ke  some  monster
knight out of Steven King. Remembering how the rotting brains of the monster
in <i>The Talisman</i>  had  dribbled down over its shoulders, Tatarsky thought the
resemblance would be complete if the next shell severed a sewage pipe.
     Peter's head was defended by the Defence of  Sebastopol committee. They
said in the news that didn't mean the  city, but  the hotel, which was being
fought  over by two  mafia groups,  the Chechens and the Solntsevo mob. They
also  said the Solntsevo mob had hired stuntmen from Mosfilm and set up this
strange shoot-out in  order  to  attract TV  coverage and generally  inflame
anti-Caucasian feeling (if the abundance of pyrotechnics and special effects
was  anything to go by,  it had to be true). The simple-minded Chechens, who
weren't too well versed in the  protocol of PR campaigns, hadn't figured out
what was going on, and they'd hired the two tanks somewhere outside Moscow.
     So far  the stuntmen were returning fire and giving as good as they got
- there was  a puff of smoke  in the hole  beside Peter's ragged  eye and  a
grenade  exploded  on the bridge.  A  tank fired  in reply. The blank struck
Peter's  head, sending  fragments  of bronze showering  downwards. For  some
reason every new hit made the emperor even more goggle-eyed.
     Of all the participants in  the drama  the only one Tatarsky  felt  any
sympathy  for was  the bronze idol dying slowly before the glass eyes of the
TV  cameras; and he  didn't feel that very strongly - he hadn't finished his
work, and  had  to  conserve  the energy of his emotional  centre.  Tatarsky
lowered the blinds, cutting himself off completely from  what was going  on,
sat at his computer and re-read the quotation written in felt-tip pen on the
wallpaper over the monitor:
     <i>In order to influence the  imagination of  the Russian customer and win
his confidence (for the  most part customers  for advertising in Russia  are
representatives of the old KGB,  GRU and party nomenklatura), an advertising
concept should  borrow as far  as possible from the hypothetical semi-secret
or entirely secret techiques developed by the Western  special  services for
the programming of consciousness, which are imbued with a quite breathtaking
cynicism and inhumanity. Fortunately, it is not too difficul to improvise on
this  theme-one need only  recall Oscar Wilde's  words about life  imitating
art.</i>
     <i>'The Final Positioning'</i>
     'Sure" said Tatarsky, 'that's not too difficult.'  He tensed as  though
he was about to leap into  cold water, frowned, took a  deep breath and held
the air in his lungs while he counted to three, then launched his fingers at
the keyboard:
     <i>We  can sum up the preceding by saying that  in the  foreseeable longer
term television is likely to remain the primary channel for the implantation
of  the customer's schizo-units in the consciousness of the  Russian public.
In view  of this, we regard  as  extremely  dangerous  a  tendency that  has
emerged  in  recent  times  among  the so-called  middle  class  -  the most
promising  stratum  of  viewers  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  social
effectiveness ofteleschizomanipulation. We are referring to total abstinence
or the conscious limitation of  the amount of television watched in order to
save nervous energy for work. Even professional television writers are doing
it, because  it  is  an  accepted  maxim of  post-Freudian-ism  that in  the
information age it is not  sexuality that should  be sublimated,  so much as
the energy that is squandered on the pointless daily viewing of television.</i>
     <i>In  order to nip this tendency in  the  bud,  for  this concept  it  is
proposed  to employ a method  developed jointly  by Ml^ and  the  US Central
Intelligence  Agency  for neutralising  the remnants  of  an  intellectually
independent  national  intelligentsia  in  Third World  Countries.  (We have
proceeded from  the initial  assumption  that the middle class in Russia  is
formed  directly  from  the  intelligentsia,   which  has  ceased   thinking
nationally and begun thinking about where it can get money.)</i>
     <i>The  method  is  extremely  simple.  Since  every  television channel's
programming contains a fairly high level of  synapse-disrupting material per
unit of time</i>...
     There was a boom outside  the window, and shrapnel  drummed  across the
roof.  Tatarsky drew his head down into  his shoulders. Having re-read  what
he'd   written,  he  deleted   'synapse-disrupting'  and  replaced  it  with
'neuro-destrucnve'.
     ... <i>the goal ofschizosuggestology  will be achieved simply as  a result
of holding  the individual to be neutralised in front of a television screen
for a long enough period  of time. It is suggested that in order to  achieve
this result one can take advantage  of a typical  feature of a member of the
Intelligentsia - sexual frustration.</i>
     <i>Internal ratings and data from secret surveys indicate that the biggest
draw for the member of the intelligentsia is the erotic night-time channels.
But the effect  achieved would  be maximised if instead of a  certain set of
television  broadcasts the television receiver  itself were to  achieve  the
status of  an erotic  stimulus  in the  consciousness  of  the subject being
processed. Bearing in mind the patriarchal nature of Russian society and the
determinative  role played by  the male  section of  the  population  in the
formation  of  public opinion, it would seem most expedient to  develop  the
subconscious   associative  link:  'television-female  sexual  organ'.  This
association should be evoked by the television itself regardless of its make
or the nature of the material being transmitted in order to achieve  optimal
results from schizomanipulation.</i>
     <i>The  cheapest and technically simplest means of achieving this  goal is
the massive oversaturation of air  time with television  adverts for women's
panty-liners.  They should be constantly doused with blue liquid (activating
the associations: 'blue  screen, waves in the ether, etc.'), while the clips
themselves should he constructed in such a way that the panty-liner seems to
crawl on to the  screen itself, implanting the required  association in  the
most direct manner possible.</i>
     Tatarsky heard a light ringing sound  behind him and he swung round. To
the accompaniment of a strange-sounding, somehow  northern music,  a  golden
woman's  torso  of quite exceptional, inexpressible  beauty appeared on  the
television  screen, rotating slowly.  Tshtar,'  Tatarsky guessed; 'who  else
could it  be?' The face of  the statue was  concealed from  sight behind the
edge of the screen, but the camera was slowly rising and the face would come
into sight in just a  moment.  But an instant before it became visible,  the
camera moved in so close to the  statue  that there was nothing left on  the
screen  but a golden shimmering.  Tatarsky clicked  on  the remote,  but the
image  on  the television didn't change  -  the  television  itself  changed
instead. It began distending around the edges,  transforming itself into the
likeness of an immense vagina, with a powerful wind whistling shrilly as the
air was sucked right into its black centre.
     'I'm asleep,' Tatarsky mumbled into his pillow. 'I'm asleep ...'
     He carefully  turned  over on to his other side,  but  the shrill sound
didn't disappear. Raising himself up on one elbow, he cast a gloomy eye over
the thousand-dollar prostitute snoring gently beside him: in  the  dim light
it was quite impossible to tell she wasn't Claudia Schiffer. He reached  out
for  the mobile  phone lying on  the bedside  locker  and  croaked into  it:
'Allo.'
     'What's  this, been hitting the sauce again?' Morkovin roared  merrily.
'Have you forgotten we're going to a barbecue? Get yourself down here quick,
I'm already waiting for you. Azadovsky doesn't like to be kept waiting.'
     'On my way,' said Tatarsky. 'I'll just grab a shower.'
     The autumn  highway was  deserted and  sad,  and  the sadness  was only
emphasised by the fact that the trees along its  edges  were still green and
looked just as though it was still summer;
     but it was clear that summer had passed by without  fulfilling a single
one of its promises. The air was filled with a vague presentiment of winter,
snowfalls  and  catastrophe  -  for  a  long  time  Tatarsky  was unable  to
understand  the source  of this feeling,  until he looked at  the  hoardings
installed at the side of the road.  Every half-kilometre the car rushed past
a  Tam-pax advertisement,  a huge sheet of plywood  showing a  pair of white
roller skates lying on virginal white snow. That explained  the presentiment
of winter all right, but  the source  of the  all-pervading sense  of  alarm
still  remained unclear.  Tatarsky decided that  he  and Morkovin must  have
driven into  one of  those psychological waves of depression  that  had been
drifting across  Moscow and its surroundings ever since the beginning of the
crisis. The nature of  these waves  remained mysterious, but Tatarksy had no
doubt  whatever that they existed,  so he was rather offended  when Morkovin
laughed at him for mentioning them.
     'As far the snow goes you were spot on,' he said; 'but as far
     as  these wave  things are concerned  . .  . Take  a closer look at the
hoardings. Don't you notice anything?'
     Morkovin slowed down at the next hoarding and Tatarsky suddenly noticed
a large graffito written in blood-red spray paint  above the  skates and the
snow: 'Arrest Yeltsin's gang!'
     'Right!' he said ecstatically. 'There was the same kind of thing on all
the others! On the last one there was a hammer and sickle, on the one before
that  there  was a  swastika,  and  before  that,  something  about wops and
nig-nogs . . . Incredible. Your mind just filters  it out  - you don't  even
notice. And the colour, what a colour! Who dreamed it all up?'
     'You'll laugh when you hear,' answered Morkovin, picking  up speed. 'It
was Malyuta. Of course, we rewrote almost all the texts - they were much too
frightening - but we didn't change the idea. As you're so fond of saying, an
associative field  is  formed: 'days of crisis - blood could  flow -  Tampax
-your  shield against excesses'. Figure it out: nowadays  there are only two
brands  selling  the  same  volumes they  used  to  in  Moscow,  Tampax  and
Parliament Lights.'
     'Fantastic,' said Tatarsky, and  clicked his tongue.  'It just begs for
the slogan: 'Tampax ultra-safe. The reds shall not pass!' Or personalise it:
not the reds, but Zyuganov  -  and according to Castaneda, menstruation is a
crack between the worlds. If you want to stay on the right side of the crack
. . . No, like this: Tampax. The right side of the crack ...
     'Yes,' said Morkovin  thoughtfully,  'we should pass these ideas on  to
the oral department.'
     'We could bring up the theme of the white movement as well. Imagine it:
an officer in a beige service jacket on a hillside  in the Crimea, something
out of Nabokov ... They'd sell five times as many.'
     'What does that matter?' said Morkovin. 'Sales are just a side  effect.
It's not Tampax we're promoting; it's alarm and uncertainty.'
     'What for?'
     'We have a crisis on our hands, don't we?'
     'Oh, right,' said Tatarsky, 'of course. Listen, about  the crisis  -  I
still  don't  understand  how  Semyon  Velin managed  to delete  the  entire
government. It was all triple protected.'
     'Semyon wasn't just a designer/ replied Morkovin. 'He was a programmer.
D'you know the scale he was working on?  They found  thirty-seven million in
greenbacks  in his accounts afterwards.  He even  switched Zyuganov's jacket
from Pierre  Cardin to St  Lauren.  Even  now nobody  can figure out how  he
managed to break into the oral  directory from our terminal. And as for what
he did with neckties and shirts ...  Azadovsky was sick for  two whole  days
after he read the report.'
     'Impressive.'
     'Sure it was. Our  Semyon had a  roving eye,  but he  knew what he  was
getting  into.  So he  decided he needed some insurance.  He wrote a program
that would delete the entire  directory at the end of the month if he didn't
cancel  it personally, and he planted  it in Kirienko's file. After that the
program infected  the  entire government. We have anti-virus protection,  of
course, but  Semyon thought up  this fucking program that wrote itself on to
the ends  of  sectors and assembled itself at the end of the month, so there
was no  way it could be picked up from the control  sums. Just don't  ask me
what  all that means  -I  don't  understand it myself - I  just happened  to
overhear someone talking about it.  To  cut it  short, when they were taking
him out of town in your Mercedes,  he tried to tell Azadovsky about it,  but
he  wouldn't even talk  to him.  Then  everything  defaulted. Azadovsky  was
tearing his hair out.'
     'So will there be  a new government soon?' Tatarsky asked. 'I'm already
tired of doing nothing.'
     'Soon, very soon. Yeltsin's  ready - tomorrow we'll discharge him  from
the Central Kremlin Hospital. We had him digitised again in London. From the
wax figure in Madame Tussaud's - they've got it in the  store room. It's the
third time  we've had to restore  him -  you wouldn't believe the amount  of
hassle he's given  everyone  - and we're finishing off the NURBS for all the
others. Only the government's turning out  really  leftist; I mean, it's got
communists  in it.  It's  those schemers  in the  oral department.  But that
doesn't really  bother  me much - it'll  only make things easier for us. And
for  the  people too: one identity for  the lot and ration cards for butter.
Only so far Sasha Blo's still holding us back with the Russian Idea/
     'Hold hard there,' Tatarsky said, suddenly cautious; 'don't frighten me
like that. Who's going to be next? After Yeltsin?'
     'What d'you mean, who? Whoever they vote for. We  have honest elections
here, like in America.'
     'And what in hell's name do we need them for?'
     'We  don't  need them  in  anybody's  name. But if we didn't have  them
they'd  never  have sold us  the render-server.  They've  got  some  kind of
amendment to the law on trade - in short, everything has to be the way it is
there. Total lunacy, of course, the whole thing .. /
     'Why should they care what we do? What do they want from us?'
     'It's  because elections are  expensive,' Morkovin said gloomily. 'They
want to  finally destroy our economy. At least, that's one of the theories .
. . Anyway, we're moving in the wrong direction.  We shouldn't be digitising
these deadheads;
     we need  to make new politicians, normal young guys.  Develop them from
the  ground up  through focus-groups -  the ideology  and  the  public  face
together.'
     'Why don't you suggest it to Azadovsky?'
     'You try suggesting anything to him ... OK, we've arrived.'
     There was an earth road adorned on both sides with Stop signs branching
off from the road they  were on. Morkovin  turned on  to it, slowed down and
drove on  through the forest. The road soon led them to a pair of tall gates
in  a brick wall. Morkovin sounded his horn  twice, the gates opened and the
car rolled into a huge yard the size of a football pitch.
     Azadovsky's  dacha  created  a  strange  impression.  Most  of  all  it
resembled  the Cathedral of  St  Basil  the Holy  Fool, doubled in size  and
overgrown with a multitude of domestic accretions. The  corkscrew attics and
garrets were decorated with  little balconies with balustrades of  short fat
columns, and all  the windows above  the second floor were hidden completely
behind shutters.  There were  several Rottweilers strolling around the  yard
and a ribbon of blue-grey  smoke was rising from  the chimney of  one of the
extensions  (evidently  they  were  stoking  up  the  bath-house). Azadovksy
himself, surrounded by a  small entourage  including Sasha Blo and  Malyuta,
was  standing  on the steps  leading up  into the  house. He  was wearing  a
Tyrolean  hat with a feather, which suited him  very well and even  lent his
plump face a kind of bandit nobility.
     'We  were just  waiting for  you/  he  said when Tatarsky and  Morkovin
walked up. 'We're going out among the people. To drink beer at the station.'
     Tatarsky felt an urgent desire to say something his boss would like.
     'Just like Haroun el-Raschid and his viziers, eh?'
     Azadovsky stared at him in amazement.
     'He used  to  change  his  clothes and walk  around  Baghdad/  Tatarsky
explained, already regretting  he'd started  the conversation. 'And  see how
the people lived. And find out how his rating was doing.'
     'Around  Baghdad?' Azadovsky asked suspiciously. 'Who  was  this Haroun
guy?'
     'He was the Caliph. A long time ago, about five hundred years.'
     'I  get  it. You  wouldn't  do too  much strolling around Baghdad these
days.  It's just like  here, only  you  have  to  take three jeeps  full  of
bodyguards. Right, is everyone here? Wagons roll!'
     Tatarsky got into the last car, Sasha Blo's red  Range-Rover. Sasha was
already slightly drunk and obviously feeling elated.
     'I keep meaning  to congratulate you/ he said. 'That  material of yours
about Berezovsky  and  Raduev -  it's  the best <i>kom-promat</i> there's been  all
autumn. Really. Especially the place  where they plan to pierce the mystical
body of Russia with their television-drilltowers at the major sacred points.
And those inscriptions on the  Monopoly  money:  'In God we Monopolise!' And
putting that Jewish prayer cap on Raduev -that must have taken some thinking
up ...'
     'OK, OK,' said Tatarsky, thinking gloomily to himself:
     "That jerk Malyuta was asked not to touch Raduev.  Now the mazuma  goes
back. And I'll be lucky if they didn't have the meter running on it.'
     'Why  don't you  tell  me when  your department's  going to  throw up a
decent idea?' he asked. 'What stage is the project at?'
     'It's all supposed to be strictly secret. But without getting specific,
the idea's coming on, and it'll make everyone sick as  parrots. We just have
to think through the role of Attila and polish up the stylistic side - so we
have something like an ongoing counterpoint  between the pipe organ  and the
balalaika.'
     'Attila? The one who burnt Rome? What's he got to do with it?'
     'Attila means "the man from Itil". In Russian, a Volga man. Itil is the
ancient name for the Volga. D'you get my drift?'
     'Not really.'
     'We're the third Rome - which,  typically enough, happens to lie on the
Volga. So  there's no  need  to go off  on any campaigning.  Hence our total
historical self-sufficiency and profound national dignity.'
     Tatarsky sized up the idea. 'Yeah,' he said, 'that's neat.'
     Glancing out of the window, he  caught sight  of  a  gigantic  concrete
structure above the  edge of the  trees,  a crooked spiral  rising  upwards,
crowned with a small grey tower. He screwed up his eyes and then opened them
again  - the concrete monolith hadn't disappeared,  only shifted backwards a
little. Tatarsky nudged Sasha  Blo so  hard in the ribs that the car swerved
across the road.
     'You crazy, or what?' asked Sasha.
     'Look quick, over there/ said Tatarsky.  'D'you see it,  that  concrete
tower?'
     'What of it?'
     'D'you know what it is?'
     Sasha looked out of the window.
     'Oh,  that.  Azadovksy  was  just  telling us  about  it.  They started
building an Air Defence station here. Early warning or some such thing. They
got as  far as building the foundations and the  walls and  then,  you know,
there  was  no one left  to  warn. Azadovsky has this plan to privatise  the
whole thing and  finish building it, only not for  a radar station - for his
new  house. I don't know. Speaking for myself, I can't stand concrete walls.
What's got you so wound up?'
     'Nothing,' said Tatarsky. 'It just  looks  very  strange.  What's  this
station we're going to called?'
     'Rastorguevo.'
     'Rastorguevo/ Tatarsky repeated. 'In that case, everything's clear/
     'And here it is. We're headed for that building over there. This is the
dirtiest beer-hall anywhere near  Moscow. Leonid likes to drink beer here at
weekends. So's he can really appreciate what he's achieved in life.'
     The beer-hall, located in the basement of a brick building with peeling
paint  not  far from the  railway platform,  really  was quite exceptionally
dirty  and  foul-smelling. The people squeezed in at  the tables  with their
quarter-litres of vodka matched the institution perfectly. The only ones who
didn't fit in  were two bandits in tracksuits standing behind a table at the
entrance. Tatarsky was amazed to see Azadovsky  actually greet  some  of the
customers - he obviously really was a regular here.  Sasha  Blo swept up two
glass mugs of pale beer in one hand, took Tatarsky by the arm with the other
and dragged him off to a distant table.
     'Listen,' he said. 'There's something I want  to talk to you about. Two
of  my brothers  have  moved  up here  from Yerevan  and  decided to set  up
business. To  cut it short, they've opened an exclusive funeral parlour with
top-class service. They  just  figured out  how  much mazuma there is  stuck
between banks  up here.  They're all beginning to  beat it out of each other
now, so a real market niche has opened up.'
     "That's  for  sure,'  said  Tatarsky,  glancing at the  bandits  by the
entrance, who were drinking Czech beer out  of bottles they'd  brought  with
them.  He couldn't figure  out what they were doing in a place  like  this -
although their motives could have been the same as Azadovsky's.
     'Just for friendship's sake,' Sasha Blo rattled on,  'write me a decent
slogan for them,  something that'll actually  get to  the target group. When
they get on their feet they'll pay you back.'
     'Why not, for old times' sake?' Tatarsky answered. 'So what's our brand
essence?'
     'I told you - high-class death.'
     'What's the firm called?'
     "The family name.  The  Brothers  Debirsian  Funeral Parlour. Will  you
think about it?'
     'I'll do it/ said Tatarsky. 'No problem.'
     'By the way,' Sasha went on, 'you'll laugh when I tell you, but they've
already  had one  of our acquaintances  as a  client. His  wife  paid  for a
top-rate funeral before she slung her hook and split.'
     'Who's that?'
     'Remember Khanin from  the Privy  Councillor  agency? Someone took  him
out.'
     'That's terrible. I didn't hear about it. Who did it?'
     'Some say the Chechens, and some  say  the filth.  Something to do with
diamonds. To cut it short, a murky business. Where are you off to?'
     "The toilet,' Tatarsky answered.
     The washroom was even dirtier than the rest of the beer-hall.  Glancing
at  the wall covered in  patches of  geological  damp that  rose up from the
urinal, Tatarsky  noticed a triangular piece of  plaster that was remarkably
similar  in shape  to the  diamond  necklace in the  photograph  hanging  in
Khanin's toilet. At  the first glimpse of this formation the feeling of pity
for  his  former   boss  that  filled  Tatarsky's  heart  was  alchemi-cally
transformed into the slogan ordered by Sasha Blo.
     When he emerged from the toilet  he stopped, astounded at the view that
suddenly confronted him. There must have been a double door in  the corridor
before,  but it had  been broken out and its frame, daubed with black paint,
was protruding from the walls and ceiling. With its slightly rounded outline
the opening looked like  the frame around a television screen - so much like
it,  in  fact,  that  for  a moment  Tatarsky  thought he  was  watching the
country's biggest TV set. Azadovsky  and  his company were outside his field
of  view, but  he could see the two bandits by the nearest table and the new
customer who had appeared beside them. He was a tall, thin old man wearing a
brown raincoat, a beret and powerful spectacles with earpieces that were too
short.  Through the lenses his eyes  appeared  disproportionately large  and
childishly honest. Tatarsky could have sworn he'd seen him somewhere before.
The old man had already gathered around himself a few  listeners, who looked
like homeless tramps.
     'You guys,' he was saying in a thin voice full of astonishment, 'you'll
never believe  it! There I was picking up half a litre in the vegetable shop
at the Kursk station,  you  know. I'm queuing up to pay, and guess who comes
into the shop? Chubais!  Fuck me ..  . He  was wearing this shabby grey coat
and a red mohair cap, and not a bodyguard in sight. There was just a bit  of
a bulge in his right pocket, as though he had his rod in there. He went into
the pickles section and  took a big three-litre jar  of Bulgarian tomatoes -
you know, the green ones,  with some green stuff in the jar? And he stuck it
in his string bag. I'm  standing there  gawping at  him with my  mouth  wide
open, and he noticed, gave me a wink and hopped  out the door. I went across
to the window, and  there was this  car with a light on the roof, winking at
me just  like  he did. He hops in and drives off. Bugger me, eh, the  things
that happen ...'
     Tatarsky cleared his throat and the old man looked in his direction.
     "The  People's  Will,' Tatarsky  said  and  winked, unable to  restrain
himself.
     He pronounced  the words very quietly, but the old man heard. He tugged
on one of the bandits' sleeves and nodded in the direction of the gap in the
wall. The bandits put down their half-finished  bottles of beer on the table
in  synchronised motion  and advanced  on Tatarsky, smiling slightly. One of
them  put  his hand in his  pocket,  and Tatarsky  realised they were  quite
possibly going to kill him.
     The  adrenalin  that  flooded  through  his  body  lent  his  movements
incredible  lightness.  He turned, shot out of  the  beer-hall  and set  off
across  the yard at a run.  When he  reached the very middle  of it he heard
several loud  cracks behind  him and  something  hummed  by him  very close.
Tatarsky doubled  his speed. He only allowed himself to glance around  close
to  the comer of a tall  log-built house  that  he  could hide  behind - the
bandits had stopped shooting,  because Azadovsky's security guards  had come
running up with automatics in their hands.
     Tatarsky slumped against the wall, took out his cigarettes with fingers
that  refused to bend and lit up. "That's  the way  it happens,' he thought,
'just like that. Simple, out of the blue.'
     By the next time he screwed up the nerve to glance round the comer  his
cigarette had almost burnt away. Azadovsky and his company were getting into
their cars; both  the  bandits,  their faces beaten to pulp, were sitting on
the  back seat of a  jeep with the bodyguards, and the old man in the  brown
raincoat was  heatedly arguing his case to an indifferent bodyguard. At last
Tatarsky remembered  where  he'd  seen the  old  man  before  - he  was  the
philosophy lecturer from the Literary Institute. He didn't  really recognise
his  face  -  the  man had  aged  a  lot -  so  much as  the  intonation  of
astonishment with which he once used to read his lectures. 'The object's got
a pretty strong character,' he  used to  say, throwing back his head to look
up at the ceiling of the auditorium; 'it demands  disclosure of the subject:
that's the way it is! And then, if it's lucky, merging may take place ...'
     Tatarsky realised that  merging had finally taken  place. "That happens
too,'  he thought and, taking out  his notebook, jotted down the slogan he'd
invented in the beer-hall:
     DIAMONDS ARE NOT FOR EVER! <I>THE BROTHERS DEBIRSIAN FUNERAL PARLOUR</I>
     'They'll  probably fire me,' he  thought,  when the cavalcade  of  cars
disappeared round a bend. 'Where now? God only knows  where.  To Gireiev. He
lives somewhere just around here.'
     Gireiev's house proved surprisingly  easy to find - Tatarsky recognised
it from the garden with  its  forest of  unbelievably tall  dill  umbrellas,
looking  more  like small trees than  large weeds.  Tatarsky knocked several
times on  the gate  and Gireiev  appeared on  the verandah. He  was  wearing
trousers of an indefinite colour, baggy at the knees, and a tee shirt with a
large letter 'A' in the centre of a rainbow-coloured circle.
     'Come on in,' he said, 'the gate's open.'
     Gireiev had been drinking for  a few days, drinking away a fairly large
sum  of  money, which was now coming to  an end. This was the deduction that
could be  drawn from the fact that  there were  empty bottles from expensive
brands  of whisky and  brandy  standing along  the  wall, while  the bottles
standing closer to the centre of the  room were from various  kinds of vodka
bootlegged  from the Caucasus, the  kinds that  had  romantic and passionate
names  and were  sold around the railway  stations.  In  the  time  that had
elapsed since Tatarsky's last visit the kitchen had  hardly  changed at all,
except for becoming even dirtier,  and images  of rather frightening Tibetan
deities  had appeared on the walls. There was  one other innovation: a small
television glimmering in the comer.
     When  he sat down  at the  table, Tatarsky noticed  the  television was
standing upside  down. The screen was showing the  animated titles from some
programme - a fly was buzzing around an eye  with long lashes thickly larded
with mascara. The name of the programme appeared - <i>Tomorrow - at</i>  which very
moment the fly landed on the pupil and  stuck fast, and  the lashes began to
wrap themselves  around it  like a  Venus fly-trap. The anchor man appeared,
dressed in the uniform of a  jail guard -  Tatarsky guessed that must be the
insulted response of a copywriter from  the  seventh  floor  to  the  recent
declaration by a copywriter from the eighth floor  that television in Russia
is one of the state power  structures. Because  the anchor man was inverted,
he looked very much like a bat hanging from an invisible perch. Tatarsky was
not particularly surprised to recognise him as Azadovsky.  His hair was dyed
jet-black and he had a  narrow shoelace moustache under his nose. He grinned
like a halfwit and spoke:
     'Very soon now in the city of Murmansk the nuclear  jet-powered cruiser
<i>The Idiot</i> will slide down the slipway. Its keel was laid to mark the hundred
and  fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoievsky. It
is not clear as  yet whether the government will be able  to find  the money
needed  to  lay  the  keel  of another ship  of the same kind, the <i>Crime and
Punishment.</i> Book  news!' - Azadovsky produced  a book with a cover depicting
the holy trinity of a grenade-thrower, a chain-saw and a naked woman - 'Good
needs hard fists. That's  something  we've known for  a long time, but there
was still something missing! Now here is the book we've been waiting for all
these  years  -  good  with  hard fists  and  a  big  dick:  <i>The  Adventures
ofSvyatoslav the  Roughneck.</i>  Economic  news:  in the State  Duma  today the
make-up was  announced of the new minimum annual consumer goods  basket.  It
includes   twenty  kilo-grammes  of   pasta,  a  centner  of  potatoes,  six
kilogrammes of pork, a padded coat, a pair of shoes, a fur cap with earflaps
and a Sony Black Trinitron television. Reports from Chechnya ...'
     Gireiev turned off the sound.
     'Did you come to watch the television, then?' he asked.
     'Course not. It's just strange - what's it doing upside down?'
     "That's a long story.'
     'Like the one with the cucumbers, is it? Has to be properly conferred?'
     'No, not that,' Gireiev  said with a shrug. 'It's open information, but
it's  part of the practice of true dharma, so if you ask someone to tell you
about it, you take on the karmic obligation to  adopt the practice yourself.
And I don't think you will.'
     'Maybe I will. Try me.'
     Gireiev sighed  and  glanced at  the tall umbrellas swaying outside the
window.
     'There  are three Buddhist  ways of watching  television.  In essential
terms, they're all the same way, but  at different  stages of  training they
appear  different. First  you watch television with  the  sound turned  off.
About  half an hour  a day, your favourite programmes. When you get the idea
they're  saying  something important and interesting on  the television, you
become aware of the thought at the moment it arises and so neutralise it. At
first you're  bound to give way and turn on the sound,  but gradually you'll
get used to it. The main thing is not to allow a feeling of guilt to develop
when you  can't restrain yourself.  It's  like that for  everybody at first,
even  for  lamas.  Then you  start  to watch the television with  the  sound
switched  on  but the  picture  off.  And  finally  you  start watching  the
television completely  switched  off. That's actually the main technique and
the first two are only preparatory. You  watch  all the news programmes, but
you  don't turn the television on.  It's very important to  keep  your  back
straight while you  do this,  and  it's best to fold your  hands across your
belly, right hand underneath, left hand  on top - that's for men; for  women
it's the other  way round - and you mustn't be distracted even for a second.
If you watch the television like that for ten years at  least an hour a day,
you can come to understand the nature of television.  And of everything else
as well.' 'So then why do you turn it upside down?'
     "That's the fourth Buddhist  method. It's used when you really  do need
to watch the television  after all.  For  instance,  if you want to know the
dollar exchange rate, but you don't know  exactly  when or how they're going
to announce it -whether they'll  read it out loud or show one of the  boards
outside the bureaux de change.'
     'But why turn it upside down?'
     "That's another long story.'
     'Try.' Gireiev ran his palm across his forehead and sighed again.
     He seemed to be searching for the right words.
     'Have  you  ever  wondered  where  that  heavy, piercing  hate  in  the
anchormen's eyes comes from?' he eventually asked.
     'Come  off it,' said Tatarsky. "They don't even look at  the camera; it
just seems like they do.  There's a special  monitor right under  the camera
lens  that  shows  the  text  they're reading out  and special  symbols  for
intonation and facial expression. I think there are only six of them; let me
just try to remember . . . irony, sadness,  doubt, improvisation,  anger and
joke. So  nobody's  radiating any kind of hate -  not their own or  even any
official kind. That much I know for certain.'
     'I'm not saying they  radiate anything.  It's just that, when they read
their  text, there are several  million people  staring straight  into their
eyes, and as  a rule  they're  very  angry and dissatisfied with life.  Just
think about  what  kind  of  cumulative  effect it generates  when  so  many
deceived consciousnesses come together in a single second at the same point.
D'you know what resonance is?'
     'More or less.' 'Well then: if a battalion of soldiers marches across a
bridge
     in step,  then the bridge can easily collapse - there have been cases -
and so when a column crosses a bridge, the soldiers are ordered to march out
of step. When so many people stare into this box and see the same thing, can
you imagine what kind of resonance that sets up in the noosphere?'
     'Where?'  Tatarsky asked,  but at  that moment  the mobile phone in his
pocket rang  and he  raised a hand  to halt the conversation. He  could hear
loud music and indistinct voices in
     the earpiece.
     'Babe!' Morkovin's voice cut through the music. 'Where are
     you? Are you alive?'
     'I'm alive,' replied Tatarsky. 'I'm in Rastorguevo.' 'Listen,' Morkovin
went on merrily, 'we've given those fucking tossers a good working over, and
now  we'll  probably send  them off to jail, give  them ten years. After the
interrogation Azadovsky  was laughing like mad! Said you'd  released all his
stress. Next  time you'll get a  medal together  with Ros-tropovich. Shall I
send some wheels round for you?'
     No, they're not going to  fire me, Tatarsky thought, feeling a pleasant
warm glow spreading through his body. Definitely not. Or do me in me either.
     'Thanks,' he said. 'I think I'll go home. My nerves are shot.' 'Yeah? I
can  understand  that,' Morkovin agreed.  'Away with  you then, get yourself
fixed up. But  I've got to be  going - the bugle's sounding loud  and clear.
Only don't be late tomorrow - we have a very important occasion. We're going
to Ostankino TV  headquarters.  You'll see Azadovsky's collection there,  by
the way - the Spanish section. Cheers for now.'
     Tatarsky hid the phone  in his pocket and looked  around the room  with
unseeing eyes. 'So they take me me for a hamster, then,' he said pensively.
     'What?'
     'Nothing. What was that you were saying?'
     'To  keep it short,'  Gireiev continued,  'all the  so-called magic  of
television  is  nothing but psychoresonance due  to  the fact  that so  many
people watch  it at the same time.  Any  professional knows that  if you  do
watch television-'
     'I   can  tell  you,   professionals   never  do  watch  it,'  Tatarsky
interrupted, examining a patch he'd only just noticed on his
     friend's trouser-leg.
     '-if you  do watch television, you have to look at a point somewhere in
the corner of the screen, but never under any circumstances into the eyes of
the announcer,  or else you'll start to develop  gastritis or schizophrenia.
But the safest thing is to turn it upside down the way I do. That's the same
thing as not marching in step; and in general, if you're interested, there's
a fifth  Buddhist method for  watching  television, the highest and the most
secret one of all...'
     It  often  happens: you're  talking  with someone, and you kind of like
what he's saying, and there seems to be some truth in it. Then suddenly  you
notice he's wearing  an old tee shirt, his slippers are darned, his trousers
are patched at the knee and the furniture in his room is worn and cheap. You
look  a bit closer and all around you you see  signs  of humiliating poverty
you  didn't notice before, and you realise everything  your interlocutor has
done and  thought in his life  has failed to lead him to that single victory
that you wanted so  badly on that distant May  morning when you gritted your
teeth and promised yourself you wouldn't lose, even  though it still  wasn't
really very clear just  who you were playing with and what the game was. And
although  it  hasn't  become  the  slightest bit  clearer  since  then,  you
immediately lose interest in  what he's saying.  You  want to say goodbye to
him  in some  pleasant fashion, get away  as quickly as possible and finally
get down to business.
     That is how  the displacing wow-factor operates in our hearts; but when
Tatarsky  was struck by  its  imperceptible blow, he gave no sign  that he'd
lost interest in the conversation with Gireiev, because an  idea had  struck
him. He waited until Gireiev stopped speaking; then he stretched, yawned and
asked as though it was a casual question: 'By the way, have you  got  any of
those fly-agarics left?'
     'Yes,' said Gireiev, 'but I won't take any with you. I'm sorry, but you
know, after what happened the last time ...'
     'But will you give me some?'
     'Why not? Only don't eat them here, please.'
     Gireiev  got  up from the table, opened the crooked cupboard hanging on
the wall and took out a bundle wrapped in newspaper.
     "This is a good dose. Where are you going to take them - in Moscow?'
     'No,' said Tatarsky; 'in the town I always get a bad trip. I'll go into
the forest. Since I'm already out in the countryside.'
     'You're right.  Hang on, I'll give you some  vodka. Softens the effect.
They can bugger  up your brains  if  you  take them neat. Don't worry, don't
worry, I've got some Absolut.'
     Gireiev picked up an empty Hennessy bottle from the floor, twisted  out
the cork and began carefully pouring in vodka from a litre bottle of Absolut
he'd taken from the same cupboard the mushrooms had been in.
     'Listen,  you've got something to  do with television,' he said; 'there
was a good joke going round about you. Have you heard the one about the blow
job with singing in the dark?'
     'No.'
     'Well, this guy comes to a brothel. He looks at the price-list and sees
the most expensive service: a blow  job with singing in the dark for fifteen
hundred bucks;  and  he thinks.  That's strange. What  could that be? And h