Impossible Stories

by Zoran Zivkovic

  “I hear you, my son,” he said, after clearing his throat. He wondered if he knew the man. Only a few still confessed more or less regularly, and he could easily recognize each of them by voice.

  “Did I come at an inconvenient time?” It was the deep, velvety voice of a man somewhere in his middle years. He had never heard it before.

  “No time is inconvenient to visit the church. God’s ear is constantly receptive to those who would speak to Him. When was the last time you confessed, my son?”

  The answer from the other side of the window was not immediate, as though the visitor was intently searching through his memory. “A very long time ago,” he said at last.

  “That is not good,” replied the priest with mild reproach in his voice. “The soul must not endure the weight of accumulated sins for very long. Confession brings release and forgiveness.”

  “There can be no forgiveness for my sins,” said the visitor in an even, casual voice, as though stating a truism.

  “Certainly there is. God has infinite mercy. There is no sin that will not be forgiven if one is sincerely penitent.”

  “Yes, there is. My sins will certainly never be forgiven. But it makes no difference. I’m not at all sorry for them.”

  “Do not speak like that, my son. Everyone cares whether their sins will be forgiven. Do you want your soul to end up in Hell?”

  “Why not? It’s not as bad as people think.”

  The priest turned his eyes towards the bulky figure in the neighbouring compartment, even though he could still see nothing distinct through the dense wickerwork.

  “It’s not bad in Hell?” he repeated slowly, emphasizing each word. “It’s terrible even to think something like that, let alone say it. Are you at all aware of what you have just said, my son?”

  “Perfectly aware. I know from my own experience. I just came from there.”

  “Where did you come from?” the priest asked softly, after a short pause.

  “From Hell.”

  The priest shook his head. Here was yet another deplorable offspring of the secular age. He had already met others like him in this place. It was not enough for them to be non-believers; they came to the church specifically to blaspheme. But he knew how to handle them. It was for just such lost souls that he should fight the hardest. That the man had come here at all showed that all was not completely hopeless.

  “No man has ever returned from Hell,” he said didactically, like a teacher pointing out a simple, obvious truth to a backward child. “The Tempter would never allow it.”

  “He wouldn’t, I agree. But that doesn’t apply to me.”

  “Oh? Why not, if you please?”

  “Because I am not a man.”

  The shroud of afternoon silence suddenly settled on the confessional. So this is what it’s all about, the priest thought gloomily. Before him was not just an ordinary, contumacious non-believer, but one of those poor wretches whose clumsy wrestling with matters of faith had upset their minds. He hadn’t met one of that kind in a long time, and they usually identified with the Savior. As far as he could remember, this soi-disant Devil was a personal first for him. So he had to proceed carefully, without ill-mannered contradictions, yet with firmness. In the end he might succeed in bringing the man to his senses, though it was certainly not going to be easy.

  “So, that’s it,” he replied with studied calm, as if this were an everyday encounter. “You are the Tempter himself, if I understand correctly. He is the only one who is allowed to leave Hell.”

  The head on the other side of the wickerwork gave a brief nod. “You understand correctly.”

  The priest brushed the tips of his fingers across his wrinkled brow and sighed. “Very nice, but there is one problem. The Tempter would never dare cross the threshold of God’s house.”

  “You think not? That is only one of the many prejudices against me. It is here that I have always felt most comfortable.”

  “Strange. How is it, then, that no one has ever seen you? It would be hard for your manifestation to pass unnoticed.”

  “Manifestation? Oh, the tail, horns, hooves, goat’s head and all the rest? That is all pure nonsense, of course. No one notices me because I look quite ordinary, unassuming. Like you, for example.”

  The priest squinted to sharpen his vision a little, but the figure on the other side of the window still presented only a vague, incomplete outline.

  “If you look quite ordinary, how can you convince people that you are who you make yourself out to be? Couldn’t just anyone appear and claim to be the Tempter?”

  “They could, yes. That even happens from time to time. But it doesn’t work for long. Sooner or later they have to offer proof to support their claim.”

  “And you can offer that proof?”

  “Of course.”

  “That might be, for example, an infernal fire that suddenly breaks out in the middle of the church, with all manner of freaks and monsters streaming out of it? Or maybe the stone floor would split asunder, revealing a chasm that leads straight to your red-hot throne?”

  The visitor did not reply at once, and the priest thought he might have gone too far. If he wanted to help the poor man, he shouldn’t appear to be making fun of him.

  “It would not be anything so unrefined, so primitive, of course,” the deep voice retorted from the neighbouring compartment. “There is no need for that. Such ideas about me serve only to arouse needless fears in the ignorant. There is much more subtle and convincing proof.”

  “Would you perhaps show me some?”

  “With pleasure.”

  From somewhere on the opposite side of the church, near the entrance, came the soft tapping of footsteps. The priest’s trained ear told him it must be a woman, probably young, heading towards one of the last rows of benches. She sat down and immediately started to pray.

  When everything fell silent once again, the visitor continued, “Let me ask you the same question you asked me at the beginning. When was the last time you confessed?”

  “Me? I confess every day. If I didn’t, how could I have the right to hear the confessions of others?”

  “You confess to yourself, I assume, since you are the only priest in this parish?”

  “That’s right. My conscience is my best confessor. I can’t hide anything from it.”

  “Your conscience, yes. But there are two pitfalls with regard to your conscience. First of all, it can be very lenient, very indulgent.

  It doesn’t bother you too much that, for example, you sleep in the confessional.”

  I must have been snoring, the priest thought. There’s no other way he could have found that out. He came in and heard me snoring. I’ll have to do something about that.

  “Falling asleep in the confessional once is only an ordinary human weakness, and no heinous sin. I feel remorse, or course.”

  “Just once?”

  The priest grimaced. Somehow, he had lost control of the conversation. Usually he was the one to ask such questions here.

  “All right, it might have happened a few other times. But I do not claim to be a perfect saint.”

  “Although you might be able to make that claim, considering the second problem with your conscience.”

  “Second problem?”

  “Yes. Your conscience can be rather forgetful. If something doesn’t please it very much, if it has a hard time finding justification for something, it has a tendency to discard it, to pretend it never happened. A real confessor should never act like that, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” the priest admitted after a short hesitation.

  “It might be clearer to you if I explain it by means of an example. What would your conscience do if you were oppressed by feelings of guilt for the loss of two lives? Would it constantly remind you of that, make your life unbearable, or would it prefer to push the whole thing under the rug?”

  The priest felt something tighten in his throat. Who was t
his man? Why had he come here? What did he want from him?

  “I don’t know. I can’t even imagine that. I am not haunted by feelings of guilt for the loss of two lives.”

  “That is obvious. Although you should be. A conscience that is inclined to forget can still grant you forgiveness, but that doesn’t count for very much, I’m afraid. There is another, much more important forgiveness, and nothing is forgotten there. It remembers

  everything and takes everything into consideration. Every tiny little thing.”

  “What are you talking about, my son?”

  “I think you know perfectly well what I’m talking about. Your conscience does not really forget, it merely represses things. But that works only until someone reminds you of what you have repressed. As I am doing right now.”

  “Reminding me of what?” Though the priest tried to keep his voice firm, it began to quiver.

  “Of the girl who drowned after jumping off the bridge. Five months pregnant. After finding out that the father of her child, a young priest she had fallen in love with, would not keep his promise. That he would not renounce his vows for her.”

  The sound of footfalls came once again from the entrance to the church. The young woman had finished her short prayer and was now leaving. She walked with quick steps, hurrying somewhere.

  The priest could find no words for a while, staring fixedly at the thick, dark pleats of the curtain in front of him. At first he wanted to protest, to deny this terrible accusation, to challenge the identity of the large figure in the neighbouring compartment. But he did not. There would be no sense in that. The memory, suddenly freed from the deepest, darkest corner of his mind, washed over him as violently as the icy water into which the girl had plunged so long ago. Not only had he turned his back on her, he had been unable to attend the funeral. The church does not give shelter to suicides. They are not even given a place in the cemetery. He never found out where she was buried.

  No one ever suspected that he was to blame for the girl’s demise. They had taken great pains to keep their relationship secret, and she had left no letter of farewell in which she might have accused him, thus making his infidelity all the worse. He remained blameless in the world of men, but certainly not before his own self. After great torment, he had finally repressed the memory, yet he knew quite well it was only temporary, that a true settlement of accounts awaited. Now the time had come. The Tempter had come to claim his due. The priest had no right to expect mercy for what he had done. He did not actually even want mercy. There was only one place for his soul.

  “So Hell isn’t as bad as people think?” he said at last, in a barely audible voice.

  “It isn’t. But you won’t have the chance to find out for yourself.”

  “What do you mean?” He was just about to add the usual “my son”, but stopped himself at the last moment.

  “Your soul will go to Heaven.”

  The priest raised bewildered eyes towards the window, even though by now he knew he would never see his interlocutor any better.

  “How could such a terribly sinful soul as mine go to Heaven? That certainly cannot and must not happen!”

  “But it will nonetheless. I will make sure of it.”

  “Why? I don’t understand . . . ”

  “What benefit would I get from your soul? Almost none. Hell is already packed with sinners like you. You might even say we’re overcrowded. Whenever I take a new lost soul, I’m only doing God a favour. I relieve Him of what He doesn’t like. I take a bad creation out of His sight, so He can maintain the illusion that everything He’s done is flawless. Why should I do that? Why should I play into His hands? We are opponents, not allies, right? I should do everything I can to injure Him, to remind Him constantly that the world He has created is imperfect. And what better reminder than to surround Him with the worst of sinners?”

  “But He will never allow that.”

  “He will. He will have no choice.”

  “God will have no choice?”

  “Yes. He’s not quite as almighty as people think. For example, He could never exile from Heaven a soul that knows nothing of its sins, regardless of how great they are. Sending such a pure soul to Hell would be infinitely unjust. And God is proud of His justice, right?”

  “I am perfectly aware of my sin.”

  “Yes, but not for much longer. That is why I came here.”

  “Why?”

  “To remove your memory of the sin you committed.”

  “I don’t want to forget it.”

  “What was the repression you resorted to until now? Another form of oblivion, correct? But incomplete. Now I will give you perfect, complete oblivion. You will no longer remember anything that might burden you. Everything will be permanently erased. No one will be able to convince you that you have committed any sin whatsoever. When you stand before God, your soul will be the incarnation of purity. You haven’t actually the slightest reason to complain. The gates of Heaven will be open to you. What else did you dare hope for that could be any sweeter? Although, to tell you the truth, I don’t envy you much.”

  The priest quickly rose from his seat in the narrow compartment. He suddenly felt enclosed in an upright coffin.

  “You must not do that! I must go to Hell! That would be terribly unjust . . . ”

  “Probably. But I am sure you understand that such considerations carry no weight with me.”

  The priest reached for the curtain. He did not know what he wanted to do. It was an instinctive move, a feverish attempt to find refuge, to escape somehow from the trap into which he had fallen. But his hand never touched the velvet. It sagged next to his body, which collapsed back onto the chair. The drowsiness that suddenly engulfed him was not his usual afternoon slump, rather something very deep, something he had never felt before. It had to take over at once, he didn’t even have the strength to open his book, let alone read a few lines. His eyes closed by themselves and his head drooped on his chest.

  If he had any dreams, he could not remember them when he woke up. He remained sitting there a few moments, gathering his wits, and then pushed aside the curtain and left the confessional. There was no one in the church. He always felt refreshed after this short rest, but what now filled him was not just renewed vigour. The thought crossed his mind that this was the spiritual state in which it would be most suitable to stand before God: tranquil, at peace with the world, with an unblemished conscience. Like the righteous. He turned slowly toward the aisle between the rows of benches to greet the light pouring from the entrance.

  10. The Atelier

  When the front doorbell rang, the silence in my atelier seemed to implode, like a balloon that has suddenly lost all its air.

  I turned away from the computer screen where I had been sitting for a long time, and looked at the door in bewilderment. Before I start to write, I always turn off both the telephone and the intercom. It is impossible to reach me then. If someone calls me on the phone, they will think I’m away from home, or don’t want to answer, and if someone rings at the entrance to the building downstairs, I won’t hear it at all and will thus be unable to let them in. But someone had obviously entered, someone whom I hadn’t let in, and who was now standing in front of my door.

  I got up irritably and headed for the front door of the atelier. I can’t stand being interrupted while working. No one has the right to disturb me, particularly now that my time is running out. I couldn’t imagine who it might be. It certainly could not be someone from the building dropping by for a visit, because I had not cultivated even the most attenuated friendship with any of my neighbours. The most I do is to exchange polite remarks on the rare occasions I meet someone in the hall or elevator. I don’t even know the names of the people who live on my floor.

  Maybe it was a door-to-door salesman who had somehow entered the building and was now peddling from apartment to apartment something I certainly didn’t need. I should have stayed at my desk, without giving myself away. Even the mos
t persistent intruder would give up after a while, concluding that there was no one home. But since I had already gone to the door, I put my eye to the peephole and peered out. I realized just then that I had never done this before, simply because there had been no need to check out any visitor. I always knew who was ringing the bell.

  In front of the door to my atelier stood a distinctly elderly gentleman. He was short and thin, wearing a hat and a dark coat, and a dark-red bow tie. I had never seen him before. He couldn’t have been a door-to-door salesman, not only because of his advanced age, but also because he was not carrying any bag for whatever he might have been selling. All he was holding was a rather small book. He took off his hat and bowed to me, and I moved back from the peephole in embarrassment. I’d had no idea that you could tell from the outside when someone was looking through it.

  There was no longer any sense in pretending I wasn’t there. I had to open the door; but whatever happened, I was determined it should be brief. The gentleman had undoubtedly made a mistake. He had surely come to visit someone else in the building, and then turned up at my door by mistake, for it had no nameplate on it. I could not, however, be of much assistance in directing him to wherever he wanted to go.

  “Hello,” I said, opening the door halfway. “May I help you?”

  The man did not reply at once. He just looked at me, smiling slightly. We stood like that in silence for a few moments.

  “Don’t you recognize me?” he said at last. He had a rough, elderly voice, but with an element of good cheer.