Impossible Stories Read online

  “I’m afraid not,” I replied in surprise. “Should I?”

  “I believe so. Who else, if not you?”

  “Please don’t hold it against me,” I said after a short hesitation, “but I don’t seem to recall when we met. Would you please remind me? With whom do I have the honour?”

  Holding his hat in his hand, the old man bowed again. “I cannot tell you my name, unfortunately, since you did not give me one. I am a character from one of your stories who remained nameless. But so it is with many of your characters, is it not?”

  I sized up the stranger angrily. “I don’t know what you want, sir, or why you came here,” I said, raising my voice a little, “but I certainly don’t have time for tasteless jokes. You have interrupted me in the middle of very important work. Such conduct is not tolerated in polite society. Please leave.”

  I started to close the door, but his next words halted me.

  “Your work is important, but you’re making heavy weather of it.”

  “Excuse me?” The door that was almost shut opened a crack.

  “Your writing. You have written five stories, and would like one more, a final one. Without it your book will be incomplete. But you seem to have run out of inspiration. Not a single letter has appeared on your screen for days, and you can afford to fritter away no more time, isn’t that so?”

  “Who are you? What is the meaning of this?” I tried to sound sharp, even wrathful, but a quaver in my voice betrayed me.

  “I am someone you might find useful. If, of course, you invite me in.” He looked briefly from side to side. “It would not be quite proper to talk about it here, in front of the door.”

  I made no move, not knowing what to do. This whole business was completely insane. The old man standing in front of me clearly could not be who he claimed to be, but, on the other hand, he could not possibly have known what he had just said. No one knew that but me. The seconds moved ponderously, crushing me with their growing weight.

  “Maybe this will dispel your doubts,” my visitor said at last, handing me the book he was holding.

  I took it hesitantly, thinking as I did that it was irrational. I should cut off this senseless encounter at once, simply close the door without further ado; maybe even slam it shut. You have to act firmly with oddballs, even those of polished demeanour and advanced years. But curiosity, plus a certain vague premonition, prevailed over rationality.

  It was a paperback book, not very thick, with a shiny, plastic-laminated cover. I turned the front over and squinted at it. Under my name was the title in large letters: Impossible Encounters.

  I raised my bewildered eyes to the elderly gentleman, who was still smiling. I realized that I was expected to say something, but nothing coherent crossed my mind. This book could not exist, if only because it had yet to be written. The last chapter was missing. The computer screen on which it was supposed to appear gaped behind me, completely white.

  “Where did you get this?” I finally stammered.

  “May I not come in?” the stranger persisted.

  I hesitated for just a moment before opening the door almost fully and stepping back. The old man passed by me, then stopped in my small hall. At first I didn’t understand why he had done this, then I realized what was expected of me.

  “With your permission,” I said and took his hat, then his long, heavy coat. I had to put the book under my arm briefly in order to hang them on the coat rack next to the front door. “After you,” I said, indicating the atelier’s main room.

  Once inside, the visitor turned this way and that, looking around but saying nothing, just nodding his head. He was wearing a dark blue suit of old-fashioned cut with wide lapels. A handkerchief matching his bow tie peeped delicately from his upper jacket pocket. He waited for me to invite him to sit down, then chose the couch to the right of the door. I was momentarily uncertain as to where I myself should sit, and then I chose the armchair next to the desk, under the lamp with the large yellow shade, so that we faced each other.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked, repeating the question that had not been answered.

  “From you, of course.”

  “From me?”

  “Yes, you left the book on the coffee table next to the jug and the two glasses. In the room that is entered from the hallway with portraits. Several drops fell on the cover as I was pouring water. Surely you remember?”

  I shook my head slowly, more in disbelief than because I could not remember.

  He indicated the book in my hand. “In the first story. The first chapter, in fact. ’The Window’.”

  I opened the book and started to leaf through it with stiff movements. It was truly there, on the seventh page: “1. THE WINDOW”. I read the short introductory sentence and then looked at my visitor again.

  “As you know,” he continued, “I am not exceptional in this regard. The other characters were given the book, too. It appears in each of the stories, although not always the same edition. The Old Man is sitting on it at the top of the ascent, above the clouds. The Bookseller has it on the shelf among his recent acquisitions. The Banker is reading it on the train. And finally, the Priest carries it with him when he withdraws into the confessional for his afternoon nap. You did well to give it to us. If it weren’t for the book, this encounter could not have taken place. Regardless which of us came here, you would never have let him inside unless he could present the book.”

  “But none of that is real. I mean . . . ” I knew quite well what I wanted to say, but for some reason I suddenly couldn’t put it into words.

  “But what is real? Didn’t you write Impossible Encounters in order to show that there is no distinct boundary separating the real from the unreal? In any case, were we to stick unconditionally to the real, we would be unable to help you at all.”

  “Help me?”

  “Yes. What did the doctor tell you—how much more time do you have? Two, at most three months, isn’t that so?”

  “How do you know?” My voice had dropped almost to a whisper.

  “We know all about you, of course. That is quite natural. No one knows a writer as well as the characters from his own books. Just as you know us perfectly well, when it comes right down to it.”

  My head was spinning slowly. One part of my consciousness was still trying to make some sort of sense of all this, but in vain. I had cancelled my entitlement to any acceptable sense the moment I got up from my desk and headed for the door to see who was there. And maybe even quite a bit earlier, in fact. Back when I wrote the first sentence of Impossible Encounters.

  “How would you be able help me?” I asked, my voice still low. “If you know what the doctor told me, then it must be clear to you that there is no reprieve. Soon I will have to go back to the hospital, and this time I will never leave it.”

  “There is no reprieve, yes, but only in the medical sense. That is not what this is about, however.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  “You will soon die physically, and that is inevitable, alas. But you might join us beforehand.”

  “Join you?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How can I do that?”

  “It’s quite simple. You want to add one more chapter to Impossible Encounters, isn’t that so? Fine, write a story about yourself as a writer. Introduce yourself into it as a character.”

  “What would I gain by that? I mean, it would just be . . . let me put it this way, dead letters on paper. Unreal . . . ” It was not until after that last word had trailed away into silence that I realized how gauche it sounded.

  The elderly gentleman gave me a reproachful look from the couch. “Do I seem unreal?”

  “Well, no, but .. . ”

  “You see, the fact is you don’t really know absolutely everything about us. You undoubtedly think that we have no other existence outside of the limited work in which we appear. But that, of course, is untrue.”

  “Untrue?”

  “Qu
ite. We actually spend relatively little time in the roles of your characters. We are only there when someone reads a story about us. We are best regarded as actors who periodically appear onstage and act the same part in the same play, every time. When no one is reading us, when there is no play, we do not cease to exist, as you have incorrectly assumed.” He stopped for a moment, and his smile widened. “We do not turn into dead letters on paper. Quite the contrary. That is when we retire to a large drawing room.”

  “Where do you go?”

  “To a large drawing room. It is very beautiful, as you will see for yourself quite soon. It is cool and quiet. There are lots of comfortable chairs, tables with bowls full of ripe fruit, a piano in the corner, an enormous library. There is also a broad terrace with two well grown potted palms from which a magnificent view stretches towards the sea. To sit there is very pleasant. The sun is always at twilight, so it’s not too hot. The only drawback is that we can never go outside. We have to stay close by because you never know when a new play will start.”

  “What do you do, penned up inside there? Aren’t you bored to death as you wait for the next . . . play?”

  “Bored? Not in the least! We know very well how to fill up our free time. It would be much better to call it gracious leisure. Primarily, we carry on interesting, stimulating discussions. We all enjoy them, and I think you will like them, too. In addition, each of us has a talent that serves to entertain the others. My collocutor from ‘The Window’, for example, plays the piano. He often accompanies those who sing for us. The gentleman who fulfils the demanding role of God in ‘The Train’ has a truly magnificent voice, while the Tempter from ‘The Confessional’ is an exquisite painter. I’m sure you will be fascinated by his oils, particularly his still lifes. The older character from ‘The Cone’ is a most astute thinker, you might even say a philosopher, and we listen to his lectures with rapt attention and curiosity. And there is also a writer, who periodically reads his latest pages to us. Can you guess who that is?”

  I shrugged my shoulders after thinking for a moment. “I’m sure I wouldn’t know.”

  “The man who plays the alien in ‘The Bookshop’. His style is rather similar to yours, which is not, perhaps, surprising. You will be able to exchange experiences with him. It will be exciting to listen to your discussions.” The older gentleman paused again. “But you have deprived us in one sense,” he said regretfully.

  I looked at him, perplexed. “Which one?”

  “There are too few female characters. It would be much nicer for all of us if there were a few more ladies. Couldn’t at least one of the main characters have been female?”

  “What do you mean—several more ladies? There isn’t a single female character in Impossible Encounters. Although, of course, that is quite by accident. If I could have imagined all of this, I certainly would have introduced a woman. My other books are full of female characters.”

  “There is one woman, though. You forgot the girl who enters the church while the priest and the Tempter are talking in ‘The Confessional’.”

  “But you can’t see her. Only her footsteps are heard.”

  “What difference does that make? In any case, she is the only one who could make those feminine footsteps. You’ll understand that when you see her. Let me tell you a secret. We are all in love with her. It is quite certain that you will be no exception.”

  “Maybe I can still fix things,” I said hurriedly, in an apologetic voice. “The last story hasn’t been written yet. I could introduce another woman into it.”

  “But it has already been written. It is here in the book you are holding. The final story, unfortunately, has no women in it.”

  I stared at my guest several moments, at a loss for words; disturbing questions tumbled through my head. And then I opened the book and started to leaf through it again.

  But I did not reach the place I wanted. I was interrupted by the sharp voice of the visitor, who suddenly got up off the couch. “Don’t do it! You must not look at the last story until you write it. If you read it in advance, it would be as if the story were writing itself. That would destroy an order of things that nothing should be allowed to endanger. Should that happen, you would never be able to join us. Please give me back my Impossible Encounters.”

  I did not comply at once. It was only with great restraint that I stopped when I was somewhere in the middle of the book. I was spurred by a violent impulse to take at least a peek at the first page of the last story, to see how it started. I was aware that this would have been cheating of some sort, although I might not have been able to explain what kind exactly. This was not, however, why I stopped. Ethical considerations were not enough to overcome the frustration that was devouring me inside, quite as destructively as the disease that would soon curtail my days. The constricting helplessness I felt derived from the knowledge that my time was inexorably running out, while the monitor on my desk remained hopelessly, undeniably empty: death would come faster than inspiration.

  What had made me finally stand up and reluctantly hand the book back to the old man was the hope I suddenly felt. It was deeply irrational, earnest and desperate—but all I had left. The faint hope of the writer that what he has written will afford him refuge from the ultimate void.

  “I can’t do it,” I said in a quavering voice. “I’ve been trying for so long, but nothing comes. Soon the pains will begin . . . ”

  A smile returned to the visitor’s face. “Of course you can. Believe me. Here is the proof, after all.” He raised the little book he had taken from me. “I must go now. You need peace if you are to write. And I can’t stay away from the drawing room for long. The plays are about to begin.”

  We headed towards the front door. I held his coat for him in the hall, then handed him his hat. He placed it on his head with a skilled movement, then extended his hand. Thin, bony as it was, his handshake was firm. And more than that. Friendly. Encouraging. “See you soon,” the elderly gentleman said, with a brief bow.

  I returned the bow, but said nothing. I closed the door behind my guest and stood there for a while in front of it, staring blankly into space. Then I turned and slowly headed for my desk. The large monitor was waiting with its white emptiness, as though mocking me.

  I placed my fingers lightly on the keys, barely touching them. I did not start to type right away. All at once I was no longer in a hurry. The story now stood before me, formed, final, whole. Almost palpable. All I had to do was write it. I wanted this moment to last as long as possible.

  Finally, a dense, buzzing swarm of letters started to fly on the upper part of the screen, appearing, so it seemed, from out of nowhere:

  When the front doorbell rang, the silence in my atelier seemed to implode, like a balloon that has suddenly lost all its air . . .

  PART THREE

  SEVEN TOUCHES OF MUSIC

  11. The Whisper

  It was a small class. And a special one.

  There were only five youngsters, three girls and two boys, their ages ranging from six to eleven. Dr Martin had his hands full with them, but in one respect at least they gave him no worries: he had no need to discipline them. Peace reigned unchallenged in the classroom. It was so quiet that at times Dr Martin actually longed for a little commotion, some kind of unruly unrest. But all he received from his wards was silence.

  They sat silently at their low desks, physically present but mentally absent, detached—worse than that: unattached. They were wrapped in an almost impenetrable autistic shell—certainly, one with no shortcut leading through it. Were there a path, to trace it would require endless patience, heroic kindness and attention on a grand scale—not that even these could guarantee success.

  Although he liked to regard himself as a teacher, Dr Martin was truly no such thing. He never taught his pupils anything; nor did he test them, or even talk to them. He did address them, of course, but he could never be certain that they took in any of his words. There was rarely any reaction; when there w
as, it was enigmatic.

  Even so, something was emanating from those five closed, inaccessible worlds. It was hard to understand, but at least it existed. When Dr Martin had first given the children blank sheets of paper and pencils, he had done so with no great expectations.

  It was simply part of the standard program. First he had shown them how to use the pencils, which took a wearisome time. Even more time and persistence had been required to persuade them to use them for spontaneous self-expression. The final result was certainly disproportionate to the effort it had cost, but this was true of every aspect of work with these children.

  Ana, the oldest but also the smallest in the group, with a face dominated by extremely large eyes, was the first to master the skill of freestyle drawing on paper. She held the pencil in a white-knuckled grip, but her movements were quick, short and nimble. She filled sheet after sheet, but Dr Martin never saw any of her productions. Should he approach her as she drew her densely cross-hatched lines, she would quickly turn the paper over to prevent him from looking at it. When she decided that a drawing was finished, she would start to tear it up. She did this with geometric precision, first in half, then in quarters, and so on until her desk was piled with tiny squares of grey confetti. These she would carefully sweep into the pocket of her smock, taking them with her at the end of class. Dr Martin never learned what she did with them.

  Sofia was a plump nine-year-old with a round, pimply face which she bent over the desktop because she was very near-sighted. She drew only on the edges of the paper, leaving the middle untouched. She filled this narrow frame with curving lines of surprising accuracy. There were snaking waves, spirals and open loops that never crossed or touched each other, creating a complicated tangle reminiscent of fingerprints. She would interrupt her work occasionally and stare for a long time at what she had drawn. In the end she would hand her work to Dr Martin with a grimace in which he thought he recognized a shy smile.