Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel

by Selected Essays

  but did not open the lid right away because her attention was attracted to the

  engraving on its bulging surface. An ornate letter E, with a series of decorative

  loops at its ends, just like the initial from some old-fashioned manuscript.

  Quite unusual, was the thought that flashed through her mind. E as in Eva.

  Like it was meant for me.

  And then she moved the little catch and the lid jumped up.

  II

  There were no hands. There was no face. Just a bright circle that contained

  some kind of image. The image was not quite steady but trembled as though

  alive. Confused, she brought the watch a little closer to get a better look, but

  when she wanted to stop, it kept on coming closer all by itself, without her

  influence. The casing started to get bigger, like a round fissure in reality that

  quickly expanded before her, its brilliance crowding out the gloom of the

  basement room, until it had pushed it all the way over the edge of the world.

  She was blinded at first. Her pupils were accustomed to the poor light in the

  office and needed some time to adjust to the bright midday sun. But the rest of

  her senses immediately began to absorb the rich impressions of her new

  surroundings. She was struck by the unknown smells of wild vegetation,

  dense and abundant, prickling and stinging her nostrils as though someone

  had thrown a handful of pollen into her face. Her ears were filled with the

  undulating sound of tall, brittle blades of grass and the buzzing and humming

  of a multitude of insects engrossed in their ritual dances. The breeze reached

  her skin in uneven gusts, stroking her face and hands with the softest touch.

  She knew what she would see even before her eyesight returned, but there was

  still no lack of surprise. She was in the middle of a field that stretched all around in gentle folds as far as the eye could see, but what her senses of smell, hearing,

  and touch could not tell her was that countless butterflies covered the expanse

  around her like some flickering, brightly colored rug. They were flying low over

  the ground cover or resting on it, completely devoted to their harmless business

  which, as she had recently learned, could result in unforeseeable disaster.

  She froze at that thought. What if her appearance upset them? What if they

  suddenly started to fly, thereby disturbing something that should not be

  disturbed? She stopped breathing when a butterfly left a purple flower with

  large petals and zigzagged toward her, lazily fluttering its spotted wings. When

  it approached her face she instinctively closed her eyes, helplessly expecting it

  to fly into her at any moment. But no crash occurred. When she opened her

  eyes, the butterfly was gone. She first thought that it must have turned at the

  last instant. The other possibility was so unbelievable that she simply refused

  to accept it.

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  But soon afterward, when a somewhat stronger gust of wind raised an

  excited cloud of butterflies, she nonetheless had to accept the impossible.

  They flew through her as though she were not there, as though she were

  made of some airy substance, transparent, unreal, nonexistent.

  At first she just stood there motionless, utterly confused, and watched the

  cloud stream through her body. She felt this rising tide like a weak sting, like

  light goose pimples flowing on the surface of her skin. The cloud had already

  thinned out when she finally emerged from her paralysis and extended her

  hand toward the last butterflies. She could touch them in flight. The touch was

  irrefutable, although one-sided: the tiny wings yielded unfeelingly to her

  invisible fingers in their multicolored fluttering.

  She remained undecided for a time after the last butterfly had gone. Serious,

  distressing questions were welling up from part of her consciousness, but she

  quickly smothered the tiresome voice that only spoiled the magic. What

  difference did it make that it was impossible when it seemed so dreamy, so

  intoxicating?

  Nevertheless, one question had to be answered. What next? She could stay

  there some more—quite a lot more, actually—surrendering to the fragrances

  emanating from the ground, the salutary warmth pouring down from the

  firmament, the caressing wind that wakened inside her long-hidden joys. But

  not for an eternity. Even the Elysian Fields inevitably lose their charms.

  She had no reason to go in any particular direction, so she simply moved

  straight ahead. She did so unconsciously, taking a step forward, but instead of

  her foot landing on the grass again as it should have done, it stayed in the air.

  She did not realize right away that she was flying. At first she thought she’d

  lost her balance and would fall, but she never did. She remained in midair,

  unsupported, bewildered because she had always been afraid of heights,

  although she was barely at knee level. She wished in panic to go down, and

  the very next moment she was resting on the ground again.

  Some time passed before she mustered the courage to move once more. She

  thought she must look like a child, trying to take its first awkward steps. This

  time there was no need to step forward. All she had to do was will it: she

  wanted to fly—and the same instant she was in the air again, infinitely light,

  incorporeal.

  She first took a horizontal birdlike position, extending her arms like wings,

  but quickly realized that this was not necessary. Undignified, in fact. Owing to

  her years, it was much more becoming for her to adopt the same position in

  the air as she did on the ground, so she straightened up with her arms crossed

  on her chest, as though perched on an invisible pedestal.

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  Z. Živkovic

  Fear faded and gave way to fascination. The experience of unhindered flight

  was thrilling, giddy. First she streaked high up until she reached the fluffy

  substance of a small cloud, and then, barely resisting the urge to scream with

  excitement, she started back down, enjoying the sight of the green carpet

  approaching at lightning speed. She stopped right above it effortlessly, without

  disturbing the swarm of buzzing insects quarreling over a cluster of red and

  yellow flowers.

  When she soared to the bottom of the heavens again, she caught sight of

  something she had missed her first time up there. Her surprise was actually

  twofold, and she stopped suddenly in the middle of nothingness. When she

  saw a thin column of smoke rising on the distant horizon, it flashed through

  her mind that this should not be possible: she did not have her glasses with her.

  They had been left behind in the office, somewhere in the disorder on her

  desk. But it seemed that in this new form they were not necessary; she could

  see the spiraling signal of someone’s fire clearly enough without them.

  She hurried in that direction like an eagle that has spotted its prey, driven by

  impatience and foreboding. The suppressed questions started to surge to the

  surface once again. If she was truly where she suspected, although all this was

  beyond reason, of course, then she had lighted on her destination.

  The tribe was small—she counted only twelve members. Next t
o the fire

  were two old women, an old man, and four children of different ages. The

  other five adults—how stunted they were!—were dispersed in a broad circle

  around this temporary habitat. They were engaged in what people of that early

  age spent most of their time doing: painstakingly collecting food—different

  berries, roots, shriveled fruit, small rodents.

  She descended, not close to the fire, but a bit farther off. She could feel her

  heart thudding in her immaterial chest. The voices of the old people and

  children were muffled and indistinct, but that was what she wanted. She was

  not yet ready. When she was, she would go among them—a ghost who would

  know as soon as she heard their first words whether or not her former life had

  meaning.

  She wondered what price she would have to pay for this unique privilege. It

  certainly could not be the assurance that she would not return from here. Even

  if she had that impossible watch, what was there to go back to? Lonely

  drudgery in a dark basement cubbyhole? The humiliation brought by neglect

  and old age? The implacable doubts that would follow her maliciously to the

  end? No, staying here would be a reward and not a punishment. So what

  would it be?

  The answer came with the wind. The current of air brought to her insensate

  nostrils the hot smell of steam from the sooty earthen vessel in which water was

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  boiling over the fire. The old women were cleaning some dried herbs, getting

  them ready for the pot, chatting idly, just as would be done in the countless

  centuries to follow.

  Tea, of course!

  An inaudible scream was wrenched from the addict. She felt neither hunger

  nor thirst, as was quite natural in this state. But the longing for a hot cup of tea that suddenly flooded her was something far beyond a physical need. The

  delusive impression that the familiar tonic was flowing through the inside of

  her mouth, the promise that her overpowering need would soon be satisfied,

  had the same effect as genuine agony.

  As despair filled her, she thought that she would not have accepted had she

  known the price she must pay. But she had not actually been given the choice.

  All right, then, she concluded, getting hold of herself, there’s no turning back.

  The price has been paid, even though unwillingly. All that was left was to take

  what was hers in return.

  And she headed toward the fire to meet the voices of the primeval language

  that would tell her the simple truth.

  The Watchmaker

  I

  The clocks struck six p.m. simultaneously, just as they should in a reputable

  watchmaker’s shop. The old man’s trained ears had been carefully monitoring

  this sound, and they could not detect any divergence: not a single one of the

  four clocks adorning the walls of the rather small, ground-floor premises was

  either early or late. This was the only harmony that linked them, however, for

  what followed afterward was total discordance.

  The grandfather clock, with its pendulum in a casing of worn mahogany

  and door of thick, etched glass, grumbled in a deep, solemn bass, like a

  mustachioed sergeant grenadier giving orders at a parade. The brass dwarf

  hit his worn hammer on the hanging bronze rod, creating a clear, sharp sound

  resembling the echo of distant bells. The call of the wooden cuckoo rushing

  out the round opening of the gaily colored alpine house had lost its original

  rapture long ago, becoming harsh and piercing. Finally, the chipped pair of

  ceramic dancers in ballroom attire nimbly started to turn on the small circular

  podium at the first bars of an old-fashioned waltz.

  Although they began all at once, the sounds that struck the hour did not end

  at the same time. First the cuckoo went silent, suddenly, like a death rattle; it

  seemed almost as if someone with delicate nerves or no ear for its tired singing

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  Z. Živkovic

  had ungraciously wrung its neck. The waltz and the ringing lasted about the

  same time, competing to the final note for futile advantage. The drawn-out

  tones of the grandfather clock filled the shop the longest; by virtue of its very

  size it was natural for it to have the last word.

  When the final grumble of the grenadier’s bass had died out, the old man

  reached adroitly for a small pocket on the left-hand side of his vest. He took

  out a gold-plated pocket watch with a thick chain, raised the lid—which had

  TO J. FROM M. engraved on the inside in large, ornate letters—and briefly

  nodded, satisfied that it was truly six o’clock. This was not an expression of

  distrust toward the other clocks which had just informed him of the same fact

  quite loudly and precisely. For more than a quarter of a century he had carried

  out this ritual every evening before he closed the shop and went home, as a sign

  of respect for a special memory. And a grief.

  But he was not fated to spend that evening in the usual way: closing the

  door to the shop, taking the short walk along the usually empty street to the

  small, excessively neat attic apartment where no one waited for him, preparing

  a simple and for the most part tasteless meal that would probably satisfy only a

  bachelor or a single person, and going to bed. Sleep would rarely bring him

  refreshment or oblivion; it mainly gave him restless dreams that returned him

  to the past. He could not leave the past, not even in his dreams.

  He had just put the heavy watch back into his vest pocket and was about to

  pull the little short chain with its silver ring to turn off the lamp with the green shade on his workbench behind the counter when the door opened suddenly,

  jangling the cluster of bells hanging above. Although mild compared to the

  discordant choir of the wall clocks, the unexpected sound of these signal bells

  made him start. He rarely had customers in his shop this late.

  He looked up, but all he could make out in the gloom was the silhouette of a

  tall man against the dull glow of the streetlight. The man was wearing a hat,

  probably a derby, and rather a long cloak, and in his right hand was a cane. He

  stopped next to the door without going up to the counter, as though hesitating

  for some reason.

  The old man pushed his round, metal-framed work glasses halfway down

  his nose and asked, with an effort to sound obliging, “May I help you, sir?”

  The man did not reply at once. He looked around the shop as though

  wanting to make sure that the two of them were alone. His eyes rested a bit

  longer on the grandfather clock; half of the pendulum’s path was in shadow,

  and the circular base flickered in the other half as it reflected the muted light

  from outside.

  The late visitor finally put his cane under his arm and stepped resolutely

  toward the counter, at the same time removing something from an inside

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  pocket. When he reached him, the old man saw that he was wearing white

  leather gloves; he had long, slender fingers like a pianist’s. His right fist was

  closed, and he placed it palm up on the felt-covered counter. Illuminated by

  the rim of light from the work lamp, its whitenes
s looked unnaturally bright

  compared to the green background and the darkness around them. The

  watchmaker suddenly had the impression that the man before him was a

  magician who was about to pull a sleight of hand.

  The trick, however, did not take place, for when his hand opened, it

  contained quite an exemplary object: a pocket watch. The old man returned

  his glasses to the bridge of his nose and leaned over it to take a better look. Up

  until then, he had been convinced that all he needed was one look at a watch in

  order to recognize not only the brand but also the type and even the year it was

  made. He had spent almost four decades working exclusively with watches. He

  knew them inside out, one might say. Particularly pocket watches; he was a

  real expert where they were concerned. He knew each little spring, gear, screw,

  and nut. Every little hand and face.

  But here he had a surprise in store. One look was not enough. He had

  certainly never seen this type before. The old man knit his brow in disbelief

  and leaned a bit closer. He was filled with the powerful urge to take the watch

  from the white palm, to finger it, open it, but manners prevented him doing

  so. He continued to look at it, putting his eager hands behind his back. He

  strove hard to find some detail he could recognize, but all his trained eye could

  ascertain was that the watch was exquisitely made. There was no doubt about

  that: it was the creation of a true master of his trade—an expert he had never

  heard of.

  Shaking his head briefly, he straightened up and looked at the visitor

  inquiringly. The man’s face was still in the darkness under the hat brim, so

  the watchmaker could not make it out. Suddenly he felt a mild prickling

  sensation at the base of his neck, the bristling of sparse white hairs. There was

  something unreal about the tall figure in front of him, something that filled

  him with agitation and unease.

  This impression did not pass when the visitor finally spoke.

  “I would like you to have a look at this watch,” he said in a hoarse, dignified

  voice which did not need to be raised even when giving an order. A foreigner,

  concluded the watchmaker. Although he made an effort to pronounce the

  words properly, his accent gave him away as well as a certain drawl, although