“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!”
VII. AT THE BARDO BAR
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.
A truck approaches and roars in front of the bar. The windows clatter. Once again, silence sets in.
Behind the counter, the bartender wipes saucers, glasses, cups, teaspoons, puts them away.
Festoons of multicolored garland can be seen outside, suspended there like on a sixties pizzeria façade. Inside the room, the lights are mundane and bright. An hour earlier, there was ambient music, indistinguishable rock songs like those heard in any public place for the last two centuries, but the bartender had turned the volume down when he began his shift and looked for a more exotic station. He came across a Korean music broadcast. It seems to be a cassette alternating between pansori excerpts and traditional dances playing on continuous loop. Sometimes the music is substituted with a Korean commentator who chatters at length in her language, with seductive tones that make Yasar the bartender daydream.
All is calm. The silence is also intruded on by noises originating in the neighboring lamaic temple. Monotonous chants, rhythms lacking any diversity, a prior’s solemn voice, bells: on the other side of the partition, a ceremony has begun.
“Could I get another caffeine, Yasar?”
Freek is sitting on a stool at the bar. He is the sole client. It is apparent at a glance that he is lacking something human. For an Untermensch, he is very handsome, but his body emanates an impression of anomaly. An indefinable touch of abnormality pushes him back into the outskirts where the human subconscious hates to venture. He knows this, he tries hard not to let it bother him, but he suffers from it. It doesn’t make his relations with others any easier. When he speaks, his voice is often filled with emotion, like with all hypersensitive individuals. It is emotional and slightly weird, as well.
The bartender halts his wiping. He thumps the percolator’s coffee filter on a drawer, he screws it back on, clutching it tightly, he slides the drawer back without closing it, he presses the hot water button. His movements are calm. His entire person inspires trust.
“This is your fourth cup, Freek,” he says. “It’s going to make you sick.”
“Don’t need to sleep,” Freek explains. “Have to go back to the zoo. The animals are waiting for me. Have to talk to them. They’re anxious, they’re not sleeping. They’re afraid of dying.”
“Ah,” says Yasar.
“I have to reassure them,” Freek continues after a silence. “They’ve smelled death’s odor. They’re afraid of dying like the clown, like the yak.”
Yasar has turned back around. Now, he is placing a bowl of piping hot caffeine in front of Freek. Freek thanks him.
“What clown?” Yasar asks. “A clown died at the zoo? Tell me about it, Freek.”
“No, the yak is the one who’s dying. I need to go to the zoo because of him. The yak is old and sick. The veterinarian came, he said he still had a day or two. This is the yak’s final night. It’s happening, in a zoo. The bars protect, but they don’t stop death.”
Freek pauses. Facing Yasar, who is friendly with him, he doesn’t have too many problems expressing himself. It’s even the opposite: he seems unable to keep himself from speaking. He dunks his lips in the too-hot caffeine, then revives his talking points.
“The animals are sad behind the gates,” he says. “And sadness is very tiring. They’re in a safe place, they’re protected, but they grow old just as fast as if they were free, exposed to danger. The yak’s gotten old. He’s been feeling very unwell. The nearby animals are worried, they can smell death’s odor. The veterinarian arrives. He says that the yak only has a day or two left. He says this in front of the yak as if the yak were deaf. He takes out a syringe, he injects useless vaccines against old age and death. Then he leaves. It’s night. The smells spread. In their cages, the animals breathe in the smells. It scares them. I have to go and console them. None of the animals can sleep in the zoo at night. They need someone by their side. My words reassure them. The yak needs someone by his side too, to talk to him and help him get through the night. I need to talk to the yak if he’s struggling against death, or even if he’s already stopped breathing.”
In the neighboring room, a bell rings, a very solemn voice pronounces syllables incomprehensible to those who have not mastered Liturgical Tibetan. Then it stops and, coming from a transistor located behind the bartender, there is a Korean melody. It’s a tune sung when worn out, when fate has been unfavorable and it’s hard to find the necessary energy to go on. A woman adjusts her despair with the violence specific to pansori singers, a violence devoid of any whining, then the chorus picks back up and gives it a more lively coloration, as if the intervention of the collectivity had diverted the sorrow toward new reasons to fight together and endure.
“Excuse me, Freek,” the bartender says. “I’ll get back to this in a bit. You said something about a clown.”