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From: Andreas A. Oxenstjierna [CyberCzar Internet CafÈ, St. Petersburg]
To: Ludo Orzovsky Subject: Dispatch from Russia Dear Ludo, I am glad to finally catch up with you again, so much has happened in the past year. People seem to flow in and out of my life like the tide. It is the price of my mission, God has gifted me with superlative awareness, I have no choice in the matter. When was the last time we were together? Was it Gertrude's Cloister in Helsinki, or Madame Woo's in Tacoma that we spent the night loudly deriding the limp-wristed tinklings of Frederik Chopin? I admit I had too much lager that night to remember which, only that I was bound for Calcutta with the dawn tide on a Philippine freighter. Of that Calcutta adventure you may have not heard. Most of it is an embarrassment. I was stuck penniless in Calcutta for a month. Never play cards with Mindanao sailors. I was locked on board a ship for two months, I was at their mercy; just the sound of cards shuffling removes the stiffness from my knees. They must have known that, but who could have told them? Fortunately, connections with my Swedish grandfather's publishing empire have led to an arrangement with a Stockholm weekly. It's a rag, and I hate stooping so low to write for such trash, but when in dire straits... A few hastily penned words on the street life around me, and traveling money arrived two weeks later. Sherpas could have brought it faster, but that is India for you. You might as well be on Mars. An oh, Christ, Calcutta is a Moslem city, not a bloody pub in sight excepting the Foreign Correspondent's Club. Talk about limp-wristers. The doorman sniffed at my press credential for far too long than is seemly. No doubt the foot of height I had on him finally convinced him of its validity. I had the pommies eating out of my hand within twenty minutes, but the fortnight I had to spend wallowing in their dimly lit, plebeian paradigm was a chore. Penance from above, no doubt. It would have been useless to tell them all that I know, what would have been the point? They couldn't possibly comprehend it. Their fishmouths would stare blankly at me—their eyes wet and dead. Until you have seen the true face of reality it is not possible to remake your own world with mere words. I spent the next six months looking for the Lost Kingdom of Shankalla, reported to be in the Tian Shan mountains. I report, it was not. I traveled as far south and east as Bhutan and Mustang, as far west as Waziristan. This mystic place with its ice blue palace of lapis and silver was ruled by a great mystic, the Golden Yeti. I have been occluded by countless villains in my attempt to locate it during the past two years. I have yet to find it, the mists of the high plateaus would not part for me. But all was not without some success... the Golden Yeti I did find, even though his palace is lost in the mist. He operates a kebab stand in Kathmandu, near the central market. I will not repeat what he told me. I dare not. His wisdom is for each man alone, seek him out if you dare. Penniless again, I waited for my wire to arrive in Nepal, planning to travel north through Russia and then return to Norway. My article on kebab stands in the sub-continent was syndicated in several magazines, and the bonus allowed me a few luxuries... my spiritual work once more vindicated by the higher powers. I traveled by twin-engine to Xingiang, and thence by Trans-Siberian Railway to Moscow and St. Petersburg (the name change I like not, Leningrad always had a nice ring to it... but then my fraternal grandfather was a socialist). It was on the train that I shared a compartment with a Mongolian fish-monger. A pike-eel salesmen, traveling to Moscow from Ulan Bator! I was not fooled, there are no pike-eel in the rivers of Mongolia. Several days spent lurking on the fringes of Gorky Park confirmed my suspicions to a horrifying degree. But I am on to them, they can only fail now! Who would believe the heinous craftiness of their design: to overthrow the Russian Republic, to enthrone the last heir of Temujin, the Great Genghis Khan, Khan of the Whole World,... in a new Mongolian Empire. A lone Norwegian against the Mongol Horde... but I will not wail in fear as the Europeans of old did. My train for Minsk leaves in a few hours, I know an ex-GRU man from Novisibirsk that will meet me there with proof of their plans, and hopefully photographs. There yet may be a hole in their designs, a stray thread to unravel their woven saddle. How clever they must think themselves. While the Yanks chase invisible Hashisheen across southern deserts they ride unhindered, proud in their saddles, across the Tzarist front-lawn. The Rus crushed their bones once before, and will again. Do not worry, friend Ludo, I cannot fail now.
Best to you my brother,
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