Buddha's Little Finger Read online

  Timur Timurovich clicked a switch on the wall, took the colonel by the arm and led him in the direction of the door. I closed my eyes and realized that I did not have enough strength to open them again.

  ‘Sometimes I think that all our soldiers brave.’ a man began singing in a mournful voice, ‘Who fell on battle’s bloody hills and plains, Were never buried in their native graves, But turned into a soaring flight of cranes…’

  At these final words turmoil broke out in the ward.

  ‘Keep tight hold of Serdyuk!’ yelled a voice right beside my ear. ‘Who put those blasted cranes on? Have you forgotten, or what?’

  ‘It was you asked for it to be turned on,’ answered another voice. ‘Let’s change channels.’

  There was another click.

  ‘Is the time now past.’ an ingratiating voice asked from the ceiling, ‘when Russian pop music was synonymous with provincialism? Here’s the chance to judge for yourself. The «Inflamed Ovaries» are a rare kind of Russian pop group, consisting entirely of women whose stage gear weighs as much as a «T-90» tank. Despite such ultra-modern features, the «Inflamed Ovaries» play mostly classical music, but in their own interpretation. Listen to what the girls make of a simple fugue in F by the Austrian composer Mozart, who is well known to many of our listeners from the cream liqueur that bears the same name, which can be bought wholesale from our sponsor, the trading firm «Third Eye».’

  I heard the beginning of wild music, like the wind howling in a prison chimney, but I was already, thank God, only half-conscious. At first I was overwhelmed by tormenting thoughts about what was happening, and then I had a brief nightmare about an American wearing dark glasses which seemed to continue the story told by the unfortunate Maria.

  The American landed his plane in a yard, soaked it with kerosene and set fire to it. Into the flames he threw the crimson jacket, the dark glasses and the canary-yellow trousers, until he was left wearing nothing but the skimpy trunks. Rippling his magnificently developed muscles he searched for something in the bushes for a long time, but failed to find it. Then there was a gap in my dream, and the next time I saw him - horror of horrors! - he was pregnant: the encounter with Maria had obviously not been without its consequences. At that precise moment he was transformed into a terrifying metal figure with a sketchy mask in place of a face, and the sun glinted furiously on his swollen belly.

  3

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

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

  Suddenly I realized that I had not been dreaming the music

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

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

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

  I turned towards the piano.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  As though in a trance, I thrust the Mauser back into its holster, stood beside him and waited for the right moment before lowering my fingers on to the keys. My counterpoint scarcely managed to limp along after the theme, and I made several mistakes; then my gaze fell once again on Vorblei’s splayed legs, and the absurdity of the entire situation came home to me. I shrank sharply away from my companion and stared at him wide-eyed. He stopped playing and sat motionless for a while, as though he were deeply absorbed in his own thoughts. Then he smiled, reached out his hands and lifted the crucifix from the piano.
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  ‘Splendid,’ he said. ‘I could never understand why God should manifest himself to people in the ugly form of a human body. It has always seemed to me that the perfection of a melody would have been far more appropriate - a melody that one could listen to on and on for ever.’

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked.

  ‘My name is Chapaev,’ the stranger replied.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Chapaev seemed to have read my thoughts.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘No,’ I said.

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

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

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

  He walked towards the door.

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

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

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

  Chapaev laughed good-naturedly.

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

  ‘I have never heard of it.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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