Impossible Stories

by Zoran Zivkovic

  “There are many ski runs down the mountain.”

  “So? What difference does it make?”

  “If it made no difference, I wouldn’t be here now.”

  “I don’t understand you. Do you mean to say that I will be in danger if I take one run and not another?”

  “You? No. You are completely out of danger.”

  “Then who isn’t? Please stop playing guessing games with me. I’m not at all in the mood.”

  Silence followed once again. The halfway station was quite close. I raised the safety bar, ready to push off down the rise that reached up to the bottom of the seat. I expected him to say or do something, but he just looked at me wordlessly. We stayed like that without moving as we passed by the halfway station. The ski lift employee standing in front of the hut made of roughly hewn wood looked at us briefly, without interest. When he was behind our backs, I lowered the bar.

  “I’m not playing guessing games with you,” he said with a slight tone of relief in his voice, as though pleased I hadn’t gotten off the lift. “The fact is I am allowed to tell you very little. You must make the decision all by yourself. Any involvement on my part would create enormous difficulties.”

  “But what decision? You’ve still got me confused.”

  “Which run you choose to ski down the mountain.”

  “Why is that important? This run or that. They all lead down, don’t they?”

  “That’s right. But what happens afterwards is not the same. Each run has its own continuation in the future. It is the start of a chain of events and each has a very different outcome. Fortunately, most of these outcomes are pretty innocuous, but some are not. Sometimes, not often, such ordinary causes, such as which run you decide to take down the mountain, can result in truly catastrophic effects. You’ve heard the story of the butterfly harmlessly fluttering its wings and ultimately causing a hurricane on the other side of the world? Of course the butterfly is not to blame, but should one stand idly by and do nothing to interrupt the chain of events that leads to misfortune?”

  At first I didn’t know what to reply. The confusion that over­came me had muddled my thoughts. I stared dully at his round face, ruddy from the cold. His cheeks were dappled with a network of winding capillaries, like those of a drunkard. He looked back at me with steady eyes in which I thought I could detect impatience and expectation.

  And then, as though the internal mist clouding my mind weren’t enough, one started on the outside too. It all happened in a split second, as usual. One moment we were traveling up through the brilliant blue mountain morning sky, and the very next we were in the middle of a dense, gray, almost palpable mass. With my attention distracted, I hadn’t noticed the direction from which the cloud had come. Probably from below, otherwise I would have seen it before then. Everything suddenly became unreal around us. We seemed to be floating in nothingness. If it weren’t for the empty seats that appeared at regular intervals going in the opposite direc­tion, only visible when they were quite close to us, we would not have felt that we were moving at all.

  “What do you do to prevent a disaster? Kill the butterfly, I suppose, before it flutters its wings? Remove the cause before it happens?” My voice was trembling slightly, although I tried to say this as calmly as possible.

  “That would be the simplest thing, yes. Unfortunately, that cannot be done. You have to let the cause happen, and only then react.”

  I let out a deep sigh, then inhaled a breath of air. It was filled with tiny, prickly drops that would be used as the raw material for some future snow. “But how is it possible to tell which butterfly will cause the disaster? There are countless numbers of them.”

  “It’s possible,” replied the man tersely. I waited several moments, hoping he would add something more, but he remained silent.

  “What is it about me that singles me out from the other ski­ers? Why is it important which ski run I in particular take? What if you are mistaken, what if I am not at all the right person?”

  “We are not mistaken.” Once again his self-confident brevity didn’t tell me a thing.

  “And that’s all the explanation you have to offer?” My voice was tinged with anger again. “You appear out of nowhere, tell me a twisted, fantastic story and expect me to believe you.”

  “It isn’t necessary for you to believe me.” It seemed that noth­ing could shake the man’s composure. “I am aware of the fact that my words must seem confusing and unconvincing. But I can’t tell you anything further without disturbing an order that must re­main untouched. I have actually told you too much already. The best thing would be for you to act as though we had never met, as though this conversation never took place. We will soon reach the top of the mountain. Get off the ski lift and simply take one of the runs down the slope. Don’t even think about which one. Do it spontaneously, like you always do.”

  “Simply forget this ride up the ski lift? As though I came up to the top all alone?” It was impossible for him not to hear the mixed hurt and disbelief in my voice.

  “That would be best. In any case, you will never see me again. Nor will you find any trace of me at the hotel; it will be as if I never set foot on this mountain.”

  I chewed my lower lip and nodded. That instant the cloud be­came drenched with brightness and started to thin. Soon we were above it, in perfectly clear air. The bright blue sky and sparkling white snow forced me to squint, and I lowered the sunglasses that had been pushed up onto my hat. We were almost at the top. The two skiers on the seat in front of us were just getting off.

  I raised the safety bar slowly. I did not take my shielded eyes off the man on the seat next to me. I knew that he would not say anything else to me, and I had no desire to say anything to him, either. Maybe he was right, after all. Why not pretend that this meeting had never taken place? Isn’t oblivion the best protection against the ugly occurrences that take place in life?

  I slipped off the ski lift seat, made a short turn to the right, and stopped a bit to the side of the path that skiers were taking down the slope. I stuck my poles into the snow in front of me and leaned on them. The seat I had just been on moved forward to a covered area where a huge horizontal wheel slowly turned. The seat made a semicircle around the wheel and then headed in the opposite direction, downhill.

  The man did not let me out of his sight. First he turned around in his seat to keep me in his field of vision, and then when he real­ized that wouldn’t be enough he got up and kneeled on the seat, without taking care to lower the safety bar. The ski lift employee in front of the hut at the top shouted something at him in warning, but the stranger paid no attention. He stayed in the same position, holding onto the back of the seat as he rushed inexorably towards the edge of the cloud. He was too far away for me to make out the expression on his face, but it was easy to imagine.

  I let the doughy gray matter swallow him up completely, then waited a few more moments. When it was certain there was no way he could see me, I did what was expected of me. Quite spon­taneously, without thinking, I headed down one of the runs. Like I always do. It was highly irresponsible with regard to the future, I know, but that responsibility had been forced upon me. I hadn’t accepted it voluntarily. In addition, even if such a future were de­void of disaster, I would only be a puppet, my strings pulled by someone else’s invisible hands. And if there is one thing I simply cannot tolerate, it is someone manipulating my life. Regardless of the pretext.

  Several moments later, when I too plunged into the gray lake, I thought with a smile that we actually don’t understand geese. Dashing headlong into the mist doesn’t have to be the least bit unpleasant.

  27. Line on the Palm

  I carefully examined the client at my door. This is extremely important in my work. A person’s outward appearance says a lot about his future. Or rather, about what he would like to hear about his future. People don’t go to a clairvoyant to be told bad news and then have to pay for it. They don’t need someone like me fo
r that. What they expect from me is help, as they would from a doctor or clergyman. And I provide this help. The basic motto in my line of work is: the customer must leave my parlor satisfied. After that, things take their own course.

  Actually, if I were to predict that something bad was going to happen, I’m certain almost no one would believe me. This seems to be part of human nature. If you tell people something that suits them, they all accept it eagerly, regardless of how implausible or even impossible it might appear. Sometimes it seems the more incredible the favorable prophecy, the easier it is for them to accept. They don’t quibble. And of course, if you tell them something that doesn’t suit them, they immediately become doubtful and suspicious. They launch into a debate on reliability, and then on the meaning of divination, endeavoring to show it’s all pure quackery that only the gullible would swallow. If that’s true, then why on earth did they come to see me?

  The customer’s age made him unusual from the start. Mostly middle-aged people visit me. Younger people are not overly bothered by the future because they think they have it in abundance. They have all the time in the world before them. Older folks know they don’t have any future, so it doesn’t interest them very much. Between the age of forty and fifty, however, people start to settle their accounts. And the realization of their own mortality is always part and parcel of this. Although almost no one would be willing to admit it, what brings a great many people to my parlor is the newly aroused fear of death. What they want most of all from me is a guarantee that judgement day is still a long way off. And of course I provide this guarantee. At a very moderate price, even though they would be willing to pay much more. One mustn’t profit from the misfortunes of others.

  The young man was no more than twenty-five years old. I don’t remember a younger person ever coming into my parlour. His height was emphasized by a long, olive-drab raincoat with broad lapels. A light-weight white scarf was thrown casually around his neck, its ends reaching almost to his waist. He had a long face with regular features, more masculine than handsome. His thick black hair was combed straight back from his high forehead. He wore small round wire-rimmed glasses. Shortsightedness at his age probably resulted from years of intensive reading. His umbrella was in its sheath, hooked over his left arm.

  He was wearing thin, black leather gloves that made his hands invisible. That’s the first thing I examine in any customer. If you are skillful at noticing things, which I must be in this job, hands can reveal a vast amount of useful information about a visitor. Shoes as well. The young man’s shoes were clean and polished in spite of the bad weather. Even overly clean. This indicated a finicky individual, inclined to nit-picking, someone who has difficulty changing an entrenched opinion. The way he’d tied his laces indicated someone who liked orderliness, regularity, symmetry. It was unlikely he could see nuances. Only extremes: either-or. This was not exactly a good sign. It was much easier to work with less orderly, more easy-going visitors. The ones I liked the best were actually those who paid no attention at all to their appearance.

  He hovered at the door to my parlour, examining it with the same curiosity that I turned on him. This was clearly the first time he’d come to a place like this. His eyes skimmed through the semidark room, absorbing the details. I was certain that he was taking it all in, that nothing escaped his attention. His lips suddenly pursed into a grimace of disapproval, even disgust, when he saw the little glass boxes on the small shelf to the left of my worktable. They contained several specimens of what were erroneously believed to be traditional trappings of the fortune-telling trade: the wing of a bat, tail of a rat, eye of an owl, tooth of a wild boar, skin of a snake, claw of a hawk . ..

  I don’t like these things either. That’s why the shelf is positioned outside my field of vision when I sit at my worktable, where I spend most of my time. But these things have their purpose. They impress the customers. The great majority of my visitors come with a completely stereotyped notion of what a fortune-teller’s parlour looks like, so I don’t dare let them down. Everything here is set up and modelled after what you’d find in a popular film.

  The finishing touch is a small cauldron of water—electric, but a fire seems to be underneath it—with wispy steam rising in a column, coloured pink by the beam of a hidden red light. From time to time a strong, seemingly exotic fragrance emanates from the steam, although what I put in the water to get it is something quite ordinary. Whenever possible I try to avoid using that fragrance additive because after a while it gives me a headache and even makes me nauseous.

  When I felt I had given the new customer enough time to inspect the parlour, I bowed briefly and said, “Good evening, sir. Please sit down.” My hand motioned towards the chair on the other side of the table.

  “Good evening,” replied the young man, staying by the door. If I’d heard his voice over the telephone, I would have said he was at least ten years older.

  Periodically I have a visitor who, after entering the parlour, seems instantly to regret having done so, and would like to leave without delay. Two or three have almost run out of the room, horrified, after spending less than a minute inside. Those who make it through that first minute usually stay. I know from experience how best to act towards reluctant customers who can’t seem to detach themselves from the door. I strike up a conversation about something innocuous, neutral. So they can relax. Afterwards everything is a lot easier.

  “It’s not raining,” I said half-questioningly, nodding towards his umbrella in its sheath.

  “No, it’s not,” he said in confirmation. “Mist has set in, although the weathermen forecast rain. That’s why I brought it.”

  “Weathermen,” I repeated with a proper dose of derision. “Don’t count on weathermen when it comes to forecasting the future. They don’t know a thing about it. They pretend what they’re doing is some sort of science, but all they really know how to do is make an educated guess. And most often it turns out to be wrong.”

  “But it’s not like that here, is it?” His voice took on a tinge of irony.

  “Of course not,” I replied, feigning offense. “Would you come here if you thought I had no more skill than a weatherman?”

  “The fact that I came doesn’t prove a thing. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Just like I was wrong when I listened to the weather forecast and brought an umbrella.”

  “Perhaps. But there’s no way to know until you’ve tried it. Since you’ve already given the weatherman a chance to show what he can do, it wouldn’t be fair not to give me the same chance.” I inserted a brief, tactical pause. “In any case, just to show you how much I believe in my abilities, here’s what I propose. Although the usual practice here is to pay in advance, you don’t have to. I will only take my fee at the end of the séance. And only if you are satisfied.” This always works. People feel safe if they don’t have to pay in advance for what might be bad news. Since there never is any, of course, they willingly pay in the end. It’s not unusual for them to add a big tip, so when they leave there is mutual satisfaction.

  He looked at me without speaking for a few moments. “But you can’t know in advance whether I’ll be satisfied. What if you predict something I don’t like?”

  “I’m prepared to take that risk,” I said self-confidently. “Please, sit down.” As he continued to stand indecisively by the door, I added with a smile, “Don’t worry, nothing will happen to you.” This was another tried and tested method with my male visitors. The easiest way to break them is to touch on their vanity. What, me afraid of an ordinary little old fortune-teller? With the ladies the same results are achieved using a calculated touch of flattery.

  He finally left the door and came up to the table. He stood in front of me for a moment, confused, not knowing what to do with his umbrella, and then he hooked the handle on the back of the chair and sat down. I could have suggested he leave the umbrella and raincoat on the coat rack by the door—the parlour was heated, of course—but I didn’t because I was suddenly conv
inced that he would refuse. He seemed like someone who only feels safe in the armour he has put on, sword in hand. Without them he would be naked and vulnerable, like a knight in a bedroom.

  I didn’t get down to business right away. In keeping with well-established protocol, I first looked him piercingly in the eyes a good fifteen seconds, not saying a word. Few visitors are able to withstand this meticulous inspection. The others lower their eyes quickly and start to fidget. This assures that authority has been achieved. The conversation that follows is similar to that between a doctor and his patient or between a priest and a member of the flock. But the young man didn’t flinch; his dark brown eyes calmly returned my gaze through the thick lenses of his glasses. In the end I was the first to withdraw, aware of the fact that a difficult séance awaited me. It couldn’t be helped, though. Unfortunately, I was not in a position to choose my customers. Fortunately, such visitors are quite uncommon.

  “So, you’d like to know what the future holds for you?”

  “That’s why people come here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, by and large. Which of the procedures would you like to use? All the classic methods are available.” I started to show him the paraphernalia in front of me. “Gazing into a crystal ball, reading several types of cards or the grounds from a cup of coffee you have drunk. There is also throwing beans, pieces of wood or bones. And astrology, of course. For a supplementary payment the future can be foretold through the entrails of a freshly slaughtered animal, although this requires special preparations. Particularly if the customer chooses a larger species. Such as an ox.”

  At this point I always smile broadly in order to show the horrified visitor that I am only joking. Usually I get a smile in return, often accompanied by a sigh of relief, but the young man’s face retained its serious expression.

  “If none of these techniques suits you,” I hurried to add, “even though they have proved successful for thousands of years, there are also new methods. We could use a computer, for example.” I turned my head towards the monitor on the corner of my large worktable. The fact that it was under a plastic cover with a thick layer of dust on top indicated the interest my customers had in modern forms of predicting the future. “I have an excellent, professional divination program. Imported.”