Eleven Sooty Dreams

by Manuela Draeger

  The pain. We cannot bear it. The Tibetans in the barracks claimed that it could be overcome. They evoked paradoxes, they spoke of religious mantras, three or four elementary indications to put an end to or cope with suffering. But they themselves remained skeptical. In practice, no formula is applicable. We suddenly find ourselves in the heart of pain, we are not even rendered unconscious, to the contrary, we are very awake. We are in the heart of a chain of sufferings. Horribly awakened, suddenly horribly aware of every millimeter of our bodies, of every milliliter of our liquids. And we cannot bear it.

  Sleeping in the fire, sleeping in the depth of misery, sleeping in the stones, sleeping finally in a dream of victory, sleeping finally in a dream of eternally fixed time, sleeping finally in the heart of Granny Holgolde’s tales, sleeping in death, sleeping endlessly in non-death, sleeping without knowing the extinction of the others, sleeping with our sisters, sleeping with our favorite animals, sleeping without division, sleeping while sharing our bodies with the rest of the world, sleeping while forgetting, sleeping while remembering everything down to the smallest detail, sleeping with you, sleeping in the depths of the black space, sleeping no more, sleeping never again, lying down with the flames, lying down beside the flames, living infinitely and until the end, no longer making any distinction between sleep and life, sleeping until waking, sleeping in the skin of a strange cormorant, waking and living once more in the skin of a strange cormorant, just like in Granny Holgolde’s tales, just like in reality.

  Imayo Özbeg struggled to get back up on his knees, but he finally did so and took his place again near the window. There was an explosion, perhaps a box of cartridges or a propane tank. His left arm was hanging, unresponsive to any demand and sending him no signal of any sort. His shoulder joints gave him a burning sensation, but he couldn’t determine whether or not the arm continued to be bound to his body. If everything there had been severed or torn off, he wouldn’t have noticed. I’ll worry about that later, he thought. It’s not important right now, he thought. Not as important as this. The smells of scorched hair, of fat, of burnt animal fat, of linoleum on fire, had invaded his nostrils. They were powerful but did not nauseate him. To the contrary, even, he received them as if they were an invigorating, revivifying waft. The annulment of opposites, he thought. High and low are superimposed, before and after are no longer differentiated, pestilences and perfumes are equivalent. He remembered the lessons of the Tibetans from the barracks. Opposites turn into nothing more than an indistinct mush, he thought. He pressed himself against the tears in the brick and raised his pistol, as though up toward the sky. On the other side of the street, figures appeared and disappeared according to the goodwill and movements of the smoke. They could not be identified. Friends or enemies, he thought, with a certain gentleness. Faces of friends or enemies. They are joining together. Beneath his eyelids the flames were crackling and nothing could be seen. I can’t see anything anymore, he thought. His hand didn’t tremble and, if in the distance there really were enemy combatants, he could have targeted and hit them, he could have and anyhow should have shot them to show that he was no weakling, but he held back. Perhaps he was a weakling, after all. He breathed in a large gulp of air and was greeted with an abominable stench of carbonized flesh, of bodies in ovens, and suddenly he thought that it may be his own flesh, his own body, that was coming undone in the flames. Oh, he thought. For a moment that was all he could think. Oh, he thought again. That’s all I can think. I really am a weakling.

  At your feet the linoleum suddenly splits open and releases a jet of red, oily, repugnant vapor. You take a step backward. You are not yet used to walking through fire. You have difficulty admitting that you are no longer Maryama Adougaï, that already you have transformed into a giant and strange cormorant. The Tibetans had warned you, and Granny Holgolde had often mentioned it in her stories. You are dead, you are not dead, you are walking through fire. The linoleum resembles hardened magma, it emits toxic gasses, it emits an indescribable fetidity, the air is boiling, the walls flutter like sails in the wind, colors and darkness cancel each other out, you advance inside the orange, you traverse shades of red and orange previously unknown to you, camphromander, light mizerine, uldamor. You advance through stopped time, you are not yet completely aware that you have become a strange cormorant, you are not yet convinced that you will live forever in the fire and without any pain, the idea still seems too unfamiliar to you, too incongruous, too extravagant, but this is because you are still the memory of Maryama Adougaï. You are still the memory of Maryama Adougaï. That is correct, yes. You are already a strange cormorant, you are no longer Maryama Adougaï, but you are still her memory.

  Among all Granny Holgolde’s tales, some were more marvelous than others. She places in them strange cormorants who appear to be returning from their committee work, who appear to be leaving administrative buildings dedicated to the fight against enemies of the people, against saboteurs of the five-year plan, against representatives of the seventh, eighth, and ninth stinking categories. The strange cormorants can also be found on liquidation missions, where they are much darker and, beneath their raincoats or feathers, they carry weapons. They are dressed in leather jackets, as in the time of the First Soviet Union, or they have put on camouflaging rags, as in the time of the Second Soviet Union, or they have no clothing, and they go naked, covered in feathers, indifferent to the cold, damp, and wind, as if resembling humans no longer interests them at all. According to Granny Holgolde, according to her fanciful sayings, perishing in fire during combat opens the door to an immediate metamorphosis into a strange cormorant. Our childhood was awash in such nonsense. I remember the shining eyes of Drogman Baatar, of Ouassila Albachvili, of Taïa Torff, whom we called Chicha. Those of Laura Gheen, who wasn’t mute but never spoke, drowning in tears of impatience. She had trouble understanding that this promise of transformation could only come to pass after many long years, after childhood and adolescence and after a terrible sacrifice, and that perhaps, for her, the opportunity would never arise.

  You stretch your right wing toward the ceiling. Apart from yourself, everything is more or less frozen. The fire changes very slowly. The sparks are suspended between sky and earth, floating lazily, indecisive in their trajectory. The torches resemble untouched tapestries and veils. You shake your wings as if to dry them after a plunge into the waves, but the rest of the world is immobile. The interior of the blaze, anyway, seems fixed on one image. The flames do not propagate, they do not dance, they twist slowly, they do not move. In the very immediate vicinity, just around you, they still manifest as animated, whispering creatures, in bubbles and jolts, but, if we consider the entire warehouse, we can say that they are completely paralyzed. Your name is Maryama Adougaï, you are in the center of the blaze, on the ground floor of the Kam Yip Building. You have been dispossessed of all hope since your birth, you are currently burnt to the bone and struck mute, dispossessed of all known life, and, in order to assess your new appearance, you are stretching your right wing toward the ceiling, and, with no consequence other than a light warmth, you touch the cluster of flames formed there, unmoving or moving incredibly slowly, so beautiful that you suddenly want to sob, so beautiful that you sob, though perhaps you are also moved by your own fate and by the apocalyptic dimension of our defeat, of your defeat, yours and the others’, which has always been there, since your birth, since always.

  One after the other, you each hatch in the fire, surviving for a moment with horrible burns and covered in ashes. You have become monsters, invisible to the human eye. Only children can believe in you now, or at least those who have heard Granny Holgolde’s tales. Who else would imagine your birth within the flames, your tranquility amid the blaze? One after the other you each leave your charred skin behind and rise, sighing, you stretch your wings which do not ignite, you become aware of your beak, your feathers. You are alone. You are absolutely alone. The fire is frozen around you. Everything is immobile. A strange existence awai
ts you, inside a moment where time has been erased. A perpetual moment with neither duration nor change. You have life, but nothing else. And what happens when the fire dies? Imayo Özbeg thinks, with a feeling of spite that he cannot control. What happens when we no longer have the flames for companions?

  You feel as though you have fallen asleep and that much time has passed during your slumber. You recall that in the moment when you closed your eyes, a ball of flames was falling, accompanied by a corona of sparks. Just below, four meters down, Drogman Baatar was lazily sprawled, his mouth twisted into a curse he had refrained from uttering, his legs bathed in tar or blood. The fiery mass had chosen him as its target. And you, at this moment, you have closed your eyes and quickly dozed off, and, now, without a start and without transition, you are waking up. You open your eyes and the ball of fire has not reached its goal, it is now halfway there and resembles a ferocious, disintegrating comet with a disorganized tail. You think: “What will happen once it all stops burning?” And you want to go back to sleep.

  With great slowness, one after the other, clusters of orange fire detach from the ceiling and, after passing through vertical space, explode below and spread, on the ground, on the heaps of dirty, useless clothes, feeding on cadavers, and also on confiscated objects, radio sets, televisions, drums, phonographs, Bakelite rollers, ebonite discs, chairs, vinyl discs, books, soldier’s coats, spring coats, winter coats, broken rifles, torn underclothes, incomplete sets of tableware, Mongolian felt bags, leather bags.

  I do not know what you are thinking, but for me, waking up as a bird in the middle of an inferno would be a little frightening.

  Waking covered in feathers, inside a scene of half-petrified flames. Yes. That would frighten me at least a little.

  The solitude would, as well. Knowing that we’re going to exchange a few sentences from time to time with the others, over an incredibly long span, but that at heart we will remain ensconced in the depths of our feathers, with nothing else to do, or only minor tasks, until the end of the inferno, which we will never see.

  Furthermore, no one has ever returned to describe what things are like on the other side. From this point of view, and it could only be from this point of view, the entire process is suspect. It’s understandable that communication would be difficult. But all the same, there has been no manifestation of any sort to confirm that it’s anything more than just a legend, a simple legend born from Granny Holgolde’s imagination.

  It seems that one does not even get the choice of bird. It’s either transform into a strange cormorant, or nothing. Take it or leave it.

  Leaving behind your charred or soon-to-be-charred cadaver, standing in the middle of the flames, ruffling your feathers, and living forever within an inferno, and discovering that all the men and women who’ve survived now look like strange cormorants, and realizing that there is no way back, take it or leave it, and having confusedly lost your identity to the point that you’re no longer certain if your name is Rita Mirvrakis, Elli Zlank, or Drogman Baatar. I don’t know about you, but for me, this would make me feel very uncomfortable.

  Imayo Özbeg gave us the agreed-upon signal and we split apart from the Bolcho Pride parade. My heart was racing and, at the same moment, I felt as though the sky had suddenly turned dark. “Did you see that?” I asked Dariana Freek. “What?” “The sky!” She lifted her head. “I don’t see anything,” she said nervously. “From now on, I won’t even look at the sky anymore!” I didn’t know how to interpret her response. Was she afraid? Was she about to confront something much worse than a simple combat mission? Was she thinking about what would come after our raid, our failure, our death, about the reprisals against the survivors? “It’s very dark,” I said. “What is?” she asked. “The sky,” I explained. “It’s very dark.”

  “I don’t like the sky’s color,” Baatar Drogman, at my side, declared. “What does it mean?” Taïa “Chicha” Torff asked. “Is it a bad omen?” Drogman Baatar stopped walking. He faced Taïa Torff as if he wanted to block her way or fight her. “From now on,” he said, “only rely on bad omens. There’s nothing else in our future.” “Does that mean the sky’s a bad omen?” I asked. He glared at me, but then his eyes sparkled with a kind of joy. “Yes, it is,” he said. “It couldn’t get any worse!”

  It was neither a matter of disobeying the Party, nor of obeying. The Party hadn’t been consulted, the Party hadn’t been informed, albeit in a devious and indirect way—not even Granny Holgolde, as busy and obsessed as she was with the success of our Bolshevik Pride parade. We had decided to take action without asking anyone and we still had enough sense of discipline not to let the secret get out, even during the days of exaltation that preceded Bolcho Pride.

  Granny Holgolde has always treated us like her children, like her dragons, and, after this catastrophic Bolcho Pride, she was overwhelmed with compassion and indulgence, and she continued to see us in the same light. We remained in her memory as her heroes and heroines, as her unfortunate daughters and sons, as secret and tender figures, as strange and immortal cormorants. She thus defended us tooth and nail when the Party wished to posthumously expel us. She wasn’t able to prevent our expulsion, but she resolutely pleaded our case. “Don’t worry, little ones,” she said, looking toward the smoke and the black sky. “It’s just a matter of time. Once the world revolution has triumphed, I’ll get you reintegrated into the Party’s measly rank and file, fear not!”

  During the Party meeting, whose agenda included our condemnation for childish obsession and belonging to several stinking categories, dolls made in our effigy were presented before the Commission and successively pelted with terrible reproaches. In the interests of equity, those who wished to defend our cause, or at least soften the ideological blows, were invited to stand behind the dolls and speak in our stead. Only Granny Holgolde took part in this exercise. She left her seat, hobbled over to the doll representing me, and said: “I know that we have come to odds with the Party’s anti-adventurist traditions, and with iron will we have all accepted and extolled as a fundamental principle the centuries of intense battles and defeats. I know this, I derive no pride from it, and I don’t care.”

  Granny Holgolde next placed herself behind the doll representing Taïa “Chicha” Torff and spoke on her behalf: “We have absolutely not called materialism into question,” she said. “At no time have we ever believed in the presence of strange cormorants, either in reality or in our dreams.”

  The parade had disappeared behind us, but we could still hear the roar of slogans, the crowd shouting slogans for the immediate uprising of the masses, the suppression of the world of camps and the immediate construction of a universe where our enemies would dwindle in camps until their definitive extinction, the creation of a radically egalitarian, fraternal, liberated, and intelligent society, the hanging of those responsible for the Zaasch Group, the execution of those responsible for suffering, the dismantling of the Werschwell Fraction’s innumerable mobs, the suppression of international charity organizations, the end of wealth and privilege of all kind, the immediate application of our minimum program, and the undelayed implementation of our maximum program.

  Drogman Baatar broke the lock and we entered the Kam Yip Building. Immediately, we were suffocated by the smell of gasoline, so heavy that it was as if it had replaced all the oxygen in the room. We were expecting the stench of a waste processing plant, but if, beneath the musty odor, the presence of repugnant materials, foul leathers, and fatigued paperwork truly existed, it was all overwhelmed by the fuel.

  The Kam Yip Building had been a multilevel store half a century ago, before the part of the city it served was enclosed into the ghetto, and, little by little, it found itself surrounded by dilapidated and uninhabitable constructions. The authorities made a warehouse out of it to hold furniture, objects, and weapons confiscated from the surrounding area and even from much farther away, from the Amaniyak Kree District, Bloc 709, and even the Vincents-Sanchaise Zone or the ghettos to
the northwest whose names were unknown to us. Soldiers from the Werschwell Fraction and auxiliaries would come from time to time to arm themselves, but, once everything that had been valuable or of high quality was gone, hobbyist pillagers became rare. The ambience of piles of garbage had taken over most of the building, which had completely taken on the aspect of an abandoned pigsty. There were guards who surveilled the place, but without much diligence or any dogs, and one could sense that it was an institution at the end of its life. I don’t know who among us claimed that one day or another, the authorities would set it on fire just to get rid of the thing. We had difficulty taking that hypothesis seriously, since we believed that the heaps, disorder, and architecture of the place would complicate the undertaking of that sort of villainy.

  What brought us inside the building was the section of the warehouse where the weapons were kept. Of course, we knew that the arsenal’s cabinets wouldn’t contain anything particularly functional, but despite this, we expected to harvest enough ammunition and pistols to take a few spectacular actions against the barracks managers, special sections, charitable institutions, and slaughterhouses. Our plan was simple: break into the Kam Yip Building when all the police forces would be mobilized to direct the Bolcho Pride parade toward avenues with little strategic importance and protect the homes of important personalities that the parade might pass. The day before, Loula Maldarivian had parked a wagon in a neighboring courtyard to transport our spoils, a type of delivery tricycle that was falling to pieces and thus wouldn’t risk attracting attention. We thought to act in less than half an hour, cover the requisitioned guns with festive banners, allowing us to pass unnoticed in the streets, and then, with the wagon, rejoin the demonstration and plunge once more into the swell of Bolshevist sympathizers.