The Impossibly (17 page)

If I could imagine it might be interesting, I can’t, and had the energy, I don’t, I might, using some mechanism involving the number of times I’ve been knocked out, compose a record of my days. I can remember once reading about the consistent pattern of a saturated presence of low-grade fractures in the skull and clavicle area of ancient remains, and suspect that if by some chance my bones retain their integrity long enough for them to bear some anthropological interest if found by future researchers, the presiding scientist might draw the conclusion that he was dealing with some sort of anachronism, which is to say that, by my own reckoning, I’ve been knocked out—I’m not counting smacks here—upwards of a dozen times. Starting very early. Much too early. And it was of this that I thought when I came to—an image of myself, a little too small, having been struck and, some interval having passed, waking up. I woke up. It was the same room, same table, same, likely, chair, I thought. Although my recent interlocutor was gone, and in place of his chair, behind where he had sat, was a round mirror, in which, looking back, rather dull—an old man. Who regarded himself for a time. Then stood, collapsed, stood again, and walked out.

I would like to return now, in a manner of speaking, to the little house near the old part of the city where the woman lived. Follow me, she had said. It was to the little house that I followed her. On the way, though she didn’t blindfold me, she did ask me not to speak, as she had a slight headache and found my voice, which is a little high-pitched, grating. You could gag me, I said. I have asked you not to speak, she said. So we walked along in silence, or in as much silence as two old people can manage in navigating poorly maintained streets—one of them, not me, wheezing a little—with curbs of varying heights and pieces of loose stone and piles of sand. Once, having nearly fallen into one of these last, because of one of the penultimate, I cursed, though remembering her injunction I did not do so loudly. We had bumped into each other some distance from her house, and I took advantage of the time to continue thinking about my dream, and also about several other things that came to mind, one of which had to do with a dark airshaft I had once lived by and another of which had to do with the advantages, first for a perpetrator and then for an investigator, of being a ghost. This last, however, devolved into an internal debate on the practicality, with regard to one-on-one contact, of such a state, i.e., would a dead individual possessed both of sentience and some means of self-propulsion, in fact be able to satisfactorily conduct investigations, i.e., interview living individuals and relate conclusions or relevant observations to them? The dead individual might only, and with great effort, be able, when the guilty party’s name, for example, was mentioned in conversation, to knock over a vase, or produce some meaningful condensation, or partially appear, but who could predict how such interventions would be treated, or if they would receive any consideration at all? My sort of ghost, I concluded shortly before we arrived at her house, would most likely be the kind that, not deficient in self-awareness and some measure of intent, would lack a predictable means of locomotion, and so would have to rely, to carry out investigations, on such things as local wind currents and fluctuations in the magnetic field. Most likely, as I pictured it, my course would take on something of the aspect of an all-but-incapacitated butterfly, or a plastic bag caught in an updraft, adding dubious consistency to the air.

We entered her house and sat down at her kitchen table, where I picked up an apple and she took the mask away from her face. Oh, I said. Yes, it’s me, she said. I wondered, looking carefully at her, why it seemed so easy to be certain about her identity. After all, it had been some time, and I had only known her then for a short while. Only a few weeks, she said. If that, I said. You remember because you didn’t like me. That’s true enough. I mean you like me now, but then you didn’t like me. What does that mean? You know what it means. No I don’t. Nevertheless, it is me—I asked her why she was revealing her identity now. There’s no longer any reason to keep it from you, she said. What reason was there before? It was important not to influence the early stages of your investigation. Are the early stages over? Yes. Well I still don’t know anything. You probably know more than you think. This seemed reasonable and even vaguely encouraging, so I changed the subject. I asked her how she had been and what she had done with herself all this time, and she said she had done very well for a while, then very poorly and that lately, largely due to her acquaintance with the individual with the face, she was doing a little better. Who is he? I said. She told me. That guy? I said—he was just some schlep who couldn’t say good-bye. He’s made something of himself. Unlike me is what you mean. She didn’t answer. Answer me, I said. Yes, unlike you. This silenced me for a while. As I sat there, silent, listening to her light wheezing, she told me some more about her life and about some of her exploits, which I have to say I found a bit dull. And also a bit sad. Maybe more sad than dull. Maybe all sad.

When I was quite young, as I have mentioned previously, I lived in certain rural areas, as often as not surrounded by various domesticated animals, as well as various wild and even savage ones. Also in abundance, in the summer months, as in all such regions of the world, were any number of insects, which used to become intrigued by us at night or prowl in the evergreen bushes or hover above stumps in small, oblivious swarms. The wasps stung and the arachnids frightened and the horses and mules, if you got too close to them, or let them come up behind you, would bite, and although there were cats to come and gently brush against your legs and dogs to lie beside you when you had been made to lie very still facedown in the barnyard, most of the menagerie seemed to have a certain mildly ferocious aspect in common with the other—I mean not me—bipedal inhabitants of the house. With so many animals on my mind and numerous occasions to think about them, either before I fell asleep or when I was locked up, I acquired the habit of describing to myself the characteristics of various hybrid beasts. Some of these were very pretty and quite wonderful, such as the occasionally carnivorous glow-in-the dark hummingbird with the colors and patterns of the swallowtail; others were less so. It was one of these latter—a species that inhabits and is in fact engendered by the smoldering space between two openly antagonistic old people (the relatives I lived with during that period) sitting opposite each other—that I thought of as we sat there at her kitchen table. The evocation was unpleasing. Suddenly, everything was unpleasing. I picked up her mask and looked at her through it. What happened that day all those years ago? I said. You sure you want to hear it? No, but start talking.

After you dropped us off, she said, we went upstairs and, as had been arranged, found them waiting there. We also found that during our absence a great number of items had been added to the shelves, and she, as had been arranged, quickly added what the two of you had brought back from the trip. Then they carried in the animals and splashed it all with violet paint. She laughed when they splashed it all with violet paint. Especially at the monkey, he kept looking at his hands. I think it was at this point that you called. And a little while later they brought you in. After you came to they sent me into the kitchen to cook. She stayed in the room with the Stutter and the skinny woman and took her turn at burning you. Your good buddy John was there for that part. We sat in the kitchen and when the remainder of the food had cooled we ate it. Then we all left and a couple of days later they got the package you had put the wrong address on, then your pal, your hero, who, you’ve probably gathered, was working with us the whole time, came back to pick you up. The end.

Thanks, he wasn’t my hero, I said. You’re welcome, she said. So you didn’t participate in the burning? I didn’t say that. No, you didn’t. Would you like to cross-examine me? Okay—why the shelves? The shelves? The objects and the shelves. I have no idea, the concept either came from the Central Job Committee or maybe she thought it up herself, anything else? Yes—why didn’t you haul me in as soon as you knew I hadn’t gone through with my assignment? Our instructions were to determine whether or not you were working alone. What did you determine? That you were. Well, anyway that’s true. It’s all true. No it’s not. Yes it is. Where did she go afterward? Nowhere. What do you mean? I mean she didn’t do very well with her next couple of assignments so she was disaffirmed. Was she recuperated? I don’t think so. Of course, this was just her version of the story, even if it did, in certain details, correspond with other versions I had had, but it still wasn’t definitive, as I didn’t trust her, for whatever reason, never had. Or didn’t want to. Maybe I did trust her, but didn’t want to and was confused by that. I was certainly confused, but was still in hopes that the next day, when the three weeks were up, I would be able to move forward with my investigation, which after all was the important, even if somewhat laughable, matter at hand. Anyway I don’t believe you, I said. I told them you wouldn’t, she said. And what did they say? They said to ask you what you believe in. What I believe in? Yes. What the hell kind of question is that? I’m just the one asking it. Well, I’m not sure. They said you would say that. They’re clearly very well-informed. Yes, they are. What do you believe in, Smarty? A certain unexamined measure of synchronicity. Well that’s very clever. Thank you. And is that what this is, our meeting after all these years? No, and anyway, I said unexamined. Yeah, yeah, so what is this? This was planned. And on that—she gave me another apple and showed me out—our discussion ended. At least until the next night.

But in the meantime, I slept then spent the day more or less waiting then went to the park and waited and worried that I’d missed my killer, but of course hadn’t, then went to the restaurant and saw the man in the photo, who in fact had had nothing to do with my case until they learned I had found the photograph of him—it was planted evidence for another affair in the building—and so sent him to eat at the restaurant, correctly reasoning I would find my way there in hopes of having the previous evening’s exercise explained. There, I received the misinformation about the sister, which I followed up on, still, of course, under the impression that my killer was possibly the fat man in the restaurant—I’m not sure why they didn’t just change the photograph—then got conked on the head, woke in front of the mirror, walked out, made a phone call, and heard the word, bingo. I won’t, I said. Yes, you will, the voice said. I want to talk to someone. You are. Someone besides you. I’m the only one. Let me talk to the young woman. She doesn’t talk on the phone. This is just cheap, you guys are just trying to get economical. There was a silence then—investigation over—a dial tone.

Investigation over but not an account of all incidents relevant to it. There are a couple more. After replacing the receiver, I went back down the hall and knocked on the door. Almost immediately the young woman with the high cheekbones and slight limp answered it. Thanks, I have an incredible headache, I said. I’ve been working on my technique, she said. Is he in? No. Any idea when he’ll be back? He won’t be back. You over that real / not real stuff? Yes. Good, me too, do you have any kind of a gun? Of course I do. But you won’t give it to me. Why do you want one now? Because I want to get this over with as quickly as possible. Well, I’d like to help you, but the last time I allowed myself an instance of compassion, I got this bad leg and was temporarily disaffirmed. How long is temporary? About six hours. So they must like you. They do. So do I, I said. So I’ll give you a tip—hit a little to the right. That way you’ll be sure to achieve full unconsciousness in your subject. I winked. She looked at me. After I’d been struck and under for a while, I told her, I woke for a few minutes or seemed to and found myself lying rather unceremoniously on the floor. Several individuals were sitting at the small table and it seemed to me that they were complimenting me, and that their compliments were not at all trivial. I heard the words courage and rectitude used. And I discerned definite traces of sincerity in one or two of their utterances, and then I fell asleep again, or rather, went under again, and came to in front of the mirror. If that’s true, which I doubt, they were talking about another retired asset, she said. I knew you would say that, I said. I smiled. She smiled. I shook her hand and turned to leave, but she said, wait. She disappeared for a moment then came back with a very shiny multicolored piece of cloth. He told me to give this to you, she said. Thank you, I said. Then she put her hand on my chest, gave me a gentle shove, and shut the door. This shove made me think about seeing the somewhat unpleasant woman from my youth the night before by the garden gates. She had shoved me too. That made three shoves. She had also punched me and kissed me and said, good-bye. This was following a continuation of our conversation on the subject of belief. She had come to the gardens, she said, to see what I had learned from my wait and I said, nothing. Not too quick on the uptake are you? Apparently not. We walked a little. I told her I had thought some more about the belief thing and that while I hadn’t gotten anywhere I would keep thinking about it. I will too, she said. At least you have something you believe in. Synchronicity isn’t much. No, but it’s something. Yes, it is something, but not much more than nothing. That reminds me, I said. I know all about that, that was just something she made up, she said. I got it out of my pocket anyway and, hand cupped carefully, held it up in front of her. Does that look made up to you? I said. This was when she punched and kissed me. Actually, she didn’t kiss me. She hadn’t really even kissed me that evening in her bedroom. I don’t even know why I’m going on about her kissing me at all —I never liked her. Except to look at. She
was
nice to look at. Stop now, she said. I let my hand fall to my side, and whatever had or hadn’t been in it fall to the ground. And, it was interesting—after she had seen me to my apartment (the shove had occurred sometime before that), I kept hearing, over and over, the words, stop now. Which had a particular and unpleasant resonance then as well as later after the mirror, and certainly now. Good-bye, I said, to the young woman behind the closed door. Then, almost finished, as I was making my way back down the hallway, I thought, my eyes are deceiving me, then as quickly thought, no they aren’t, and bent over and picked up a photograph that was lying on the floor. When I was back in my apartment, I sat down under the handsome floor lamp and set the photograph on the table in front of me. Well, that’s overkill, I thought, but it’s not bad. Better, at any rate, than what I had just seen in the mirror. On the back of it, in the man with the fucked-up face’s willowy hand, was written the following note: