He shakes it.
“Sounds like it,” he says.
He picks up the receiver. He gets a dial tone. He tries to use the device by feeling around. He mumbles. The bell jingles no matter what he does.
“Well, it’s plugged in,” Glouchenko notes. “If I could just dial a number. . There must be a switchboard. . It’s usually zero-zero. . Oh goddammit! How can you do anything when it’s so. . Is this hole a zero or a nine? I’ll just try it, maybe. .”
The dial turns, returns with a scrape to its original position, turns, returns with a scrape. From the device, after the tone, come the echoes of a tantric ceremony, skewed by minute electroacoustic disturbances. There are horns, conches, collective prayers, chimes, whispers. No distinct voice stands out.
“Hello, can you hear me?” Glouchenko shouts. “Glouchenko here. Is there anyone at the switchboard?” (Faint murmurs, less and less perceptible chimes. Everything fades away.) “No, they don’t hear me. I got a wrong number, of course. .”
He hangs up. Silence surrounds him. He doesn’t know what to do.
“You bastards!” he suddenly screams. “Turn the lights back on right now! That’s enough, it’s over! This isn’t funny anymore!” (A pause.) “Come on, boys! The joke’s gone on long enough! Turn the power back on!”
A beat.
He picks the telephone back up. He listens to the dial tone. He slams the receiver down violently.
“Bastards!” he mutters.
Then we hear him take a seat next to the phone. He’s made his decision. He sits, he gropes around, he pulls on the wire, he moves the jingling device. He places it against his leg.
He feels tired.
“Fine, might as well stay here and wait for someone to call me,” he says. “I don’t feel too good, I should rest for a bit. Later on, I’ll untangle this wire, if I have time. The thing’s all twisted. .”
In the distance, an extreme distance, the gongs and horns cease. For several moments, there is absolutely no sound.
Then we are startled. With how intense the silence and darkness are, the officiant’s voice takes us by surprise.
“Oh noble son, Glouchenko,” the officiant articulates, “give yourself over to reason, do not believe what you see, the colors and forms around you are but pure illusion. .”
Glouchenko doesn’t react. He’s heard nothing. He wasn’t startled.
“Well,” he mutters, “someone’ll call me eventually.” (A pause.) “Whoa, what’s happening? I feel all washed out. I’m just completely tired, all of a sudden.” (A pause.) “I’m going to wait for them to turn the lights back on. Until then, I’ll just take a short nap.”
“Oh Glouchenko,” says Baabar Schmunck, “the skies now appear to you as a dark, navy blue, a divine blue light, marvelous and brilliant, springs forth in your direction. Do not be surprised by it, noble son.” (Gong.) “Do not fear it, even if you are barely able to take in the view.” (Gong.) “Place your faith in it.” (Gong.) “This light is meant to welcome you. Just beside it throbs a drab white glow. Do not be drawn to it, for that is not the light of grace.” (Gong.)
The voice is weak, solemn, pacifying, but comes from too far away. I mentioned before that I thought I recognized the voice as Schmunck’s. I’m less sure of that now. I wouldn’t swear on it. Besides, it’s a detail that only concerns me and my memories, and I’m not important here. Only Glouchenko here is important. Only Glouchenko here is at the center of the dark unknown.
“Do not be attached, noble son, do not be weak,” exhorts the officiant’s voice, whether or not that officiant is Baabar Schmunck. “Do not look at the white glow that does not hurt your eyes, look instead at the shining blue light that blinds you, look at it with a deep faith. Try to dissolve into its halo. Try to melt into the rainbow that. .”
Schmunck, or a monk like Schmunck, starts describing the monochrome rainbow, and we would like to know more, but the voice slowly fades away. We would like to know more and we concentrate on the absence of sound, as if there were an explanation coming that would satisfy us. But silence reigns.
For a long moment, silence reigns.
Then the telephone’s sudden ringing thunders through the void, strong, unquelled by the darkness, and, this time, it startles everyone.
Glouchenko has a spasm of alarm. He was dozing.
“Those lousy bastards!” he growls. “They’re good at timing their shots! They don’t even leave me alone during my nap!”
On the second ring, Glouchenko picks up.
“Hello?” says a clear voice.
“I’m listening,” says Glouchenko, angry. “Glouchenko here. Who’s on the line?”
“That you, Glouchenko? Can you hear me? It’s me, Babloïev. Can you hear me? It’s Babloïev on the line.”
“Babloïev?” Glouchenko hesitates.
“Yes,” says the other.
Glouchenko lets out a huge sigh.
“Stop kidding around, boys!” he says. “Babloïev went out with the munitions crate, the other day. When we were unloading the seaplane. He got messily strewn all over the water. You know that he. . Why would you joke about the dead like that? That’s not right. . Why are you messing with Babloïev? He went back to camp in three different plastic bags, poor guy.”
“Two,” corrects the other.
A pause.
Since we are there as well, I explain that Babloïev and Glouchenko are sitting four or five meters away from each other. They don’t see each other, they’re using the telephone to talk, though in reality they could do perfectly fine without it. Their voices travel through the wire as electric pulses, but, at the same time, they traverse the open air in the short distance separating them. So we are in the presence of a blind, four-voiced dialogue. It’s a trivial detail, but I explain it anyway.
Glouchenko grumbles.
“This isn’t right,” he says. “You ought to have even the smallest modicum of respect. Moving me to a different barrack isn’t all that clever, but this is something else entirely. Stop mocking a dead man, boys. A dead hero slain in action.”
“What are you talking about, Glouchenko? I’m right here, on the other end of the line. We’re together. I saw you sleeping. I wanted to talk to you.”
“It’s a pretty good imitation,” Glouchenko says. “It’s really like it’s him talking.” (A beat.) “Listen, I’m sick of this darkness. It’s gone on for hours now, so tell your friends that. . (A beat.) No, there’s no way you’re Babloïev.”
“Oh, come on, Glouchenko,” Babloïev snaps, “it’s like you don’t even realize. .”
“Huh?” says Glouchenko.
“Are you thick or what? Where do you think you are? Pull yourself together, Glouchenko! Look around you! Do you still not get it?”
“Get what?” Glouchenko is losing his patience. “Do you think it’s funny to talk to me like I’m the last idiot alive? I get very well what’s going on here, thank you very much. And what’s going on is that you’ve cut the power! So leave me alone!”
“Fine,” says Babloïev. “I’ll explain it to you. Both of us are dead. Me, from the explosion. And you, from sickness. We’re dead. Right now we’re floating in the Bardo.”
A beat.
“In the what?” Glouchenko asks, calmer.
“The Bardo. The intermediary world. We’re going to float and walk around here for forty-nine days.”
“Cut the crap,” says Glouchenko. “You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think you can just jerk me around. You’ll never get me to believe anything you say. . I can prove I’m not dead, because. .” (A pause.) “I would’ve noticed something like that. .” (A pause.) “So tell me, guy with Babloïev’s voice! Was it you who cut the power?”
“The power? What are you. . Listen to me, Glouchenko. There’s no more power for you. No more light. You’re dead, full stop, that’s all. There’s no more light, or absence of light. That’s what it’s like here. And it would serve you well to. .”