“The divinity of the fourteenth day. .” Schmollowski whistles.
He whistles through his teeth. He is dumbstruck. Fourteen. That doesn’t match up with the number of days he thought had passed in the Bardo. That’s a lot more.
“That’s what they yell into my ears from inside my skull,” Dadokian says. “Crazy threats. They don’t leave me alone. . They control me. .”
“We’re already on day fourteen,” announces Schmollowski. “You see, Dadokian, it’s going by quickly, and we don’t even notice.”
“Even after my rebirth,” Dadokian laments, “even when they’ve forced me to inhabit a new body, they’ll continue to control me. . to talk to me inside my head. . You can’t escape their short waves. They have imperceptible systems. . They’ll find everyone. . Even if I hide in a new body, they’ll find me. .”
“Calm down, Dadokian,” Schmollowski says. “Don’t be scared.”
“And then, once they’ve reincarnated me, I’ll have to wait for death all over again. . That torture will start anew. .”
“We’re not there yet,” Schmollowski reassures him.
“And then, hang on, right now,” Dadokian whines. “This horrible wait they’re imposing on us. . The walk to the wombs. . Waiting to be reincarnated, waiting for life. . Waiting for them to give us a cadaver, as a parting gift. . What if they make a mistake? What if they put me in a bad fetus, huh? If I end up in the body of a spider, for example? I hate spiders. .”
“Don’t throw yourself into your fears, Dadokian,” says Schmollowski.
“Listen, Schmollowski,” Dadokian panics. “What if they shove me inside a spider?”
Dadokian trembles. He’s risen, he takes three steps one way, three steps another. He passes by the mound’s edge, where the slope starts, and he goes back. Schmollowski doesn’t accompany him in his panic. To the contrary, he finds him, he pulls him by his shirt’s sleeve, he embraces him somewhat, making him stay in place.
“Calm yourself, noble brother,” he says.
He has taken on the intonation of a Red Bonnet. He has chosen to exercise on Dadokian the peaceful authority of a bonze. It is not out of a taste for deception, but because he hopes it will better combat Dadokian’s suffering.
“Find your serenity,” he says. “Nothing around you is frightening. Do not fear what is happening to you.”
Dadokian is shaken with spasms, but he soon stops moving so disorderedly. Schmollowski speaks to him for a minute more as if he were a monk, then he lets an amicable silence settle between them, then he returns to his normal voice.
“We’re going to get out of here,” he promises. “We’re going to get out, both of us.”
“Schmollowski,” says Dadokian, “you won’t let me fall, will you? If I’m reborn as a spider. . or even a banker. . You’ll squish me right away, right?”
He’s having trouble catching his breath.
Schmollowski doesn’t respond.
Everything around them is black, there is no change in the sky no matter the hour. The trail at the bottom of the dune can be seen, but, after several meters, the footprints dissolve into the shadows.
After Dadokian’s crisis, Schmollowski sits back down on the ground. For a moment, he thought about leaving the dune’s summit and disappearing, but he reconsidered. He could have said farewell to Dadokian and left his side, to follow his destiny, but ultimately, he stayed. He knew Dadokian needed him, which figures into his consideration. Let’s not forget that Schmollowski’s actions are guided by a solid egalitarian morality, to which is added some elementary Buddhism. He’s folded his long skinny legs back underneath him and is meditating. Dadokian imitates him. Now and then Dadokian gives in to a few sobs, a few grouchy sniffles, but, for the most part, he is plunged into a sort of meditation as well.
The silence goes on, then Schmollowski breaks it.
“Here’s what I think,” he says. “We could try to sabotage this womb business.”
“Mmm,” says Dadokian.
“Since I arrived here I’ve been pondering that,” Schmollowski says. “It’s unbearable, really, to have to be reborn. To have to reintroduce yourself to the world of prisons, asylums, rich people, and spiders.”
“Oh, you see?” Dadokian warms up immediately. “You think like I do too, eh, Schmollowski?”
“But how to avoid reincarnation?” Schmollowski continues.
“Yes, hmm. How?” Dadokian ponders.
“The Book offers one single method. It suggests annihilating yourself in the Clear Light. And I don’t like that.”
“Me neither,” Dadokian declares indignantly. “Annihilate yourself! They’ve thought of everything to destroy us completely!”
“I’ve been thinking of something else myself,” says Schmollowski. “We’d need to try to build an inhabitable world here. Understand, Dadokian? We’d need to succeed at sustaining ourselves indefinitely in the Bardo.”
“Here? On this sandheap?”
“Here, or elsewhere, a little farther away. We could build a nice refuge, a landscape. . I’ve studied the Book well. We’re in neither space, nor time. Most of the images come from our imagination. If we found a way to stabilize them, materialize them around us, we could reorganize the Bardo to our liking. .”
Dadokian directs his crazed physiognomy toward Schmollowski. His gaze is no more demented than that of an ordinary madman. He aims it at Schmollowski with hope.
“We’ll have to hold on tight when they try to force us into a womb,” Schmollowski continues. “On the forty-ninth day, we won’t be able to rest at all. We’ll have to train ourselves to resist. But after that, Dadokian, after, we’ll be able to relax. My loudspeakers will shut off. Your radio will go quiet.”
Dadokian fidgets.
“Well now, Schmollowski,” he says, “I like that idea! I really like it! You mean we’d stay here outside of time. . Without any prospect of reincarnation, or death, or. .”
“We have to give it a shot,” says Schmollowski.
“Oh, I like it!” Dadokian exults. “And we’d create the world around us ourselves?”
“That’s the principal,” Schmollowski confirms. “But wait, there’s a condition: we’ll first have to succeed at overstaying our welcome in the Bardo past day forty-nine. Fight against getting sucked up.”
“We could invent a landscape. .” Dadokian daydreams. “A pretty little historyless corner. . No sulfazine injections, no head nurses. .”
“No nightly beatings,” Schmollowski finishes off.
Both of them are absorbed in their delightful reveries. Tics electrify Dadokian’s pale cheeks.
“For example,” Dadokian says suddenly, “I’ve always loved the ocean, the waves breaking on the shore, the fizzing foam that appears when the water draws back. . Say, Schmollowski, couldn’t we invent ourselves a little seaside resort? With palm trees, some sky. . Laughing bathing beauties. . And we’d be sitting on the sandheap, yeah? Without the torture of waiting. . Time wouldn’t pass, we wouldn’t have anything to wait for, never, not even mealtime, yeah?”
“Actually, I don’t know if we’ll be able to make a paradise,” Schmollowski abruptly begins to doubt. “It depends on. . I don’t know what or who it depends on. . On you, maybe, Dadokian, or me, or even our common capacity for. .”
Gong.
“Did you hear that?”
“No,” says Dadokian.
The gong rings once again. The note is beautiful. An E-flat fourth.
“It’s the loudspeaker,” Schmollowski says. “The Red Bonnet comrade’s about to speak. He hasn’t expressed his opinions for quite a while.”
“I am addressing you as I have every morning since your death, Schmollowski,” says the lama. “Listen to me, Schmollowski!”
“Do you hear it, now?” asks Schmollowski.