“Oh noble son, Grümscher,” the lama says, “I am addressing you as I will every day for forty-nine days. It is absolutely necessary that you lend me your ear and do your best to understand the meaning of my words. What I am telling you now is meant to ease your crossing of the Bardo. If you listen to me without distraction, you will be less afraid when you are walking the Bardo’s dreadful, narrow passages. You will even be able to escape the disastrous prospect of endless rebirth and death, and rebirth again, and death again. You will be able to liberate yourself from this long chain of suffering.”
The small clown takes hold of the glass Yasar filled. He swallows several mouthfuls with glum anxiety.
“Put your glass down, Blumschi,” says Yasar.
“Yes,” says Blumschi as he wobbles, not putting his glass down.
“Talk to your friend,” says Yasar. “Everything is strange and unpleasant to him right now. If that’s the case, he won’t even realize he’s not alive anymore. He doesn’t know how to react at all. Talk to him so he knows that a friend is trying to help him.”
“It’s obscene,” says Blumschi.
“Go on,” Yasar encourages him. “It’s not obscene. It’s a moment of very strong friendship. Pretend like you’re together again on the circus floor, before the public. Like obscenity doesn’t exist.”
“Before the public. .” Blumschi grumbles as he staggers. “Like. .”
Then he overcomes his reluctance and launches into it. He moves his arms and pretends to flap between the first tables and the counter. In his pauper’s clothes, held together with four safety pins, he is grotesque, but that’s precisely what he’s going for. In an instant he has become a clownish character who makes no one laugh. He widens his despair-laden eyes and grimaces dazedly, and now he is raising his pitch, whining in an acute voice.
“Can Big Grümscher hear me?” he bawls. “Does he hear Little Blumschi? Yes? No? Where is Big Grümscher? Has anyone seen him, perchance? Where is Big Grümscher hiding? Oh oh oh! He wouldn’t happen to be hiding in a big, big vulture’s big, big gizzard, would he? Or on the crematorium’s big, hot grill? Where could Big Grümscher be hiding? In the Bardo? Could Big Grümscher have gone and hid in the Bardo?”
A car passes by. The windows clink. Blumschi takes a drink. He puts his glass down on the counter with an imprecise gesture.
“It’s useless,” he says. “I’m sure he can’t hear me. Even if he could, it’d just be a bigger nightmare.”
“What would?” asks Freek.
“If my voice reached him,” says Blumschi.
There are two seconds of silence.
“Oh noble son, Grümscher,” says the lama, “you have remained unconscious for several days. When you left this void, you asked yourself: ‘What happened? What has come about?’. . You try to consult your memories, but everything is hazy in your mind. You have trouble recognizing the world around you.”
“Go on,” says Yasar. “Continue, Blumschi. Too bad if it’s a nightmare. It’s for his own good.”
The clown opens his eyes wide. They are damp with tears. He makes a ridiculous, exaggerated grimace, but his expression betrays an immense sorrow.
“Does Big Grümscher hear me?” he bawls. “Does the big buffoon hear me or not? Well? Has he had enough of being unconscious? He opens his eyes, and what does he see? The acrobats’ crossbar, where the big straw mats sway when they’re hung up, that’s what he sees! And he consults his memories, and what does Big Grümscher say? ‘What’s come about?’ he says! ‘What happened? And why is Little Blumschi all shook up, why is he crying and blowing his nose so loudly?’”
The clown gesticulates. He spins around, stretching out his arms, like a shaman on the brink of a trance, though it is obvious he hardly believes in the spectacle’s worth. On top of that, his gestures are uncertain. With the back of the hand, he slaps the platter Yasar had used to serve his whiskies. The glasses go flying, a saucer rolls off, everything shatters on the ground.
“Oh, blasted yak rot! I broke your dishes,” he says, doubtlessly relieved to have found a pretext for taking a break.
“It’s nothing,” says Yasar. “I’ll clean it up. Don’t stop.”
“You are having difficulty deciphering the universe which has welcomed you,” continues the lama. “You understand nothing. Nothing is familiar to you. Without an effort on your part, you are going to be as ill-equipped to interpret the post-death world as a baby in the post-birth world. React, noble son. Do not let yourself become submerged in dread. Do not imagine either that you are finally walking into reality. Everything around you is just another illusion. Do not become attached to this illusion, as deceitful and vain as the existence you just left.”
“You’re acting like Big Grümscher was attached to this existence,” Blumschi remarks.
He picks up a piece of glass from the ground. Tears run down his cheeks.
“Leave it,” says Yasar.
Blumschi gets back up. He didn’t even have time to cut his palm. He is standing in the small puddle, surrounded by nearly-melted ice cubes, alive, not even wounded. He is comical. No one feels like laughing.
“Do not become at all attached to it,” says the lama.
“Is Big Grümscher still listening?” Little Blumschi suddenly continues. “Does he hear Mister Lama, huh? Is he listening to Mister Lama? Is he not letting himself become submerged in dread? Is floating in vultures’ gastric juices not doing anything for him? Oh, but I heard that the Grümscher is a little afraid. . Don’t be afraid, you big straw mat! It’s for a laugh! It’s just an unreal world! It’s a silly illusion! You have to get used to it, Big Grümscher! Don’t get attached!”
Sobs suffocate Little Blumschi. A truck passes by. The windows tremble. Blumschi has slumped into a chair to cry.
“I can’t,” says the clown. “It’s too absurd. It’s making everyone suffer.”
“Don’t stop, Blumschi,” says Freek. “Don’t cry too loudly. You don’t want him to hear you crying. Keep helping him like you were. The big one’s afraid. He’s woken up and is afraid. It does him an enormous good to hear you. Don’t stop shouting your inanities. I’m sure it’s doing him an enormous good.”
“Who cares about my inanities?” says Blumschi. “He can’t hear me.”
Blumschi sniffles. He sits up straight in his chair. He listens to the religious man’s voice describing the best attitudes for the dead man to adopt should any problems arise, but now the discourse is in a ritual Tibetan which the least useful intonation no one in the bar can glean.
“You never know,” says Freek. “But maybe, down there, in the dark, he understood. He wanted to laugh in the dark. Maybe. He was afraid, then he was less afraid.”
“Poor guy,” says Blumschi. “He didn’t laugh for months at a time. He was drowning in depression and couldn’t get out. Nobody found us funny anymore. Big Grümscher was a great clown though. I’m not saying that just to indulge him, or because I loved him like a brother. I’m saying it because it’s true. He was a consummate professional. But we still couldn’t get any laughs from the bleachers anymore. Sympathetic murmurs, yes, two or three snickers, but no laughs. Big Grümscher started to feel like it was too much, in the circus, in life. He felt completely useless. Nothing helped convince him to the contrary. In the last few days he was dwelling down there for good. He was convinced he was lost in an awful dream.”
Yasar sweeps the glass fragments, the ice cubes. He makes the puddle disappear. He thinks about Blumschi, about Grümscher, about Freek. He recalls the years in captivity, he reflects on the strange pointlessness of existence, no matter what anyone wants. He rinses the ground under the table, he takes the mop near the counter. We all feel like we are lost inside an awful dream, and, if you add together all the insignificant moments of the present, the dream carries on.