Fare Forward (7 page)

"You will not only make something, Gabriella, you will make a difference. You already have," my grandfather says the words quietly.

"How?"

"You changed my fate."

But it wasn't enough.

"I should have known, Papa. That night in Paris, I should have understood what it meant. Then I might have saved them, too."

T
HE ROOM IS SO still that the words hang between us. I can feel the cool air from the window, blowing gently over my body and I realize that I need to change the subject.

"What is this—the music? It sounds oddly familiar; I remember her playing it for me." I walk over and turn up the volume on the CD player. I say it without fear of hurting him. I want to talk about my grandmother now; how I feel her with me, loving me, encouraging and showing me that the promises she had made to me were being fulfilled. I wait for him to respond, but he ignores me. I try again. "Did you hear what I just said? I remember this."

"How could you remember such things? Please, stop this talk. We need to think about today. Not the past." He swivels his chair away, and I see the subtle rocking motion as he rhythmically moves back and forth. "Everything you've worked so hard for."

"I know she's here. They all are, they're
here
—with both of us," I say softly.

We are quiet for a few moments. I walk over and lift a heavy frame that holds a faded photograph. I inspect the smile, the wild white hair, and the signature. It occupies an important place on the desk, which holds the treasured files that contain the correspondence they had shared. I knew this relationship was the one that had directed the course of his life's work.

"She told me the story of how you met each other in Jerusalem. At the party. And he was there too." I point at the photograph. "Einstein."

"You have quite the memory."

"It's an incredible story, when you met Grandma Sophie. The party, the house, and all the people who were there—"

He stands up out of his chair suddenly, as if what I said has knocked all the air out of him. All the color has left his face.

"Are you okay?" I approach him cautiously.

"What else did she tell you, about the
people
we met there?"

"Nothing. Just her parents and you. There must have been others at the party, but she never spoke of anyone in particular."

I wait, hoping that he'll come back to me. Back to the conversation we are having, but he is in retreat. I've hit a nerve.

"Why are you always pulling me into the past? Ghosts, Gabriella—they are just ghosts. Finish your packing for school. Go, please, let me be."

I back away from his desk, hurt by his uncharacteristic words. Clearly I had upset him. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring this up." I choke back the tears. "I don't understand why we can't ever talk about her anymore?"

"Gabriella, just leave it alone."

"It was always through her eyes," I say slowly, "that I could see myself. Really understand."

"Don't do this; choose something else to think about!" he practically shouts, and I see the anger and frustration on his face.

"Yes, of course." I say. But I want to tell him that I need to choose for myself, that she would have wanted me to.

The sun shifts and a beam of light comes into the room and catches the edge of a small bronze medallion that I have always loved. I reach for it, its edges polished from years of touch, and turn it over in my hands. Slowly I look at the odd shapes and symbols on its surface, the lines that create a star and the seven spaces, ancient letters that I do not understand. Symbols of the ancient mystical tradition of my family.

"You've always loved that," I hear his voice behind me. I am embarrassed that he has caught me holding one of his precious objects and I quickly put it down.

"It's all right. Ever since you were a child, something about it has always attracted you. I want you to have it."

Removing an object from this sacred space seems wrong. I stare into his deep blue eyes and wait to see if he is going to say more, but it is as if he has stopped himself, catching a thought that he was not yet ready to reveal.

"No. I know how you feel about her things; I would never want to take it from here." I wonder in a way whether these precious feelings and vibrations even exist outside of this room.

"She found it on her first trip to Palestine—on an archaeological dig. I think it was the day we met. It was one of her most treasured possessions. Take it. She always wanted you to have it."

"I don't know."

"Gabriella, you have arrived at a time in your life that we have waited many years for. Such an adventure, such excitement awaits you. And, there is something else." He pulls several small leather books that are tied together with a ribbon out of a box. I know they are my grandmother's diaries. "I want you to have these." The authority in his voice is final. "Think of them as a good-luck charm of sorts, although you really don't need any luck."

"Of course I need luck." Help, his guidance—anything.

"I do remember one more thing that I wanted to tell you." He seems uncomfortable, yet there is an urgency and seriousness that I don't often hear in his voice. He smiles and his eyes mist.

"What is it?"

"I met your grandmother when she was exactly your age." I stare back at him and try to meet his powerful words.

"No," I start to object. I want to clarify that this is not at all a priority, the last thing on my mind as I am going to begin school. "Papa, this is—"

"Gabriella, listen to me." He speaks with an intensity that I know requires my attention. "I know you have been too busy to notice the effect you have on people. Men, I mean. Except, of course, Philip."

My face burns as he proceeds with the topic that has previously been off limits. I had begun to notice the reaction men were having to me. My hair, which had once been characterized by its unruly, untamable craziness, now fell in soft curls around my face. My skin had an even glow and my eyes were a gray blue that matched the northern Massachusetts sea. My body was strong and lean with developed muscles from years of swimming against the current. I was tall, taller than most of the girls I knew, just like the women who had preceded me in my grandmother's family.

The summers when I would wander around our beach community barefoot and free—with only a bikini and T-shirt on, going unnoticed and happy in my solitude—seemed to have ended this past season. I thought that it was because of him, my grandfather and his
work,
the unusual presence of the world famous physicist in the small oceanfront community. But for the first time, the thought occurred to me that it might have nothing to do with him at all.

"Did you hear what I just said, about meeting your grandmother."

I turn back to him. "No, that won't happen to me. Not now."

My hand tightens unconsciously around the amulet, my special gift, the treasure from so many years ago, being given to me now as a symbol of the transition.

His past, my future.

"Take it, Gabriella, and remember that you are right."

"It's hard enough for me without her, but, you, how can you—"

"You are right to feel that those who love you are always with you."

"Papa, to see you like this, I could never imagine your life without each other. How you would go on."

"But you do, you must."

"I hope that I can find what you two had."

The right side of his wise, beautiful face begins to suggest a smile. Almost imperceptibly he raises his eyebrows, a mix of gray and brown, and smiles at his own personal secret.

"You will."

I look back at him and meet his eyes.

"I just remembered." I stop and face him. "That music. The music you were just playing." I point to the table where the stereo sits. "She told me it was composed by someone she knew very well."

He shakes his head and turns away.

"She said he was someone special, the composer, that she knew him. Do you remember now?"

"No."

But he says it too quickly. I see a flash, a room in a white stone house, a party, and a piano. A young man playing with many people listening and watching. My grandmother is looking into his remarkable green eyes, and my grandfather is looking at her.

"Actually, I might vaguely remember something, but it was such a long time ago."

"When we were on the roof together one night, Papa, she said it was the kind of thing that could make you fall in love or break your heart. I always wanted to ask her what she meant. She meant the music, right?"

"Yes, of course. The music." He looks at me for a few seconds then turns back to his reading.

As I walk slowly out of the library, I hear him behind me mutter something under his breath. It's my words "someone special," a strange irony in his voice. More than that, I feel his eyes on me, sealing the fate he seems to know awaits.

A mixture of joy and apprehension.

I
RUN TO FIND a seat among the many students waiting for the assembly to begin. Excitement, uncertainty, and reverence for the campus fill the great open plaza of the university. We are all taking our place along a wavelike continuum that will create the history of our culture. Humbled by the traditions we were taking on, we have come from colleges all over the world. In this moment are all those who have come before and their accomplishments. I feel the endless possibility and promise that the opportunity holds. This is what fuels the burning desire in every one of us to make our mark and be different, add something new.

The dean of the Graduate School of Architecture takes his place at the podium and looks out at the expectant students.

"Welcome. You have come here to search. To begin a lifelong journey of clarification, the challenge of what your lives will mean and what you can add to the world. Each of you will conduct your own experiments and research. You should know that this is what links all of you to the past and future."

I want to answer the challenge. No longer am I merely a visitor at Columbia University walking along the uneven brick path and through the tall black iron gates, guarded regally by the frozen stone figures. As a small child I had passed by their timeless forms, courageously looking up at their beautiful, silent granite faces, seeking their distant gaze while holding the hand of my grandfather.

I look around at the great steps and plaza in the center of the campus, the trees and the historic stone buildings that line the walkway. I can feel the energy. But it is not simply from the rushing groups of people, laughing and talking animatedly. There are posters everywhere on campus of my grandfather's face, announcing his upcoming lecture at the university and the list of international awards he has recently received. His eyes always on me.

"There he is!" Emily has dragged me into the bookstore and screams as she runs over to a large table set up with a life-size cardboard figure of my grandfather.

"Look, Gabriella, doesn't he look cute?"

I run around to the other side of the nearest bookcase and try to get away from all the eyes that have turned in our direction.

"This man." Emily points to the center of his cardboard chest, talking to no one in particular.
"He
is going to show everybody. That he is right." She leans toward his flat corrugated face and puckers her lips in a kiss.

"Gabriella, where did you go? Gabriella?"

I crouch behind the books, wishing I could disappear. "Come on, Emily, please stop, honestly," I whisper loudly from behind the stacks. "Let's get out of here."

"Get used to it, sweetie. Your grandfather is about to change the way we see our world."

I hoped she was right. He had spent his entire life devoted to proving what many believed was impossible. Safe, I thought, in the confines of the academic world. Now, I had so much more to worry about. Before, I could find him in his office or study, in a controlled, protected environment. But now, he was
everywhere:
on every newsstand, bookstore, radio show, and television network, traveling around the globe. There was no more denying it. He had become an international celebrity, and the world was waiting for him to reveal the results of his life's work. I worried about the exposure, the press, and what we had discussed in his library, the threats to his safety. He had made light of it, but I knew he was determined to move forward and show the skeptics that he had not spent the last twenty years of his life moving toward the extreme fringes of the scientific community. That instead, he had found the very heart of it. His
proof.
Answering the questions that had been asked since the beginning of time.

I was glad to have Emily with me. Her plans, however, were quite different than mine.

"I'm in business school, Gabriella, remember? You're the dreamer, and I'm—well—the practical one." She winks and begins to list the many differences between her upcoming experience and mine.

The powerful history we shared was a bond that could never be broken, and Emily represented a tangible link to many critical events in the past. Including Lily and my family.

"Incredible how we're finally at the same school. We always hoped this would happen."

"When we only had the summers."

"Our summers together in Gloucester will always be a real and significant part of our lives." Emily throws her arms around my shoulders as she did whenever we talked about those days.

"I know." I could feel the emotion building in me. "I just wish Lily could be here with us. She should be here too."

"Gabriella, you saved her. You
saved
her life." She knew that I would not allow discussion of that terrible day when the car almost claimed Lily.

"I made a mistake; I waited too long. Emily, I—"

"We're not going to talk about that now, okay? Please?" Her voice is soft, gently changing the subject. "How about all this?" She points to the campus and the people all around us. She is exuberant at the thought of moving forward into our futures. "Please, stop worrying about everything. It's time to meet some new people, get invited to the best New York parties."