The Sacred Book of the Werewolf (23 page)
Read The Sacred Book of the Werewolf Online
Authors: Victor Pelevin
Tags: #Romance, #Prostitutes, #Contemporary, #Werewolves, #Fiction, #Literary, #Fantasy, #Russia (Federation), #General, #Paranormal
‘So that’s why my tail’s itching,’ she laughed. ‘I’m already in Moscow.’
‘Where are you staying?’
‘In the National hotel. What are you doing tomorrow at one?’
I was afraid I’d have problems getting into the National, but none of the security men took any notice of me. Maybe that was because I was met by a young female administrator who looked like a Scharführer holding a board with the words ‘Valued guest of Lady Cricket-Taylor’. She showed me to one of the de luxe suites. All that was missing was a guard of honour with an orchestra.
E Hu-Li received me sitting on a stripy divan in the suite’s drawing room. I was bothered by the suspicion that I had once met a client in this apartment, either a businessman from South Korea or an Arab arms-dealer. But it might just have been that stripy divan, they have those in lots of the rooms there. When she saw me, my sister stood up to greet me and we embraced tenderly. A transparent plastic bag appeared in her hands.
‘This is for you,’ she said. ‘Not expensive, but elegant.’
The bag contained a T-shirt with one word on it in Russian and English:
‘They sell them in London,’ she said. ‘In all the different languages. But in Russian the effect is especially nice.’
And she laughed quietly. I couldn’t help myself and I laughed too - ‘cockney’ in Russian spells and sounds like ‘whack’ in the imperative mood; I never noticed that before.
E Hu-Li looked exactly the same as she had in 1929, when she came to Russia on business for the Comintern, which was fashionable at the time. Only now her hair seemed to be cut just a little shorter. As always, she was dressed absolutely impeccably.
E Hu-Li’s style hadn’t changed for the last thousand years - it was a kind of extreme radicalism, disguised as utilitarian minimalism. I envied her bold taste - she was always half a step ahead of the fashion. Fashion is cyclical, and over the long centuries my sister E had developed the knack of riding the crests of these cycles with all the skill of a professional surfer - in some miraculous way she was always at the precise point that all the fashion designers were desperately trying to identify.
And right now she was wearing a mind-blowing waistcoat that looked like a huge bandolier with lots of different-coloured appliqué pockets that were embroidered with tiny green Arabic script and the big words ‘Ka-Boom!’ in orange. It was a variation on the theme of the Muslim radical’s explosive belt - the way it would have been made for him by a libertine Japanese designer. At the same time it was a very convenient item - the owner of a waistcoat like that had absolutely no need for a handbag.
‘Isn’t that a little too bold for London?’ I asked. ‘Doesn’t anyone wax indignant?’
‘Of course not! The English expend all their spiritual energy on hypocrisy. There’s none left over for intolerance.’
‘Is everything really as dismal as that?’
She waved her hand dismissively.
‘If I had my way, I’d introduce a new term to emphasize the scale of the problem: “Hippopocrisy”.’
I can’t stand it when someone speaks badly about entire nations. In my opinion, such a person is either a loser or has a guilty conscience. There was no way sister E was any kind of loser. But as for her conscience . . .
‘But why can’t you be the first to stop being hypocritical?’ I asked.
‘Then that would be cynicism. And who can say which is worst. All in all, the closet’s dark and damp.’
‘What closet?’
‘I mean the English soul, it reminds me of a closet. The best of the English spend all their lives trying to get out of it, but as a rule they only manage it at the moment of death.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Do you have to ask? I can see from the inside, I’m English myself. Well, of course, not entirely - about as much as you’re Russian. We could say that you’re Russian, couldn’t we?’
‘I suppose so,’ I agreed and sighed quietly.
‘And what is the Russian soul like?’
I thought about it.
‘Like the cab of a long-distance truck. The driver took you in so that you could give him a blowjob. And then he died, so you’re left in the cab on your own, surrounded by nothing but the boundless steppe, the sky and the road. And you have no idea how to drive.’
‘And is the driver still in the cab, or . . .?’
I shrugged.
‘That depends.’
‘Yes,’ said E Hu-Li. ‘So it’s the same thing, then.’
‘What’s the same thing?’ I asked.
‘We have a saying: “Everybody has his skeleton in the closet.” It was Lord Byron who said that. When he realized he had strangled the homosexual in himself.’
‘Poor fellow.’
‘Poor fellow?’ E Hu-Li echoed, raising her eyebrows. ‘You don’t understand anything. All his life he tormented and tortured that homosexual in himself, but he only finished him off just before he died, when he realized he was going to kick the bucket soon. But as it happens, all his verses and poems were really written by that homosexual. Two American scholars have proved that, I read it myself. That’s the kind of people there are in England! Better your dismal nightmare in the cab of a truck.’
‘Why call it a dismal nightmare? I think there’s a lot of beauty in it.’
‘In what? In the skeleton riding beside you?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘In the Russian soul. Just imagine, you have absolutely no idea how to drive, and you’re surrounded by the open steppe and the sky. I love Russia.’
‘And what exactly is it about her that you love?’
I pondered that question for a while. Then I replied rather uncertainly:
‘The Russian language.’
‘You do right to induce that feeling in yourself,’ said E Hu-Li. ‘Otherwise you would find it unbearable to live here. As I do in England.’
She stretched like a cat and looked into the distance, and for a brief moment there was a lazy, dreamy look in her eyes. I had a sudden vision of a predatory, sharp-toothed gaping maw superimposed on her face, the way it happens in the twenty-fifth shot on a film. I wanted to say something mildly sarcastic to her.
‘I think you induce in yourself the idea that you live among hypocrites and fiends.’
‘Me? Why would I do that?’ she asked.
‘They say no one can commit murder unless they ascribe some bad quality to their victim. Otherwise their conscience will torment them. But when there’s a whole series of murders, one after another, it’s convenient to extend those qualities to the entire target group. It makes the idea of retribution less frightening.’
A shadow ran across E Hu-Li’s face.
‘Is this a lecture on morality?’ she asked. ‘Even some human beings understand that in reality there is no good or evil. But you and I are foxes. After death there is no retribution for evil, and no reward for virtue, only the universal return to the Ultimate Supreme Limit. All the rest was invented to keep the people in submission and fear. What are you talking about?’
I realized how stupid I was being - angering a sister from whom I wanted to ask advice. Who was I to reproach her with anything? Was I even a single iota better? If I really did consider myself better, then I was even worse. I had to reduce the whole thing to a joke.
‘How serious we are,’ I said playfully. ‘That’s what we get for cohabiting with the tailless monkey for all these years. You’ve even started thinking like they do.’
E Hu-Li looked at me suspiciously for several seconds, kintting her downy eyebrows together. It suited her really well. Then she smiled.
‘So you decided to make fun of me? Well, make sure you don’t turn your backside towards me . . .’
As used by foxes, this phrase is based on different references than among humans, but the general meaning is pretty much the same. I had no intention of turning my backside towards her, especially since she was quite capable of tugging on my tail - it had happened once in the fifteenth century, and I still remembered it. But the phrase suddenly reminded me of my last meeting with Alexander, and I blushed. It didn’t escape my sister E’s keen eye.
‘Oho,’ she said, ‘you still blush the same way you did a thousand years ago. How I envy you. How do you manage it? I suppose for that you have to be a virgin?’
The really interesting thing is that I only blush in the company of other were-creatures. When I’m associating with people, it never happens. It’s a great pity - I could really hike up my rates.
‘But I’m not a virgin any more,’ I said, and blushed even more deeply.
‘Really?’ E Hu-Li was so astonished she slumped back against the divan. ‘Come on, tell me all about it!’
I’d been longing to share my story for ages, and I spent the next half-hour pouring out everything that my heart had been full of for so long.
While I was recounting the details of my giddy affair, E Hu-Li frowned, smiled, nodded and sometimes raised one finger, as if she were saying: ‘Aha! And how many times have I told you that!’
When I finished she said: ‘Well then. So it’s finally happened, even to you. A thousand years one way or the other - what’s the difference? Congratulations.’
I picked up a paper napkin off the table, crumpled it into ball and threw it at her. She dodged it nimbly.
‘Experience of life really is a great thing,’ she said. ‘Who could have even imagined anything of the sort in the days of our youth? You seduced him so professionally that it’s not even clear who raped who.’
‘What?’ My jaw dropped in amazement.
She chuckled.
‘At least among friends you could drop the mask of offended innocence. You provoked him.’
‘What do you mean? When did I provoke him?’
‘When you came leaping out of the bathroom naked and stood on all fours with your backside towards him.’
‘You think that’s provocation?’
‘Of course. The question is, why did you turn your backside towards him?’
I shrugged.
‘For greater accuracy.’
‘What makes that especially accurate?’
‘The tail’s closer to the target,’ I said, rather uncertainly.
‘Oh yes. But you have to look over your shoulder. Tell me honestly, have you ever done that before, for greater accuracy?’
‘No.’
‘So why did you suddenly decide to start?’
‘I . . . I just thought the occasion was very important. And I couldn’t afford to fall flat on my back. I mean, flat on my face.’
E Hu-Li burst out laughing.
‘I can’t believe this,’ she said, ‘did you really do the whole thing on autopilot?’
I definitely did not like the way the conversation was going.
‘I know you are prejudiced against it,’ she went on, ‘but if you have a talk with a good psychoanalyst, you’ll realize your true motives straight away. And by the way, you can talk to an analyst about anything you like without feeling embarrassed - that’s what he’s paid for. Of course, you don’t have to tell him about your tail. Although you could mention it, as if it were a fantasy. But then ignore everything he tells you about penis envy . . .’
To bare my soul to my friend and hear that. I was furious.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘doesn’t it seem to you that it’s high time to take an aspen stake and stuff all this psychoanalytical discourse up the cocaine-and-amphetamine sprinkled backside that produced it?’
She gaped at me in amazement.
‘Okay, I understand about the amphetamines. After all, I was friends with Jean-Paul Sartre for two years, in case you didn’t know. And I understand about the backside, for the same reason. But what has cocaine got to do with it?’
‘I can explain,’ I said, delighted that the conversation was moving away from a slippery subject.
‘So explain.’
‘Dr Freud was not only a cocaine freak himself, he prescribed it for his patients. And then he drew his conclusions. Cocaine is a powerful sexual stimulant. And so all that stuff Freud invented - all those oedipuses, sphinxes and sphincters - they all exist exclusively in the mental space of a patient whose brains have been scrambled by cocaine. In that state a man really does have only one problem - what to do first, screw his mummy or waste his daddy. Naturally, that’s only until the cocaine wears off. But in those days there was no supply problem.’
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