by Yoav Blum
Here was her first coincidence.
Here was that kiss, which she could never forget, though she always thought she should’ve remembered it more distinctly. It was a bit worn at the edges from repeated use in her dreams. Here was that time when rain had started to fall in the middle of the class The History of Coincidence Making in the Modern Era, and she couldn’t wait to go out and smell it.
And here too was that smell, placed under the taste of lemon-vanilla ice cream. And here were all of the cups of coffee she had ever drunk, in order, from the weakest and least meaningful to that one she mistakenly prepared with two spoonfuls of coffee, which kept her awake until four in the morning.
Here were the dreams she had dreamed. Folded, a bit moist, as if she hadn’t really woken up, arranged one on top of another, the worst ones at the bottom, swallowed in darkness in the depths of the suitcase, the wonderful and crazy ones sparkling mischievously on top.
Amazing—how did all this fit into such a small suitcase? The feeling of grass under her feet; the bitter taste of failure; her favorite shoes; the name of the waitress who always served her, Guy, and Eric at their café; her heartaches, prickly and flashing; her “almosts;” her successes; the small insights that came to her late at night just before falling asleep (and in the morning, she was sure she had already forgotten them); the twenty rules the General had insisted they learn by heart; Guy’s responsibly beautiful eyes when he was contemplative; the noise that neon lights make; the paralyzing fear that overcame her immediately after she signed the Waiver.
And here too was the letter. The letter she wrote to Guy a moment before she quit. The letter she had wanted to leave behind before she discovered that it was impossible. Here it was, in its entirety, not burned at all and still in the long, white envelope.
She took a few short breaths and then took the envelope in her hand and closed the suitcase with a click.
She hurried to the information booth. The small woman lifted the pen in the air, her gaze focused on the crossword puzzle in front of her. “You feel now?” she asked. “Five letters.”
“ ‘Ready,’ ” said Emily.
“Hmm . . . possibly,” said the woman. “I’ll check now whether this fits with fourteen-across.” She raised her eyes again. “Yes, how can I help you, dear?”
“Every coincidence maker who moves on—that is, to life—all of them pass through this place?” asked Emily, her voice quivering.
“Yes, yes, I think so,” said the woman. “It doesn’t happen much. There aren’t so many of you actually, and you aren’t very anxious to die, but in the end you pass through here.”
“Could you do me a favor?”
“What else am I here for?” A small smile.
“Could you give this to someone?” Emily passed her the envelope.
The woman took the envelope and examined it. Somehow, Emily knew the woman knew exactly what was inside.
“You found a way to get around the rules, huh?” the woman asked.
“Sort of,” Emily said. “I need you to give this to someone when he arrives here. He’s about this tall, and—”
“I know what you’re talking about,” said the woman. “That is, who you’re talking about.”
“Yes?”
“Of course. You’re talking about fourteen-across. ‘That young man.’ That fits in exactly with your ‘ready’ from before,” said the small, smiling woman. Emily felt the urge to skip, to run to the end of the platform and back.
From afar, the whistle of an approaching train could be heard.
“And that,” said the woman, her grin broadening, “is a sign that you’re really ready now.”
22
The lobby of the building was teeming with people. Guy sat on one of the small couches, off to the side, and watched the suits hurrying to cross the space between the entrance and the elevator and back.
He still couldn’t get himself to go outside and walk to the place where he was supposed to meet Pierre. A quick glance at the big clock hanging in front of him made it clear that he had to get up and move soon. He was so tired.
Yes, changing one’s form could be tiring, it turned out, but that was only part of it. His internal self warned him against actions that were contrary in essence to everything he was accustomed to.
Should he try to persuade Pierre? What was his case? What arguments would he make exactly? Based on which data would he present an alternative theory to him?
None of the executives hurrying through the lobby paid any attention to the melancholy young man sunk in the couch. And, in fact, why should they pay any attention to him?
If he approached the automatic doors at the entrance now, would they register him and open up, or was he so insignificant and spineless that even their sensors would realize that there was no one there to open for?
And perhaps he would simply stay on this couch until the sun went down and Pierre came to check what in the hell happened, why he had ruined the whole plan. It would apparently be the end of his career. Well, fine.
How full of energy he had been in his first mission. And even before, in the final exam of the course. Cutting his way through the jungle, walking quickly, eyes focused, his leg muscles screaming in pain, determined to find his client before moonrise. It was easy when you didn’t understand the repercussions.
It had been a lousy mission, and he still didn’t understand what exactly he’d accomplished, but at least he’d managed to somehow convince himself that it was important.
And now, when it really was important, he was unable to move. A failure.
He walked up to the emergency exit and pushed the door.
Guy hesitantly pushed the office door.
“Well, what part of ‘come in’ wasn’t clear?” he heard the General say, and he hurriedly pushed it wide open.
The General sat behind his wooden desk and raised his eyebrows in anticipation. In front of him on the desk was a large brown file, a densely typed piece of paper, and a small bobblehead dog moving its head up and down. Guy wondered whether the General always made a point of tapping its head before telling them to enter the office.
“Come in,” the General instructed him with his hand. “Sit.”
The office was spartan.
A square window always cast a square of light on the empty, smooth work desk, regardless of the hour of the day. In the corner was a large globe that also undoubtedly served as a storage place for liquor, and in the opposite corner was a coatrack on which nothing ever hung. To the right was a large bookcase with glass doors. It was empty except for one book with a yellowish-white cover, and a small flowerpot from which a single leaf sprouted. Guy always wondered whether it was real or plastic.
There were no family pictures. There was no computer, of course, and not even a calendar.
However, at the corner of the desk, far from the nodding dog, was one of those executive toys. Guy thought it was called Kinetic Balls. Five shiny silver balls, each hung by two strings, waiting for the bored boss to lift one of them in the air and start a regular pendulum motion from side to side.
Guy sat opposite the General and waited.
The General took a piece of paper in his hand and hummed to himself.
“So”—he turned to Guy—“how was it?”
“I . . . ,” said Guy, “that is, I think it was fine. Wasn’t it?”
“You tell me.”
“Yes, yes. It was fine.”
“What was fine?”
“The course.”
“The course?”
“You asked me about the course, no?”
The General leaned back and looked at him intently. “You know what I like about you?”
“Yes. That is, no,” said Guy.
“The excellent balance between your need to receive external approval and your ability to perform the minimal activity in order to attain it.”
“I think I don’t understand,” said Guy.
“Ah, you’re not supposed to
understand everything I say,” said the General. “At least not at the moment.”
“Umm, okay,” said Guy.
The General continued to observe him.
“My grades?” asked Guy.
The General didn’t reply. He seemed to be thinking about something. Guy waited. “Be careful,” Eric and Emily had told him before he entered. “He’s in a good mood today.”
“Yes, the grades.” The General shook himself from his reverie and glanced at the sheet of paper in front of him. “Awful in history, not bad in everything pertaining to the theory of human manipulation, excellent in technical analysis of coincidences, and so on and so forth. Don’t worry. Indeed, it’s ridiculous that you don’t know the key figures in the history of coincidence makers, but we didn’t bring you here so that you’d fail on the theoretical exam. We know how to select our people. I’m also quite certain that you’ll succeed on the practical exam. In fact, I’m quite sure that all three of you will.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” said Guy.
The General got up and started to walk around the room, his hands in his pockets.
“There are two types of particularly good coincidence makers,” he said. “They can be compared to two types of people. Those who lead their lives and those who let life lead them—passive and active people.”
“Excuse me?”
“The active coincidence maker can be brilliant but also dangerous. He understands that he has control over the world and he knows how to use it. He likes to view himself as a creator or an artist. Your friend Eric is active. Sometimes this is quite irritating. During the course, this little creep organized at least three dates for himself with the help of unauthorized coincidences, and he also would’ve won the lottery if I hadn’t forbidden him from carrying out the final steps in his plan. If he weren’t a genius, I would’ve kicked him out. But that’s the risk when you take on active coincidence makers.
“You, on the other hand, are so passive that it’s a pleasure to watch. You don’t see yourself as an artist, but rather as a clerk. You’re so accustomed to having life propel you from place to place that the concept of coincidences seems completely natural to you. You’re the dream of every operator. You receive an envelope and make a coincidence, receive an envelope and make a coincidence. How comfortable. But, on the other hand, it’s a bit sad to look at you closely.”
Guy wasn’t really listening. Emily had warned him that the General had a tendency to be caustic and tried to undermine your confidence in a sophisticated and exaggerated way before assigning your final mission of the course. “He gave me a lecture for a quarter of an hour about how good it is that I lack confidence and how this would enhance my tendency toward perfectionism,” she said anxiously. “Another two minutes and I would’ve simply gotten up and left. Or I would’ve kicked him in the knee, really hard.”
But now it was difficult to ignore the General.
He thrust his face straight in front of Guy’s.
“If you want to advance in this profession,” he told him, “if you want something that is a bit more than being a pizza delivery boy of events, you need to try to abstain from abstentions. Perhaps it’s not as easy as you’re accustomed to, but it’s more rewarding. Understood?”
“Understood,” said Guy, trying with all his might to stand his ground and not pull his head back.
In the end, the General handed him the file containing his final mission for the course and then approached the globe at the end of the room and intently studied the continents, as if he were discovering them for the first time.
Guy opened the file and leafed through it.
He looked up at the General. “It says here that I have to . . .”
“Yes.”
“But that’s actually . . .”
“Correct.”
“It’s only to make a butterfly flap its wings one time.”
The General laughed a short laugh. “That’s what happens when you don’t seriously engage in the study of history. Don’t belittle this mission. It’s not simple to make a butterfly flap its wings one time.”
“I understand that it might be a bit complex, but . . .”
“They’re stubborn little bastards, these butterflies. In the past, they didn’t realize their importance, but today they know exactly what they’re worth, and it’s very difficult to persuade them to move a wing if they don’t want to. Finding one is the easy part. Persuading it will be the difficult part. And we didn’t talk about the timing yet.”
“This is the course’s final mission? To travel to Brazil, roam around in the forest, find a butterfly, and persuade it to move its wings one time? It’s so . . . so . . . eighties.”
“Not wings. Wing. Read carefully.”
“But Eric was assigned to organize a meeting of three people who are going to establish a new town. Emily received a mission to make some guy from Prague invent a card game. . . .”
“And this is what you received. Internalize and execute. Not everything you do has to be dramatic, like landing on the moon. Small and ordinary actions are also important.”
“I think that—”
“It seems to me that we’re done here,” said the General.
He lifted one of the silver balls and let it fall in an arched movement. From the other side of the row, two balls jumped up.
“That’s not impossible?” asked Guy and pointed at the rebellious office toy.
“That’s the principle of everything we do here, you fool. Go and do a butterfly,” the General told him. “And I mean this in the cleanest sense of the word.”
Guy took the file and got up to leave, his eyes still bothered by the sight of the jumping balls. One on one end, and two at the other end.
“Sometimes it works this way,” the General told him.
“I understand,” said Guy.
“You don’t understand, but you will.”
23
“You look like you were run over by a bus.”
Guy looked at Pierre. “I’m not in such a great mood,” he said.
“I know that you’re not comfortable with this assignment, but sometimes we need to do things like this; you know that.”
“It’s not fair, and I’m not sure I can do it.”
They were at an old, isolated bus stop. Guy sat on one of the broken seats, his back hunched and his elbows resting on his knees, and Pierre stood opposite him, his arms crossed.
“Listen,” he said. “It’s really a cinch. I’m not going to sell you all the crap about the omelet and the eggs and the trees and the wood chips and all that.”
He moved a bit away from the bus stop and looked at the bend of the road on the horizon.
“The facts are simple. Michael—your beloved, apparently—needs to die so that the string of successful hits by Alberto Brown won’t be broken. This string of hits must be maintained so that Alberto Brown will win enough credit during the next four years to enable him to enter one of the largest Mafia families in the United States. This credit will make him such a legendary figure that five years later, he’ll be chosen as the head of the family and initiate a merger with three other large families, creating the largest crime cartel in the past two hundred fifty years. This merger will enable him to forge ties and enter into business with a number of small terror organizations. And then, a few years later, when everything is ripe, my last step will be to make him bust the cartel into smithereens and deliver a fatal blow to the terror cells associated with it, which will usher in at least thirty years of peace, in more than one place.”
He turned toward Guy. “To kill one man in order to spin a coincidence spanning nearly sixty years. And it’s not even something direct.”
“Pierre . . . ,” said Guy.
“Don’t you ‘Pierre’ me,” Pierre said quietly. “I have things to do. I have things to arrange. I’ve organized everything for you already. The driver is tired and worried and isn’t focused on anything. You’ll get on the bus. You’ll sit up fro
nt, next to him. You’ll wait like a good boy until you reach the appropriate spot, and then you’ll ask something at just the right time so that he’ll turn his head for a moment and hit our client.”
“He’s not our client.”
“From our perspective, this coincidence revolves around him, so technically—”
“He’s not our client!” Guy shouted.
Several seconds of silence stood between them.
“You shouted at me?” Pierre asked.
“If anything,” Guy said quietly, “he’s my client.”
“You shouted at me?”
“I was the one who had to make sure that he wouldn’t be lonely. I’m the one who played with him and convinced him that he could realize his dreams. I’m the one who protected him when he ran around. I’m the one who tried to explain to him that friends come and go, even though I myself wasn’t sure that I’d ever have friends. And I’m the one who has to kill him now.”
Pierre was quiet for a bit and then asked again, in a cold tone: “You, you little runt, you shouted at me?”
“There must be another way.” Guy lifted his head. “And I think you’re intentionally trying to avoid it.”
Pierre turned toward him.
“Listen to me now,” he said, his eyes red with anger, “and listen well. While you’re busy arranging for two wacky students to bump into each other in a hallway, I’m organizing the births of presidents. While you’re putting a stupid pop song into a radio program in order to create background music for cheap romance, I’m organizing the births of those who will assassinate the presidents whose births I previously worked to arrange.
“You’re nothing, you’re a nobody. You’re a lowly functionary with a tendency to run off at the mouth. You think you’re changing and organizing things in the world, but all you do is execute meaningless existential jokes. And while you’re doing all this, you yourself are wandering around without any objective beyond your next lousy envelope. You made someone decide to fly to Australia on a journey of self-discovery, so you think you’re able to see the complete picture? You’re not capable of drawing even the three and a half things that constitute your own life on your wall.
