A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia and Other Stories by Victor Pelevin

Author:Victor Pelevin [Pelevin, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0811215431
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Published: 2003-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

V

More than anything, his sudden enlightenment resembled that plunge into cold water which Pyotr Petrovich had tried to tell his pitiless companion about—and not just because he had only just noticed what a cold night it was. Pyotr Petrovich looked down at his feet and saw that the narrow silvery track that he had been following for so long was actually a narrow tin plated cornice that was deeply bowed under the weight of his body.

Beneath the cornice there was empty space, and beyond the space, about 100 feet below, the lights of the street lamps were duplicated in the puddles, the dark crowns of the trees trembled in the wind above the gray asphalt, and Pyotr Petrovich realized with horror that it was finally and absolutely real, that there was no way of ignoring or avoiding the fact he was standing there barefooted in his underwear at an immense height above the nighttime city, with only some miraculous force preventing him from falling. It was astonishing that he maintained his grip—there was absolutely nothing for his hands to grasp hold of except minute variations in the surface of the concrete wall—and if he leaned out even slightly from its cold, damp surface, then the implacable force of gravity would have pulled him downwards.

Not far away he could see an electric cable, but in order to reach out and grab it, he would have to take several steps along the ledge, and that was quite unthinkable. Squinting downwards he could make out the parking lot far below him, the cigarette-pack-sized cars, and a tiny patch of asphalt that someone might have left open specially for him. The most important evidence that the nightmare he had fallen into was the ultimate truth was the smell of garbage smoldering somewhere close—it was a smell that immediately settled all questions and seemed to carry within itself an entirely adequate proof of the ultimate reality of a world in which such smells are possible. Pyotr Petrovich’s soul was swamped by a tidal wave of terror that, for a fraction of a second, washed everything else away. The emptiness at his back was sucking him in and he pressed himself as flat against the wall as an election handbill from some unknown party that has absolutely no chance of victory.

“Well?” asked his companion.

Pyotr Petrovich looked at him—cautiously, so as not to glimpse the abyss under his feet for a second time.

“Stop it,” he said, quietly but very insistently, “please stop it! I’ll fall.”

His companion sniggered.

“How can I stop it? It’s happening to you, not to me.”

Pyotr Petrovich realized that his companion was right, but a moment later he realized something else, something which instantly filled him with indignation.

“That’s just mean and nasty,” he shouted, getting really worked up, “you can do that to anyone, tell him he’s a lunatic teetering on the edge of a void that he simply doesn’t see! Out on the cornice... why, just a minute ago, you... and now...”

“That’s true,” said his companion with a nod.

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