Antoine Volodine - Bardo or Not Bardo

“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. .”