Kominform gasped. His difficult breathing took effort. His heart’s knocking sounded like an ill omen.
“Drumbog, brother,” said Kominform. “Who are you talking to? Who’s that beanpole above us?”
Strohbusch came to life. He was delighted to see Kominform able to talk, and thus hear.
“You can talk, Kominform?” he said. “It’s me, Strohbusch, can you hear me? We were part of the same cell, twenty-five years ago. . We worked with Services. . In the Organization. . Do you remember? With Grandmother. . Remember Grandmother? Back in the Soviet Union. . Remember the Soviet Union?”
“Leave him alone,” Drumbog interrupted. “Keep out of this with your union and your cells! The time has come for him to detach himself from the world of illusions, he must now leave this theater of dishonesty to be dissolved. . to rejoin the real world. . where there is neither death nor the absence of death. . I have to remind him of the Bardo Thödol’s instructions, while you’re going on about some Grandmother. .”
“One minute,” insisted Strohbusch.
“Strohbusch is pushing the monk aside with his right hand,” Maria Henkel began to describe. “He’s pushing him without any particular brutality, but he has the physical power of a fifty-odd-year-old scoundrel, with which an old, nearly centenarian, man can’t begin to compete. Drumbog’s legs are caught in a patch of wire. He’s lost his balance. He struggles pitifully.”
Strohbusch leaned over Kominform, over his mouth dripping with blood, over his ears.
“Do you hear me, Kominform?” said Strohbusch. “It’s me, Strohbusch, your commander. . I was the one who had to activate you, when we had to. . Back in the day. . But then the walls came down, and we did too. . Grandmother is dead. . The world revolution has been postponed for two or three centuries. . Or even four. . We’ve dropped the glorious future like an old sock. .”
The wounded man was regurgitating blood. Strohbusch bit his lips. Time was of the essence for his mission, too.
“Listen to me, Kominform,” he said. “I am your hierarchical superior. You have to obey me. You need to give me the list of moles working for you. Names, aliases, addresses. We’re deactivating the ring, do you understand? Well? Do you understand, Kominform? Your ring needs to be deactivated. .”
“Leave him in peace, Strohbusch!” said the old monk, coming back to Kominform’s side. “He doesn’t belong to you anymore! He’s already on his way to the Clear Light, far away from your moles and old socks! Go on, buzz off Strohbusch! I have urgent tasks to take care of.”
The iron wires had started squealing mournfully again, since everyone was more or less moving around. Maria Henkel was dictating descriptions of reality in an undertone. She tilted her head toward her left shoulder, where her recording device must have been transplanted. The whiteness of her feathers was overwhelming, her seemingly-bare body could make anyone want to live, or, at least, dream that they would one day join her in her universe of uncertain, admirable birds. Her voice was lightly somber, sensual, incredibly hoarse. Kominform sat moaning nearby. Grasshoppers crackled or suddenly went catatonic in the grass, having been pecked to death by a voracious, red, and clucking hen. The sun was beating down. One part of Kominform’s body was in the shade. In the distance, on the mountain route, a truck changed speed, roared. In order to approach the diverse actors in the tragedy without risking touching them, Maria Henkel went into what remained of the henhouse and stood behind an intact rectangle of fencing.
“The dying one is sitting in the grass,” she said, “leaning on and seemingly entangled in the metallic material.”
Strohbusch is squatting less than a meter away. Strohbusch looks like an accountant right before his arrest for embezzlement, he is pensive, breathless, he hesitates to act, he looks like a social democrat on the night of a rigged election, he is uncomfortable, he has stowed his pistol in his ridiculous jacket, he would like to be less despised, he would like to be thought of as a good servant of the State rather than a turncoat spy who’s knocking off his old comrades, a trickle of sweat shines on his left temple, he looks like an prematurely retired executioner, he looks like a police officer right after a critical blunder.
Drumbog, unafraid of being stained with blood, is busy with the wounded one. He has just applied pressure to the arteries in his neck. It’s a technique many of the monks use to keep the dying from losing consciousness. It is essential that those on the threshold of death witness with full knowledge all the steps of their departure. If he remains conscious, Kominform will seize the opportunity before him, he will dedicate the last of his strength to self-enlightenment and become Buddha, instead of mechanically struggling to live and die again.
“Oh noble son, Kominform,” Drumbog said, “you who in your youth, before going underground, answered sometimes to the name Abram Schlumm, and sometimes to Tarchal Schlumm, you are enveloped in coldness, you feel oppressed, you see and hear me less and less. The time of your death has come. Do not be frightened, you are not the first to meet death. Follow the example of those who knew how to cope. Chase all fear from your thoughts. Do not miss this exceptional opportunity to obtain the perfect state of being, and become Buddha, like all who. .”
“The old man Drumbog is once again compressing Kominform’s arteries,” said Maria Henkel. “By his side, Strohbusch is tugging on the wounded man’s sleeve. He wants to get his attention, he has some things to tell him.”
“Listen to me, Kominform,” he said. “It’s me, Strohbusch: your commander. Grandmother is dead. All the underground networks have been deactivated, except for yours. . They all have to be shut down, now. . I’m going to take care of it, don’t worry. . Give me your list of contacts, I’ll do the rest. I’ll deal with them personally. .”
“Drumbog,” Kominform asked after wheezing, “who’s that guy circling around us? I could’ve sworn he mentioned Strohbusch’s name. .”
He paused to vomit more blood. His pulse was in the sonic foreground. It remained there for several seconds, disordered and ominous. No one dared to speak. Strohbusch continued tugging on the wounded man’s sleeve, but without using much strength.
“Strohbusch, yes. .” Kominform continued after hiccupping. “I remember a Strohbusch. A ladder climber. . With a weak spine. . He must’ve repented like the others. . switched sides. . I wouldn’t be shocked if he were a model social democrat now. . Servicing any and every government around. . He probably licks mafia men’s boots. . Grandmother should’ve eliminated him like she’d planned when. .”
“Grandmother doesn’t exist anymore!” Strohbusch pleaded. “No one’s talking about the world revolution anymore, everyone’s been retrained. . in oil smuggling, in human rights, in the private sector, in war. . Don’t think about Grandmother anymore, Kominform. Forget Grandmother! Live in your own time!”
“That’s enough, Strohbusch!” interfered Drumbog.
“Open your eyes, Kominform!” Strohbusch continued. “Earthly justice is dead! Give it up!”
“Enough, Strohbusch!” Drumbog thundered.
“The old man is using a tone so authoritarian that Strohbusch submits immediately,” Maria Henkel remarked. “The special governmental cleansing-team leader lets go of Kominform’s sleeve. He shakes his head. He is temporarily giving up on making Kominform speak. This is a man who concedes to authority, a man used to suffering humiliations in order to live in his time and stay in the race.”
“He’s going to die,” said Drumbog. “This is an exemplary individual, unwavering in his sacrifice. A moral rock. Don’t try to shake him, Strohbusch! People like him are one in a million. .”