Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel

by Selected Essays

  not one common in travelers from the north, who were the most frequent

  strangers in this area. It was impossible to say where he was from.

  “Certainly, sir, certainly,” he replied. “What is your complaint, sir? I mean,

  what is wrong with your watch? It is obviously quite expensive, although...”

  114

  Z. Živkovic

  He opened his mouth to admit that he had never seen one like it before, but he

  held back at the last moment, fearing this might stop the visitor from leaving

  his watch with him. He certainly had to have the chance to examine it in

  greater detail.

  “I have no complaints,” said the stranger, interrupting him. “The watch is

  fine. But all the same, I think it would be a good idea for you to have a look at

  it.”“Most certainly, sir. You are quite right. A bit of precaution would certainly

  do no harm. On the contrary, never enough caution. You were very wise to

  bring your watch to be looked at. Even the best watches need regular main-

  tenance. People do not bear that in mind, actually, they are negligent for the

  most part, not only toward objects, unfortunately; many misfortunes would be

  avoided if precautionary measures were taken...”

  “There are no precautions that can thwart chance.” The man said this in an

  even voice, as though saying something obvious, even banal. The watchmaker

  squinted toward the invisible face; although the statement sounded like a

  general principle, there was something in the stranger’s tone that gave it the

  weight and credentials of personal experience.

  “Yes, indeed. Of course. You understand things perfectly, sir. Chance, yes.

  Something you cannot influence regardless of how hard you try. For a

  watchmaker that is the effect of dust. I have yet to see a watch without dust,

  and countless numbers have gone through my hands in my many years of

  work. You can protect a watch however you want, even close it hermetically,

  but nothing helps. Dust will find a way inside, and one particle is

  enough—one single, solitary particle—to jeopardize the fine mechanism.

  You have no idea, sir, what a nightmare dust is for watchmakers.”

  “Yes, a particle of dust,” repeated the visitor, drawing out his words, lost in

  thought. “The flutter of butterfly wings...”

  The old man’s eyes became suspicious. What was that supposed to mean?

  What “flutter”? Maybe he wanted to say something else but expressed himself

  awkwardly in a foreign language—although he seemed to speak it well, at least

  fluently and correctly, if not without an accent. Or maybe he was some kind of

  crank, an eccentric? The old man was not prejudiced against foreigners and

  considered the stories that could be heard about their peculiarities, even

  abnormalities, to be exaggerated for the most part. But you never knew.

  There were quacks everywhere, in any case. Not even this neighborhood had

  been spared.

  He had the impression that some sort of reply was expected from him, but

  did not know what to say. Really, “butterfly wings” ... What could he say

  about them and still be nice, polite? He was saved from the awkward situation

  Time Gifts

  115

  by a carriage that suddenly passed by in the street. The rapid thud of horses’

  hooves caused the plated wheels to produce a sharp rattle as they rolled over the

  cobblestones. The visitor seemed to flinch a bit at this noise, turning toward

  the entrance. But the carriage passed in a flash, and the fading echo of its

  passage was quickly absorbed by the heavy silence of the evening.

  “Yes,” said the watchmaker when the stranger turned his unseen face toward

  him once again, “you are completely right. There is no way to fight against

  chance.”

  “Oh, that’s not what I said. I only said that you cannot thwart it, prevent

  it. But that does not mean that you cannot fight against it.”

  The old man involuntarily swallowed the lump in his throat. “Please forgive

  me, sir, but I’m afraid that I don’t understand you very well,” he replied

  timidly.

  Before he answered, the visitor finally put the pocket watch on the felt-

  covered counter, as though for some reason he had concluded just at that

  instant that he could safely let the watchmaker take his valuable timepiece.

  When the white glove withdrew from the lamplight, the old man had the

  impression that a bright trace remained behind it for a few moments. With his

  free hand, the foreigner skillfully took the cane from under his arm, turned

  slowly on his heel and pointed at the clocks on the four walls with it.

  “It is all a matter of time, you see,” he said at last, after making a full circle

  and returning to face the watchmaker again. His voice took on that flat quality

  once more that spoke of reliable knowledge, his own experience.

  The old man simply nodded, without a word, as though this statement

  explained everything. One had to be careful with eccentrics; it was not

  advisable to contradict them.

  “What makes chance so powerful? The fact that you can’t foresee it. If you

  knew exactly which particle of dust would ruin the watch mechanism, you

  could remove it in time. But you can’t know that until the malfunction occurs,

  of course.”

  “Of course,” repeated the watchmaker like an echo, with another nod.

  “Cause and effect,” continued the visitor. “The particle only becomes a

  cause when the effect takes place—the malfunction. Never beforehand. That is

  why alleged clairvoyance and similar illusionary sleights of hand have no

  meaning. The future cannot be foretold because then one would be able to

  change it. And if you changed it, then it would no longer be the predicted

  future. You cannot prophesy: this particle is the cause of the future malfunc-

  tion—and then remove it, because then there would be no malfunction, and

  your prophecy would have no value, either. No, the consequences must

  happen in any case. And they do take place. You yourself said that you have

  116

  Z. Živkovic

  never seen a watch without dust inside. And you undertook detailed precau-

  tionary measures, everything that was within your power, to prevent it.”

  “Oh, I did, I did, most assuredly. You can be certain of that, sir. I hope I am

  not being immodest when I say that this watch repair shop has an excellent

  reputation for industriousness. You will see this for yourself, sir, I hope. We

  leave nothing to chance here...”

  The old man stopped, biting his tongue; it was only after he had said this

  last sentence that he realized the expression he used might sound inappropri-

  ate, given the topic under discussion. But since the visitor did not react, he

  quickly continued.

  “But, if you will forgive me my poor perception, sir, I cannot see how it is

  possible to fight against chance—your very words, sir—if the effects, the

  consequences, must take place?”

  The foreigner did not answer at once. Led by some obscure impulse, he

  threw his cane a short distance into the air, then as it fell caught it adeptly near the upper end with his thumb and forefinger and started to swing the lower

  pa
rt as if it were a pendulum. It was only then that the old man noted in the

  gentle, milky gleam that the top of the cane was the stylized figure of an

  hourglass. Most likely made of ivory, he concluded. The man was without

  doubt quite wealthy. Perhaps only people like that could allow themselves the

  luxury of being eccentric.

  “It’s all a matter of time, as I said,” he announced again at length, continu-

  ing to swing his wooden pendulum. “You truly cannot influence the cause

  before the effect, but there is another possibility—perhaps you can do so after

  the effect takes place.”

  The old man squinted again over the metal rim of his glasses. Watchmakers

  are like doctors, he thought, self-pityingly and comfortingly: they do not enjoy

  the privilege of choosing their clients. How would it look if a doctor refused to

  treat a patient simply because he had strange convictions? Should he now

  refuse to serve this obviously wealthy quack with a very unusual watch just

  because of his peculiar ideas? That would be quite against professional ethics,

  not to mention courtesy. And after all, there was the fee to think of.

  “Oh,” replied the old man briefly, trying not to sound too surprised.

  “Yes,” continued the visitor, “although extremely unusual, the idea is

  actually simple. Going into the past. Going upstream on the river of time, to

  put it picturesquely. If you returned to the past, you would be able to remove

  the cause and thereby the effect as well.”

  “Of course,” agreed the watchmaker without hesitation. “Quite simple, as

  you said, sir... Going back into the past and removing the cause... Nothing

  easier, so to speak. No cause, no effect. You explained that quite well, sir, quite

  concisely...”

  Time Gifts

  117

  The stranger did not reply for several moments, and the old man had the

  unpleasant impression that the unseen eyes were gazing at him in suspicion

  from under the hat brim. Did I say something I shouldn’t have? he wondered.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything. A man doesn’t know how to talk to

  such people.

  “It is not quite as simple as you might think.” The visitor’s voice seemed to

  carry a touch of reproach. “Here’s an example: imagine that you go back to the

  past and accidentally cause the death of one of your parents—before you were

  conceived. That would mean that you were never born and could therefore

  never go into the past and prevent your own conception. And if you were

  nonetheless born and then you went back to the past...and so on. Reductio ad

  absurdum. A paradox.”

  The old man stared fixedly at the dark figure before him, suddenly feeling

  sweat break on the palms of his hands. What was he talking about—causing

  the death of one of my parents? How could he think of something like that?

  Was that the sort of thing a gentleman talked to a stranger about, even if he

  was an eccentric? But what if this person before him was not some rich

  eccentric, but a madman who had escaped from a foreign asylum for the

  mentally ill, who would rob and maybe even kill someone? Where did he get

  those fancy clothes, expensive watch and ivory-tipped cane, anyway? Does he

  intend to attack me? What should I do? How were you supposed to act toward

  a dangerous lunatic, anyway? Humor him, flatter him? I must not let him

  know that I realize he is crazy. But they say that madmen can be very bright...

  If only the ceiling light was on—damn the penny-pinching of the elderly!

  “No, there is no solution to the paradox, at least not if you hold to the

  normal view of time—as a unique river. What has happened cannot be

  changed at all. The flow of time is like granite in which events are permanently

  chiseled. Both causes and effects. It is not a palimpsest that you can erase and

  write on again as many times as you want.”

  Another short pause ensued, and then the foreigner suddenly stopped the

  monotonous swinging of his cane. He held it in the hanging position for a

  moment, as though uncertain what to do with it next, and then with a sharp

  movement put it under his arm again. All that remained sticking out at the

  front was the figure of the hourglass—a milky spot before a dark background.

  “But what if there were not just one time flow, one inscription in granite? If

  there were several flows—countless, actually? Imagine time not as a single river

  but as an enormous tree with countless branches, countless forks. Forks appear

  on those places where you change the past. One branch is the original flow in

  which a cause produced an effect; that is final—it must remain unchanged,

  chiseled—but from the other branch both the cause and the effect are

  removed.”

  118

  Z. Živkovic

  The visitor stopped, as though wanting to check the impression his words

  had made. The old man was still staring at him fixedly, his mouth half open. In

  the sudden silence, the muted ticking of the wall clocks rose by several octaves.

  “And you exist on both forks, in both versions, if we can put it that way.

  You have a sort of double—more than that, actually—whose course of life

  differs from yours in some respect. In an essential respect, perhaps. He could

  be spared the effects of an unpleasant, tragic accident, for example.”

  The visitor fell silent and the old man started to fidget, feeling that he

  should say something in reply. However, for several long moments he couldn’t

  think of anything.

  “Truly quite clever,” he said at last, making an effort to keep his voice from

  trembling. “What an unusual notion! You have figured out something quite

  brilliant, sir. A tree and then a fork, and a double! Very picturesque, striking,

  no doubt about it. Something like that certainly would never have crossed my

  mind.”

  “Strange. And one would say that you have had both an opportunity and a

  motive to think about that.”

  “What are you thinking of, sir? I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.”

  The visitor took the cane in his right hand again and described a rather large

  arc in front of him.

  “Isn’t this an opportunity? Look around yourself. You have spent your

  entire life in the midst of clocks. You are surrounded by chronometers. You

  are in the very center of time, I might say, in a very privileged position. I

  cannot believe that in all these past years you have never wondered about the

  nature of time, how it works, about the peculiarities linked to it. Who else if

  not you?”

  “I am afraid you highly overestimate me, sir. I am just an ordinary watch-

  maker. Industrious, that is true, yes, and probably good, too, at least that is

  what they say, but nothing more than an artisan. For me, sir, and please don’t

  hold it against me, time flows as it flows, and if a clock does not measure it as it should, I repair it. I can do that. And that is all. Clocks are here to measure

  time properly, aren’t they?”

  “Yes, that’s true, but what about the motive?”

  “Motive, sir?”

  The stranger did not continue right away. The watchmaker could almost

  feel the piercing look of the eyes in the sha
dow.

  “Nothing in your life has ever made you want to go back to the past and

  change something there? Remove some unforeseen cause that led to adverse

  effects? Cancel the consequences of some mischance that befell you or

  Time Gifts

  119

  someone particularly close to you, someone dear? Has there ever been a man

  who has never had such a desire?”

  Who is this? wondered the watchmaker in fear, feeling suddenly squeezed,

  as if in a trap. Behind him was a wall, and before him lurched a threatening

  figure, a voice from the darkness asking inadmissible, impossible questions.

  His hand unconsciously touched the watch in his vest pocket. This was not

  some eccentric or madman. Oh, no. Something else was going on here,

  something unreal, like a dream. Maybe I’m dreaming, he thought with

  hope. He did not wake up, however, as always happens when this question

  is asked in a dream.

  “What would be the use even if I did want to, sir? It can’t be done. I mean,

  all right, maybe time isn’t, as you described, sir, a river, I don’t contest that,

  but that...tree...with the forks in the branches...and the rest. The double... But

  how can a person ever get the chance to change anything? Go back to the

  past?”

  There was no reply from the shadow. The seconds lapsed, long, silent, full

  of expectation. And then, instead of the stranger, the wall quartet suddenly

  resounded, breaking off the tense silence and prompting the old man for the

  first time in his life to jump at the harmonious announcement of the full hour;

  the very next moment it was transformed into a discordant confusion of

  grumbling, chirping, chiming, and waltz music.

  The visitor remained motionless until the last echo of the grenadier’s bass

  died out and then with a rapid movement placed the top of his cane next to the

  pocket watch that lay on the illuminated felt counter.

  “You will look at it, won’t you?”

  A deep sigh of relief escaped from the old man, as though a heavy load had

  been taken off his chest. His eager hands finally caught hold of the precious

  object; they started to turn it over and feel it, examining it as carefully as eyes

  could.

  “Certainly, certainly. Rest assured, sir. Right away. It’s not too late. If you

  would be so kind as to come by in the morning. As soon as I open. It will be