Babylon by Victor Pelevin

Author:Victor Pelevin [Pelevin, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571202478
Amazon: 0571202470
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2000-04-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10. Wee Vova

God’s love for man is manifest in a great principle that defies adequate expression in words: ‘and yet it can be done’. The phrase ‘and yet it can be done’ means an immense number of things, including, for instance, that the principle itself, despite being absolutely impossible to express, can yet be expressed and manifested. Even more than that, it can be expressed an infinite number of times, and each time in a completely new way - which is why poetry exists. Such is the love of God. And what is man’s response to it?

Tatarsky woke in a cold sweat, unable to understand what the pitiless onslaught of the daylight was punishing him for. He could vaguely recall shouting out in his sleep and apparently trying to justify himself to someone - in other words he’d had an alcoholic nightmare. Now his hangover was so fundamental and profound that there was no point in seeking salvation by simply pouring a shot of vodka down his throat. He couldn’t even think about it, because the very thought of alcohol triggered spasms of retching; but to his great good fortune, that irrational and mystical manifestation of the divine love that spreads its trembling wings over Russia had already embraced his suffering soul.

He could yet take a hair of the dog that bit him. There was a special method for it, known as a ‘locomotive’. It had been perfected over generations of alcoholics and handed down to Tatarsky by a certain individual from the esoteric circles of St Petersburg the morning after a monstrous drinking session. ‘In essence the method is Gurdjieffian,’ the man had explained. ‘It belongs to what he called "the path of the cunning man". You have to regard yourself as a machine. This machine has receptors, nerve endings and a central control centre that is declaring quite unambiguously that any attempt to consume alcohol will instantly result in vomiting. What does the cunning man do? He deceives the machine’s receptors. From a practical point of view it goes like this: you fill your mouth with lemonade. Then you pour a glass of vodka and raise it to your mouth. Then you swallow the lemonade, and while the receptors are reporting to the supreme control centre that you’re drinking lemonade, you quickly swallow the vodka. Your body simply doesn’t have time to react, because its mind’s fairly sluggish. But there is one subtle point involved. If you swallow Coca-Cola before the vodka instead of lemonade, there’s a fifty per cent chance you’ll puke anyway; and if you swallow Pepsi-Cola, you’re absolutely certain to puke.’

‘What a concept that would make,’ Tatarsky pondered dourly as he entered the kitchen. There was still a little vodka in one of the bottles. He poured it into a glass and then turned towards the fridge. He was frightened by the thought that there might not be anything in it except Pepsi-Cola, which he usually bought out of faithfulness

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