The Apex Book of World SF 2 (14 page)

It's sweeter if you
know it will end.

 

For two months we
carried on like this, until we had only two weeks before the journey. It was
the best two months of the five and also the worst. Then, one night as I was
straddling Iván, looking down into his face, the knowledge became too heavy. He
was calm and young after making love, and more beautiful than any other. He
caressed my hip slowly and without thought.

 

I'd been saying
goodbye for two months and knowing that I'd been doing it, and I had no desire
for another ten months of leave-taking.

He watched me
peacefully, vulnerable in front of the future. The dimness of the bedroom made
it feel like a nest, but the words gathering inside me kept me from feeling
comfortable.

"I won't go with you
to Delhi."

His hand stopped on
my hip.

"Why?"

I shook my head. I
still didn't want to tell him.

"I won't go with
you."

"But…" His hand
fell down as if broken. After a few long moments, he blinked. "Oh. And when I
come back? We continue?"

I turned away,
stared at his books on the shelves. The ones I had read and the ones I wanted
to borrow. Maybe from the library.

"We won't continue,"
I whispered.

We held each other,
me crying, Iván caressing my back. We made love again, madly, passionately, and
at the end, I packed my things and left. Three times I turned back from the
door to kiss him and every time it was harder to go. But I had to. I closed the
downstairs door feeling ten years older. Nothing inside me, only the weight of
emptiness.

 

The following week I
locked myself in the toilet several times to cry. In the end, I took some leave
because if I saw Iván every day, I would turn back, go with him to the little
apartment with the naked light bulbs that we had seen on the Internet, and to
hell with what will happen in ten months time. I sat in my flat and waited
until it was too late to do the paperwork needed for the journey.

 

Of course he called.
Many times. He was sweet, his voice calm, but I knew that this meant nothing.
The phone calls were full of awkward silences when only two wounds were
bleeding at the end of the line. I knew more about how he felt than I did about
my own feelings.

He didn't speak of
his thoughts, but he spent long, strained minutes remembering our trip to the
conference in Debrecen. What it felt like when I fell asleep on his shoulder
while he was driving. I told him in turn about waking up when he touched my
face—softer than anyone before had been. We recalled the morning stuck on that
godforsaken train station because we got off a stop too early, how we sat on
the grass-spotted concrete and watched the sun rise above the Hungarian Plain.
It was then that we began spinning plans for the Indian trip, and the red light
of the dawn had seemed to spill over tropical soil. On the phone, he asked
about my mother's varicose leg and I sent word to his sister that there was a
sale on skirts in her favourite shop.

We made everyday
chit-chat because it seemed absurd that we were no longer a couple and soon he
would leave my life for good, for there is no leaving as definitive as death.
We laughed into the phone and sometimes I felt he was sitting very close to me,
whispering in my ear—still we didn't meet. We didn't say our relationship had
ended because it was different from breaking up.

He left for India
and I went back to work. After a few months, I had to admit that breaking up
was meaningless. I was still thinking about him, counting the days, and I was
just as scared. The fear wouldn't lift until the year had passed, and maybe not
even then. Sometimes you recognise things that are meant to be forever.

Then I saw my father
on the tram.

I hadn't talked to
him since I'd been burdened with his prophecy. My first thought was to get off
the tram before he noticed me; in the end I shoved my way to him through the
crowd of passengers and, skipping the hello, I said:

"You shouldn't have
told me."

He started. He hadn't
noticed me, and his face showed embarrassment—and maybe a little guilt.

"How can I keep it
from happening?" I grabbed his arm.

"Put it off, you
mean?"

"Don't play with me.
You know very well what I mean! Turn it back, pre-empt it… I know what will
happen. I can slow it down, right?" The passengers froze. They turned away with
so much care that their attention filled us with tension.

"You can't slow it
down; it is the future," he said and nervously glanced around. "Listen, can we
get off?"

I laughed even
though I didn't want to. The laughter choked me.

"You still want to
control what and when you tell me?" I flicked my wrist. "Whatever. Let's get
off!"

The tension followed
us to the tram stop. I didn't wait for the people to leave the platform.

"I don't believe it
is futile," I said. "Your prophecies…they cannot be gratuitous. They must be
changeable!"

His eyes were tired.

"You want an answer
from me? I only tell what I see. I don't make up the future. I don't control
it."

I pushed him hard,
surprising myself as much as him.

"I don't believe you
haven't ever tried!"

"I have," he said
bitterly. His eyes showed some passion at last. "I have tried but in vain! The
only way is acceptance or you go mad. That is my advice to you, as well."

I shook my head.

"I wish you hadn't
told me at all."

"I'm sorry." He
extended his hand, perhaps to draw me close, but we never felt easy enough
around each other for an embrace. I stepped away.

"Or you told me to
make me try…" I looked up, realising this was it. This had to be the reason. "I
have to try, maybe…"

"Don't!"

"Then why?"

"Because I, too, can
make mistakes!"

I shook my head.

"Then tell me what
will happen to
me
! What will
I
do?"

A familiar face, yet
confusing. Do I love him? Hate him? Despise him?

"It doesn't work
like that. I cannot control what I see and what I don't. Don't you think I
would have done it? Judit, listen to me…" He reached for me and this time
touched me before I could pull away.

"Then tell me
something, anything that will happen to me before the year passes!"

The next tram
arrived. People shoved past us as they rushed towards the crosswalk. I saw his
gaze darken.

He rubbed his face.

"One of your
patients will die within six months while you are on your shift. I don't know
exactly when. You won't hear her calling."

"Would I be able to
save her?"

"I don't know. I'm
not a doctor and I see only what I am allowed to see. Judit! There is no point."

"There is."

I left him there,
without even a goodbye. I didn't care if he was right or wrong, but I knew my
only chance was to reject his advice, to believe that fate can, indeed, be
changed.

 

My plan was quite
simple: if I could change my own future, I could change Iván's. Somehow.
Because I couldn't believe that fate was already written.

 

It was a test. On my
shift I did rounds every fifteen minutes to catch anything serious that might
happen. We usually didn't have critical-surgery patients; I was sure that if
one of them crashed, there would be enough time to notice.

A few of them indeed
had serious conditions, an old woman crashed in the corridor, but I was close
by. A month passed, then another, and I became doubtful. What if the danger has
already passed? What if the old woman who crashed was the one I had to save?
Had I changed the future or not?

Sometimes I thought
I could relax, but then came distress again; I didn't dare break my new habit
for fear it would be the hour of the augured death. I began to understand what
it was like to be my father: knowing and yet not knowing, waiting for something
unclear with the certainty of the threat breathing down his neck.

I knew nothing about
Iván's death, only the approximate time. I imagined him run over by a car, shot
by a madman, having a heart attack despite his age, or getting sick from the
Indian tap water.
Oh my God, he commits suicide because…

Because I left him.

No,
I told myself, and again:
no, no, no,
but the thought had already stabbed its hooks into me.

One evening was
especially depressing. The sickly yellowish light of the nurses' room painted
the walls, and the clock ticked. I was alone, and suddenly fear seized me
because, in that moment, I was sure Iván would die because of me.

"It's late," said my
father when he picked up the phone.

"How will he die?"

"Who?"

"You know who! Iván."

His sigh felt close.

"Judit, don't
torment yourself with this! Won't you come over and talk? It would be easier to
accept—"

"How will he die?"

"I'd rather not say."

Rage burst out of
me.

"Because you are a
coward! I don't believe this! You have your gift and just sweep it under the
carpet? I don't think so! The world doesn't work like that. It's your choice
not to do anything, but don't expect the same from me. I am not like you!"

"You make it more
difficult than—"

"So what? It's my
life! Even if you behaved like a proper father, my life wouldn't be yours to
decide what I should do with it. Oh, fuck, I don't believe this!
Now
you
want to protect me?"

Chilly silence. I
had to press my hand against my forehead to cool my feverish brow. I could have
said more: obscenities, accusations, suppressed hatred burnt my tongue and I
bit my lips to hold it all back. I knew what I'd already said was more than
enough.

"He will be hit by a
branch," said my father at last, and he put down the phone.

"That's it?" I
shouted, but the line was dead.

I sat with my cell
phone in my lap. It tired me to move and when I finally stood, my knees
trembled. I went out to check on my wards.

The corridor shone
coldly as the night lighting reflected off the tiles. I had got my answer from
my father and yet I felt empty. When I looked into the third ward I froze. I
saw a patient with a pillow in her hands leaning over another patient, but the
sight seemed abstract.

I don't remember
moving.

I tore the pillow
from the wizened old hands. She scratched my arm. "She wanted to kill me!" the
old woman shrieked. "I saw it in her eyes, I knew it…she wanted to steal my
money this afternoon; I had to hide it under my pillow."

I leant towards the
dying woman's mouth—it was parched and smelt of age—but I was too late. I
already knew it. I started CPR for I had to try. Only afterwards did I grab the
old woman's trembling arm. She babbled on.

"She waited for me
to fall asleep. As soon as I was asleep, she tried to take my money! I saw her
hand! I wanted to make her sleep." She started to cry then. "I just wanted to make
her sleep…"

The other two
patients' eyes glistened in the darkness. Only for their sake did I refrain
from hitting the old woman. I wanted to hurt her not because she was demented
and had killed her bed neighbour, but because she had fulfilled the prophecy I
wanted to thwart.

"You come with me!"
I shouted in her face. I pulled her out of the ward as if I were a jailer. I
had to report the incident. She was crying, but I didn't look at her.

My eyes were dry.

 

I tried to warn him.
I called him in New Delhi. He immediately picked up the phone as if he was
waiting for the call.

 

"Judit?" His voice
was so eager and happy that it was hard to believe we hadn't seen each other
for five months. How could one e-mail a week be enough? "To what do I owe the
pleasure?"

"I missed your
voice." As soon as I said it, I knew that was the real reason, not the warning.
My whole body ached from missing him, and his absence smothered me.

"I missed yours,
too." He paused.

"Listen to me!" I
began. "If there is a storm…don't go for a walk, especially not under trees!
And always watch for woodcutters thinning the branches. Take care…"

"What?" He laughed.

"I'm not joking.
Take care with those trees!"

He didn't
understand. I sputtered the warning again but I feared he didn't comprehend my
words. He didn't believe me.

"Promise me!" I
demanded.

"I do," he said,
still laughing. "Okay. And what about you? Tell me, how are you?"

"I'm fine," I said,
not wanting to chat. "Do you promise me?"

"Yes! I will be
careful with the trees."

"Good. Bye!"

I put down the
phone. A cigarette was already in my mouth. I couldn't remember taking it out.

Iván's voice had
told me that he hadn't understood. He wouldn't keep his promise. Silliness, he
would say, and even if he watched the trees on the first day he would realise
it was pointless and forget about the stupid request. He would live like he
did, walk under trees and, if he remembered his promise at all, he would only
smile. Silly, pet, he would say fondly, and for a moment he would feel my face
in his palm. That was all.

I wrote a letter to
him, but it was already too late to start explaining my father's prophecies to
him. Would I believe them if I hadn't been born into the family of an oracle?

My father wanted to
ask for my forgiveness, at least that was what I deduced from the text messages
that urged me to visit him. When he tried to call me, I didn't pick up. I
deleted his e-mails—so he only wanted to talk, well, I didn't care. Maybe he
was not the one who would kill Iván, but he knew about his death and not only
stepped aside but wanted to pull me aside, as well.