I Believe!
On Sundays a particular melancholy attacked him. Something caustic welling up inside... Maxim could physically feel the vileness of it: as if some shameless, unwholesome sloven with foul breath was running her hands over his body, fondling him, leaning over to give him a kiss.
"It's back again, dammit."
"Oh God!.. What a slob."
Maxim's wife, Lyuda, mocked him. She was a tough, unsentimental working woman, who didn't know what melancholy was.
"What is it that's making you miserable?"
Maxim Yarikov looked at his wife, and his dark eyes gleamed brightly... He squeezed his jaw tight.
"Go on, swear away. Maybe it will help get rid of the misery. You're good at swearing."
Maxim sometimes forced himself not to swear and argue. When he wanted her to understand him.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Why wouldn't I? If you explain I will."
"You've got everything where it should be-arms, legs, all the other organs. What size they are is a different matter, but everything's in the right place. If your leg hurts, you feel it, if you feel hungry, you cook dinner... Right?"
"Well?"
Maxim rose lightly to his feet (he was a trim forty-year-old, quick-tempered and impetuous, who could never tire himself out at work, even though he worked a lot) and walked around the room, his eyes gleaming angrily.
"But a man has something else, too-a soul! In here, and that's where it hurts!" Maxim pointed to his chest. "I'm not making it up! I can just feel it, it hurts."
"Does it hurt anywhere else?"
"Listen!" screeched Maxim. "Since you want founder- stand, listen. You might have been born without feelings, but you could at least try to understand that some people have souls. It's not vodka money I'm after, what I want is...
Oh, you stupid idiot!" Maxim lost his temper completely.
He suddenly realised he would never be able to explain what was happening to him, and his wife Lyuda would never understand him. Never! He could rip open his chest with a knife, pull his soul out and hold it in front of her, and all she'd say would be-"offal". Anyway, he didn't even believe in that kind of soul himself, in some lump of meat. Maybe it was all nothing but empty words. Why should he get himself so worked up? "Just ask me who I hate most in all the world, and I'll answer-people with no soul. Or with a rotten one. Talking to women is as much use as banging your head against a wall!"
"Ah, twaddle!"
"Get lost!"
"So why are you so bitter and angry, if you have a soul?"
"What do you think a soul is-some kind of sticky-bun? The thing is, it doesn't understand why I should be dragging it around with me, and that's why it hurts. And that's why I get angry. I'm upset."
"Why should I give a damn if you get upset? Normal people wait for Sunday to come around and they relax... They go to the cinema. But you have to get upset, don't you? You're a slob."
Maxim would stop at the window, standing there for a long time without moving, as he looked out at the street.
Winter. Frost. Grey sooty smoke rising up from the village into the chilly, clear sky-people were keeping warm. If a woman went by with two buckets on a yoke, you could hear the thick, firm snow crunching under her felt boots, even through the double windows. A dog would start barking for no reason and then fall silent. Frost over everything. The people were in their homes, where it was warm.
They were talking, cooking dinner, discussing their neighbour... If they had a bottle, they would drink, but they didn't enjoy that much either.
When Maxim was miserable, he didn't philosophize, he didn't think of asking anyone for anything. He just felt pain and bitter anger, but an anger that wasn't directed against anyone. He didn't feel like punching anyone in the face, and he didn't feel like hanging himself. He didn't want anything at all, that was what made the aching so damned bad! He didn't feel like lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, either. And he didn't feel like drinking vodka-he didn't want to be a laughing stock, that was disgusting. He had tried drinking a few times... When he was drunk he suddenly began to confess to sins so vile that they made everybody, including himself, feel sick. Once when he was drunk he had wailed and beaten his head against the wall covered with posters in the militia-post. Supposedly he and some other man from the village had between them invented a powerful motor the size of a match-box, and handed over the plans to the Americans. Maxim confessed that this was foul treachery, that he was a "scientific traitor", and asked to be taken under escort to prison camp in Magadan. What's more, he insisted on walking the whole way barefoot.
"Why did you hand over the plans?" the sergeant demanded. "And who to?"
Maxim didn't know. He only knew that it was all "dreadful treachery". And he wept bitterly.
On one such miserable Sunday Maxim was standing by the window and looking at the road. It was clear and frosty again, and the chimneys were smoking.
"So what?" Maxim thought angrily. "That's the way it was a hundred years ago. So what's new? That's the way it will always be. There goes a young lad, Vanka Malofeyev's son... I remember Vanka himself, when he was that age, and so was I. And soon they'll have children of their own, just the same... Is that all there is? What's the point?"
Maxim felt really wretched. He remembered that Ilya Lapshin had a relative of his wife's staying at the house, and that the relative was a priest. An actual, genuine priest, with long flowing hair. The priest was sick, there was something wrong with his lungs, so he had come to the country for treatment. The treatment was badger grease, and the badgers were procured by Ilya. The priest had lots of money, and he often drank pure spirit with Ilya. The priest drank nothing but pure spirit.
Maxim went to the Lapshins.
Ilya and the priest were there at the table, drinking spirit and chatting, Ilya was already well-oiled-his head was nodding as he mumbled about how next Sunday, not this one, but the next one he'd bring back twelve badgers at once.
"I don't need that many. I just want three good fat ones."
"I'll bring you twelve, and you can choose for yourself which ones you want. It's my job to bring them. And you choose for yourself which are best. The main thing is for you to get better... I'll bring you in twelve of them..."
The priest was bored with Ilya, and he was glad when Maxim showed up.
"Well?" he asked.
"My soul hurts," said Maxim. "I came to find out whether believers' souls hurt or not."
"Want some spirit?"
"Don't you get the idea I came here just to drink. I can take a drink, of course, but that's not what I came for. I wanted to know whether your soul ever hurts."
The priest poured some spirit into two glasses and set one glass and the carafe of water in front of Maxim.
"Add water to suit yourself."
The priest was a large man, sixty years old, with broad shoulders and huge hands. It was hard to believe that there was anything wrong with his lungs. His eyes were clear and intelligent, and his gaze was intent to the point of insolence. He didn't seem the right kind to be waving a censer, more like someone hiding from his children's mothers. There was nothing mellow or pious about him, and with a face like that he'd hardly be interested in untangling the sensitive nerves of humanity's woes. But Maxim could sense immediately that the priest was interesting to be with.
"Your soul hurts?"
"Yes, it hurts."
"I see." The priest emptied his glass and dabbed his lips with the corner of the starched tablecloth. "Let's come at this from a distance. Listen carefully and don't interrupt."
The priest leaned against the back of his chair, stroked his beard and began to speak, obviously enjoying himself:
"No sooner had humankind appeared than evil appeared too. When evil appeared, then the wish to struggle against it, that is, good, also appeared. In other words, if there's evil, then there's good too, if there's no evil, there's no good. Do you get my meaning?"
"Yes, get on with it."
"Don't tell me to get on, I'm not a horse." The priest clearly loved to reason like that in a strange, distant and irresponsible fashion. "What is Christ? He is the incarnation of good, whose mission is to destroy evil on earth. Two thousand years the idea of Christ has existed among people and struggled against evil."
Ilya was asleep at the table.
The priest poured another drink for himself and Maxim. He nodded to Maxim, inviting him to drink.
"For two thousand years the name of Christ has been destroying evil on earth, but there's no sign of the war coming to an end. Don't smoke, please. Or else take your dirty fumes over there by the vent."
Maxim stubbed out his roll-up on the sole of his boot and went on listening carefully.
"What's the matter with your lungs?" he asked, trying to be polite.
"They hurt," explained the priest, curtly and grudgingly.
"Does the badger grease help?"
"Yes. Let us continue, my miserable son..."
"What's that?" Maxim exclaimed.
"I asked you not to interrupt me."
"I asked about your lungs..."
"You asked what makes the soul hurt. And I'm drawing you a clear picture of the universe, in order to bring peace to your soul. Listen carefully and take it in. So, the idea of Christ sprang from the desire to defeat evil. Otherwise, what would be the point? Just imagine: good has triumphed. Christ has triumphed... But then what do we need him for? We don't, not any more. That means he's not something eternal and lasting, but a temporary means, like the dictatorship of the proletariat. I want to believe in eternity, in an immense eternal power and the eternal order to come."
"In communism, you mean?"
"What d'you mean, 'communism'?"
"D'you believe in communism?"
"I'm not supposed to. You're interrupting me again!"
"Okay, I won't do it any more. Only say it ... a bit simpler. And don't be in such a rush."
"I am saying it clearly: I want to believe in eternal good, in eternal justice, in the eternal Supreme Power that set everything in motion on this earth. I want to know this Power, and I want to believe that it will triumph.
Otherwise-what's it all for? Eh? Where is this power?" The priest looked at Maxim quizzically. "Does it exist?"
Maxim shrugged his shoulders.
"I don't know."
"I don't know either."
"Well, that's a good one!"
"There's more to come. I don't know any such power. It's quite possible that as a man I am not allowed to know it, to understand it, to comprehend it. In that case I give up trying to understand my existence here on earth. That's the way I feel, and you've brought your sick soul to the right man: my soul hurts too. Only you came for a ready-made answer, and I'm trying to get down to the bottom of things. The trouble is, it's like ladling out the ocean-we can't ladle it all out with these glasses. And when we swallow this rubbish..." The priest drained his glass of spirit and dabbed his lips with the tablecloth, "when we drink this stuff, we're trying to reach the bottom of the ocean by ladling it out. By the glassful, the glassful, my son! It's a vicious circle, we're doomed."
"I'm sorry ... d'you mind if I make one point?"
"Fire ahead."
"You're a ... an interesting kind of priest. Are there really priests like you?"
"I am human, and nothing human is alien to me. The words of a famous atheist, and he was exactly right. A little presumptions, to be sure-during his own lifetime no-one ever took him for a god."
"So, if I understand you right, there is no God?"
"I said there isn't. But now I tell you there is. Pour me a bit of spirit, my son, add twenty-five per cent water, and hand it to me. And pour some for yourself. Pour, my simple-minded son, and may we glimpse the bottom!" The priest drained his glass. "Now I tell you that God does exist. His name is Life. That's the God I believe in. What kind of God have we invented for ourselves? A kind, stream-lined, hornless, milk-sop of a God. We're just plain stupid! There's no such God. There is a strict and powerful God-Life. This God offers us good and evil together-and that's what God really is. Why on earth do we think that good must defeat evil? What for? I'd like to know, for instance, whether you really came to me to find out the truth, or just to drink. You sit here goggling at me, pretending that you're interested in what I'm saying..."
Maxim squirmed on his chair.
"I'd like just as much to know whether what you really need is not this spirit, but the truth. It's extremely interesting to figure out what the truth is. Was it your soul that brought you here or the spirit? You see, I use my head instead of just feeling sorry for you, with your half-baked problems. And therefore, in accordance with my own idea of God, I say that if your soul hurts, that's good. Good! At least you're alive and kicking! If you were in a state of spiritual harmony we'd never drag you down off the stove. Live, my son, weep and dance. Don't worry about having to lick out the frying pans in the next life, because you'll get plenty of heaven and hell here in this life." The priest was speaking loudly, his face was a flaming crimson, he had broken into a sweat. "You came here to find out what to believe in, did you? You guessed right. The souls of believers don't hurt. But what should we believe in? Believe in Life. I've no idea how it will all end. I don't know what it's all leading to. But I do find it fascinating to run along with everyone else, and to overtake the others when I can... So what if there is evil? If someone else in this magnificent race sticks his foot out to trip me up, then I'll get up and smash his face in. None of that 'turn- the other cheek' nonsense. I'll smash his face in, and that's all there is to it."
"And what if he has a heavier punch?"
"Then I just have to run behind him."
"And where are we running to?"
"There and back again. What difference does it make where we're running to? We're all going the same way, good and bad together."
"Somehow I don't feel as though I'm in any hurry to get anywhere," said Maxim.
"So you're weak-kneed. Paralytic. You'll just stand there and whimper."
Maxim clenched his teeth... His fierce, angry eyes bored into the priest.
"What have I done to deserve that land of misery?"
"You're weak. Weak as ... a boiled rooster. Don't roll your eyes like that."
"Some priest you are! What if I give you a good thump, what then?"
The priest-with his sick lungs! - burst into intense, loud laughter.
"See that?" he asked, showing Maxim his huge ham of a hand. "I can rely on that. Natural selection will take its course."
"Then I'll bring a gun."
"They'll shoot you. You know that, and you won't bring a gun, because you're weak."
"Then I'll stab you with a knife. I can do that."
"You'd get five years. I'd be-in pain for about a month until the wound healed. But you'd be inside for five years."
"Okay. Then why does your soul hurt?"
"I'm sick, my friend. I've only run half the distance and I've gone lame. Pour the drinks."
Maxim poured.
"Have you ever flown in an aeroplane?" the priest asked.
"Yes. Lots of times."
"I'd never flown before I came here. Magnificent! When I got into it, I thought, if this flying barracks crashes, then that's the way it was meant to be. I won't feel sorry or afraid! I felt fine all the way! And when it lifted me up off the ground and carried me away, I even stroked its flank and thought: well done! I believe in the aeroplane. Actually, lots of things in life are fair. For instance, people moan about Yesenin living such a short life. He lived just long enough for his song. If the song had been longer, it wouldn't make your heart ache the way it does. There are no long songs."
"In your church they go on for ever."
"We don't have any songs, all we have is moaning and groaning. No, Yesenin lived exactly long enough for his song. Do you like Yesenin?"
"Yes."
"Let's sing some."
"I can't."
"Just help me along and don't get in my way."
And the priest began to drone the song about the frozen maple-tree, and he did it so sadly and so subtly that it really did make Maxim's heart ache. When he came to the words, "Recently I feel I'm somehow getting weaker", the priest pounded the table with his fist, burst into tears and shook his long mane of hair.
"The dear heart! He loved the peasant!.. He pitied him!.. And I love you. That's right, isn't it? If it's too late, so what?"
Maxim could feel himself beginning to love the priest.
"Father! Father! Listen to me!"
"I don't want to," said the priest, crying.
"Listen to me, you blockhead!"
"I don't want to! You're weak-kneed!"
"I'll leave your kind gasping after the first kilometre! Weak at the knees... You slob."
"Pray!" The priest rose to his feet. "Repeat after me..."
"Get lost!.."
Without straining himself, the priest lifted Maxim up by the scruff of the neck and set him down beside himself.
"Repeat after me: I believe!"
"I believe!" said Maxim. He really liked that phrase.
"Louder! More solemn: I believe! Together: I believe!"
"I be-lieve!" they drawled together. And then the priest continued on his own in a well-practised patter.
"In aviation, in the mechanisation of agriculture, in the scientific revolu-ti-on! In space and weightlessness! For this is all objecti-ive! Together, now! After me!.."
They yelled in unison:
"I belie-ieve!"
"I believe that soon everyone will gather into great stinking cities! I believe that they will choke for breath there and run back to the open fields!!.. I believe!"
"I belie-ieve!"
"In the badger's grease, in the bull's horn, in the up- right shaft! In the body and its fle-esh..."
When Ilya Lapshin opened his eyes he saw the priest hurling his huge body around the room, jumping straight into squats, yelling and slapping his sides and his chest:
I believe, I believe!
Up, down, up, clown, one, two, three!
I believe, I believe!
Umpah, umpah, four, five, six!
I believe, I believe!
And Maxim, his hands on his hips, was pattering round the priest and singing in a high-pitched womanish voice:
Oo-ee, oo-ee, one, two, three
I believe, I believe!
Oo-ee, oo-ee, four, five, six.
"After me! "exclaimed the priest.
"I believe! I believe!"
Maxim settled himself against the back of the priest's neck, and they danced in silence around the hut, then the priest once again launched himself into a squatting position, sinking down as though he had fallen through the ice on a lake, and spreading out his arms. The floorboards sagged.
Oh, I believe, I believe'
Number five, man alive
I believe, I believe'
Number six, pick up sticks
I believe, I believe!
The priest and Maxim were both dancing with such maniacal frenzy that it all seemed quite natural. They either had to dance or else rip the shirts from their chests, wail and gnash their teeth.
Ilya looked at them once, and then again, and then he joined in their dance. But he only yelled "Yee-ha! Yee-ha!" every now and then in a shrill voice. He didn't know the words.
The shirt on the priest's back was soaking wet, and mounds of muscle shifted beneath it: he had obviously never known what it was to be tired in his life, and his sickness had not yet severed his thick sinews. They were probably not that easy to sever: he'd gobble up all the badgers first. And if he was told he needed it, he'd ask for a fine fat wolf-he wouldn't be that easy to get rid of.
"Follow me!" the priest ordered again.
And the other two followed the frenzied, crimson-faced priest in his wild dance, round and round. And then, like some great heavy animal, the priest leapt back into the middle of the circle, bending the floorboards beneath him...
The plates and glasses on the table clattered.
"Ah! I believe! I believe!"
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