She was speaking loudly and I noticed that the Global Orks at the nearby tables were listening carefully to our conversation.

  ‘The arrangement was so effective that it survived even after the Mongols were out of the picture. The Orkish strongmen started appointing themselves “vertuhai” on a sovereign basis – and appropriated the tribute. The system outlived not only the Mongols, but even the Western project, with which it had a relationship of servile confrontation. An instance unique in history – that of a people’s self-enslavement proving to be a viable social construct …’

  At this point, a Global Ork wearing a fashionable silver chiton, who was sitting at the next table, couldn’t contain himself any longer, and he intervened in our conversation.

  ‘There’s nothing new about these views,’ he said. ‘Many racist historians have pointed to the supposedly servile nature of the ancient Urks. But …’

  ‘No,’ Kaya interrupted. ‘The point isn’t that they were a slave nation. In ancient times all peoples were slaves. But the Orkish elite contrived to play the role of a colonial administration even during the years when there was no external subjugator. If you know your own cultural history, this was called “the government as the only European”.’

  The Ork demonstratively got up from his table and walked towards the exit. This made absolutely no impression on Kaya. However, the head waiter was already walking across the hall towards us – another Global Ork, which was immediately obvious from his ugly mug.

  ‘The management of the restaurant has the right to refuse to serve any of its customers,’ he began from afar.

  Grim and Chloe seemed seriously frightened.

  ‘Well then, refuse,’ I said, showing my CINEWS Inc. badge. ‘I don’t want to order anything else anyway, your prices are exorbitant. And under consumer law I have a perfect right to sit here and finish eating the ice cream I have paid for. I am a representative of the free media. And this isn’t an Orkish satrapy, but Big Byz.’

  ‘There’s no filming or photography allowed here.’

  ‘Were not filming anything,’ I said. ‘We’re eating ice cream.’

  Global Orks never know what’s really going on around them. And they’re constantly afraid that someone who does know will suddenly downgrade their assets into liabilities (to express myself in their language). And so no scandal ensued. The head waiter sat down at the table vacated by the affronted Global Ork, took out a notepad and started listening intently to our conversation.

  Oh, he really frightened me.

  It is sometimes said that many of the Global Orks are members of the Orkish special services. Let them be my guests. In comparison with these children, Big Byz is one big secret service, which is simultaneously a tabloid newspaper, a washing machine, an ATM, a vibrator and a confessional. Let them spy away. Even if we expressly start explaining the set-up here to them, they still won’t understand anything.

  Anyway, we stayed there, sitting at the table – and then Kaya showed a rather unexpected side of herself. Realising that the Orkish head waiter was listening to her, she started telling Grim and Chloe, in a loud voice, about a squabble between the VERTU HIGH and BI GBEN restaurants – she must have spotted the information via her air link.

  I’ve already mentioned that Big Ben is visible from the windows of VERTU HIGH. But it’s not simply visible: the angle from which it’s visible is as if we were floating in the air, very close to the clock on the parliament side

  Apparently, Gben Mabutu had taken the Orks to court for visual defamation. If the view from their window corresponded to the notional reality, then the building in which VERTU HIGH is located would have loomed up right in front of the windows of BI GBEN, blocking out the parliament. But according to the historical 3D panorama, there had never been anything there.

  The Orks swore that their view had been approved in the municipality – which could very well have been true; they have a lot of money. Most likely they bought an exclusive – the municipality has the right to do that. But our courts are not fond of Orks, so Gben Mabutu had every chance of winning his case, and then the Orks would have to bring the view from their window into line with the historical one: either move into the parliament, so that Gben Mabutu’s restaurant would hover triumphantly above them, or clear out altogether – to somewhere in Belgravia, and be left without any bollocks.

  The head waiter was obliged to listen to this story too. His ears turned red, and his ugly mug turned green. After several more Global Orks left the hall, he got the idea of turning the volume up to full on the manitou just below the ceiling. But the news bulletin was already over. He switched channels and hit on Slava TV.

  They were broadcasting ‘Songs of Ancient Childhood’ – a concert by the Orkish War Orphans Choir of the Yellow Zone.

  Daddy’s fighting at the front.

  Mummy’s shagging in the rear.

  We could see and hear it all

  Through this big big hole here …

  It was hard to understand what these touching, semi-transparent creatures were singing about in their crystal voices – was it the holes in the wall that are so typical of Orkish daily life, or their own terrible prenatal experience? I knew that the Orkish conspiracy theorists in Slava always exchanged meaningful glances with each other when they heard this song – because Orkish TV always, without fail, plays this recording when someone important dies, either one of ours or one of theirs. The ordinary Orks aren’t always informed exactly who has died.

  In order to make Grim feel at home, I tried to give him a meaningful look. But he was looking at Kaya.

  The head waiter changed the channel. It was another programme from Slava – ‘Urkish Stars’.

  ‘What is the secret of your unfading popularity?’

  ‘Why, you stupid fool, the secret is that they show my fat fucking face on the manitou every day! Ho ho ho!’

  The head waiter switched channels again, and hit on a third programme from Slava: a report from the show trial of ‘political killer technologists’ (the event with which Torn Trojan had inaugurated his rule). The material evidence drifted across the screen: shards of old ceramics, scrolled and sealed propaganda posters, colourful wads of holographic manitous. It seemed like Trojan was planning on getting even not only on his own account but for the entire dynasty, and he had already become impudent enough to arrest several Orks from the Yellow Zone, entirely without consultation … It looks like there’ll be a new war sooner than usual, I thought.

  The fact that the TV channels here were like this was no cause for surprise. It’s an Orkish restaurant, even if it is global. For the first half of their lives Global Orks fight each other for the right to leave Urkaine and go to London, and for the second half they sit in London and watch Urkainian TV.

  Actually, I enjoyed it. I’m quite fond of Orkish broadcasts in general. I especially like it when their unshaven propagandists start explaining to their fellow citizens that up here all we ever dream about at night is how we can occupy Urkaine and force them to live according to our laws. Bernard-Henri was right when he called them a romantic child-nation, ever ready to believe in a fairy tale and a dream.

  Grim and Chloe felt very relieved when we finally got up and walked towards the door. I tried to explain to them that there was nothing to be afraid of. That the Global Orks were only frightening down below, but here they behaved very politely and quietly, and they would give their lives for the right to sit in their restaurant above the grey waters of the Thames.

  But Grim and Chloe simply couldn’t believe that so many infuriated big shots were no kind of threat. What can you do? Freedom is like the sun – you have to be accustomed to it from childhood. Any later than that is hard.

  We didn’t go to that restaurant any more.

  Although I did discover that Chloe had been there several times without us, with some Global Ork or other. We saw her less and less often – she spent most of her time with Alena-Libertina and was rapidly expanding her circle of acquaintances.

  Grim was left all alone.

  And Kaya, of course, took advantage of the vacuum that had been created.

  I couldn’t have been more amazed by the cunning with which she wove her web around him. At first I didn’t think her efforts would be crowned with success – after all, Grim was an Ork through and through, without even the slightest veneer of globality.

  In order to become a pupo, it’s important to have a light, agile imagination that is permanently ready to burst into flames and lead your conscious mind off into an artificial world of joy and ecstasy. We don’t actually need to learn this – we already know how to do it, only negatively. Something similar happens every minute in any case, except that the worlds into which fantasy leads us out of our immediate reality have absolutely nothing to do with happiness: most of the time they’re cheerless and depressing regions, dominated by a brute of a boss, a dragon of a wife, illness or humiliating poverty.

  However, the general opinion is that this is ‘serious’ and ‘real’, and the door to it stands wide open in welcome. But the world in which Kaya lives is a space that the normal Ork is prevented from entering by his own psychological road barrier with a skull and crossbones on it, standing guard over so-called ‘moral precepts’. Grim was no exception – and after her unmasking Kaya had become merely a thing to him, rather like a coffee grinder, a harness or a spade.

  Kaya couldn’t contend directly with a mindset like that. But she could make a start by elevating herself to the very pinnacle of his hierarchy of inanimate objects. And after that … After that some kind of accident might happen to Grim – a programme crash of some kind (Kaya often used to say that we humans were simply tangles of worm-eaten, badly written programmes).

  Such, from the look of things, was her strategy.

  And so she never tried to challenge Grim’s prejudices – especially concerning what Orks regard as ‘perversions’. On the contrary, she played along with him all the time. And at every step she made skilful use of her own informational weaponry.

  I remember, for instance, how we wandered into a certain mall where loud music was playing. Grim started wrinkling up his face and Kaya, of course, noticed. When we reached a relatively quiet spot and sat down for a bite to eat, she suddenly quoted The Book of Orkasms – the chapter about how ‘queerasts serve the world government’. I don’t want to reproduce it in full, it’s too disgusting. But I’ll have to say a few words about it.

  According to the invaluable information in this source, the following mechanism operates here. A man, it appears, can seclude himself ‘in quiet and solitude’ and, by peering into ‘inner darkness’ after a while ‘comprehend the inexpressible’. As a result, the world loses all interest for him, and so does the world government. But then the queerasts come along to give the world government a hand and ‘having entrenched themselves across the river, they switch on their music machine’, after which ‘instead of eternal light, you behold only a squelching orifice’.

  I imagined ancient Orks, flying a white flag and fording a nameless river, with the woofers and tweeters of fallen humanity aimed at them. Paradise lost. However, Grim didn’t even smile – as he was listening to this raving nonsense the skin across his cheekbones tightened. He sat there, staring into the distance, as if he really had spotted the glimmer of Orkish truth way out there.

  But Kaya immediately started telling him the story of how The Book of Orkasms came into being.

  Apparently the nucleus of this book really had been written very long ago, and to all appearances the author lived by the sea, because in the early strata of the text mention is made of kebabs of frozen fish, which they roast on the esplanade to queerastic chanting, and a herd of naked loiterers plodding to the concrete beach through a corridor of red-hot braziers.

  Kaya adduced several more quotations from the archaic level. The following in particular stuck in my memory.

  The Custodian of the War Music said: he who has heard music of the queerasts twice is already a queerast himself. Such men are called ‘defiled by way of air and sound’. Therefore did the men of ancient times perforate their ear drums with nails and speak with each other in the language of gestures …

  Of course, inventing something like that is beyond the powers of a pampered new age. Hence the sombre power of this text, which is felt by anyone who turns to it to seek advice. But later on, the frivolous trivia created by subsequent centuries were introduced into the simple, severe edifice of this ancient temple – all those postscripts about the light of truth, the stings of the mind and other ineffable stuff. And naturally, our sommeliers had a hand in this too.

  Grim listened with his jaw hanging open and Kaya was happy. At least, that was how it looked from the outside.

  I finally realised that she had won when I saw Grim discussing Chloe with her. It was incredible, but they were talking about her as a common acquaintance, and no more. Mind you, they weren’t discussing Chloe herself, but derivative pornography.

  Grim had already got used to Kaya’s readiness to answer any question. And apart from that, she was simply a thing to him, and it wasn’t likely even to occur to him to feel embarrassed. But in this case he didn’t even know that embarrassment was in order.

  He said:

  ‘I can’t understand it … Chloe’s been watching this derporn for more than a day and a night now. One of her friends gave her it. I saw pictures like that ages ago, but this is an entire movie. The screen shows a table with men and women sitting at it. Ordinary people. A couple of policemen, a priest. Looking into the camera without speaking. And every now and then they pull faces as if someone’s killing a kitten in front of them and they can’t do anything about it. And Chloe stares at all this. And I can see she’s bored, but she’s pretending not to be … And that’s not all she does … Is that really what your pornography’s like?’

  At this point I broke down and laughed. I was curious to see how my little darling would wriggle out of this situation.

  I must say she handled herself pretty well.

  ‘It’s lucky for you, Grim, that you didn’t bring this up with some other girl,’ she said. ‘You would have got a slap across the face. And then an hour of hysterics. But I’m a very broad-minded girl. On most things …’

  She laughed quietly, and I noticed that without even realising it, Grim had already fallen under her spell – just like when they first met.

  ‘You see,’ Kaya went on, ‘there’s a specific cultural difference between the inhabitants of Big Byz and Orks. Orks perceive the erotic component of snuffs as pornography. To them it seems obscene and titillating.’

  ‘Well, not always,’ Grim muttered.

  ‘But often. While for a topside person it’s a dreary, routine religious agenda. If we take the word “pornography” to mean a video sequence that induces erotic spasms in the viewer, then the cultural clichés are quite different in a post-informational society. And that’s why Chloe’s trying to work up some interest in derp. You see, she wants to turn herself from a little Orkish fool into a fully adequate human being. The ability to be aroused by derp is one of the qualities that distinguishes upper people from Orks.’

  ‘But why is it called that – derporn or derp?’ asked Grim.

  ‘Derivative pornography. To avoid saying “legal underage porn”.’

  ‘Underage porn? But all the people at that table are pensioners!’

  ‘Derp isn’t the banned product itself, but its legal derivative. It’s not about the pensioners sitting at the table. It’s about what the pensioners are watching.’

  ‘A-a-ah!’ said Grim, catching on. ‘You mean they’re not looking into the camera?’

  Kaya shook her head.

  ‘Big Byz actually once used to have a porn industry in which underage models were involved. A struggle was waged against it. Every time they found more material with minors in it, a special commission had to watch it before it was destroyed. According to legend, the manitou used by the commission had a small camera on it, as they often did in those days. And it filmed the faces of the members of the commission while they watched the confiscated material. The recordings started to be passed from hand to hand, because this aroused visually surfeited people even more powerfully than real underage pornography …’

  ‘You mean those sullen mugs on the screen are watching underage pornography?’

  ‘Not for a long time already,’ said Kaya. ‘Nowadays the derps use special actors who have spent many years studying Stanislavsky’s system. During shooting they merely imagine that they are seeing underage pornography. That’s stipulated in the disclaimer. But on the black market it’s possible to buy derp in which the actors are watching absolutely genuine underage porn – the kind in which the models are less than forty-six years old. You won’t be able to tell the difference. The same table with a tablecloth, carafes of water, name cards. Exactly the same kind of men and women, wincing and spitting in exactly the same way. But a connoisseur realises immediately, after four or five minutes. Of course, it’s shameful to keep films like that at home. But it doesn’t break the law. While the underage porn carries a sentence of half a lifetime in prison.’

  ‘And you mean some people really like it?’

  ‘What do you think?’ I put in, unable to resist. ‘There are some who wank off to derp all their lives. If they don’t have the money for a sura. Who wants to do time for underage porn? You should go to the court some time and have a listen. “The male model is only forty-two years old, and filming him beside a naked woman could cause him irreparable psychological trauma …” And crawling through bloody genitals, age zero, was OK for him? So let’s put Manitou to jail for twenty years or so …’