Empire V (27 page)

‘How?'

‘Like this. The creation of the world includes the fabrication of a spurious, but at the same time absolutely authentic, panorama of the past. All those illimitable vistas into space and time are no more than stage settings in a theatre. Incidentally, this has already been well understood by those astronomers and physicists who have concluded that the universe is closed. Think about it yourself: even light itself cannot escape from it. There is nowhere else for it to go. What more proof could be needed that we are in prison?'

‘It may be that light cannot escape from this world,' I said, ‘but surely thought can? You yourself say that astronomers and physicists have established the outer boundaries of space and time.'

‘Yes,' replied Osiris, ‘they have … But no astronomer or physicist can tell you what that means, because such matters are hidden from the human mind; all the human mind can do is pursue various formulae. The truth still comes down to that same malevolent kaleidoscope of which I spoke earlier, only now applied to theories and deductions. It is one of Mind “B”s by-products, a kind of oil-cake derived from the production of
bablos
.'

Osiris pronounced the word ‘oil-cake' as ‘all-cake'. I was not quite sure myself what the word meant, but I thought it was the waste product from oil-yielding plants – what was left after all the oil had been pressed out of them. It was agricultural terminology; Osiris had probably picked it up from his Moldavians.

‘Hold on a minute,' I said. ‘Do you seriously expect me to believe that mankind's knowledge of the origins of the universe is simply oil-cake?'

Osiris emerged from his niche and stared at me as if I were an idiot.

‘I'm not seriously interested in what you believe,' he replied, ‘but such is the case. Think for yourself: where did the universe come from?'

‘What do you mean by “come from”?'

‘At first people believed that there was a sphere above their heads with gold dots in it. How did this sphere get transformed into the universe? What started it off?'

I thought hard.

‘Well … People began to study the sky, to look at it through a telescope …'

‘Precisely so. And why did they do that?'

I shrugged my shoulders.

‘Let me remind you,' said Osiris. ‘The great discoveries in the realm of astronomy – Galileo, Herschel, and others – were made in the hope of accumulating riches. Galileo wanted to sell his telescope to the Venetian government, Herschel hoped to sweet talk some money out of King George. That is the reason these stars and galaxies came to our consciousness. And remember this:
bablos
is soon consumed, but the oil-cake that is left lasts forever. It's like what happened in camps where nomadic mammoth-hunters lived: the meat got eaten at once, but over the years there accumulated a huge mound of ribs and tusks, which people started using to build dwelling-places. It is precisely because of such ribs and tusks that today we find ourselves living not on a round island in the cosmic ocean, as the church used to teach, but suspended in an expanding void.'

‘And is the micro-world also oil-cake?' I asked.

‘Of course. But don't make the mistake of thinking that oil-cake is something negligible. I am referring to the origins of these phenomena, their genealogy, so to say.'

‘Could we please go back to the beginning and recap step by step?' I asked. ‘We seem to be skipping about rather rapidly. You told me that the Mighty Bat was sent into exile to Earth. Where was she sent from? And who sent her?'

‘That is the most interesting question. Ishtar's punishment consisted in her not being allowed to remember who she was or where she came from. Initially she did not even realise that she had been exiled – she believed that she had herself created this world and had merely forgotten when and how she had done so. Later she began to have doubts, and she brought us, vampires, into being. To begin with we had bodies – we looked like giant bats. Well, you know all about that. Then, when the climate began to give rise to catastrophic changes, we evolved into Tongues that found lodgings in living creatures better adapted to the new conditions.'

‘Why did Ishtar create vampires?'

‘Vampires were initially creatures selected to assist the Mighty Bat. In a sense, they were projections of her. Their job was to discover the purpose of creation and explain to the Mighty Bat how and why she had made the world. They failed in this task.'

‘Yes,' I said. ‘I understand.'

‘After that the vampires decided to make the best of this world and establish themselves as comfortably as possible in it, and to that end bred the race of human beings, having created for them Mind “B”. You've had explained to you the mechanism of how Mind “B” works?'

I shook my head.

‘Mind “B” consists of two mirrors reflecting directly into one another. The first mirror is Mind “A”, and it is common to all living creatures. It reflects the world. And the second mirror is the Word.'

‘What word?'

‘Any and all words. At any given moment only one Word can appear reflected in Mind “A”, but the words can change and succeed one another very quickly, faster than an aircraft gun can shoot bullets. Mind “A” itself, however, is entirely stationary.'

‘Why do the reflections have to be words?' I demanded. ‘I for one practically never think in words. Mostly I think in pictures. Images.'

‘All your pictures are also made up of words, as a house is made of bricks. But sometimes the bricks cannot be seen beneath the plaster.'

‘But how can a Word be a mirror? What can be reflected in it?'

‘Its meaning. When you place a Word in front of Mind “A”, the Word is reflected in the mind, the mind is reflected in the Word, and between them they create the endless corridor that is Mind “B”. In this endless corridor appears not only the whole world but the person who is seeing it. In other words, what is taking place in Mind “B” is a continuous reaction analogous to atomic fission, only on a much deeper level. The absolute is split into subject and object, and as part of the process excretes
bablos
in the form of Aggregate “M-5”. What we, vampires, suck is essentially not red liquid but the absolute. But most of us are not capable of grasping this.'

‘Splitting of the absolute,' I repeated. ‘Is that a metaphor, or is it a real reaction?'

‘It is the mother of all reactions. Consider this: the Word can exist only as an object of the mind. But all objects need a subject to perceive them. They exist only as pairs: the appearance of an object leads to the appearance of a subject, and vice versa. A hundred-dollar bill presupposes the appearance of a person to observe it, like an elevator and its counterweight. Therefore when
bablos
is produced in the mirrors of the money gland, an illusion is inescapably generated alongside it – of the person who produces the
bablos
. And thus starts a continuous chain reaction leading eventually to
The Iliad
and
War and Peace
.'

‘Could you make it a bit simpler for me?' I pleaded. ‘Where are these mirrors located? In consciousness?'

‘Yes. But the dual mirror system does not hang there in a fixed position, it renews itself with every thought. Mind “B” is composed of words, and if there is no Word for something, for Mind “B” it cannot exist. Words create objects, not the other way round.'

‘So objects do not exist for animals?'

‘Certainly not,' replied Osiris. ‘It does not occur to a cat that she is surrounded by, shall we say, bricks. Until someone heaves one at her, of course. And even then, it isn't a brick, it's simply a miaow! Do you see?'

‘Yes, sort of.'

‘All right then,' said Osiris. ‘Now I can explain an unintended effect that arose in Mind “B”. This mind turned out to be a reflection of our universe. But that was not the worst of it. The universe in which we found ourselves also turned out to be a reflection of Mind “B”. And from that time on no one has been able to distinguish one from the other, because now they are one and the same. It is impossible to say: this is the mind, and that is the universe. Everything is made of Words.'

‘Why do you say Mind “B” is a model of the universe?'

‘Any two mirrors juxtaposed to face one another exactly create a malignant infinity. That is our world. The Chaldeans carry on their belts a two-sided mirror which symbolises this mechanism.'

I looked doubtfully at the kerosene lamp with its two mirrors on the table. It did not seem remotely like a model of the universe. The thought came into my head that at best it might just be taken for the first Russian laser, constructed by the autodidact Kulibinin in Samara in 1883. But immediately I realised that with the right kind of spin put on it, the device could indeed become a model of the Soviet universe into which I had been born. Osiris was right.

‘As was precisely the case with the Mighty Bat,' continued Osiris, ‘man was confronted by the question of who he was and why he had been sent here. People began to seek the purpose of life. And the most remarkable thing is – they proceeded to do so without being distracted from the main function for which they had been bred. To put it at its plainest, mankind failed to explain creation in such a way as to convince the Mighty Bat. But on the way they did arrive at a conclusion about the existence of God. This discovery was yet another unexpected consequence of the workings of Mind “B”.'

‘Is there any way of sensing God?'

‘God is not accessible either to the mind or to the emotions. At least not to human minds and emotions. Some vampires believe, however, that they approach God at the moment of taking
bablos
. For this reason it used to be said that
bablos
makes us gods.'

Osiris looked at his watch.

‘But to experience it once is better than to hear about it a hundred times.'

THE RED CEREMONY

The next three days of my life vanished without trace in the hamlet – sunk in mindless gloom, as Count Dracula had perceptively observed. On the morning of the fourth day Enlil Maratovich telephoned.

‘Well, Rama,' he said, ‘I offer you my congratulations.'

‘What has happened?'

‘Today there is to be a Red Ceremony. You are to be given
bablos
to try. An important day in your life.'

I said nothing.

‘The idea was that Mithra should call for you,' went on Enlil Maratovich, ‘but he cannot be found at the moment. I would have come myself, but I'm busy. Do you think you can get yourself to Baal's dacha?'

‘Where?'

‘To Baal Petrovich's place. He is my neighbour. Your driver knows where he lives.'

‘I'm sure I can, then, if the driver knows. What time should I be there?'

‘There's no hurry. It won't begin without you. Hera will be there as well.'

‘What should I wear?'

‘Up to you. But don't eat anything.
Bablos
is always taken on an empty stomach. That's all for now, take care.'

Twenty minutes later I was in the car.

‘Baal Petrovich?' asked Ivan. ‘I know where he lives. Sosnovka38. Are we in a hurry?'

‘Yes,' I said, ‘it's a very urgent matter.'

I was so nervous that I went into a kind of trance. I felt that the highway we were travelling along was like a river bearing me inexorably towards the abyss. My head was in a complete whirl. I could not decide which desire was the more desperate: to get to Baal Petrovich's place as quickly as possible, or to go straight to Domodedovo Airport, buy a ticket and fly immediately to anywhere that would take me without a visa. In fact, this option was not feasible since I had no documents of any kind with me.

The traffic was light and we arrived at our destination quickly, a rare enough event in Moscow. After being waved through a barrier, not unlike a border post, in a security fence bristling with CCTV cameras, Ivan brought the car to a stop in an empty parking area next to the house.

Baal Petrovich's house reminded me of something midway between an embryonic Lenin Library and a prematurely born Reich Chancellery. The building itself was not so enormous, but its wide staircases and ranks of square columns faced in dark yellow stone lent it a monumental and majestic appearance. It was an appropriate setting for an initiation ceremony. Or perhaps for some black magic ritual.

‘There's her new one,' said Ivan.

‘Her new what?'

‘Hera Vladimirovna's car. The Bentley.'

I looked all round but could not see anything.

‘Where is it?'

‘Over there, underneath that tree.'

Ivan pointed towards some bushes growing at the edge of the parking area, and then I saw a huge green car resembling a bourgeois chest of drawers daringly responding to the challenge of the times. The chest of drawers was parked on the grass, well away from the edge of the asphalt of the hard standing, half-concealed by the bushes, which was why I had not seen it at first.

‘Shall I beep her?' asked Ivan.

‘No, don't,' I replied. ‘I'll go over and take a look.'

The back door of the car was half open. I could see movements inside, and then heard laughter which I thought sounded like Hera's. I quickened my pace, and at that moment a car horn sounded. Ivan had tooted after all.

Hera's head came into view inside the car, and beside it I caught a glimpse of another head, a man's, but did not recognise it.

‘Hera,' I called, ‘Hello!'

But the door, instead of opening wider, suddenly slammed shut. Something I had not expected was going on. I froze on the spot, watching the wind flutter a St George's Ribbon tied to the door handle. I could not decide whether to go on or turn back, and was just about to go back when the door flung open and out stepped Mithra.

His appearance was dishevelled (hair all tousled, yellow bow tie halfway down his shirt front) and extremely unfriendly. I had not seen him like that before. He looked ready to punch me.

‘Spying, are we?' he asked.

‘Not at all,' I said, ‘all it was … I just saw the car.'

‘Seems to me, if a car is parked somewhere like this, any fool would know better than to come near it.'

‘Any fool might,' I replied, ‘but I'm not a fool. And it's not your car.'

Hera emerged from the car. She nodded to me, smiled guiltily and shrugged her shoulders.

‘Rama,' said Mithra, ‘if you're having trouble, how shall I put it, making out on your own, let me send you some of those preparations that Brahma left behind. There's enough for a year there. You'll be able to work out your problems by yourself and stop bothering others.'

Hera took hold of his sleeve.

‘Please, that's enough.'

I could see that Mithra was deliberately trying to insult me, and this for some reason unsettled me. Instead of becoming angry I felt disoriented. No doubt I did look rather foolish. I was rescued by the sound of a horn: Ivan was tooting again.

‘Chief,' he called, ‘you're wanted over here.'

I turned on my heel and walked back to the parking area.

A black-suited man I did not know was standing by my car. He was small, tubby, with a handlebar moustache like an elderly musketeer.

‘Baal Petrovich,' he introduced himself and shook my hand. ‘But aren't there supposed to be two of you? Where is Hera?

‘She's just coming.'

‘Why are you so pale?' asked Baal Petrovich. ‘Are you nervous?'

‘No,' I said.

‘There's nothing to fear. It is very many years since anything untoward has occurred during a Red Ceremony. We have the best possible equipment … Ah, you must be Hera? Happy to make your acquaintance.'

Hera was alone. Mithra had stayed back with the car.

‘Now then, my friends,' said Baal Petrovich, ‘please come with me.'

He turned and led the way into his Reichskanzlei. We followed, Hera avoiding looking at me.

‘What was all that about?' I asked.

‘Nothing,' she said. ‘For God's sake, we don't need to talk about it just now, do we? This day must not be spoilt.'

‘Don't you want to see me?'

‘I like you very much,' she said. ‘If you must know, much more than I do Mithra. That's the truth. But please don't tell him that, OK?'

‘OK,' I agreed. ‘Tell me, though, did you kick him in the balls as well? Or is it only me you do that to, because you like me so much?'

‘I don't wish to talk about it.'

‘If you like me so much, why do you spend time with Mithra?'

‘I'm in a phase of my life just now when I need him with me. You wouldn't understand. Or you might understand, but wrongly.'

‘That's quite beyond me. Will there be another phase of your life? When you will want me with you?'

‘Possibly.'

‘It's like the worst kind of soap opera,' I said. ‘Honestly. I can't believe you're saying this to me.'

‘It will all become clear to you in due course. Now let's drop the subject.'

Inside, Baal Petrovich's abode seemed to have no connection with the Nordic totalitarianism of its exterior. The entrance hall was decorated in early oligarch-eclectic style, with a life-size German Knight of the Sword sandwiched between a German musical box and a seascape by Aivazovsky. The only feature distinguishing the surroundings from the furnishings of a crooked accountant on the take was that the knight's armour and the Aivazovsky were genuine.

We went along the passage and stopped before a high double door. Baal Petrovich turned to Hera and me.

‘Before going in,' he said, ‘we must become better acquainted.'

Taking a step towards me he brought his face closer to mine and pecked at it with his chin, as if he were nodding towards sleep. I took a handkerchief from my pocket to wipe my neck, but the bite had been accomplished with consummate skill and not a trace was to be seen on the handkerchief.

Baal Petrovich closed his eyes and smacked his lips for a full minute. It made me feel uncomfortable – I wanted to bite him myself, to understand just what he was seeing for such a long time. At last he opened his eyes and looked at me with a twinkle.

‘So you have been thinking of joining the Tolstoyans, have you?'

‘What makes you say that?'

‘Osiris. You were intending to join his sect?'

‘Not at the moment,' I replied proudly. ‘I was simply, ah, wanting to broaden my circle of acquaintances. But please don't mention it to Enlil Maratovich. Why upset the old man?'

‘I won't say anything, don't worry. That's all right, Rama. We'll give you some
bablos
, and then you won't need to visit any of these sectarians.'

I shrugged my shoulders. Baal Petrovich advanced on Hera, bent down towards her ear and nodded his head as though responding to her quiet question. I had never before seen a vampire bite two people in such quick succession, but obviously Baal Petrovich was a specialist with great experience. After a few lip-smacking sounds, he said: ‘Very good to meet such a purposeful individual.'

He behaved to Hera with great gallantry. Also, he devoted much less time to probing her.

‘For some reason all my recent acquaintances seem to lead to the same outcome,' muttered Hera.

‘Nothing personal,' replied Baal Petrovich. ‘These bites are for purely professional purposes. I have to find out the best way to instruct you on the procedure, and for that, my friends, I need to gain an accurate picture of your inner world. Now, please come in …'

And with that he flung open the doors.

What was revealed was a brightly lit circular hall in which two colours predominated: gold and blue. The walls themselves were light blue, while gold gleamed from the pilasters, the mouldings of the ceiling and the frames of the pictures. The pictures were not interesting in themselves; in their somnolent lack of variety they were more like wallpaper: romantic ruins, noblemen on horseback, gallant rendezvous in woodland clearings. The painted ceiling was a representation of a skyscape with clouds, from the centre of which protruded a large gilded relief of the sun, backlit by concealed lamps. The sun had eyes and ears, a smiling mouth, and the general impression was of Khrushchev hiding in the ceiling. His round, complacent face beamed down to be reflected in the polished parquet floor.

Overcome by the splendour, I lingered in the doorway. Hera also stopped.

‘Please come in,' Baal Petrovich repeated. ‘We don't have too much time.'

We entered the hall. It contained no furniture except five big armchairs arranged in a semicircle around the fireplace let into one wall. The chairs were high-tech military style, equipped with servo drives, open-face helmets and a plethora of complicated couplings. Beside the group of chairs was a level control desk, raised above the floor on a steel support. In the fireplace a fire was burning, which struck me as odd since the air-conditioning was on full. Two Chaldeans in gold masks were tending to the fire.

‘Interesting,' I said, ‘you have very much the same set-up as Enlil Maratovich. He also has a circular hall, a fireplace in the wall, and chairs. But his, of course, is more modest.'

‘Nothing to be wondered at,' replied Baal Petrovich. ‘All buildings designed for a similar function have things in common, just as all violins have a similar form. Please sit down.'

He signed to the Chaldeans to leave the room. One of them stayed behind a little to add some fuel to the fire from a paper packet marked ‘BBQ Charcoal'.

‘As part of the Red Ceremony,' explained Baal Petrovich, ‘it is customary to burn some banknotes. There is no practical point to this, it is simply one of our national traditions, reflected in folklore. We are not short of money, nevertheless, out of respect for human labour we prefer to burn old currency, which we get from the State Mint.'

He glanced at his watch.

‘Now I must go to change my clothes. Please do not touch anything in the meantime.'

Warming us with an encouraging smile, Baal Petrovich followed the Chaldeans out of the room.

‘Weird chairs,' remarked Hera. ‘A bit like at the dentist's.'

To me they seemed more like props for a space odyssey film.

‘Yes, they are strange,' I agreed. ‘Especially this breastplate thing.'

Each chair was equipped with a device familiar from sci-fi films featuring interstellar foot-soldiers – it came down over the cosmonauts' chests to keep them in place during landing and take-off.

‘I expect they're to keep us from falling to the floor if we start writhing in convulsions,' I suggested.

‘Probably,' agreed Hera.

‘Aren't you at all nervous?'

She shook her head.

‘Mithra told me it was a wonderful experience. A little painful at the beginning, but then …'

‘Would you mind awfully not talking any more about Mithra?'

‘All right,' replied Hera. ‘Then let's not talk about anything.'

We had no more conversation until Baal Petrovich returned. I studied the pictures on the walls with exaggerated interest, and she sat on the edge of her seat looking at the floor.

When Baal Petrovich re-entered the room I did not recognise him. He had changed into a long robe of dark red silk and carried in his hand a bag like a cash-in-transit courier's. I remembered where I had seen a robe like it before.

‘Baal Petrovich, have you ever been in Enlil Maratovich's study?'

‘Many times,' he replied.

‘There is a picture on the wall in it,' I went on. ‘Some odd-looking people in top hats are sitting round a fire, strapped to their chairs, and with something like gags in their mouths. Near them stands a man in a red robe exactly like the one you are wearing. Is that picture an illustration of the Red Ceremony?'