METAPHYSICS IN THE NUDE

by Vladimir Sorokin

Waking up early as usual plus a hangover, the writer filled a glass with water from the tap and drained it in a single thirsty gulp, looking himself over in the toothpaste-spattered mirror. He refilled his glass. And drank, looking himself over as he did. A veeeeery close friend might say “56.”

“Vodka …” he pronounced hoarsely, palpating the bags beneath his eyes. “Again, motherlover … But I did quit smoking. There you go!”

He flipped off his reflection.

In Hanover, where he’d fled from his lunatic homeland right after the war had begun, Russian vodka was sold in every supermarket. But he’d decided to no longer drink it on principle. Instead, he drank “Gorbachev,” a cheap and none too delicious German vodka. But its name, which called forth the wonderful years of Perestroika in the writer’s memory, compensated for its quality. During Perestroika, he’d been young, full of hope and energy. It’d been during Perestroika that he’d come into his own as a writer and dramatist. And gotten married. And it had been during Perestroika that he and Regina had brought a son into the world. His son had been in Tel Aviv for a long time now. And Regina had been in Budapest for a long time remarried to a Hungarian.

Perestroika …The word shimmered in his mind with an iridescent glow like a tropical butterfly. Back then, everything had gotten off to such a good start. The borders were opening up. New horizons were appearing.

“If only. Ach, if only, fuck your icy mother …” is what he’d muttered thousands upon thousands of times in various situations, at various times of day and night.

If only everything in his homeland had turned out differently back then! Normally. Humanly. If only the gigantic glacier that was Russia had floated West into the civilized world …

“We would live in another country,” he informed his swollen reflection. “And that bald ghoul from the KGB wouldn’t have come to power.”

He remembered that his beloved Gorbachev was also bald.

“But that was an entirely different sort of baldness …”

Returning to his combined bedroom and office, the writer sat down at his desk and opened his laptop. He preferred reading the news, not with his iPhone, but with his very old computer. Going on Facebook, he immediately read all the reports there were to read from the Ukrainian front.

“Confrontations of mostly localized importance … Or, to put it more simply, not a fuckin’ thing …”

Nine months.

Each morning, he eagerly awaited the end of this war. And had imagined how he’d pack his bag and flee Hanover dozens of times, setting off for a new, normal Russia.

He opened his email inbox. And immediately:

“The Los Angeles Society of the Lovers of the Metaphysical Novel is honored to invite you to come and speak: to give a presentation on the topic of ‘The Metaphysics of the Russian Novel: Peaks and Valleys’...”

Well then! The morning begins none too shittily. They’re inviting a Russian … but who the hell wants to hear Russian assholes speak these days?! Kinda surprising!

I suppose, however, that I am an emigrant, a, so to speak, victim of the regime … OK, yeah, makes sense …The honorarium: 1,000 bucks. Sehr gut! And a ticket … oh baby! First class!!! ’Twould seem that lovers of metaphysics’ve got deep pockets in L.A.! A hotel … they’ll translate the lecture … the English text will be onscreen … ten pages nonsense, I’ll write answers to questions … a signing sesh … but only, like, two of my books have been translated into English and 20 years ago! There’s a play in English too … OK, then … December 1st?! That’s super soon! Who did the matchmaking? A Slavicist, of course. Well done! Seryozhk, perhaps? Norman? Olga? Well, of course it was Olga! She thought up the topic too!”

“Darling Olga! Nicely done!” The writer slapped himself on his naked, hairy thigh.

And joyfully rubbed his palms together in front of the monitor:

“Los Angeles, huh? Fantastic! I’ve never been there, not even once, motherlover! We’ll just have to fly across the sea!”

In his whole life, the writer had only visited the States a couple of times. This had been a long time ago too, back in the ’90s back when his anti-totalitarian books had still been relevant. Two of his plays had been successfully put on in Europe and one had been put on by students at Berkeley. And the university had invited him to the opening. After the opening, he’d had a brief romance with a Slavicist. It’d been a wondrous time …

Arousedly scratching at his unshaved cheek, he looked around his smallish room, which truly did resemble a three-star hotel for bachelors. On the coffee table were the cores of two apples and an unfinished bottle of vodka. But there’d been no motherlovin’ ashtray for three months now! There you have it! The strength of the goddamn will! He was about to reach out for the bottle, but:

“No! We shan’t. We sha-a-a-an’t!!!”

He’d begun to drink regularly every night after the third month of his life here in Hanover. In this most boring of cities, renowned only for the fact that it was the capital of Hochdeutsch, which was to say: the most exemplary iteration of the German language. And the park was kinda nice too, fair enough … Nice for little strolls … But to get to the park, you had to take a tram …

He sighed.

His friends were all back in Moscow. Actually, not all of them; some had set off for other countries. In Germany, he knew only Slavicists those who still remembered his Perestroika novels. It was Slavicists who’d set him up in Hanover. Back in Moscow, he still had his apartment and dacha. It wasn’t even his friends living in those now, but acquaintances of friends. His whole life remained back in Moscow. Where, over the last ten years, he’d made good money from TV shows. Now, everything was in the past. Other people were writing those same shows. Everything, absolutely everything remained back in Moscow … And he’d left.

Could he not have left? A difficult question. A really difficult fuckin’ question! When the war’d begun, he’d written a rather topical one-act play Botox, or the President’s Conversation with his Chosen People. In the play, the bald ghoul meets with specially selected and prepared individuals in order to, as always, feign a “lively conversation” before the TV cameras. In the play, the “people” suddenly and unexpectedly begin to ask the dictator truly topical questions. Like: Why the fuck did we invade Ukraine? How many Russians have died? Where’s my son? When are you gonna retire? The dictator, on the other hand, looking his face over in a woman’s makeup mirror, discourses on the subject of modern cosmetology, its prospects and possibilities, he praises Botox and anti-aging masks, discusses his skin, also muttering his usual sickeningly crass jokes. The writer elected not to post the play on FB but sent it to friends and Slavicists in various countries. Naturally, there could be absolutely no discussion of staging it in Russia. Many liked the play the Poles and Czechs wanted to put it on immediately. But suddenly, it appeared on the internet, on a Ukrainian site. Of course, he wasn’t against this. The internet is the internet, after all; everyone posts everything everywhere these days … but. But. A buddy had called him, a famous journalist, and said:

“They’re gonna mark you down as a foreign agent for this one, old man. They’re gonna tear your balls off.”

The situation was serious. This guy knew what he was talking about. The Russian state had a whole system of marking famous critics of the regime down as foreign agents: bloggers, writers, journalists, musicians, actors … After which various criminal cases were revved up against them. And they all left immediately.

But he wasn’t marked down as a foreign agent.

And he still left.

Could he have stayed?

Now, after nine months in boring Hanover, he said to himself:

“I could have.”

•

In a large and comfortable plane flying from Berlin to Los Angeles, the writer indulged in a fine supper, ordered himself two double scotches, and for dessert cognac. Once everyone around him had fallen asleep, covered over as they were in thin blankets, he found The Northman on the seatback screen, put on headphones, and was instantly immersed in the world of the Northern Middle Ages. He knew English pretty well, but had insurmountable problems with German. The film was long, cruel, and beautiful. And full of Northern Metaphysics. Just what he needed! But he still drifted off about halfway through and only woke up right as they were announcing the landing.

“They got me there just fine!” the writer informed himself hoarsely. “But you slept through breakfast, you dumbass … ”

He shot off of the plane and into the jetway, passed through it, then found himself inside the half-empty airport. Having made it through passport control, he continued on his way. Lone passengers wandered about here and there. A man drove up to him a black guy wearing a cap of rainbow-dyed wool, sitting on a small electric trolley, and holding a sign. Upon it was written the writer’s name.

“Hi!” his greeter pronounced loudly, then smiled wide with big, yellow teeth. “Nice to meet you!”

“Hello!” the writer replied.

His greeter took his duffel bag from him, put it onto his lap, and pressed a button on the armrest: a platform/running board shot out from behind the trolley.

“Please!” the smiling man made an inviting gesture with his hand in its torn glove.

“Thank you.”

The writer stood upon the running board, the greeter depressed a lever, and the electric trolley tore forth from its place in such a way that the writer, in order to hold on, wrapped his arms around the driver’s shoulders.

The guy laughed:

“Hold on, tight!”

Hervé Guibert

Autoportrait, devant la glace-Christ, n.d.

Vintage gelatin silver print

© Christine Guibert / Courtesy Les Douches la Galerie, Paris

The trolley leapt out of the airport and into the fresh air and … the writer furrowed his brow: bright sun, frosty air, snow. Snow? In Los Angeles? I guess it probably falls sometimes … Real pretty!

The trolley hastily rushed down narrow access roads, forcing the writer to lean to one side or the other and grab onto the driver even more tightly. Pressing himself to him, the writer immediately sensed that the guy reeked like a bum.

“What a beautiful winter you have here!” the writer shouted into his ear.

“Winter, baby! Winter!” the driver shouted back.

They drove out onto the highway; the trolley was whizzing so quick that it took the writer’s breath away.

Motherfucker!

The electric trolley rushed into a stream of cars. The writer clutched onto the driver’s jacket. The dude maneuvered his highly local means of transport dashingly, overtaking even the cars. The writer was really getting shaken around.

Faster than Michael fuckin’ Schumacher!

He was going to shout something to the driver so that he would slow down, but the flow of oncoming air wouldn’t allow him to. Clutching the driver in a death grip, the writer looked off to the sides. A winter landscape of eucalyptus trees, palms, cypresses, and conifers swept past at the edges of the highway. Everything was piled over with snow glittering in the sun. The frosty air burned his face.

True winter. Not like in Hanover. And still, everyone jabbers on about global warming … what a con!

The highway made its way through the hills up and down and up and down.

The Hollywood Hills! A real sight to see …

Upon the hills, the roofs of single-story houses and villas peeked out from beneath snowdrifts.

A beauteous sight!

The trolley turned off of the highway and sped down what was arguably L.A.’s main artery.

“It’s Hollywood Boulevard!”

Despite the boulevard’s ample width, the trolley was making its way down a narrow track huge snowdrifts towered up on either side of them, the crowns of the palm trees just barely jabbing out. In the caves formed by the snowdrifts, people dressed for winter were selling some things and roasting others.

The snow really piled up on ‘em!

The writer saw two enormous advertisements for new blockbusters: a remake of Casablanca, with the immortal Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman looking no different than they had in the first one (they’ve been digitized, an openand-shut case), but they’re wearing winter clothes, holding glasses of champagne, and standing against the background of the ice house from Doctor Zhivago; and the other one, it must’ve been some kind of fairytale horror film, a palace made of ice out of which bolts a half-naked chick wearing animal furs. Amber Heard? Maybe Charlize Theron? And behind her shoots forth an octopus-like behemoth with the face of … Lavrov: the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation.

“He gets roles in blockbusters now? What in the name of fuck …”

The trolley turned and shot down a terribly narrow ice chute … for bobsledding! Writer clung to driver and driver sang out merrily in a high voice:

“Now we’re really livin’, my ma-a-a-aa-an!”

Devil knows what this is! They’ve entirely lost their minds … !

The trolley whistled down the ice chute like a bullet and the writer was shaken around so much that he began to pray:

“Oh Lord, please have mercy …”

Never in his life had he ridden down a bobsled chute, even though, like many Russians, he was good at skating and skiing.

The trolley flew down the ice chute, zoomed out of it in a perfectly straight line, sped through enormous, snow-covered firs, then began to slow down, to sloo-o-o-ow down (THANK GOD!), then, finally, braked before a large, luxurious villa drowning in enormous snowdrifts. Three meters of snow lay atop the villa. The driver depressed a lever, and the footboard, upon which the writer had been cramped for the whole ride, tilted sharply in such a way that the writer rolled down, down, down underneath the earth, into some underground lair, accompanied by the driver’s hooligan-like laughter (and hadn’t the writer seen him somewhere before? Could that be the guy from the Rush Hour movies? Chris Tucker?).

They’re chattering into his ears from both sides. Dragging him across the marble floor. The two of them taken together look like the Blues Brothers. Real strong, devil take it … Fatsos in fancy suits. But they smell like bums too!

“Hold on just a sec, gents … ”

“The auditorium’s already full!”

“The people’re sick of waiting!”

“Gents, gents … allow me to catch my breath!”

“OK … we’ll take you to the green room and you’ll have, um, three minutes!”

The green room. They plop him down onto a chair in front of the dressing-room mirror. Bright light. One fatso pours him a glass of Jim Beam. Thrusts it into his hand. A slovenly dressed woman with a cigarette between her teeth begins to powder his face. Small, toothy people dressed in rags hustle and bustle around him. The thick reek of homelessness.

A swallow of bourbon. Another. In the mirror is THE WRITER. He looks kinda pretty now. Motherfuck! He’s getting sprayed over with cologne.

“Drink! Drink! You’ve had a long trip!”

The fatso practically dumps the bourbon down his throat.

Catching his breath after a big gulp:

“And do you do you always get so much snow?”

An enormous hall with Empire marble columns and a mosaic floor. The floor bore the Latin inscription: E Pluribus Funk. Arms enwrap him. Two people.

“Like … finally! Everyone’s gotten sick of waiting for you!”

“Have a nice flight?”

“It’s simply wondrous that you’re here!”

“We’re all so happy!”

The fatsos wrap their arms around him once more and tear him away from the make-up station:

“There’s no time! No time!”

They drag him over to a handsome ragamuffin wearing a pirate costume. A very, very familiar and rather cheeky face. But it’s grown chubbier.

“Allow me to introduce myself, Mr. Writer; I am the representative of the local

Society of the Lovers of the Metaphysical Novel!”

He bows old-fashionedly, waving a tattered top hat as he does.

“I thank you for the invitation.”

“We are glad beyond all measure!”

“’Twould seem that it’s especially beauteous here in the winter!”

“L.A. is always beauteous!”

“And so much snow! Like in Siberia.”

“A-a-a-ah the snow Well, to put it bluntly, snow fell for the first time in L.A.’s history only a month ago. For the first time! A mere three centimeters. After which the greater portion of the population opted to take their own lives. For the sake of convenience, a site for collective suicide was created, but it collapsed all too quickly from the volume of visitors came down like an avalanche! To put it generally, some people killed themselves, others fled, but we remained. Only the metaphysicians survive! As the great Einstein once said: the more I learn about physics, the more I’m drawn into the orbit of metaphysics!”

Chuckles and a painted grimace.

“Who exactly survived?”

“The homeless. And gen-u-ine lovers of high literature!”

“And the snow?”

“It’s been falling ceaselessly ever since.”

“But, what about … ”

“No more questions, Mr. Russian Writer!”

“But, I mean …”

“… you mean to say that all of this is just wonderful! In general terms, everything’s unbelievably wonderful! And they’re waiting for you — let’s go, let’s go! It’s a grand event!”

The fatsos grab hold of him. Pick him up. Carry him into the auditorium. It’s enormous! Vaulted ceilings, stalactites, fog … wait … no, this is pot smoke! The hall roars and whistles. It’s entirely filled up with bums and strange, luxuriously dressed freaks.

“Lights !!! Camera !!!” the chairman screams, and a delightful, nude chick covered over in silver sequins — Sharon? Nicole? Margot? clacks a clapperboard.

“Action!!!”

Lectern. Hall fallen silent. Only the crackle of lit joints makes itself heard. Cameras. Shooting him. Plus a mic.

To first draw in a bit more air …

“Ladies and gentlemen! The metaphysics of the Russian novel are deeply rooted, not just in our history, geography, and state structure, but also unmediatedly in our Russian landscape, in our autumnal landscape, beauteous and without hope, sung about by poets, a native place desired most dearly, familiar to the point of pain since childhood, calling forth a poignant feeling of despair no exit! nakedness, existential abandonment in these endless savage spaces, forcing the heart to skip a beat, tears to well up in the eyes, and those of us standing in the autumnal wind beneath the gray sky to recollect tormentingly familiar verses: Oh, autumn season that delights the eyes, your farewell beauty captivates my spirit. I love the pomp of Nature’s fading dyes, the forests, garmented in gold and purple!”

The smoky hall is silent. Absolute quiet.

Then, suddenly, the chairman:

“Brava!!!”

A squall — thunderous applause. The hall stands. Cries. Whistles.

The chairman:

“The barest of metaphysics! Metaphysics in the nude!!! We were right to invite him, my dears! Just what we needed!”

Above the audience, a huge hologram lights up through the pot smoke: a monolithic “Mega Mac” burger.

“That which awaits all of us is a juicy, spectacular, appetizing, fuckin’ very fuckin’ big fuckin’ burger made from the barest of metaphysics! From metaphysics in the nude !!!”

They grab the writer. Drag the writer. Undress the writer. Wash the writer. Hurl the writer. Into a meat grinder!!!

Blades Blades Blades Blades Blades Blades Blades

Miiiiiiinnnnnncccccceeeeee

I’m mince. I’m mince. I, mince. Ground beef. Ground up. Mixed up. Molded. Molded. Molded. I, patty. I, patty. I, patty. Fried.

Fried. Fried. Salt. Salt. Salt. Pepper.

Pepper. Pepper. Half-a-bun. Half-a-bun. Half-a-bun. Sauce. Sauce. Sauce. Garnish. Garnish. Garnish. Tomatoes. Tomatoes. Tomatoes. Cucumbers. Cucumbers. Cucumbers. Onion. Onion. Onion. Sauce. Sauce. Sauce. Half-a-bun. Half-a-bun. Half-a-bun.

Served upon a silver platter.

META MAC!!!

A DRY-AGED RUSSIAN WRITER!!!

Mouthsmouthsmouthsmouthsmouthsmou thsmouthsmouthsmouthsmouths jawsjawsjaws jawsjawsjaws jawsjawsjawsjaw sjawsjawsjawsjawsjaws

“Good morning! Would you care for any breakfast?”

The writer’s eyelids peeled open.

Holding out a thin hand with bluepainted nails, the stewardess opened the window-shutter.

The light blinded him. Outside the window and down below: an ocean of sundrenched clouds.

The stewardess puts the seat-back monitor back into its cradle, extrudes the tray from the armrest, pulls it out, and covers it over with a starched napkin.

“Coffee? Tea?”

“Tea. Have you got any … green tea?” the writer began to speak hoarsely.

“Of course!”

The stewardess disappeared. The writer recalled his dream.

“Motherlover …”

“It’s true I really am dry-aged …”

“Nine months, huh?”

“Hung from a hook? Until the meat’s ready to go?”

He laughed. Furrowed his brow at the ocean of clouds. Tiny crystals of frost glittered upon the window-plastic.

“I wonder does it ever snow in Los Angeles?”

Hervé Guibert

Suzanne et Louise devant le miroir, salle de bain, 1978–1979

Vintage gelatin silver print

© Christine Guibert / Courtesy Les Douches la Galerie, Paris