Zoran Zivkovic - First Contact and Time Travel

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by Selected Essays


  ready. At your service, sir. At your service.”

  The foreigner abruptly turned on his heel, missing the watchmaker’s

  humble bow. The sound of the cloak’s stiff fabric merged with the ringing

  of the bells and the closing of the door. The tall shadow passed quickly in front

  of the store window and disappeared down the street.

  The old man slowly sat down on the chair next to his workbench and put

  the pocket watch upon the rubber surface. He gazed at it for a few moments,

  turning it over curiously, and then reached to open the lid.

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  Z. Živkovic

  But he did not complete the movement, for he suddenly realized that in the

  excitement of the moment before, he had forgotten something: he had not

  given the customer a receipt for the watch. Inexcusable, he thought. That had

  never happened to him before. All right, he had been disoriented by the

  visitor’s unusual appearance, by that strange story, but even so! An

  unpardonable oversight for a watchmaker who cares about his reputation.

  What would the foreigner think of him?

  He grabbed the receipt book and a pen from the counter and rushed toward

  the door with stiff movements. Suddenly disturbed, the bells above the door

  protested sharply. Outside it was cool and windy, a November evening at the

  foot of a mountain which already carried a great cap of snow. Shivering for a

  moment, the watchmaker looked for the visitor down the row of streetlights.

  But no one was there. Perplexed, he turned and looked in the other direction.

  Just as empty.

  He stayed in front of the shop a little longer, turning back and forth in

  disbelief, and then returned inside. Where had he gone? Had a carriage been

  waiting for him nearby? But no, he hadn’t heard anything. Standing at the

  door a moment, the old man finally shrugged his shoulders. He would

  apologize to the foreigner for this oversight when he came in the morning.

  In any case, it would make no difference then. The most important thing was

  for him to take care of the watch.

  He returned to his workbench, interlaced his fingers and cracked his

  knuckles like a pianist before a performance, and then drew up the squeaky

  stool. Before he pressed the clasp to open the lid, he briefly rubbed his

  fingertips with his thumbs.

  His eyes first went to the inner side of the lid. It was an inadvertent, almost

  automatic act: that was what he always did with the other pocket watch that he

  kept with him always. There was an engraved inscription there as well that for

  some reason seemed familiar to him. TO J. FROM Z. was on the gold-plated

  concave circle, and several long moments had to pass before the old man

  realized what it was. The shape of the letters, of course! The same large, ornate

  letters as... But how was it possible?

  And then there was no more time for ordinary amazement; on top of the

  wreath woven of twelve elongated Roman numerals the two black hands had

  started their crazy dance.

  II

  They seemed to have a will of their own, moving by themselves—but in the

  wrong direction. They started to turn backward, as though measuring the past,

  first slowly, so he could follow them, then faster and faster. The watchmaker

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  121

  instinctively withdrew his hands from the activated watch, but his eyes stayed

  riveted to its face.

  He stared at the big hand as it accelerated and then finally disappeared,

  transforming into an excited circle; it looked like some sort of film had been

  placed over the face. The spinning of the small hand was perceptible somewhat

  longer, and then it, too, melted into an indistinct veil.

  This tremendous spinning made the watch tremble on the rubber surface. It

  suddenly occurred to the old man that he could stop the magic if he closed the

  cover, but he did not have the courage to touch it. Holding tightly to the edge

  of the workbench, he felt that the accelerating vibrations of the watch were

  being transferred to his body: he, too, was shaking as though he had a fever.

  And then the trembling stopped, for the watch had detached from the

  tabletop and started to float slightly above it. Although it was illuminated by

  the strong lamplight, no shadow lay beneath it, just as though it were

  transparent. A high, shrill whistle started to sound, almost at the upper

  threshold of audibility; there was something unsettling in that sound, and

  the old man wanted to put his hands over his ears but was unable to do so.

  As though bewitched, he simply stared at the floating object before him that

  continued to rise slowly until it reached the height of the old man’s eyes. It

  rested there a few moments, hesitating as though thinking what to do, and

  then started to spin around its vertical axis. Just as with the hands on the face,

  the spinning became faster and faster until there soon formed the illusion of a

  small ball before the watchmaker’s bewildered, slack-jawed face.

  As though cut with countless facets, the ball first brightly reflected the light

  from the lamp on the workbench and then began to radiate its own light as the

  shrill noise became louder and louder. To the old man’s relief, the unbearable

  sound soon rose above the frequency audible to human ears, leaving behind a

  muffled, almost palpable silence.

  In just a few moments, the dull grayness turned into a reddish glow, then

  into yellow heat, and finally there was a rapid sequence of shades of white,

  rushing to the inevitable climax, the act of release. The old man greeted this

  orgasm of light with wide open eyes, unable to lower his eyelids; in any case,

  what could thin, wrinkled skin do against the uncontained fierceness of a

  summer sun less than a foot from his head?

  Although he was completely blinded by the explosive flash, he did not feel

  any pain or even discomfort. The only thing he felt was the strange sensation of

  being in the middle of an endless emptiness, impenetrable and silent; he made

  his way through it effortlessly since there was no base or support to hold him

  back. His body seemed to have lost all weight and along with it all sense of

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  Z. Živkovic

  direction: up might be down, or somewhere to the side—he was not able to

  distinguish anything.

  Is this death? he wondered. If it is, then it is very mild, even pleasant. Like a

  dream. This was not how he had imagined it. Actually, he had not imagined it

  at all. Who imagines what death looks like, anyway? He had the vague feeling

  that he should be afraid for some reason, but instead of fear or at least

  discomfiture, he was filled with childish curiosity. Where was he? Would he

  remain incorporeal like this forever? Did time exist here? Why couldn’t he see

  or hear anything?

  As if in answer to this last question, sounds started to come from a great

  distance. He did not recognize them at first; they were too muffled. At first

  they resembled the scraping sound of gravel being rolled by waves on the shore

  and then the drumming of rain on the leaves in a forest on a wet spring

  evening. Then something in their rhythm seemed not only recognizable but
r />   familiar: the monotonous, regular repetition, harmonious only in the intro-

  ductory chord and then completely dissonant...

  There were seven strokes from the moment he started instinctively to count

  the hour sounding in four disparate registers. How many had he missed until

  he understood what it was? Three—or maybe more? There was only one way

  to find out, although he did not understand why it was important to ascertain

  this fact. He reached for his vest pocket, forgetting completely that he had

  become incorporeal. But the pocket was there, real and tangible, as were his

  vest and hand—everything was there except the watch that Mary had given

  him, that day... The watch had gone!

  How was that possible? Why, a little while ago... He looked at his vest in

  panic, only realizing when he saw it that his sight had returned. He was no

  longer blinded or surrounded by impenetrable emptiness. He stared at his

  body for a few moments, filled with disbelief, and then slowly raised his eyes

  and looked around himself.

  He did not notice what was wrong right away. Everything seemed to be

  normal: things were in their proper places—the workbench which he was still

  grasping convulsively with one hand, the counter covered with green felt, the

  old-fashioned clothes tree in the corner with his winter coat hanging from it,

  two armchairs with reddish upholstery and the round coffee table between

  them with its thin, curved legs, the large grandfather clock with its pendulum,

  the mirror on the opposite wall with the black wrought iron frame...

  Only after he had taken all of it in did he realize where the problem lay: he

  should not be able to see it all. The only light in the shop was from the small

  lamp with the green shade in front of him, and the lamplight barely reached

  the counter. Now, however, he could see everything as clear as daylight...

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  123

  Day!

  Daylight flooded through the large shop window with WATCHMAKER

  written in an arch of dark-blue letters. It was bright and clear, light that in this region was seen only in late spring and during the short summer, certainly not

  in mid-November. But it was not early winter outside; when a little girl

  skipped past the shop soon afterward, the watchmaker was perplexed to see

  that she was wearing a checkered dress with short, ruffled sleeves.

  He got up from his workbench, finally lifting his numb hand from its edge,

  and took slow, hesitating steps from the counter toward the entrance. When

  he was in the middle of the shop, out of the corner of his eye he noticed

  something moving to his right and turned slowly in that direction, encoun-

  tering his own reflection in the long mirror.

  He squinted and stared at his image, refusing to believe what he saw. It was

  he, without a doubt, but different, changed—rejuvenated. The person

  returning his look from the glass was not an old man, stooped, his forehead

  full of wrinkles, gray-haired and balding. He was a young man, barely thirty,

  standing straight, with smooth skin and thick, dark hair.

  He started to touch his face gingerly, afraid that even the lightest pressure

  might deform it into its former deteriorated grimace like a wax mask. His

  fingers slid over his mouth, chin, cheeks, striving to feel the trickery, but there

  was no deception: his youthfulness was real—as real as everything else around

  him seemed to be.

  He continued to look at the long-forgotten person in the mirror, while the

  confusion in him slowly withdrew before the mounting excitement, when

  suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, he had a sensation that he had experienced

  only a few times before, but never as strongly. The feeling of déjà vu was

  all-encompassing, overwhelming: he had stood on this same spot before,

  looking at himself in the mirror, and the bright summer day had been exactly

  the same.

  Something caught in his throat when he realized what had to happen next.

  He had no doubt that it would actually happen as he quickly turned around to

  face the entrance. The bells above it started to fly loudly in all directions that

  same instant. Only she entered like that: like a whirlwind of blond curls, with

  her long, rustling dress, her smile so enchanting in its radiant cheerfulness...

  Mary!

  He knew that she would not turn to look at his wide open eyes, would not

  notice the paralysis that had come over him, that she would not hear the

  thunderous drumming of his heart that so filled his ears he felt as though

  the whole shop were echoing. He knew that she would rush to one of the

  armchairs and unload the armful of colorful boxes she was carrying.

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  Z. Živkovic

  Her words reverberated in his head a moment before she uttered them, like

  a reversed echo that precedes the original sound.

  “It’s so terribly hot. It’s even worse downtown. And crowded. You have no

  idea. It’s as if the whole town were outdoors. You should have come with

  me. You sit inside too much. It’s not good for you. You could have closed the

  shop today. There are a lot of people here, too. You should see how many

  carriages there are in the square. Goodness, I’m all sweaty. And I’m terribly

  thirsty.”

  She started to rummage impatiently through her rather large handbag made

  of flowery waterproof fabric; it was always full and now seemed truly inflated.

  A full minute went by before she finally found what she was looking for. The

  small box was wrapped in shiny green paper, and the turquoise ribbon had

  curled ends.

  He did not have to open it to find out what was inside. Nevertheless, he did

  it as inquisitively as he had earlier because he was impelled by the inexorable

  pressure of déjà vu. Once he had lifted the cover of the pocket watch and

  looked at the engraved inscription, he smiled broadly and said the sentence he

  knew went at that place.

  “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

  He did not have the courage to be more eloquent in his thanks this time,

  even though he wanted to with all his heart. The object he held in his hand

  meant more to him than a present from his fiancée: it was an infinitely precious

  keepsake from which he had never parted in the many years which followed.

  Even so, the fear prevailed that if he used any other words he would cause an

  irreparable disturbance and would lose this feeling of déjà vu that was

  guiding him.

  Mary returned his smile and then went up to him, raised herself on tiptoes,

  and kissed him. It was a light, brief touch of the lips, on the very edge of

  decorum, considering the time and place, but it made him tremble nonethe-

  less. She suddenly turned toward the door, feeling awkward, to see if anyone

  was about to enter, and then began to pick up the boxes from the armchair.

  They were full of the beautiful things she had chosen to look stunning at the

  upcoming ceremony.

  “I’m going to take all of this and get changed. I’m all sweaty and sticky. It’s

  so hot. You should put on something lighter, too. You’ll boil. Let’s go have

  lunch at the Golden Jug. What do you say? It’s the coolest there right now, in


  the garden under the linden trees. All this shopping has made me hungry.”

  She smiled at him again, a special mixture of affection and apology, and

  then rustled in her whirlwind manner toward the door—to meet the inevita-

  ble. The sequence of events stood before him, completely clear, illuminated by

  Time Gifts

  125

  the powerful beacon of déjà vu: the wild music of the horse bells briefly

  muffling the thudding that was rapidly approaching; her hurried departure

  onto the pavement in front of the shop as the empty carriage jumped wildly on

  the cobblestones; incautiously crossing the street at the very moment the

  confused horses without a driver, left too long in the sun and frightened by

  who knew what, could no longer be stopped; the horrible shock at realizing

  that there was no way of escape; someone’s scream from the other side of the

  street that seemed to last an eternity; and then the multicolored boxes flying in

  all directions, opening up and spilling their insides: an elegant lemon-colored

  dress with an abundance of lace, a yellow hat with a large brim and a wide

  ribbon tied in a bow, shoes with large, shiny buckles, a pile of silk undergar-

  ments that certainly should not have been displayed like this—the senseless

  nakedness of death.

  “Mary!”

  He had to overcome the violent river to utter this word, to scrape off the

  previous deposit on the palimpsest with his nails, to seize hammer and chisel to

  write a new inscription on the virgin surface of the granite. The magic of déjà

  vu shattered at that moment—there was no room for this call; his role had

  been to remain silent, to follow her out merely with his eyes. Stepping out of

  the play in which he was unwillingly acting, he was suddenly alone, exposed to

  the winds of time without a guide to light his way, but also without the

  ominous inexorability of the predetermined.

  She stopped at the door and turned. “Yes, Joseph?”

  He didn’t know what to say. He certainly could not start explaining,

  particularly since he himself barely understood. So he simply went up to her

  and hugged her, together with her armful of boxes. It was a hard, awkward

  squeeze, calculated above all to keep her there, not to let her leave. He knew

  that this could arouse her suspicions, since such public displays of intimacy

  were not at all characteristic of him, but he chose the lesser of the two

 

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