Impossible Stories

by Zoran Zivkovic

  What else could she do? She certainly couldn’t stand there for very long. Then a simple solution appeared that did, however, require considerable ingenuity and courage. She would head home. Just like that. Where else would she find refuge on such an unusual day but in her house? It wouldn’t be easy to get there since she couldn’t even see her fingers in front of her eyes, but luckily all she had to do was move straight ahead. There were no turns. She would go slowly and carefully, using the row of chestnuts as her guide. The trees were placed at regular intervals so once she counted the steps between two neighboring trees, she would know exactly when to expect the next one.

  It took great strength of will to leave the shop entrance and walk into the mist. Somewhere from the edge of oblivion flashed a memory from her far-off childhood when she was learning how to swim. Then she had been forced to overcome tremendous internal resistance to leave the shelter of the shore and venture out into deep water. The buoy that she’d headed for was only several metres away but to her the distance had seemed immeasurably far. She’d hugged it feverishly when she finally reached it. Now she was tempted to grab the chestnut tree in the same way, its outline only starting to emerge when she was already quite close to it.

  She went slowly down the street, holding one arm out in front like a blind person holding a white stick. Her eyes were wide open, although useless. All they saw was the fluffy dough in which she was immersed. She soon felt dizzy from staring into the unchanging whiteness. She thought of continuing with her eyes closed, but couldn’t find the courage to close them and bowed her head instead. After the seventeenth step, when she almost crashed into the second chestnut, the relief she felt rivaled that of a castaway thrown fortuitously onto land by a storm.

  She continued with somewhat greater confidence, concentrating on counting her steps. This feeble encouragement soon evaporated when she realized that she would not be able to tell when she’d reached home. The tree growing in front of her house had nothing unusual about it, and she didn’t know how many chestnut trees there were between her home and the watchmaker’s shop. She had never counted them, of course. Why would she? Who would ever have thought it might come in handy? She stopped, bewildered, and then continued her slow steps. She would ponder that problem along the way. A solution was bound to turn up. Right now it was important to advance in the right direction.

  Her hampered eyesight sharpened her hearing. She was between the sixth and seventh chestnut when she heard soft voices coming from somewhere in the mist. How strange people were, she thought. She hadn’t met anyone during the glorious weather on her way to the watchmaker’s shop, and now there was someone talking outside, in this obscurity. She crossed the distance between the next three trees, but the voices were still subdued, no louder than before, as though she’d come neither closer to those who were talking nor moved any farther away from them. Now, however, they seemed to be coming from the treetops, as though the birds had returned and were now chirping in the leaves with human voices.

  She pricked up her ears and finally started to make out the words coming from above. They were disconnected parts of different conversations. Sometimes two people were speaking, sometimes three, and there were even more here and there. There were men’s, women’s and children’s voices, old and young. The fragments were not long: they started in the middle of a sentence and then suddenly ended, so it was hard to grasp their meaning. Sometimes laughter would resound in different timbres: giggling, droning, chuckling, roaring. Much less frequently the conversation was serious and gloomy, and one was even filled with quiet crying.

  Most of the voices sounded familiar to her. She was sure she had already heard them somewhere, but hard as she tried she could not call to mind the faces of those who were talking. This filled her with frustration. Her memory had recently started to fail her like this; she would be on the verge of grasping something, and then it would be maliciously whisked away. And then she noticed a regularity, a common characteristic of the bits of conversation from the chestnut treetops. There was a female voice in every fragment.

  Old, coughing, sometimes defiant. This was the moment of truth. She might still not have recognized her own voice—we don’t hear our voice the same way others hear it—were it not for the defiance that was her manner of confronting the world, most often to her own detriment.

  As though someone had pulled the veil from her memory, suddenly there were no more secrets. Regardless of how brief the fragment, she knew unfailingly when it was, where and to whom she was talking in these magically resurrected conversations. Her interlocutors’ empty faces took on contours, features, characteristics. She saw them clearly on the occasions when they were talking to her, just as she could now remember the parts that preceded each fragment and followed it. Her life stood before her as clear as an open book intermittently underlined.

  Making her way through the endlessly thick mist, hand outstretched before her, silently counting the steps between the chestnuts, she wondered whether the lines she heard spoken above were highlighted merely at random or with some purpose in mind. They were certainly not important conversations, most were just bits of small talk. It seemed to her as if someone had noted down parts of her book of life without rhyme or reason. Or else she was unable to detect any. She was just about to stop searching, when she noted a new pattern. It had to do not with the content of the fragments but with their distribution in time. Each one was farther back in time than the one before it, as though the book were being leafed through back to front. The farther she got from the watchmaker’s shop, the deeper she retreated into the past.

  Her voice became gradually younger and softer. It wasn’t hard for her to imagine the increasingly younger face that went along with it. Her wrinkles smoothed out, the loose skin hanging sadly under her chin disappeared, the spots on her cheeks vanished and so did the yellow bags under her eyes. The many aches that had started to plague her in old age also faded away. She’d lived a healthy and tranquil middle age that from this vantage point had been possibly the happiest period of her life. She’d been alone, indeed, but that was something she had already become quite used to.

  Most of those she now heard herself briefly talking to were no longer among the living. She had considerably outlived them all. She ascribed this primarily to her orderly lifestyle. The others had been their own worst enemies, not paying enough attention to their health. She knew that the most dissolute among them secretly made fun of her self-discipline and moderation, mockingly calling her ascetic, but she had been the one in a position to laugh last. She had never done this, however. She had been defiant and stubborn, yes indeed, but not malicious. The loss of each one had been hard for her. Tears came to her eyes even now as she heard their long-silent voices return once again above her.

  The closer she got to her younger years, going home through the mist, the greater became her apprehension. It had taken a lot of time and effort to block out the incident from that time that had shaped all the rest of her life. Perhaps everything would have been different had she been able to wipe it completely from her memory, but that, of course, had been impossible. Although suppressed, it was still with her, re-emerging from oblivion, often at the most inopportune moments. She had no way of knowing how these audible fragments from her past would treat the incident, but she felt certain they could not ignore it.

  Her anxieties came true, but not as she had feared. Judging by the number of chestnut trees she’d counted, she must have already been close to home when the noise in the treetops suddenly ceased. She stopped in bewilderment and listened hard. Now she longed for the surreal voices that had frightened her at first. Without them she felt hopelessly abandoned in the hollow silence of the mist. Then she heard a soft sound somewhere behind her. It was repeated at regular intervals, becoming stronger, as though the source were moving closer to her. She didn’t recognize it until it was almost upon her. Someone was walking down the street, heading in her direction.

  Judging by the s
pryness of the steps, it must have been a younger man who did not seem the least bothered by the mist. Miss Margarita stood stock-still, fearing there might be a collision. He didn’t know she was standing there and might easily run right into her. She had to find some way to let him know she was in front of him. She cleared her throat, but at the same moment realized this was unnecessary.

  Like the beam of a reflector sliding through the darkness, dispelling it, a clear oval bubble was making its way through the mist, moving down the street. When it came close to her she had a good look inside. The young man was tall and slender. His face had firm, regular features that were handsome in their accentuated masculinity. The rather long, slanted scar above his left eyebrow did not spoil this harmony; on the contrary, it even seemed to add to it in some strange way. The officer’s dress uniform fit him perfectly. He was wearing high, polished black leather boots, soft white gloves and a service cap pulled down low on his forehead, almost completely hiding his short hair. In his left hand were two small packages wrapped in brightly colored paper and tied with red ribbons. One was flat, the other square.

  Miss Margarita’s breath failed her. She opened her mouth and made every effort to breathe deeply, but she suddenly seemed to be in an airless space. In addition, she was unable to move. Her heart began to pound frantically. The stiffness did not last long, however. She snapped out of it when the grayness surrounded her once again, after the oval had passed. She took out after it almost at a run. The doctor had strictly forbidden such efforts, but that made no difference to her now. Once she had caught up with the oval she continued at a somewhat slower pace, panting as she kept to its rear edge.

  It was the safest way to reach home. The young man would take her there without fail. The mist was no longer an obstacle. The path stretched before her as clearly as that which would inevitably come to pass. He soon turned off the pavement onto a narrow stone walkway leading across the grass to the front door. When he took off his cap and rang the bell, Miss Margarita was standing hesitantly about halfway up the walk. She knew who would open the door to him, but it seemed somehow inappropriate, almost unnatural, to look at that person. In addition, she was still very angry with her. After all these years she still could not forgive her for what she had done.

  The door opened, but the young man’s broad back almost completely blocked the entrance to the house. For just a moment, before the door closed, she caught sight of the hem of a light yellow dress fluttering in the draft. She still had it, but kept it out of sight so as not to awaken painful memories. Miss Margarita remained on the walk, not knowing what to do. She was still out of breath, but not just from having moved so fast. The fact that she could change nothing in that far-off past that was taking place before her once again weighed more heavily on her than any physical exertion. Since it served no purpose inside the house, the oval bubble stayed outside, resembling a tiny island in a vast downy ocean, waiting for the young man whose visit would be of short duration.

  The closed door did not prevent her from seeing what was happening inside. She accepted the two little packages with delight. She had always loved presents. She untied the ribbon on the flat package first. Smiling broadly, she went up on her tiptoes, closed her eyes briefly and lightly touched the young man’s lips with hers in thanks. It was just a hint, a suggestion of a kiss, but their intimacy had not yet gone any farther. The deluxe edition of the poems looked magnificent. She’d wanted it so much! And how much she had wanted to receive it from him!

  She couldn’t imagine what was in the other package. Her patience got the better of her, as usual, so she pulled the ribbon and tore the bright wrapping paper. She quickly raised the lid of the square, purple box and looked inside inquisitively. Her smile instantly disappeared. Her face flared up as though she’d just been slapped. She shot him a look in which insult, reproach and the accusation of betrayal vied for precedence. She felt her eyes fill with tears. She stood there for several moments, staring at him without a word, and then did what the sharp voice of her defiant, proud nature commanded. She roughly put everything she was holding into his hands—wrapping paper, ribbon, book, box and the item inside it—turned and quickly walked out of the parlour. She almost slammed the bedroom door behind her.

  She leaned against the inside of the door to prevent him from coming after her. How could he have done such a thing! After everything that had happened, the alarm clock was not only an insult but an injury. Two days earlier, while they were walking along the quay, why had she mentioned her ability to wake up whenever she wanted, without any outside help? She’d exposed herself to someone who was unworthy of it. He’d just laughed, almost as though mocking her. He’d said he didn’t believe her, that no one could do something like that. And then, as though this were not enough, he’d added in a playful voice that he might believe her if he had the chance to see for himself.

  She hadn’t immediately understood the full meaning of his words because she was unaccustomed to such allusions. When it finally dawned on her that seeing her ability for himself meant waking up in the same bed, she turned on her heel in anger and quickly walked away from him along the quay. How could he think something like that? Who did he think she was? Why, they weren’t even engaged yet! And even if they were, it would still be highly improper. He ran after her and when he reached her started to apologize, but she turned him a completely deaf ear. It was not until they were near her house that she spoke to him, her voice cold and official. She told him that he had greatly offended her and she never wanted to see him again. Never. She didn’t give him a chance to say anything in reply. She had turned her back on him once again and gone into the house.

  Her anger lasted all through the evening, but softened the next morning. That was also part of her nature. Remorse was the flip side of her defiance. By noon she had already shifted the blame to herself for being so hard on him. Maybe he hadn’t thought anything bad; it had just been a clumsy joke; probably he’d been unaware that such a joke might hurt her. In the evening the pangs of guilt from such serious questions were almost physically painful. What if he took literally what she’d said to him at their parting? How else could “never” be understood except as “never?” She could have gone looking for him and explained that “never” was not quite as final as it might appear, but that, of course, was out of the question. Her pride would not let her regret go quite that far.

  The next morning he’d come to the front door in the dress uniform he’d been wearing when she first set eyes on him four and a half months before and fell immediately in love. A flood of joy streamed through her. She could barely stop herself from falling into his arms right then and there, on the doorstep. Only a few minutes later, however, had come the terrible slap with the alarm clock. Leaning against the bedroom door, she did not even try to hold back her sobs. It made no difference to her that he would certainly hear her in the parlour. Nothing made any difference anymore. This time “never” would be absolute and irrevocable. The only thing she wanted was for him to leave. To disappear from her parlour. And her life.

  And he had left. The parlour and her life. First he’d put the opened presents he brought on the table. They belonged to her and she could do what she wanted with them. He certainly couldn’t take them where he would soon be heading. He hadn’t had the chance to tell her the main reason for his visit. He thought briefly about knocking on the bedroom door and giving her the order that had reached his house late last night. In less than three hours he would board a train that would take him straight to the front. But he hadn’t knocked. He already knew her quite well. She would never open the door for him. He turned slowly around the room as though wanting to fix it in his memory. Then he put his cap back on and went out.

  The oval bubble was waiting in readiness to clear his path through the mist that he didn’t see. Just as he didn’t see the tiny, stooped old woman that he almost brushed against. If he had been able to hear through the chasm of time that separated them, her sobs would seem s
trangely familiar to him. But he couldn’t hear. She, however, heard the sound of his departing footsteps long after the opaque grayness closed behind him. She stayed on the walk, her eyes turned towards the invisible street, until silence reigned around her once again. Then she walked the remaining bit of cobbled path to the front door of her house. The mist had once more enclosed her on all sides, but she no longer had to walk with her hand outstretched.

  She went straight to the bedroom. That was where she kept a chest full of mementos. There were faded photographs, yellowed letters, items greatly damaged by the ravages of time: a past significant to her alone. Among these old things was a wilted piece of paper. She took it and slowly started to read the four lines typed on it, although just like the book of poems, she had learned them by heart long ago. This text was not the least bit lyrical, although whoever had drawn it up had taken pains to give it a lofty ring. Telegrams sent by the army to families of the dead always sound somehow wrong.

  She had received it only three days after leaving him in the parlour and locking herself in this room. She was not related to him, but her name had nonetheless been on the list of those to be informed in case of his death. The officer who had brought the news added awkwardly that there had been no funeral. The general slaughter at the front offered little opportunity for that, and it was rare for very much of the deceased to be left to bury. After the war, of course, a great charnel house would be made for all the fallen heroes, and she would be invited to the consecration. She had never been invited, and she certainly wouldn’t have gone if she had. Her connection to it certainly was not the same as that of the others.

  She put the telegram back in place and closed the chest. She stood next to it for several minutes, not knowing what else to do. What time of day was it? The vast mist outside made it impossible to tell by looking out of the window. This reminded her of the clock in her bag. It, unfortunately, could not help her find out the time because it no longer worked. Too bad. She had no other clock in the house. She would have to buy a conventional one. She didn’t care very much about knowing the exact time, but one could not live without a clock, after all. She would keep it somewhere in the parlour or kitchen.