Bardo or Not Bardo

VI. DADOKIAN

“I am speaking to you once more, oh noble son, oh Schmollowski,” a voice says.

A dispassionate voice.

The one speaking is an almost normal tantric monk. A lama like those we have learned to love, by dint of meeting so many of them throughout this story. He is draped in a robe covered in patches, overall raspberry color. Across his chest he is wearing an indigo canvas satchel along with various fabrics of ambiguous significance. His entire being emanates a dusty grandeur. At first glance, his dispassion seems based on much humor, and is not simulated. He tranquilly doesn’t give a fig about anything, but he feels no nihilistic anxiety. He could be any age, let’s say fifty-one so as not to be accused of lacking verisimilitude, but, to the credulous, he might say, deadpan, that he was born seven- or eight-hundred years ago, or even earlier still, for example before the world revolution. Suppose he tells this to Western adherents who lack common sense. No objection would arise. This detail, furthermore (his exact age) doesn’t concern us.

I said almost normal because he sports an unusual number of talismans, including a discreet lapel pin in the shape of a red star, whose central image has been scratched and wiped away, perhaps out of monastic nostalgia for non-violence or the demands of political prudence, perhaps a sub-machine gun, perhaps a terrorist acronym two or three characters long, perhaps the portrait of a guerrillero or philosopher. The pin is raspberry too. It disappears under a scarf and, from time to time, light falls on it and it gleams.

“Listen to me, Schmollowski,” the lama repeats.

He is in the middle of officiating in a Chinese temple, though not in the main hall. At this moment he is standing in the cramped room where the temple watchman naps when the too-heavy heat overwhelms the afternoon, a place serving also as a storeroom for bottles of oil, sticks of incense, two umbrellas, and cartons containing wads of paper money to be burnt for the posthumous comfort of the Chinese dead, so they can purchase essentials in the other world, along with anything frivolous they happen to find on sale. The lama is settled in the middle of this bric-a-brac, after having as always placed a dollar next to the miniscule towel into which the watchman sponges his sweat. Elsewhere, in front of official altars, he would perhaps not be tolerated, as he belongs to a dissident faction, politically and religiously incorrect, often asked to go minister under other roofs, sometimes politely and sometimes with nightsticks. So he visits Chinese districts, choosing places of worship where there is less risk of him being bothered with questions of dogma, but he does not abuse his hosts’ hospitality and he steers clear of major idols.

On a carton he has placed a portable gong, one with a clear and short sound, along with a photograph and the heap of hardened pages his personal copy of the Book of the Dead has been reduced to. Facing him, there is a wall blackened with molds and a lunar calendar surmounted by mythic Chinese generals and ministers who have absolutely nothing to do with Tibetan tantrism, so they can be disregarded here. From the ceiling hangs a bare light bulb, switched off. The only window looks rather like an embrasure, and is obscured by a pot of flowers. The room is damp, hot, and poorly lit. Outside noises come in from every angle and crystallize inside: the comings and goings of the devout with offerings, prices from the stock exchange in Cantonese that the watchman and temple seer, both drowsy, listen to with a distracted ear, and, to finish, the distant sounds of the street: slivers of voices, a motorcycle’s vroom as a handyman repairs it out in the open, horns from buses or taxis blocked by the crowd. A public market adjoins the temple.

“Listen to me carefully, Schmollowski,” says the lama. “I am Jeremiah Schlumm, a Buddhist lama from the Association of Red Bonnets Anonymous, a tantric mutual aid organization. The Association has entrusted me with reading to you the Bardo Thödol for forty-nine days. I know you are not a member of the Buddhist community, but I know on the other hand that you have read and reread this book, the Book of the Dead, during your long stay in captivity. I know you had it in your possession. We sent it to you along with candies, undergarments, and soap.”

The brouhaha of the market superimposes itself on Jeremiah Schlumm’s speech, who has not taken it into account. But suddenly a quarrel breaks out around a medium-ripe durian, which the vendor is refusing to slice for free. It is a harsh and uncouth discussion. The lama feels obliged to strike his gong to recapture the first sound. The merchant sets his price in dollars, the buyer persists on calculating in the old currency. He demands a discount since the fruit has not been skinned. The two men are dishonest. The debate drags on. With a gong blow the Anonymous Red Bonnet dulls the violence.

“Concentrate, Schmollowski,” he says. “Even a non-Buddhist can hear my voice. And even you, who have always fought against any and every authority, even you can understand me and can obey my instructions.”

Gong.

“It’s enough to have skimmed through the book just once to understand me.”

Rumbles from the street.

The durian costs a dollar a pound. That’s high.

“Twelve days ago,” continues the lama, “you exhaled your last breath in cell 2518, which was your home for three decades. Twelve days. If we apply the magical tradition’s calculus, that means you have been separated from your body for eight days already.”

Gong.

Jeremiah Schlumm readjusts his indigo bag, his scarf. A sunbeam has intruded through the very narrow window. Almost immediately, a cloud intercepts it. The red star-pin glimmers on Jeremiah Schlumm’s chest, then fades.

Behind the lama’s back, the temple goes through a phase of somewhat slowed activity. The seer opens his eyes, no client is sitting facing him, he goes back to sleep. A devotee is humming a sacred nursery rhyme before a statue of Guan Yin. Out of the blue a coil of incense loses nine centimeters of ash, dissipating between the goddess and an offering of ravioli.

The heat is oppressive.

“Every morning,” continues the lama, “I open the file the Association gave to me, and I speak to a photograph of you, the only one the Association possesses, where you can be seen handcuffed, between two policemen. The file contains a succinct biography. It says you spent your youth murdering murderers and destroying the rich’s riches, and then you remained at rest, for years without number, between the four walls of cell 2518. Calm and detachment then became your daily life. You lived like a meditant. Sometimes, it’s true, your monastic serenity was troubled, especially in the first twenty years, when current political affairs were still hot in the outside world and the guards would push door 2518 open to beat you or subject you to mock executions, or when you heard your male and female comrades beaten, sink into madness, or die.”

Gong.

“This time is no more, Schmollowski.”

Gong.

“The world of egalitarian struggle, with its prisons and its innumerous defeats, this world is no more, Schmollowski.”

Gong.

“For you there is no more world of any sort.”

Gong.

The raspberry lapel pin appears once again. Other talismans can also be seen, made to obtain the goodwill of the Five Thunders, or even consecrated to minor heroes of the Great Brood, to obscure gods, to the windy ones. The Anonymous Red Bonnet is emotionless under the bare, lightless light bulb, behind his shield of superstition and divinities. He believes in nothing, he believes in only the void.

“There is only the Bardo in which you are now walking, and the forty-nine days separating your death from your rebirth.”

Gong.

“Now, listen to me, Schmollowski, noble son. Don’t let yourself get distracted. The first days of the voyage have been lost, since you have not followed my guidance. .”

Until now, there has been nothing extraordinary about the lama’s voice, it fluctuated without static or irregularities, but now something is affecting it, a distortion at first hardly noticeable, then very pronounced, a sizzling distortion, as if it had begun traveling on inorganic supports, as if between Schlumm’s mouth and our ears there were now a power cable and very little air, no more air at all, even. In a few seconds, the Anonymous Red Bonnet’s powerful words give way to an artificial lowing. The consonants are crushed in an amplifier, the vowels are coming from an echo chamber. The sounds of traffic, the altercations between customers and shopkeepers have been gummed out. A voice can still be heard, a poised and solemn voice, but, it is diffused by a telephonic system much more tantric than technically perfect.

Whether we want to or not, we are no longer in Jeremiah Schlumm’s company, with the cartons and bottles of oil, but in Schmollowski’s Bardo, and, in a certain way, with Schmollowski, even though he is completely alone. More than one element indicates it. The hermetic darkness, to start, and the silence, as if outside didn’t exist. Next, acoustic phenomena that only occur in the posthumous worlds, on account of a certain obsolescence of time and space: for example those sonic effects that scholars have inventoried using the terms mute voice, double arch, residuary mental melody. And finally, the fact that suddenly Schmollowski is speaking and we are hearing him.

For now Schmollowski is well and truly taking the floor. He is soliloquizing.

The unintelligibility and the gong in the loudspeaker recall an announcement in a deserted train station. A station plunged into night, totally dead, with no travelers.

“It’s curious, that loudspeaker,” Schmollowski mutters. “Every morning for eight days, at breakfast time. . Propaganda from the R. B. A., Red Bonnets Anonymous. . Buddhist litanies, unending exhortations. . A gong. . E-flat, I think. A splendid note. . That’s a change from waking up to keystrokes on the cell door. . Much friendlier. .”

“You have not followed my guidance, Schmollowski,” the lama says. “You have not rejoined the sublime Brightness of inexistence. You have missed the opportunities offered to you and you have continued lamentably to exist in your lamentable self. .”

“And then,” Schmollowski observes, “that monk is nice. He pretends not to be easy-going, but deep down, he’s a nice guy.”

“Last week,” says Jeremiah Schlumm, “the peaceful divinities presented themselves to you one after another. And instead of dissolving into them to become Buddha, you continued roaming the Bardo like a frightened and stupid animal.”

Gong.

“Schmollowski! Do you really want to wander like this for forty-nine days?”

“Yes,” says Schmollowski.

Gong.

“Schmollowski! Do you really want to roam down there like a dog for forty-nine days?”

“Yes,” says Schmollowski. “Even more than forty-nine days, if possible. If I sort things out well enough. Because, so as not to hide anything from you, comrade lama, I like it here.” (Gong.) “I like it a lot. I have every intention to stay here, if you want to know. Do you hear me, comrade lama?”

He shouts.

“Do you hear me, comrade lama? I’m going to hang out here! I feel good here!”

His voice floats echolessly in the dark space, then it crumbles.

Just now, when the loudspeaker started crackling, like it did every day now at breakfast time, Schmollowski wasn’t surprised. He had been expecting it. His mind wasn’t wavering between sleepiness and unconsciousness. His body was resting. He was sitting on the ground, relaxed, his intelligence on the lookout. He soon picked himself up and began walking again, like the day before, like the day before the day before. He’s listening to the lama’s phrases and soliloquizing as he advances. Right now he is stamping on gravel, black, friable material. He is stamping on it with no excessive haste.

“No, evidently, he doesn’t hear me,” he mutters.

At the same moment, the gong resounds.

“Listen to me, Schmollowski, make an effort to pay attention!” the monk exhorts. “Remember what you read in the Bardo Thödol! You’re facing an astonishing opportunity, seize it! Starting today, you can end the painful cycle of death and rebirth. . You just have to want it. . Forget what you’ve lived until now. You always took it for a journey in the real world, when in fact it was pure illusion! Disinterest yourself in your past, Schmollowski, your passions from another time! Take advantage of your death, Schmollowski, don’t squander it! This journey is a thousand times more important than the one that preceded it!”

“Yes, yes, I’m aware,” says Schmollowski.

He is wearing an anthracite-gray tracksuit with sandals. You can hear the squeaking of his steps on the gravel and clods of soot, the sand. Sometimes he slips on the coarse earth, sometimes he sinks in to his ankles.

“What do you think?” Schmollowski asks. “Sure, I read everything the R. B. A. sent me. Their profession of faith, their explanatory brochures, all the material. .”

Gong.

“I liked it,” Schmollowski mutters.

Now that we have grown accustomed to the darkness, we can describe it with a greater exactitude. A very thick twilight-black reigns, contradicting every notion of landscape near or far, but all the same one does not walk through it blindly. Schmollowski, even if his sandals don’t help, is progressing in a straight line without stumbling, and, after a moment, we perceive that he is following an already-traced trail. There is no landscape to properly speak of, no image, but, when we try to imagine the decor, we know that we are moving through a vast black plain. We trample something that looks like a path surrounded by fields of charcoal. Our eyes don’t need to be open for us to realize this.

“Don’t worry about me, comrade lama!” Schmollowski shouts at the loudspeaker. “I’m not following your instructions to the letter, but I’m inspired by them. My life in the Bardo is organizing. I’m not squandering it, tell your R. B. A. comrades. I’m fully enjoying my journey, the possibilities offered to me. . Every morning, at the same hour, I hear your voice announcing the day’s program. After that, once the silence comes back, I’m free. Free! My movements, my thoughts, my time. I haven’t been this free since. . oh my! So many years. .”

“The biographical synthesis at my disposal,” says the lama, “assures that you had great qualities, that you were intelligent and sensitive. You put these qualities into the service of social vengeance and egalitarian punishment. They helped you plan attacks, murders. . You killed quite a lot of people, from the newspaper clippings I see here. . Camp managers, sellers of misfortune, billionaires. . But, deep down, you were the opposite of a brute. .”

Gong.

“You must be able to grasp my words. And anyway, if our priests speak the truth, it’s enough to have read the Bardo Thödol a single time to remember it completely after your death.”

Gong.

Schmollowski acquiesces in silence. The priests speak the truth: the Book of the Dead has embedded itself in his memory without a single line missing. He knows it by heart. But, in this precise moment, he is not thinking about the Book of the Dead. He is thinking about the material conditions of his stay in the Bardo. They are good, especially if compared to the thousand bothers that spoil the living’s lives. The advantages are considerable here. Schmollowski looks them over. No dietary worries. Hunger is unknown. So you don’t spend your time looking for or preparing food. You don’t eat, you don’t digest. . No digestion, another great advantage. No need to squat in some ditch at any moment to expel foul matter out of yourself. That also implies you don’t have to fear stepping in feces. Even if it’s where the dead roam like dogs for forty-nine days, you don’t have to constantly scan the ground to avoid droppings. .

“Also,” Schmollowski mutters, “physical fatigue doesn’t make itself felt, or so little. . You feel like you’re in great shape twenty-four hours a day. . Otherwise, you’d have to find a place every evening to bivouac, lug around a sleeping bag with you. . All those idiotic joys of camping. While here, from time to time, I sit on the ground to recuperate a little. . That’s all. . I sit, I wait for the loudspeaker to signal a new day. . The comfort is relative, but it’s tidy.”

Gong.

“Nice and dry, not cold, no cowpies,” Schmollowski says.

Gong.

“This week begins a new phase of your crossing,” the lama announces.

Gong.

“Wait, a hill,” Schmollowski murmurs. “A kind of large sandy pile. I’m going to climb to the summit. See if I can see anything.”

“Throughout this second week,” says the lama, “you are going to be confronted by irritated divinities, bloodthirsty divinities.”

Schmollowski scales the hill. It’s a small dune. Despite his declarations on the absence of physical fatigue, the ascent drains him. He arrives at the top breathless and sweaty. He pivots, and, rear first, lets himself fall on the extremely black sand.

“I’m going to take a short breather,” he says.

Gong.

“Do not be terrified by them, noble son,” says the lama. “They have a hideous appearance, but they are not any less benevolent than last week’s divinities. The book we sent you included numerous illustrations, do you remember? You pinned them to the walls of your cell. Recognize them, go and meet them without fear. Renounce immediately everything that made you an individual.”

“That’s where we diverge, comrade lama and I,” Schmollowski mutters.

“Renounce, be one with them, dissolve into them. .”

“No,” says Schmollowski, “That’s where we. . ‘Noble son, renounce, cease to be a person!’ ‘Join the collectivity of the nothing!’ ‘Noble son, cease to be conscious of yourself!’ No, there’s no way I’d adopt the Red Bonnets Anonymous philosophy. No way I’m accompanying them on this territory. No, really. . it’s too suicidal. I won’t walk. .”

Gong.

“Not for me!” Schmollowski shouts in the direction of the loudspeaker. “Too suicidal!”

“Now at the moment,” the lama proclaims, “you are going to be confronted with an enormous, dark-brown being, with three heads, six hands, four legs. .”

“What haven’t they come up with!” says Schmollowski.

There is a smile at his lips. He has always been a connoisseur of post-exotic or fantastical stories and tales, he even composed some of his own in prison. Then he jumps. He stretches toward the darkness while screwing up his eyes, like he’s scrutinizing it. His smile fades. Suddenly he’s not smiling at all anymore. He’s on high alert.

Because now he hears footsteps trampling the night and the gravel, at a certain distance. Let’s say some sixty meters away, more or less.

“Hang on,” he breathes, “that’s right. A form’s coming up the trail. It’s coming toward me.”

“This being will be surrounded with blinding flames,” the lama describes, “and it will stare at you while sneering, with its nine large, open eyes, in abominable fixity. Then you will see garlands of skulls and freshly cut human heads swinging across its chest. And, as it approaches, you will notice it walking intertwined with a terrifying goddess. Thus it will progress toward you, while copulating with this irritated goddess, both of them howling and moving about like a nightmare. .”

“I love it,” says Schmollowski. “How I adored that book. . It’s part poetic, part insane. .”

“Without interrupting her sexual union with the sneering being,” continues Schlumm, “the goddess will turn her head around backward to pour the contents of a large, blood-filled shell into her mouth. .”

It’s very dark. Schmollowski however can see enough to make out that the approaching being has only one head.

“Bah, that’s not the type to copulate while walking,” Schmollowski grumbles. “That’s a short, perfectly ordinary man.”

Gong.

“Do not fear them, Schmollowski,” says the lama. “Neither him, nor her.”

“An everyday guy,” continues Schmollowski. “He even kind of looks like Müller, the fourth floor guard. The one who strangled Julio Sternhagen with a belt. .”

“Do not fear them at all,” repeats the Anonymous Red Bonnet. “They do not exist. They have no reality. They are no more real than you are. Your mind is what stirs them, your imagination gives them their appearance. Approach them. Recognize them for what they are, which is to say absolutely nothing. Try to vanish into them. Think only on that. Try to be completely absorbed upon contact with them.”

Gong.

“If you accomplish this, immediately, you will be liberated.”

Gong.

“This guy’s looking at his feet as he walks,” Schmollowski notes. “He can’t see anything.”

The man who looks like Müller arrives at the top of the mound, following the length of it without lifting his eyes. He walks without paying attention to anything, zigzagging slightly. He has already started to move away.

“He didn’t see me,” Schmollowski says.

He stands back up.

“Do not let terror overcome you!” says the monk.

Gong.

“Hey!” Schmollowski yells at the passerby. “Hey down there! Mister! Hey!”

The footsteps freeze. The man is looking for where the voice hailing him came from.

“I’m here at the top of this kind of dune!” Schmollowski shouts. “Come up and take a quick break, it overlooks the plains and is quite nice!”

The newcomer seems to be easily convinced. He hesitates for not even two seconds. Now he’s climbing the slope. The crumbly granules roll beneath his feet. He slides backward, he catches back up. He fights against breathlessness, in his turn. Closer up, he doesn’t look like Müller. He has on a plaid shirt unbuttoned to the navel, an undershirt and a pair of shorts peppered with oily stains, and tattered sneakers. His appearance is half-pallid, half-crazed.

“Hello,” he says. “It’s very nice to come across someone. The sky is so black that I couldn’t even figure out the height of the sand pile. . And it’s been so long since I started walking all alone. I was certain that other people. . that there were no other people. . I mean, do you see what I mean?”

“I’d started to think things like that too,” says Schmollowski.

“Have no fear, Schmollowski!” the loudspeaker blares.

“I say,” the newcomer chirps, “we’ve got a damn nice view from up here. . You can make out the trail for at least twenty meters. . And it’s so calm too. .”

“Yes,” says Schmollowski. “It’s a perfect place for calm. . If only that loudspeaker were gone. .”

“That what?”

“That loudspeaker.”

“You hear a loudspeaker?”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Ah,” says Schmollowski.

“You know, if you’re hearing something, it might mean you’re crazy,” the other reasons.

“Ah,” says Schmollowski.

“It’s not a loudspeaker for me,” the other explains. “It’s a radio. They implanted a radio set in my brain. In the frontal lobe. It goes off around noon. They read me the day’s news, then they go quiet. Back there, at the asylum, they controlled me through the radio. They sent me messages to control me. It worked night and day. Here, they only connect once every twenty-four hours. That’s more bearable.”

“Wait,” Schmollowski says. “I’m not following. Who was controlling you? Where were you?”

“They’d locked me up,” says the man. “They’d locked me up with crazy people. Day and night they controlled me. They watched me with invisible machines. In the dormitory, in the hallways, in the bathrooms. They sent me voices. I couldn’t escape them.”

“A psychiatric hospital?” says Schmollowski.

“Yes,” says the other. “With madmen on every floor.”

“I was in prison myself,” Schmollowski says. “I’d been sentenced to life for political assassinations. My name’s Schmollowski.”

“Schmollowski?” the other exclaims. “Schmollowski, the banker killer? Gosh! If someone upstairs told me I was going to run into you. . Have you been slumming around here long?”

“This is my eighth day,” Schmollowski says.

The other man emits an admiring whistle.

“Eight days!”

“And yourself?” Schmollowski asks.

“The same. Eight days. Plus the first four, when I stayed by my body, until they took off with it. Until they destroyed it. . They burnt it, the criminals! They left me to the flames!”

“Well,” says Schmollowski. “The body, you know, after a few days, anyhow. .”

“They left me to the flames!” the other man repeats, in a terribly anguished tone. “They left Dadokian to the flames! What am I going to do, now that my cadaver is no more, huh? What am I doing here, without a Dadokian cadaver?”

“You’re Dadokian?” Schmollowski inquires. “Dadokian, the mad banker?”

Dadokian doesn’t respond. Panic and tics have deformed his features. He twists his hands, he gesticulates hysterically on top of the dune.

“I can’t go back,” he cries. “They burnt my cadaver!”

“Calm down, Dadokian,” says Schmollowski. “They’re going to make you another one in a few weeks.”

“How would I know,” Dadokian says.

“It’s automatic,” Schmollowski reassures him. “You just have to walk for forty-nine days and, at the end of the trail, go into a womb.”

“A womb,” Dadokian grouses. “What kind of womb.”

“You’ll see, come the moment,” says Schmollowski. “There’s nothing to do but wait. It’ll pass quickly.”

Dadokian is restless with nervous shivers. He starts on gestures that don’t end and he shudders. From time to time, he hides his head in his hands. It’s unknown what is making him panic more, the loss of his cadaver or the prospect of having to slide into a womb after forty-nine days of walking. Sympathetic, Schmollowski wraps an arm around his shoulders and invites him to sit.

Now they are sitting side by side in the black sand. For a moment, they say nothing. They are two particles at the bottom of a black ocean. Two not unfriendly particles. Not unfriendly and even connected by a natural and immediately frank nuanceless camaraderie. In the heart of the shadows, a non-aggressive companion and a friend. Schmollowski comforts Dadokian however he can. He doesn’t repeat the bonzes’ lessons, himself being neither bonze nor even Buddhist. But he would like to transmit his own way of accepting adversity. He taps him on the clavicle with a communicative tranquility.

“It’ll pass quickly, Dadokian,” Schmollowski insists.

“No,” Dadokian sighs. “We have to wait. And there’s nothing more dreadful than waiting. Time transforms. It becomes unbearable. Take, for example, here, this abomination. We’re here, on the inside, waiting for death or birth. Can you deal with that?”

“On the inside of what,” asks Schmollowski.

“Persistence,” Dadokian says in a pathetic tone, “persistence becomes something monstrous, something that. . For example, Schmollowski. When I was working, before my family and shareholders had stripped me of all my rights. . Even then, before my incarceration with the lunatics. . I was aware of the death that would come one day, at a totally unforeseeable date. . I was obsessed with the idea of this approaching moment whose speed was immeasurable, unknown, I mean it could be very slow or, to the contrary, as fast as lightning. . I didn’t think about anything but that. . You know, Schmollowski, I actually wasn’t a very morbid person, I. . I hated death, the prospect of it made me physically sick. . Do you find that normal, having to live while waiting for death? With a definitive interruption in your future and nothing else? In any case, I was forced to forget that that was going to befall me. . Dang, unless you’re a village idiot or an immortal, how can you just forget that? They wanted me to ignore something that makes all action meaningless, all logic meaningless, makes existence hellish and meaningless. . I tried to put on a happy face, but in reality I waited for death day and night, it was frightening because it could come at any instant, but also because it didn’t come. . The wait crushed me. . One day more. . And one day more. . Persistence became excruciatingly heavy. . Do you understand, Schmollowski? Persistence exists just to hurt me. . It’s lost its meaning. .”

Pressed against Schmollowski, Dadokian lets his heart out in torrents. Sometimes he sobs or moans. His speech is a jumble of confused syllables. They must be translated to get to their heart. Also sometimes Dadokian becomes quiet, petrified by disarray or shaken with tics. Schmollowski remains quiet as well. With his arm around Dadokian’s shoulders, he imagines himself as an Anonymous Red Bonnet receiving the fears and pain of another human, another victim of the terrible human condition. He looks at the black tracks at the bottom of the black dune, he thinks on the horror of life and of death, he listens to Dadokian and consoles him.

“One day,” Dadokian continues, “they started sending me messages. . They tried to control me with short waves sent directly into my skull. . While sleeping or not. . And it got worse and worse. . Even more than death, I began waiting for those messages. . I knew they would speak, but I didn’t know at what moment. . Do you see what I mean, Schmollowski? It’s like we’re stuck, we wait for it, it comes or it doesn’t come. . We’re afraid of waiting, we’re afraid of no longer waiting. . Time shortens or lengthens forever. . It’s like torture. .”

“I know that feeling, Dadokian,” Schmollowski says. “That’s what you feel in prison while serving a life sentence. You can’t stand the idea of life or the idea of death anymore. Time’s flow becomes unbearable. . It’s a torture, yes.”

They ruminate for an hour or two. They are sitting, thinking about the ordeals they suffered while alive. It comes to Schmollowski to turn toward Dadokian. He is still shuddering in his plaid shirt whose color is indefinable, in the shadows. Tics pull at the top of his right cheek. Schmollowski puts a hand on his forearm. Dadokian stifles a whimper.

“What kinds of messages?” Schmollowski asks.

“They sent me absurd messages, to mock me, or messages on the progress or delay of my death. On some days, they informed me that everyone was in the same boat, balanced between the dreadful and the useless, obligated to pretend not to care. The poor and the rich alike. . You know, Schmollowski, at the time, I was one of the rich. . One of those you took down with a rifle. . Eh? You took them down, eh?”

“Yes. In the past.”

“With a rifle, yeah, Schmollowski?”

“Yes, with a rifle, or a pistol, when they were close up.”

“Alright,” Dadokian says.

They sigh a little. They are recalling images from their distant pasts.

“There you go,” Dadokian picks up. “So I decided to reduce that universal suffering. . Since I could, yeah? I thought it’d be good to divide the world’s wealth into equal parts between everyone on the planet. . Starting with the bank I directed. . Was I wrong, Schmollowski? Huh? Tell me, you specialized in bankers. Was I wrong?”

“You were right, Dadokian. I was already behind bars when you. . It made noise. Even in the high-security sector, information circulated. I remember. It was in. . I don’t remember the year. A banker applying our minimum program! It was beautiful, Dadokian! It was beautiful!”

“Afterward, they put me in a madhouse. I was in the incurables wing. Does incurable mean anything to you, Schmollowski?”

“No. I was in with the politicals.”

“Ah, that’s right, yes. So they put me in there. The stockholders settled the problem in no time at all. My children too. The bank wasn’t divided into six-billion parts, in the end. They took everything away from me. My only possessions were my cadaver and my toothbrush.”

Dadokian goes quiet. He is quiet for another hour, then he starts again:

“We are all prisoners within our flesh and within walls. But those on the outside, why are they waiting to go mad? The parading princes, those who can buy everything with their dollars, one can understand how they resist. Strictly speaking. But the others? Huh, Schmollowski? The others?”

For a minute, Dadokian loses himself in insane mutterings. Suddenly, he returns to his normal elocution.

“Oh! Excuse me, Schmollowski,” he says. “I have to cut myself off here. My radio’s started back up again. Do you hear it?”

“No,” says Schmollowski. “For me, it’s a loudspeaker. It doesn’t broadcast anything during the day. Besides at daybreak, I just have silence.”

Dadokian shivers, as if a spider was running across his face and bothering him.

“Got it,” he says. “They’re sending messages right into my head. . Can you hear them now?”

“No,” says Schmollowski. “They don’t go from head to head.”

“Do you want me to repeat what they’re telling me?” Dadokian proposes.

“If you’d like,” says Schmollowski.

“Oh noble son, Dadokian!” Dadokian proclaims in a solemn voice. “Do not fear that which is facing you, dark green in color, and which in its numerous hands shakes sometimes a club, sometimes a bell, sometimes a scalp dripping with large drops! It’s only a bloodthirsty divinity, the divinity of the fourteenth day!”

“The divinity of the fourteenth day. .” Schmollowski whistles.

He whistles through his teeth. He is dumbstruck. Fourteen. That doesn’t match up with the number of days he thought had passed in the Bardo. That’s a lot more.

“That’s what they yell into my ears from inside my skull,” Dadokian says. “Crazy threats. They don’t leave me alone. . They control me. .”

“We’re already on day fourteen,” announces Schmollowski. “You see, Dadokian, it’s going by quickly, and we don’t even notice.”

“Even after my rebirth,” Dadokian laments, “even when they’ve forced me to inhabit a new body, they’ll continue to control me. . to talk to me inside my head. . You can’t escape their short waves. They have imperceptible systems. . They’ll find everyone. . Even if I hide in a new body, they’ll find me. .”

“Calm down, Dadokian,” Schmollowski says. “Don’t be scared.”

“And then, once they’ve reincarnated me, I’ll have to wait for death all over again. . That torture will start anew. .”

“We’re not there yet,” Schmollowski reassures him.

“And then, hang on, right now,” Dadokian whines. “This horrible wait they’re imposing on us. . The walk to the wombs. . Waiting to be reincarnated, waiting for life. . Waiting for them to give us a cadaver, as a parting gift. . What if they make a mistake? What if they put me in a bad fetus, huh? If I end up in the body of a spider, for example? I hate spiders. .”

“Don’t throw yourself into your fears, Dadokian,” says Schmollowski.

“Listen, Schmollowski,” Dadokian panics. “What if they shove me inside a spider?”

Dadokian trembles. He’s risen, he takes three steps one way, three steps another. He passes by the mound’s edge, where the slope starts, and he goes back. Schmollowski doesn’t accompany him in his panic. To the contrary, he finds him, he pulls him by his shirt’s sleeve, he embraces him somewhat, making him stay in place.

“Calm yourself, noble brother,” he says.

He has taken on the intonation of a Red Bonnet. He has chosen to exercise on Dadokian the peaceful authority of a bonze. It is not out of a taste for deception, but because he hopes it will better combat Dadokian’s suffering.

“Find your serenity,” he says. “Nothing around you is frightening. Do not fear what is happening to you.”

Dadokian is shaken with spasms, but he soon stops moving so disorderedly. Schmollowski speaks to him for a minute more as if he were a monk, then he lets an amicable silence settle between them, then he returns to his normal voice.

“We’re going to get out of here,” he promises. “We’re going to get out, both of us.”

“Schmollowski,” says Dadokian, “you won’t let me fall, will you? If I’m reborn as a spider. . or even a banker. . You’ll squish me right away, right?”

He’s having trouble catching his breath.

Schmollowski doesn’t respond.

Everything around them is black, there is no change in the sky no matter the hour. The trail at the bottom of the dune can be seen, but, after several meters, the footprints dissolve into the shadows.

After Dadokian’s crisis, Schmollowski sits back down on the ground. For a moment, he thought about leaving the dune’s summit and disappearing, but he reconsidered. He could have said farewell to Dadokian and left his side, to follow his destiny, but ultimately, he stayed. He knew Dadokian needed him, which figures into his consideration. Let’s not forget that Schmollowski’s actions are guided by a solid egalitarian morality, to which is added some elementary Buddhism. He’s folded his long skinny legs back underneath him and is meditating. Dadokian imitates him. Now and then Dadokian gives in to a few sobs, a few grouchy sniffles, but, for the most part, he is plunged into a sort of meditation as well.

The silence goes on, then Schmollowski breaks it.

“Here’s what I think,” he says. “We could try to sabotage this womb business.”

“Mmm,” says Dadokian.

“Since I arrived here I’ve been pondering that,” Schmollowski says. “It’s unbearable, really, to have to be reborn. To have to reintroduce yourself to the world of prisons, asylums, rich people, and spiders.”

“Oh, you see?” Dadokian warms up immediately. “You think like I do too, eh, Schmollowski?”

“But how to avoid reincarnation?” Schmollowski continues.

“Yes, hmm. How?” Dadokian ponders.

“The Book offers one single method. It suggests annihilating yourself in the Clear Light. And I don’t like that.”

“Me neither,” Dadokian declares indignantly. “Annihilate yourself! They’ve thought of everything to destroy us completely!”

“I’ve been thinking of something else myself,” says Schmollowski. “We’d need to try to build an inhabitable world here. Understand, Dadokian? We’d need to succeed at sustaining ourselves indefinitely in the Bardo.”

“Here? On this sandheap?”

“Here, or elsewhere, a little farther away. We could build a nice refuge, a landscape. . I’ve studied the Book well. We’re in neither space, nor time. Most of the images come from our imagination. If we found a way to stabilize them, materialize them around us, we could reorganize the Bardo to our liking. .”

Dadokian directs his crazed physiognomy toward Schmollowski. His gaze is no more demented than that of an ordinary madman. He aims it at Schmollowski with hope.

“We’ll have to hold on tight when they try to force us into a womb,” Schmollowski continues. “On the forty-ninth day, we won’t be able to rest at all. We’ll have to train ourselves to resist. But after that, Dadokian, after, we’ll be able to relax. My loudspeakers will shut off. Your radio will go quiet.”

Dadokian fidgets.

“Well now, Schmollowski,” he says, “I like that idea! I really like it! You mean we’d stay here outside of time. . Without any prospect of reincarnation, or death, or. .”

“We have to give it a shot,” says Schmollowski.

“Oh, I like it!” Dadokian exults. “And we’d create the world around us ourselves?”

“That’s the principal,” Schmollowski confirms. “But wait, there’s a condition: we’ll first have to succeed at overstaying our welcome in the Bardo past day forty-nine. Fight against getting sucked up.”

“We could invent a landscape. .” Dadokian daydreams. “A pretty little historyless corner. . No sulfazine injections, no head nurses. .”

“No nightly beatings,” Schmollowski finishes off.

Both of them are absorbed in their delightful reveries. Tics electrify Dadokian’s pale cheeks.

“For example,” Dadokian says suddenly, “I’ve always loved the ocean, the waves breaking on the shore, the fizzing foam that appears when the water draws back. . Say, Schmollowski, couldn’t we invent ourselves a little seaside resort? With palm trees, some sky. . Laughing bathing beauties. . And we’d be sitting on the sandheap, yeah? Without the torture of waiting. . Time wouldn’t pass, we wouldn’t have anything to wait for, never, not even mealtime, yeah?”

“Actually, I don’t know if we’ll be able to make a paradise,” Schmollowski abruptly begins to doubt. “It depends on. . I don’t know what or who it depends on. . On you, maybe, Dadokian, or me, or even our common capacity for. .”

Gong.

“Did you hear that?”

“No,” says Dadokian.

The gong rings once again. The note is beautiful. An E-flat fourth.

“It’s the loudspeaker,” Schmollowski says. “The Red Bonnet comrade’s about to speak. He hasn’t expressed his opinions for quite a while.”

“I am addressing you as I have every morning since your death, Schmollowski,” says the lama. “Listen to me, Schmollowski!”

“Do you hear it, now?” asks Schmollowski.

“Nothing at all,” says Dadokian.

“Oh,” says Schmollowski.

Gong.

“I am addressing you for the fortieth time, Schmollowski! Very soon you will no longer hear my voice!”

Gong.

“You are now in the final week of your ordeal in the Bardo, noble son. The wombs are extremely close!”

Gong.

“And in the evening, if there is an evening,” Dadokian speculates, “we’ll freely return to the asylum, or prison, yeah? We’ll still need a roof, in case of scattered showers. .”

Schmollowski has stood back up.

“The seventh week,” he rasps. “Time’s been passing by at top speed while we’ve been chatting! Did you know that, Dadokian?”

“What?” Dadokian says, finally alarmed.

“It is high time that I explain to you how to choose the right door and not be reborn into a form even more miserable than that of a human being,” says the lama.

“What’s happening?” asks Dadokian.

“It’s all over,” says Schmollowski. “The sea resort, the beach, the laughing beauties. . It’s all over, Dadokian! We’ve already reached day forty! We’re not prepared! The wombs are close!”

“But. .” Dadokian stutters.

“We’re going to be reborn!” Schmollowski exclaims.

They are there, standing, despondent, for a long moment. Let’s say an hour or a little more. Let’s say a day. They appear petrified. Even Dadokian hardly fidgets. Two miserable men, fixed on the summit of a sandheap, numbed by bad news, unable to react.

Then Schmollowski comes to life.

Wordlessly he steps onto the slope. His ankles disappear noisily into the dust. He isn’t concerned about balance. Sprains don’t worry him. He wants to go fast. He trots toward the bottom. Several seconds later, he is at the foot of the mound. Straight away he can be heard kneading the gravel with his fists.

“Hey,” Dadokian asks, “what are you doing?”

“Quick,” says Schmollowski. “We still have a small chance to stay here!”

“What,” Dadokian stammers.

He is still slumped at the top of the mound.

“We have to dig,” says Schmollowski. “That’s the only thing I can think of. We have to bury ourselves before the wombs grab us!”

He attacks the hill of black sand. He foresees a cavity just at the base, a hole he can bury himself in. He foresees packing himself inside in a folded position, like a bat in hibernation or a Nazca mummy, and triggering an avalanche at the last moment that will bury him, on the last hour of the forty-ninth day. Now, to stay here beyond the fateful day, he sees no other option.

He digs. Matter slides over his arms, flows. Without any shovel to get rid of the gravel, without any plank to fortify the walls, it is very difficult to construct a suitably-sized cavity.

Dadokian has left the viewpoint, in his turn. He stalks around Schmollowski with despairing gestures and jolts. He leans on the edge of the funnel Schmollowski is trying to enlarge, and where enormous quantities of black matter ceaselessly flow back into.

“Move, Dadokian!” Schmollowski snaps at him. “The forces of reincarnation are going to be unleashed, this isn’t the time to slouch!”

“I’m receiving a radio message,” announces Dadokian. “There’re only three days left.”

“It’s approaching,” Schmollowski pants, “it’s coming fast! Go on, dig yourself a shelter, Dadokian! Or you’re going to be sucked up by a womb! By a spider womb, or something even worse!”

“Where am I digging?” Dadokian asks, distraught.

“Anywhere,” says Schmollowski. “There, yes. A little farther even. So your gravel doesn’t fall into my hole.”

Dadokian rushes on all fours. Feverishly and without any competence in earth working he thrashes about. He has adopted the technique of a dog burying a bone. With his hands he scratches and expels the black granules behind him, between his legs. Following Schmollowski’s example, he works at the bottom of the hill. The matter doesn’t resist under his fingers, but it is completely uncontrollable. As soon as he makes a small trench, it collapses into itself and fills back in. With anguish he starts his dig over.

“I’m not getting anywhere,” he whines.

“Continue, noble son!” Schmollowski shouts. “Your fate is in your hands! Don’t lose courage!”

The two men hurry, never stopping. From time to time they speak to each other. They hail each other with anguish and friendship. Depending on the sentence they speak formally or informally. The imminence of the end weighs them down, but each one clings to the other’s presence so as not to lose reason, and dialogue between them still exists. They continue exchanging information about what is happening. They break off their amateur grave digging work for four seconds to talk.

“According to the radio, everything will be over in two days!” Dadokian gesticulates.

“Don’t stop digging, Dadokian!” Schmollowski yells. “Make your hole bigger! The sucking starts soon!”

They no longer see each other, but they can still communicate vocally. I think there is no more light. In any case, they don’t open their eyes, because of the dust. Something has begun blowing dreadfully, an inhaling wind.

“It’s blowing dreadfully!” Dadokian says, terrified.

“Bury yourself, Dadokian!” Schmollowski screams. “Bury yourself, noble son! Enter no womb! Do as I do, sink into the gravel! Refuse rebirth!”

“They’re still sending me messages!” Dadokian moans. “They’re teaching me how to close the wombs’ doors! I don’t understand anything they’re saying! Just one day! It’s the last day! I don’t have time to learn!”

“Sink into the ground, Dadokian!” yells Schmollowski. “Don’t listen to their advice! Hide, open nothing, close nothing!”

Schmollowski’s voice is suddenly cut off, as if it had never existed.

The wind continues to blow in the reverse direction of wind, then it calms.

No one knows what’s become of Schmollowski.

The space is black.

Dadokian is speaking again. He had perhaps an additional delay, compared to Schmollowski. Let’s say maybe a quarter hour more.

There, now his voice can be heard. He is monologuing.

“There’s no more gravel around us,” he says. “Only a spidery smell. . Schmollowski! Do you smell that? Where did you go?”

Schmollowski doesn’t answer. Dadokian is alone. He is alone, he salivates from fear onto his dirty shirt-front, and suddenly reality appears to him. Whether he wants it or not, life is once again going to take hold of him. Incapable of staying on his legs, he curls up. He has no more strength.

“Schmollowski!” he stammers. “I see spiders mating. . webs moving. . They’re going to make me be reborn in here. . Schmollowski! Help me! I’ve gotten tiny, they’ve folded me up in here, I can’t move anymore. . Schmollowski!”

Gong.

“Schmollowski!” Dadokian yells. “Squish me!”

The gong vibrates. It’s a moon in reduced dimensions, made of a dented and dark metal. The moon vibrates.

“Now my reading comes to an end,” says the lama.

And he strikes the center of the moon with an ebony mallet.

“Seven whole weeks have gone by since your death,” says the lama. “Today I think of you with nostalgia, Schmollowski, for we will no longer have the chance to be in contact. I will no longer address you, I will no longer speak to this photograph and these policemen.”

Gong.

“I will miss it. You were likeable, noble son.”

From the other side of the walls, the market’s rumble rolls incessantly, with ebbs and flows and moments of sudden swelling. Voices mix with the thousand rustlings of vegetables, fruits, dollar bills. It’s going to rain, the afternoon is so gloomy that the lama has lit the room’s lamp.

“I do not know how your stay in the Bardo went,” says Jeremiah Schlumm. “I hope my advice was useful for you. My powers are limited, I am not even certain you heard me, I am unable to guess what happened to you during your wandering through the Bardo.”

“Schmollowski!” calls Dadokian’s very faraway voice.

Gong.

“I do not know if your stay there did you good or not,” says the lama. “I have no way of knowing.”

He contemplates Schmollowski’s photograph, then puts it away in the folder provided by the Red Bonnets Anonymous. Later, he will throw it into the brazier that smokes almost constantly inside the temple.

“What had to be carried out has been carried out,” he says.

He leans against a crate of cardboard gold bars. Molds contaminate the wall. In the watchman’s storeroom, it is very hot, hotter than on the first day of his reading. Jeremiah Schlumm wipes his forehead. His scarf moves, unveiling the red star pin, with its faded machine gun.

“Today,” says the lama, “you are either liberated, or on Earth once more, in the form of an animal or human fetus. I wish you the best, Schmollowski. I hope that everything went well for you. I hope that you are no more.”

Gong.

Noises from the street.

“From the bottom of my heart, I hope that you are no more,” repeats the lama.

He strikes the gong one last time, then he gathers his belongings and goes.

Now, he has turned off the ugly lamp swinging above his head. Darkness has invaded every recess.

“Schmollowski!” Dadokian screams again. “I beg of you, squish me!”