Somewhere East of Life Page 27

  The terrible Minvodkhoz, the Ministry of Water Resources, had struck. Great canals were built by slave labor. The Aral began to withdraw from its beaches. Its waters grew more saline as they evaporated. Its fish were poisoned, so that its fisheries one by one shut up shop. Boats ceased to ply for either work or pleasure, for both land and sea were ruined; the very air became poisoned. Thirty million people found their lives devastated, their modest coastal townships rotting stumps in receding gums. As the dust blew about from the exposed chemistries of the sea bed, diseases arose which civilized nations had forgotten long ago.

  The death of the Aral Sea, drying out the climate, was an affliction experienced hundreds of miles away; the sands throwing themselves against Burnell’s window announced the fact. They died when the wind died, as suddenly as it had arisen, itself plagued by the illnesses it carried. But cotton grew.

  Burnell went to stare out of his window. A new earthquake appeared to have struck Ashkhabad. Low buildings were half buried in sand. Yet within a couple of minutes, huge machines, yellow in color, crawled from their hiding-places and began to scoop the bitter dusts into their maw.

  He filed his notes in the morning. Shortly after two in the afternoon, he pulled on his shoes and, after a moment’s consideration, put on a tie. He went down the dusty staircase into the foyer, where he was met after a while by Robert Murray-Roberts, who trudged in from the street looking glum.

  “Weather’s on the change,” he said. “Come next week, we’ll be freezing our arses off.” He shook hands with Burnell. “Very good of you to agree to talk to the university at such short notice. We should have quite a decent crowd. They can’t pay you, by the way, Roy, the buggers, but the embassy will cough up something for your expenses.”

  They dodged a man with a broom, brushing sand from the foyer with long melancholy strokes, possibly inventing a way to paint a really modern abstract.

  “Who am I talking to?”

  “It’s sure to be the Humanities Department—students and student teachers with a grasp of English. Run by a Russian cove, a Professor Ivan Nastiklof. A wee emotional type, you’d say. I had to give them a title for your lecture, by the way, so I chose the title of your book, Archetype and Architrave. Hope that’s OK. I expect you’re used to this kind of thing back home.”

  “Moderately. It’s Architrave and Archetype, by the way.”

  “Fine. Fine, just as you like.” They were getting into his car. It started after several attempts, Murray-Roberts swearing in a resigned way—the curses might have been prayers—about sand in the engine.

  As they moved slowly through the city, they could not but observe that most of the population was involved with the extraction of grit from one place or another. Men, women, children, dogs, were all at it, scratching, cleaning houses, clearing paths, beating animals, polishing, blowing, brushing, besoming or shaking. The whole place looked like an Asian pastiche of a Bruegel canvas: crowded with little figures engaged in activities intended to illustrate rather gormless proverbs.

  Better a sandstorm by day than a cold bed by night

  A blocked carburetor is worth a whole philosophy

  When deserts move, shift your tent

  Respect a dusty wife: she will not provoke lust

  A door to a dirty wind is like a leaf to Muhammad’s ass

  Only Uzbeks enjoy bad weather

  Men sleep but a good broom is a watchful eye

  Souls in Heaven delight in the smell of a well-groomed camel

  Beat your rug toward your neighbor

  God has sovereignty over all things; curse not when his grit enters your eye, for you are being blessed.

  The University of Ashkhabad was an extensive concrete building, surrounded by lesser temporary-looking structures, much like universities all around the world. It was situated on sloping ground; on various levels and terraces some attempt had been made at landscaping, but the phenomenal wind had drowned the place in sand. Burnell and Murray-Roberts passed an outdoor canteen where students sat about drinking glasses of tea, looking as idle as only students can.

  They entered an unlighted hallway, dominated by a large photograph of President Diyanizov and characterized by an institutional smell, at once hygienic and unpleasant. Nobody came forward to meet them. By this time, Burnell was feeling uneasy. He had agreed to give this impromptu lecture merely to keep in with the embassy; now he was beginning to regret it.

  Professor Nastiklof appeared before them. He made no apology for failing to greet them on arrival, offering Burnell instead a hand which brought to his mind a picture of two frogs attempting to grasp each other in copulatory embrace in the shallows of the River Yukon.

  Nastiklof was small and bounderish, with no bridge to his nose and up-swept black and gray striped side-whiskers. The upper half of his body was dressed in a shirt with unfastened cuffs and a black waistcoat which acted as a dandruff trap. Squinting up at Burnell, he said, “So you’re Herr Roy Burnell. You’re older than I thought. Do you believe in God, may I enquire? The Godhead?”

  “Not greatly, I wouldn’t say.”

  “ ‘Not greatly, I wouldn’t say’… I suppose God’s not to Western taste these days?” said Nastiklof, unwittingly using one of Haydar’s lines. Glancing over his left shoulder, he said, “How about the devil, then? You believe in him, don’t you?”

  “God gave us the brains to doubt his existence. I suppose that takes care of the devil, too.” Burnell made to move forward but Nastiklof stopped him.

  “Well, I know you’re brave. After all, in Georgia, eh?” Chuckling, he made wicked little stabbing motions to indicate obliquely the death of Lazar Kaginovich. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of you, Roy Burnell.” His dyed black hair, plastered to his skull, rose in a small horn or ear on either side of his head. He resembled, all in all, a distraught cat.

  “Hadn’t we better get on with it?” Murray-Roberts asked.

  “Oh, I don’t mind if my routine’s interrupted.” With this comment, Nastiklof scurried down the dim corridor. They followed, to a crowded office—“My bunker,” said Nastiklof, sniggering, “like Adolf Hitler’s”—where a diminutive Muslim secretary poured each of them a sweet lemonade of strychnine flavor.

  “But I won’t say anything against Adolf, in case you like him. You see, we Russians—well, as the Professor of Psychology here,

  I can see into people’s souls, but I’ve learnt not to speak my mind, no. As they say in Odessa, ‘To make friends, keep your trap shut’… Amusing, isn’t it? Just bear that in mind, Herr Roy Burnell…”

  “I’m here to speak,” said Burnell. “My piece if not my mind.”

  “Ha!” Nastiklof repeated Burnell’s remark several times, trying to make sense of it, sometimes changing the word order as if the sentence were Latin.

  Taking tiny sips at his glass, licking his lips frequently, Nastiklof s feline aspect grew more apparent. The way he flicked his head from side to side, eyes half closed, to scrutinize first one of his guests then the other, made Burnell think, “Ah, Balaam’s Cat!”

  “Say nothing controversial,” he warned Burnell. “Comprehensible, OK—but remember you’re talking to Muslim students. No politics. No religion. As a giaur, you’re not even supposed to mention Allah. In fact the duller you can be, the better.” Half under his breath, half into his glass, he added, “Shouldn’t be too difficult… Nothing controversial… You can’t trust them…”

  After a second glass of lemonade, and no immediate ill-effects, Nastiklof led them into a well-equipped lecture room, the raked seats of which were filled by silent students. They rose as one on the entry of their professor and his guests.

  Having led Burnell on to the podium, Nastiklof began to introduce him at length, first in Russian, then in ornate English.

  The introduction took peculiar form, being in the main a discourse on the rise of Germany following the Congress of Berlin in 1878, which Bismarck had mediated as honest broker. Of this, Nastiklof
gave a full account. When he mentioned that Russia had been apportioned Bessarabia, the audience, silent until that point, gave a loud cheer.

  Used to all kinds of madness when in a lecture room, Burnell nevertheless found this lengthy preamble hard to swallow. Nastiklof spoke for twenty minutes before sitting down. With a merry self-satisfied gesture, he motioned to Burnell to rise and do his worst.

  “Good afternoon. After that introduction, anything I may say will surely sound irrelevant. Nevertheless, I was invited to speak to you on the subject of ‘Architrave and Archetype,’ so that I propose to do.

  “For those of you who are not architectural students, I should explain that an architrave is, in a general sense, a molded frame surrounding a door or window. I use it in my book in a metaphorical sense, being interested in the way in which styles of architecture permit us insight into the human psyche and human ambitions.

  “I assume you are all familiar with archetypes. I’d define an archetype as follows—and I rely heavily on the original work in this area by Carl Jung. There are certain innate psychic and behavioral predispositions universally present in all human beings of whatever race. These predispositions may find unique expression in each individual, yet they underlie and guide human existence. We’re all the same, in other words; national differences count for nothing in these psychic regions. Such entities have been inherited from the mammals which preceded us, evolving slowly through the immensity of time.”

  He noticed a rumble of discontent at this statement, but pressed on without pause.

  “What are these archetypes which are of such importance and such ancient vintage? To give you an example. Just recently, remains of a pre-human species have been excavated in mountain caves in the Sierra de la Demanda, in the north of Spain near Burgos.”

  At this juncture, the audience came alive, and gave a loud cheer. Could it be that news of the archaeological discovery in Spain so delighted them? Or could it be that a secret sign had been given them, in order to encourage the speaker?

  Mystified, Burnell continued. “Thank you. The Spanish discoveries are good news, since they will further our understanding of our own species. There are strong indications that these pre-humans, who died half a million years ago, conducted religious ceremonials. So we may say that the religious impulse is an extremely old archetype, influencing our behavior whether we are Christian or Muslim. Other—”

  At this moment, up popped Professor Nastiklof from his chair next to Burnell. Fists first on hips, then right arm raised to wag an angry ill-manicured finger at Burnell.

  “I’m sorry, sir. I have to interrupt you. You are a welcome guest to our university, coming all the way from Germany to speak to us, but we cannot permit intellectuals to insult this audience as if we were rug-sellers. We look to you for enlightenment, not racial abuse. To dare to suggest that there is any resemblance between the enlightened worship of the All-Highest and some prehuman mumbo-jumbo is to defile our hospitality—you who have partaken of our refreshment and our best attentions.”

  At this, Burnell was somewhat taken aback.

  “I’m suggesting no such thing! You totally misunderstand something which could not have been put more clearly. If you expect me to continue, sit down, sir.” But the audience was in an uproar, most of the students jumping up and standing on their chairs, angrily waving papers or their keffiyehs. Some were shouting incoherently. Burnell was reminded of England’s House of Commons.

  To Nastiklof he said, “You’ve ruined my speech and insulted my intelligence. I’d bloody well insult yours if I thought you had any.”

  “No, no, no, no, no. Let us be friends, mein herr! Russians and Germans have traditional friendships.” The little professor lowered his voice, so as scarcely to be heard above the uproar. “I didn’t mean a word I said. My position as a Russian here is insecure. I’m a frog on stilts in this Muslim University, a rudder without a boat. I said what I did only to curry favor with the audience so that they will think better of me. Please understand.”

  “You worm, Nastikof, you little worm!”

  Nastiklof violently nodded his head, so that the two horns of hair fell flat on his skull. “I know, I know. True, alas. A worm of blue blood. But you will soon leave this place. My fate is to stay. You are fortunate. I must cling to my career, such as it is, like a rat to a sinking ship.”

  “So you’re willing to make a fool of me to do it.”

  “I’ll silence these imbeciles, you see. Then you carry on. Afterwards, we have a huge meal in recompense. I buy it for you.”

  Before Burnell could argue, Nastiklof turned to the audience and made waving signs with his hands. Gradually, the row subsided. All this while, Burnell was conscious of Murray-Roberts in the front row, red of face, vainly trying to suppress convulsive laughter. Only this sign of normal human behavior saved Burnell’s sanity.

  “He apologizes! The giaur apologizes!” yelled Nastiklof. “Our dear guest says it was a story, a joke, without meaning. Be seated and Professor Burnell will proceed.”

  Still furious, Burnell could not find it in himself to quit the platform. He began to speak again in a shout as the audience subsided into their seats.

  “What we have just witnessed is a perfect example of the folly of human behavior. On a small scale, maybe, but still utterly contemptible! Let me deal with an archetype which provokes folly on a much larger scale. I refer to an archetypal imperative unfortunately of great phylogenetic antiquity, the aggressive archetype. It is that which triggers wars.

  “We are, however, no mere helpless victims of our impulses. We can to some extent control them, as I now control my anger. That is what is meant by civilization. By conscious consideration of these hidden archetypes, we may be able to prevent orgies of destruction.

  “What I’m saying is that the light of consciousness—that archetrave we have ourselves built into our souls—may be strong enough to overpower those archetypes which, once of assistance to humanity, now threaten to overturn the delicate fabric on which civilization is built.

  “For example. Can we suppose that the recent war between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan could have been avoided? Imagine a situation where the leaders of both countries had met calmly and judiciously and—”

  He was made aware that Nastiklof had jumped up again, scarlet of countenance. The Russian began screaming at the audience. “He now insults our brave people! He insults our leaders! He pours scorn on our beloved President Diyanizov! We know who started the war. Who started the war, my friends?”

  The audience, scrambling up again, yelled as one man, “The enemy! Uzbeks! Uzbeks! Uzbeks!” They rushed to climb on the platform, like revolutionaries storming the barricades.

  “You see, you idiots!” shouted Burnell at the top of his voice. “Sit down, will you? It’s that damned stupid archetype popping its rocks again!”

  “Quick,” said Nastiklof, grabbing hold of Burnell. “Out the back or the bastards will lynch you!”

  He led the way through a door at the back of the platform. They found themselves in a dim-lit corridor. As Nastiklof turned and locked the door, hammering started on the other side.

  “The herrings! The sprats! They’ll never get to you. I defy them. I protect you with my useless life. Come with me.” He was perfectly calm now, though a little out of breath. Burnell would have preferred a faster pace down the corridor as they crunched their way over the sandy floor.

  “You’re a creep of the most vile order, Nastiklof. I detest you.”

  “Hush, I have to win their respect, damn them. We get a vodka in my office. I save your life, didn’t I?”

  “You nearly caused my death, you slime. And what about Murray-Roberts?”

  Nastiklof winked. “He’s a big boy, Murray-Roberts. And probably Jewish.”

  It was a relief to be locked into Nastiklof s office. The last thing Burnell wished to do was drink with this repulsive little man, but a slug of Stolichnaya was irresistible. He quickly took a second glass. It was a
delight to feel his head spin in a sly anti-clockwise fashion, like a gyroscope defying gravity.

  “By the bloody way, Nastikof, I’m not a German. I’m English. Murray-Roberts is Scottish. I’d just like to point that out. And to hell with Bismarck.”

  “Why don’t you like the Krauts?”

  “I like them very well. I’m just telling you I’m English.”

  “The Krauts kill many people.”

  “Meaning what? Meaning the Russians don’t?”

  “So you like the Krauts to kill people? Millions, perhaps?”

  “Are you referring to the war last century, World War II, when the Nazis exterminated six million Jews?”

  “Pah, everyone kills Jews. Did English kill Jews? No? Now England is no longer an important country and Germany is.”

  Burnell made a move towards him. “You insult me or the Jews once more and you are going to suffer. I’ll flatten you, so be warned.”

  Putting his hands up to his face, Nastiklof squeezed it until saliva ran from his mouth. His lips took the shape of an orange Mobius strip. “I’m sincerely as terrified as a molehill. I forget momentarily you are none other than the assassin of President Lazar Kaginovich of the West Georgian Republic and will kill without compunction. You were seen on the local television. I’m sincerely afraid of you. What am I? As you say, a worm on a sinking ship. You—you, on the other hand, you are a hero or a villain, depending on point of view. Inhabitant of a once-great country, rich, able to travel, friend of Jew-slayers. Also, I believe someone stole your memory.”

  Burnell hit him in the face. It was rather a squashy business.

  Nastiklof fell back against his desk, accidentally planting one hand up to his bleeding mouth, he covered it with grains of rice, which he blew at Burnell.