Zion's Fiction

by Zion's Fiction- A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature (retail) (epub)

  “I could not …”

  “You could not hold on to her,” Oleg repeated. “And what is it to us that our Irisha …”

  He said “our.” He still lived with the feeling that she had only temporarily left him for another and would come back.

  “… our Irisha is still alive in a billion other branches of the multiverse?”

  “You could,” I said. “You are a genius at splicing. You can tie branches together and graft them, like Michurin grafted an apple branch to a pear tree.”

  “And how did it end?” Oleg chuckled. “Michurin. Burbank. Lysenko.”

  “Won’t you even try!” I yelled.

  Oleg stood up and walked toward the window as if to put as much distance between us as possible, as if my presence made it hard for him to breathe, to think, to live.

  “I tried. All the time, I tried,” he said, his voice as hollow as if he spoke under water.

  “You….” I mumbled in confusion. He could not have known about Ira.

  “I can do nothing for myself, you see? Think, Dima, you are one hell of a theoretician. If I am in Branch N, then all possible splices that can change my fate …”

  “Are bound by the causality of that branch—yes, I proved that in my third year of study,” I said. “But you said that you tried….”

  “I couldn’t avoid trying. What if the theory were wrong?”

  We sat in silence, each thinking about what had been said.

  “How did you know about Ira?”

  Oleg turned and looked at me with a silent accusation.

  “Well, Dima, if you found me…. You didn’t have to look for me, I checked the university web page every day, I knew about everything that went on. I could not stand not knowing.”

  “That never entered my mind,” I muttered. “I would have figured out where you were long ago.”

  “I doubt it,” he said. “I took measures. When Ira died, the alumni association ran an obituary the same day. I tried, right there and then. God, Dima, I leaped from branch to branch like a neurotic monkey, spliced more realities than I had ever allowed myself before—and, after that, never again.

  “I didn’t …”

  “Of course you didn’t feel a thing!”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I am not myself today. Stupid; I should have known, I could not feel a break, my reality was contiguous with my past.”

  “You had hundreds of realities, and in all of them Ira died, and I was always late, I made it to the funeral in one hundred seventy-six branches.”

  “You went to a hundred seventy-six funerals?” I said, horrified.

  He didn’t say anything, and I understood why he looked so old to me. I would have gone mad in his place.

  “Then,” I said, “there was nothing …”

  “You are the one who proved that theorem,” said Oleg roughly, “and I never found experimental evidence to the contrary.”

  “So that’s how it is,” I muttered. Something hit me all at once, a year’s worth of fatigue, perhaps, and maybe now I made decisions one after another, each taking me to a different branch, each branch beginning with: “So that’s how it is” parroted over and over.

  “Well, that is all,” said Oleg and stood up abruptly. He reached to shake my hand; his fingers were, for some strange reason, dusted with chalk. “Enough already with the histrionics. You lived by hope alone for a year, looking for me, and I lost hope a year ago and had the time I needed to come to terms with it. I can do nothing for you, Dima. Not—a—thing.”

  I stood up.

  “Leaving?” Oleg asked, his voice flat, without giving me his hand. “You looked for me for such a long time. We could have coffee, dinner, you could tell me about the university. Did Kulikov defend his dissertation?”

  “You’ve been on their web site.” I shrugged.

  “No, not since….”

  “You,” I said, from the doorway, “you splice realities to make lives better.”

  “Of course,” he nodded.

  “And those you turn away?”

  “So that’s the question.” He came closer and with a long-familiar gesture put both his hands on my shoulders. His palms were unpleasantly heavy, and I sagged like Atlas under the weight of the sky.

  “You think I turn away those whose fate I cannot channel in a better direction,” he said, looking straight into my eyes. He did not even blink, and I tried not to blink as well. “You are mistaken, Dima. I have rules. Well, not quite rules; I want nothing to do with unpleasant people, or with people whose happiness depends on the suffering of others. I choose, yes. Do you think I have no right?”

  “Oh, come on,” I muttered. “It’s just that …”

  “You thought of what I could have done for you?”

  “No.” I chuckled. “You would not do this, and it’s not what I would want.”

  “You do want,” he said roughly. “Don’t lie, your eyes betray you. You want to be happy, everyone does. You want her specter to stop haunting you. You want to forget …”

  “No!”

  “Fine; to remember, just about enough to light a candle, that is sufficient. And live a happy life. You came to have your life spliced with a branch in which you are happy and prosperous …”

  “No,” I said, but blinked and lowered my eyes. I wanted that. So what? This he could do, I knew. I also knew he would not lift a finger to help me.

  “Yes,” he sighed and pressed even harder (or did I imagine it?) on my shoulders. “You know, Dima, when you came in and we recognized each other, the first thing I did was run through a list of splices, in my head, that I could have made. For you. Even if you had not asked me, I decided to do it. Because to live without Ira…. I know how it was for me, but I cannot do anything for myself because of your damned theorem. But I could help you, yes, or else what purpose do I have?”

  He took his hands from my shoulders at last, and I stood straight, feeling suddenly light. Was it the lifting of that weight that made me feel relieved, or thinking, for a moment: Oleg can, Oleg will?

  “There isn’t a single line in all of the multiverse,” he said, “where all is well for you. Not one. What can I do with that?”

  “Nonsense!” I exclaimed and stepped back from him. “You know that’s nonsense, why do you even…. We discussed this problem since …”

  “Yes, we discussed,” he interrupted.

  “The multiverse is infinite!” I exclaimed. “There is an infinite number of branches of reality, and all without exception can be embodied as our reality, any version of any event, phenomenon, process, and that means …”

  “That means,” said Oleg regretfully, “that you were right, not I. You proved there’s only a finite number of branches because the wave function for each event has a limited number of solutions.”

  “Yes, but since then …”

  “But I,” Oleg raised his voice, “I maintained that there is an infinity of branches, and in the multiverse’s infinity there must exist all possibilities of human fate—happy and unhappy. I was sure! But now I know I was wrong. The branching of destinies is limited, Dima. Forgive me. I wanted. Very much. At least in Ira’s memory. It’s no use. There is a huge number of versions of your life, but none where you are happy.”

  “Well, then,” I said, feeling an emptiness in my soul which I now knew could never be filled, “we’ve resolved an old scientific debate. For once you have admitted that I’m right.”

  “The branching is finite,” he said. “Aren’t you happy to be right?”

  Did he intentionally torment me?

  “Farewell,” I said and closed the door quietly behind me. Three of the prophet’s secretaries sat at their computers, not even lifting their eyes to me.

  “The office hours are over for today,” a ceiling speaker screeched, and dozens of people crowded into the waiting room sighed as one with disappointment.

  It was windy outside, and a drizzle soaked my hair. The rented car was parked two blocks away, and by the time
I sat behind the wheel my shirt was plastered to my body, and thoughts had deserted me entirely, all thoughts but one: Who needs a life like this?

  I drove slowly in the right lane without knowing where I was, in what part of the city, until I saw a Dead End sign. I turned toward the curb and killed the engine.

  We had debated once, with Oleg. Not just us; it was a popular question, fifteen years ago, in theoretic everettics: Is there a limited number of events in the world of continuous branchings? I said yes, it is limited, and my arguments…. God, I had no idea I could win the debate and lose my own life!

  Rain. It will always be raining now.

  The phone rang, its ringtone a Hungarian dance by Brahms. I fumbled in my bag and brought the phone to my ear.

  “Dima!”

  I did not recognize the voice at first: it was Mikhail Natanovich, the doctor who treated, but could not save, Irina. “Dima, I’ve been calling you all day!”

  “My phone was off,” I said.

  “No matter! I wanted to tell you: today’s test results are much better than before. Much better! This new drug, it’s really…. Dima, I think it will all turn out for the best, now. Do you hear me, Dima?”

  Will turn out for the best. New drug. Ira.

  “How is she?” I asked, squeezing the phone as if I wanted to break it.

  “Slept well all night.”

  “Ira?”

  “Irina Yakovlevna had breakfast this morning, for the first time….”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you for calling. I will be at the hospital no later than nine this evening, as soon as I can get there.”

  I dropped the phone on the seat next to me.

  Oleg succeeded? How? He said himself—not quite an hour ago—that there’s a limited number of splices, that if she died, then….

  Was he mistaken? Or did he accomplish that which he himself considered impossible? Or found an infinity of branches and among them, one in which everything, simply everything, works out?

  I lifted the receiver and dialed his number. It was my duty to thank him, at least.

  “I need to speak with Oleg Nikolaevich,” I said when one of his secretaries answered.

  “Unfortunately …”

  “This is Mantsev, his old friend and colleague. I was just with him and want to …”

  “Unfortunately,” repeated a voice as gray as the rain beyond my window, “it’s impossible. Oleg Nikolaevich passed away immediately after you left.”

  How could that happen? He had appeared healthy and acted perfectly well when….

  “I do not understand,” I muttered. “How is this …”

  “The police are here now,” the secretary said. “I think they might want to speak with you. You were his last visitor of the day. Ten minutes after you left …”

  “Out with it!”

  “Oleg Nikolaevich threw himself out the window. And we are …”

  “On the sixth floor,” I finished for him.

  This is how it ends, I thought. He pushed the white curtain out of the way and stepped through.

  Rain ended. I drove to the airport as fast as I could go. At nine I had to be at the hospital. With Irina. My Irina.

  I was right after all: there is a limit to the number of splices. Oleg proved it, conclusively this time. He said he could do nothing with his fate. Of course. Except for one thing: he could interrupt it. Only then could my fate where Ira died be spliced with the branch where she survived.

  You can extend one branch by cutting off another. The law of conservation. Oleg knew.

  Why did he do this? He had every reason to hate me. What would I have done in his place, knowing there was only one possibility? What am I? A theoretician. Oleg worked in practical, experimental everettics. He did what I could only guess at. Or calculate.

  I sped up, no longer watching the speedometer.

  I knew that Irina and I—that all will be well.

  How can I live, knowing that?

  A Man’s Dream

  Yael Furman

  “Rina! Rina!” Galia screamed at the top of her lungs, trying in vain to climb out of bed. The man at her side was fast asleep. She already knew there was no point in trying to wake him up. Only Rina ever managed to do that.

  “Rina!”

  She heard a toilet flush in the bathroom and then the familiar tapping of Rina’s shoes.

  “Yair!” Rina screamed. “Wake up, right now! Wake up!”

  The man on the bed stirred, and Galia felt that the invisible barrier that had enveloped her had dissolved. She quickly jumped out of bed.

  “I was driving!” she said with tears in her eyes. I was driving on Namir Avenue, and there were pedestrians.”

  “Oh, poor thing,” said Rina softly and hugged Galia. “Let’s get you into this robe and find out what happened to your car.”

  A few minutes later Galia sat at the kitchen table, dressed in a robe and holding a hot cup of tea. Rina sat next to her, talking with the police over the phone. Yair fell asleep again; the two of them preferred to let him sleep as long as Galia was there.

  “I understand,” said Rina into the receiver, “so except for the old man who was startled, no one was hurt.”

  Galia wrote on a note: Ask him what happened to the stuff in the car.

  “I understand. Yes … yes, let her insurance company fight it out with ours—It’s not her fault, poor thing. It’s my husband’s fault.”

  She looked at the note while listening to the voice on the other end. “Thank you … yes. She wants to know what happened to all her belongings in the car…. Aha … thank you.”

  She put down the receiver. “He said your bag is at the police station, and they don’t think anything was stolen. And he said you should take the police report to the insurance company, showing that it was a Dreaming accident. The insurance has to compensate you for the damages. Worst case, they can talk to our insurance company.”

  “Even though you weren’t involved in the accident?” asked Galia.

  “But Yair caused it,” said Rina.

  “I don’t know what to do,” said Galia. She looked pale and confused. “I’m going crazy. Have you been to your psychiatrist?”

  “Yes. And he gave us pills, but they gave Yair an asthma attack. The psychiatrist is consulting now with his colleagues about an alternative medicine.”

  “And what about the traditional treatment? Talks? Find out why he keeps dreaming about me in the first place?”

  Rina sighed and held her head in her hands. “I asked him,” she said. “He told me that many men dream about women they’ve seen for a moment. It’s natural and usually harmless. Most men who dream about a woman dream about her for one night and usually don’t even remember the dream the next morning. At most, they may create an alternative dream duplicate, and then it disappears when they wake up. Sometimes they don’t even remember it. But Yair? He’s so utterly uncreative. So when he first dreamt about you, instead of creating himself a dream duplicate of you he simply pulled you to him, which created a sort of self-perpetuating effect. Since you appear next to him and he knows you really exist, it makes him go on dreaming about you. It’s an endless cycle.”

  “So maybe I should sleep with him once, let him get it out of his system.”

  Rina answered in a feeble voice, “I even asked him about it, as long as it would make him calm down. He said ‘no way.’ Bringing you here naked is the top of Yair’s creativity. If you sleep with him it will only give him more stuff to dream about. And it will be even worse. If, when he dreams now, he can confine you to the bed, you don’t want to imagine what will happen if he would actually dream that….” She let her words trail off and sipped her coffee quietly.

  Galia drank her tea.

  Yair woke up and was relieved to find he was alone on the bed. He got up and went barefoot into the living room. Rina was sitting watching TV.

  “Where’s Galia”? Yair asked.

  “I took her home an hour ago,” Rina said. Her g
aze was fixed on the screen. It was a program about nutrition. A man in a chef’s uniform was discussing sprouting legumes.

  “I’m sorry,” said Yair. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep. I was just lying down for a rest. I didn’t sleep all night….”

  “There’s coffee in the thermos,” Rina said without taking her eyes off the screen.

  “Thanks, honey,” said Yair.

  He went to wash his face in the bathroom. Staring back at him in the mirror was a balding man in his late forties. His face was already beginning to show wrinkles. Small bags hung under his hazel eyes. The mirror didn’t show it, but he knew that his belly also showed. He wasn’t the kind of man a good-looking woman like Galia would be attracted to. Even when he was younger and had abundant hair, they were not attracted to him. Rina was different. She saw in him something else, something that none of the Galias could see, but he wasn’t sure anymore how much was left in him, of whatever it was that brought him Rina. He washed his face, shaved, and went back to the kitchen to pour himself some coffee. Rina still sat in front of the TV. The cook was inspecting the fresh lentil sprouts.

  “Did Galia suffer any damages?” Yair asked. He sipped his coffee and slightly burned his tongue. He put the coffee down on the table to cool a little.

  “Her car was left without a driver, and it hit a lamp post,” said Rina.

  “Did anyone get hurt?”

  “No.”

  He took the coffee and went to sit beside Rina. He wanted to put his arm around her, but she got up and went to the bathroom. Yair sipped his coffee carefully to avoid burning his tongue again. The cook in the television finally cooked the lentils and went on to beans. Rina came back from the bathroom and went to the kitchen. He heard her pulling out some kitchenware from one of the cupboards.

  “Maybe I’ll try the pills again tonight,” Yair said.

  “It almost killed you last time,” said Rina.

  “Maybe it was something else. I have to try it again. I’m so afraid I’ll dream about her again that I can’t go to sleep.”

  The sound of rattling from the kitchen stopped abruptly. Rina came and stood between him and the television.