She drew the back of her hand across her forehead. “He said he could not
have done otherwise because then the story would not be as good. If he had
offered his time gift earlier, the hero certainly would have had a better time of
it, but then the story would be weaker. The same holds for the other two.”
“Strange. I had no idea that the devil cared so much for literary effect.”
She stopped with her brush in midair, not finishing the stroke. “He’s no
devil, of course. If he were the devil, he wouldn’t care at all about what
happens to his heroes. And he is abandoning his time stories just so he doesn’t
transgress against them anymore.”
“Well, who is he, then, if he isn’t the devil?”
A dull roar finally broke the tranquility of the summer evening. The storm
was about to break. As if by some inaudible command, the crickets suddenly
fell silent.
“Wasn’t it clear from the very beginning? The one who tells stories. The
storyteller. The writer.”
“The writer?” he repeated obtusely.
“The writer, yes. The writer who accepts responsibility without which his
divine omnipotence becomes just unrestrained diabolic self-will.”
“Responsibility toward whom? The heroes of his stories? But they don’t
exist, they are not real people. There is no reason to burden your conscience
because of them.”
The thin, pleated curtain on the tall window suddenly billowed out like a
white sail. Leaves rustled sharply in the nearby treetops, and the edges of the
old newspapers under the easel started to flutter restlessly.
“Do you think so?” she asked briefly, turning her face toward the fresh air
entering from outside.
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He pinched the bridge of his nose firmly with his thumb and forefinger. The
pain from his temples had moved there, becoming more piercing, burning.
This conversation had to be terminated. They had reached a dead end, and it
was already quite late. They would continue the next day, when he was rested.
“So the writer is leaving us,” he said, getting up slowly from the end of the
bed. “There will be no more of his mysterious visits.” He headed for the door,
and then stopped, remembering something. “By the way, did he tell you how
he managed to enter your room and then leave it, in spite of the bars on the
window and the locked door? Did he perhaps transfer the omnipotence he has
in his stories to reality?”
As soon as he said this, he thought that the question had not been
formulated very skillfully. The fatigue and headache were clearly having an
effect. She might think he was making fun of her, which would not be at all
good for their relationship. It had taken him a long time to get her to leave the
cocoon of silence in which she had enclosed herself, to start telling him about
the pictures she painted.
“The storyteller cannot transfer his omnipotence to reality,” she replied.
There was no trace of rancor in her voice. On the contrary, it had a note of joy
in it, probably from the excitement of the approaching storm. That often
happened among the patients. It was as if they were permeated with the
electricity that filled the air. The nurses would have their hands full tonight.
“Then how?”
Outside, it started to rain. The drops were still scattered, but their heavy
drumming indicated that they were large, stormy.
“Don’t you get it?” she asked. “There is only one other possibility.”
He stared fixedly at her back, over which the thin nightgown was now
wrinkling like ripples on the surface of the water. “I don’t get it. What
possibility?”
“This is not reality. This is also one of his stories.”
He stood immobile in the middle of the room. He knew he should say
something, that it was expected of him, but he could by no means find the
proper words. He was confused not by what she said but by how she said
it. That flat voice again, as though it were stating the obvious.
“I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
He snapped out of his paralysis. “It’s not easy to believe. Would you believe
it if you were in my place?”
“Oh, I would, certainly. It’s not hard for me. I’m crazy, right? But you
aren’t. In addition, you are a man of doubt and not belief. You’ll still be
suspicious even after you see the proof.”
“Proof?”
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She laid the palette and brush under the easel again, wiped her hands on the
spotted flannel rag, and reached for something in her lap. A moment later she
turned to face him in the tall chair and raised her hand in the air. A yellow
gleam danced in the bright reflector beam.
“Where did you get that?” he asked, squinting at the pocket watch.
“From the writer, of course. It is his gift. There is a dedication engraved on
the back. Here, take a look.”
She held out her hand with the watch, but he did not take it right away. He
stared at the golden object on her palm, feeling the hairs bristle on the back of
his neck. Everything is really full of static electricity, he thought. As if in reply, everything in the room suddenly flashed a blinding blue. He knew what would
follow, but the violent explosion that resounded just a fraction of a second later
still made him start.
She did not even blink, as though completely deaf.
“It’s only thunder, don’t be afraid,” she said gently. “Go ahead and take the
watch.”
He did it hesitantly, timidly. It was heavier than he expected, convex on the
top and flat on the bottom. His fingers felt the engraving on the back, and he
turned it over in his hand. The inscription was tiny and curling, calligraphic.
Two names above the middle of the circle. Hers, his.
“So that is the name of the writer,” he said. It was something between a
statement and a question.
She did not reply. The silence that reigned was disturbed only by the
downpour from the low clouds. Periodic flashes of lightning illuminated
the curtain of water just outside the bars. The rain was falling straight down,
so the parquet before the window was completely dry. The air in the room was
saturated with humidity and some new, pungent smells.
He started to turn the watch in his hand, looking for the latch that would
open the lid.
“Are you sure you want to open it?” she asked quietly.
He found the latch but did not touch it. “Shouldn’t I?”
“No, if you’re not ready for a time gift.”
“What kind of time gift could I receive?”
“One with the power to alter your entire life.”
He smiled. “Is there something like that for me? There is no execution
awaiting me at dawn, neither am I plagued by doubt in my old age as to
whether everything I have done has been mistaken, and I don’t have the least
dark spot in my past that should be removed.”
“Oh, it exists for everyone. Even someone crazy like me. It is the final time
gift.”
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“Final?”
“That’s right. Tell me,
what is the only thing you know for certain about
your future?”
He thought for a moment, looking at her suspiciously. “That I will die, if
that is what you are thinking of.”
“Yes. But you don’t know when it will be, tomorrow or many years from
now, right? And it is this very ignorance that allows you to suppress the
awareness of your own mortality which would otherwise become an unbear-
able burden. Not knowing when you will die—that is life’s main stronghold.”
The third quiet move. He had the strange impression that an invisible net of
checkmate was woven around him and there was no escape. “And if I raised the
lid I would find out?”
“You would find out.”
The jets of rain were suddenly slanted by the wind. They started to soak the
curtains and drapes and made puddles on the floor under the window,
reaching all the way to the newspaper under the easel.
He glanced in that direction and then turned toward her again.
“How do you know?”
“Because I opened the watch.”
“And you found out when you will die?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head slowly. “There’s something amiss there. Didn’t you say
that your...writer...stopped giving time gifts after the bad experiences he had
with them in the first three stories? That he had accepted the responsibility that
goes along with omnipotence, that his conscience did not allow him to inflict
harm on his protagonists? If this is his story, too, as you claim, then he has
behaved very badly toward you: you have received the cruelest of all time gifts.”
“I received it because I asked for it myself. He fought against giving it to me
for a long time.”
“But why did you ask for it? Didn’t you just say there is no sense in finding
out when you will die?”
“My case is special. If he had already imagined me crazy, then I had the right
to know how much longer I will have to be like that. It was the least he could
do for me, although he did not find it easy.”
“What about me?” he asked, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. “I can
raise the lid, too. What would be his justification for me if I, too, am a
character in his story?”
“You can, yes, but even so you won’t do it.”
“Why not? What’s stopping me?”
“The writer’s omnipotence, of course. He won’t let you do it.”
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Z. Živkovic
A smile spread over her face. His thumb started slowly toward the latch of
the pocket watch, but the movement was not completed. The knock that
suddenly resounded was short, sharp. The tall nurse did not wait to be given
permission to enter. She stopped by the door and said quickly, “Ah, you’re still
here, Doctor. They need you urgently in room forty-three.”
He stood there without moving, holding the watch in his open palm. A gust
of wind filled the wet curtains again and lifted the newspaper all the way to the
easel legs.
“Why, everything is open here,” muttered the nurse, rushing toward the
window. “Magdalena, you’ll catch cold; put something around your
shoulders.”
Continuing to smile, the artist slowly took the watch from the
doctor’s hand.
“Hurry, they’re waiting for you,” she said gently. “We’ll see each other
tomorrow. There is plenty of time. The story ends here for you, but we will
talk about it for some time to come.”
II
The nocturnal storm had long since passed, leaving behind dense humidity full
of the smell of decay that would float over the wet soil until the sun rose in a
short while. Flattened blades of grass started to straighten up slowly, throwing
off the remaining drops of water, but here and there occasional dripping from
the leaves bent them to the ground again.
The wind had stopped altogether, so that the deep silence just before dawn
was disturbed only by short birdcalls. They sounded inquisitive and fearful,
like the calls of lost shipwreck victims on the high seas. The spectral echo of
these cries remained in the motionless air long after the original sound had
died out.
In the vague light of dawn that filled the large window, the white bars no
longer stood out against the curtain of darkness. The milky morning light also
dulled the sharpness of the reflector beam illuminating the canvas, making it
milder, paler. The contours of the few objects in the room seemed to lose their
solidity in this new light.
She was still sitting in the tall chair in front of the easel, staring at the canvas before her. She had put a terry cloth bathrobe the color of a ripe lemon over
her nightgown, which made her look even smaller because it was too big: the
hem reached almost to the floor, hiding the rungs and her bare feet, and the
sleeves hid her hands completely. The cuffs were stained with paint and
seemed to merge with the palette and the brush held by her invisible fingers.
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The enormous face of the pocket watch covered the entire canvas, almost
reaching the edge at four points. The corner sections outside this surface were
mere dark voids that would certainly have been left out if the frame had been
circular. Although the thickness of the large watch could have been neglected
as well, since it was not part of the area encompassed by the circle, it was still
indicated: a barely noticeable reflection of light from some unseen source
conjured the gentle curve on the edge.
Compared to the surrounding dark tones, the bright central whiteness
almost burned the eyes with its cold glow, sharply emphasizing each detail
on it. The twelve numerals were long and thin but not regular. They looked
unstable, as though a restless flow of water were passing over them, making
them bend and twist. The rippling was more distinct in some places, bending
parts of the numbers into senseless shapes or pushing them all the way over the
edge of the face.
The four hands were of the same length. The pointed ends reached the
perimeter, widening toward the center just like narrow, elongated fern leaves,
with a small slit in the middle. The leaves ended in thin stems that met in one
point, as though sprouting from the same bud. The opposite hands formed
two segments at right angles to each other. The vertical pair linked the
numbers twelve and six, the horizontal nine and three.
A semitransparent body was resting on these crossed hands, following their
shape. Its arms were stretched over the horizontal hands, tightly attached to
them. On the palms of each white glove bloomed a large red stain although
there were no nails. The fingers were clenched like claws but did not reach the
red blossom.
Red spots spread also on the dark leather shoes, but they looked less
conspicuous there. The pain inflicted by the unseen nails was manifested in
the unnatural angle of the legs, whose pierced feet were trying in vain to
lighten the load of a body without support.
The long cloak was covered at the bottom by a layer of dried mud, depicting
clashing brown smudges on the black background. Th
e edges of the cloak were
worn and shabby, the hem unsewn in places. The lining was a fiery color and
was torn in one place as though it had gotten caught on a thorn bush.
In front of the torso was a dark cane with the top downwards. It floated
vertically without any support, casting a slight shadow over the surrounding
whiteness. The ivory hourglass at its end was cracked in the middle. It seemed
as though all the golden sand had poured out of this crack, leaving just an
empty shell that could no longer measure anything.
The tall hat was covered by a film of fine dust, subduing the black silky
shine. The shape of the derby was ruined by several uneven dents. The wide
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Z. Živkovic
brim no longer concealed the face because the light came from below, yet it
still could not be seen. The emptiness of virgin canvas gaped in the place where
it should have been.
She knew she had to finish the painting, that the time of the last story was
running out. The missing face was there before her eyes, perfectly clear in its
repentant agony, but the fingers in the sleeve refused to lift the brush.
She had imagined the scene quite differently. She had wanted to paint him
doing what he always did during his earlier visits. He would appear soundlessly
at the bathroom door, but she would sense his arrival even though she was
sitting at the easel with her back turned. He would take the hairbrush with the
broad handle of lacquered walnut from the shelf under the mirror in the
bathroom. It had stiff sharp bristles, which was what her tangled hair required.
He would brush her hair patiently and at length, just as long as it took to tell
a story. When he reached the end, her hair would be loose and smooth, and
the disorderly curls would be turned into a graceful row of waves. After the
very first brushing, she no longer allowed anyone else to brush her hair and did
not do it herself, either. She would wash it regularly but would leave it
uncombed between stories. The nurses did not try too hard to dissuade her,
seeing in her stubborn insistence just one of the caprices of their special
patients.
It would be a nice painting, perhaps the prettiest of all four. But this still
could not be a love story. Or not just that. It came at the end, after the others,
linking them into a whole, so that it had to talk about redemption much more
than about love. She had realized that necessity but could not understand why
Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 22
