Vaseline Buddha (8 page)

And he could see a strange scene on television in which goats on a farm somewhere in the U.S. pass out at the slightest provocation, for instance, the sound of clapping or the sight of an open umbrella, and think that he could perhaps see why they did so but couldn't in the end, and think of the animals he'd seen doing incredible things, thus recalling the time he went to a volcanic island, where he saw a roe deer lying face down near a little crater surrounded by a thick forest, which had collected water and turned into a swamp, and a crow sitting on its rump pecking and plucking its hair, and smile, thinking that the act looked quite erotic. And the crow was plucking the roe deer's hair to use it in building its nest—the roe deer's hair probably came in handy in building the crow's nest—and the roe deer stayed still for a moment, not wanting to budge at that moment, it seemed, even while having its hair plucked, but in the end it got to its feet, as if to say that although it was all right for the crow to take a few strands of its hair without giving anything in return, it couldn't let all its hair be plucked by the crow, and looking more dejected than offended, went off someplace else, after which he could recall how happy he'd felt to have had the good fortune to witness the little drama in the forest next to the crater, which perhaps took place between the roe deer and the crow on a daily basis.

And on occasion, he could think of animals that do astonishing things humans can't understand, of which he knew quite a few, such as a cow that chewed and swallowed chickens whole, a water buffalo whose hobby it was to blow gusts of air into plastic bags, a badger that was found lying unconscious in the middle of a road, dead drunk after eating cherries that were ripe to the point of fermentation, and a parrot with a wounded heart that stayed with its head stuck between watermelons in a fruit shop, and think that perhaps by doing such things, they were, with joy and fury and despair, expressing in a difficult way the difficulty, and the joy and fury and despair, of living their daily lives as animals.

Or he could recall how, when he came outside after having lunch in a restaurant on a tropical island he visited, a cheeky and pathetic looking male monkey, which was tied to a tree in a corner of the shabby garden, suddenly lifted its colorful skirt and shyly, but at the same time brazenly, exposed its erect red penis as if to flaunt it. Thus he could detect something nasty, cheap, sly, and mean, almost to the point of evil, in the monkey, and although he wasn't sure if such traits were something inherent in the monkey
or gained through experience while living with people, and didn't know why it did what it did, though perhaps for sexual reasons, he could think that it didn't seem like sexual harassment that could take place between humans and animals, or think that the monkey was perhaps openly showing its pleasure, which it couldn't bear not to show, or again, openly showing its displeasure, and if so, the act could have been an expression of good or ill feeling toward female monkeys, but of contempt or hostility toward humans. Or he could wonder if the monkey had been trained by its master to startle, offend, or please a stranger by doing so, or to do so whether the person was a stranger or not—in that case, it was up to the person to be startled, offended, or pleased, and not something for the monkey to be concerned about—or if the monkey wanted to show off its penis to someone, thinking it had nothing but its penis to show off, and so it couldn't help but show off its penis, if nothing else, and he could think about the reason why the monkey had, as if it were something it did all the time, or at least without showing any signs of surprise, and without showing any signs of wanting to surprise the person, so nonchalantly taken out its penis, the size of which couldn't be determined as immoderately small or large, or moderately large or small, or just right in proportion to its small body.

And he could return from the trip, and think that the monkey left a deeper impression on him than anything else he'd experienced on the trip, and spend some time thinking about it. So the monkey I encountered looked at me with a quite desperate look on its face, as if what it had just shown me was nothing compared to what it could show me, as if it were going to show me
something more amazing, as if to see if I was ready for it, and so I couldn't help but ask, What are you so desperate for? and watched what it did with my hands on my waist, because the monkey seemed too outrageous, and I thought of the word conduct, and thought for a moment about the conduct of the monkey that had made me think of the word, and yet felt great admiration for what it had done, giving no heed to humans, or looking down on humans, and felt delighted, and although I didn't know what it was about to do, I thought about what there was I could do to help, to give some small aid in what it was about to do, but the monkey did nothing more, just blinked as if to say that although it didn't know how I felt about what it did, it knew very well how it felt, and I didn't feel the slightest honor at the monkey's inclusion of me in its sexual conduct, and could not respond favorably to its effort to win my heart, for the effort was too explicit, without any subtlety, so I didn't show much of a reaction and the monkey looked as if it regretted having lifted its skirt and exposing its genitals, which was understandable because it hadn't gotten anything out of me, and its effort had produced no results, but the moment I was about to leave the spot, thinking there was nothing more the monkey would do that was worth watching, it took its penis in its paw and shook it, not pretending to masturbate but actually masturbating, and I watched as if in surprise or as if there were nothing surprising about it, not having known for sure if animals other than humans masturbated, and although I didn't know if perhaps the monkey's master, thinking he could do anything for his beloved monkey, thought about what he could do and came up with the idea of teaching the monkey how to masturbate, and
taught it how to masturbate, or if monkeys masturbated on their own, and although I felt that the little monkey touching its little genitals seemed somewhat brazen yet boring, I realized once again that humans and animals and everything in the world coexisted in a strange way, and didn't hide my joy at the realization, but the monkey, for some reason, made a face and didn't hide its uneasiness, and when I tried to pull its skirt back down, it became extremely angry and ran wildly around the tree, and ended up being bound up tight by its leash, and I wanted to give the monkey a bit of a hard time, something it deserved, but I wasn't sure what to do, and at that moment the monkey's master appeared, looking angry even though he didn't know what had taken place, and he could sneak off, thinking that he usually chose to lose courage in the face of someone angry, and think that one time long ago, he had the thought that there was something inherently funny about sexual things.

And it was while he was having intercourse with a woman that he had the thought that things of a sexual nature could easily be associated with jokes, and he could think that sex, while it was the most serious act that all mating animals took part in, without which preservation of species wasn't possible, there was something ridiculous about the specifics of it, the act itself, and that laughter at times could be the most fatal blow to sex, and it became difficult to concentrate on sex when you burst out laughing, and sex was one of the most typical things that could seem ridiculous and preposterous while you're doing it, and although it was okay to smile quietly in your heart thinking that, you shouldn't laugh, and the moment you realized what a funny thing it was to engage seriously in sex, sex could come to a funny end, and I could also think that sex was one of the things in which the absurdity hidden in everything serious could easily be encountered, which wasn't surprising since everything serious contains something absurd.

And he could go back to thinking about the monkey he'd encountered, and although he wasn't greatly inspired by the monkey's incredible, and in some ways, inspiring act, he could accept the monkey's act as its idiosyncrasy and be inspired by another fact regarding monkeys. And it was about a monkey that killed a human being, how a monkey in a Southeast Asian country climbed a tall tree and threw a coconut at its master, hitting the target and killing him on the spot, and the master, who made the monkey pick coconuts when he was alive, exploited the monkey, making it work without a break, and beating it when it didn't do as told, and he could think that in a way what the monkey did could be seen as an animal uprising against one-sided human abuse, which could be considered something that should be included if a history of the relationship between animals and humans were to be rewritten, and although there were many incidents in which animals killed humans, they were caused accidentally by excited or angry animals, unlike what the monkey did, which involved premeditation, which could be seen from a new perspective, and perhaps animals kept what humans did to them in their collective memory and quietly prepared for revenge against humans, as suggested by the research finding of some zoologists who observed chimpanzees collecting stones in advance in order to throw them at visitors who came to the zoo, and think that it was strangely inspiring.

And (here I'm making a list of everyday things) someone could
quite accidentally find a sign indicating that there's an artificial eye research center on the sixth floor of a high-rise building, and very excited, suppress the urge to go there right away, and think that it's not a place you could easily visit with both eyes intact and that he isn't qualified to go there yet, but may one day open the door to the research center and enter and wonder why he feels great interest in physical aids, such as artificial eyes, false teeth, and prosthetic legs, and try to find out the reason.

As a result, he could think that perhaps it was because when he was young, his beloved, deceased grandmother wore false teeth, and the teeth she took out and put in a glass of water at night seemed both frightening and wonderful to him, and because when he looked at his grandmother's teeth, he felt as if they were glaring at him, even though they weren't the eyes of an animal, and that the reason why the teeth seemed frightening was because they looked like part of a skeleton, but a more immediate reason was because a very old man, who wore false teeth and seemed crazy and was short, frightened him, as well as a speech-impaired man who was bound to be found in any town, and another disabled man. And he could recall memories of the man, who came running from somewhere with all his might, though he wasn't very fast, when children were having fun playing, and chased them away as if he were annoyed that they were having so much fun, as if to keep them from playing in such a way, or in other words, having fun—which was understandable, for the man, who could have been crazy and was old almost to the point of death, could have been annoyed with children having fun, which may have seemed unsightly to him, and didn't want to see them when he
himself felt as if he were about to die, at the point of death —and when he did, he always had false teeth in his hand, and what in fact the children were afraid of wasn't the man, who was as small as they were, but the false teeth with several teeth missing—perhaps he knew that the false teeth in his hand would frighten the children—and the frantic feeling they could sense in the man who was running toward them. And he could recall how later, when the man could no longer be seen, and children no longer felt frightened by his him, seeing his false teeth, and people said he was dead, he wondered what happened, above all, to his false teeth.

And he could recall how once, he looked up false teeth in a book because he liked to leaf through medical literature to pass the time and it suddenly occurred to him that false teeth were one of the many marvelous human inventions, and was pleased to learn that from ancient times, people have used false teeth made from hippopotamus or sea elephant tusks, or teeth from dead people, but they rotted easily, so before the modern days, when ceramic false teeth were devised, most people had bad teeth, and thought that he wanted to write a story about false teeth, and actually wrote a short story about them as follows.

One very cold winter's day long ago, I was standing in the courtyard of a royal palace, from which I could see Budapest, Hungary at a glance. The palace, which could be seen at a glance from anywhere downtown, looked bleak, and it also looked bleak downtown, which could be seen at a glance from the palace. It was still early, and although I hadn't planned on it, I was the first to arrive at the palace. The museum that used to be a palace wasn't open yet, and I was able to go into the museum and get away from the cold after waiting for a long time—I mostly stood around the heaters, like someone who had come to get away from the cold, or looked halfheartedly at works that were on exhibit far away, which would have suited only the tastes of the royal family in the past and didn't inspire any feelings in me—but the interior of the royal palace and the things therein seemed only to be conspiring to make people feel as heavyhearted as possible.

After I warmed up I came out of the palace building as if to escape and took a walk in the courtyard, thinking about what I should do next and looking down at downtown Budapest, which looked gloomy even at a glance, and found something startling on a bench in a dark corner of the garden, which looked like false teeth and were, in fact, false teeth. I sat down cautiously at the other end of the bench on which sat the false teeth, for when I saw the false teeth that were sitting quietly and solemnly at one end of the bench, I felt as if there were an octopus or a sea elephant sitting on the bench where, ordinarily, there would be a lost mitten.

The false teeth, which belong in the mouth, but were now separated from the lips that gently covered them and the teeth that softly touched them, and whose upper and lower parts were precisely overlapped, the teeth facing me and tightly clamped, looked as if they were smiling mischievously, or were angry, or quite meek yet very arrogant, and, depending on how you looked at them, they could look as if they were making any kind of expression. I was extremely surprised to find out that false teeth, consisting of upper and lower teeth, could make such a variety of expressions, and I, too, bore my teeth and made various expressions at them for a little while. No, I didn't actually do it, only in my mind.