom, picks up an iron, a washrag, a marker and notebook, and he sweeps out chaos, dumps it in black garbage bags, gives everything a name, numbers everything, puts everything in its special place.

And so it will be until the very last day, when this man falls on the field of this cosmic battle, dead but not defeated.

Then others will come, will wash and dress him, will tuck him in his coffin in strict accordance with their rituals, will sing the appropriate hymns, make solemn speeches, and will consign his body to earth, or fire, or water, or air—whatever their traditions require. Man is broken down into his component elements, which are no longer orderly but chaotic—and these elements now return to the cosmos, which is itself just another name for pandemonium.

The only thing that will remain of him will be memory. The Upanishads say: “When my body turns to ash, and the breath of my life flows together with the air of the Universe, O my God, remember everything I did for Thee.”

Because that memory is with God.

And it is called soul.

The soul is nothing more than God’s memory of a man who lived on this earth. And there is no other soul.

LIFE AFTER DEATH, CONTINUED

I went to bed content, thinking about the work I still had to do: polish the floors, do the laundry, clean all my shoes and arrange them in the entryway. I slept soundly. And that night marked the end of my Khazaria dreams.

But then the insomnia set in.

I could never sleep during the day. As long as the sun was up, I had to stay busy. I washed, cleaned, sorted, and arranged things in my little apartment. Or I’d go out and wander the streets or go to Esenin Park and walk along the path by the grandly named Okkervil “River.”

Then I started going into the city. I’d put gas in the car and go to exhibits, art shows, and symphony concerts, spend time in cafés. I developed a taste for reading in crowded places. Hoping to stretch my limited resources, I economized wherever I could. Before long I realized that the privilege of being allowed to sit all day at the twenty-four hour buffet in the book megastore on Vosstanie Square, reading without buying anything, only extended so far. You take one title off the shelf and settle down with it in the buffet area; it’s especially convenient at night when there aren’t many customers and there are lots of open spaces at the tables; it doesn’t cost anything just to sit. But occasionally a waitress will turn up at your table and ask, “Will you be ordering anything ELSE?” making it clear by her emphasis of the word “else” and her entire demeanor that if you’re sitting in her buffet reading a book that you don’t intend to buy, then you’d better order some food. Otherwise, perhaps it’s time to think about heading home, sir.

So you order another cup of coffee, a piece of cheesecake, and then some more coffee, and then something else, and ultimately by morning you’ve dropped more money into the buffet than it would have cost you to buy the book.

It’s simpler and cheaper just to take a book along and read it in an ordinary coffee shop, ideally, if there’s a place by the window. There are coffee shops in Petersburg where you can sit for two or even three hours without ordering anything. No one will bother you and no one will notice when you get up and leave.

But it’s better to go up to the counter and get a cup of hot chocolate—when I was little they used to call it cocoa—or a cappuccino. Take a seat, settle in with your book, and read as long as you want. No need to touch the cup; just let it cool down. That’s what I used to do.

If I went during the day, it was hard to find a place to sit. But I could look up from whatever I was reading to admire the flocks of young girls, fresh and dewy-eyed, who’d come from places like Barnaul to get an education in the capital. They sat in the coffee shops, smoking cigarettes and babbling endlessly. They never noticed me. Why should they? Who would be interested in a carelessly dressed, slightly overweight man with a sparse graying reddish-brown moustache and beard? No, I know, you run into all kinds of deviants. But I didn’t need anything from them, and so, by the laws of sympathetic magic, I never had any problems with the girls—didn’t make them nervous, didn’t attract them either. It was as though I simply didn’t exist in their dimension, which was filled with the aroma of Rive Gauche perfume (bought on discount with a girlfriend’s gold card), with nice-looking boys from their school and dreams of a new life—so close at hand, within their grasp: graduation, a job in a big company with potential for advancement, a nice car (some shade of green, and bought on credit, of course), and vacations in Turkey, or, alternatively, Maldives, if she’s lucky enough to catch the eye of a man of means.

Their girlish naïveté didn’t bother me, though I didn’t envy them either. And I never bothered to drink my hot chocolate. Who knows what they put in it.

When I went late at night there would be older people at the tables, sometimes couples, talking, poring over brochures and spreadsheets, or simply sitting in silence, emitting smoke.

Occasionally I would spend the whole night in a twenty-four hour coffee shop. After the nightclubs closed, the clubbers would come in, exhausted, half-awake, but not ready to give up yet. They would drink cups of hot coffee and stare at their surroundings in silence, eyes glassy.

And I would read. And not feel at all abandoned or alone.

Finally, when (or if) I went home for the night, I would undress slowly, fold my clothes carefully, turn off the light, and go to bed—as though performing some sort of a ritual, particular and prescribed. Order in all things. Nighttime is for sleeping. If a man can’t get to sleep, then he needs to just lie there in bed naked, staring blankly at the ceiling. Not violate the order of things.

What came now instead of dreams were thoughts. And memories. Sometimes from a very very long time ago.

THE DARK TEREK

I remember everything vividly to this day. We would take a trip. To the farm! To Zarechnoye! To Grandma’s! It was always special. The excitement would start the night before, when my dad would make an announcement: Tomorrow we’re going on a trip.

Hurray!

My sister would spend half the night packing all the things a girl needs: all eight dolls; a bag crammed full of paints and books; a separate bag with markers and colored pencils; three dresses, a bathing suit (she has only one, how annoying!), sandals, and belts; a makeup bag with a mirror; some little buckets and trowels, and a rubber duck. And in the morning my mom would get mad and make her leave most of it behind.

I would stand outside next to the car, aloof. Girls! Always dragging all kinds of useless stuff around wherever they go. You need to travel light. Like me: just the clothes I’m wearing and a slingshot in my back pocket.

And my favorite stuffed bear, a head taller than me.

My father called me to help, and—being men together—we loaded the usual gift for Grandma into the trunk: a bag of mixed fodder for her pigs.

Then we piled into the car—a red Moskvich 412—and headed out. My father was a cautious driver. He never even went out on the highway at night. Forty years of driving and not a single accident.

I used to get carsick. But I had to put up with it when we went to Zarechnoye. We drove all the way through Chechnya and Dagestan, to the Cossack settlements. Along the road we would see rows of gypsy encampments out on the steppe. We would drive down alleys full of ancient trees, lime trees, and every time he saw them my father would tell us that those lime trees had been planted during the reign of Catherine the Great.

For some reason he thought this was a big deal.

But then we would emerge from the dark forest, and a marvelous vision would open out before us: on both sides of the road the fields were covered with scarlet flowers in full bloom, opium poppies, mak, like my name; they were like a fire blazing, filling the whole steppe, flames as far as you could see!

And of course we would stop and gather big armfuls. And my mom wouldn’t scold us when we brought the poppies into the car and when they shed their petals, messing up the seats. She loved the flowers, and the color red.

Grandma always knew exactly when we would arrive. She would be outside standing at the gate, holding up her palm as a sunshade over her wrinkled forehead, looking into the distance. How did she know that our dusty, rattling old Moskvich had already reached Zarechnoye? Did the birds tell her?

She didn’t stand out there like that all day long, did she?

Inside the hut the air was hot and steamy from two days of baking: fish pies, potatoes and meat, salad, fruits. And a bottle of homemade red wine would stand on the table, waiting. Grandma had a vineyard—twenty sotki big! How did she manage it all?

Everything is so delicious! The grownups are lazy; they’ll just sit around gossiping, eating, and drinking the whole afternoon. But we have things to do. We grab some pie, drink a glass of wine each—like the grownups—and take off running.

To the Terek.

I could find the path with my eyes closed. Along Grandma’s fence to the end, then across a ditch and a field, and then a ravine and some woods, and finally there it was: the Terek! The river is big, smooth, deep. It wasn’t like the stream in our village, which only comes up to your waist, and only up to the grownups’ knees. No, the Terek has a strong current, and you shouldn’t swim out too far or you’ll be caught in a whirlpool and that’ll be the end of you. The vodyanoi demon will drag you all the way down to the bottom. My sister kept a close eye on me. If I tried anything, she yelled at me. She’s the older one. We’d splash around for a while, then make our way back to the hut.

It was dark at night on the farm. Keep your eyes peeled. Though why would you want to peel your eyes? I never got that.

Jackals howled on the other side of the garden, down by the Terek. If a traveler came across them at night, he was done for; they’d surround him and tickle him to death. And when they howled, it sounded like little kids crying, or else laughing really hard. Try and make sense of it. Maybe they had someone in their clutches out there.

I got to sleep in Grandma’s room, on a trunk. They’d already made my bed. I loved the trunk! Grandma told me that it was her hope chest; she brought her trousseau in it when she married Grandpa. Her family was rich—the trunk was huge! It used to belong to her mother, and before that, to her mother’s mother. Made of oak, with metal bands around it, and decorated with silver trim.

We went to bed. Grandma prayed to her icons first, and then got into her bed with its ornate cast-iron frame. I lay down on my trunk. But I didn’t want to go to sleep! I wanted Grandma to tell me stories.

“Tell me a story, Grandma!”

“What do you want to hear?”

“About the old days!”

“What is there to tell? I don’t remember anything!”

Grandma dissembled, delayed. That was part of the ritual; she did it every time. She would eventually tell a story, though, however much she protested, and when she did, she would talk and talk until after midnight.

First, for a warm-up, she’d tell about how the Reds came to the settlement. They stabbed Great-Grandpa to death with their sabers, right there in the bed where he lay wounded from battle. Before that, when Great-Grandpa was healthy and able to ride his horse, there was no way the Reds could have gotten into the settlement. Great-Grandpa was the ataman!

But then the Reds came, a shabby, rough sort of bunch—they said there’s no tsar anymore, and no God either!

They went around to all the huts and the church, gathered up the icons, and took them to the public square, where they piled them up and set fire to them. They put pots over the fires with the icons and tried to make watermelon honey. But the bottoms of the pots melted through and all the honey leaked out. They tried using different pots, but the same thing happened. And every time they tried a new pot, it would leak when they put it over the fire made of holy icons! So they couldn’t make their watermelon honey.

Because there is a God. The time will come when those godless men who sold Christ and their own eternal souls will weep bitter tears.

I’d heard the story countless times before, but I do not interrupt. It got more interesting from there.

“Ba! Tell about how it was after the war!”

“Oh, vnuchek! It was a terrible time! So many soldiers lay dead on the fields— there was no one to give them a funeral and a proper burial. And the wolves came and multiplied! Fed on the carrion. Only there was something strange about those wolves. The people were strange, too. Everything went to support the war, and famine spread over the villages and cities—people ate one another to survive. It got so you couldn’t tell the difference between wolves and men.”

“Grandma, you’re scaring me! But those were just rumors, right?”

“What do you mean, rumors? I saw it myself.”

“Saw what, Grandma?”

“Well I’ll tell you. I was on a carriage going out of town. We used to work on the collective farm during the week, just to get our work credits. But to earn money to buy bread for the children, your mother and her sister, and their brother, I used to sell melons at the market. So I’m coming back from the market one night. And two Cossacks are walking along the road, strangers. They say, ‘Give us a lift, sister Cossack, take us to the station!’ but I really don’t like the look of them. They were dragging their feet, and their shoulders looked cramped, somehow, like they were wearing someone else’s shirt. Or like they were wearing someone else’s body. And their voices had a hollow sound to them. I didn’t say anything, just flicked the mare with the switch, giddyup, let’s get a move on. She was a good horse, and she took off at a gallop. But the devil made me turn and look back, and I saw two wolves skulking along behind the carriage, green eyes gleaming. No Cossacks in sight. I nearly died of fright. Barely survived. I kept praying and crossing myself the entire way home. That’s what saved me!”

“So Grandma, if they were werewolves, then why couldn’t they just jump into the carriage and grab you?”

“They weren’t really alive, that’s why! Remember this, my dear: Spirit creatures can’t enter our world completely. They have to trick people into letting them in. All it takes is for you to say just once, ‘yes, all right.’ And that’s it, you’re done for. They’ll drag you to their lair, they’ll swallow your soul! So don’t get into conversations with strangers, don’t open your door to anyone at night, and don’t give rides to people you don’t know. Those are the three rules.”

“Now tell me about Grandpa!”

“Oh, dearie…” Grandma fell silent. She was probably crying. “I loved my husband. He’s the only man I ever had. He gave me three children, and I stayed faithful to him my whole life, even after he died. And I was a good-looking girl, the Collective Farm Chairman himself came courting. He was one-eyed and ugly, like the devil. And he said, ‘Stepanida, here I am, the last man left in the settlement. Who else is there for you to marry? I’m a good man. I’ll take you, kids and all. And if you don’t marry me, I’ll bring up your White Guard past and ruin you. You’ll rot in prison, you and your kids along with you.’”

“What did you say?”

“I was raking hay at the time. So I poked him in his fat belly with my pitchfork and told him, ‘It is said: Your first husband is from the Lord, the second from man, and the third from the devil. I had Volodenka, and he was from the Lord, and he died in the war. The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Now I don’t need anything from man, much less the devil. And you’re a one-eyed devil at that! Do whatever you want, harass me, try to hurt me, but make no mistake about it, I’m the ataman’s daughter, and I fear nothing except the Lord’s wrath. I’ll scoop your guts out with this pitchfork!’”

“So then what?”

“Nothing. He stopped bothering me after that, the monster.”

We lay there quietly and thought to ourselves. A moth beat against the window, attracted by the light inside.

“Ba, tell me about how Grandpa died.”

“We don’t know the details, dear. I got a death notice, that’s all. It said he died a hero’s death, at such and such a village, on such and such a day, and that was it. After the war I went to the village where they said it happened and tried to find his grave. Couldn’t find a thing. Anyway, I already knew that he hadn’t been given a proper funeral and burial. And he was a Christian, yet! He’d been baptized! Wasn’t some commie.”

“How do you know that he wasn’t buried?”

“If they’d given him a proper burial, would he have wandered the earth after he died? Would he have come to see me?”

“What do you mean, ‘come to see you,’ Grandma? Didn’t you say he was killed?”

“It happened the usual way. I got the death notice and was sitting in the hallway crying. And my friends came over, all of them already widows, and they told me how to handle it. ‘Stepanida,’ they said, ‘your sorrow is great, but what can you do, it’s war. Cry, grieve, but don’t bring on God’s wrath. Your Vladimir died—that was God’s will. And it’s not proper for the dead to walk the earth before the Judgment Day. We have our world, they have theirs. The dead don’t belong among the living, and the living don’t belong among the dead.’ That’s what they told me. And now I’m telling you the same, vnuchek, and don’t you forget it!”

“What do you mean?”

“At first I didn’t understand either. But they explained: ‘Some soldiers who weren’t given a proper Christian funeral rise from the fields and walk back home. Their soul is far away, mind you, awaiting God’s judgment. But their body finds its way home, by habit. Finds its way by the stars and by the smell. And it comes and stands outside your door and asks you to open up and let it into the hut. Only at night, though. If you get one of these visits during the day, it’s more likely to be a deserter than a dead man. Deserters can sneak by while the sun’s still out. But dead men hide during the day, lurk behind bushes and in ditches, shunning the light. That’s how you can tell the difference. He’ll come at night, but all the same, don’t let him in! Remember, it’s not really your Vladimir, it’s a dead man, just an empty body! Your beloved Vladimir, his Christian soul, is at peace—one hopes—in Heaven. Be strong, sister, don’t open that door. Remember what happened to Nikitishna; she disappeared a month after she got the notice about Ivan. They found her body out in the woods; the wolves had eaten all the flesh off her bones. It’s the living dead—they’ll call and beckon, they’ll lure you away to the riverbank or into the woods, and leave you there for the wild animals to eat. It always happens that way. And now Nikitishna’s two little children are orphans—no father, and no mother either.’”

“So Grandma, did Grandpa come to visit?”

“He did. Ten days after I got the news. It was a dark night. I put the children to bed, and I was sitting there doing the mending. And I heard a scratching at the door, a voice saying ‘Stesha, open up! It’s me, your husband Vladimir!’ And it was definitely his voice. My Volodenka! I jumped up, beside myself, was about to rush to the door and fling it open. But I held myself back, sobbing, and said, ‘If it’s really you, Volodenka, and you’ve deserted your unit and are still alive, then go hide in the barn for now, and when the sun comes up, come back in daylight and knock again. Then I’ll let you in. And I’ll help you hide from the authorities: I won’t tell a soul!’ But he kept saying the same thing: ‘Open up, Stesha! Open up right now! I’m tired, I’ve missed you. I want to hold you in my arms, make love to you while the children are asleep.’ And I was trembling all over! I’m a woman, after all, I need loving! But I looked at the children, and I answered, ‘No, Volodenka, I can’t! If it were just me, then I’d let you take me anywhere you wanted, to the river bank, or to feed me to the wolves, if only so I could touch your hand one more time! But we have three children, and if you kill me, who will take care of them? They’ll starve to death. If you’re dead, go away, don’t torment my sinful soul!’ But he wouldn’t leave. He kept on scratching at the door till the sun came up. And when morning came, he disappeared.”

“Maybe you dreamed it, Grandma?”

“No, vnuchek. It wasn’t a dream. I was sewing, remember, so I pricked my finger with the needle on purpose, just to see if it was all for real. I didn’t wake up, and in the morning my finger was still covered with blood. But, you know, that wasn’t the end of it—he came back again and again. He came every night. Our hut was outside the village. And after midnight I’d hear it again, the scratching at the door, or else he’d be peeking in the window, and he’d keep calling out to me, begging. And there I was crying and praying. It was so hard for me—I have feelings, vnuchek! I would have gladly rotted out there with him! But the thought of my children kept me back.”

“So how did it end, Grandma?”

“On the fortieth day from when they’d said he died, I asked for a service in the church, and we had a funeral. And after that he stopped coming. He was at peace.”

I was too amazed to ask any more questions. I had never before, nor have I since, heard a story about a stronger and more terrible love.

But now I really couldn’t get to sleep. And though it was long past midnight and time to stop talking, I kept after her, hoping to hear a story, a fairy tale:

“Grandma, tell me about the rusalki!”

“What can I say? I’ve never seen one.”

“Who has?”

“My grandpa shot the last rusalka in the orchard, with a flintlock rifle.”

“What was she doing in the orchard?”

“What do you mean? Stealing apples of course. For her children.”

“You mean they had children?”

“Of course! They had everything people do: husbands, wives, children. But they would go around naked and they didn’t speak our human language. They were big and strong and had strong hands. But other than that, you couldn’t tell the difference between one of them and a normal person.”

“What do you mean, Grandma? The fairy tales say that rusalki are girls with fish tails instead of legs.”

“That’s just in the stories. But I’m telling you the way it really was. Fish tails! What will they think of next? The only fishy thing about the rusalki was that fish paste of theirs.”

“What fish paste, Grandma?”

“Fish paste! They used to follow our fishermen around and gather up fish guts. The men would go out onto the Terek and catch fish, and they’d clean them right there on the riverbank and toss the guts into the bushes. And the rusalki would be waiting out there. They would grab the fish guts and drag them away.”

“What did they use them for?”

“Hold on, silly! I’m telling you. They collected poppies, too, mak. And they would make paste by mixing the mak with the fish guts. They would boil it and then lick it. But woe to anyone who tried to eat it—it was highly toxic. Every once in a while one of our Cossacks tried some of the fish paste and immediately started acting crazy. He wouldn’t cover his shame, would stop going to church, would give up working in the fields. And he stopped caring about anything but sucking on the paste. Worse than a drunk! He’d become like a rusalka himself. Or would leave and go to the city.”

“Wow! And where did the rusalki come from?”

“From nowhere. They’d always lived here, they were here before we were. We’re the ones who came from somewhere else. Some from Russia, others from Ukraine. Our ancestors came and attacked the rusalki, they wiped out the whole tribe. They were strong, but they had no religion, and they had no weapons. Naked as junkies.”

“Monkeys, Grandma.”

“What?”

“You said junkies. What kind of a word is that? You need to say it right: naked as monkeys.”

“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself! Correcting your Grandma! As though your Russian’s so perfect. Don’t forget your father was named Raul!”

“So what if I’m Raulevich? I got an A in Russian! And in literature, too!”

“Well, if you’re so smart, I won’t tell you any more stories, since you know everything already.”

Grandma would act offended, but it was just for fun. She loved my father, actually. And my father adored her. Not at all like in those mother-in-law jokes.

“Look, Grandma! I was just saying. It’s just a funny thing to say, that’s all, junkie. It’s not a mistake, just an idiom, I guess.”

“You’re getting too big for your britches. ‘Idiom’—I bet you made that up.”

Grandma sounded like she was complaining, but obviously she was proud of my erudition. She would give it some thought, then conclude:

“The old folks used to say that at one time those rusalki had their own villages and farmlands, and cities with big bazaars. It was a powerful land! But the fish paste destroyed them. Whenever a person licked some of the paste, whatever he imagined seemed real to him. It was like witchcraft.”

“How did it work, Grandma?”

“Here’s how. Let’s say someone wants some nice new clothes. He can sit down and sew some. But if he licks some paste, he’ll imagine that he’s all decked out in brocades and silks. He looks in the mirror and admires himself. And the people around him, those who didn’t have any of the paste, see that the man is naked. Or say he wants a horse—he’ll eat some paste, and he’ll imagine that he has a horse. He’ll take a switch and gallop around the fields, swatting at his own heels with it. Even food—all it takes is one whiff of the paste, and he’ll imagine that he’s full, that he’s had a big meal of fish, and meat, and fresh bread, and wine. He’ll puff his belly out and stagger around! But you can’t fool yourself forever. When you don’t eat anything at all, and just rely on the paste, eventually you’ll swell up from hunger. The only rusalki who survived were the ones who ate apples and wild fruits. But they stopped plowing their fields and building houses. They even forgot how to catch fish! All they did was keep on mixing their paste—that was one art they didn’t lose, and they never passed it on.”

“How could they have told it to anybody if they couldn’t talk?”

“It was only later on they didn’t know how to speak, but they used to be able to. How could they have maintained their great state without language? Anyway, the rusalki kept the secret of their fish paste to themselves. And that gunk ruined them. They died from malnutrition, from exposure, from wars. One of them would eat some paste and suddenly think he’s holding a sword in his hand, and he would wave his hand around in the air, and some Cossack just looks on and laughs, then goes up and stabs him to death.”

“Were the Cossacks really that mean?”

“What else would they be? Those rusalki were just taking up space, doing nothing. They scared off the livestock, destroyed orchards, and even started harassing good Christian people in disgusting ways.”

“How did they… harass them?”

“You’re too young to know about that.”

“Tell me, Grandma. Just skip over the details.”

“Well, let’s say, for example, that the rusalka was a male. He’d go out and stand in the street, right in front of our girls. And he’d start strutting around, making crazy faces. He would think that he was decked out in his finest clothes, with striped trousers, a Circassian coat with an ammunition belt, a fur hat, a saber in a scabbard, and that he was mounted on a fine horse to boot—but he’s just a stoned rusalka! Had too much fish paste. And what the girls see is a naked man out there in the road, and his shame is poking right out at them, saints alive! The girls take off running, and he chases after them, just like that, without a stitch on! And now the Cossacks come out of their huts, the girls’ fathers, brothers, and fiancés, that is, and of course they hack the shameless infidel to death.”

“Wow!”

“And if the rusalka was a female, then she’d go up to the Cossacks when they were hauling in their nets or were busy with some other gainful employment, and start striking poses! It would be obvious that she’d licked some paste—she’d look into the water and see her reflection: an elegant princess, pure as the driven snow, all in silks and pearls, her face veiled like an innocent bride’s. But in fact, she has no more shame than the so-called horseman—she’s naked and dirty. The Cossack men, at least the ones who were weak of faith, licked their chops. So the Cossack women kept a close watch on them. They would slap the men in the back of the head, and would flog the she-devil with pokers and drive her out into the Terek, into the middle, where it’s deep, and drown her.”

“That’s so cruel!”

“No it’s not, vnuchek. That’s life. And that’s how come there aren’t any rusalki anymore.”

“Grandma, your stories are amazing! There’s nothing like them in any books! Especially the ones about the rusalki. They’re more like the abominable snowman! So why do you call them rusalki?”

“What do you mean, why? All they could do was bleat and grunt. Khy-khy, zy-zy, ry-ry. Khy-zyry… Kha-zary… they just babbled. Didn’t even know their own name. We had to call them something. Every creature needs a name…”

CONCLUSION

On one of those nights when I couldn’t get to sleep, there was a knock on my door; the doorbell was broken. I opened up immediately, without asking who was there. I knew. Who else would come knocking at this time of night?

“Well, let’s get comfortable, shall we, Mack?”

“My name is Maximus. Only one person ever had the right to call me Mack. But she left. Like all the others.”

Maximus came in and sat down on the edge of my folded-out sofa bed.

“Want her back? I can do that. Or should I make it so she never left?”

I sat down on the swivel chair in front of my desk, the one with the computer I was using to enter my text.

“No, everything is as it should be. I’m meant to be alone.”

“So what do you want?”

“I want you to answer a few questions. They’ve been piling up. How did you find me?”

He smirked and silently showed me my own business card. There was only one word on it: “Creator.”

“I feel that things must be coming to a close. You’ve posed too many riddles. Burdened me with all of your own doubts. Now you need to give me some answers.”

“Go ahead, ask.”

“May I smoke?”

“No. You quit. So, what’s your second question?”

Not paying any attention, he got out a cigarette, lit it using his silver lighter, and inhaled deeply.

“I’ll begin with the easiest thing. White and black Khazars, Slavs and Rus, elves and other fairy-tale bullshit… who cares what they’re called, in the end: Do the elite truly differ in any essential way from ordinary people? Are they different in terms of race, blood, who the hell knows what else, or are they just the same thugs as you or I, just thugs who’ve simply managed to grab fortune by the tail?”

“Yes and no. It’s an illusory distinction, really. Every elite, in order to preserve its place at the top, is faced with two opposing tasks: first, to prove that they’re the same as everybody else, and then to prove that they’re different. They need to assure the subjugated population that they are of the same flesh and blood, that they identify with them and are concerned about their welfare. But they also have to justify why they, and not some other poor random bastards, occupy their privileged place in society. This is why you see so many contradictory things about them in print… the sources just record what was said at any given time when the elite, reacting to whatever situation was at hand, happened to emphasize one argument over another.”

“All right then. Here’s a different kind of question: Does God love me?”

“The Lord doesn’t feel love or hatred for anybody, though it might seem that way sometimes.”

“Somehow I knew that that was exactly what you were going to say.”

“What do you mean, you knew?”

“That you wouldn’t give an answer.”

“It’s basically from the Vedanta Sutra. There are a lot of commentaries on the subject.”

“I see that you’re working on one yourself.”

“Vedanta means ‘the end of knowledge.’ The end of all knowledge. All subsequent books are merely commentaries upon the Vedanta Sutra.”

“Let’s come back down to earth. To our sinful, fallen world. All the material goods that we use these days are cultivated, produced, and assembled in ‘third world’ countries. But all the ideas and dreams continue to be produced in the ‘first world.’ The only country remaining in the ‘second world’ is Russia. And Russia doesn’t do anything. Just eats and sleeps. Eats other people’s food and dreams other people’s dreams. How long can this go on? Until all the oil and gas is used up? And then what? I’m concerned, I guess, about Russia’s fate.”

“Oh, the fate of Russia’s not the most important thing, believe me! What’s more important is to make sure that your liver doesn’t start acting up and that your teeth don’t rot.”

“Very funny.”

“It’s not funny at all. People lose their sense of humor when they have a toothache. Personally, I’d rather deal with a debilitating level of anxiety about the fate of Russia than an average level of anxiety about pulpitis or periodontal disease. Not to mention something like indigestion. That kind of thing can really ruin your life.”

“Don’t pretend to be a doctor. You’re only a creator.”

“Touché. But since we’ve started in on the notion of creation, I’ve recently come to the conclusion that Russia doesn’t exist at all. What, in your opinion, is this Russia you’re so worried about? This empty wasteland, pustyr?”

“Pustosh.”

“This emptiness, pustosh, was here long before it was given the name Russia. And when Russia is no more, this pustosh will continue to exist, so there’s no need to be concerned for its sake. If ‘Russia’ does come to an end, other people will come and settle the land and give it a different name. Is the name all that important to you? Plus, you’re not even a Russian, so why are you so concerned about Russia? What’s it ever done for you?”

“Ah, so now you’ll start in on my Khazar identity. The same old xenophobia—it’s an old joke that’s not funny anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time now. I’m a citizen of my country.”

“Oh, if only you knew, my dear friend, what you’re really a citizen of… no, I’m not talking about how your soul is one little particle in the Supreme, in Brahman, which is greater than the whole universe. But, look, if you need to hide behind the illusion of some country or other, help yourself. Nothing to it. Maya!”

“Could you repeat that? In Russian, this time?”

“All of Russia is between your two ears. And, by the way, that’s where China and Holland are too. Take Nils and Guan, they’re just concerned about their respective countries’ fates. Everyone worries about the future. But as far as what’s used up first—oil, rice, or dreams—that’s anyone’s guess. That’s the plain and simple truth.”

“I learned the plain and simple truth from my grandma: Don’t pick up hitchhikers, don’t talk to strangers, don’t open your door to anyone knocking in the night. But if you do, at least try to give your visitor some clear answers.”

“I’ll try.”

“Next: How is all of this connected: the pills, Holland, the Khazars…?”

“You haven’t figured it out yet?”

“No.”

“Not too bright, are you?”

He stubbed his cigarette out unceremoniously and mashed it under his heel onto my freshly washed floor—he hadn’t taken his shoes off at the door—and snapped:

“But you’re the creator here, not me. Author, writer. What I am is only image and likeness.”

“All right, here it is, The Maya Pill for Dummies. The Khazars came up with the drug. They made a goo out of fish guts—like the powder from poisonous fish that voodoo doctors feed their victims to turn them into zombies—and mixed it with a poppy-based opiate in whatever special way. The concoction had a slimy, sticky consistency, hence the name “fish paste.” The toxic fish extract paralyzes the will and enhances suggestibility, while the opium causes a pleasurable narcotic effect and brings on hallucinations. Soon the Khazars realized that the fish paste could serve as a substitute for actual goods, or, at least, could change the properties of said goods as perceived by the user.”

“Wait! So can this mixture actually replace material goods for the user, or does it only create incorrect conceptions of the value of whatever it is?”

“The answer to that question depends on which position you adhere to in that Hindu dispute about the nature of reality—the first or the second.”

“Personally, I prefer the third school, the one with the singing and dancing. But you’re apparently a secret follower of those luckless philosophers who were poisoned with fly agaric before the dispute began. I can tell that your answers won’t lead to anything of substance. Let’s close the subject. Go on about the Khazars.”

“So Khazaria became a transit center for trade between east and west, north and south. Anything with fish paste added sold much better everywhere. This made Khazaria wealthy and prosperous, but only for a while. The fish paste eventually destroyed the underlying economy. Nothing was as profitable as making fish paste. Gradually the Khazars stopped doing anything else, and concentrated all their efforts on mixing the drug and using the paste to cement their trade relationships. Soon the wealth of Khazaria started attracting attention from hostile nations, and the Khazars were powerless to resist. They had already forgotten how to plow, and make war, and build. In fact, it was the Byzantines who built their last fortress, Serkel. Instead of their native warriors they used mercenaries, and the mercenaries had no particular desire to give their lives for someone else’s country. Khazaria fell under enemy attack: Rus from the west, nomads from the east. After their cities were destroyed, many Khazars fled to Europe, taking with them the recipe for the fish paste. In Europe the concoction was modified and refined for specific needs, either by the Khazars themselves or by people who had managed one way or another to get their hands on the recipe. Since the time of the great Khazar migration to Europe, trade began to develop, towns grew into great cities, the bourgeoisie emerged, and capitalism was born. When the mysticism of the Middle Ages fell into decline, sorcerers and alchemists gave way to other pseudo-scientists specializing in such fields as marketing and management. These sciences are essentially the same as their predecessors: They’re merely research into the most effective ways to use fish paste. And how to turn everything into money.”

“So what did they come up with? How did they use the paste?”

“Every way you can imagine. The Europeans were far more talented and inventive, and made considerably more progress, than the ancient Khazars, who had never managed to turn their product into anything more than a disgusting and smelly slime. As you know, in the Netherlands, which has always been a strong country in the chemical industry, they figured out how to produce the stuff in the form of neat little pink pills with no taste or smell.”

“Yes, the pills. I have some. Want a try?”

“No thank you. I have some of my own.”

“Fair enough. What happened then?”

“It just took off. At first the chemists were mostly interested in the actual recipe—that is, the specific ingredients that went into it and their proper proportions. Later on, some brilliant thinkers realized that the really important ingredients were actually the four principles of the gunk’s effect: suppression of the will, an increase in suggestibility, arousal of pleasure, and the inducement of a hallucinatory state. Here too, of course, you need to know in what proportions to combine these effects: to what degree ought the will be suppressed, ought suggestibility be enhanced, ought the pleasure centers of the brain be activated, and then which particular hallucinations ought to be induced for whatever specific purpose. Once they saw that the paste’s value was in these states of mind, not so much in the goo itself, they discovered that they could reproduce them by other means in just about any form you could think of. Those same principles go into every TV broadcast or election speech. Books too, for example. Books are also pills!”

He had no more questions. He just stood up and went out the open door. Didn’t even say good-bye.

It was already light outside. I’d managed to get a couple of hours of sleep. Then I woke up, all by myself, without the alarm clock. It had been a long time since I’d set it; what was the point?

I washed, shaved carefully, brushed my teeth, and took a shower. I looked in the cupboard and chose an outfit that would make a good impression, professional but not too formal. And headed for Nevsky Prospect.

Nevsky was already crowded with people and cars. Amid the dense fabric of the city’s usual noise I heard a strange sound, something like little bells ringing. I looked down the street in the direction of the noise, and saw a sparse but exotic-looking little procession approaching. Girls wearing bright Indian saris and men draped in what looked like white and saffron-colored sheets. They were all singing and dancing. One boy was beating a drum that hung on a strap around his neck; some of the others were tapping miniature copper cymbals. It was the cymbals’ thin, bell-like sound that I had heard from a distance. I thought, there they are, the philosophers of the third school.

The procession came closer and soon drew even with me. Alongside the singers walked a very pretty girl with a red dot on her forehead. She was holding a tray with some round pinkish sweets arranged on it. I stood on the edge of the sidewalk and watched the philosophers of song and dance go by.

She came up to me and held out the tray:

“Take one!”

“What is it?”

“Imagine that it’s a pill that will relieve you of doubt and suffering forever.”

“But how?”

“It will end your material existence, which is the source of both doubt and suffering.”

Well now. So they have pills too. To help one lead a purely spiritual existence. But she’s a nice, normal-looking girl! What got her so involved in… philosophy? And she’s not shy about preaching, apparently—just comes right out with it. Must be new at this.

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve already heard about you. And I like you, really. I far prefer your methods to those of other schools. But… I’m not ready yet.”

The walk light turned green and I started across the street. The procession continued on its own way. Within a few minutes, all I could hear was that thin, bell-like sound, mixed in with the noise of the cars and people. And then it faded away, dissolved into the din of the great city.

I walked down the canal embankment that ran perpendicular to Nevsky Prospect, and stopped in one of my favorite cafés, one that was relatively quiet for this part of the city. I waited briefly in line and ordered an espresso.

I didn’t really want any coffee.

I needed to gather my thoughts.

Though I had already made my decision.

I needed to find the business card.

And that wasn’t difficult.

I knew that it wouldn’t be.

Not the kind of business card that you stick in your pocket at some point, and then you decide you need it for some reason and so turn everything inside out looking for it, upending your briefcase, shaking everything out onto the floor, rummaging through your whole apartment, even checking inside books to see if you might have stuck it between the pages. And you still can’t find it.

The kind I mean is always with you. And when you finally make your decision, it’s right there where you need it.

I took my wallet out of my inside jacket pocket and opened it. There was the business card, in the transparent plastic pocket. Where my debit card used to be. But I didn’t feel at all concerned, just then: I figured I must have put the bank card in some other pocket.

There was only one word on this business card too.

And some numbers. A phone number, I presumed.

I didn’t have my cell phone with me. I’d stopped using it long ago. Hadn’t even thought to bring it along.

There’s a telephone on the wall near the counter in the café for customers to use. You can call anywhere in the city for free and talk as long as you want, so long as there isn’t some antsy girl waiting in line behind you looking at her watch. And so long as it’s a direct number. This number was the most direct imaginable. All seven numbers were the same. I procrastinated a moment wondering if there were even any numbers in our area code with that prefix. But it could have been a new system with its own fiber-optic cables, or something, operating independently from the regional phone system.

I dialed the number. A girl’s voice answered. I gave my name, and she said simply: “I’ll connect you.”

Then a man’s voice came on the line. I gave my name again. He said:

“Delighted. Come right over to the office, and we’ll go through the contract.”

Which caught me off guard.

“But I haven’t told you what I want yet…”

His answer didn’t quite match: “We knew you would call.”

He transferred me back to the girl, who told me how to get to the office. It wasn’t that far from Nevsky Prospect; in fact, it was quite close to the café where I was making the call. Soon I was at the address, standing by the door. There wasn’t anything special about it, no gothic monograms or anything like that. Just a doorbell. I pushed it.

I heard footsteps on the other side, and a girl opened the door and invited me inside.

“Come with me. I’ll take you…”

Judging from the sound of her voice, it was the same girl who’d answered the phone.

We passed through a large foyer and went down a long corridor to a spacious office, where a man was sitting behind a massive desk. Apparently the girl and this man, her boss, were the only people working here. Such extravagance, thought I, and right in the center of the city, with its insanely high rents for commercial space! They must own the building.

The man stood up when I entered the room.

He didn’t look at all like Al Pacino. Young, blond, with soft features. There was absolutely nothing infernal about his appearance. He shook my hand; his grip wasn’t too firm, wasn’t too limp: just right. He didn’t hold my hand for too long, didn’t pull back his hand too early, and his palm was dry and warm. Everything was ideal—creepily so.

“Hello! Glad to see you! Have a seat.”

He indicated a comfortable chair in front of a small coffee table at the wall, and instead of going back to his desk, he took a seat in a chair on the other side of the table, just like mine, exactly the same height. Perfect manners.

“To tell you the truth, we’re a little pressed for time. I have to close the deal today and submit a report.”

“I’m ready. I’ve just been a little busy, finishing up my book.”

“Good for you! Was it difficult?”

There was nothing forced or artificial about his tone. Just sincere interest and concern. The question could just as well have been about my decision or my literary labors… I preferred to believe the latter.

“How to begin… actually, this is harder. When you finish a book, you think that you’ve already said and done everything you could, and you don’t know why you should bother to go on living… Time to die, pal, you tell yourself. But the days go by, weeks, months, and you accumulate new experiences, new ideas come to you. Or maybe they’re just new words and images for the same old thoughts. And the conclusion you reach is always the same, essentially: Just keep on doing what you’re doing. Keep on pushing that boulder up the hill, dance while the music is playing, fight on without worrying about victory or defeat. Everyone finds his own image, the only possible thought for him or her, and tries to communicate it to the world. We have no choice! But a feeling of emptiness at a certain stage is unavoidable.”

“I understand. I hope that the fruit of your labor was worth all the effort.”

“Sometimes it seems to me that any normal person who’d read my book would have only two questions: First, what was the author smoking? And second: Is there any more?”

He laughed the beautiful laugh of a healthy, genial, self-assured man.

“Well, that’s hardly the worst reaction! Your literary experiments are undoubtedly extremely interesting. But let’s get down to business. Please take a look at the terms of the contract.”

There was a stack of papers lying on the table. He slid it over to my side.

I skimmed the dozen or so pages, which were covered with fine print, and said, “All right. I agree.”

“Then let’s sign.”

I have to admit that I was still a little nervous. I’d made a point of bringing a pen from home. I got it out and pricked my finger with the sharp end.

A single drop of scarlet blood spilled onto the white page next to my signature.

He gave a satisfied smile and, gathering up the signed contract, noted: “That was not at all necessary.”