Impossible Stories

by Zoran Zivkovic

  “Yes. That is a risk that we must take.”

  Miss Irena walked along the aisle with slow steps. She reached the door and put her hand on the knob. She stayed like that for several moments, as though pondering whether or not to say anything, but she didn’t utter a word. She turned the knob and the door started to open.

  Miss Emily did not see what was on the other side. She quickly turned her head the other way and stared out of the tall windows at the sunny summer morning. She kept her eyes turned in that direction as the door slowly closed behind the girl.

  25. Hole in the Wall

  The hospital attendant walking in front of me went up to door number seven on the left. It was made of white metal, like all the others in the hall. Against the dark-red wall they looked like widely spaced teeth in a giant jaw. He unbolted a small rectangular peep-hole, opened it, peered inside briefly, then bolted it again.

  “You shouldn’t have any trouble with her. We put her in a straitjacket, but not because she’s aggressive towards others. She tried to commit suicide, as you know.” He indicated the file I was holding. “Just in case, I’ll stay close by. If you need me, all you have to do is call.”

  I nodded. The attendant took a magnetic card out of the breast pocket on his white coat, swiped it through the small terminal by the doorframe and opened the door. He let me go in, but didn’t close the door after me. He stayed there, watching. I turned towards him and nodded once again. The heavy door closed on its hinges almost soundlessly and the attendant’s large figure disappeared behind it.

  I have never liked the white color of the padding that lines the walls and floors of these rooms, as though someone has taken great pains to increase the anxiety of the patients forced to spend time there. The same can be said of the bright fluorescent lighting that is never turned off, nor even turned down during the night. The only thing that disrupted the depressive uniformity of the room was a small window high up next to the ceiling on the wall facing the door. It was actually a ventilation shaft with two thick vertical bars instead of glass. This metal protection was quite superfluous; it was impossible to climb up there even if a person were unencumbered by a straitjacket, and nothing larger than a cat could squeeze through it.

  The girl was sitting under that opening, her back leaning against the wall. Her legs were bent and her chin was resting on her knees. She looked at me, smiling. I recognized the person whose photo I’d seen in the hospital file: a round face, large, lively brown eyes, small ears, a short, slightly turned-up nose. Dark blond hair reached to her shoulders. Only a rough attempt had been made to comb it, but this did little to diminish the discreet beauty of her face. As it was, her uncombed hair actually made her look younger; if I hadn’t known that she was twenty-six, I wouldn’t have given her more than twenty-two or twenty-three years.

  I dropped to the floor myself, leaning against the door. I always try to put myself at the same level as my patients. As a rule, this creates an impression of equality and helps establish contact with them. I stretched out both legs so the bottoms of my shoes touched the easily soiled padding as little as possible. I put the green file on the floor next to me.

  “Hello, Miss Katarina,” I said, returning her smile. “How are you?”

  “Hello, Doctor. I’m fine now. I’m glad you came.”

  “Let me introduce myself. I’m Dr Alexander. I’m replacing Dr Sonja who has been in charge of you up to now. She had an accident and will be absent from work for two or three weeks. Luckily it wasn’t anything serious. She fell down the stairs in her house and shattered her shin. Her leg is in a cast, but she’s in fine spirits. She’s slowly getting used to the crutches.”

  “Poor Dr Sonja. Please tell her that I’m terribly sorry about what happened. It must have been quite painful. But, as you say, she’ll get well soon. There won’t be any consequences. She’ll forget both the pain and the crutches.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Believe me, that’s what will happen.”

  We looked at each other for a few moments without talking. Finally, I tapped the file on the floor. “Yes, you would know that, wouldn’t you? If I’ve understood correctly, you feel you are able to see the future?”

  “I am,” she replied in an even voice, as though saying something quite banal.

  “Perhaps you could have warned Dr Sonja of the trouble that awaited her.” I said this cheerfully, in jest, certainly with no sound of reproach.

  “Perhaps. But even if I had, it would have made no difference. Dr Sonja didn’t believe me.”

  “It’s not easy to believe something like that.”

  “I know. That’s why it’s easy to put someone in a place like this just because they claim they can see the future, even if it poses no threat to anyone.” There was no reproach in her voice either.

  “You are a threat to your own self. That is primarily why people end up here, not because they feel they possess unusual abilities. Didn’t you stop eating? And then try to commit suicide?”

  “It was a clumsy, slapdash attempt. Mistaken, in any case.”

  Silence reigned once more. I glanced at my outstretched legs and then looked at her again. She was still smiling.

  “There’s something I don’t understand,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s odd that your file makes no mention of it. I don’t know why Dr Sonja neglected to talk to you about something that seems to me pivotal to the whole matter: what it was that led you to attempt suicide. If what you claim is true, that you have the gift of seeing the future, then you are the last person in the world one would expect to kill herself. Many people would give their eye teeth to be in your place. It’s hard even to imagine all the possibilities available to someone who knows what the future will bring.”

  “Of course Dr Sonja wanted to know why I tried to kill myself. But I refused to talk about it.”

  “Why?”

  “There was a reason.”

  “There was? Does it still exist?”

  She didn’t reply at once. A questioning look flickered across her face, conveying some hesitation.

  “How do you picture the future?” She answered at last with a question.

  She’d caught me off guard. I scratched the top of my head as I do automatically when something puzzles me, then I shrugged my shoulders.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it very much. As a time that is to come, I suppose?” Even as I spoke I realized this was highly unoriginal. I feared I’d earned her derision, but there was none forthcoming.

  “Until recently that was the same attitude I had towards the future,” she said in a voice full of understanding. “What will be will be. A person has little influence, if any at all. We enter the mist, not knowing what awaits us there. Then, after the accident, everything changed.”

  She motioned her head toward the file. This released her from the obligation of having to explain. She had rightly assumed that I’d studied her file thoroughly before coming to see her. She’d been in a serious traffic accident some three and a half months before. She was the only one of four passengers to make it out of the smashed-up car. And just barely. At first the doctors gave her little chance. Although there hadn’t been much bodily injury, she had hit her head, resulting in a deep coma. It had taken seventy-three days for her to come out of it. At first there seemed to be no harmful consequences, but soon afterward she started claiming she could see the future. Of course, no one took her seriously. Similar notions appear sometimes among those who have had severe head injuries. Faced with this skepticism, Katarina first withdrew in protest, almost autistically, and then refused to eat. The surgeons soon realized she was no longer within their domain so they sent her straight from the hospital to us.

  Naturally, not a bit of real progress could be expected in the mere two weeks that Dr Sonja had been working with her. As a rule, such patients require considerable time and patience. It was enough that the doctor had got her eating again. This good sign, however, was soon darkened by the
unexpected suicide attempt four days previously. Fortunately, as Katarina said herself, it had been a rather clumsy attempt, easily thwarted. The rules had then required that she be transferred to this room for a while as a precautionary measure.

  “In what sense did things change?” I asked.

  Katarina stretched out her legs like mine and shook her head a bit to loosen her hair. These were the only two parts of her body that she could freely move. The bottoms of her pajamas rose a bit above her socks, revealing part of her calves. I knew quite well how uncomfortable she must have been with her arms confined in the straitjacket, but I could not change that as yet.

  “The mist lifted,” she replied tersely.

  I waited to see if she would say anything more, but when nothing was forthcoming I spoke again.

  “And the future was revealed to you?” I tried to say this without the slightest skepticism, as though stating an obvious fact.

  She shook her head. “There isn’t just one future. That’s what confused me the most at first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She hesitated briefly. “It’s a beam . . . enormous . . . As soon as I close my eyes, in a waking state, it’s there. I see it clearly, it fills my whole field of vision under my closed eyelids. There’s nothing else but the beam. It consists of an infinite number of thin strands that seem to be made of frosted glass. Each of them is a future.”

  She stopped a moment, as though wanting to let me absorb this image.

  “But they cannot all become . . . real. What I mean to say . . . ” I thought I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow I couldn’t find the right words. I don’t have much experience in talking about the future.

  “They can’t, that’s it. Only one will be real in the end. But until this happens, they are all equally possible. Each of these strands. Completely equal. Until one singles itself out.”

  “Singles itself out?” I repeated in amazement.

  “Yes. It starts to shine with an internal glow, turning transparent and expanding at the same time, pushing the others into the background. In the end it fills up the beam’s whole space. That’s all there is, that one future that will become real. It stands before you crystal clear. Everything can be seen in that one strand that has detached itself and expanded. Everything that will happen.”

  I stared at her for a while in silence. “But I can’t see it,” I said at last. “That’s what it’s all about. It seems that only you are privileged to see it.”

  For the first time since we’d started talking, the smile disappeared from her face.

  “You don’t believe me, do you.”

  “It might be easier to believe you if I could understand why someone who has access to the future decided to kill herself. We’re still coming up against this issue.”

  She bowed her head, resting her chin on her chest. Her hair was like a veil covering her face. From behind this came only the gentle sound of slow breathing. When she spoke, her voice was muffled and somehow far away.

  “What do you think, what decides which of the strands will start to glow? What decides which of the countless possible futures will become real?”

  “You’ve got me there,” was my reply after pondering briefly. “Chance, perhaps?”

  She sighed deeply. “Chance, yes. That’s what I thought at first. Then the ability I have acquired would still be bearable.”

  As she didn’t continue, I asked cautiously, “If it isn’t chance, then what is it?”

  She raised her head again. Her hair fell back and parted, revealing the middle of her face. She reminded me of a picture I’d seen on a billboard somewhere. “Not what but who,” she said, more softly than before.

  I looked at her several moments, eyes blinking. “Someone chooses which future will become real? Who could that be?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  I made a rueful face. “I’m afraid not. At least not to me.”

  A shadow of a smile returned to her lips, as though wanting to forgive me for my lack of insight. “I don’t hold it against you. I too needed some time to see what had been standing clearly before me from the beginning: I coexist with it. I, of course, am the one who makes the decision, the one who singles out the strand that will prevail over all the others. I choose the future.”

  “You?” This time I was unable to suppress the disbelief in my voice. “How?”

  “It’s actually very simple. That’s what led me astray. As I look at the beam of all possible futures, my eyes under my eyelids are not quite focused. So the strands are slightly blurred. But as soon as I fix my eyes on one, it starts to detach itself. In the beginning I mistook the cause for the effect. I thought that my eyes focused on the strand that had singled itself out for some other reason, with my having nothing to do with it. But things, unfortunately, are just the opposite.”

  We spent about half a minute in silence. Katarina clearly felt that she had now explained everything quite satisfactorily, and at first I didn’t know how to continue the conversation. Suddenly, all my experience working with patients like this no longer seemed to help. I finally found my cue in her last sentence.

  “Why ‘unfortunately’? Isn’t being able to choose the future far more advantageous than only being able to see it? Now I understand even less why you wanted to take your own life.”

  Katarina’s face took on the expression of a teacher with a dull-witted pupil in front of her. “What’s so advantageous about it?”

  “Why, you could choose a future without suffering, misery, hardship. There must be some like that among those countless strands you mentioned.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Utopia? Heaven on earth? Don’t be naïve. There is no such future. Not a single strand is without suffering, misery and hardship.”

  “I wasn’t thinking idealistically. What I had in mind was a future in which there was very little of that. One in which most people lived happily.”

  “But there would still be unhappy people.”

  “That’s inevitable, you said so yourself.”

  There was something reproachful, accusing in her eyes. “Would you consent to be the one to choose who should be sacrificed on the altar of the happy majority?”

  She’d caught me by surprise again. My hand was already reaching mechanically for the top of my head, but I stopped it at the last moment. Scratching my head suddenly seemed out of place. “That’s a very difficult question.”

  “Yes, it is. And just think about what a heavy burden it is for someone who, without the slightest desire, has to decide which future will become real, knowing in the process that this will inevitably bring suffering, misery and hardship to someone. No human shoulders can hold up under that. I doubt that even God’s shoulders are strong enough. There is only one force capable of dealing with this chilling responsibility: the blind and impassive force of chance. I have to give back to chance what belongs to it, as soon as possible, since it has reached me by some mistake. I hope that now you understand why I have no choice.”

  “But suicide is certainly not the only solution.”

  “It isn’t? What else do you suggest?” Her voice was filled with sarcasm.

  “You told me that this . . . beam of strands of the future . . . only appears when you close your eyes in a waking state, isn’t that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, then, don’t close your eyes except when you go to bed.”

  She shook her head back and forth. The ends of her long blond hair swayed as though blown by a gentle breeze. “If only things were that simple. You give me way too much credit. Do you really think that any human being could resist such temptation, could have such self-control? In any case, I tried that already. It was the frustration I felt after it failed that led me to that clumsy suicide attempt.”

  “Which didn’t succeed, thank heavens.”

  “It didn’t. Because it was so clumsy. There was anger and despair behind what I did, and they are poor allies if you wa
nt to do a job properly. It was only later, after I’d calmed down a bit in here, that I started to think things over coolly and collectedly.” Her smile widened. “As you can see, there’s an upside to being put in a straitjacket.”

  “That’s not the only one. In a straitjacket, which is indeed rather uncomfortable, you are effectively prevented from doing something reckless. No one has managed to kill themselves in one yet.”

  “Then I will be the first one to succeed.” I detected a hint of pride in her voice.

  “How?”

  “You’ll soon find out. Things are underway and nothing can stop them.”

  “Are you quite sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Don’t forget the powers at my disposal. That’s what finally crossed my mind, sitting here on the floor, as the anger from my failed attempt slowly dissolved. Why embark on something uncertain and questionable when everything can be carried out without fail?”

  “You mean . . .?” I made a vague circular motion with my hand.

  “Yes. All I had to do was choose the future in the beam where my suicide attempt succeeds. It didn’t turn out to be quite that easy, however. I picked through the strands for three full days, searching for the right one. And I finally found it.”

  “Which means that we are already in that future?”

  “We are. And it shows you how choosing what will happen is connected to inflicting pain on others. In this time strand Dr Sonja falls down the stairs. I feel really bad about it. She was kind to me and full of understanding. Please ask her to forgive me. Try to explain that it simply couldn’t be avoided. Your efforts will be in vain, however. You won’t be able to convince her because you will never believe it yourself. Not even after you find me dead here tomorrow.”

  My eyes slowly looked around the inside of the padded room. I have never liked these mournful white isolation cells, but now it seemed the most appropriate sanctuary for this girl who clearly was still in the throes of sinister thoughts. Restrained by the straitjacket, this was the only place where she was completely safe from her own self. I’ve had patients with suicidal tendencies from time to time, but they were all much more typical, ordinary cases. Never before had I heard such an intricate and unbelievable story. And told so convincingly. Working with her would be difficult, but also challenging. I would try to talk my colleague Sonja into letting me handle Katarina’s case or at least work together with her on it when she returned from sick leave.