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.”