“Ty… menya…”
“Uvazhaesh? Do you respect me?”
“Ty mena uvadjaesh?”
“Great! And yes, I respect you: Ya tebia uvazhaiu.”
“Ya… teba… uvadjaiu…”
“So that means you’re respecting me and I’m respecting you. We’re respecting each other. Therefore we’re drinking together. Let’s drink!”
“Cheers!”
Maximus and Peter drank another glass of vodka each.
“That being the case, I’m sure you wouldn’t want to fuck over your friend, whom you respect, Peter.”
“Never, I’ll never do that, Maximus!”
“So, please, tell me about the pills.”
“What pills?”
“Those pills, Peter, pink pills in the box I brought you today, fucking pink pills.”
“Fucking pills?”
“Yes, fucking pills!”
“Fucking pills?”
“Come on, talk to your friend about the pills!”
“Fucking pills! Fuck those pills! It’s a fucking business!”
“No kidding, drug dealing is…”
“What…?”
Peter even sobered up slightly, glanced right, then left, and lifted his index finger to his lips, making the international sign for “let’s keep it between us.”
“No, Maximus. No drugs. Drugs are not our business. Our business is potatoes.”
“Then why are you smuggling pills…”
“The pills are potatoes.”
“What does that mean?”
“The fucking pills are fucking potato pills. Our business. Haven’t you seen the ads? PTH-IP. Positive Thinking—Illusory Potatoes. That is what our pills are. First you have to think positive. To be a happy consumer. Then you can dream of particular goods.”
It was Maximus’s turn to be flabbergasted. Peter explained, speaking enthusiastically and loudly:
“Can you believe that we really grow these millions of tons of potatoes for feeding the entire world in our little country? Imagine—how could it be possible? Have you ever been to Holland? We have no space for farms. But we’re great at chemistry.”
“You mean, we’re swallowing these pills and hallucinating potatoes?”
“Hallucinating, yes. But you don’t have to swallow them… it’s a complicated process… sometimes it’s enough to smell… or hear a commercial… radio waves… though pills are best. I’m not much into details. I’m just a salesman. Our engineers know better… you think of eating potatoes… and you even get fat because of it… then you buy another pill to lose weight… and again… full circle… that’s our business… and everyone does it, in Europe.”
“Everyone?”
“Sure, some people are selling the illusion of cars, others are selling the illusion of designer clothes, or drinks… You drink but only get thirstier. Everything is like that. We produce ideas, thoughts, illusions. Ever since Marx and Freud. And now we can concentrate ideas into pills. For easier transportation and consumption.”
He fell silent and let his forehead drop to the sticky tabletop. Maximus stared in stunned silence into the space above the heads of the drinkers and dancers. He’d always suspected something along those lines. But still, what Peter had said filled him with anguish and spite.
Semipyatnitsky shook Peter awake and told him it was time to go to the train station. The foreigner obediently got out his credit card. Maximus didn’t bother to protest and used Peter’s card to pay for the vodka, even signed the slip for him. The waiter averted his eyes tactfully, an act that earned him a reward to the tune of one hundred rubles, cash, from Maximus’s own wallet.
Rather than get behind the wheel in his state, Semipyatnitsky flagged down a cab and settled Peter in the back seat. The latter quickly came to his senses once he’d lowered the window and taken a few breaths of fresh air. Maximus asked whether he needed to stop by the hotel to pick up his things.
“No,” answered Peter. “I’ve already checked out.”
When they got to the station, Maximus, with poorly concealed spite, said to his newfound friend.
“You know what, Peter? Next time, why don’t you get a girl for fifty euros and not worry about any six-hundred-euro girls? I’ll tell you a secret: There’s no difference!”
“Why not?”
“I’ll explain. Have you ever heard anyone talk about the ‘mysterious Russian soul’?”
“I think I’ve heard something of the sort…”
“Let me tell you about this mystery of ours. The fact is, you can never fuck a Russian girl.”
“No, I’ve fucked them many times…”
“You didn’t. It was a dream. Every Russian girl learns the knack from her mother. She takes your money and you fuck yourself while dreaming about Russian girl. So what’s the difference, after all? Why pay a lot of money for it?”
“Ah…”
“That’s not all. You can just save your money and fuck yourself alone in your hotel room for free, there’s no need to invite a Russian girl in and pay even five euros. All you’ll be doing is masturbating either way. Don’t let Russians cheat you.”
“This is… shocking to me…”
“Yes, my friend. You can never really fuck Russia. Only in your dreams…”
THE FALL OF KHAZARIA
The victorious host made its way homeward, flowed across the Khazar steppe in the direction of Itil-City…
Dissipating into smaller rivulets along the way. Meet a widow and set up house; build a mud hut and march no more. A man gets tired of war. The generals, all Murzlas, had galloped off ahead on their spirited steeds, changing horses when their mounts got tired, hastening to the city to pick up their medals from the Khagan, along with deeds to conquered lands for pillage. But the common soldiers just dragged themselves along—what’s the rush? They’d already spent more time marching than fighting. They spent four springs on the march. They stopped, took breaks: Hunt down steppe gophers, shake the apples off a tree, catch fish in the river using your trousers as a trap. There was nothing else to eat.
And the process dissipated even more.
Only a few made it back to Itil.
And with them Saat. No interest in widows, gophers. Maybe he figured they would give him back one of his mares now that the war was over.
They arrived at the city walls. No welcoming ceremonies, no laurel wreaths and flute bands playing music, no sweet congratulatory speeches. Initially the people inside even refused to open the gates. They shouted, “What are you, a band of gypsies?” The march home had run them ragged: They were filthy, covered in rags, bedraggled.
Of course they were. Four years of war will do that to you. But then good people let them in. Maybe they thought, What’s the point of them dying out there in the steppe, they might come in handy for cleaning the slop ditches or hauling stones to pave our courtyards.
The horde entered Itil, and—holy shit!—you wouldn’t recognize it; it had become a completely different town. Not a single Khazar left.
A feral people, a mass of black and yellow.
Little shops piled up everywhere, one on top of the other, daytime for trade, nighttime for dancing—the bad kind. And their language, it’d destroy your tongue. Sort of like Khazar, but strange, the sounds all twisted. And who was maintaining order? You could get clubbed in the back of the head just walking down the street. Chechmek sotnyas prancing around everywhere. Executive and judicial branches all rolled up in one. Their chief, the one who kissed the Khagan’s ring, now stood on every street corner, embracing the Khagan. Statues, that is.