been playing with him? That would be just like the Tempter. Then he never
would know...
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“So?” came a gentle voice from the darkness.
He tried to muffle his sigh of relief, but such effort was futile in the murky
silence of the night. “You said the observatory would be named after me,
didn’t you?” There was no time to beat around the bush; he had to get straight
to the point.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean?”
“Because of the discovery I made or because I was burned at the stake for
not renouncing it?”
“For both one and the other, although considerably more for the act of
sacrifice. You know, in the age you just visited, your discovery has only
historical value. It has not been refuted, but it is secondary, insignificant,
almost forgotten. As you have seen, things have advanced much farther. But
your burning will not be forgotten.”
From somewhere in the heart of the monastery came the sound of heavy
footsteps. It was not just two guards. A larger group was walking through the
corridors.
“Does that mean I have no choice?” asked the prisoner quickly. “If the
observatory is named after me because I was burned at the stake, then it
necessarily follows that there is no way I can avoid that fate. But I can still do
it. I still have free will. They’re coming. What if I say yes when they ask me to
renounce my discovery? That would spare me from the stake but would
change the future, wouldn’t it? And the future cannot be changed; I saw it
with my own eyes.”
The steps ceased for a moment, and then in the distance echoed the harsh
sound of a barred partition door being opened.
“That’s right. You can’t change what you saw. And you saw only that which
is irrefutable, that which you cannot influence in any way. What you did not
see, however, is whether the observatory is named after you.”
The prisoner opened his mouth to say something, but no words emerged. His
sight had returned in the meantime, so that now in the obscure light of dawn
pouring in from the high window he could make out the contours of his visitor.
His head was somehow elongated, as though he had something tall on top of it.
“No, I did not deceive you, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he continued.
“The observatory really will be named after you if you are burned at the stake.
But if you are not, it will be named after someone else. One of your students,
for example, who will be braver than you. There is no predetermination. Your
free will determines what will happen. You will choose between a horrible
death in flames and the penitent life of a royal astronomer under the wing of
the Church, whose comfort will be disturbed only by the scorn of a handful of
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students and perhaps a guilty conscience: between satisfying your own conceit
and the wise insight that it actually makes no difference after whom the
observatory is named. I do not envy you. It is not an easy choice.”
The rumbling steps stopped in front of the cell door, and a key was thrust
into the large lock.
“You know what I will decide,” said the prisoner hurriedly in a soft voice. It
was more a statement than a question.
“I know,” answered the gentle voice.
The rusty hinges screeched sharply, and into the small cell came first a large
turnkey with a torch raised high and after him two Inquisition interrogators in
the purple robes of the high priesthood. The soldier who entered last was also
holding a torch. There was no more room inside, so the three remaining
soldiers had to wait in the corridor.
In the smoky light the prisoner squinted hard at the figure on the bed across
from him. The strange object on his head was some sort of cylindrical hat with
a wide brim, and its slanted shadow completely hid the man’s face.
He had not expected his visitor to stay there. Would he let the others see
him? But no one paid any attention to him, as though he were not there, as
though he were invisible. In other circumstances this would have confused the
prisoner completely, but in the light of his recent experience he accepted it as
quite natural.
“Lazar,” said the first priest, addressing him in an official tone, “this is the
last time you will be asked: do you renounce your heresy and penitently accept
the teachings of our Holy Mother the Church?”
The prisoner did not take his eyes off the figure in black, but he had turned
into a statue. He sat with head bowed, silent, just like an old man who had
fallen asleep, with his white hands leaning on the top of his cane. He seemed
indifferent, as if all this had nothing to do with him, as though he were not the
least bit interested. The silence grew heavy with tension, with expectation.
And then at last, the royal astronomer turned slowly toward the inquisitors
and gave his monosyllabic answer.
The Paleolinguist
I
The knock echoed loudly in the hollow silence, making her start.
She had not heard the steps approaching the door to her office. She must
have dozed off again. Her head bowed, chin upon her chest, her round, wire-
rimmed reading glasses had slipped to the tip of her nose. The book remained
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open in front of her on the desk in the lamplight, but she was still drowsy and
could not remember its title right away. These catnaps were becoming more
and more frequent, causing her to feel very ill at ease. Not because someone
might find her in that unseemly position. She was not afraid of that; almost no
one visited her anymore, not even her students, let alone her colleagues. She
was an embarrassment to herself.
The knock came again. Brief and somehow reserved, hesitant. Certainly not
as loud as it had seemed the first time. She looked around in confusion,
wondering what time of day it was. The only window in her office looked
onto the skylight, but this name was quite inappropriate since the narrow shaft
that went through the middle of the building from the roof to the basement
was filled only with gloom even on the sunniest days.
There was a simpler way to find out the time, but it would take her at least a
few minutes to discover her wristwatch in the disordered multitude of large
and small items that covered her desk. And she could not let the visitor wait
that long, whomever he or she might be. Visitors were rare and therefore
precious.
“Come in,” she said. And then, since she thought she had said it too softly,
she repeated in a louder voice: “Come in.”
She did not recognize the person who appeared at the door. The neon
lighting in the hallway illuminated him from behind, but even if the light had
shone from in front of him, she would not have been able to discover very
much without her other glasses that were also buried somewhere on the desk.
The only thing she could conclude with certainty about the hazy outline was
that he was a tall man in a dark cloak.
She
pondered for a moment but could think of no one she knew who fit that
description. That, however, still did not mean anything. She had learned with
increasing certainty during the passing years that memory was a very unreliable
support, particularly where the recent past was concerned. The more distant
past was considerably sharper, which was rather apropos in view of her
profession. But it made no difference: everything would become clear when
the visitor started to speak. She had a hard time remembering faces, but she
never forgot a voice, ever. This was probably the only department in which
senility had kindly spared her from its humiliating veil.
“It’s not easy to find you. You’re completely hidden here in the basement.”
She had not heard this voice before. It sounded deep and drawn out, almost
melodic. It would be impossible not to remember it, even without her
aptitude.
“Oh, it makes no difference. When no one is looking for you, then it’s all
the same where you are. But are you certain that you’re in the right place?”
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“This is the office for paleolinguistics, isn’t it?” It was more a statement than
a question.
“Yes. Or rather what’s left of it. In happier times we even had a brass plate
that said so, but ever since we moved here, no one has taken the trouble to put
it up. Maybe they’re waiting for me to do it.”
Continuing to stand in the doorway, the visitor contemplated the gloom of
the rather small room. Three walls were covered with metal shelves, and the
books and journals on them were more stacked, even thrown, than placed in
an orderly fashion. A narrow vitrine rising to the low ceiling with its hot water
pipes was on part of the fourth wall next to the window. It was full of tiny
broken statues, pieces of pottery, and the remains of simple stone implements.
These objects were also displayed without any order, often one on top of
another as though the vitrine were a storage cabinet. Under the window next
to the desk on a backless wooden chair covered with newspapers was a hot
plate with a black kettle. Several used tea bags were lying on the newspaper like
tropical fish that had died of asphyxiation.
“This is exactly as I imagined it,” said the man at last.
“You imagined this?” she asked, bewildered.
“Yes, your office. Where you work.”
She squinted, trying to focus her eyes better. “Is that supposed to be a
compliment or a reproach?”
“A compliment, of course. What else could it be? I am an admirer of yours.”
At first she did not know how to respond. She slowly took off her reading
glasses and put them on the desk. When she finally spoke, her voice was
critical. “If this is some sort of joke, then I must say it is rather out of place.”
“Why do you think it’s a joke?”
“I do not have admirers. I have never had any.”
“But your work certainly deserves them.”
She got up out of her armchair, numb from sitting so long, and started to
rummage through the things on her desk in search of her other glasses. She
hunted for several moments and when she couldn’t find them, waved her hand
in a gesture of angry dismissal, turned her blurry eyes toward the door and said
in a voice that was more nervous than she intended, “Oh, come in, for heaven’s
sake. We can’t talk while you’re in the hallway.”
He entered, closed the door behind him and then stopped, uncertain where
he should sit. There was another armchair in front of the desk, but it held a
load of tattered folders with a fairly large stone figure on the top; with the help
of a considerable amount of imagination, it resembled a bulging female torso.
“Put that somewhere, on the floor, it makes no difference,” she said,
noticing that he did not know what to do.
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He did it with utmost caution, as though holding some sort of relic in his
hands. When he sat down, the springs on the armchair squeaked in protest.
Now he was closer to her and partially illuminated by the light from her
table lamp, so that even without her other glasses she could make out certain
details she had not noticed before. In his lap he laid his derby, his cane with its
decorated top, and a pair of white gloves. She had never given much thought to
how she dressed and did not pay attention to what other people wore, but she
found this quite amazing. It was as though he had come out of a play set in
olden times, she thought, smiling to herself.
The man just sat there without a word and looked at her. She soon began to
fidget under his inquisitive stare. Unconsciously she started to fix her dishev-
eled strands of gray hair as she thought over what to say to the stranger. Why
had she asked him to come in? Admirer! As if she were so credulous or vain.
“So, you are interested in paleolinguistics?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“Why?”
He did not answer right away. He started to draw his fingers slowly along
the smooth edge of the derby in his hand. “An unusual question from someone
who has devoted her entire life to that field,” he said at last.
“Not at all unusual,” she replied. “The very fact that I’ve squandered my
whole life in paleolinguistics gives me the clear-cut right to ask you that.”
“Do you think you have squandered your life?”
She stared at his blurry face, outside the lamplight. She could not guess his
age. His voice was not a reliable indicator. Judging by it alone, the man could
have been in his twenties or even his forties. For his sake, she hoped it was the
former; it would be much easier for him to lose his illusions. If only she had
been lucky enough to have some sense knocked into her at that age.
“Take a good look around you again. You are in a tiny basement room that
was the janitor’s storage before and will return to that function when I retire in
several months. Since I am not able to take these things with me, the books
and other artifacts will all be thrown away. Useless. And even if I took them, it
would not make much difference. Everything would end up on the garbage
heap after my death. There, that is the best measure of the success of a life
devoted to paleolinguistics. So please listen to my advice: get interested in
something else. Anything. Forget primeval language and the far-off past. Who
is interested in that in the modern world? Don’t ruin your future for no
reason.”
“The past and the future, yes,” replied the visitor, lost in thought. He
paused for a moment, and she thought a smile flickered on his face. But she
could not be sure. “I think there are other measures that can be used to
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evaluate what you have achieved.” He said it with determination, like a man
who knows what he is talking about.
She looked at him inquisitively. “What, for example?”
“If it weren’t for you, the department of paleolinguistics would never have
been founded.”
“Probably, but what has been the benefit of that? Do you know the greatest
nu
mber of new students I have had all these years?”
He clearly did not understand this as a question and so did not reply. He did
not even shrug his shoulders.
“Eight. And that was long ago; it’s been almost a quarter of a century. The
average has been three and a half students. And only two of them at most finish
their studies. Sometimes not even one. But not because I was too strict. On the
contrary, I was considered a very...” she stopped for a moment, looking for the
right word, “helpful examiner, which gave me a bad reputation among my
colleagues. The young people simply gave up, primarily because they were
disappointed, even though I did all I could to stimulate their interest not only
in the technical aspects of the origin of language but also in a considerably less
tedious subject: early human communities. They are inseparable, in any case.
But nothing seemed to work. I never understood what they actually expected
when they decided to major in paleolinguistics. No one made them choose it.”
“You cannot blame yourself for the students’ poor response. You said
yourself that we live in a time that is not particularly predisposed toward the
past.”
She squinted at him briefly, and then continued to follow her line of
thinking, paying no attention to his comforting words.
“In the last four years, no one has signed up in my department. How can
you keep your position as lecturer if you have no one to lecture to? Only if the
administration is sympathetic toward you. They didn’t have to do it. They
probably wouldn’t have if it weren’t for my age. I stayed here just because the
dean was considerate enough to support me, although it would have been
natural to fire me. He knew that at my age I have nowhere to go. I knew that
myself, so I swallowed my pride and let them put me in this cubbyhole. Don’t
look a gift horse in the mouth, particularly not when the gift is given out of
pity. What else could I have done, anyway?”
She stopped talking, wondering why she was telling all this to a stranger. She
was only putting them both in an awkward situation. But the matter
concerned him, too. He had come there with an idealized notion of
paleolinguistics, hadn’t he? Would it be fair to let him leave without seeing
its other side? Certainly not. In any case, she had not had the opportunity to
Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel Page 16