‘I don’t know,’ Damilola chuckled.

  ‘And what do they write in their letters?’

  ‘You should ask Kaya,’ said Damilola. ‘She’s the one with an air link in her head, not me. Kaya, come here, baby.’

  Kaya, who was following the conversation attentively, came over to the table and sat down, lowering her eyes. There was a kind of exalted sadness about her. And she also looked like a little girl who has broken an expensive vase and is waiting in terror for it all to come out, so that she will be punished. That sort of thing never happened with Chloe – not meaning the vase, of course, but the shamefacedness.

  ‘We were talking about the Film Burners,’ said Damilola.

  ‘I heard,’ Kaya said with a nod.

  ‘Can you tell us anything? I don’t really know anything about them.’

  Kaya thought for a moment and said:

  ‘Their metaphysics had two main concepts. The “projector” and the “film”. The projector is the light of consciousness. The film is the tenebrosities and obscurities of the soul that divide man from Manitou.’

  ‘That’s in the dictionary,’ said Grim.

  ‘Yes,’ Damilola agreed. ‘Hack a bit deeper, sweetheart.’

  Grim didn’t understand what that word meant, but Kaya evidently did. She closed her eyes and wrinkled up her face, as if she was trying to catch some barely audible sound.

  ‘They taught that this film should be burned, right?’ Grim asked impatiently.

  Kaya shook her head.

  ‘There’s a slight confusion here. They didn’t teach that the film should be burned. They didn’t teach that anything should be burned at all. The word “projector” here is used in a different Old English sense, meaning “someone who makes plans, or projects”. That was what they called a man absorbed in the unconscious activity of the mind. According to their teaching, one should stop being a projector and see reality as it is. To do this it was necessary to detect the “veil” of thoughts and move to the other side of it, to the pure, unadulterated light … A specific mystical flight led to it … I think that’s it.’

  She was silent for a while, flinching and wincing.

  ‘Yes, that’s it,’ she said, ‘remove the veil of thoughts from the eyes and behold the light of Manitou. They said that the human personality itself is simply the contamination and obscuration of this light. Their teaching has nothing to do with movies. They called themselves “Film Removers”. That’s from John Milton’s poem Paradise Lost. Shall I quote it?’

  Damilola nodded, as Grim thought, with pride in his talking toy.

  ‘“But to nobler sights,”’ Kaya declaimed, ‘“Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed.” The word “film” here can be translated as “movie” or “veil”.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Damilola said with a wave of his hand. ‘The conclusion?’

  ‘They started burning films later,’ said Kaya. ‘At first several people committed self-immolation after winding temple celluloid round themselves. That really did happen, but it was a quite different sect, the “Witnesses of Manitou”. And then there was the shady business with the Archive of Ancient Films, which members of the sect supposedly tried to burn in order to give everybody freedom. That was when they were given the name “Film Burners”. One account suggests that the burning was invented exclusively so that they could be banned.’

  ‘But what were they really banned for?’

  ‘They used to leave here and live in Orkland. They lived separately from the Orks, on the very edge of the plain. Where the dumping grounds are … Now …’

  Kaya wrinkled up her face as if she had a headache.

  ‘An eye with a tear in it …’

  ‘What eye?’

  ‘It was their symbol – a round eye with a tear in it. That’s what it says in the old versions of the dictionaries, but there’s no image anywhere. No, here it is … I can’t understand. There’s no information, it’s almost all erased. Aha, there it is … So that’s it … That’s clear …’

  ‘What?’ asked Damilola.

  ‘It’s nothing interesting,’ Kaya said with a wave of her hand. ‘All that’s known is that none of the burners ever came back from Orkland. They all disappeared without trace.’

  ‘That’s easily done in our parts,’ Grim remarked.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Kaya. ‘I don’t see any more.’

  ‘The Orks probably killed them all,’ Damilola suggested. ‘That’s why the sect was banned.’

  Kaya nodded, then turned to Grim and said:

  ‘Grim, while we’re here together, I want you to remember one thing. Whatever might happen, I’ll never forget you. Never, do you hear?’

  Grim was dumbfounded. Kaya was looking at him with her eyes wide open, and they were filled with such … such … Grim had absolutely no words for it. He hadn’t even known that it existed at all.

  Then, as if she had recovered her senses, Kaya lowered her eyes.

  For a few seconds there was silence at the table. And then Damilola gave a deafening laugh.

  ‘Oh, Grim, what a shame you can’t see yourself. You’re blushing! You’re blushing!’

  ‘She’s blushing too,’ Grim muttered.

  ‘It’s easier for her,’ Damilola said and laughed again, so hard that he could hardly speak. ‘You can’t even imagine … you can’t even imagine, Grim, what else she knows how to do!’

  Kaya jumped up from the table and dashed out into the next room, provoking another paroxysm of laughter from Damilola.

  ‘Don’t take it to heart,’ he said when he’d stopped laughing. ‘All that cuddling and kissing in corners … She’s provoking you in order to arouse stronger emotions in me. Jealousy, rivalry. She’s good at it. But for the sole reason that I programmed her that way myself. Manual tuning.’

  Grim nodded glumly.

  ‘And as for your questions about religion,’ Damilola went on, ‘I’ve already had a word with Alena-Libertina. She remembers about you. She’s expecting you the day after tomorrow in the park by her office.’

  ‘In what park?’

  ‘The House of Manitou Number 42,’ said Damilola. ‘A pleasant spot. In my young days I liked to go walking there. There’s never anyone around. No one loves Manitou.’

  CHAPTER 20

  On emerging from the tube at the spot ‘House of Manitou No. 42’, directly in front of him Grim saw a short dead end with a spiral staircase in it. The steps led up and out under an open 3D sky.

  Climbing up, he found himself in the centre of a circular open area with white marble statues standing on pedestals round its perimeter – ten or more of them. The area was set out with rows of severe, straight-backed chairs; it was something like an open-air movie theatre, with a passage left between the rows. Evidently this was where they showed the fresh snuffs on Sunday.

  There wasn’t a single person anywhere to be seen.

  The movie theatre was at the very centre of a star-shaped park – there were about a dozen alleys running off from the statues in all directions, with roundly trimmed bushes and trees growing between them. The alleys were blocked off by barriers, and Grim decided they must all be false – the park could hardly occupy so much space. But then he saw that in some places there weren’t any barriers. After a moment’s thought, he set off.

  The bushes along the sides of the alley were genuine – Grim touched them with his hand and pricked himself on a thorn, drawing blood. He wasn’t so sure about the trees, because it wasn’t possible to reach them.

  In this cool, shady space it was impossible to lose your way, but easy to lose yourself. All the paths led to a shoreline, where the sea splashed at the bottom of a steep cliff, fenced off by cast-iron railings.

  It all looked as if he was on a small round island with high rocky shores. Grim realised that there wasn’t any sea beyond the railings, but the sound of the waves was more than believable. And the hint of salty freshness, mingling with the familiar smell of heated plastic, was also convincing.

  The sky was covered with uniform cumulus clouds and veiled in haze. Grim was already used to the fact that in large open spaces here the sun was scarcely even visible – although if you raised your head it was always possible to observe the cloud behind which it had just hidden. Apparently, imitating the lamp of heaven hanging in the sky overloaded the projection equipment.

  Grim sat down on a bench beside the railings. He listened to the sound of the waves for a few minutes and breathed in the smell of the sea, trying not to think about its true nature. Then he dozed off for a short while and dreamed that an immense ancient machine with some obscure function was operating all around him and he himself was merely an incidental spot of living mould, an ant that had lost his way in a clock. When he woke up, he chuckled. Dreams come true, as they say. And then he saw a small figure in black walking towards him along the line of the shore.

  It was Alena-Libertina.

  When she got really close, a rapid tremor flickered across her, making it seem to Grim that she was also part of the mirage, but a moment later she sat down beside him, and he caught the aroma of a familiar perfume – Chloe smelled the same way now.

  From close up Alena-Libertina looked cold and musty, as if she was filled with dead, stagnant blood. In Urkaine she would have been a regular old granny, but Grim already knew that people here measured age on a different scale.

  ‘Hello, Grim,’ Alena-Libertina said with a smile. ‘You looked splendid in the entertainment block. A fine poem. Chloe must be very proud of you.’

  Grim had already spent enough time topside to appreciate the depth of her irony – and at the same time realise that she hadn’t intended to offend him at all. He lowered his eyes modestly.

  ‘Damilola said you want to know more about the sacred mysteries. What for?’

  Grim had his answer ready.

  ‘I want to understand the world I’m living in better. Down below they never told us the truth.’

  Alena-Libertina nodded.

  ‘I’m a priest,’ she said. ‘And being a priest means revealing the truth to people. I’ll be glad to tell you everything I can. Ask away.”

  Grim suddenly realised that all his questions had disappeared. He looked round helplessly.

  ‘Why isn’t there anyone in the park?’ he managed to force out.

  ‘This place is always deserted,’ said Alena-Libertina. ‘People don’t like to come here. In this place you’re on the open palm of Manitou’s hand. No one believes in that now. But it’s true.’

  ‘A beautiful place,’ Grim murmured. ‘A very long shoreline.’

  Alena-Libertina laughed.

  ‘This shoreline and this park are actually only a moving walkway, Grim. To be precise, a number of separate moving walkways. You walk along them for an hour, or even two, but you’re practically standing still.’

  ‘But what if you walk fast?’

  ‘When you walk fast, it whirls round faster. You set its settings yourself.’

  Grim looked round at the park.

  ‘And all the rest is an illusion?’

  ‘You could put it like that,’ Alena-Libertina said with a smile.

  ‘But what about all these alleys?’

  ‘Only three are genuine.’

  ‘Three?’ Grim exclaimed in amazement. ‘But what will happen if someone walks along one that isn’t real?’

  ‘That can’t happen. They’re not alleys, but simply a corridor with bushes planted along its walls. A lot shorter than it looks, and also with a moving surface. But I myself don’t know how it all spins and turns. Although I’ve been taking walks here for half a century.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Grim, ‘But I saw you, you know, walking along the line of the shore. From a long, long way off.’

  ‘You can see whatever you like,’ Alena-Libertina replied. ‘It might seem to you that I’m a long way off. But I could be within three metres of you. Everything here is very small and compact. Everything’s close.’

  And none of it is true, thought Grim, but he didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you have any more questions?’

  ‘Tell me, why are we the way we are? I mean the Orks. Who made us bad?’

  Alena-Libertina nodded, as if she had been expecting a question like this.

  ‘No one remembers for certain now, Grim. Only the general outline is clear. The holy books teach people to be good. But in order for someone to be good, someone else inevitably has to be bad. That’s why some people had to be declared bad. After that, good had to be armed, to stand up for itself. And so that good could use its weapons to resolve any problems that arose, evil had to be made not only weak, but stupid. The finest cultural sommeliers gradually created the Orkish pattern of life out of the heritage of mankind. Out of all the most deplorable things preserved in the human memory. I’m afraid that will seem cynical and cruel to you. But for our time it is simply a given.’

  Grim had already heard something similar from the deceased discoursemonger.

  ‘And why do they use that word – “sommelier”?’ he said, asking another idiotic question. ‘So many different professions and only one word …’

  ‘That used to be what servants who brought the wine to the table were called. They had long lists of wine from which their masters could choose. And later they started using the name for people who do things that used to be considered creative work.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘People had already invented everything they needed. At one time, long ago, mankind developed very rapidly – the things surrounding people changed constantly, and so did the words that they used. In those days there were many different names for a creative individual – engineer, poet, scientist, scholar. And they were all constantly inventing something new. But that was the childhood of mankind. After that, along came maturity. Creative work didn’t disappear – but it started resolving itself into choosing from what has already been created. Metaphorically speaking, we don’t grow grapes any more. We send someone to the cellar to get a bottle. The people who go for it are called “sommeliers”.’

  Grim got the impression that Alena-Libertina was speaking in a slightly irritated tone. He clearly shouldn’t waste her time on things that the on-screen dictionaries could help him with. It was time to gather his thoughts and ask about the most important thing.

  ‘Why do they shoot snuffs?’

  Alena-Libertina laughed.

  ‘It’s our duty and purpose as people. It’s what Manitou wants.’

  ‘But people haven’t always shot snuffs, have they?’

  ‘That’s true,’ Alena-Libertina agreed. ‘People haven’t always shot them, because the will of Manitou wasn’t yet clear to them on the conscious level. But they have always been shot in them. If you follow the metaphor.’

  ‘But who are they shot for? After all, we … That is, the Orks down below can’t even watch snuffs properly. Everything’s blocked out by the censor. But up here hardly anyone watches them.’

  Alena-Libertina smirked again.

  ‘You won’t understand, dear boy.’

  ‘Try it. Tell me.’

  ‘You know, in the Age of Ancient Films there was a certain director. That was what they called the people who shot those films. And he was asked the same question – who do you make films for? For glory? For people? No, he replied. For Manitou.’

  ‘For Manitou?’

  ‘Yes, my boy. And we also shoot snuffs for Manitou.’

  ‘And does Manitou know about it?’

  ‘You won’t understand that anyway until you enter the House of Manitou.’

  ‘But where is the House of Manitou?’ asked Grim. ‘I thought I’d already got there.’

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Alena-Libertina. ‘I’ll take you.’

  She stood up and set off along the line of the shore. Grim got up off the bench and followed her, struggling with the fear that had suddenly flooded over him.

  Probably it was what he had learned about the alleys that made the way back seem quite a bit longer. Grim found it hard to believe that there was a moving walkway under his feet. He looked down, trying to make out if that really was dense, trampled soil down there, or if it was yet another apparition – but he couldn’t figure it out at all.

  When they come out into the circular area with the statues, where the chairs were standing, Alena-Libertina lowered herself onto one of them and gestured for Grim to sit down beside her.

  ‘Are you curious about who all these men are?’ she asked, pointing to the white statues.

  Grim counted the pedestals – there were twelve of them, matching the number of radiating pathways.

  ‘I suppose they’re ancient priests of Manitou?’ Grim surmised. ‘His servants?’

  ‘More like His faces,’ said Alena-Libertina. ‘We call each one of them by the name “Manitou”. Because an entire era of human history is behind each and every one of them, and every one of them was the mouthpiece of eternal truth. In their time every word they spoke shook the world, and volumes of notes with commentaries were written about it. But now people don’t even remember their names.’

  The only thing that interested Grim was what Manitou needed so many faces for, if he never lied. Only he thought a question like that might sound sacrilegious. But even so, he felt he had to ask a few questions about these statues – if only out of politeness.

  ‘Who’s that one?’ asked Grim, pointing to a statue of a sly-faced, slant-eyed warrior in boots with pointed toes, sitting cross-legged on his pedestal.

  ‘That’s Manitou Buddha. A great warrior of ancient times. He punished the enemies of Manitou by binding them to his wheel. Do you see the wheel?’

  ‘Aha,’ said Grim. ‘And these two?’

  He pointed to two bearded men standing on pedestals beside each other.