by Dara Horn
Rachel was relieved to see the joy on Rocky’s face. “Wow! What’s the grant for?”
Hannah smiled. “Basically, I’m trying to solve the problem of death.”
A trapdoor opened under the heap of years beneath Rachel’s chair. She felt, physically, her knees against a warm stone floor as the air filled with fragrant smoke. She opened her eyes wide, struggling to see what was in front of her, to distinguish it from the reality beneath her. Her granddaughter sat smiling across the table, unwrinkled and innocent. Rachel took hold of her wineglass and forced herself to concentrate on the sensation of its smooth round bowl, its weight in her hand, the dark-haired actual girl across the table, the one who looked like hundreds of other daughters and granddaughters but who also looked the most like her. Stay here, she told herself. Stay here. She took a deep swig of wine and asked, “Is death a problem?”
“Well, Google thinks it is.”
Rocky looked up from his food. “So how do you solve it?” he asked. “Fill me in. I’m in the market for a new lease on life.”
Hannah gave a little sigh, which Daniel echoed. Clearly they were both bored by telling the same story again and again. Rachel had no patience for other people’s boredom. “Okay, short version,” Hannah began. “So everyone’s got chromosomes, right? That’s where the DNA are, they’re in every cell in an organism, every cell in you. And they all contain the entire genetic code for the organism. Now the genes on the DNA, they’re the rungs in the double-helix ladder. My group is researching the telomeres, which are the nucleotide sequences—”
Daniel smiled at her. “Can you say that in English?”
“That’s all right,” Rachel said. “I’m so old that I’m fluent in Latin and Greek.”
Everyone laughed, except for Rachel.
“And tenth-grade biology was the best three years of my life,” Rocky said.
Everyone laughed, except for Rachel.
“Proteins, okay?” Hannah explained. “Proteins that act like protective caps on the genes. They prevent the genes from degrading near the ends of the chromosomes, by allowing their ends to shorten. The problem is that telomeres divide, and eventually they get reduced, which speeds up the deterioration of the genes. The thinking is, that’s why we die. It’s really just decomposition.”
Rachel’s food became tasteless in her mouth. She remembered a son in Poland, the one who had abruptly become an atheist after his father’s death, while the son was still a teenager. They had fought endlessly, she and he, she constantly trying to force him back into the yeshiva, he constantly getting himself expelled, until he left home to go to the university in Lemberg—which she suspected required a baptismal certificate, though of course she never asked. Seven years later he had returned home with a little girl, explaining to his mother that his young wife had dropped dead.
“Papa, what happens to people when they die?” the little girl had asked that first evening at Rachel’s house.
Her father had stared right at her, smiled, and said, “They decompose.”
Rachel looked at his smiling face and slapped it. Her son walked out the next morning and never returned. Only later did Rachel realize that that was the reason he had come home, that her slap had been her granddaughter’s blessing. She raised that little girl too.
“So there’s an enzyme, telomerase, that might be able to maintain telomere length,” Hannah was saying. “And if we can maintain telomere length, then no one would have to die.”
Rachel reached for her water and began drinking, pouring it down her throat without pausing as she heard her mother’s voice. Stop guzzling, stupid girl! It’s summertime! Where do you think you are, some rich place with a river like Egypt? Babylon? Rome? You think we have endless water? Nothing is endless, stupid girl! Stupid girl, you’ll kill us all!
Rocky leaned forward with his fork in his hand. “That sounds excellent. Sign me up!”
“That’s what everyone says,” Daniel put in.
“Don’t get too excited,” Hannah said. “First of all, telomerase can also cause cancer, so it’s not exactly a magic bullet. And anyway it’ll be a while before we make it to human trials, if we ever do. Right now we’re doing work on planaria.”
“What’s planaria?” Rocky asked.
“They’re everyone’s favorite microscopic organism,” Daniel groaned, still grinning.
Rachel took refuge in the conversation’s eddy. It still astounded her, after all these years, how much more there still was left to learn, how it never ended. I should be a scientist in the next version, she thought in passing—the same way she thought of everything else her children or grandchildren did. I should be a writer, she had thought before. Or a musician. Or an artist. Or I should be—except then someone might notice her.
“They’re microscopic parasites, and what’s special about them is that you can’t kill them,” Hannah explained. “They just regenerate over and over again. That’s the model we’re trying to follow.”
Rocky pointed a fork at his daughter. “So let me get this straight. You’re trying to figure out how to make people live forever, and the way you’re doing it is by figuring out how to imitate parasites.”
Hannah looked at her father. “Yup.”
“Like I said, sign me up. I’m already your ideal subject. Just ask Gram over here. I’ve been a parasite for years!”
Everyone turned to Rachel, who failed to smile. A shadow fell across the table as one candle’s flame guttered and died. Rachel tried to say something trivial, but couldn’t. She hoped someone else would speak, but the three of them were watching her, waiting. Stay here, she told herself again. Stay here.
“I’m confused about why someone would want to live forever,” she finally said.
Hannah answered analytically, like someone who had only read about life in a book. “It’s not about living forever, exactly. The idea is to stop the aging process. Which I think we can all agree would be a good thing. I mean, no matter how long you live, no one wants to deteriorate physically or mentally, right? But yes, ultimately what we’re trying to achieve is an indefinite lifespan.”
Daniel grinned. “This is what I keep asking her,” he said. “We seem to have a fundamental disagreement about whether this would be a good thing. I even started a discussion about it online. It’s ‘hashtag eternal life,’ if you want to take a look. A lot of people participate.”
“What do they say?” Rocky asked.
Hannah rolled her eyes. “Daniel thinks it’s some fascinating conversation. But it’s actually just filled with trolls.”
Daniel frowned. “That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Someone who constantly posts about kale smoothies as the key to immortality counts as a troll,” Hannah said.
“In your opinion,” Daniel replied. “Isn’t caloric restriction the only thing that actually slows down aging?”
“Someone who constantly posts about how the research is all a corporate plot counts as a troll.”
“In your opinion. Honestly, Hannah, you’re sponsored by Google.”
“Someone who constantly posts about the Rapture counts as a troll.”
“In your opinion. Google would probably prefer to call it the Singularity.”
“How about someone who constantly posts about how he’s already immortal, but he doesn’t recommend it, because after twenty centuries he still can’t get together with the immortal girl of his dreams?”
Daniel laughed. “Okay, that guy really is a troll.”
Ice cracked through Rachel’s veins. But Hannah finally laughed, a laugh that escalated until she leaned against the table, barely able to get out the words. “He—he—he’s like, ‘What do I have to do to get her to take me back? I saved her kids from the Black Plague, wasn’t that enough?’ ”
Daniel continued, “And then all she says is, ‘No thanks, I’d rather be with a guy who will actually die and leave me alone.’ ”
Hannah was still gasping. “Can you blame her?”
> “And then he’s like, ‘But why won’t she remember the good times? We had so much fun under the Romans! And remember that time when the Crusaders burned us alive?’ ”
Rachel’s hands shook under the table. She tried to rise from her seat, to flee the room, but she found she could not move. Now Rocky was laughing too. Hannah caught her breath, wiping tears. “Dad, remind me to show you. It’s like Mel Brooks.”
Daniel settled down, holding Hannah’s hand. “But it’s not totally a joke either.”
Hannah smirked at him. “Um, yes, Daniel. It is totally a joke.”
“I don’t mean there’s really some guy out there who’s immortal. I mean that the points he’s making aren’t completely ridiculous. There are a lot of major downsides to eternal life. Think of your bad high school boyfriend or girlfriend who never goes away. Now imagine that they really never go away. Honestly, I kind of want to kill myself just thinking about it.”
Rachel looked at her empty glass and barely breathed.
“The online conversation is fun,” Hannah said. “But the reality is that most people in it just want to sign up.”
Rocky laughed. “Like I said, count me in. I’m already the bad boyfriend who never goes away, so I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“Actually, the only human participants we need now are people who are old already.”
“Sign me up!” Rocky repeated. “I’m already getting junk mail from AARP.”
“Well,” Hannah hesitated, “right now we’re collecting DNA samples from people who are aging well.”
Rocky laughed again. “Okay, I guess I don’t count then. I’m definitely not aging well.”
“You don’t count because you’re only fifty-six,” Hannah said. Then she turned in her seat, and swiveled her beautiful young face toward Rachel. “But you do.”
Rachel sensed the black hole closing in on her, the void that separated her from every other person on the planet. It often occurred to her that she was no longer human, that she was something else, something no other being on earth could imagine. Except for one. The bad boyfriend who never goes away.
“No thanks,” she finally croaked.
Daniel laughed. “You’ve already solved the problem of death. What are you, eighty-four? You sure don’t look it.”
Rachel forced a smile. “I guess I’m just a parasite.”
Hannah had turned serious now. She narrowed her eyes at Rachel as though examining a specimen. Rachel suppressed a shudder. This was hardly the first time a child or grandchild had eyeballed her, marveling. But she knew where it went from here, since the time she had made the catastrophic mistake of demonstrating the truth.
You don’t believe me? Then watch, she had threatened a daughter, long ago, before she had lived long enough to know.
That daughter, another Hannah, was an angry person—a girl with two murdered brothers and a reeling mind, a girl brimming with fury, desperate for vengeance against the world and God. One night after a brutal fight with Rachel, that ancient Hannah came out with the long-awaited words: I wish you were dead.
At first Rachel laughed. Not as much as I do.
But then the words came back at her, fierce and wounding. I mean it, Mother. She saw the anger in her daughter’s eyes and could not believe the intensity, the pure molten rage, as though the universe and eternity contained nothing but the two of them. The power of Hannah’s fury, and the bottled-up energy of keeping her own secret for fifty years (fifty years! Who cared about fifty years! How little Rachel knew then!) made Rachel a living powder keg, ready to explode. Rachel was only on her second version then: too young to know better.
You wish I were dead? she screamed. You think that’s even possible for me? I’ve been alive a hundred and forty years, Hannah. I saw the Temple burn. I can’t die. I never will.
You’re crazy, her daughter roared. If I were a boy, I would run right out of this house. I’d let the Romans flay me alive, just like they did to Azaria and Simeon. Anything’s better than being here. But now all I can do is wait for you to die. Crazy old lady!
You’ll wait forever, Rachel said, and I’ll prove it right now.
While the angry Hannah watched, Rachel took the oil lamp she was holding and set the neckline of her own robe ablaze. In an instant her face ignited, her body alive and burning. She was sure her daughter would witness it, dumbfounded, as she suffered and then rose again. But instead that Hannah screamed as though she herself were on fire. She pounced on top of Rachel, screaming for her mother, and died from the flames. Rachel threw the memories into a deep pool in her mind, and heard the thunk as they sank like stones.
“Eighty-four, and no health problems at all, right, Gram?” Hannah announced. The question strummed through Hannah’s voice like a plucked string. Rachel’s insides burned. “No cancer, no heart disease, no memory loss—”
“You’d be surprised by what I’ve lost,” Rachel said softly.
“Gram, seriously. It’s harder than you’d think to find participants who actually meet the standard. I would love to have a sample from you. All it takes is a cheek swab. You wouldn’t even need to come to the lab.”
Rachel tried her best to smile. “Sorry,” she said, “but I’m at an age where I’ve finally learned to say no.”
Rocky was jubilant. “Come on, Mom. Give it a try! Then we really can live forever, instead of just laughing about it.”
Rachel looked at her son across the table, the same table where he had once sat with his father and brother and sisters. She saw the little boy Rocky standing on his chair as she shouted at him to sit down, saw him beating his chest like a gorilla to make his brother laugh, saw that same pelt of black hair attached to a smaller body, a little pillar of potential. She looked and saw the boy he had been, the boy he never would be again. The smell of the burnt-out candle rose like a wail. “The hard part isn’t living forever,” Rachel said. “It’s making life worth living.”
Rocky regarded her with narrowed eyes. Rachel remembered the story her father had once altered about Abraham and Isaac, the parent who hurt a child just to prove a point. She looked at Rocky again, trying to induce him to forgive her. But he stood up abruptly, announcing the insult by loudly collecting dishes. “I’m going to go see what the kids are up to,” he said. He deposited the dishes on the kitchen counter and went downstairs.
“What’s going on with Dad these days? I’m afraid to ask.” Hannah’s voice was a hushed whisper. “Is Judy still destroying his life?”
Rachel shrugged. Her relief at the shift in subject was immeasurable. “There wasn’t much left to destroy.”
“I’m so sorry he’s here,” Hannah murmured.
“Don’t be sorry,” Rachel told her. “I’m a lifelong expert in dealing with people like him.”
An earsplitting screech echoed from the room directly above their heads: “WATCH ME JUMP!”
Hannah and Daniel leapt to their feet. An instant later, everyone saw the boy fly past the window from the floor above and crash on top of the bushes outside, with a nauseating crunch.
Rachel rushed to the window and threw it open. Ezra was lying on top of the bushes, arms and legs splayed, dark curls blasted, his forehead bleeding. His parents immediately began pulling him through the window, Hannah screaming at him as they inspected his cuts and felt his limbs for broken bones. Rachel scanned his body in a panic until she saw how minor his scrapes were, how quickly he jerked his head up. She marveled at how children bounced. The boy smiled.
“Ezra, you IDIOT!” Hannah shouted. “You could have DIED!”
But Ezra was already standing, and laughing. “I’m the Amazing Jumping Man! The Amazing Jumping Man!”
“You IDIOT!”
Rachel didn’t laugh until she went to get the first aid kit. Then in the hallway, she laughed until she cried. And told herself once more: Stay here.
CHAPTER
7
AN OLD FLAME
. . .
One week after they first met
again, Elazar texted Rachel.
Meet me at sunset, he wrote, here. Following that was a strange series of numbers.
Where’s “here”? she replied. The characters on the screen frustrated her, and so did something else. She thought of saying no, but already her body warmed, frustration pulsing through her skin.
Use GPS, he told her.
When she arrived where the numbers told her to go, she was in an industrial wasteland near the Hudson River. She drove in circles around abandoned warehouses, certain she had made a mistake. The navigation kept taking her back to the same spot: an empty lot next to a strangely unfinished highway underpass. Its walls were covered with rusted scaffolding, and it seemed to lead to nothing but darkness—or, when she looked a bit more closely, toward a dark wall about a hundred feet in. She drove by it three times before she saw a man step out of its shadows, in a coat and a dark hat. He waved until she pulled the car up beside him. To her surprise he went to the passenger side and climbed in.
It was strange to see him there, seated in her car. In two thousand years, this was something new: they had never been in a car together before. For a moment she imagined him seated beside her in so many other places—in third-class train compartments, in the backs of carriages, in open-air wagons, in the hulls of ships—and also all the times some other man had sat beside her in a car, staring with her through the windshield at the future. His wiry body shimmered on the plasticized seat, his old dark coat hiding a gleaming rip in the universe. She stared, awestruck. Elazar didn’t notice. His mind was elsewhere, or elsewhen.
“Go straight ahead,” he told her, indicating the underpass in front of them.
In front of the car was hardly a road; the surface was covered with gravel and mud, scattered with occasional debris. “Really?”
“Just go in,” he instructed.
She pulled the car forward between the two large scaffold-covered walls supporting the highway overhead. They were barely within the underpass when he told her to stop. “Leave it here,” he said.
She laughed. “If I leave it here, it won’t be here when I come back.”