Excerpt from Mamleev's America (forthcoming from PRAV Publishing), translated and edited by Charlie Smith.
Semion Il’ich, or simply Sioma as he was known in the narrow circle of New York Russian emigrants in which he trafficked, was close to dying. Incidentally, he had already nearly died several times: three times from unemployment, four times due to his wives leaving him, and about five times from a lack of money. And money in New York and the West at large, as is well known, was the equivalent of divinity.
Consequently, he was dying from an absence of divinity. He understood perfectly that a civilization such as this—sooner or later—was doomed.
But he could not have given the vaguest shit about the fate of modern civilization. The only thing that interested him was his own fate. When all was said and done, what did this cursed world, whose curse had been proclaimed clearly and from on high long ago, matter to him?
He had nothing to do with any of that.
…Semion Il’ich lived in a sort of festering hovel in a neighborhood meant for the poor of New York.
How and why had he continued to exist? This was entirely unclear and, furthermore, did not interest him. He was existing, continuing to exist—only God knew why.
There was almost no furniture in his hovel, if one did not count the two or three chairs that had been shredded by feral cats. In actual fact, it wasn’t feral cats who had shredded them: the creatures which would come into his strange room were indeed feral, but they were disenfranchised people—the so-called losers.
In keeping with this society’s official stance on the matter, all of its people were separated into “winners” and “losers.”
And these so-called losers had actually made off with his table and chairs. It was for this reason that they were losers, low-lives, despised. But, strangely enough, Semion did not consider himself to be one of these losers.
In the midst of the room hung a massive black mirror.
Within this black mirror, which reflected nothing, he saw his fate—that fate which interested him more than any other.
He was terrified. Could it be that his fate had concentrated into a single point, and that the essence of that black point consisted in an absolute enigma? For he saw nothing of his fate in the black mirror.
He felt only his connection with Edgar Allan Poe and with Meister Eckhart.
“Who am I?! Who am I?! Who am I?!” Semion Il’ich wailed under the black New York sky, with its satanic signs taking the place of stars.
The bloody New York dusk on the horizon immersed everything in the laws of inferior humanity.
“I want to know just one thing: who am I?” Semion Il’ich shouted at the black mirror.
The black mirror did not answer him. He did not see his reflection in it—rather, he could not see the last secret he had hoped for at the bottom of its lightest shade.
“Only once I see in it—in the black mirror—a clue of some sort, only then will I understand why I was incarnated in this degenerate world, in which I would have been better off not incarnating”, Semion Il’ich thought.
“And when my reflection—or, more precisely, my hidden essence—appears in the black mirror, I will understand why I have been cursed; in other words—why I was incarnated.”
And then my protagonist’s words descended to a whisper—but he whispered to himself.
“And do you know,” he whispered, “how old women die? It doesn’t get any funnier. Once, when I was in the provinces, I saw one of them get run over. Really, she orchestrated herself getting run over. She just laid down under a local tramcar in the center of the Western world. And why do you think she did it? In response to a tragedy? Kids leave her? Or did some 80-year-old lesbian reject her advances? Not quite! It was out of nothing else than boredom that she set her greying head under that tram’s wheel—precisely out of boredom, solely in the hopes of attaining even the slightest bit of real entertainment. And, truly, what is losing your head if not entertainment?
“For boredom is the essence of modern civilization and, if there is no God within us, then what remains? Only boredom and insignificance. This old woman’s situation just about sums it up.”
“But I, I, Semion Il’ich—I’m no old Western woman. Not in the least. So a civilized septuagenarian set her head down under a wheel and then she wound up in hell for an indefinite, eternal span of time. What of it? Such torments as these come a dime a dozen.”
“And should one curse this world when (as we all know) it’s already been cursed by the Creator? What can a human curse mean in comparison with a curse from God?”
“Alas, on that score one cannot even make comparisons. But, I repeat, I don’t give a shit about anything, including any curses made in relation to myself. I am only interested in my personal essence. Who am I? Whom will I be after death? Who will meet me there? Who will come and kiss my corpse? It seems that the answer is locked away in the black mirror, which in the meantime maintains its eternal silence.”
And Semion Il’ich ceased to whisper to himself. He was surrounded by nothing but rats—there were many of them, comfortable, in his New York closet of a room.
Receiving no reply from the black mirror, Semion Il’ich binged on alcohol for a few days.
He lived in nightmarish New York taprooms where there weren’t even any drunks, for they all had failed to notice their own non-being.
Semion Il’ich himself was unable to perceive their existence.
He simply drank for a few days, paying attention to no one. He drank, reflected in his mug of beer. He drank his own reflection. And, somewhere within himself, he was happy with this.
And finally, it happened.
He drank for five days, and then relaxed for ten. After his ten days of rest, he came into his room alone. He was always alone, even if people were around. He lit a lamp and approached the mirror… and suddenly he flinched backward. The darkness had gone, disappeared. He vividly saw the endless purity of his mirror and a kind of strange picture inside of it—but he failed to see any person’s reflection. It was a landscape—murderous, strange, bottomless—that did not exist in the reality surrounding him. Could the mirror really reflect something that did not exist? An unthinkable picture had appeared!
A disquieting chasm gaped, as if into another space: a medieval landscape with mystical trees and castles, between which milled beings that changed all the time, as if they lacked a definite form. Maybe they were people—but what people! Could people really not look like people?! They appeared as many-headed, many-limbed beings, and their forms were mobile. All of that “humanity” flowed in a turbid vortex among the holy medieval castles and mountains…
Semion Il’ich eased himself onto a nearby chair.
“Everything is finished”, he thought. “Both my life in the Motherland and this emigrant’s life—everything is finished. Now I can binge in peace, lay down in my coffin, or commit myself to a mental ward—it makes no difference. Or I could go to school and become a teacher.”
All the while, the picture in the mirror was changing: a humongous person with two heads moved into the foreground. One of his four ears hung down just like a dog’s. But the expression in each of his eyes was benevolent, if a bit unsettled.
The person seemed not to understand why Semion Il’ich looked at him with such incomprehension.
Semion Il’ich cast about his gaze: perhaps somewhere behind him, in some tucked-away corner, that four-eared being was hiding, yet reflected in the mirror. But no one was in the room.
Once Semion Il’ich had glanced around and returned to his former position staring into the mirror, he found no one there. And the four-headed one was already sitting in a chair close by him, in a state of total stupefaction and contemplation. It was as if he had come out of the mirror, nonetheless having left a trace of himself there. Semion Il’ich began to scream. He had used to love screaming: out of longing, loneliness, world-wide detachment. But now he had begun to scream in order to deafen the love within him for that which lay on the other side.
The double-nosed one blew his noses and cautiously began to stare at the screaming Semion Il’ich. Four various expressions appeared in his eyes. One of his hands reached for tea.
Perhaps he was speaking—telepathically or in an angelic language, but in Semion Il’ich’s mind in any case; a question arose, as if posed by that force from the other side, and Semion answered or strove to answer it.
The first question was: “Why are you screaming?” In response, Semion Il’ich was silent and also reached for the tea.
“Who are you?” was the next question posed to Semion Il’ich.
This question suddenly enraged him. He had the urge to fling the teapot at the stranger.
“And who are you?! And who are you?! God damn you!!!! Who? Who? Who?” he spat, training his stare on the four-cheeked one.
“Who am I?” the response resounded in Semion Il’ich’s mind. “I am like you. Why don’t you explain why you only have one head?”
“Because, because!!!” Semion Il’ich bellowed. “That’s how I was born, forgive me…”
“I will not be forgiving you. One shouldn’t be born at all, my sweet one, if he’s only got one head. See, you could tear one of my heads off, and the other one would still be there. And then a third one would sprout up… I can grow heads, my dear. And ears.”
And the two-headed one dunked an ear in his tea saucer.
“But I can’t grow anything else,” he barked.
Semion Il’ich no longer understood whence the alien voice projected—from the inside or from the outside.
“You’re deprived, my sweet one. Deprived. I’ll tell it to you straight: you’re absolutely running dry with that one head of yours… To hell with all this. Be born into many forms. You loudmouth!”
And the “reflection” went to grab Semion Il’ich by the ear. One of his eyes looked up to heaven; two others were locked onto Semion Il’ich, and the last one seemed to be looking down into hell.
Semion Il’ich fell. And consciousness mercifully left him.
When he came to, his face hurt. It seemed that somewhere off to the side, on his shoulder, a boisterous and non-objective second head was making an imperceptible attempt to grow.
For three days he was in and out of a swoon. But all the same, he went to the library, begged for money as he usually did (though no one gave any), and cowered in fright under the skyscrapers. He read The Divine Comedy for two days.
Then he began to chuckle. The form of his own body seemed to him unusually funny and awkward. He was especially amused at the presence of his single, only, head.
The darkness was no longer there in the mirror, but that frightening multiplicity of forms had also ceased to exist.
The mirror became a regular mirror.
Now Semion Il’ich could clearly see his own reflection. But the absence of a second head drove him to desperate laughter. Only one tongue, two eyes total, a single nose. Here was something to chuckle at!
Besides, he thought, in the black New York subway—like the basement of some forgotten hell—they really will rip off this one head, and that’ll be it. But if I had two heads—how pleasant that would be! You can’t just rip off two heads in a single swipe. He fearfully muttered to himself, scrutinizing the wild forms of the semi-armed passengers. Even then, in the blink of an eye, a third one will grow.
Another two days passed, and he somehow made it home, completely disheartened by his lack of a second head. He sat down and thought. He had a spot of tea. In his absence, some cons had apparently broken in and made off with his wardrobe.
But the mirror remained unmolested.
And Semion Il’ich suddenly saw something in it again. His heart began to pound. There were neither candles nor incantations—everything was so simple. Bluish-black shades began to condense in the mirror.
And then a moron leapt out of it.
Yes, yes—but there were no two heads this time, and he possessed a form which, from Semion Il’ich’s point of view, had become unusual. That is, he had one head.
But his form was in no way the point—it was his soul. It could be felt immediately: this being was an unmistakable moron. At first, Semion Il’ich’s soul was even set at ease.
Oh, and what a guy he was! First he squealed, then he chattered about the elections, about politics—without stopping, without pause; he took out rolls of dollars, laughed, kissed them, and cried while examining each roll; then he got down on his knees before them. His name was John. He’d bought his jacket on Broadway. He had an extremely average appearance, like everyone else. He bowed to one thing only—dollars. He did not recognize anything else in the whole world; didn’t even believe that anything else existed on this Earth. Quite the monotheist he was.
He talked with Semion Il’ich for an entire four hours without pausing. He slapped him on the shoulder, grinned widely with his blinding teeth, and constantly asked:
“How are you?”
Semion Il’ich would only just begin to tell him about how he was feeling when John would once more start screeching about the elections, about business, about time—how, as always, there was none—and, last but not least, about money; about how money is like honey.
Then he would ask once more:
“How are you?”
And, not expecting an answer, he would scan the surrounding space with his empty eyes. He would suddenly glance at a copy of the New York Times that was lying on the table.
But sometimes strange spells of paralysis would descend onto John. He would go silent unexpectedly, sit absolutely still, and train his gaze onto a single point.
At first, Semion Il’ich did not understand what was happening. But one time, when John had gone stiff—in a somehow eternal way—for a long time, it dawned on him: John was dead. That is not to say that he had died permanently, but just for a little while, departing for hell in his simple soul.
Thus did Semion Il’ich contemplate him.
But this time had been truly unpleasant: John had gone so stiff that he ceased to look himself. The elemental features of his face had changed and taken on an infernal character—even a pre-infernal character, if one may use such an expression.
He then suddenly began to whisper. The usual meaningless expression on his face had vanished, and something alarming and almost conscious had appeared. An inexplicable horror was stuck in his eyes—perhaps the kind felt by those about to be hanged.
Semion Il’ich attempted to snap him out of it. He brought him some tea, but John showed no signs of revival.
Finally, he exited the death zone and became the former John: smiling, waving rolls of dollars, slapping shoulders, and invariably asking:
“How are you?”
Semion Il’ich was nauseated by his existence. John was so banal that, having forgotten all niceties, he shoved him out the door. It was strange that John so peacefully descended the staircase instead of returning into the mirror from which he had supposedly emerged. On the contrary, the mirror was completely normal; it reflected everything presented to it. Semion Il’ich saw John through the window: the latter quickly blended into a crowd of his likenesses milling about the street.
John’s apparition had somehow calmed Semion Il’ich.
The following days passed in quite the usual way. It was as if Semion Il’ich had entered the regime of that transparent life.
But shock soon followed. He was feeling it within two days. Everything had suddenly started to go differently… Shades condensed in the mirror, flickered, disappeared, and emerged once more with a sort of malevolent persistence. Exhausted by anticipation, Semion Il’ich fell asleep.
When he awoke, God knows what was going on in his room.
From out of the mirror, which had gone semi-black, it looked as though tentacles from the other side had emerged; chuckling laughter rang from its great depths, from which someone continually tumbled—someone dark and formless, dissolving on contact with the air and… laughter, laughter, laughter.
It was as if the invisible world were being reflected in the space of the mirror, departing from it and entering our world.
In horror, Semion Il’ich himself began to laugh, lifting his head from his pillow. Some sort of semi-tangible beasts spilled onto his bed, nuzzling forth to lick him…
The lust of delirious caresses embraced him…
Then something so dark and gigantic came and sat down in a chair that Semion Il’ich grew silent and apprehensive. Its eyes came to rest on him, expressing the absolutely imponderable.
A cat—having by some miracle ended up in the room—squealed wildly, as if it had become a pig, and launched itself from one corner to another, finding no reflection in the mirror. Suddenly, the cat’s head separated from its neck and rolled to the ground; and in its place a shimmering appeared: faceless and unnerving. The cat almost danced as it spun around in the shimmering field.
A lamp began to topple. Two demons were kissing on the wall.
The current of all times poured out of the mirror like an ocean of blood, in which planets, cities, nations, and people bathed. And surrounding these blights and paradisiacal oases—circling and dementedly guffawing—there were nimble beings who loosed a tempest of applause onto all of creation.
Flies constantly flew into Semion Il’ich’s mouth. The corpse of his sister, who had been crushed by a train, was in the corner, stretching her yellow hands out to him.
A goat carrying an advertising poster showed up on the table.
“Who am I?! Who am I?! Who am I?!” Semion Il’ich shouted from his bed.
And the eternal ray of the absolutely imponderable was directed at him, posing that exact fateful question.
A demon clapped its palms together—but a demon from other metasystems.
And suddenly Semion Il’ich understood.
And as soon as this happened, everything mysteriously vanished.
The objective lunacy thrust upon him by the Universe had gone quiet, as if it had depended on his consciousness. The room appeared as it usually did, and the mirror remained unchanged. But as it had been in the beginning, it was once more absolutely black—and that darkness, leading into the abyss, was impenetrable, like the death of all things in existence.
Semion Il’ich quietly rose and knelt before the black mirror. He had learned that all outward searches were in vain.
He had learned that the essence of his deepest “I” was as unknowable as the black mirror; and just as bottomless, leading into the trans-absolute. The invisible depths of this mirror were merely a projection of his own self.
Having followed his realizations to their terminus, Semion Il’ich wept alone before the mirror.
Then he rose, a completely different being—perhaps eternally calmed. There was only the glimmer of a smile on his face, one higher than all earthly and heavenly things.
And since New York, and all things like it, had lost all meaning for him, no one there ever saw him again.
Excerpt from Mamleev's America (forthcoming from PRAV Publishing), translated and edited by Charlie Smith.
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