The Monkey Link (39 page)

Shit and roses!
Shit, and Roses
 
…
How’s that for a novel! And all to the music of Vivaldi. Just now it was being marvelously sung by my neighbor Victoria. This was the only recording I had, and I listened to it endlessly. Just the day before, it had been involved in this incident
 
…

An American professor named Murphy (which proved, as always, to be his first name, not his last) had called to say that he wanted to talk and had a package for me. Over the phone he spoke the word “package” in a whisper. The package proved to be a stereo system sent by my best friend Y., who had recently emigrated there. Murphy was very handsome. He could not conceal his surprise at the way I lived, although I had spent three hours tidying up before he arrived. He moved warily, trying to avoid touching anything, as though even the walls were contagious. Even his chair he put in the middle of the room so as not to touch anything. I glanced carelessly at the stereo and thanked him, but he insisted on demonstrating how it worked, as though he weren’t so much delivering the merchandise as selling it. He even seemed offended that I didn’t properly appreciate the significance of the gift, which was, strictly speaking, from him. And I suppose I felt hurt that the professor was preoccupied with something other than his immediate task—that is, the study of my writing. Like a professional commercial traveler, he pulled a cassette out of his pocket. This was a good singer, not Joan Baez but another woman, and the system gave excellent sound. The American talked in a flat, artificial Russian voice, like a German. He somehow wanted to be sure that he had delivered this specific apparatus to me. He wanted to be sure that I understood the functions of the buttons. He was making quite an effort to keep from looking now at my scattered manuscript, now at my walked-down shoe. A man—a Russian writer carrying on the tradition, he had been told—whose things lay scattered on the floor, who didn’t have a corkscrew handy and who knocked the cork out with a blow of his hand, could, of course, put equipment to the wrong use. No, he didn’t drink or smoke at all, Professor Murphy didn’t; he still had another appointment
 
…
But I detained him anyway. Something about this—the way he sat spang in the middle of the room, with his feet placed as if in a tub, his broad shoulders not touching my air—goaded me to action. I thanked him once again, in more detail, and praised the sound. “But,” I said, “I have nothing to compare it with, I have just one cassette that I know the sound of.” “One cassette?” A certain bewilderment in his voice gratified me. I knew what I was doing. “Yes,” I said carelessly, “I have a neighbor here who sings.” “Sings?
 
…
 
” Oh, his disbelief suited me perfectly! I well remembered, would remember all my life, the impression made by that first sound, that sound heard for the first time
 
…
But that’s a separate story. Right now this Murphy could not imagine what awaited him. Even recently, after all, I had been just as ignorant
 
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Carelessly I handed him the worn cassette (without a box). He inserted it carefully, preserving his almost annoyed expression.

Oh, there are wonderful singers, of course. But once in a lifetime comes the ecstasy of an encounter with deity! The cassette opened with a Vivaldi aria.

No question, my overseas friend Y. had sent me an excellent stereo. Murphy—he immediately became somehow dearer and closer to me—never did have time to change his expression. Caught by surprise, his countenance froze in annoyance. This was exactly what the great blind bard intended
 
…
by the way, about the blind man
 
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but about him, too, later. Yes, exactly, you had to lash yourself to the mast to keep from flying after the voice. Odysseus, the Sirens, afterward came Schubert. Murphy drew breath. He looked about the room in which he found himself. “A neighbor??” You should have heard him. With what palazzi, with what Nices, such as he would never frequent, had he supplied the image of this voice? “Why, yes,” I said casually, “one floor up. Oh, you know
 
…
salt, matches
 
…
 
” “A neighbor!” he exclaimed, hastily collecting his things and indignant at my lie, which was the pure truth. I exulted. “The Soviets have their own pride.”
{72}

Should I now tell about how this happened to me, too, for the first time? About her guide, a provincial music lover who suddenly proved to be blind? About the three people sitting in the auditorium? No, another time.

And yet, now. One must render the angels their due, not the devils. People were trying to save
HIM
—I was trying to save my soul.

I could understand Murphy. We do have these gaps
 
…
If he’d never heard of the person, what was she worth? The state of being well informed is always limited to a terminal knowledge of what’s best. She had phoned me at a bad time on that occasion, too. I was in no mood for her and her concert. But her voice over the telephone was so powerful! I got my car started and drove her, listening, along the way, as she complained about all these club concerts: They’ll be doing well to have three people there!
 
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I had had a presentiment of all this vocal pathos. A worshipper of hers, who rode with us to the concert, intensified my foreboding. He was from the provinces, a church watchman. Sometimes he tore himself away to serve his musical idol as well
 
…
We entered a dilapidated Palace of Culture by the back way. After walking down corridors past mottoes and Outstanding Workers, we approached the greenroom. The artist’s expression became aloof and majestic. We could accompany her no longer: she must prepare herself. We, too, decided to prepare ourselves and began to look for the toilet. Now a certain eccentricity in her knight’s movements put me on guard
 
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First he bumped into a windowsill, then into a trash can. Was he drunk, or what? Then he headed straight for the women’s toilet, and I barely succeeded in stopping him. He was blind! That was the problem! He wasn’t her guide, she was his. And here in the men’s, the correct, john, as I was going, I heard
 
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“What’s that?” I asked with terror and ecstasy. “That? Victoria!” the blind man said with pride. All the might of heaven pierced the gray walls—and this was only a warm-up
 
…

But even the angels won’t save me!

Because just as poor Murphy exits—two men enter. With a shared briefcase. Provincials, the same kind, straight from the station. But nice and clean. In worn-down shoes and crooked neckties. They had shaved in the station toilet.

The brothers Goncourt? Ilf and Petrov?
{73}
I thought with a grin, as they looked for the best place to put down their briefcase. They turned out to be physicists, inventors. A serious conversation took place. One man seemed to be the senior in rank, an adjunct major. He did the talking. The other was more junior, a privatdocent as it were, a lieutenant- or sergeant-docent. He was saving less and less, nodding expressively, glancing at the briefcase, where they probably had drawings of an invention
 
…
The story, briefly, was this. Yes, they worked at a secret laboratory. They did not conceal from me that it was KGB. They expressed curiosity, in turn, about my education, ascertained that I was not a physicist, and explained that they couldn’t really explain to me the essence of their discovery, which was destined to overturn the foundations, but the principle was that they were just on the verge of creating a psychogenic weapon, and as a matter of fact they already had a working model—an irradiator. Admittedly a weak one, so far. “A hyperboloid?” I asked. They did not catch my irony, but grinned wryly: Everyone’s hooked on science fiction, and so are you. Engineer Garin, Engineer Garin!
{74}
 
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But this was in earnest, this was very dangerous, this thing they were now telling me about in great trust and secrecy. And the minute they had realized the danger, they had tried to get out of the laboratory. You yourself understand how difficult this is, to get out of the system. They were being pursued. They had been forced to hide. No, they were sure no one was tailing them at the moment: I could believe them: after all, they did have some experience (a bitter smile) in how to distinguish a gumshoe from a shadow. How? You can tell right off. Here they began to explain the difference to me, in a form even I could understand, much more clearly than the essence of their psychomachine. “But do I have someone watching me?” Why, of course! You may not have a tail, but your gumshoe—there he is. And they led me to the window. Don’t show yourself too much
 
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over there, by the fish shop, in the ski cap, see him? I thought I recognized the wino: he really was wearing gum boots. It was cold. “But why do you have a tail, and I have only a gumshoe?” I said resentfully. I was beginning to enjoy this. “Oh, now, don’t compare yourself with us! We have a world-class discovery of importance to our national defense, and you’re
 
…
a writer.” They swallowed the “only,” recognizing the awkwardness just in time. “But even you have extensive ties with a worldwide public,” they said, turning the flattery back on me, “that’s why we’re here. ” Their point, in brief, came down to this: I must stir up public opinion, motivate the public to appeal to the world and warn of the danger threatening it, attract world attention to the problem. I backpedaled: What makes you think I have extensive world ties?
 
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“Oh, come on.” They grinned again, meaning that I shouldn’t play modest. Well, yes, Murphy had just left me
 
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So far they had contrived to stay hidden. We spend the night in various houses and cities, they chirped, but it can’t go on this way for long. The noose was tightening, they couldn’t escape
 
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But when
they
get their hands on the formula
 
…
imagine what will happen then! In sum, however ironic their remarks on science fiction, their scenario differed little from
Engineer Garin’s Hyperboloid
—it had just been serialized on television. A mighty thing, despite all, is literature in Russia! How many schizos had been generated by this one man, our Soviet Count, Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy!
 
…
And here, again, was a question: schizos or provocateurs? No answer. The Eye, by all parameters, was a provocateur, but he had proved to be an outstanding personage
 
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Well, these two were in no way outstanding. If these two were professionals, I really felt insulted for our native KGB
 
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Or don’t they give a damn about me, that they’ve sent the very bottom of the barrel? Still more insulting
 
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Then they’re just schizos after all—again, a service of the Voices on enemy radio. Schizos, you know, don’t just watch television, they also listen to voices. Our enemies, too, plant manias in us. What are they doing—working hand in glove, our enemies and the KGB? To drive us all crazy? Say what you like, it’s the same department. That is, they’re different departments, but say what you like, the same profession. So which of us have they driven crazy: these two here? or me after all? “After all, you don’t fully appreciate the scope of the threat,” they said. “Imagine them aiming this psychocannon not at an army, not at a neighboring state—we’re still a long way from such capabilities, though we’ll have them—but aiming it right at you. And we do already have such a device, a laboratory model so far, but already accurate at twenty meters.” They talked, and surveyed my little kitchen, which isn’t even ten
square
meters, and now their gaze lingered on the mop, which was simply sticking out of the air vent
 
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And now they appeared not to notice it but with fresh inspiration began to describe the effect of the cannon aimed at me. Two days of exposure—total paralysis of your will, destruction of your personality. What will? what personality? If you but knew
 
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It’s only you, in your department, who have that illusion. You alone, it turns out, recognize me. That’s something, at least. If you but knew
 
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you’d slam shut my case file and throw it away like an unneeded rag. The image of the colorless clerk—perhaps the only man in the world who was interested in my personality, in its significance and even power—deliberating a campaign strategy against me, dispatching provocateurs to me, and aiming the world’s first experimental psychocannon at me
 
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Think: What does a man have? wife, children, friends, a calling—so I have none of these, all I have is a Citizen Investigator, about whom I know absolutely nothing, while he knows
 
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The citizen most interested in me! He alone, and a little stray kitten—that’s what I have left! What’s happening to me? Is it hangover, or have they actually aimed the cannon?

At this point Tishka appeared and called the detective’s bluff. Sidling catwise, sidling with his skinny little back arched at an acute angle, menacingly baring his teeth and hissing, he approached their bulky briefcase as he would a wild beast—another instant and he would tear it to pieces! He filled my heart to overflowing with tenderness and laughter. But theirs, their double heart, he filled with anxiety and unrest. Their gaze began to wander and their speech to falter, well, exactly the way, if you recognize the devil in a dream in the guise of a close friend or relative, and you make the sign of the cross over him, still in your dream—exactly that way, their bodies began to slump and their faces to crumple
 
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The courage swelled in Tishka’s tiny frame, for though the enemy wore a dull, padlocked expression on its face, it was plainly a coward. Tishka made a dash and sprang back, waiting—not a sign of life! But if you freeze, for a long time and without moving, there seems to be something living inside it
 
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A mouse! A mouse, surely, lived inside the briefcase. My Tishka was not such a fool as to mistake the non-living for the living! A magician! Why hadn’t I guessed right off, when they were positioning their briefcase so solicitously! Well done, Pusskin, well done, you son of a bitch! You’ve given my soul its hair-of-the-dog!
{75}