Multiversum

by Leonardo Patrignani

  ‘Only when I’m here, working on the computers.’

  ‘Ah. Which means all the time.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Alex smiled and started sipping his Coke. On the shelves around him were a vast number of books about the cosmos, science books, astronomy journals, and sci-fi comic books. His attention zeroed in on a book by Stephen Hawking. He pulled it off the bookshelf and leafed through it at random until he came upon a photograph of the physicist and author himself. For a moment, he stopped to think about the life story of the British cosmologist, the sad physical decline of such a great thinker. Then he put the book back where he’d found it.

  ‘You know about those headaches I get,’ said Alex. ‘Those “hallucinations” of mine.’

  Marco became alert, gazing at his friend curiously. ‘You’ve never really told me about them …’ he said, hesitantly, ‘in full detail.’ He knew how painful the topic was for Alex.

  ‘Well, I think it’s time to tell you more.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘There have been some new developments.’

  Marco put his three computers — a PC, a desktop Mac, and a Dell laptop — on stand-by. All three machines worked in sync.

  ‘Well, you see,’ Alex began, knowing that he was confiding in the one person on earth he’d trust with his life, ‘it’s now clear that Jenny really does exist.’

  He told him everything.

  His encounters with the girl, his fainting spells, their telepathic conversations, and his certainty that she, too, wanted to meet him more than anything else in the world.

  He told Marco how he’d managed to figure out where Jenny lived, and how he’d been able to check that what she’d told him was true.

  He told him about the video.

  About the little boy with a blond fringe and his memo for the future.

  At last, exhausted, he stopped talking. He stood up and walked over to the window, as his friend’s keen gaze followed him. He looked out and realised that night had fallen. The lampposts were illuminating the city streets; the traffic had given way to deserted roads and desolation. A homeless man was doing his best to push a shopping cart. I wonder what that man’s life has been like, he thought. Maybe he used to be rich and now he’s begging on the street. Sometimes all it takes is a single thing …

  ‘Alex,’ said Marco. ‘I believe you, I’ve always believed you, but the problem is that I really don’t know how I can help you.’

  ‘I have to go to Australia. I need you to help me get to Australia.’

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding. You want to go to Australia, just like that? Right now?’

  ‘That’s right. I can’t wait a minute longer. I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t face up to this. I feel as if I’m living a double life; I … have to find her.’

  Marco sighed, pressing his lips together. Then he reactivated his Mac with a tap on the space bar and started an online search.

  ‘Do you have a valid passport?’ he asked.

  At first, Alex didn’t understand the point of the question.

  ‘Well?’ Marco insisted. ‘Do you have a valid passport or not?’

  ‘Does that mean you’ll help me?’

  ‘Of course I’ll help you. What kind of question is that?’

  ‘Yes, I have a passport. I used it for the class trip in January.’

  ‘Perfect. Let’s see what I can do.’

  Alex moved his chair over next to his friend.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Marco, his eyes glued to the computer screen. ‘It’s not exactly cheap to fly all the way to Melbourne.’

  ‘I know.’

  The list of available flights ran from a minimum of 1350 euros for a round-trip ticket. If you booked further in advance, at least three months ahead, the fare dropped by about three hundred euros, but Alex had no intention of waiting.

  ‘What do you plan to do?’ Marco was taking this very seriously. Anyone else would have told Alex he was crazy. If he had confided in his parents or in any old friend, they would have recommended he go see a shrink. But, as he already knew, Marco was special. Marco had taken him seriously ever since the time he told him about his first fainting spell. That had been four years ago.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t have that kind of money.’

  ‘That’s not a problem.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  Marco smiled. As if the answer was obvious. ‘Let’s just say that I have certain resources …’

  ‘Listen, I’m not asking you to lend me money.’

  ‘I have no intention of lending you money. And anyway, it wouldn’t be my money …’

  Marco sniggered and started rummaging through a dishevelled stack of paper behind the Mac. He found a folder and passed it to Alex, who started leafing through it as his friend explained.

  ‘These are some files that I’ve been able to hack into. They’re bank accounts that I can manipulate pretty much as I like.’

  ‘You never cease to amaze me.’ Alex thumbed through the pages without understanding the list of sums and names that he had before him.

  ‘I can deduct small amounts from these accounts, the way any company would if you made a credit-card purchase online.’

  ‘But is it safe?’ asked Alex.

  ‘Of course it isn’t, but I have systems in place, don’t worry. First of all, they have to be sums of money that aren’t likely to arouse anyone’s suspicions. I’m not looking to become a millionaire with this — it wouldn’t be possible anyway, and sooner or later I’d be caught. Plus, I don’t put this money into my own account. I send it to a series of prepaid debit cards in the names of nonexistent companies that …’

  ‘Do you think I actually understand any of this?’ Alex furrowed his brow and stifled a laugh.

  ‘Long story short, I have no problem getting my hands on a considerable sum of money without involving my own bank account, and I can draw on that sum through the debit cards that I keep in the safe over there.’ Marco pointed to a small metal cube on a mantelpiece, right next to his parents’ wedding picture.

  ‘Tomorrow morning, go get a prepaid debit card. I’ll take care of the three thousand euros that will be credited to it by tomorrow afternoon.’

  Alex was speechless.

  ‘You don’t have to say a thing.’ Marco’s eyes came to rest on a photograph hanging on the wall behind the computers. It was of an elderly woman knitting. ‘Do you remember 2011?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex smiled sadly. ‘I remember it clearly.’

  ‘If it hadn’t been for you during my depression, I’d never have made it. My grandmother’s death nearly finished me off. She was like a second mother to me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I’ll never forget that year as long as I live. Three thousand euros don’t even count for a tiny fraction of what you did for me.’

  8

  In her room with her door shut, her iPod perched on her desk and an oversized pair of Sennheiser headphones clamped over her long brown hair, Jennifer Graver spent half the morning doing web searches. She wanted to put herself in Alex’s shoes, trying to understand just what challenges he would be facing in order to come and see her.

  He’d have to take an aeroplane, travel halfway around the world, find a hotel for the night, and hope that when he woke up in the morning his dream would actually become a reality. Jenny was happy that he had decided to set off on this journey. Her parents would never have let her go. For a moment, she did her best to imagine Alex’s family, his world, his life — all the things that surrounded the face she’d been able to see for a few moments during their last conversation.

  Then she shut her eyes and listened again to the last words he’d said to her.

  You’re the best dream I’ve ever had
in my life.

  I’ve never experienced anything like this.

  I want to see you, even if I have to go around the world to do it.

  Those words had warmed her heart for the past few days, consoling her as she waited for the moment that, she hoped, would change her life forever.

  When Clara shouted her name from the ground floor of their suburban house, she didn’t even hear her. Right then, the chorus of the Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘1979’ was insulating her from the rest of the world. Jenny’s eyes wandered, dreamy and lost, over the pages of her diary as she sang along under her breath. She’d thought about that song a lot, musing the sad words Billy Corgan used to describe his rebellious adolescence.

  Her mother came up the stairs and rushed into Jenny’s bedroom just as she was putting on her windcheater.

  ‘Darling, you’re always wearing those headphones,’ she said as Jenny zipped up her jacket.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The supermarket! You said you’d come with me.’

  Jenny nodded as she took off the headphones and straightened her hair.

  ‘Oh, by the way, they’re saying it’s going to rain,’ Clara remarked, hurrying out of the bedroom. Jenny finished writing down the date of her last encounter with Alex in her diary, shut the cover, and stood up.

  Jenny’s diary documented her relationship with Alex, dating all the way back to 2010. Each and every episode was noted inside what was really just a ring binder, always ready to record her thoughts. Those thoughts poured forth chaotically onto the lined pages, hungry for some kind of order. It was a treasure trove of secrets, available to her and her alone.

  No one else knew about Alex.

  Jenny had always guarded this secret. She felt it belonged only to her, like a special gift: she was protective of it and kept it close. Moreover, lately she had stopped fainting and their communication had become easier, and certainly less painful. All these changes allowed her to better protect what was turning into a genuine relationship.

  In her diary, Jenny asked herself countless questions. Who was this boy? Was he a hallucination? An imaginary friend? Was it possible to fall in love with a feeling? At first, she had refused to believe in such an absurd idea, a long-distance relationship like that, but the more time passed, the more she needed to somehow be physically close to that voice, a voice that had become a familiar sound in her head. Her dream needed to become real now. Jenny wanted to come face to face with those eyes that till now she’d only glimpsed, and maybe it was finally time.

  On a page dated 18 August 2014, the entry’s first paragraph was a direct quote of a definition she’d found on Wikipedia:

  Telepathy, also known as thought transmission, is the theoretical ability to communicate with the mind, that is, without using any other known sensory channels or tools. The term telepathy was coined in 1882 by Frederic William Henry Myers, and it comes from the ancient Greek τηλε, tele meaning ‘distant’ and πάθεια, pátheia meaning ‘feeling, perception, passion, affliction, experience’. Like precognition and clairvoyance, telepathy is considered to be a form of extra-sensory perception (ESP) and, in more general terms, as a paranormal power. It falls into the research field of parapsychology.

  Was this the power that linked them together? Was this their gift?

  Jenny had already come across the word ‘telepathy’ in movies and books, but it was always a power that could be used in a specific place and time, with a person who was present and within immediate range of the telepathic subject. In her case, the most difficult mystery to explain was the enormous distance that separated her from Alex.

  Jenny slipped into a tracksuit, slid her diary into a drawer and out of sight, gave Alex one final lingering thought, and got ready to go downstairs, where her mother was waiting for her.

  I wonder when he’ll get here …

  Alex slept at Marco’s house on Thursday and Friday night, and on Saturday morning he booked his flight to Melbourne. A one-week stay, not counting travel days. He decided that that ought to be long enough for their first ‘date’.

  On Sunday morning he had another telepathic encounter with Jenny, and by now it was quite clear that something had changed in their interaction.

  Alex experienced a very strange sensation before establishing contact with her. He felt as though he’d called her. That he’d captured her frequency, as if his mind, or his soul, were an antenna of some kind.

  Did you hear it too? Alex asked, positive that Jenny would understand what he was talking about.

  I recognise the sound of you … No, it’s not a sound, it’s like a light, something that appears inside my mind. I don’t even know how to put it into words.

  I’m sure I called you.

  I know.

  In two days I’ll be in Australia, Jenny. I’m scheduled to land at ten in the morning.

  Just then, Alex sensed a new vibration and the noise of a storm drawing nearer. A thunderclap exploded between the walls of his brain, but it caused no pain. In fact, it gave him an odd sense of power, as if it had somehow expanded his mind, as if the thunder had burst his skull wide open.

  Tell me where I can meet you, Alex added, as another booming roar drowned out their conversation.

  I don’t know.

  Just tell me the name of a place, any place at all, somewhere we can meet.

  She hesitated for a few seconds before answering. Altona Pier.

  What’s that? asked Alex, but at that very moment he lost contact with her.

  Alex opened his eyes wide. He was stretched out on the sofa in Marco’s living room. His friend was a couple of metres away, looking at him curiously.

  ‘Were you with her?’ he asked.

  Alex looked around the room for a few seconds, to re-establish contact with reality.

  ‘I need to check something,’ he said, sitting up. ‘I have to see whether there’s such a place as Altona Pier. And find out where it is.’

  ‘We can find out right away.’ Marco went over to his computer and quickly typed in the name his friend had just told him. From a quick glance at Google Maps, it appeared to be a pier on the bay, in a quiet neighbourhood in the south-west of Melbourne.

  The following morning, while his parents were at work, Alex threw together some clothes, a book, and his trusty iPod, and stuffed everything into the backpack he usually took to school. Before he left, he wrote a short note and left it on the kitchen table.

  Dear Mamma and Papà,

  I’m going on a trip. I won’t be gone long, don’t worry about me.

  Everything’s fine, I just can’t tell you what it’s about. You wouldn’t understand. I can’t put this off any longer, and it wouldn’t have made any sense to ask for your permission.

  I love you. Forgive me.

  ALEX

  With his backpack slung over one shoulder, Alex went back to Marco’s to spend one last night on his sofa. His flight took off the next morning at seven o’clock.

  ‘I’m jealous of you, you know that?’ said Marco. He was arranging slices of prosciutto on a piece of bread to make a toasted sandwich.

  ‘Why?’ asked Alex as he sat down to eat. His friend pushed a blue button on the back of his chair. In just seconds, a gap opened up in the table where his guest was sitting. A wooden surface emerged, with a glass, a set of utensils, and a napkin all neatly laid on top.

  ‘Simple. Someone out there needs you and can’t wait to meet you.’

  ‘Yes, someone who’s been talking to me for the past four years through a series of epileptic fits …’

  ‘Cut it out. You know she exists,’ said Marco in a determined voice. Then he looked down at his useless legs. ‘Nothing like that is ever going to happen to me.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. Sooner or later it’s going to happen to you too. You just have to wa
it for the right time.’

  Marco bit into his sandwich and went on talking with his mouth full of food. ‘I’m handicapped.’

  Alex poured himself a glass of water, shaking his head. ‘You’re a genius, Marco. You’ve got a brain that’s out of this world. And, fine, you don’t have a pair of working legs. There are plenty of people with legs who can’t find their way in life, and just sit there vegetating.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right … sooner or later I’ll find some poor loser chick willing to spend the rest of her life with a guy on two wheels.’ Marco laughed. He was always self-deprecating, and Alex had gotten used to it. ‘Are you ready? We’ll set three alarm clocks for tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex closed his eyes and imagined himself flying around the Earth, heading for Australia. ‘I’m ready. If you want to know the truth, I’m nervous as a kitten.’

  After they finished dinner, the two friends sat in the living room for a couple of hours, chatting and watching TV, before going to sleep. As they expected, Alex’s mother called Marco’s house in a state of panic. He played his part perfectly, telling her that he’d tried to call Alex’s mobile phone too, and that he was just about to call the house. The performance seemed to have worked: they weren’t going to come looking for him, at least not right away. Or at least that’s what they hoped.

  The next morning, the alarm clocks rang at four o’clock. The journey was about to begin.

  9

  Alex took off from Malpensa Airport at 7.12 a.m. on 28 November 2014. In less than ninety minutes, he was scheduled to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, the first of two stops on the trip.

  Thanks to Marco, he’d been able to pay for the whole trip with the debit card. More than a third of the funds had been eaten up when he’d made the reservation and paid for the plane ticket. Part of what was left would pay for a hotel in Australia, unless Jenny had some way of finding him a place to stay. But the idea that someone who had been little more than a hallucination until just a few days ago might be able to offer him hospitality in her home struck him as a remote and unimaginable prospect.