The Stranger's Woes

by Max Frei

  For two months I was in a homemade hell, replete with crushed plans and childish resentments. Then I slowly began to pull out of it. Usually, I rehabilitate much faster. As Sir Mackie Ainti said, I am a survivor. Two months of high-quality agony was my absolute record. My affair with Julia had been worth it. At least I thought it was.

  When I returned to life, I began missing my movie collection.

  I should say that before I met Julia I hadn’t had any movie collection to speak of because I had never had any decent equipment to watch movies on. I had never made much money and was a poor saver. In this regard, I had to agree wholeheartedly with Sir Anday Pu, that descendant of Ukumbian pirates, who often complained that “those little round metal objects” kept disappearing.

  Julia had a top-of-the-line VCR and just a few lousy videos: her mom’s favorite soap operas, a few action flicks, and her French lessons. She studied the damn language constantly, with all kinds of multimedia aids. I had never heard her put her knowledge to any use, though.

  In a sense, Julia and I had achieved a kind of harmony: every time I went over to her place I bought a new movie. Over time, she even had to buy a special storage rack for them because the tapes tended to crawl around the house like cockroaches. I was absolutely sure that I was buying the movies for myself. One day, I thought, I’d buy my own VCR, but for the time being, I can relax and watch my favorite movies at my girlfriend’s. What could be better?

  Two months of deep depression greatly reduced my daily needs and expenses, so I managed to save a fair amount of money. Some of it I planned to spend on a VCR so I could watch the movies in my collection again. Not out of the corner of my eye, in bits and pieces, like before, but very attentively. Every movie from beginning to end. I had to kill time somehow.

  The collection was in a nearly inaccessible place, however, and I had to address that issue. One day I managed to bring myself to call Julia. I said I was going to come over to get my tapes. “Okay,” she said. I mustered my will, clenched my teeth, and went over to her place.

  She greeted me in the doorway, saying firmly that it wasn’t very nice of me to take the presents back. I could hear her mother clearing her throat significantly from the living room. Julia must have invited her for moral support.

  “What do you mean ‘presents’?” I said. “I bought the movies to watch with you, and—”

  Her reply made it obvious that she was not going to give up the disputed property. “It’s only fair,” she said. “After all, you came over almost every day and ate my food. And food costs money. Probably even more than the tapes. Plus, I don’t understand why you need them. You don’t even have a VCR, and you’re never going to get one. You’re too frivolous. Granted, it’s not so bad. In fact, Max, it’s your best quality.”

  So we thrashed it out.

  It was ridiculous and unfair to call me a sponger. I had never come over to see her empty-handed. I always brought her something: aromatic teas in small paper bags, tiny cookies that melted in your mouth, fruit, or sugarcoated flowers. I loved giving her presents, and I couldn’t afford anything more extravagant than those little things.

  Maybe she was right when she said I was living in a dream and had lost touch with reality. It had definitely never occurred to me that when I got up to make a sandwich in the middle of the night, a calculator began whirring inside the head of the woman I loved. That blow was the hardest. It was the ultimate and irreversible crash of my illusions. Who cared about a movie collection? I turned around and began walking downstairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator.

  The last thing I heard was Julia’s almost inaudible sigh of relief. But of course. She’d managed to keep the property that she’d grown accustomed to considering her own. And as far as she was concerned, I could go to the nearest junkyard, where I belonged.

  An invisible and impenetrable barrier grew up between me and the rest of the world. Reality bore no connection to me anymore. It remained somewhere far, far away. And it wasn’t really so bad. In any case, I finally stopped feeling bad. Or sad. Or anything at all.

  Julia called a week later. She told me not to be angry and asked me if I wanted to see her. I said no. Then she called a few more times, saying she was sad that I hadn’t been coming over to see her. I said I was too busy, but maybe next week, or in a month . . . Her voice didn’t inspire any emotion in me anymore. I didn’t understand what this strange woman wanted from me. Why the hell was she calling?

  I never got around to buying a VCR. Even thinking about it made me sick. Half a year later, on a cloudy November day, I saw Sir Juffin Hully in my dream. That was when my life here ended once and for all.

  I finished my coffee in a single gulp and went to the bathroom to shave. I decided to drop in on Julia unexpectedly, like premature death, without bothering to call her first. Who knew what kinds of excuses she’d come up with? I just needed to get into her living room for a few minutes, and then . . . Surprise, surprise.

  I must say I wasn’t feeling anything even remotely resembling vengeance. I was possessed by a cold curiosity and an uncontrollable, merciless happiness that scared even me a little bit. I was going to have fun, and my mysterious second heart was telling me I was doing the right thing. Go ahead and do it, it told me. I didn’t know what kinds of principles governed that cryptic muscle, but it sure didn’t have an ax to grind with Julia. When my affair with Julia was at its lowest point, I still made do with just one heart, like everybody else.

  I dressed very carefully, eliminated the remains of the stubble on my chin, and gathered my hair into an elegant ponytail. Boy, did I look suave! All the eighth-grade girls would swoon.

  Having finished admiring myself in the mirror I went outside. I wasn’t planning to return home again. I didn’t dare think that my search for the streetcar on Green Street might not pan out. Granted, I had grounds for optimism: if Mackie said I was going to be all right, there were no two ways about it.

  I walked up the stairs to the sixth floor. I couldn’t trust elevators anymore. It was pretty odd, but I had already learned to respect my own oddities and premonitions. They didn’t just come out of the blue.

  When I caught my breath again I rang the doorbell. I felt like laughing. It was too funny. Then again, I’ve always tended to go a little overboard with everything.

  The door opened. Julia stood in the doorway fiddling with the collar of her checkered blouse, as if she couldn’t decide whether to button it up to be out of harm’s way or leave it as it was. She chose the latter. Attagirl.

  I smiled a warm smile. It turned out I was darn happy to see her. The bad memories didn’t matter anymore. But I wasn’t going to change my mind. My whole collection—my favorite movies, which I had carefully selected; the junk that I had bought on a whim; and the movies I hadn’t gotten around to watching—all of them were going with me to Echo. That was the only thing that mattered to me now, and I knew it was right. That vague notion popped up in the midst of my uncertainty more and more often. A new soloist had emerged in the choir of voices that had been mumbling incoherently in the dark corners of my mind. Unlike the other voices, this one was strong and confident.

  “You look different,” Julia said finally.

  She seemed glad to see me, too, but something was stopping her from displaying it openly. But of course, it was Sir Max from Echo visiting her today, and Julia hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet.

  “Must be my hair,” I said. “Can I come in? I won’t be long. Really.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  She stepped aside, allowing me to pass. I produced a small parcel from the pocket of my coat.

  “Got some tea for you. I don’t think we’ve had this kind before.”

  “Right,” she said, fiddling absently with the parcel. “Let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll make it. You’re not mad at me anymore?”

  “I dropped the whole getting-mad business long ago,” I said. And it was true. “To tell you the truth, I don’t even rememb
er why I was supposed to be mad at you. So it’s all right.”

  Julia went out to the kitchen, and I hesitated in the living room by a new rack with a TV, VCR, and a great number of videotapes. Not long before I had been expelled from this heaven, there had been more than a hundred. Now there must have been even more, but not by many. Julia wasn’t a spendthrift—she wouldn’t waste money on silly things.

  I carefully pulled the power cord from the outlet and unplugged the other cables. Now the rack was ready to be placed between my left thumb and index finger. This could wait, though. First I was going to have a cup of tea in the company of a nice girl. Now Julia awoke in me a feeling of—no, not of passion but of genuine sympathy. As for the calculator in her head, well, what did I care about the problems of the inhabitants of this World, which had long ago become strange to me? It’s no bed of roses here, as I had come to understand. Tough for them, but life goes on.

  “Come in here, Max. It’s cozier,” Julia said from the kitchen.

  I obeyed. She had already put the kettle on and was busy opening the parcel with tea. A small white rat was sitting on the kitchen table.

  “A new friend, huh?” I said.

  Julia quickly grabbed the rodent and put it in the breast pocket of her checkered blouse, as though I were in the habit of snacking on little rats.

  “This little girl is afraid of strangers,” Julia said.

  “That’s very smart of her,” I said. “We strangers are a peculiar bunch. So, what’s new?”

  Julia talked and I listened to her with half an ear. She seemed to be doing fine, although my lengthy absence hadn’t seemed to facilitate the creation of another family unit. Why had she wanted to break up with me, then? I thought.

  The tea wasn’t very good, though maybe I had just forgotten the taste of hot tea. After I finished one cup, I realized that I had had enough. I was beginning to get bored. Also, I couldn’t believe that what was happening was real. We resembled characters from, say, episode one hundred eighty of some soap opera. And Julia was giving me strange looks. No wonder, though. She had known the Max I used to be very well. Of course she was a little suspicious of this new one.

  “Well, I’d better be going, then,” I said.

  “Sure.”

  She frowned, and then said cautiously, “Why did you decide to drop by?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied. Then I decided to say something that was a little closer to the truth. “I guess I just came to say goodbye.”

  “Are you going out of town?”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Yeah, I guess I’ll be going out of town.”

  “Okay, then. Good luck. Thanks for dropping by.”

  The tone of her voice implied that I was the one who had left her. And, scoundrel that I was, I had also pinched the silver spoons from the chest. It was amusing.

  She got up and went through the living room. I followed behind. When I was walking past the rack with the TV I executed my best trick. One very subtle motion of my left hand, and the entire thing disappeared into my fist. The heist was so quick and soundless that Julia didn’t even turn around.

  “Well, so long, honey,” I said, and walked out of the apartment.

  The expression on my face must have been ominous because Julia looked away, scared, and took a step backward when she was letting me out. I did manage to turn around and give her a tender kiss on the nose, though. I had been dying to know what Mr. Judas Iscariot felt at the moment of his historic kiss. If he was anything like me, he enjoyed it immensely.

  I walked down all the stairs again. Deep down in my heart I was hoping that Julia would dash out onto the landing to inform the world about her loss. Moreover, I was really counting on it. I anticipated a flood of accusations and imagined, not without pleasure, how I’d offer to turn my pockets inside out—maybe there would be a TV in one of them. Let’s see, where did I put it?

  But nothing like that happened. Poor thing must have fainted dead away. Or maybe she was calling the police. Then again, maybe she decided that all was vanity and vexation of the spirit, after which she sat down in the lotus position and started mumbling some mantra suited to the occasion. You never know what a person will do when she encounters the uncanny and inexplicable.

  There was a small commotion on the landing of the fourth floor—some repairmen and a few curious preschoolers. Well, what do you know? The darn elevator was stuck between floors. I was doing quite well if could foresee such a small mishap.

  Then I took a long walk through the city. I got a bit wet, and very cold, but that didn’t take away from the pleasure of the walk. In the night, the city looked alien and, because of that, very beautiful. Much to my surprise, I realized that I could fall in love with it, given enough time. Maybe it was because night transformed the cityscape, and maybe it was because I finally felt I was a complete stranger on these broad streets. It is easy to love strange places: we take them for what they are and demand nothing but new experiences from them.

  To warm myself up, I had some coffee with cognac in a cozy little bar, the name of which I don’t remember. I started to thaw out, and even felt like having some dinner. This was beginning to resemble the life I had gotten used to in Echo: a nice long dinner in a cozy tavern before I set out looking for my next adventure. Today, I was going on another dangerous trip: catching the streetcar that traveled down Green Street, following an unmarked route. I really hoped that this story would have a happy ending, just like the others before it.

  I looked at my watch. Soon it would be midnight. Time to stop stuffing my belly and get out of here. I asked for the check, paid, and walked out. Time almost stopped dead in its tracks. It seemed as though none of my movements would ever be completed. The foot in my new shoe moved so slowly toward the ground that it felt like the asphalt was a mirage, a metaphysical carrot receding endlessly before a lazy donkey.

  Yet I managed to walk, step after step. I moved forward feeling the cold tickling of Eternity on the back of my head. The very same Eternity that I wasn’t supposed to be teasing. Darn it, I thought. Lady Sotofa could have put it a little more clearly. If she’d just told me, “Don’t even think about going back to your World, Max,” I would have listened to her. At the very least, I would have tried. The most absurd thing was that the whole time I had never once thought about the holy water that was supposed to be the reason for this crazy trip.

  When I got to Green Street, the electronic clock on top of the telephone company glowed 11:11. I remembered that I had always considered such symmetry to be a good sign, and turned away quickly so as not to see how the symmetry would shatter when the last digit turned to two. That, according to the same superstition, would have canceled out the good luck.

  A moment later I heard the streetcar bell. The streetcar rumbled just like it had the first time, almost two years ago. On the other hand, though, it had just happened yesterday. Anyway, the last thing I wanted to do now was to try to comprehend the flow of time. I prefer not to have any particular opinion about such complex matters.

  My head started to spin, but I managed to suppress the nausea fairly quickly. I inhaled and exhaled a few times, as Shurf Lonli-Lokli had taught me to do. Darn it, I thought. When I’m back in Echo, I simply must treat him to a good dinner. I owe him a big one. His breathing exercises have saved my life and sanity many times today already.

  The moon looked out from behind the ragged edge of a cloud for a split second, and I could make out a familiar sign informing me that I was standing at the stop of the streetcar following route number 432. The number was the same. Praise be the Magicians, my Door between Worlds seemed to favor predictability over surprise.

  The streetcar appeared from behind the corner and slowed down as it approached the stop. Everything was going according to plan. Better than I had dared hope. This mysterious express streetcar that followed the most improbable route between Worlds was at my service.

  This time, however, I was going to have to negotiate with the dr
iver. Sir Maba Kalox called him a Tipfinger. If I remembered correctly, he had said that a Tipfinger comes out of nowhere and feeds on our fears, anxieties, and premonitions. Sometimes a Tipfinger takes the form of a person and wanders around visiting his friends, scaring them by throwing fits, or just looking at them askance. Also, Maba told me that I had created the Tipfinger in my streetcar myself. Why on earth would I have done something like that? And how did I manage it? To tell the truth, I have done a lot of stupid things in my life. Some were even worse.

  Okay, I thought. A Tipfinger it is, then. Whatever. I smiled wickedly and stared at the driver’s cabin. There he was, the Tipfinger, with his broad face and thin mustache. I couldn’t believe that two years back this ridiculous creature had scared the bejesus out of me. It was my luck that he had disappeared almost immediately, and I had mustered up courage to get into the streetcar. Looking back now, I realize it was the only right thing to do.

  The streetcar stopped. The door at the front of the streetcar opened silently, and I dashed inside. This time the creature didn’t disappear. The streetcar wasn’t moving and the ugly mustached creature looked at me with bored indifference.

  “Just the man I was looking for,” I said. “I’m going to teach you a lesson, pal. I’ll teach you how to scare novice travelers between Worlds. It’s bad manners to scare newbies, didn’t you know that?”

  The driver didn’t say anything, but his face was undergoing a transformation. The mustached face slowly disappeared into a misty blur, and a few moments later it took the shape of another face. Grand Magician Maxlilgl Annox, the short-nosed apparition from Xolomi, was staring out at me. Then his face faded away, too, and now the piercing blue eyes of the late Magician Kiba Attsax were fixed on me.