Rates of Exchange (3 page)

But this, as you see, is a long outdated account, written before two modern World Wars once more transformed the nation’s history. Today, following more invasions, pillage, bombardment,
jackboots and conquest, the nation is now a people’s republic, issuing pretty stamps, in the Soviet orbit, a member of the Warsaw Pact and Comecon. It is a net exporter of beets, rose-water,
china, timber, shoes, an excellent peach brandy (
rot’vitti
), glassware and brown suits, a net importer of oil, grain, machinery, manufactured goods, medical and sanitary supplies, meat
and soft drinks (
sch’veppii
). Ballet and opera are good, footwear scarce, mostly going for export, literacy high, sporting achievements spectacular. Its swimmers win Olympic gold
medals with regularity; its horse riders fall off less often than most. The units of currency are the
vloska
and the
bittii
, one hundred
bittiin
to the
vloska
. Hard
Western currencies, especially the dollar, are scarce and much sought after. Money may be exchanged officially only at the change desks (
camb’yii
) of the state tourist board,
Cosmoplot, found in all major hotels and at branches of the government bank (
Burs’ii Proly’aniii
). It should be admitted that, in the streets, bars and cafés, transactions
of a more informal kind do occur, at very advantageous rates for the Western visitor; however, travellers should note that these transactions are serious crimes against the state, attracting the
most severe penalties. The voltage is 110. No
vloskan
may be taken from the country on leaving.

Of course in Slaka now history is perceived as a dialectical progress, and not, as in decadent Western thought, as a sentimental past. Even so, the national cultural heritage is taken very
seriously, and, since much of it was destroyed in the battles of the Second World War, it has been rebuilt to the most exacting standards. As the guidebooks say, few, walking the city fine streets,
can well tell which building have standed over the centuries and which are restituted in a living lifespell. However, if, as is likely, you are travelling with the guidance, and the guide, of
Cosmoplot, you will probably not be taken to see the Cathedral. It is indeed some way out of the centre of town, at the end of the tram-route, down by the Niyt. And, though churchgoing is permitted
and in fact much practised, secular materialism is the official state philosophy. It will therefore be assumed that, as a citizen of the present (which, like it or not, you are), you will want to
see the triumphs of proletarian endeavour, the heroic achievements of socialist planning, the collective works of the people. So you will be taken to see the advanced glassblowing factory, perhaps
the best in the world, with production targets that invite emulation; the reformed watercress industry, an oustanding example of agro-organization; the apartment blocks for the workers, erected in
brief hours through miracles of pre-fabrication and pre-planning; the Park of Freedom, celebrating the friendship of all peoples; the tomb of Grigoric, who, when liberal elements hesitated,
resolutely delivered the nation over to the Soviet liberator in 1944, and whose mausoleum, guarded by the soldiers of the state guard, in their fine feathered shakos, stands in Party Square
(
Plazsci P’rtyii
); a neat, busy collective farm, with happy workers and clean tractors; the Museum of Socialist Realist Art, with pictures of the happy workers and the clean
tractors.

And so, doubtless, you will; and you will understand the better the promise of the future. Even so, it is still worth going to look at the Cathedral. It lies at the end of the Vipnu tram-route;
tickets are not available on board, but must be bought in advance at the state tobacco kiosks (marked
Litti
). Mosquitoes are busy down by the river, so you would do well to spray before
leaving your hotel. The Cathedral is, at first sight, not impressive, looking from the outside little more than a sombre domed warehouse of recycled blackened brick. The interior, however, is rich
in splendours. Baroque finery illuminates the solemn darkness; beeswax candles splutter on the many small shrines; the altars are bright with plaster, silver and gold. Begun in the XIth., extended,
under Bishop Wocwit the Good, in the XIIIth., vandalized in the XVth., restored in Baroque fantasy by Bishop ‘Wencher’ Vlam in the XVIIIth., briefly a mosque in the early XIXth.,
severely damaged by aerial and land bombardment in the XXth., and since rebuilt from medieval and Renaissance plans by attentive scholars, it enshrines many stages both of human and artistic
evolution. Pillage and damage over the generations educated its priests and monks in the arts of survival and the tactics of hiding, preserving and, when the time was ripe, resurrecting its holy
treasures. Much of excellence has thus remarkably survived: the many ikons, wonderful for the dark-souled expressions in the tortured saintly faces, in the crypt; the plasterwork cherubs in the
nave; the medieval image of Christ Pantokrator painted and carved in the drum; the fine Flemish altar-piece; and, a little to the right of the main altar, the marbled tomb, a shrine and place of
pilgrimage, of Saint Valdopin himself – patron saint of the church, bringer of the alphabet, Christianizer of the land, and the first of many national martyrs.

To Valdopin a great many stories attach; who is to know whether they are true or false? In the Xth., or just possibly the IXth., he came, from somewhere to the south, or possibly the west, to
convert the prince or khan of the tribe that was settled in this middle terrain of marsh, forest and mosquito. In due course the prince was converted, to great political advantage; recognized by
the Holy See, the tribe became a nation. But Valdopin put his trust in more than princes, and brought his mission to the people. He set up the Holy Texts for all to read, translating them and
devising his own alphabet for the purpose. This is the Valdopian alphabet, now little used: examples may be seen carved into the Cathedral’s stone walls, though there is some dispute about
the accuracy of the restoration. Thus the nation was won over to the ways of Christ – though later, it must be admitted, there was a pagan revival, when, according to the authoritative
encyclopedia from which I have quoted, wild beasts made their lairs in the idle and desecrated churches. But to Valdopin the mission seemed complete; he now moved on to a tribe adjacent, still
heathen and given to the most barbarous practices. And, story tells us, by these people – to the north, or the west, or just possibly the east (though for some reason this is particularly
strongly disputed) – he was attacked, slain with stones, decapitated, and his body hacked with swords into very small pieces. A bas-relief in the Cathedral may be seen depicting this event,
though modern scholarship questions the accuracy of the costume.

But, story further tells us, the faithful in the land of which Slaka is now capital had not forgotten Valdopin; they determined to recover their martyr and give him Christian burial. Emissaries
were sent, and a contract arranged with the pagan. A set of scales was placed on the border between the nations: the mincemeat saint was to be placed on one pan, to be traded for an equal weight of
gold from the prince’s coffers in the other. However, you know stories, and how these legendary contracts always breed complications. The scales were raised, the portions of saint produced,
ingot after ingot put into the pan; still the scales obstinately refused to tip. Gold was piled on gold until the treasury ran dry; the pans still failed to balance. Only a magical intercession
could save the day; happily these were times when magic was still operational. The prince despaired and the faithful wept, but then, from the back of the crowd, there stepped a little old widow
woman, dressed entirely in black, and leaning bently on a bent stick. In one twisted little hand she held out one tiny gold coin, her entire life’s savings. The prince laughed and his
retainers mocked, as in such stories they always do.

But you indeed know stories, and are quite familiar with the powers possessed by these little old widow women with their mites; I need hardly go on. Down went the coin, up went the scales, mad
went the crowd, red went the prince. The pagans, who, as pagans go, had not done badly, loaded up their gold; the prince’s retainers brought a coffin and filled it with hamburgered saint; the
prince kissed the old woman, who did not turn into anything; the corpse was borne home, a marbled tomb was raised, somewhere in the marshy land down by the Niyt, where, for some reason, the first
conversions had occurred, Valdopin won his martyr’s burial, the tomb became a shrine, pilgrims came from distant destinations, miraculous wonders occurred, the sick threw off their crutches,
the mad grew wise, the dumb began to speak. Sainthood was duly recognized, monks settled the site, a chapel was built, and then in time a cathedral, which you should not neglect to visit. The
legend grew, as legends do. Even during Ottoman rule the memory of the saint survived in the minds of the people; and it survives still, even in these secular times, when miracles are usually
economic, other kinds of sainthood are recognized, and Valdopin’s tomb now has to compete for attention with that of Grigoric, with the shakoed soldiers around it, there in Plazsci
P’rtyii.

Of the story, you may make what you like. Like all good stories, it can be read in many fashions. For the romantic nationalist historians it is of course a tale about the emergence of a people.
For Christian theologians, it is a miraculous fable of divine intercession. For the Marxist aestheticians it is a classic socialist realist allegory displaying that power lies not with princes and
their capital but with the combined power of the common people. For the folklorists it is – with its contract delay, magical intervention and happy outcome – a perfect example of the
morphology of folktale. And for more fashionable thinkers of the Structuralist persuasion, debating these matters in the Rue des Ecoles, well, is it not a perfect example of the
pensée
sauvage
, of Lévi-Strauss’s the raw and the cooked? And if you were to ask me, as well you might, since it is, just for the moment, my story, then I would probably pause for a
moment, lighting my pipe to give an appearance of critical sagacity, think a little, and then suggest, very tentatively, that its deep structure is fairly apparent: mightn’t we say,
shouldn’t
we say, that it is a typical Slakan fable about rates of exchange?

For, if you should ever happen to make the trip to Slaka – metropolis of gypsy music, wide streets and rectorates of baroque accretion, where the trade fairs are held, the congresses meet,
the languages criss-cross – you will still find everywhere an old Valdopian preoccupation with barter and transaction – a trading of goods, a shuttling of values, a fixing of rates. It
is there in the currency checks (
geld’yii
) at the airport; at the change desks (
camb’yii
), found in the state banks or the lobby of your Cosmoplot hotel; in the great
government department store, mug, on Vitz’vitzimutu, where they sell shortages as well as plenty, so that many people solemnly visit it in order not to shop; in the endless commerce on the
quiet park benches, where carefree children play on the sunlit lanes, pensioners enjoy their well-deserved repose, and briefcases open, to switch a pear for a cucumber, a pair of underpants for a
bright pink bra; in the special foreign currency stores, WICWOK, where tourists compete with party officials for malt whiskies from rare Scottish glens and the Western blue jeans created by that
other and far better known Levi-Strauss; in the dim-lit restaurants, where the waiters will ask ‘You pay dollar?’ before revealing whether or not they have any meat on the menu; on the
wide pavements of the city, where passers-by will stop you as you walk and offer to exchange your suit for their antiques or, if you dress as badly as I do, vice versa. Yes, there are times in
Slaka when it seems life is nothing else but making a trade, finding an equivalent, striking a bargain, forging a value, putting so much person into one pan and seeing how it matches up with so
many goods in the other.

That is the way of things in Slaka; but then, where is life not like that? The world is full of money-talk; economists are our new wise men. The linguists, whom one meets everywhere these days,
explain that every transaction in our culture – our money and mathematics, our games and gardens, our diet and our sexual activity – is a language; this, of course, is why one meets so
many linguists these days. And languages, too, are simply invented systems of exchange, attempts to turn the word into the world, sign into value, script into currency, code into reality. Of
course, everywhere, even in Slaka, there are the politicians and the priests, the ayatollahs and the economists, who will try to explain that reality is what they say it is. Never trust them; trust
only the novelists, those deeper bankers who spend their time trying to turn pieces of printed paper into value, but never pretend that the result is anything more than a useful fiction. Of course
we need them: for what, after all, is our life but a great dance in which we are all trying to fix the best going rate of exchange, using our minds and our sex, our taste and our clothes, according
to Valdopian principles? So you,
cher lecteur
, with your customized Volvo and your Seiko quartz digital, your remote control telephone and your high opinion, so loudly expressed over the
Campari soda, of Woody Allen up to but not including
Interiors
; or you,
chère ms
., with your Gucci shoes, the tales of ego your analyst told you, and the buttons of your
designer dress left strategically undone, to display the Seychelles tan and that tempting mammary interface, so raising the interest without lowering the price; or even you,
cher enfant
,
with your Kids-In-Gear boilersuit and your endless new scram on Emerson, Lake and Palmer – what are you doing but putting what you like to think of as your self in the pan, bartering your
mind and body, your youth and opinions, on the economic frontier, in an attempt to find a meaning, invent a value, find your highest price, trade at the best possible rate of exchange?