Antoine Volodine - Bardo or Not Bardo

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!”

At night, when cars speed down the boulevard, their breath rattles the bar’s windows. During the day, as conversations and comings and goings permeate the room with a permanent murmur, the trembling glass jingling in its frame goes unnoticed. But at night, it’s a different story. Everything is much calmer after sundown. Consumers disappear, traffic becomes scarce. A heavy vehicle passes by, rumbling, the windows vibrate, then nocturnal silence is reestablished. The neighborhood is deserted. It can be found at a little-frequented exit from the city, far from residential buildings, just next to the zoo. It’s clean, there are trees, long black railings, animal growls, but it’s deserted. The only inhabited building in the area, with the exception of the drinking establishment, is a Buddhist place. Buddhist or rather lamaist, if one holds to the nuances of pointless denominations, adjoining the bar. An old garage transformed into a temple. Recently transformed into a temple by a semi-dissident association of Red Bonnets. These new religious activities have not attracted any more night owls to the bar. From time to time a devotee will come in, inhale a cup of fermented milk with a straw, and then go. That is the total clientele growth. To summarize, hardly anyone is seen here in the dark hours, when the zoo’s doors are closed.