Fare Forward

Copyright © 2011 Wendy Dubow Polins

Hamilton Hall Press

Boston, MA

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the written prior permission of both the copyright owner and publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is either coincidental or used for fictitious purposes.

Excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets originally published in 1941 and 1942. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Polins, Wendy Dubow Fare Forward / Wendy Dubow Polins.—1st ed.

ISBN: 978-1-937563-46-2

“Wendy Polins has written a compelling, beautifully told love story that brings readers to the intersection of religion, science, art and history. It’s a remarkable, mesmerizing book.”

—Jeffrey Zaslow, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author,
The Last Lecture

“It's hard work reducing tens of thousands of glorious words to a praise piece that necessarily glosses over or skips much of what makes the novel spectacular.
Fare Forward
is in every facet of the word — extraordinary.”

—Stuart Horwitz, Senior Editor, BOOK ARCHITECTURE

“Mystical, intellectual, energetic, and relevant, this novel moves its readers to find out what’s next while, at the same time, asks us to consider the connections between what we think, and what we believe.”

—Marianne Driskill, Ph.D., award winning poet

“
Fare Forward
confronts the timeless questions plaguing each of our souls: where did we come from and what is our purpose? Exploring the rich traditions of Kabbalah, engaging science’s most difficult proofs and theorems, and enlisting the emotions of the heart, Wendy Polins manages to answer these questions, and leaves the reader lingering for more.”

—Rabbi Nicole Guzik, Sinai Temple, Los Angeles

“A creative mixture of art, science, history and the future that will intrigue readers.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“A novel where science and storytelling meet, where dreamers and seekers alike will want to linger over every word.”

—Liz Michalski, author of
Evenfall

My profound thanks to everyone who helped make this book a reality.

To all my first readers who cheered me: Mary Lee Broder, Mim Cohen, Laura Donald, Rachelle Kagan Dubow, Rhonda Gilberg, Beth Gold, Jane Goldstein, Holly Bienenstock-Grainer, Elizabeth Greif, Elaine Harris, Miriam Harris, David Judson, Alice Leidner, Susan Levy, Renee Nadel, Marjorie Patkin, Phyllis Patkin, Amy Pliner, Richard Polins, Sophie Polins, Jordan Rodman, Glen Sears, Robyn Stavis, Susan Feinberg Stelk, and, especially, Laurie Judson.

To the artists, architects, teachers, and scientists who have brought light into my world: Jerrilynn Dodds, Wallace Gray, Baruch HaLevi, Steven Holl, Paola Iacucci, Layah Lipsker, Bernard Tschumi, Barry Ulanov, and Mark Wigley. And to the ones whose words and actions live inside my heart, Albert Einstein, T.S. Eliot, Louis Kahn, and Mark Rothko.

To my own students, who have so much to teach me.

To the incredibly supportive and vital community of writers at Grub Street in Boston, thank you for being there.

Alan Lightman at MIT, who inspired parts of this work with his writings on Albert Einstein and his own unique accomplishments in science and the humanities.

To my classmates and alma mater, Columbia University, for providing such a rich source of material for the novel and the amazing, life altering experiences I had there as an undergraduate and student in the Graduate School of Architecture.

To the amazing city of Boston and the beautiful North Shore of Massachusetts that inspired so many scenes in the novel: MIT; the beaches, dunes, and marshes of Gloucester; the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge; and the Museum of Science. I never take for granted that I live here.

To Joyce Colahan and everyone at DE in Marblehead.

To my Los Angeles connection: Heidi Levitt, for her enthusiasm and vision, and the people at Landscape Entertainment for encouraging me to push the story farther.

My editors, Stuart Horwitz and Karen Byrne, of
BookArchitecture
for their razor-sharp eyes; my amazing copyeditor, Heather Grant Murray, who "fixed" everything; and my brilliant cover designer, Sarah Bishins of SarahBdesign; and the graphic designers at
A Life in Print,
for their beautiful work inside and out.

This novel could never have been written or completed without the generous assistance of all of you and many others who I cannot mention but who shared their knowledge, support, and expertise.

To my devoted family: my siblings; parents; grandparents; and especially, my darling daughters, Sophie and Rosie, and my husband and partner, Richard. Thank you for riding this wave with me, through the highs and lows, and loving me fiercely through it all.

And, finally, to those in my life who have shown me through their own example that life is not about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself, making a difference, and giving back—thank you for giving me something to strive for every day.

Wendy Dubow Polins, March 2011

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.

T.S. Eliot,
"Little Gidding,"
No. 4 of Four Quartets, stanza V

While time is withdrawn, consider the future
And the past with an equal mind.

Not fare well,
But fare forward, voyagers.

T.S. Eliot, "The
Dry Savages,
"
No. 3 of Four Quartets, stanza III

T
HE ICE COLD surrounds me and, finally, I let go.

Salt water rushes into my lungs, and its weight pulls me down, deeper—into the infinite blue space. The crushing pain is gone because I've left my heart behind, and, this time, I'm not afraid, because I know he's with me.

I need to remember. The way our bodies would meet in the dark, and in the light, floating in the moving tide of our pleasure. The
worlds
between us melting.

I know that I could paint his words with my brush, draw the shape of his breath with my pen, and sculpt the meaning of his thoughts into stone. But I understand that it cannot be—so I choose this. I'm tired of searching and trying to understand. Instead I let go to the powerful force and become one with the sea.

I won't live in this world without him; I know there's another way.

Maybe this is it.

“Y
OUR EYES WILL adjust to the darkness," the soft voice says.

I had wandered away from the group and into the silence of the cave to find a few moments of solitude. A quiet that only the desert could provide. The darkness is a welcome relief from the extreme daytime heat that burns my skin and the powerful sunlight that shines down on this small, sacred piece of earth. I need to clarify the strange sensation, the one I never seem able to explain—the feeling that I've been here before.

"Yes," I respond cautiously to the reassurance and point my voice in its direction.

I'm aware of his presence as he follows me into the bell-shaped space of the cave. The cistern, as it is called, where light bends its way into an opening that reveals a small patch of blue sky. There is something about this place and something about him. It all seems oddly familiar.

In the last few days, I seemed to be drawn to him. I recognized the warmth in his words and the slight unidentifiable accent, even a hint of humor at my expense. we had been introduced at orientation a few weeks before and were told he was a special guest—not part of our academic team from the American university. His presence was a mystery, and I noticed how he was constantly accompanied by an armed driver and an assistant, all dressed in formal military gear too hot for the desert.

I watched as he would walk through the large tent that contained the findings of our research: mesh screens, small trowels, and brushes all carefully laid out on tables. These were the tools with which we would slowly separate layers of dirt from any small treasures that waited to be catalogued in the arduous system prescribed by the High Commission on Antiquities and Archaeology. He would carefully inspect the log, where every finding was meticulously recorded, to see whether we had uncovered the elusive evidence, often with a cup of tea in his hand and a slight smile on his lips. The formality of the English traditions were familiar to me from years of travel with my family. Crisp, white linen, crystal, and china seemed incongruous in this desert setting where, under the flapping wings of the tent, everything became covered with a fine film of desert dust.

He moved with elegance and conversed easily in French, English, German, and Hebrew. As he sat at the long table where our food was served by the young Turkish chef, I wondered who he was and noticed his patient manner—whether talking with the British High Commissioner or a simple server. Like the archaeological findings here, there was something different about him:
timeless.

"This site has been marked by the British Archaeological Commission's Department of Antiquities as a protected area." The formality of our introduction on the first day matched the seriousness of the team leader's words. "These caves and their contents are evidence of a people's desperate effort to survive—ultimately unsuccessful."

I tried to break down what he was saying, the overwhelming implications of where we were, the crushing history, and my own certainty of who had been in this very place, particularly during the time of Herod. These caves were where ancient mystics had found refuge, fleeing for their lives and their beliefs as they recorded words onto sacred scrolls. They were searching, looking for answers to the most profound questions about the nature of the universe. The legend was that the ancient scrolls contained the secrets of how to harness divine energy through mystical traditions and practices, the key to the elusive elements of creation.

But I knew why
I
was here.

These texts were the source of my bedtime stories: tales of an angel who visited Abraham and gave him answers to the many questions about the world, understood through words and numbers outlined in the Book of Creation. Ideas that were at the heart of mysticism and studied by my parents and grandparents and the many generations who came before them. This was what we were looking for, clues to that world. Their
secrets
—and mine.

I turn slowly and look at the remarkable face, the kind that I would have wished to paint. It is hard to determine his age as he stands and takes me in. Even in the faint light I can see the intensity of the light eyes, the way they turn up, framed by dark wavy hair, and their remarkable color: green.

"The power to choose your fate—like the men, women, and children who hid here, facing the mighty Roman Empire. But you know this don't you?" He smiles as he says the words, seeming to enjoy his own personal secret.

I drop my backpack onto the ground and watch the small cloud of dust it makes as it lands in the sand. It is good to have it off my shoulder, its heaviness a reminder of the objects I cannot seem to separate from—my paints, brushes, small pieces of paper, and my diary—so that I can be ready to record impressions and feelings, as I hoped there was a way to capture the strange spiritual essence of this place in two dimensions. I look up at him and take a moment to understand how I might respond to the personal nature of what he has said. I seem to have lost my place and realize that after the many days of watching him, we are now quite alone. He is answering questions that I did not remember speaking out loud, things I had only wondered about in silence.

"It has not been determined exactly which people were here," I start to respond but I'm not sure what to say.

"The ones writing the ancient texts, searching for answers."

I continue, "Yes, well, we really haven't found conclusively yet who occupied this place and exactly what they were doing. I mean this area has been accessible to many and most recently to the Bedouin tribes. So, the Art History Department in our university has several theories."

I try to say it with authority. I want to fill my words with a confidence and challenge that I do not feel.

He watches as I shift my weight back and forth, taking in everything I am saying. "And what is it exactly that you believe?" I see the floating dust dance behind his shoulders and give shape to the light.