we are with the three characters in this tragedy,” Maria Henkel said.
First off, Kominform, alias Abram Schlumm or Tarchal Schlumm, a radical egalitarian, pursued by police worldwide ever since the world became exclusively capitalist, seeking asylum in the monastery of the Flaming Lotus. He is dressed in a soldier’s coat from civil war years, his preferred outfit since forever. He’s spitting up blood. He’s going to die. His death rattle is audible, the chaos of his heartbeats is audible. An old, almost centenarian, monk is propping him up tenderly.
This old monk is Drumbog, a Buddhist who believes in nothing, save for the absolute equality of suffering between men . . . Equality in suffering, which is precisely the minimum program defended by Kominform . . . Without reserve, Drumbog appreciates Kominform, his discourse, his praxis. He is the one who pleaded the community of monks to welcome and hide the fugitive, when the question came up, eight years ago. Eight or nine. Or maybe ten. This detail doesn’t interest us. Drumbog felt responsible for Kominform. He has also considered Kominform to be a bodhisattva, an enlightened man who has dedicated his existence to saving miserable humans, going into suffering to help the unenlightened free themselves from suffering.
Facing these two heroes, the wounded revolutionary and the Buddhist touched more by Alzheimer’s than grace, stands a man, the one responsible for a special political cleansing team, set up after the regime change. His name was once Strohbusch. He had put an operation together with an eye to negotiate with Kominform, he desired to convince him to disclose sensitive information, he didn’t want to liquidate Kominform, he had recommended to his agents to approach Kominform without violence. But his agents had disobeyed. One of them, a man named Batyrzian, had misinterpreted the orders. He was so excited at the idea of facing off against an incorruptible revolutionary, disconcerted by this contact with an underground hero, that he sent three bullets into Kominform’s ribcage. And now, Kominform is soaked with blood, from head to foot, and is in no mood to divulge his secrets. The operation has been compromised. Strohbusch notes this waste, due to the barbaric inexperience of his men. He is sorry.
“I am sorry,” said Strohbusch. “My agent must have thought Kominform was armed, that he was going to cause a ruckus, take hostages . . .”
“Are you the killers’ boss?” Drumbog asked.
“Hey now,” said Strohbusch. “Watch your language There was a mix-up. We never intended to gun him down like that. That’s not how I roll. Or in any case I make sure it happens as little as possible. We’re not killers.”
Strohbusch paused. Drumbog was muttering disappointedly. He’d made an effort to receive death without panicking, but, ultimately, nothing happened.
“We could maybe try to save him?” Strohbusch proposed. “Your monastery must have a doctor, right? An infirmary?”
“I thought you’d come to finish him off,” said Drumbog. “And then eliminate me.”
“No,” Strohbusch assured. “I came here to talk with Kominform. We knew each other, in the past. We used to work together, in the same organization. We have some things to discuss.”
“His hands are starting to cool,” said Drumbog. “His breath smells like a dying man’s. It’s over, he has nothing more to relay to the living. The butchers who killed him should just keep their mouths shut.”
“What if you called a doctor?” asked Strohbusch, ignoring the old man’s reproaches. “I’ll stay by his side. You can go find an assistant, right? Or, I don’t know, a doctor, an herbalist . . . Some kind of sorcerer . . . There must be sorcerers in your monastery, yeah? No? Or at least people who know how to apply bandages . . . Hmm?”
“The only useful thing we can do right now is to prepare him for his encounter with the Clear Light”
“Pardon?”
“Prepare him for his encounter with the Clear Light,” Drumbog repeated. “Someone has to read the Bardo Thödol to him, near his ear.”
Strohbusch made a funny face. It expressed incomprehension.
“Have you killers never heard of the Bardo Thödol before?” Drumbog asked. “It’s a guide. You read it near one of the deceased to help them pass through the world of death, if they decide to wander foolishly through the Bardo until they reincarnate, or to help them liberate themselves and become Buddha, when their heart’s pure enough.”
“Wait,” said Strohbusch.
He had just slid his pistol into its holster. His eyes were open wide, his small renegade eyes, which harbored an unconscious and trembling drop of nostalgia.
“You’re wanting to read to him from that religious thingamajig while he’s in pain? You want to read the Bardo Thödol to a non-Buddhist? A revolutionary proletarian?”
“Listen here, murderer!” Drumbog scolded. “Don’t you dare try to tell me what to do. What do you know about this man? He gave everything, he kept nothing for himself . . . He spent his existence fighting for absolute equality, for the destitution of all, for brotherhood . . . He was vibrant with compassion . . . You know, religion aside, he was much closer to the Clear Light than our own monks who . . .”
Kominform gasped. His difficult breathing took effort. His heart’s knocking sounded like an ill omen.
“Drumbog, brother,” said Kominform. “Who are you talking to? Who’s that beanpole above us?”
Strohbusch came to life. He was delighted to see Kominform able to talk, and thus hear.
“You can talk, Kominform?” he said. “It’s me, Strohbusch, can you hear me? We were part of the same cell, twenty-five years ago . . . We worked with Services . . . In the Organization . . . Do you remember? With Grandmother . . . Remember Grandmother? Back in the Soviet Union . . . Remember the Soviet Union?”
“Leave him alone,” Drumbog interrupted. “Keep out of this with your union and your cells! The time has come for him to detach himself from the world of illusions, he must now leave this theater of dishonesty to be dissolved . . . to rejoin the real world . . . where there is neither death nor the absence of death . . . I have to remind him of the Bardo Thödol’s instructions, while you’re going on about some Grandmother . . .”
“One minute,” insisted Strohbusch.
“Strohbusch is pushing the monk aside with his right hand,” Maria Henkel began to describe. “He’s pushing him without any particular brutality, but he has the physical power of a fifty-odd-year-old scoundrel, with which an old, nearly centenarian, man can’t begin to compete. Drumbog’s legs are caught in a patch of wire. He’s lost his balance. He struggles pitifully.”
Strohbusch leaned over Kominform, over his mouth dripping with blood, over his ears.
“Do you hear me, Kominform?” said Strohbusch. “It’s me, Strohbusch, your commander . . . I was the one who had to activate you, when we had to . . . Back in the day . . . But then the walls came down, and we did too . . . Grandmother is dead . . . The world revolution has been postponed for two or three centuries . . . Or even four . . . We’ve dropped the glorious future like an old sock . . .”
The wounded man was regurgitating blood. Strohbusch bit his lips. Time was of the essence for his mission, too.
“Listen to me,
