The Monkey Link (45 page)

And it possessed its advantages. From inside we could continue to admire the landscape, each time revealed anew, framed anew—through each of the holes. Like the past, present, and future. I saw the road we had come by, our Rafik at the foot of the hill, the path we had climbed
 
…
When I looked at the ravine we aimed to visit, an undisturbed landscape opened up in the future
 
…
And through the third wall, my glance fell on the present: the concrete-products plant, the quarry, and a certain grayish compound enclosed by a wall exactly like that of the juvenile colony, only without towers.

I obtained the necessary explanations. It may indeed have been a prison compound at one time, but now it’s an old-age home, an asylum. In summer, they do all right—lots of pilgrims come and give alms—but in winter they’re cold and hungry. Yes, yes, pilgrims flock here from all over the Union. This is where the apostle John Chrysostom was murdered.

In the upshot, I didn’t believe a single word, especially since my escort of historians had obviously confused Chrysostom with St. John the Divine, calling him an apostle. “But how could that be!” I said indignantly. “The apostles—that was the first century!” “Well, and what if it was,” said our Armenian.

To them, the first century was nothing. In proof, a little old lady in black was scrambling up the mountain toward us with a little black goat, now pushing it, now clinging to it. A pilgrim, no less. Look, dragging herself up, they explained to me—down below they can see if anyone comes up here. Not a pilgrim, then. The old lady proved to be from the poorhouse. She had come for alms, and she was insistent. My ruble was not enough. Even three she looked at without pleasure. “I’ve come so high,” she said. The old lady was Russian. The goat grazed inside the temple.

I wanted to die. What did I care about monkeys? I was completely out of money. I flatly refused to borrow from Valery Givivovich. I would have to flee again. Good God, why couldn’t I give her everything? The little old lady tottered. Her gaze was firm—she was clinging by it. Whatever gave me the idea she was a “nice little old lady”? All churchly old women are vicious. And rightly so.

But why can’t you?
HE
said to me, snatching my wallet. Our escorts observed the scene with interest. Immediately on receiving my last twenty-five kopecks, the old lady quickly ran downhill, managing the slope with some agility. The goat barely kept up with her. Off to the store, they explained to me.

And we descended to the sacred spot. Nestled close to a yellowish gray cliff, the spring formed a creek and became a headwater. The stones around it were red. Which served as the main proof that this was where the “apostle” had been murdered. A ferrous spring, they explained to me. The pilgrims never fail to immerse themselves here. Very good for gout. I dipped a finger and pulled it out red—such was the temperature—the water was icy. But I went further—splashed my face, wiped my brow. Somehow it felt like a Muslim ritual.

My escort of historians was already disputing how he had been murdered. Had they cut off his head, or had they stabbed him?

Cut off his head was somehow more convincing. Over there on that red rock. They were confusing him with yet another John, this time the Baptist. Now they were disputing which rock. A huge one towered above the bank, with just its base submerged in water. The sole convincing point in its favor was its greater convenience for butchery. Another rock was fully underwater and therefore historically more justifiable, for the spring itself had formed as a result of the murder, from the blood of the “apostle,” which was why it was red. The small lake forming from the spring had covered the sacrificial rock with water. According to tradition, he who could lift this rock would be forthwith cleansed of all his sins.

Such a possibility could not but inspire
HIM
. Like any normal person, he instantly believed in the red rock. I could do nothing about it:
HE
was gripped by a violent ecstasy, I by a sacred terror of life. In the twinkling of an eye he had stripped off all his clothes and was standing in the creek, straining to lift the rock. I had never seen him like this: a mad gaiety illumined his face. The whole business was undeniably foolish. The rock was unliftable. There was no way he could grasp it, he broke all my fingernails
 
…
and suddenly his seeking fingers
found
two hollows, as if specially made, convenient as handles almost
 
…
the vein swelled on his forehead. “Died of the vicissitudes of travel,” I thought. But the rock shuddered and moved, more and more easily. Oh, yes, Archimedes’ law, I thought. But the rock had barely lifted its red brow above the surface when it became decidedly heavy. My escorts deemed this sufficient, however, and unanimously remitted all the athlete’s sins.

If anyone was happy, they were. How they loved
HIM
! How they congratulated him! Somewhere they found a towel. And promptly found a glass of
chacha
, too. H
E
sopped up the
chacha
like a sponge. “Verily I say unto you: you have your reward.” H
E
had earned it.

The rest happened of itself. Adidasov and Dragamashchenka arrived leading the man who had been “waiting for us here.” He was solid gold: his chain, his tooth, his watch, his watchband. Not a man—a ring. He was solid white: his shirt, his suit, his shoes, his face. He was pompous and annoyed, though it was hard to tell the one from the other. We boarded the Rafik together, however, and the Rafik filled with deodorant, and we immediately braked by an entrance gate. It was the entrance to the old-age home, and he was its director. A little old man, staggering under the weight, brought us yet another box. The box kept clinking. Adidasov exchanged a handshake with the annoyed director. Our old lady and her drunken goat happened along.

She called me aside. I had no more money, but that, it turned out, wasn’t what she had called me aside for. “Be patient another year or so. You should’ve seen ’em jump off the mausoleum!” The old lady turned away, shyly wrapping her giggle in her kerchief. “It was awfully funny. God forgive me!” She had seen a vision: St. George on a white horse in Red Square. The way he rode at the mausoleum! The way he brandished his lance! They all went jumping off the grandstand helter-skelter, losing their hats. “You should’ve seen ’em!” the old lady said merrily, pointing at the director, who was trying to herd her and her goat back into the poorhouse.

And we drove on. The Rafik surmounted increasingly steep hairpin turns. Last year there had been an unheard-of snowfall here. It had been impossible to get through. That was when their tails got frostbitten—it had been impossible to help. Whose tails? Why, where we’re going. Ah, so we’re going to the monkeys after all
 
…
I didn’t want to go to the monkeys. H
E
wanted to. Why hadn’t I had a heart attack when
HE
was trying his strength with the rock? “Died of the rigors of travel”—a wonderful epitaph! “Two men
 
…
 
”

The shady, overgrown road led us up a ravine. On the left, deep below us, seethed a river: the smell of water reached us. So did the smell of moldering leaves. These smells mingled, giving rise to a smell of earth—newly dug. Small stones sprayed from under the wheels and plunged gaily down into the abyss. We, too, had a chance of plunging down after them, into that fresh grave. But the river was not for that purpose. Its purpose was to divide free monkeys from unfree people. Previous experiments had shown that monkeys must not be settled anywhere near man. Underfed monkeys destroyed crops, and peasants naturally killed them off. Here the river divided them from people and formed a reservation for them, between itself and the mountains. Hydrophobia, the fear of water, fenced the monkeys off from man. No, not all monkeys are hydrophobic, but the ones who live here are.

Conversation in the rear:

“Excuse me, of course, but how many r’s do you have in your language, please?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just the letter r.”

“Hard
r
 
…
soft
r
 
…
trilled r, r-r-r
 
…
Three, I guess.” “Then our language is more ancient than yours: we have four.” The theory proved somewhat doubtful, but not devoid of
 
…
That the first letter was
r
—a development from the growl—and that forms of the letter
r
were the first language. And Dragamashchenka supported this by the example of his monkeys.

“Then your language isn’t more ancient, it’s more primitive,” Givivovich said in a conciliatory tone but with finality, for he was rather stung that he had one
r
less. Either way, though, he considered himself more ancient, inasmuch as he had been a Titan priest in a previous birth. He remembered this for sure—the next incarnation was the one he was hazy on—but all the same he was an internationalist as a result. He had come to a remarkable conclusion: we would keep being reborn in each other, until every people had been every nationality! In what sequence?
 
…
And Givivovich took revenge: “Other nations are reborn any old way—some even as Estonians. The Armenians alone are just Armenians.”

“And the Jews?”

“Oh, the Jews
 
…
 
”

“And the Abkhazians?”

And again the conversation turned on 1978
 
…
Oh, where is the beginning of that end!
 
…
“You got your television?” (Valery Givivovich’s voice.) “We gave you the university?” “You? gave? us? twenty minutes you gave us! one department you gave us! you didn’t give, we took!” “You didn’t take, we gave!” A discordant chorus.

Whose was the land?

It was Armenian first. No, Georgian. No, Abkhazian. No, Greek. Whose was the land—his who came earliest, or his who came latest? The Russian driver and I exchanged glances: the land, of course, was Russian.

Hydrophobia or geography? The natural boundaries of mountains, seas, and rivers had not sufficed to keep men from killing one another—nor would church boundaries suffice. Whose was the church?

His who had built it? His on whose land it was built? His whose faith had been accepted here? And again, not what is within us
 
…

And yet again: Whose kingdom was earliest? Of what nationality was the king, or of what nationality his subjects?

Tamara wasn’t an Armenian? Why did you remove the Armenian stone from Jvari!

Melancholy
 
…
“For in thy sight shall no man living be justified. And again he saith: I humbled myself and he did save me
 
…
For the heart is a Pharisee, who hath not preserved virtue but magnifieth himself concerning corrections and exalteth himself over the most idle, for he knoweth not what is written of him: Boast not yourselves, he saith, speak not of heavenly things in your pride, nor let empty verbosity issue from your lips.”

We stopped at a very pretty spot on the bank of a small river and started to unload the boxes. I had already guessed, of course, that the monkeys would be absent. But I certainly hadn’t supposed that it would be to this extent. That they would be this absent, the monkeys.

No, we didn’t immediately set about demolishing the contents of our cartons. The show Givivovich had staged for me wasn’t over yet. Four of us, Givivovich, the alpha male, the drummer, and I, crossed the Hydrophobia River by a ropeway. The bucket was rated for one occupant, so we did this four times. First the alpha male, then I went. It was fun putting on the work gloves, going hand over hand along the rope, looking down from on high at the white waters and whirlpools of the alpine monkey river Hydrophobia. It was scary, of course—I understood the monkeys. They wouldn’t even go near the river. In any case they weren’t there when I dismounted. Even so, I was very excited—if we had not attained our end, we had reached an end point. I dismounted on the bank, and the alpha male greeted me by sounding a gong. The gong was a rusty rail, which hung on a convenient branch of a convenient tree.

“We’re a bit too late,” Dragamashchenka explained. “They waited for us until one o’clock.”

My skepticism was justifiable. The monkeys may have been here at some time—board huts the size of beach cabanas stood in a row like exaggerated beehives—but on each little door hung a rusty padlock. A long counter stretched in front of the huts, perhaps a high bench, or a low table—completely empty. Yes, not without reason had everyone else stayed on the bank. They knew. Givivovich couldn’t leave me alone; Dragamashchenka was in on this, though possibly the drummer was not.

“Hurry, hurry!” Dragamashchenka shouted, as though to the monkeys who had departed into the forest, but actually he was also hurrying the two men who were following us across, as well as those who had stayed on the other bank to engage in what subsequently proved to be our main business.

“Hurry, hurry!” he shouted in a repugnant alpha-male voice, and beat on the rail. The sound waves raced up the knolls and foothills, penetrating the forest and alarming the phantom monkeys. Then Dragamashchenka grew tired and lit a cigarette. “They’ve gone far,” he lamented.

He was pretending that they usually came by one o’clock, on the chance that someone would bring feed. But if no one was here, they would go back and graze: acorns, nuts, roots
 
…
I grinned. Sure: mushrooms, berries
 
…
That’s summer, now it’s fall, he explained. I asked Dragamashchenka what was man’s first garment, and he couldn’t answer me. Givivovich became very interested, and I got him to say that it was a holster. The drummer took up the topic and stated as a certainty that the first music, and the first art in general, had been the drum. Why, even the drummer turned out to be an interesting person. He and I talked a while about the great Tarasov. Givivovich pricked up his ears: “Vladimir Petrovich?” Ah, I had forgotten that I mustn’t name names!