Fare Forward (18 page)

My hand brushes along the surface of the shelves as I tilt my head to read the titles. There is an amazing combination of contemporary works and antique volumes in German, French, Italian, English, and Russian. I notice a large section in Latin: poetry, history, and—strangely—various texts on Kabbalah.

The massive glass desk at the center of the room is covered with papers of mathematical equations and several flat-screen computers. I am reminded of the day I had stumbled into his room in Hamilton Hall. I can't take my eyes away from the shapes and numbers that keep inverting and twisting into themselves across the LCD display of the computer monitors, new forms emerging and morphing from the last. These images are unlike any I have ever seen, letters and numbers arranged in strange three dimensional configurations.

I stop suddenly.

I know that I am not alone and that he has come into the room. I turn around slowly and see him leaning against the door frame.

"I saw my painting. I didn't know who had bought it. It was you."

I want to explain why I had come into his library, the force that had drawn me in. He is not angry. It's as if my standing here in this room, in his home where my painting is hanging, is the most normal thing in the world.

I try to remember to breathe. I am once again completely arrested by his presence. His easy way of standing, hands in the pockets of his pants, and his eyes as he watches me.

"Your paintings are very beautiful. I had to have this one, here,
with
me," he says but provides no explanation, no details of when or how he had bought it.

Nothing.

I choose to change the subject. To something more manageable. At least for the moment. "You have so many interesting things here, so many books." I turn away from his eyes, buying a few seconds to steady my heart. I think about the many years I have spent alone reading everything I could find, using books as my own companions—my guide. Hoping to find my answers.

"Yes, they help me understand things. Especially the way people think and look at their world. Some of the theories are quite interesting." He seems to find humor in a memory.

"Your work." I force myself to concentrate and formulate the sentence as it emerges from my mouth. "What is it that you are looking for, exactly?" I need to understand somehow who he is and how he knows my grandfather. The many emotions that are rushing through me all at once are completely disorienting.

"What everyone is trying to find answers to, Gabriella." He looks at the sky outside the window, then slowly turns back to me. "The nature of the universe."

"I know that my grandfather has been trying his entire life—with science and mathematics that is—to find the unexplainable, what he has called 'the Infinite,'" I continue cautiously. "He wants to bridge the gap, he says, between science and metaphysics."

"Your grandfather has devoted himself to an ideal, Gabriella. The belief that science can approach an explanation for the previously unexplainable."

"Yes." I say it with caution. I am still trying to reconcile the mystery of how Benjamin seems to be so intimately connected to my grandfather's thoughts and how much he knows. "His life has been consumed by the belief in his work, always searching for the things that transcend time."

"Profound understanding through scientific proof." The words Benjamin chooses sound amazingly similar to those my grandfather would have selected. A coincidence not lost on me.

"Einstein," I say quietly.

If he knows anything about my grandfather, then he must have known the intimate connection he had to Einstein. One of the pivotal relationships in his life. Benjamin pauses, as if he is trying to decide in which direction to continue. He is somber. "Einstein himself admitted the inconsistencies in time. He said that if anything could travel faster than light it would be possible to hop backward in time, Gabriella," he says this as if he had known the great scientist personally.

"So many years of research. It's incredible how he has been able to stay so focused on his goal, despite," I say and pause for a moment, "everything that has happened." My parents, my grandmother. I think about the many times I had seen him in his library, holding his head in his hands.

"He will find his answers. If he hasn't already."

I look up at Benjamin and our eyes meet.

"His critics say that he's moved to the very fringes of the scientific community, but he has never lost his faith in his ideals and his conviction, in what he believes to be true."

"His heart is enormous." Benjamin's voice is low. "Like yours."

I don't know how to respond to the intimacy of his words, the solitary mention of my heart. "My grandfather is completely fearless."

I turn away and think about him alone at the beach house, the years he has spent searching for answers.

"And you, Gabriella, what is it that
you
are afraid of?" he says the words as he approaches and turns me toward him.

"Me? I'm afraid of being nothing, doing nothing. Having my life not mean anything."

"That's impossible," he says.

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

I
NEED TO TURN AWAY from him. Not only because of the things he is saying, but now the subtle pressure building in my head, the familiar sensation of how it always begins. And then, it happens.

I see it all so clearly. I
see
her. My grandmother. She's standing in a cave, lit from above, talking to someone about what she was looking for—answers to her questions, our family's mystical origins. But I force myself away from the vision and pick up a small frame from Benjamin's desk and say, "This looks quite old, what is it?"

"It's an archaeological site, Palestine, under the British Mandate. Some very interesting work was being done in the Judean Desert."

"My grandmother was there."

"Yes," he says so softly that I almost don't hear him, "I know."

"I don't understand, how could you know?"

"Your grandfather—" He catches himself as the words come out. "He told me." Benjamin tries to clarify. "That was when they first met."

"He told you about
that?"
I'm surprised.

"He loves to speak about his work with Einstein, their years of correspondence, and, of course, the excitement of the Nobel Prize. That time when they traveled to Jerusalem lives in all of our memories."

"I don't understand. How could you possibly . . ." My words trail off.

He turns away suddenly, caught revealing something he should not have. A truth in his words that somehow cannot be suppressed.

The silence is making me uncomfortable, so I continue, "My family, I mean my parents, used to live there. In a small town in the north. A very special, magical place but—I have not been back for many years."

He looks at me with sadness, admiration, and other things I am afraid to acknowledge. Given everything he has already revealed, I assume he knows that my parents are gone. That they too were looking for their own answers. That I had been unable to return to Zefat since the terrible incident that had taken them away from me. They had devoted their lives to the study of Kabbalah and the
Zohar,
the text at the center of the mystical writings. It seemed surreal to be standing here talking to him about the exceptionally personal intersections of my life. My grandfather's research in science and my parents' passionate commitment to understanding mysticism.

"There is an amazing connection, Gabriella, between Einstein and ancient mysticism." He looks right at me. "In the way they are both trying to understand the nature of time and man's place in the universe."

I know that these ideas are at the very core of what has consumed my grandfather.

"The line of our life, my grandfather says, traverses time and space."

"It's not only the line of our life that can live on into the future and past, but other things as well. You have experienced this, haven't you?"

"Sometimes I feel like I've already lived my whole life. Like I've done it before," I answer.

He smiles. "That's because you know how to link to a part of the world where there is infinite information." He takes a few steps toward me. "To find light in the darkness."

I am stunned by what he has just said, the words my grandmother had used so many times. I had heard enough.

"Who
are
you?" I am overwhelmed and confused. "Answer me. Please. How do you know these things about my family. About me?"

He spins away and stops then slams his hands against the wall. I watch as he runs both hands through his hair, places them on his waist, and turns slowly back to me. I know he is deciding what to do next. He looks down at the floor and speaks very softly. "I'm sorry, Gabriella, I should not have brought you here." He looks like he's in pain.

"What?" I start to object. "Why are you saying this? I don't understand!"

"I've tried; I wanted to stay away from you. But it's
impossible."

I am stunned by his words and yet, somehow, I know what he means. I feel the same way. The overwhelming powerful force between us is a fact neither of us can deny.

"It's impossible for me to stay away," he says again. "I cannot."

He walks toward me, his eyes locked on mine. My hand reaches down to hold the side of the massive glass desk to steady myself. I feel the room start to spin. All I know is that everything I am feeling is what I want. I need him, to be with him, in every way possible. The intensity of the burning desire is unlike anything I have ever experienced.

And then, I do something I have never done before. I say it.

"I want to be with you, too."

He crosses the room and stands inches away from me; the invisible energy field between us almost pushing me over. "Do you believe in the possibility that love can transcend time?" His voice is low in his throat. His eyes are intense as they search mine.

"Why are you here?" I ask.

"Gabriella—"

"What are you
doing
to me? I feel you taking me, pulling me into the past. Into my future." The insane range of emotions I am feeling has stolen my vocabulary, the rational world that I had tried to live in feels like it is slipping away. But it doesn't matter. I know that anything I would say at this moment will be completely inadequate.

Slowly, his hands reach out for my face. "We are all trying to find the things that are unchanging, Gabriella. Beyond ourselves and beyond time."

I feel his hands on the back of my neck and in my hair. As his face moves closer to mine, I inhale him; I feel the heat of his body. I want to dissolve into him.

He reaches out and pulls me in with a force I have not felt before.

"So many mysteries have lived in my heart."

"I know," he whispers.

"But you're here. It's
you."

The moment his lips cover mine I know I have finally found the answer. It's as if a veil of darkness is being pulled away from the shadowed spaces in my life. Everything I have gone through has prepared me for this moment. I realize in this very instant that together, with him, I am completing myself—I become whole. Without him, I would never be.

He is what I have been searching for.

I remembered the words my grandmother whispered, which I carried deep in my heart.

You will find the love that was made for you.

She knew, and, now, so did I. Changing the direction of my life, with the promise of his kiss.

T
IME IS NOW MEASURED differently since the day of the architecture review and the incredible hours I spent with Benjamin. The walk, the dinner, and the night that I know has altered the course of my life. It is almost impossible to concentrate on my classes, yet I force myself to try, relying on the rhythm and demands of my life.

Time moves forward, marked by nature's transformation. Leaves fall and are swept away, leaving the expression of the tree's architecture. It is an explosively beautiful fall in New York, yet my mind keeps returning to him. My feet feel as if they are each planted on separate plates of the earth, riding through the seismic shifting of my moods and thoughts, and I simply can't stop thinking about him. The intimacy of our evening together and the strange feeling that, somehow, I have known him forever. Whatever equilibrium I had barely found has been completely rocked by his presence. There is a caution, even resistance, on his part and an evasiveness when describing his frequent absences and travel schedule. Yet the way I feel when he is near me is something I want. More, always,
forever.

Emily, ever mindful of the more public part of my life, keeps a watchful eye. The phone vibrates in my pocket, and I welcome the excuse to leave the lecture hall I'm in to get outside and talk to her. Clear my head.

I hear Emily's worried voice on the other end. "Gabriella? Hi, where are you? Are you in class? What time is he coming?"

"What?" The questions come so quickly that it takes me a moment to remember. Today is the day my grandfather will be speaking at Columbia.

She answers for me before I have a chance to put the sentence together. "Yes, at five, in the physics building, then dinner at the Faculty Club. You're going to be all right without me aren't you?"

"Yes, Em, I'll be fine."

I wonder whether Benjamin will be there. I hadn't seen him in several weeks and he had been evasive about his plans, when he would be back in New York. E-mail is not enough for me. I need to handle the intense desire I have to be near him. All the time.

I think about what he had said. "I need to leave New York for a while, to work on my research and . . . travel."

It had felt as if the walls were moving in toward me as he spoke the words, compressing my lungs. I feel frustration and lack of control over a door that has been opened to a world of emotions I had never before allowed myself to enter. I now realize the possibility that exists on the other side and I want it.

I want it all.

The flashing crosswalk sign at the street corner signals as the wind whips the leaves on the avenue into a swirling cone. I can feel the sense of anticipation as I rush to attend the lecture. This will be my opportunity to find out more about Benjamin. To share with my grandfather whatever part of it I could put into words.