The Devil's Fate (2 page)

“I exist because otherwise I couldn’t search for you...”

That was how he said goodbye every morning to the woman he lived with and had truly loved and who, after all, he probably still loved madly. He always left her a poem on the table, written off the top of his head without pondering, to give her the sweetest awakening she could ever desire. Every time he re-read them, he was moved, like a spectator who is caught off guard by an unexpected happening. When he came home, he would find the book where Julia copied all his poems, open on the table at that morning’s page. She kept on telling him that he should send his work to a publisher, but he had never taken much notice of her.

He left the house and walked through the courtyard towards the garage, intending to require his car to take him to work as fast as possible. The door swung up as soon as he pressed the button on the remote control. He got into the car and turned the key. The engine stuttered in some mechanical language of its own, announcing that it had no intention of leaving its lair that morning. Norman swore. It couldn’t leave him in the lurch that morning of all mornings. He tried five more times, but it was clear from the wheeze produced by the engine that he would have to resort to other means of transport to get where he wanted to go.

He climbed out of the driver’s seat, looked at the time and concluded that all he could do was run to the nearest subway station; he would never hear the end of it, but there was nothing else for it. Julia had no car, so he wouldn’t have to disturb her. He would manage on his own. Besides, he knew his bosses well: they would have forgotten all about it by the next morning. He decided not to call the office. If he caught the right connections, he would be there in less than fifteen minutes. He even switched off his mobile; he would say his battery was flat. He set off at a brisk walk, turning the corner onto the street leading to the subway entrance, a walk of less than two minutes. He couldn’t stop thinking about what would have happened at that precise moment if he had been on the other side of the mirror. He certainly wouldn’t have been racing against time to get to a place he only went to in order to earn money. He would have been the one in control of time, paying it at the end of every month to have its services at his beck and call; he would have rewarded it for taking him somewhere else and he would have sat on a mountain peak to watch it pass, with complete and utter indifference. Exactly what he imagined happened in that other dimension, concealed by the tracery of light on a clear-eyed face.

Given better choices and a bit of the luck he had never received from his damned fate, he was convinced he could have been one of the most famous people in the world instead of a simple onlooker. He knew well enough that he couldn’t complain. There were those who had no life at all; they dragged themselves through the years waiting for death to take them to a better place where they could again enjoy the taste of an emotion, smell the scent of a peace of mind that recreated the sensation of life and its meaning. Being a manager in a big marketing company was a gratifying enough job and, all things considered, well paid; his companion was sweet and understanding, not a bit obsessive or tiresome. But all that was light years from his idea of happiness. 

Plenty of people in the world would have envied him and gone to any lengths to be in his shoes, but his humdrum existence and the absence of new experiences had almost depleted his mental energy. He felt stifled. Each day he was on the look-out for the weirdest vices to make him feel alive. He recalled the previous week when he had gone to a party with his oldest friend and made a bet that he would get the birthday girl into bed; it still tickled him to remember the awful remarks aimed at the poor woman. The most harmless comment re-evaluated the concept of measurement, replacing the dictionary word “gross” with her name. He remembered less happily having to fork out a thousand euro for losing, and taking home the pain in his stomach left by the woman’s fist. Filthy lucre. Money didn’t matter much to him with his lively personality and sharp sense of humor; it was merely the best way to live the lives of many in a single life. His intellect showed him countless other ways. Politics for instance, or the cloth, scaling the heights of a military career; but they all had the drawback of having to answer to someone else. On the other hand, money was capable of anything, even changing the truth, even burying a wrong-doing.

He reached the entrance to the subway. There was a crush of people, as usual. He hurried to buy his ticket from the automatic machine. A beggar sidled up to him with his hand open and asked him to remember that not all men were equally lucky. Norman nodded and handed over what change he had. In exchange for his generosity, he received a copy of a newspaper.

“God bless you, my son. He who gives shall receive!”

“Amen, reverend!” replied Norman with an amused grin.

He pushed through the barrier that divided the travelers from those who had decided to stay put, and ran towards the waiting train that would take him to his destination. Inside the compartment, he imagined how sardines must feel before being freed from their tin prison. His thoughts turned to the beggar. A few cents had been enough for the man to bless a perfect stranger and hope that fate would give what he had been given. He felt deeply ashamed when he realized that he would have given nothing if he hadn’t slipped the coins into his pocket a few seconds earlier and almost forgotten about them. It probably wasn’t even a dollar’s worth. He would have dodged the annoying presence without the slightest twinge of remorse, cursing him and all his kind and comparing them to parasites that leech off the work of others. What a hypocrite, he said to himself, as it crossed his mind that the poor man had probably not eaten for days, whereas he had thrown a whole plate of French fries into the bin only the evening before merely because he had cooked too many and hated eating the same thing two days running. He banished any urge to feel remorse, and grabbed a strap above his head in one hand and held the newspaper in the other. It was dated the previous week. Touché, replied fate with its customary sense of humor. The first page carried headlines of events he knew almost by heart. His curiosity lingered on a news item about the hundredth reprint of a book. A true record. Lucky author, he muttered to himself. Needless to say, he tried to calculate an approximate figure of how much the fortunate chap would have earned. The article stated that sales had peaked at an incredible nine hundred million copies. It was a collection of poems and maxims called “Instructions for Living”, which implied that someone had found the way to describe emotions so satisfactorily that they could be experienced merely by reading those words. Curiosity drew him to the inside page where the whole article was printed under Charles J. Gordon’s byline with an excerpt from the book. He read it with the attention he paid to everything he hoped might surprise him, although that rarely happened these days.

I’ve sailed the heights of a parallel world, testing the sensations I felt in this dimension...

I’ve received the gift of being heard and I asked for help from those I considered better...

I walked for miles in the hope that my suffering might abate and leave room to feel alive... much more alive than any attempt to stay awake...

I brightened every single day with the power of pride... but whatever I found only made me realize I had to turn back...to where the beginning has your name: my love...

His heart leapt. The beauty of those words rekindled a sensation he hadn’t felt for a long time. It was as if he had put on a DVD and watched an old film. The memory cried out. He could almost hear it with his own ears, not just with his conscious mind; it seemed to want to tell the whole world about what had just been revealed. He was as certain of that as he was of the fact that in that precise moment his lungs were filled with the air that allowed him to think: it was one of his poems. He could hardly believe that Julia had done such a thing. She was the only person who knew about those words. No one else had read them and no one else had been allowed to see them. Unless, in an attempt to put her theory to the test and give him the surprise of his life, she had taken his book to a publisher who had smelled a good deal and appropriated the rights and therefore the property. He took out his mobile and rang his companion’s number; she should have woken up by now.

The voice on the other end was not the one he wanted to hear but a recorded message telling him that the person he was telephoning was currently unavailable or unable to take his call. He hung up with an annoyed flick of his wrist and told himself he would try again later. By then, the train was pulling into his station. He stepped off and walked quickly to the stairs. He tried phoning again, but the same voice repeated the same information as before. As he climbed the steps to ground level, an advertisement glued to the wall caught his eye: “Instructions for Living, limited edition available in the best book stores”. His heart advised him not to get himself into a state, but his brain reminded him that there was a book shop inside the subway. He hurried to the top of the stairs and looked around until he saw the store a short walk away. He made for the door, past a couple of tourists looking for maps of the city, entered and spoke to the shop assistant.

“I’d like a copy of “Instructions for Living”, please.”

“You too. I’m sorry but we sold out an hour after opening yesterday morning. There’s only one copy left and I’m keeping that for myself.”

“I’ll pay you double for it. Here’s seventy dollars.”

“Sorry man, but this is the last copy of a limited edition. No amount of money can buy it.”

“Five hundred dollars should be enough even for a limited edition!”

“Maybe I’ve not made myself totally clear. You can’t put a price on the effect that reading those words has. That book will go straight into my bookcase and will stay there till I croak. You can buy plenty of other books for five hundred dollars. Have a look around; I’ll give you a discount on anything you want to buy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other customers to serve.”

Norman glanced around gloomily, and then remembered that the biggest book store in the city was on the street where he worked. He hurried out and made his way towards the shop, following the directions on the flashing neon sign. It was about two hundred yards away and it took him a couple of minutes to get there. He approached the first assistant he saw, who was busy stacking newly arrived books on the shelves.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for a book called “Instructions for ...”

“… Living. You’re the hundredth person I’ve had to give bad news to this morning. We’ve sold out, like, I guess, all the book stores in the city. And maybe the whole State for all I know. I’ve ordered more copies from the publishing house, but it’s a limited edition and it doesn’t look good for you and all the others who haven’t managed to buy it.”

“What have I got to do to buy this book? You see, it’s extremely important to me.”

“I don’t doubt it. That’s what everybody says. I think some of them would go without eating to get one. But the only way is to contact the publishing house directly. Maybe if they get a few hundred letters they’ll think about reprinting.”

“Which publishing house?”

“Well, originally it was called Soderberg, in Oslo, but I reckon it doesn’t exist any more. It was bought out by a bigger, more powerful house, O’Neal Publishers, owned by the millionaire who runs the largest corporation in the world.”

“Where can I find it?”

“Hang on, I’ll have a look.”

The man went over to his computer and typed in the name ‘O’Neal’ on his database. The state-of-the-art microprocessor came up with it in a fraction of a second.

“Here we are. The headquarters are in Shanghai, but there’s a branch in Hollywood. Not surprising considering. Couldn’t be any other way.”

“Why? What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know what they say about Mr. O’Neal? Where have you been living? The millionaire with more dark sides than anyone on the planet? He’s been accused of as many homicides as he has millions. Thanks to these suspicious deaths, he managed to get his hands on some of the world’s best-sellers. When that didn’t work, he bought the publishing house that held the rights. At a bargain price of course, after getting rid of the majority shareholder.”

“So, he’s in prison?”

“Aw man, you must have been living without a television for too long. That individual is nothing less than a genius and he’s got so much power, he’s untouchable.”

“A genius? What makes him so special?”

“You’ve really never heard of him? You must be the only one on the face of the earth! Except for my dog... Ryan A. O’Neal, or Mister as he likes to be called, is the author of the book you’re looking for. The greatest blockbuster of all time.”

Anger suffused Norman’s face and he lost his temper.

“Bloody bastard!”

“I beg your pardon? How dare you, you prick!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean you. I was thinking out loud. Please, give me the address.”

The man muttered a few insults, and sulkily handed him the card he had written the details on.

“Thank you. Be seeing you.”

“Don’t hold your breath, man!”

Norman left the shop and switched on his mobile. It was strange that there was no message from his answering service telling him his office was looking for him. He dialed Julia’s number again but it was the same reply as before. The church clock showed he was late for work. He was surprised to discover that he didn’t give a damn. He was busy wondering how the person he cared for most in his life could betray him like that. He spotted an internet café on the other side of the road and made straight for it. He decided that the office was a place to avoid that morning. He was a man with a mission. He sat at the bar, ordered a chocolate milk shake and asked if he could use a computer to access the web.

“There you go. You can use number two. The password is 229958. It’s three dollars an hour.”

Norman took out a ten dollar bill and laid it on the bar.