“Yes,” says the man.
He puts his hand back on the table.
Yasar is once again busying himself with the percolator.
A lama’s indecipherable voice wends through the air vent.
“I went to the circus the other day,” Freek says. “There were two clowns, Blumschi and Grümscher. One small and one big. They blindly greeted each other from different ends of the floor. Then they ran at each other, they crossed paths but didn’t touch. They often fell down.”
He pauses to thank Yasar, who’s given him a piping black bowl. He leans over it, he breathes. He skims the liquid with his lips to test the temperature. He doesn’t risk inhaling it in. He breathes again so that the temperature will drop. It doesn’t drop.
“When the big one fell down,” continues Freek, “the little one would stop running and rush to help him get back up, but it didn’t work. The big one struggled and shouted. It was very funny. He struggled, he refused the little one’s help, and he fell back down. It was very comical. But no one laughed, except me. One of the two is dead. I heard some watchmen say he killed himself. He must have been part of a lamaist group. His body was given to the vultures earlier, to the condors, the eagles. Sky burials, they’re called. They go into the raptor cage and throw pieces of the body at them. I didn’t get near. I was busy talking to the yak. I couldn’t see if it was the little one or the big one.”
“It was the big one,” says the man as he takes a drink of alcohol. “It was Big Grümscher.”
“You’re sure?” Yasar asks, leaning on the counter.
“Why would I lie to you?” says the man as he swallows another mouthful. “I’m Blumschi, his partner. We worked together at the Schmühl Circus. You must have seen the posters, Schmühl himself put them up in noticeable places, near stoplights, at the entrances to parking lots. Posters with our names on them. Big Grümscher and Little Blumschi, the kings of laughter.”
He drinks.
“The kings of laughter,” he repeats. “Inseparable. Together forever. More than partners, actually. Much more. Inseparable brothers. And now. . Now, like the dead once they’ve passed to the other side, I must go on alone. It’s so frightening. . going alone. . So painful. . Grümscher! Can you hear me, Grümscher? How am I going to do it now, all alone, with an unlaughing audience?”
A sob rattles him from head to toe.
“Grümscher!” he says.
“You’re a weepy drunk,” Yasar observes.
“Not really,” says the clown.
“You probably shouldn’t finish your second glass,” Yasar insists.
“I’m drinking to Grümscher’s health,” explains Blumschi. “In the temple, they’re reading him the Book of the Dead, right now. Shaven-skulled bonzes. They do that. And I’m drinking in memory of Big Grümscher.”
“It’s helpful to read the Book of the Dead,” Freek intervenes. “Where he is, he’s really very alone. He needs someone to reassure him and tell him what to do. You know, if he can hear a voice, even if he can’t understand it, he’ll feel relieved. He’ll be less afraid. Even if it’s not true, it’ll give him the feeling he’s not entirely alone. You should speak to him, instead of drowning yourself in whiskey.”
“What do you want me to. .” says the clown.
His eyes open wide. He looks both drunk and anxious.
“Wait, wait, what are you saying?” he asks.
“He’s saying that you should call it quits on the whiskey,” says the bartender.
“I’m saying that it would do him good to hear your voice right now,” says Freek. “He’s just beginning. It’s very difficult, at the start. It’ll have an effect on him. He may not recognize your voice right away. But it’ll do him good.”
“I don’t know how to talk to a dead person,” says the clown. “I’ve never had the chance to. . And anyway, have you really thought about what it means to talk to a dead man? Thinking he can hear you? That he’s listening to you, from his dark world, from. . It’s frightening. . And if he misinterprets what you’re trying to. . Did you think about that? If, instead of reassuring him, you end up terrorizing him? No, I really don’t see what I could. .”
“You only have to do what you were doing onstage,” Freek suggests. “When he was struggling, when you yelled advice in his ear to help him get back up and he pretended not to hear you.”
“Or else, you only have to murmur phrases from the Book of the Dead,” says Yasar. “Reassuring formulas.”
“For what I know of the Book of the Dead’s formulas. .” Blumschi protests. “Big Grümscher could have. . he could recite entire pages by heart. He loved Buddhist magic, he was a member of a mutual aid group that read the Book of the Dead to those suffering in the streets, to vagrants, to the tatterdemalion. . He took courses at the lamaist school. We were inseparable, but that put a chasm between us. I’ve never. . I’m completely incapable of. .”
“They’re reading it next door,” says Freek. “You only have to listen to a passage and repeat it.”
Blumschi drinks. He doesn’t retort. He puts his glass back down. Under the ice cubes, the liquid is transparent. If my count is correct, he’s just finished his fourth whiskey.
There is still the background noise of the radio in the bar, along with the diverse ringings and murmurs coming from the Buddhist ceremony on the other side of the wall. The officiant’s voice is distorted by the path it had to travel before arriving behind the counter. It is however a minimal distance, with negligible obstacles, a few bricks, a square of fine wire mesh. It’s a mystery what the dead man can perceive of this voice, being an incalculable distance away.
“You can’t distinguish anything, anyway,” Blumschi complains. “Not a syllable.”
“I’m going to turn off the radio,” Yasar proposes. “I can also undo the grill on the vent duct. They put the temple in the old service station next door. The vents to the bar and the garage are connected. We’ll hear everything.”
“Great,” says Blumschi.
He pushes his chair back. He rises. He is drunk.
“Well,” he says. “One last drop to your health, my old Grümscher. And then, you’re going to see how I communicate with the garage and you.”
He grabs his glass, he examines the ice cubes which offer him nothing more than poorly flavored water. He staggers. He collides with a table.
The bartender turns off the radio. Then he climbs on a stool, loosens something behind the bottle shelves, above the bar’s partition. Suddenly, the sounds coming from the neighboring building transform. It feels like they are right in the heart of the temple. The lama’s profound bass resonates inside the bar as if the lama was standing behind the counter, between the percolator and Yasar.
“Oh noble son,” says the lama, “I am once again going to repeat this first page of the Bardo Thödol, so important it is for you to hear and to understand, without which you will be lost for the forty-nine days of your journey through the Bardo.”
“Well?” says the bartender. “Don’t tell me you still can’t distinguish the syllables. It’s quite stunning, isn’t it? Go on, Blumschi, you don’t have any more excuses. Have faith! Repeat everything to your friend.”
“Pour me another whiskey,” Blumschi says, panicking. “I. . This feels obscene. I’m not drunk enough for public speaking.”
Yasar hesitates for a second, then he stretches his hand toward the bottle. He prepares the drink Blumschi requires.
“He needs guidance,” says Freek. “Don’t make anything up, give him the same advice the monks do. Let yourself guide him through what the monks say. The most important thing is for him to recognize your voice. Your voice and your way of speaking. He has to know that his friend is still nearby to help him. It will do him immense good. It will help him not drown completely in terror.”