The Coincidence Makers

by Yoav Blum

  But usually they would play with the soldiers, or Michael would tell John things about the world, or he would play with the soldiers by himself and John would sit there and help him feel that he wasn’t alone.

  Later, when the weather allowed it, they would go out to the park, and Michael would run around and engage in a meticulous examination of the wildlife hiding in the park. Occasionally he would call John and show him a new discovery. John would nod his head with a smile and sometimes come to take a look, but usually he sat on the bench, looking at Michael and guarding him from afar. He had to because he had a beautiful suit, and he couldn’t get it dirty in the park.

  Every once in a while, he would say things like: “You don’t always have to decide. You can simply feel, flow with what is happening, and the decision will emerge on its own. Living is something you do now, not later.” The meaning of this wasn’t so clear, to say the least. Michael felt a bit more comfortable with other sentences, like: “Most of the big things in the world didn’t happen because someone was particularly wise, brave, or talented, but because there was someone who didn’t give up.”

  And there was that weird time when they couldn’t go outside to play because Michael’s mother didn’t allow it for some reason. He played with the soldiers by himself and Medium John stood and looked out the window. At a certain point, Michael raised his eyes and tried to understand what in heaven’s name Medium John was doing by the window. He stood there almost motionless, and Michael felt compelled to ask: “Is everything okay?”

  Medium John replied: “Someday, in the future, someone will tell you all sorts of stories about what love is. Don’t believe what they tell you. Love is not a boom; it’s not explosions and effects. It’s not fireworks in the sky or a plane flying by with a large banner. It slowly pours under your skin, quietly, without you even noticing, like anointing oil. You just feel a type of warmth, and one day you wake up and discover that under your skin you are wrapped with someone else.”

  “Does that mean that everything is okay or not?” Michael asked.

  So, yes. That’s how he was, Medium John. But usually he said things that were clearer. And then, he was the responsible adult who disappeared after the first goal that Michael scored in his life.

  And now Medium John, still in a suit that no longer looked as impressive as it had all those years ago, sat on the table with his legs crossed and smiled at him with the same tell-all-tell-nothing grin.

  Michael turned back toward the window and convinced himself this wasn’t happening.

  “I’m here for a reason, you know,” Medium John said. “Apparently you need me again.”

  I don’t intend to answer him, Michael thought. Was this what a nervous breakdown looked like? People you imagined at age eight or nine come back to you when you’re grown up? Was it time to start taking pills?

  “You’re not crazy,” John said. “You simply need someone to talk with. That’s the way it always was when you called for me.”

  “I don’t need to talk with you,” said Michael.

  “Oh, you answered—that’s progress,” John said. He got up from the desk and stood next to Michael, looking out at the scenery with him. “So, what’s happening, Michael? We’ve advanced in life, I see.”

  “Nothing’s happening.”

  “You look very troubled.”

  “I’m talking with an imaginary friend from my childhood, someone with a marine haircut and a second-rate suit. That’s not natural.”

  “It’s completely natural,” said John. “People do this all the time.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Okay, maybe not specifically with me, but people conduct little conversations with themselves all the time. You’d be surprised how much. Sometimes only in their minds, sometimes out loud. This occurs among people of all ages. People who need help often turn to themselves.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Michael didn’t respond. In the street below, the traffic pattern of the small vehicles repeated itself.

  “You’re not angry,” said John. “You’re not desperate, you’re not even really alone. You’re longing—that’s what you are.”

  He stopped and waited for his words to sink in.

  “You long for the woman you once knew, and who’s no longer there when you come home. On the one hand, you’re afraid that she’s gone forever, and on the other hand, you’re not capable of moving on and leaving her behind because something in you still hopes she’ll return.”

  “You’re talking nonsense,” said Michael.

  “But”—John ignored him and continued—“each time, you try bringing her back in one fell swoop. You think that you need to restore the old love, the old understanding, your old Mika. It doesn’t work that way. It will be a new Mika. Wonderful and loved, but new, with additional layers. A new love is never created all at once. This you already know. It happens slowly, step by step, one drop after another.”

  “I’m no longer at the age when I can start things from scratch.”

  “Of course you are. You must. You’ll rebuild something familiar. You need lots of patience and you need to calm down.”

  “I’m tired. It’s too late for us, John.”

  “No, definitely not.”

  “Yes it is, dammit.”

  They stood there a few more seconds, silent, and John said: “Love, I think, is an emotion that’s very difficult to quantify. Very difficult to measure. We feel it so rarely and we’re so totally swept into it that we are never really capable of defining for ourselves how much we want and need and love something. And that’s okay—there are things in the world that aren’t supposed to be measured. Longing, on the other hand, is a much clearer emotion. According to the quantity of longing, we can know how much we miss the person who has vanished from us. You’re lucky, Michael. You’re experiencing longing when you still have a chance to restore the love. Most people begin longing only when it’s too late. And you, you can look from the depths of the pit you’re in now and understand how high you can reach if only you give yourself a chance. As long as she’s not dead, Michael, you can rediscover how to love her and to be loved by her. ‘Too late’ is an expression pertaining to events of a different type.

  “For most people, longing is only proof—proof that comes too late—that they truly loved. You can mobilize this. It’s definitely not too late for you, Michael.”

  When Michael turned around to look at him, Medium John was gone.

  18

  Alberto Brown decided to kill his target after the movie.

  It was a comic action film, the type Alberto liked. He had already seen it twice. Just unrealistic enough to still be enjoyable. He had approximately three hours before his man would emerge from the building. He would then turn left and walk exactly twenty-five yards until he reached the entrance to the parking lot. Alberto would have twenty-five yards in which to kill him. He wondered how it would happen.

  There were no renovations under way at the building, as far as he could tell. Therefore, the idea of a hammer falling from the twentieth floor didn’t seem likely. Another scenario he dismissed was a car losing control and careening onto the sidewalk. Along the entire length of the twenty-five yards, there were posts to prevent such accidents. His target also appeared to be quite fit, so a sudden heart attack didn’t seem logical. Perhaps a mugging that went awry?

  He had a small yellow notepad in which he documented all of the ways in which his targets had disappeared from the world. Strange accidents, sudden attacks—he had seen it all, it seemed. He tried to find some sort of pattern. It couldn’t be that all of this was happening to him just by chance. On the other hand, it could be that he was a guy with luck, or perhaps the exact opposite. Maybe both.

  Okay, he’d soon find out how this was going to happen. Very soon. The movie was starting. If he went to his position above the street immediately after it ended, he’d arrive there an hour before the hit itself
. This time frame appeared reasonable.

  He purchased a ticket.

  Medium John stood in the bathroom at the end of the floor and looked at himself in the mirror. Slowly the reflection changed from the long, tough face of someone whom only one person in the world could see, to the softer face of an ordinary coincidence maker.

  The eyes of this coincidence maker were moist. A few superfluous blinks and there would be a real risk of a tear.

  Had he bought it? Did anyone buy everything his imaginary friend told him, just because it was him?

  Back then, Cassandra claimed it was so. Faith and love go together—that was her standard line on this subject.

  She closed her eyes and asked, “Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She stood with her back to him, but when she said, “Are you sure?” he could still hear that she was smiling.

  “Yes,” he answered again. “I don’t understand how you do it. I don’t think I can. Not even with you.”

  “Faith and love go together,” she said. “ ‘Love me’ and ‘have faith in me’ join forces, walking hand in hand, throughout the course of history.”

  He stretched his arms out in front of him, a bit nervous.

  “It’s an interesting sensation,” she said, “the moment before. I’ve never been in a situation of trusting someone.”

  “Just fall back already,” he said. “I’ll catch you.”

  “I’ve never had a reason to trust someone. They were the ones who trusted me. They needed me; I didn’t need them. And suddenly I now understand that there’s someone I need to trust, who won’t hurt me.”

  “Um,” he said, “I think you’re taking this in the wrong direction. We’re talking about trust here, not about hurting. I would never hurt you. Positive thoughts, okay?”

  “Yes, yes, I know. But this is actually what gives trust its power, no? That you could hurt me?”

  “Yes . . . yes . . . perhaps.”

  She laughed. “It’s simply wonderful.”

  “Wonderful?”

  “It’s no wonder that people do this exercise. You can’t be connected to someone who can’t hurt you. That’s the beauty. Never in my life have I allowed anyone to be in this position. It makes me feel . . . really . . .”

  “Really what?”

  “Human,” she said, spreading her arms and falling backward.

  He rinsed his face, letting the coolness of the water bring him back to reality, like after sleeping. The mirror in front of him reflected someone who was confused, small drops dripping from his chin.

  He tried to explain to himself what he was feeling. It was like trying to catch a frightened fish with slippery hands.

  Perhaps one feels this way after unfaithfulness.

  Unfaithfulness toward someone who relied on you to be there in his difficult moments and say something to pick him up. While, in fact, you’ve just wrapped your despicable intentions in pretty sentences. Someone who always thought you were standing by his side, and perhaps you had been, but now you’re using all of the blind trust you received as an Archimedes fulcrum to leverage the world in the direction you want. And he’ll never know.

  For a split second, it seemed to Guy that he also detected a sense of relief.

  Relief that it wasn’t worse. Relief that he was able to perform this loathsome mission without saying something that he didn’t believe in, like “the power of change.” Because he truly believed in longing as a measure of love. He believed that it wasn’t too late for using giving as therapy. Not that it made any difference. This child, that is, the one who was once a child, would no longer be alive at the end of the day and would be unable to make use of all these things. But he hadn’t lied entirely. He wasn’t completely unfaithful. He was able to be a friend, this last time.

  And maybe, deep inside, there was also a bit of happiness in him.

  Because he was able to give something of himself to someone. Really from himself.

  He had been engaged in service for so long. To echo the thoughts of those imagining him, without expressing his real opinions. To make coincidences without taking a stand on what he believed was right or wrong.

  And here, he’d been able to stand next to someone, and really—unbelievably—assist him, with the help of ideas that were completely his, perceptions that he had formulated on his own, thoughts that the other person had never thought.

  He looked at the figure in the mirror and for the first time didn’t feel like he was staring at someone else’s reflection.

  If only it were so easy to give advice to himself.

  He didn’t have to be a compliant reflection.

  Not for anyone. Not for Pierre, either.

  He accepted too many things as self-evident, as meaningless decrees. He would just have to go to Pierre and persuade him that Michael didn’t have to die today.

  Something new throbbed within him. Perhaps it was responsibility. Perhaps that was the thing that had been lacking during this long period of time.

  And he felt alive—like he did with Cassandra.

  19

  “To fly,” she said.

  “That’s all?” he asked her. “Just to fly?”

  “For a start,” Cassandra said and shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “Perhaps after a little more time, I’ll figure out what else I want.”

  “Really? If you could imagine yourself, if you could create yourself however you wish, you’d only choose ‘to fly’?”

  “Create myself however I wish?” Cassandra laughed. “It was enough for me to create myself. Do you know how many characters I’ve played in this job? And all of them were beautiful and amazing, believe me. No one imagines me ugly or stupid. Natalie, for example, does excellent work with me. I love this hair. But it’s the hair she imagines for me, not my hair. Of course, it’s fun for me to be noble and self-confident, like she wants me to be. But now I have you, and I mainly want to be myself. So yes, if I could imagine myself, it’s exactly what I would do. I would imagine myself, not someone else. But I’d still like to fly. To fly up high to a place where I could flee all of those who judge me, to move with the wind.”

  “Okay, I admit,” he said, “that could be quite nice.”

  “And you?” she asked. “What would you imagine if you could imagine yourself?”

  “Hmm,” he said. “I don’t think I have something specific that I really want to imagine, to tell you the truth.”

  “A minute ago, you made fun of me for . . .”

  “I know, I know. It’s just . . .”

  “And you’re always talking about how you’re fed up with doing things that others imagine you doing, and that you want to do things by yourself and for yourself.”

  “Right.” He scratched his head in embarrassment.

  “So what do you want to do?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. . . .”

  Suddenly, he looked around and was uneasy.

  “Where’s Michael?” he asked.

  “What?” said Cassandra.

  “Michael, where’s Michael?” He got up and looked around anxiously.

  “He left,” Cassandra quietly told him.

  “No, no,” he said. “It can’t be. He has to be around here. The fact is, I’m still here.”

  “No.” Cassandra avoided looking into his eyes. “I saw him. He took his soldiers and went home.”

  “So he must be looking at me from the window, or something like that.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Medium John looked up toward the building. The window of Michael’s room was closed.

  “He’s sitting at home and imagining me here?” he wondered out loud.

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “So how is it that I’m still here? If he isn’t imagining me, how is it that I’m still here?”

  Cassandra hugged herself and looked to the side.

  “It could be . . . that is . . . apparently, I’m imagining you here.”


  He turned toward her, surprised.

  “You?”

  “Yes.”

  “I didn’t know it was possible. . . .”

  “Neither did I. . . .” Cassandra said. “But I saw him leaving, and I didn’t want you to disappear on me. So I imagined you continuing to sit here next to me.” He struggled to find words, and Cassandra interpreted his silence as anger. “I didn’t make you do anything!” she pleaded with him. “Nothing. I only imagined a presence, not behavior. Everything was you. Really. Really.”

  He moved back toward the bench and sat next to her.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

  They sat for a few moments without words.

  “It’s okay, right?” Cassandra asked anxiously.

  “It’s the most okay thing in the world,” he said.

  The sun had started its slow descent in the sky.

  A lone dog passed in front of them, engaged in the calm pursuit of a wisp of unfamiliar scent.

  “I didn’t know we could imagine each other,” he said.

  “Actually, why shouldn’t we be able to?” she asked.

  She played a bit with the lace on her collar, and it seemed she was trying to decide whether to say something.

  “What?” he asked.

  Cassandra bent over toward Natalie, the girl imagining her, who was busy playing next to them the whole time. “Natalie? Sweetie?” Natalie lifted her head.

  “It’s starting to get late,” said Cassandra. “I think you should head home.”