In Borschem’s mechanical recitations, Wilson keeps sensing zones of reticence. The Superior shrugs. He sweeps Wilson’s doubts away with a gesture. Borschem isn’t feeling anxious, he has been ready for the dive for years, he’s already visited the Bardo a thousand times in his meditation sessions, he knows he can overcome the perils there.
As one final review before departure, Meyerberh recites some excerpts from the Bardo Thödol, which will be read in its entirety, without interruption, near the door to the Bardo, so that Borschem can calculate how many days have passed since he began his dive. Each day corresponds to a precise piece of text. Borschem will only need to recognize an expression, a few magic words, to know where he is in the schedule. Meyerberh recites a phrase, Borschem says its exact location in the book. For example: “The sound will break like rollers on a rocky shore, and you will hear: ‘Attack! Destroy! Kill!’ while a series of magical syllables fills you with fear. Do not fear. Do not flee.” Day seven.
Unfortunately, Meyerberh also mentions parts of the Bardo Thödol that Borschem shouldn’t have to hear during the experiment, speeches meant to guide the traveler beyond the twenty-fifth day. Borschem identifies them and protests: this part of the book doesn’t concern him. He’ll be revived at the start of week four. If the monks are reading these lines, it means he wasn’t brought back to the land of the living in time.
The instructor assures Borschem that no one’s even thought about the experiment failing, improbable as it is. The Bardo doors are in perfect working order, and will be reopened for him on day twenty-five. Borschem really has nothing to fear. Every last detail has been studied in depth.
Borschem doesn’t reply, but he appears to be more suspicious than at the start of training. Wilson, for his part, is now certain his brother is going on a suicide mission. He tells the Superior this. Gavianiouk doesn’t let him continue, since the departure ceremony has begun.
Several monks have formed a line to the door. They watch Borschem pass by them and whisper magical incantations from the Bardo Thödol: “Oh, Compassionate Ones, Borschem is going to leave this world for the hereafter. . In the Bardo he will have neither friends, nor protectors, nor strengths, nor parents. . He is entering into silence and darkness, he is going where stability does not exist. . Soon he will be terrified by the voices of the Lord of Death. . Oh, Compassionate Ones, protect defenseless Borschem. .”
Borschem sits, without breathing, before the iron door, while Meyerberh unlocks the hermetic seals. The metal screeches. Borschem points out that the door opens into a boiler, into something very clearly an oven of some sort, but someone retorts that it is just a corridor. He balks at going inside, but, seeing no other options than entering, he enters.
Wilson, in his turn, accompanies Borschem’s departure with prayers: “Oh, Compassionate Ones, save him from the Bardo’s long, narrow passage. . Help him. . He is powerless. My brother Borschem is completely powerless. . He comes at the moment when he must go alone. .”
Sounds of flames, metallic sounds, the door closes.
There is then silence, darkness. We have passed with Borschem into the Bardo. We try to interpret the miniscule echoes and scratchings. We hear Borschem moving. The silence lasts for a long minute. From the other side of what is maybe still the door, we then hear a voice. It is very deformed, as if it has traveled a long time through a pipe. You’d have to be a specialist in order to decipher it.
Borschem listens carefully. He is that specialist. He is dissatisfied with the sound’s quality. He complains about the fact that his journey is going to be ruined by poor acoustic conditions. While he is muttering, he suddenly realizes that his clothes are in tatters, and that he has lost his distress beacon. He then understands what the distant voice is reading.
It’s a passage found on the last page of the Bardo Thödol:
“Oh noble son, if you do not know the art of entering the right seed and do not master the art of entering the right womb, resist the desire to obtain a body and be reborn at all costs. Raise your head, think no more of those who you love who have stayed behind. Even on the last day, you can still avoid returning to the horrible cesspit of life. Take the inner paths, leave all the fetuses before you by the wayside. Enter the large dwellings made of precious metals. Enter the lovely gardens. .”
Day forty-nine.
This is a passage read forty-nine days after death.
The end of the journey has been reached, and Borschem has not been aware of any of it. He still does not feel the pangs of asphyxia, but he knows they will come soon enough. He didn’t notice the seven weeks he spent wandering. As an interloper in the Bardo, he managed to survive, but everything that happened during that time is foreign to him. He has no other perspective. He has no more time to return to the world of the living. The experiment has failed, the tantric team hasn’t revived him. Neither will he succeed, apparently, at leaving the Bardo as a fetus. There are no fetuses nearby. There is nothing.
The play ends with a rather distraught monologue by Borschem: “What gardens? What lovely gardens? Everything is dark and silent. . They’ve forgotten me. There’s no one. . What am I going to do now? What large dwellings? What inner paths?”
THE COAL COMPANY
The setting’s cast is reduced to two actors:
Moreno, underground worker,
Lougovoï, underground worker.
To the voices of the two actors are added the voices of two other characters
exterior to the scene:
Kamchatkine, engineer, rescue team coordinator,
Bandzo Grimm, lama.
The scene is plunged in a shadeless darkness. We are in mining tunnel, nine-hundred meters deep. There’s been a catastrophe. The two survivors, Moreno and Lougovoï, are unharmed. They have taken refuge in a narrow space, an intact tunnel blocked off by piles of coal and rock. Elsewhere in the mine, the disaster has reached grisly proportions. Flooded galleries, levels on fire, impassable wells, the alcove where Moreno and Lougovoï wait is, in reality, a tomb. No savior will soon come for them.
By intervals, miniscule bits of rubble fall into the dark space. Stones slide and roll over each other. Water seeps from somewhere next to the two men. The sounds are amplified in the encircling darkness.
The two miners have a work lantern with them. They’re saving it. They stay in the shadows, not talking much. They cough, they clear their throats. They know their chances of getting out are slim. One of the reasons they refrain from lighting the lamp is that it turns their shadows into horrible monsters. “It’s better to stay in the dark,” Lougovoï says. “In the light, we look like we’re dead. Like two dead men who’ve just woken up at the bottom of a crypt. It bums me out.” The presence of a cadaver nearby also doesn’t encourage them to push the shadows away. The deceased’s name is Yano Waldenberg; he is three-quarters buried in the rubble. Just his legs are sticking out. To escape this depressing sight, Lougovoï and Moreno leave the lantern unlit.