He knew me. He had recognized me instantly. This man was the last living remnant of my early history. A proof that those childhood days weren’t a mirage. Against my will, the anger and nausea dissipated. Shoe Man soothed me.
Probability theory examines mathematical abstractions of nondeterministic events. It also studies measured quantities that may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in an apparently random fashion. If a sequence of random events is repeated many times, patterns can be detected and studied, thus creating the illusion that human observers can truly know and understand chaos. But what if our existence itself is a field of study in probability conducted by the universe? Each of us a character, a mathematical abstraction set up with attributes copied from previous subjects, with a slight variation (switch Oedipal complex for Electra complex, exchange crippling social anxiety for narcissism), sent out with similar instincts—the fear of death, the fear of loneliness, the fear of failure. Our outcomes—poverty, starvation, disease, suicide, peaceful death on a bed plagued by shame and regret—being collected by a researcher above, a cosmic tally gathering the likelihood of happiness, likelihood of wholeness, likelihood of self-destruction. Likelihood of luck. Can a subject born impoverished and diseased finish in the upper luck bracket at the end of her life? Can a subject born into privilege and health crash and die in utter misery? We’ve seen it all. We’ve seen it all and yet where are these patterns, when will the universe publish its findings in a respected peer-reviewed journal? What is the ratio of probability for one cosmic event to occur over all others? How unlikely. Yet here we are.
Radislav Zajíc saw me. I raised my fist and slugged him across the jaw. He fell to the ground too easily, and I studied the spot on my wrist where something had cracked. My third knuckle collapsed, creating a darkened crater. Blood burst out. The schoolteacher hurriedly gathered the children and led them away from the square.
Zajíc stared up at me. Gone was the defiance he’d shown to my grandfather—he was not daring me; he was not baiting. He simply waited, looked on with gentle curiosity. If you decide to beat me to death, that is your business.
I extended my hand and pulled him to his feet. He walked to the statue, and I followed.
“You know, it’s been many years since someone’s hit me,” he said. “It has a sort of relief to it.”
“I’ve been saving it for a few decades.”
He put his hand on the base of the statue, brushed the vines from my name. “You should’ve seen it,” he said. “I’ve never witnessed something pass through the Parliament so quickly. People were outbidding themselves on how much we should spend on building this statue. They wanted to make it as tall as a tower. But I argued that you’d prefer something smaller, in a place that matters. I know you spent most of your time here as a student. Looking up at the sky and studying all night.”
“You and T?ma. You did this.”
“Yes and no. How did you do it, Jakub? How’d you make it back.”
“I flew, you son of a bitch. I flapped my goddamn wings and here I stand.”
Zajíc leaned against the statue, massaging his jaw.
“You sent me to Chopra. You put T?ma up to it. Say it.”
“I gave him your name, Jakub. There was nothing diabolical—”
“For what? To take the last Procházka off the Earth? I almost died. I lost her. For what.”
“It’s not the reason, Jakub. If I may.”
My hands trembled, and I put them inside my pockets. I could not show weakness. Not to him. “Yes,” I said.
“After you left St?eda, I couldn’t let go of you. I’ve been married a couple of times, and each of my wives had caught me whispering your name in the dark, thinking you were a lover of mine. I watched you grow up, saw your grade reports, statements of purpose for university. I wanted to ensure they would admit you, but you didn’t need the help. I watched your grandfather’s funeral from a distance. I asked the vineyard where you and Lenka married to quote you a small rate and I paid for the difference. You’ve been a charm from the old life, and I wanted to see, always wanted to see—were you going to turn into a bastard? Was it in the blood? And you kept being good. Determined.”
“You’ve lost your mind. So what? You chose me for the suicide mission as some kind of restitution?”
“One night, when we were drunk, T?ma told me about his space program dream. I laughed at him at first, but he was serious, he grabbed me by the collar and swore it would happen. I used to think he was the man the country needed, you know? Before we became cynical together. He used to believe in feeding both the citizens’ stomachs and their souls. He believed in science and curiosity and books. He made me think of you. And so I gave him your name, Jakub. It seemed inevitable, the two of us in that moment. It was not to punish you or to reward you. It was a reaction to what seemed a cosmic calling. T?ma gave you the choice, and you decided to do something great, just as I expected.”
“I’ve done nothing. I should’ve stayed with the things I knew. Certainties. You’ve never been anything but a sad, hateful man. You let my father win and you let him ruin us both.”
“Hmm,” he said, “yes, some of that is true. But you have done everything, Jakub. The mission was a failure but the country believes we can be great. You should have seen the funeral. The whole city was alive like I’ve never seen it. Dignitaries came from all over the world to pay their respects. And now you’re back—I don’t know how, I don’t know what you’ve had to do, but you are here, and we can bring you back to the nation. A hero’s return. They will go apeshit for it, Jakub. You will be a king. Whatever you think you have lost, you will get it back a thousandfold.”
I thought of it. The news headlines, the interviews, everything I had expected upon my return but intensified to a point of frenzy, endless questions, how is this possible, what brought me back? Would this resurrection mean the return of Lenka? The end to her peace.
No. I could not. I had given them everything. They had no right to ask for more.
“That won’t happen,” I said. “I stay dead. I’ve earned it.”
“You’re certain?”
“I am. I want the quiet life.”
“Well, I suppose it makes no difference to me. My trial is in a month. Unless I decide to flee the country, which I’m still considering. My own quiet life in the Caribbean. Either way, Jakub, it seems that the big missions of our lives are over.”
“What was yours?”
“Helping democracy with heaps of cash.”
“You’re a thief.”
“I became one, yes.”
“What do you think of my father now? You can’t think you are better than him, not anymore. This pain you’ve caused to get revenge on a dead man, the people you’ve ruined in the process. The point of it all.”
“May I show you something? It requires a short trip.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”