It was quite a sight watching Rasputin exert all his personal magnetism, the all too resistible appeal of glistening steel teeth, bloodshot eyes, and the sour odour of his unwashed body. "Do you want to make some money?" he asked as he drank down his sixth tumbler of whisky and leaned over for more.
"How?" I held my nose and grudgingly poured him another shot.
Rasputin grabbed the bottle from my hands. "It's so simple! All you have to do is to go to a pine forest on the Ukrainian border where a small fat man in a brown nylon jacket will give you a package and you'll give him ten thousand dollars. Then you fly to London and give me the package and in two weeks I'll give you back your ten thousand dollars. And a couple hundred extra bucks of course," Rasputin added generously. "One way. Well?"
"No."
"Come on!" Rasputin was disappointed. "Why not? What's happened to you? You used to like adventures. Just do it as a favor to me."
"I nearly got my head blown off the last time I did you a favor," I reminded Rasputin. "It put me off adventures."
"Are you still upset about that?" Rasputin seemed surprised. "It wasn't my fault."
"Oh, really?" I stared coldly at Rasputin, remembering how he had maniacally paced about in the small upstairs room of an unfurnished house still smelling of fresh paint, in a suburb of London with an evil reputation, his fake Burberry trench coat flapping over a navy blue suit with trousers that were too short, showing dirty white socks above brown loafers, making rude demands for whisky and girls on the two short Hungarian-Jewish twins wearing double-breasted check jackets with whom we were negotiating to buy powerful computers that were still officially banned for export to Russia because of their potential military applications. Rasputin was playing his favorite role, the Russian with connections, this time in the Interior Ministry whose generals were keen to get that extra edge in ballistic technology over their rivals in the Red Army and the KGB in the military power-struggle in the Kremlin, and Rasputin had coerced me into acting inscrutable, the silent Asian financier figure, a part I was handling with some success until the nattily dressed man from Macao appeared with a stripped down demonstration model of one of the actual computers we were ostensibly buying, and then proceeded to ask us probing questions about the financial details and logistics of the whole deal. Rasputin lost his head and began babbling about An-22 transport planes, the biggest aircraft in the whole world, loaded with roubles which would fly at night from secret Interior Ministry bases near Moscow and unload their valueless cargo in Dubai where they would then take on board stacks of yen, and the roubles would be smuggled in Arab dhows across the Red Sea into India and exchanged for rupees at the old fixed rate of exchange which was still valid through some oversight and the rupees could be converted on the black market into hard currency; at this stage, Rasputin looked wildly at me and I nodded authoritatively but it was no use, Rasputin was fading fast, `and then they'll fly to Macao and pick up the computers?' he said, looking at the Chinese supplier hopefully. But the Chinaman only looked coldly at Rasputin's loafers and told the twins to take us away. We were bundled into a large new Volvo station wagon and driven at high speeds into a cheerless wilderness of row houses and railway lines and telephone poles, and I am quite certain that if it hadn't been for the lucky chance that I had slicked back my hair that morning with a particularly waxy mousse which caused the gun pressed hard against my neck by one of the twins to slip for an instant, a moment long enough for me to use the rudimentary self-defence skills I had acquired at my mother's insistence that I go to karate classes as a teenager in Kalifornia, Rasputin and I would not have been sitting a year later in my room in Prague drinking whisky in the early hours of the morning.
"Maybe I can get Godfrey to pick up the package," Rasputin said morosely. "I can sell that icon for fifty thousand pounds easy. I really need the money."
"What did you do with all the prize money from your article in The Voyeur? You can't have spent ten thousand pounds in three months."
"Well, I had to give Godfrey half of it since he wrote..." Rasputin quickly corrected himself. "Since he helped me write the article." He scowled at his empty glass. I brought out another bottle of whisky. I was curious to hear this story. "And then the rest... well, bad investments. And lawyers are so expensive."
"Isn't The Voyeur paying for your defence? Aren't they co-defendants in the libel suit that Blodgett Scrotum brought against you?"
"They were," Rasputin corrected me gloomily. "But they apologized to Scrotum. And to Monica Bigglesworth-Fume. And to Olivia Pebble. The treacherous bastards sold me out." He laughed harshly. "First they give me their prestigious prize for best travel writing of the year because they think it's cute to hear the English establishment described by a Russian. Next thing they won't even pay for the lawyers. The whole conservative establishment is out for my blood. The only thing that could save me now is if Terence would introduce me to Lady Snatcher. But the bastard refuses. And now two weeks ago the literary editor of the Daily Paragraph refused to give me even one book to review. He reminded me that Lady Monica's husband had been the editor of the Paragraph."
"Well, you shouldn't have written that her hair looked like overcooked spinach tagliatelle," I said without sympathy.
"I said that about Olivia Pebble!" Rasputin yelped. "I just said that Lady Monica needed... variety in her sex life."
"Rasputin. That was the one bit in the article which I knew you had written and not Godfrey. God is not crude enough to say that the lady needs to be sodomized because she is so uptight. And he is certainly not coarse enough to describe the Russian narrator proceeding to do precisely this in graphic detail."
"They're trying to drive me out of England," Rasputin said dismally. "They want me to go back to Russia."
"What about your job at The Sociologist? Did Jenkins fire you as well?"
"No. He promoted me. I'm now their Mafia correspondent."
"Is that why you were in Moscow?"
"No, we were gathering material. For Revolvers, Wretches, and Russian Roulette. Remember? The novel you and I were planning to write before you stopped speaking to me. Godfrey and I are writing it now." Rasputin's face brightened a little. "That's the good thing about this libel suit. Lots of publicity. But my agent says I have to cash in on it quickly. Besides, all these English people have started publishing novels about the Russian mafia. What the hell do they know about it anyway? Have they gone skiing down virgin powder slopes in the Caucacus with corrupt KGB agents and then spent the night in orgies with beautiful prostitutes? Have they been in car chases along the Dnieper valley being shot at by drug-crazed Georgian mafiosi? Have their girlfriends gone mad because their fathers have been sentenced to hard labor as part of a cover-up by Communist party bosses?" Rasputin's voice had risen to an unearthly crescendo wail. "Why can't these English writers stick to writing about themselves?"
"Just like you, eh? So are you moving back to Moscow?"
"No," Rasputin said emphatically. "I'm still having trouble with my visa and Terence Killjoy-Yuck refuses to help me. Ungrateful bastard. When I think of all the Corona Corona cigars I gave him. But Meredith is definitely going to marry me."
"Who the hell is Meredith? What happened to Stefania? Wait." I was genuinely appalled. "Is Meredith that crazy chick who was giving me advice about shampoo?"
"No, that was..." Rasputin scratched his head vaguely. "I can't remember her name now. I think she finally killed herself. She was always talking about doing it. No, I just fucked her sometimes. She bought me cigarettes. But she liked you."
"As I recall, she called me a rude, overbearing, insensitive bully just because I very politely told her that Ulan Bator is the capital of Mongolia. And there you were, nodding away, being Mister Sensitive, saying that she was right and that I only told the truth because I couldn't be amusing." I glowered at Rasputin. "So what the hell happened to Stefania?"
"Oh, it just got too complicated. After her stupid Polish husband finally found out about our affair, he had me followed all the time by armed thugs, and then he wrote to the Home Office telling them that I was a Russian spy pretending to be a student, and then he kept Stefania under lock and key at home and beat her up..."
"So you dumped her when she needed your help. As ever, Rasputin, the flower of chivalry."
"It was leading nowhere. She didn't have any money," Rasputin replied reasonably. "Meredith has a British passport and some money. And she's pretty well preserved for her age." He looked around the room and nodded approvingly. "They treat you nicely here. Are they paying you lots of money?" His bloodshot eyes glittered red.
"They haven't paid me anything yet."
Rasputin shrugged. "But you don't need money anyway."
I could see what was coming a mile away. "My mother's gone bankrupt," I lied. "Nobody wants to eat Mongolian fast food anymore. You know how quickly fashions change in the West." I coaxed a sob into my voice. "That's why I have to work. I'm going to beg them to pay me something. So that I can support my mother in her old age. Now that she's all alone and poor. She needs my help."
Rasputin sniffed. Even the most hardened criminal has his soft spot, I suppose, and I knew that Rasputin really loved his mother, despite the cruel words and harsh manners with which he upbraided her in public. But then it was hard not to adore Katyushka. It was because everyone loved that small dark plump woman with a caressing voice and sweet smile that Rasputin had gained his entry into the highest circles among British conservatives in the first place, because Blodgett Scrotum and Lady Monica had drunk blackberry tea in Katyushka's flat and had heard Katyushka gently urge them to try another pickled mushroom... My appeal to Rasputin's filial feelings worked, up to a point. I escaped scalping at the cost of only a hundred dollars.
"What time is it?" Rasputin asked abruptly. "I have to get to Berlin this morning."
I was startled. "Why Berlin?" I almost told him that Lulu was in Berlin but then in the nick of time I managed to bite my tongue. While rinsing the blood from my mouth, I looked up at the mirror and saw Rasputin sidling across the room. His bulky body obscured my view but he seemed to be putting something under my blanket at the foot of my bed. I made a mental note to make sure he hadn't planted a bomb but then I promptly forgot all about it. After a last slug of whisky for the road, I took Rasputin to the train station. It was already four in the morning and his train to Kiev left at seven. My boss, the rector of the University of Truth and Justice, Professor Otto Hell was coming back to Prague that morning anyway, and since it made no sense to bother getting any sleep, I sat with Rasputin on a damp bench on the deserted platform, two huddled figures in trench coats drinking bottled beer and smoking cigarettes in the dim blue light of a cold autumn dawn.
I had heard most of Rasputin's stories before and so I wasn't paying much attention as he babbled on about the latest cause celebre, the mysterious death at sea of the media magnate Max Bulge which had caused frenzied media speculation on whether Bulge had jumped from his yacht or been pushed. Rasputin claimed that world-famous investigative reporters were rolling around drunkenly on the scummy floors of seedy Fleet Street bars trying to punch each other on the snout because they disagreed about whether Bulge had been bumped off by the Israeli Mossad or the KGB. Rasputin himself believed that Bulge had laundered money for the Soviets for many years and that the political changes in Russia had brought Bulge's usefulness to an end. "He was definitely working for the KGB," Rasputin said, as his train pulled in. "What better cover for a Communist than to pretend to be a successful capitalist? And where did Bulge get his money from in the first place?"
Rasputin's parting words stuck in my head as I took the tram back to the University building. His last question seemed oddly familiar as I held on to the strap amidst a crowd of Czech workmen in blue coveralls on their way to their first beer break of the morning. It was only in the shower, as I switched the temperature from steaming hot to freezing cold in an excess of masochistic fervor, attempting to clear my head from a long night of drinking and chain-smoking, gasping for breath, heart pounding, that I remembered asking myself the same question about the origins of Xox's mysterious wealth. The rumor was that Xox's Fund for Peace and Love was a conduit for covert payments by the CIA and the British secret services to shady Third World governments and terrorist groups. Why then were the Western secret services so eager to dig up the dirt on Xox?
Hell seemed pleased to see me when I finally made it to his office. "Busy day ahead," he said gruffly, shaking my hand. "Got to muck out this pig sty. Where's the filth thickest?"
"The European Community department, sir?"
"Right," Hell said. "Thought I'd told you to call me `Otto'. Find Sonnerschein."
I called up the director of the European Studies department and asked him to meet Lord Hades immediately. "Jawohl!" an agitated voice answered. A minute later, Professor Hohenstaufen huffed his way into the office. "Any idea what it is about?" he snuffled nervously, staring at me with those protuberant gooseberry eyes.
"Lord Hades," I announced without reply. "Professor Prince Maximilian von und zu Hohenstaufen-Niebelungen is here to see you."
I ushered the Prince into Hell's office and looked through my peephole. Professor Hohenstaufen was on his knees besides Hell's deck-chair, his hands clutched in prayer, clearly making an impassioned appeal to impassive Hell. Tears were rolling down the Prince's cheeks into his sodden moustache and he was sobbing helplessly. It was not a pretty sight. A few minutes later, the Prince staggered out, still sobbing.
"He told me we couldn't teach the students court etiquette! And we aren't allowed to use the word `federalism'. Boohoohooo... Boooohooo...." I offered Hohenstaufen my handkerchief and patted him on the back. He gulped a few times, blew his nose loudly, and then smiled at me slyly. I smiled back. His smile turned into a leer. He winked. "Let's have dinner together one night," the Prince suggested. "Just you and me. Eh?"
I took a step back. "I'm afraid I'm very busy," I stammered.
The Prince's face turned purple. "What?" he shouted in a voice like thunder. "You decline my proposition? A boy from the dungheap of Asia, a child of savages without history, a mere nothing, rejects the friendship and goodwill of a nobleman like myself? I am Maximilian of Hohenstaufen! Not to mention Niebelungen! I am the direct descendant through my mother's line of Ulrich the Fat! And Adolph the Mad! Do you even know what that means? But of course you don't. You uncivilized... aborigine. I lay claim to the kingdoms of Poland-Lithuania, Greater Moravia, Ruritania, and Transylvania! My family is older than the Hohenzollerns! I am the cousin of the Holy Roman Emperor himself! Yes, I tell you, even Franz Josef von Gapsburg does not decline my invitations!"
Hell came out of his office and surveyed the scene coldly. Professor Hohenstaufen staggered back and retreated to the door, making fawning obeisances to Otto, wordless gestures indicating eternal obedience and servility. Recoiling in disgust, Hell turned away. Hohenstaufen-Niebelungen waved his clenched fist threateningly at me as he left. "Man's mad. What's the next mess I need to clean up?"
"Well, Otto, there is some confusion about whether we have a philosophy department or not. Professor Novak thinks we do. Professor Masaryk thinks we don't. He wants to start a department of sociology again. It's not good for staff morale to see the two most eminent members of the faculty wrestling in the corridors and calling each other names..."
"Call 'em in. And you sit in as well. Keep a record of the meeting."
Professors Masaryk and Novak made an odd couple as they walked in together, arguing heatedly. Tall, silver-haired, grey-suited, bespectacled, stern, Tomas Masaryk looked every inch the distinguished academic, while Jiri Novak, short, stocky, square, smiling, with his sharp brightly-colored jackets, shrill voice, and lecherous reputation, looked and behaved like an Italian film director with connections in the mafia. In fact, he was a noted philosopher whose refined and austere work on the epistemology of art had won him the respect and friendship of such legendary philosophers as Deride and Muzil. Both men fell silent as Hell politely offered them armchairs and then sat down in his own deckchair. I sat on a small three-legged stool in the corner and unobstrusively took notes.
"This eternal dispute between idealists and materialists is ridiculous," Hell began peremptorily. "Especially vicious here because of Communism. Have to transcend this narrow-minded and petty dispute. Compromise." Masaryk and Novak both looked suspicious. "Neither Philosophy nor Sociology. Instead we will have a Department of Culture. We will eradicate the mind-body dichotomy!" Both men looked aghast at first but their expressions rapidly altered to adoring admiration. They walked out of the room with their arms clasped around each other's shoulders, which was difficult for Novak even when he raised his high heels off the floor and walked on his toes. Hell winked contentedly at me. "Any other problems?"
"Well, Otto, something needs to be done about Professor Attila Ugh at the Budapest College. He wants students drawn exclusively from the Hungarian minority populations in Slovakia, Transylvania, and the Vojvodina. And his proposals for courses seem a bit peculiar..." I fished around in my pocket for the course outline Ugh had reluctantly sent in. "Sniper Training; Advanced Guerrilla Tactics; Low-level Bombing Simulation; Blitzkrieg Tank Maneuvers; Effective Ethnic Cleansing... and a graduate course on The Production of Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"Bloody Hungarians!" Hell exploded. "Always the same. Ever since Attila the Hun. The same atavistic urge for empire. World domination." He frowned thoughtfully. "Tricky. Can't just fire him. He'll apply somewhere else for the money to turn himself into another Admiral Horthy. Doesn't seem to grasp the meaning of Peace and Love. Have to talk to Xox about this. He'll be here in a few weeks. Ran into him this weekend at this conference in Vienna."
"You're just going to let Professor Ugh go ahead in the meanwhile?"
"Told you not to ask questions!" Hell growled. "'Course I am. Don't want to raise his suspicions. Besides, can't disturb Xox about some petty tyrant. He's a busy man. Now go away. Leave me to my thoughts."
I bowed and withdrew. I felt very tired. I went down to my room and lay in bed but I couldn't go to sleep. In that grey haze of insomnia, an incipient hangover looming threateningly like a black storm cloud, certain questions kept repeating themselves in my head until they lost all meaning. What were Hell's thoughts? What kept Xox so busy? Why had the University of Truth and Justice been set up in the first place? What was the meaning of Peace and Love? That reminded me of an experiment I had been meaning to carry out for some time now. I got wearily out of bed and took one of Lucy's vitamins. Very soon I felt much better. I lay down again and breathed deeply. My muscles lost their strung-out ache and my eyes their strained dryness. The confused questions in my head were drowned out by a soothing murmur, waves breaking in gentle chaos on a sandy beach, nice waves, leaving behind an intricate geometry of foam, a fractal geometry of peace and love...
"How?" I held my nose and grudgingly poured him another shot.
Rasputin grabbed the bottle from my hands. "It's so simple! All you have to do is to go to a pine forest on the Ukrainian border where a small fat man in a brown nylon jacket will give you a package and you'll give him ten thousand dollars. Then you fly to London and give me the package and in two weeks I'll give you back your ten thousand dollars. And a couple hundred extra bucks of course," Rasputin added generously. "One way. Well?"
"No."
"Come on!" Rasputin was disappointed. "Why not? What's happened to you? You used to like adventures. Just do it as a favor to me."
"I nearly got my head blown off the last time I did you a favor," I reminded Rasputin. "It put me off adventures."
"Are you still upset about that?" Rasputin seemed surprised. "It wasn't my fault."
"Oh, really?" I stared coldly at Rasputin, remembering how he had maniacally paced about in the small upstairs room of an unfurnished house still smelling of fresh paint, in a suburb of London with an evil reputation, his fake Burberry trench coat flapping over a navy blue suit with trousers that were too short, showing dirty white socks above brown loafers, making rude demands for whisky and girls on the two short Hungarian-Jewish twins wearing double-breasted check jackets with whom we were negotiating to buy powerful computers that were still officially banned for export to Russia because of their potential military applications. Rasputin was playing his favorite role, the Russian with connections, this time in the Interior Ministry whose generals were keen to get that extra edge in ballistic technology over their rivals in the Red Army and the KGB in the military power-struggle in the Kremlin, and Rasputin had coerced me into acting inscrutable, the silent Asian financier figure, a part I was handling with some success until the nattily dressed man from Macao appeared with a stripped down demonstration model of one of the actual computers we were ostensibly buying, and then proceeded to ask us probing questions about the financial details and logistics of the whole deal. Rasputin lost his head and began babbling about An-22 transport planes, the biggest aircraft in the whole world, loaded with roubles which would fly at night from secret Interior Ministry bases near Moscow and unload their valueless cargo in Dubai where they would then take on board stacks of yen, and the roubles would be smuggled in Arab dhows across the Red Sea into India and exchanged for rupees at the old fixed rate of exchange which was still valid through some oversight and the rupees could be converted on the black market into hard currency; at this stage, Rasputin looked wildly at me and I nodded authoritatively but it was no use, Rasputin was fading fast, `and then they'll fly to Macao and pick up the computers?' he said, looking at the Chinese supplier hopefully. But the Chinaman only looked coldly at Rasputin's loafers and told the twins to take us away. We were bundled into a large new Volvo station wagon and driven at high speeds into a cheerless wilderness of row houses and railway lines and telephone poles, and I am quite certain that if it hadn't been for the lucky chance that I had slicked back my hair that morning with a particularly waxy mousse which caused the gun pressed hard against my neck by one of the twins to slip for an instant, a moment long enough for me to use the rudimentary self-defence skills I had acquired at my mother's insistence that I go to karate classes as a teenager in Kalifornia, Rasputin and I would not have been sitting a year later in my room in Prague drinking whisky in the early hours of the morning.
"Maybe I can get Godfrey to pick up the package," Rasputin said morosely. "I can sell that icon for fifty thousand pounds easy. I really need the money."
"What did you do with all the prize money from your article in The Voyeur? You can't have spent ten thousand pounds in three months."
"Well, I had to give Godfrey half of it since he wrote..." Rasputin quickly corrected himself. "Since he helped me write the article." He scowled at his empty glass. I brought out another bottle of whisky. I was curious to hear this story. "And then the rest... well, bad investments. And lawyers are so expensive."
"Isn't The Voyeur paying for your defence? Aren't they co-defendants in the libel suit that Blodgett Scrotum brought against you?"
"They were," Rasputin corrected me gloomily. "But they apologized to Scrotum. And to Monica Bigglesworth-Fume. And to Olivia Pebble. The treacherous bastards sold me out." He laughed harshly. "First they give me their prestigious prize for best travel writing of the year because they think it's cute to hear the English establishment described by a Russian. Next thing they won't even pay for the lawyers. The whole conservative establishment is out for my blood. The only thing that could save me now is if Terence would introduce me to Lady Snatcher. But the bastard refuses. And now two weeks ago the literary editor of the Daily Paragraph refused to give me even one book to review. He reminded me that Lady Monica's husband had been the editor of the Paragraph."
"Well, you shouldn't have written that her hair looked like overcooked spinach tagliatelle," I said without sympathy.
"I said that about Olivia Pebble!" Rasputin yelped. "I just said that Lady Monica needed... variety in her sex life."
"Rasputin. That was the one bit in the article which I knew you had written and not Godfrey. God is not crude enough to say that the lady needs to be sodomized because she is so uptight. And he is certainly not coarse enough to describe the Russian narrator proceeding to do precisely this in graphic detail."
"They're trying to drive me out of England," Rasputin said dismally. "They want me to go back to Russia."
"What about your job at The Sociologist? Did Jenkins fire you as well?"
"No. He promoted me. I'm now their Mafia correspondent."
"Is that why you were in Moscow?"
"No, we were gathering material. For Revolvers, Wretches, and Russian Roulette. Remember? The novel you and I were planning to write before you stopped speaking to me. Godfrey and I are writing it now." Rasputin's face brightened a little. "That's the good thing about this libel suit. Lots of publicity. But my agent says I have to cash in on it quickly. Besides, all these English people have started publishing novels about the Russian mafia. What the hell do they know about it anyway? Have they gone skiing down virgin powder slopes in the Caucacus with corrupt KGB agents and then spent the night in orgies with beautiful prostitutes? Have they been in car chases along the Dnieper valley being shot at by drug-crazed Georgian mafiosi? Have their girlfriends gone mad because their fathers have been sentenced to hard labor as part of a cover-up by Communist party bosses?" Rasputin's voice had risen to an unearthly crescendo wail. "Why can't these English writers stick to writing about themselves?"
"Just like you, eh? So are you moving back to Moscow?"
"No," Rasputin said emphatically. "I'm still having trouble with my visa and Terence Killjoy-Yuck refuses to help me. Ungrateful bastard. When I think of all the Corona Corona cigars I gave him. But Meredith is definitely going to marry me."
"Who the hell is Meredith? What happened to Stefania? Wait." I was genuinely appalled. "Is Meredith that crazy chick who was giving me advice about shampoo?"
"No, that was..." Rasputin scratched his head vaguely. "I can't remember her name now. I think she finally killed herself. She was always talking about doing it. No, I just fucked her sometimes. She bought me cigarettes. But she liked you."
"As I recall, she called me a rude, overbearing, insensitive bully just because I very politely told her that Ulan Bator is the capital of Mongolia. And there you were, nodding away, being Mister Sensitive, saying that she was right and that I only told the truth because I couldn't be amusing." I glowered at Rasputin. "So what the hell happened to Stefania?"
"Oh, it just got too complicated. After her stupid Polish husband finally found out about our affair, he had me followed all the time by armed thugs, and then he wrote to the Home Office telling them that I was a Russian spy pretending to be a student, and then he kept Stefania under lock and key at home and beat her up..."
"So you dumped her when she needed your help. As ever, Rasputin, the flower of chivalry."
"It was leading nowhere. She didn't have any money," Rasputin replied reasonably. "Meredith has a British passport and some money. And she's pretty well preserved for her age." He looked around the room and nodded approvingly. "They treat you nicely here. Are they paying you lots of money?" His bloodshot eyes glittered red.
"They haven't paid me anything yet."
Rasputin shrugged. "But you don't need money anyway."
I could see what was coming a mile away. "My mother's gone bankrupt," I lied. "Nobody wants to eat Mongolian fast food anymore. You know how quickly fashions change in the West." I coaxed a sob into my voice. "That's why I have to work. I'm going to beg them to pay me something. So that I can support my mother in her old age. Now that she's all alone and poor. She needs my help."
Rasputin sniffed. Even the most hardened criminal has his soft spot, I suppose, and I knew that Rasputin really loved his mother, despite the cruel words and harsh manners with which he upbraided her in public. But then it was hard not to adore Katyushka. It was because everyone loved that small dark plump woman with a caressing voice and sweet smile that Rasputin had gained his entry into the highest circles among British conservatives in the first place, because Blodgett Scrotum and Lady Monica had drunk blackberry tea in Katyushka's flat and had heard Katyushka gently urge them to try another pickled mushroom... My appeal to Rasputin's filial feelings worked, up to a point. I escaped scalping at the cost of only a hundred dollars.
"What time is it?" Rasputin asked abruptly. "I have to get to Berlin this morning."
I was startled. "Why Berlin?" I almost told him that Lulu was in Berlin but then in the nick of time I managed to bite my tongue. While rinsing the blood from my mouth, I looked up at the mirror and saw Rasputin sidling across the room. His bulky body obscured my view but he seemed to be putting something under my blanket at the foot of my bed. I made a mental note to make sure he hadn't planted a bomb but then I promptly forgot all about it. After a last slug of whisky for the road, I took Rasputin to the train station. It was already four in the morning and his train to Kiev left at seven. My boss, the rector of the University of Truth and Justice, Professor Otto Hell was coming back to Prague that morning anyway, and since it made no sense to bother getting any sleep, I sat with Rasputin on a damp bench on the deserted platform, two huddled figures in trench coats drinking bottled beer and smoking cigarettes in the dim blue light of a cold autumn dawn.
I had heard most of Rasputin's stories before and so I wasn't paying much attention as he babbled on about the latest cause celebre, the mysterious death at sea of the media magnate Max Bulge which had caused frenzied media speculation on whether Bulge had jumped from his yacht or been pushed. Rasputin claimed that world-famous investigative reporters were rolling around drunkenly on the scummy floors of seedy Fleet Street bars trying to punch each other on the snout because they disagreed about whether Bulge had been bumped off by the Israeli Mossad or the KGB. Rasputin himself believed that Bulge had laundered money for the Soviets for many years and that the political changes in Russia had brought Bulge's usefulness to an end. "He was definitely working for the KGB," Rasputin said, as his train pulled in. "What better cover for a Communist than to pretend to be a successful capitalist? And where did Bulge get his money from in the first place?"
Rasputin's parting words stuck in my head as I took the tram back to the University building. His last question seemed oddly familiar as I held on to the strap amidst a crowd of Czech workmen in blue coveralls on their way to their first beer break of the morning. It was only in the shower, as I switched the temperature from steaming hot to freezing cold in an excess of masochistic fervor, attempting to clear my head from a long night of drinking and chain-smoking, gasping for breath, heart pounding, that I remembered asking myself the same question about the origins of Xox's mysterious wealth. The rumor was that Xox's Fund for Peace and Love was a conduit for covert payments by the CIA and the British secret services to shady Third World governments and terrorist groups. Why then were the Western secret services so eager to dig up the dirt on Xox?
Hell seemed pleased to see me when I finally made it to his office. "Busy day ahead," he said gruffly, shaking my hand. "Got to muck out this pig sty. Where's the filth thickest?"
"The European Community department, sir?"
"Right," Hell said. "Thought I'd told you to call me `Otto'. Find Sonnerschein."
I called up the director of the European Studies department and asked him to meet Lord Hades immediately. "Jawohl!" an agitated voice answered. A minute later, Professor Hohenstaufen huffed his way into the office. "Any idea what it is about?" he snuffled nervously, staring at me with those protuberant gooseberry eyes.
"Lord Hades," I announced without reply. "Professor Prince Maximilian von und zu Hohenstaufen-Niebelungen is here to see you."
I ushered the Prince into Hell's office and looked through my peephole. Professor Hohenstaufen was on his knees besides Hell's deck-chair, his hands clutched in prayer, clearly making an impassioned appeal to impassive Hell. Tears were rolling down the Prince's cheeks into his sodden moustache and he was sobbing helplessly. It was not a pretty sight. A few minutes later, the Prince staggered out, still sobbing.
"He told me we couldn't teach the students court etiquette! And we aren't allowed to use the word `federalism'. Boohoohooo... Boooohooo...." I offered Hohenstaufen my handkerchief and patted him on the back. He gulped a few times, blew his nose loudly, and then smiled at me slyly. I smiled back. His smile turned into a leer. He winked. "Let's have dinner together one night," the Prince suggested. "Just you and me. Eh?"
I took a step back. "I'm afraid I'm very busy," I stammered.
The Prince's face turned purple. "What?" he shouted in a voice like thunder. "You decline my proposition? A boy from the dungheap of Asia, a child of savages without history, a mere nothing, rejects the friendship and goodwill of a nobleman like myself? I am Maximilian of Hohenstaufen! Not to mention Niebelungen! I am the direct descendant through my mother's line of Ulrich the Fat! And Adolph the Mad! Do you even know what that means? But of course you don't. You uncivilized... aborigine. I lay claim to the kingdoms of Poland-Lithuania, Greater Moravia, Ruritania, and Transylvania! My family is older than the Hohenzollerns! I am the cousin of the Holy Roman Emperor himself! Yes, I tell you, even Franz Josef von Gapsburg does not decline my invitations!"
Hell came out of his office and surveyed the scene coldly. Professor Hohenstaufen staggered back and retreated to the door, making fawning obeisances to Otto, wordless gestures indicating eternal obedience and servility. Recoiling in disgust, Hell turned away. Hohenstaufen-Niebelungen waved his clenched fist threateningly at me as he left. "Man's mad. What's the next mess I need to clean up?"
"Well, Otto, there is some confusion about whether we have a philosophy department or not. Professor Novak thinks we do. Professor Masaryk thinks we don't. He wants to start a department of sociology again. It's not good for staff morale to see the two most eminent members of the faculty wrestling in the corridors and calling each other names..."
"Call 'em in. And you sit in as well. Keep a record of the meeting."
Professors Masaryk and Novak made an odd couple as they walked in together, arguing heatedly. Tall, silver-haired, grey-suited, bespectacled, stern, Tomas Masaryk looked every inch the distinguished academic, while Jiri Novak, short, stocky, square, smiling, with his sharp brightly-colored jackets, shrill voice, and lecherous reputation, looked and behaved like an Italian film director with connections in the mafia. In fact, he was a noted philosopher whose refined and austere work on the epistemology of art had won him the respect and friendship of such legendary philosophers as Deride and Muzil. Both men fell silent as Hell politely offered them armchairs and then sat down in his own deckchair. I sat on a small three-legged stool in the corner and unobstrusively took notes.
"This eternal dispute between idealists and materialists is ridiculous," Hell began peremptorily. "Especially vicious here because of Communism. Have to transcend this narrow-minded and petty dispute. Compromise." Masaryk and Novak both looked suspicious. "Neither Philosophy nor Sociology. Instead we will have a Department of Culture. We will eradicate the mind-body dichotomy!" Both men looked aghast at first but their expressions rapidly altered to adoring admiration. They walked out of the room with their arms clasped around each other's shoulders, which was difficult for Novak even when he raised his high heels off the floor and walked on his toes. Hell winked contentedly at me. "Any other problems?"
"Well, Otto, something needs to be done about Professor Attila Ugh at the Budapest College. He wants students drawn exclusively from the Hungarian minority populations in Slovakia, Transylvania, and the Vojvodina. And his proposals for courses seem a bit peculiar..." I fished around in my pocket for the course outline Ugh had reluctantly sent in. "Sniper Training; Advanced Guerrilla Tactics; Low-level Bombing Simulation; Blitzkrieg Tank Maneuvers; Effective Ethnic Cleansing... and a graduate course on The Production of Weapons of Mass Destruction?"
"Bloody Hungarians!" Hell exploded. "Always the same. Ever since Attila the Hun. The same atavistic urge for empire. World domination." He frowned thoughtfully. "Tricky. Can't just fire him. He'll apply somewhere else for the money to turn himself into another Admiral Horthy. Doesn't seem to grasp the meaning of Peace and Love. Have to talk to Xox about this. He'll be here in a few weeks. Ran into him this weekend at this conference in Vienna."
"You're just going to let Professor Ugh go ahead in the meanwhile?"
"Told you not to ask questions!" Hell growled. "'Course I am. Don't want to raise his suspicions. Besides, can't disturb Xox about some petty tyrant. He's a busy man. Now go away. Leave me to my thoughts."
I bowed and withdrew. I felt very tired. I went down to my room and lay in bed but I couldn't go to sleep. In that grey haze of insomnia, an incipient hangover looming threateningly like a black storm cloud, certain questions kept repeating themselves in my head until they lost all meaning. What were Hell's thoughts? What kept Xox so busy? Why had the University of Truth and Justice been set up in the first place? What was the meaning of Peace and Love? That reminded me of an experiment I had been meaning to carry out for some time now. I got wearily out of bed and took one of Lucy's vitamins. Very soon I felt much better. I lay down again and breathed deeply. My muscles lost their strung-out ache and my eyes their strained dryness. The confused questions in my head were drowned out by a soothing murmur, waves breaking in gentle chaos on a sandy beach, nice waves, leaving behind an intricate geometry of foam, a fractal geometry of peace and love...
