If death had dreamed hopefully of some surprise to distract her from the boredom of routine, she was well served. Here was that surprise, and it could hardly be bettered. The first time the letter was returned could have been put down to a mere accident along the way, a castor come off its axle, a lubrication problem, a sky-blue letter in a hurry to arrive that had pushed its way to the front, in short, one of those unexpected things that happen inside machines, or, indeed, inside the human body, and which can throw off even the most exact calculations. The fact that it had been returned twice was quite different, it clearly showed that there was an obstacle at some point along the road that should have taken it straight to the home of the addressee, an obstacle that sent the letter rebounding back to where it had come from. In the first instance, given that the return had taken place on the day after it had been sent, it was still possible that the postman, having failed to find the person to whom the letter should have been delivered, instead of putting the letter through the mailbox or under the door, had returned it to the sender, but omitted to give a reason. All this was pure supposition, of course, but it could explain what had happened. Now, however, things were different. Between coming and going, the letter had taken less than half an hour, probably much less, for it was there on the desk when death raised her head from the rather hard resting-place of her forearms, that is from the cubit and the radius, which are intertwined for that very purpose. A strange, mysterious, incomprehensible force appeared to be resisting the death of that person, even though the date of his demise had been fixed, as it had for everyone, from the day of his birth. It’s impossible, said death to the silent scythe, no one in this world or beyond has ever had more power than I have, I’m death, all else is nothing. She got up from her chair and went over to the filing cabinet, from which she returned with the suspect file. There was no doubt about it, the name agreed with that on the envelope, so did the address, the person’s profession was given as cellist and the space for civil status was blank, a sign that he was neither married, widowed nor divorced, because in death’s files the status of bachelor is never recorded, well, you can imagine how silly it would be for a child to be born, an index card filled out, and to note down, not his profession, because he wouldn’t yet know what his vocation would be, but that the newborn’s civil status was bachelor. As for the age given on the card that death is holding in her hand, we can see that the cellist is forty-nine years old. Now, if we needed proof of the impeccable workings of death’s archives, we will have it now, when, in a tenth of a second, or even less, before our own incredulous eyes, the number forty-nine is replaced by fifty. Today is the birthday of the cellist whose name is on the card, he should be receiving flowers not a warning that in a week’s time he’ll be dead. Death got up again, walked around the room a few times, stopped twice as she passed the scythe, opened her mouth as if to speak or ask an opinion or issue an order, or simply to say that she felt confused, upset, which, we must say, is hardly surprising when we think how long she has done this job without, until now, ever having been shown any disrespect from the human flock of which she is the sovereign shepherdess. It was then that death had the grim presentiment that the incident might be even more serious than had at first seemed. She sat down at her desk and started to leaf back through last week’s list of the dead. On the first list of names from yesterday, and contrary to what she had expected, she saw that the cellist’s name was missing. She continued to turn the pages, one, then another, then another and another, one more, and only on the eighth list did she find his name. She had erroneously thought that the name would be on yesterday’s list, but now she found herself before an unprecedented scandal: someone who should have been dead two days ago was still alive. And that wasn’t the worst of it. The wretched cellist, who, ever since his birth, had been marked out to die a young man of only forty-nine summers, had just brazenly entered his fiftieth year, thus bringing into disrepute destiny, fate, fortune, the horoscope, luck and all the other powers that devote themselves by every possible means, worthy and unworthy, to thwarting our very human desire to live. They were all utterly discredited. And how am I going to put right a mistake that could never have happened, when a case like this has no precedents, when nothing like it was foreseen in the regulations, thought death, especially when the man was supposed to have died at forty-nine and not at fifty, which is the age he is now. Poor death was clearly beside herself, distraught, and would soon start beating her head against the wall out of sheer distress. In all these thousands of centuries of continuous activity, there had never been a single operational failure, and now, just when she had introduced something new into the classic relationship between mortals and their one and only causa mortis, her hard-won reputation had been dealt the severest of blows. What should I do, she asked, what if the fact that he didn’t die when he should have has placed him beyond my jurisdiction, how on earth am I going to get out of this fix. She looked at the scythe, her companion in so many adventures and massacres, but the scythe ignored her, it never responded, and now, oblivious to everything, as if weary of the world, it was resting its worn, rusty blade against the white wall. That was when death came up with her great idea, People say that there’s never a one without a two, never a two without a three, and that three is lucky because it’s the number god chose, but let’s see if it’s true. She waved her right hand, and the letter that had been returned twice vanished again. Within two minutes it was back. There it was, in the same place as before. The postman hadn’t put it under the door, he hadn’t rung the bell, and there it was.
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