Fare Forward

by Wendy Dubow Polins

  I look at him as I try to block out the sounds of the applause and the speaker from the other room.

  "What do you mean? Tonight is about you, your accomplishments. In a few more days everyone will know. You're going to show everyone that you've been right all along."

  "Although these ideas have always been more the stuff of science fiction than scientific fact . . ." The speaker has begun his introduction in the auditorium.

  "You have taught me one of the most important lessons of my life," my grandfather says.

  "Papa, listen, the speaker, they've started. Let's go back. They are talking about you—your work." What could he possibly have learned from me? And then, I remembered what Benjamin had said about my experiences somehow influencing him. I can't understand what he is doing and I try to lead him back, frightened by the tone of our conversation. "We need to get back in there, Papa, now—"

  "Gabriella, please stop. Listen to me. I want you to know that you have shown me what I always wanted to believe."

  "What? No, please, I don't understand."

  "The work of Dr. Vogel will finally prove that a truly advanced civilization might be able to circumvent the obstacles associated with these theories . . ." the speaker continues.

  "Simply by seeing it—in you."

  "Seeing what?"

  "That one could find happiness, find everything they are looking for not by looking outward but by looking in. Finding the answers that reside deep in your heart."

  And then, I realize what he is saying. I can see it. The acceptance in his eyes, a peacefulness that I have not seen before. "But you've done it! Everything you've worked for your whole life; it's all coming together for you right now."

  He shakes his head slowly and smiles at me. "This has been an interesting time. I have had the opportunity to really reflect on things, my own accomplishments and my contributions to the field of science. More important, I have recognized the incredible gift we have been given to be together for so many years and I now really believe what Einstein always said."

  "About time?"

  "Yes." He pauses. "And that things are not always what they seem."

  The speaker in the other room starts to wrap up his introduction. "What has always been the realm of science fiction will now become fact. The very thin line between physics and metaphysics will finally be bridged. This is the proof that humankind has waited for."

  There is something about what my grandfather is saying and how he is saying it. I know he is preparing me, saying things that need to be said before there are no more opportunities to do so. I recognize the feeling. I know it well and I know what it is.

  It is a farewell.

  "So, in preparation for the World Conference next week, where he will present his proof that will change everything we know about our world, please welcome, Dr. Sydney Vogel!"

  Just as I am about to respond, he places his index finger over his lips and quiets my objection. "They're calling me, Gabriella." He kisses the top of my head and turns to hurry away. "I'll see you, right after."

  "I'll be right here." I try to hold his hand for a few more seconds.

  "Think about what I said." He turns and walks away.

  When I go back into the auditorium, I see him standing at the podium and hear thundering applause. Hundreds of cameras flash and everyone pushes forward to get a glimpse of the humble scientist who is about to change the world. I stand alone, the crush of people pushing past me toward the front. As I back away to the rear of the room, I look up at my grandfather and notice something very unusual and out of character for him. Rather than greeting the applause with his usual good-natured humor and warm self-conscious smile, he looks down at the floor.

  * * *

  66

  * * *

  WE WALK OUT OF THE hall together and into the night. The stars are unlike any I have ever seen before.

  Brighter.

  I feel the shift in the air. It's the kind of wind that would rustle the leaves on the trees—if there were any here. I look around and realize that we are quite alone. The scientists have boarded buses and departed for Jerusalem and the various hotels where they are staying, ready to attend the next event on their carefully orchestrated itineraries. All in preparation for the conference—where my grandfather is expected to reveal his proof. I look at him as he turns to face me and remember everything I love about him.

  "So many have stood in this place before us, Gabriella, and they will continue to after we're gone. Moses, the Israelites, Herod, Alexander the Great, Caesar, Napoleon—"

  "It's as if time is collapsing."

  "Yes."

  "This place is amazing," I whisper.

  "It's a different kind of desert, a different kind of place." He shakes his head.

  "Not one of sand and dunes, a desert where the wind leaves its fingerprint. Time is erased here."

  "Come here, Gabriella." He reaches out for me.

  "This is a desert of rock, of presence—of soul."

  "You feel like you're close to heaven, don't you?"

  "There is something different about tonight. About you, Papa." I try to identify what it is, but he doesn't hear me. He is looking up at the sky. "And yet, some things are the same. The stars are just like ours at the beach."

  I hold his hand as we walk toward the railing at the edge of the open plaza. I feel the cold metal under my hands as I grip it firmly and try to find my balance.

  "Similar to our beach, but this is different," he says.

  "I know, it's special."

  "Every place has within it memories of the past, Gabriella. What you now know is how to recognize the things that are truly important, the values and ideas that stand the test of time. How to choose—what to believe."

  "To trust and rely on my heart," I whisper my grandmother's words. I put his hand against my cheek; I don't want this time with him to end.

  "Yes."

  I had forgotten the cold of the desert night and tighten the thin sweater around my shoulders. He puts his arm around me, and we stand there looking out into the sky together. My arms wrap around the front of my body and cover my heart. I feel that it is going to break out of my chest.

  "It's so bloody cold when the sun goes down." I hear her words come out of my mouth, the exact same words spoken by my grandmother in this very place, so many years ago. I have heard them and seen them. In a dream, a memory.

  "You do remember."

  "I don't know anymore what I am. Who I am becoming. The past and future they—they blend together. Sometimes I'm not sure if I can tell them apart."

  "Gabriella?"

  "Maybe my memories aren't even mine?" I turn away from him in frustration.

  He reaches out for me. "Yes, they are your memories." I know there is something else he wants to tell me.

  "What is it?" I ask.

  "You must always remember to really see what is around you. The stars, the sky, the earth. Even the invisible, but especially everything that you are. "

  "Why are you saying all this now?"

  "There is so much all around us, and yet, there is so much more."

  "More?"

  But he doesn't hear me. He seems far away. He is calm, and I wonder whether this is what happens when you have arrived, when you are ready to put it all together, everything you have worked so hard for.

  You realize that you have only started.

  Suddenly, I hear an unexpected sound. It is the mechanism of the cable car engaging, but I know everything is shut down for the night. The cabin glides into position in front of us and very slowly, the door slides open as if responding to some invisible command.

  "Look at this, our own private ride to the top."

  "This is crazy! Papa, why would we want to go up now?"

  "Come, let's get in."

  "No, I really don't think we should—"

  He reaches out for me, and we enter into the dark cable car as the doors slide closed behind us and lock. I thought we were alone un
til I hear a voice.

  "Sydney."

  I turn around and realize immediately who it is. "Benjamin!"

  He reaches out for me, and I run into his arms. I hold onto him tightly as we ascend the side of the steep mountain. No one speaks. We are quiet, lost in our own thoughts as we look out the windows of the shaking cable car.

  Finally I find my voice. "What is happening?" I need answers, information. "Can one of you please tell me what's going on?"

  The door to the cable car opens slowly as we lock onto the arrival platform at the top of the mountain near the northern face of the plateau. I feel desperate, trying to remain in control of my emotions and the truly unprecedented panic that is beginning to overtake me. Benjamin turns his face away from mine.

  "Gabriella." My grandfather's voice is calm.

  It reminds me of how he would speak to me when I was a little girl, and he would hold me on his lap in one of the rocking chairs on the porch of our home in Gloucester. I would be in my pajamas wrapped in his arms, and we would look out to the sea together. We would talk late into the night, inventing stories. I had always felt so safe and secure there.

  But this night is different. I can feel it.

  "There's something about this place isn't there?" I say slowly.

  "Yes, you're right." He walks toward me. "And I want to tell you something; I have made a choice." I know that he is preparing me for something I cannot imagine. "I will not be going to the conference next week to present my paper. My proof." His hand lifts my chin so that I will look in his eyes. I am crying, and he reaches into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief and hands it to me.

  I shake my head. "No!"

  "I understand your disappointment." He is calm and seems already far away. "But, you must know that with the exception of seeing you like this right now, this is truly one of the happiest moments of my life."

  I try to absorb the incredible power of his words. "What are you saying?"

  I feel Benjamin next to me as he takes my hands in both of his and I turn to look up at him.

  "You remember what I told you? That there was a secret about Herod and about this place, don't you?" Benjamin's eyes burn into mine as he reminds me.

  "Yes, of course, I remember. "

  I remembered every detail of every minute I had ever spent with him. I committed them all to a visual record that I could draw upon when I needed to play them over in my mind, in case they would be all I would have left—the solitary moments with him. As if I had learned to love a ghost.

  "As you know, it is Benjamin who has shown me the proof, helping me to find the last pieces of the equations," my grandfather says. "You see, the tunnels Einstein suggested do, in fact, exist and have been used for thousands of years."

  "They connect to other worlds." It is Benjamin's voice.

  "These worlds are similar yet different from ours in critical ways." My grandfather pauses. "Many of the things we take for granted in this world are different there."

  "Like the laws of physics, " I say.

  "Yes. And specifically," Benjamin says and looks right at me, "that we can exist and experience time in a different way than your world does."

  "We? You mean you, Benjamin."

  "Everything could be the same but time is different," my grandfather says. "They could be farther ahead or even behind us."

  I knew what it meant and ask, "Where are they—the tunnels? The way in?"

  "There are several locations. CERN is one, as your grandmother knew. But there are others. Some of the ports change over time. They can open up when . . ." Benjamin pauses. "When they need to."

  I listen to what they are saying and try to understand. I think of my grandmother, the way she held me and what she said.

  Remember, Gabriella, things are not always what they seem.

  "When they need to? You mean when the rules of the universe are broken?" I ask.

  "Like the shifting cycles of the solar systems that make up the universe, changing the relationship of the planets and stars to each other, the tunnels do not remain in a static location. The ports of entry, the points of access, change. This is why the portals have always been so elusive, so difficult to find."

  He points to the very spot we are standing in.

  "Here?"

  "Yes." Benjamin smiles.

  I stand still, afraid to breathe as I wait for more.

  Benjamin continues, "Herod had in his consultants many of the most brilliant advisors in the Roman Empire, astronomers and mathematicians, who knew that Masada was one of the ports. That is why he built his palace here. However, despite his attempts to gain access, he failed."

  I am stunned. "This is a way into one of the tunnels?"

  "The nine hundred and sixty people who appeared to have died in this very spot almost two thousand years ago did know. They were successful where Herod failed. They knew that the port would open and that they could leave their bodies behind and find a life of freedom in another place. Together with those they loved."

  "And when the Romans burned the barricades and arrived at the top of Masada?" I hear my own voice repeat the story I knew so well.

  "They found what they thought was a mass suicide—nine hundred and sixty bodies. But as you now understand, that is not what happened."

  "How? How could they have known this?" I ask, unable to imagine a people from two thousand years earlier who could understand the physics of a concept that was only going to be revealed in this generation.

  "They were told." Benjamin says as he kisses my hand.

  * * *

  67

  * * *

  THE WIND HAS QUIETED, and I look up at the velvet blanket of sky. The stars are winking, beckoning—whispering of other possibilities, so incredibly close.

  "This is so much bigger than all of us." My grandfather is calm.

  "But your work, Papa, all these years! You were right."

  "I know, but it's time to choose, to trust what my heart is telling me."

  "Please, please don't do this. Not for me. You've worked your whole life for this." I pull my hand out of Benjamin's grasp and turn away.

  "Gabriella." My grandfather's voice is soft. "It has been decided."

  "What do you mean?"

  "It's time to tell her, Benjamin; she deserves to know the truth."

  "Come here." Benjamin takes my hand.

  The three of us walk away from the northern plateau past the ruins of a Byzantine church, several small structures, and the makeshift sun shelters set up for the tourists who come to explore this place. The moon lights up the hills of Jordan, and I see its distorted reflection on the Dead Sea. Benjamin leads me with purpose a little further then down a steep staircase, and we descend into what seems to be a cave.

  "Where are we?" I ask, yet there is something very familiar about where we have arrived.

  "Gabriella, this is where I first met your grandmother. Right here in this place, in this very cistern."

  I know that what Benjamin is telling me is true, that this is where he had found her while she was searching in these ruins. I had seen it before.

  "I, I know."

  "Of course you do—and your grandmother." He smiles at a distant memory. "She was quite persuasive, like you I might say. But, she wanted answers and she found them. She understood the science—she realized that it could be a way for her to live. She convinced me, she asked me to take her, to bring her through. I did not want to see her die and so, I did. Sydney knows this now, he understands."

  "But, how could you? That went against everything. You violated the correct order of things?" I ask.

  "That's right. As I told you, I did break the rules. I was warned that it could never happen again. No individual from your world could ever be brought through unless—"

  "You don't need to tell me this. You don't ever need to explain your reasons to me."

  "I do, though; I want you to know. I was told that if it ever happened again, the ports would be forever closed.
To me that is."

  "Benjamin, I understand. You can't stay. I don't want you to give up your world, your timeless existence. Not for me."

  "Gabriella, I've already decided. It's all right here. Everything I've always wanted, everything I have always searched for—and it is you."

  "No, you can't."

  "Many years before you were born, Albert Einstein and I were together, and he told me something." He narrows his gaze then closes his eyes as he breathes in the distant memory. Then he repeats word for word what the great scientist had told him. "He said that 'one cannot help but be in awe, as one contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, and the marvelous structures of reality.'"

  "This makes no sense, I don't—"

  "Don't you see? It's you. He was talking about you."

  "Gabriella." I turn to my grandfather's voice. "Even though you do not know why, you understand some of the mysteries of this world. You have chosen life and understood death. Even your architecture, 'building the marvelous structures of reality,' just as Einstein said."

  I need to listen to him, to everything he has to tell me. To both of them.

  "No, please, Benjamin, Papa! Please don't do this for me."

  "This is the way—the way it is supposed to be, Gabriella." My grandfather's eyes encourage me.

  "But, your work, if it's not for your work, everything you have been waiting to prove, then what is it for?"

  "Gabriella." Benjamin waits until my breathing has slowed. "It's for love. That's what we're here for. All of us. And love is bigger and more powerful than anything—any scientific theory, any one individual's will, and sometimes even the rules of the universe. Love is more powerful than time itself."

  Suddenly, my grandfather falls to the ground. I run to his side and put my hands under his head. I bend down to hold him and kiss him.

  "Papa, what is happening?" His breathing becomes shallow and he closes his eyes. "Benjamin! Please help him! Please talk to me, Papa, are you—in pain?"

  But he already seems far away.