Bardo or Not Bardo by Antoine Volodine

Author:Antoine Volodine [Volodine, Antoine]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781940953427
Publisher: Open Letter
Published: 2016-03-20T23:00:00+00:00

THE COAL COMPANY

The setting’s cast is reduced to two actors:

Moreno, underground worker,

Lougovoï, underground worker.

To the voices of the two actors are added the voices of two other characters

exterior to the scene:

Kamchatkine, engineer, rescue team coordinator,

Bandzo Grimm, lama.

The scene is plunged in a shadeless darkness. We are in mining tunnel, nine-hundred meters deep. There’s been a catastrophe. The two survivors, Moreno and Lougovoï, are unharmed. They have taken refuge in a narrow space, an intact tunnel blocked off by piles of coal and rock. Elsewhere in the mine, the disaster has reached grisly proportions. Flooded galleries, levels on fire, impassable wells, the alcove where Moreno and Lougovoï wait is, in reality, a tomb. No savior will soon come for them.

By intervals, miniscule bits of rubble fall into the dark space. Stones slide and roll over each other. Water seeps from somewhere next to the two men. The sounds are amplified in the encircling darkness.

The two miners have a work lantern with them. They’re saving it. They stay in the shadows, not talking much. They cough, they clear their throats. They know their chances of getting out are slim. One of the reasons they refrain from lighting the lamp is that it turns their shadows into horrible monsters. “It’s better to stay in the dark,” Lougovoï says. “In the light, we look like we’re dead. Like two dead men who’ve just woken up at the bottom of a crypt. It bums me out.” The presence of a cadaver nearby also doesn’t encourage them to push the shadows away. The deceased’s name is Yano Waldenberg; he is three-quarters buried in the rubble. Just his legs are sticking out. To escape this depressing sight, Lougovoï and Moreno leave the lantern unlit.

There are no perceptible human sounds beyond the tons and tons of collapsed material. Despite this, the two miners believe that several rescue teams are already on their way down, descending into the mine to look for survivors. This glimmer of hope keeps them going.

About a meter from where they are sitting, there is a beam to which is attached an emergency phone. The line, obviously, is cut. Nevertheless, Lougovoï keeps picking it up, taking the receiver off the hook, and calling. The operation is a morose one, as Moreno critiques with disillusioned comments. It’s improbable that the phone cables could have escaped destruction. Suddenly, there is a dial tone. It’s a miracle, contact is reestablished with the surface, and someone answers Lougovoï.

The man speaking to the miners is the rescue coordinator, a vicious engineer, Kamchatkine, who has in the past butted heads with Moreno and Lougovoï over union issues. They have no respect for him, and he, from their point of view, hates them for their anarchism. The conversation with Kamchatkine goes poorly. The engineer describes the magnitude of the damage: the level where the two survivors are interred cannot be cleared for several weeks. His announcement is frank. He doesn’t understand how the phone connection is possible and how Lougovoï and Moreno could have escaped death.

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