Multiversum (3 page)

He was underlining in pencil a phrase from Kierkegaard when the usual shudder paralysed his back, immobilising every last nerve ending in his body.

Then something strange happened.

He looked around, waiting for the moment to arrive. He expected to fall out of his chair, but he didn't sprawl out onto the floor at all. He remained seated, motionless, both arms on the table. He felt his body becoming heavier, but he was able to move his head and his neck muscles. Suddenly, he felt an overwhelming sensation of emptiness. He felt as if he were dangling in midair. As if a giant void had opened up underneath his feet and he were floating above it, without falling in. He could no longer see the familiar setting of the university library. All he saw was smoke and fog. And the void.

But his mind remained alert. He could feel that he still had control over his own body, that he wasn't about to faint. He was awake: he was partly anchored to physical reality and partly drawn into the abstract setting of his vision. That afternoon, for the first time in four years, there were no background noises. Just a rustling, like a gust of wind. Alex could feel the cool air around him.

Is that you, Jenny?

A moment of silence followed, and it seemed interminable. Then came the answer.

Yes, Alex
.

He was in the grip of a completely new feeling: a mixture of disbelief, joy, astonishment, and curiosity.

On the other side of the world, she too for the first time felt no physical pain during their contact.

Please, tell me you're real
, said Alex.

You know I am. And I know you are, too
, said Jenny, in a voice that was delicate and familiar. To Alex, it seemed as if he were talking to someone who had always been at his side, as if he were communicating with her in a way that rendered distance meaningless.

Jenny, I'm going to ask you something that might sound completely stupid
.

She said nothing. Alex went on looking into empty air, seeing nothing but fog.

Are you there, Jenny? I want to ask you —

A voice came out of the fog, interrupting him.

Robert Doyle
.

For a few seconds, Alex sat breathless. Incredulous.

His name is Robert Doyle
, she said again. Her answer seemed impossible to him.

Jenny … I hadn't even asked you yet
.

His words began to echo. Alex sensed that their communication was starting to fade. Their voices slowly drew further and further apart.

Yes
,
you did
,
she replied, and her words repeated themselves over and over in Alex's head, before vanishing into the distance, fading into the sound of the wind.

Alex opened his eyes wide. He clenched his fists and pulled his head back, feeling nothing more than a faint tingling, just pins and needles.

Around him, in the reading room, there were two small knots of students, each occupying a table, while the librarian stacked reams of paper into a cabinet.

Alex mentally replayed everything that he and Jenny had just said to each other. He shot to his feet and almost fell over: his legs were still half asleep. He went over to the librarian, who had sat down at her desk and was lazily typing on a keyboard.

‘Excuse me,' Alex said, ‘I wonder if I can ask you a favour. Is your computer online?'

The librarian, a woman in her early fifties with a wrinkled face and an enormous mole on her right cheekbone, looked him in the eye. She didn't seem especially interested in helping him.

‘What do you need to do?' she asked, lowering her glasses to the tip of her nose.

‘I just need to check one thing. It's very important.'

The woman heaved a sigh and arched her eyebrows in annoyance. Then she nodded her willingness to grant this one request.

‘Could you type “Melbourne mayor” into Google and tell me what name comes up?'

The librarian opened a new window and, maddeningly slowly, she typed
Melbourne mayor
into the Google search window.

‘Robert Doyle.'

Alex looked at her in disbelief. ‘Are you sure?'

‘See for yourself,' the woman said, turning her computer screen towards him. Alex could read the name as clear as day:
Robert Doyle
.

‘Then she exists … she really exists,' he muttered to himself.

‘Who really exists?'

Alex smiled and said nothing in reply. He turned on his heel, threw his backpack over his shoulder, and headed quickly for the exit, a huge smile on his face.

Outside, on the steps leading down to the street, Alex Loria let out a shout of joy, indifferent to the passers-by who looked at him as if he were crazy.

Jenny really existed.

5

When the conversation broke off, Jenny was lying in her bed, in the dark. From downstairs, she heard a cacophony of voices: not her parents but the television. It was just after midnight, and she could see the sky over Melbourne outside her bedroom window. Cloudless, clear, a dark blanket embellished with tiny points of light. From that angle, the moon was invisible to her. But Orion's Belt was clearly visible, with its distinctive line of three stars.

‘The biggest star is called Betelgeuse,' her father had told her many years ago. ‘And it's enormous. Its diameter is a thousand times bigger than the sun's!'

‘What does that mean?' she'd asked, ever curious.

‘Well, if we were to put Betelgeuse where the sun is now … the edge of the star would go past Jupiter!'

‘Daddy … when we're gone, like Grandpa and Grandma … will we go into the universe?'

‘Well, in a sense, yes. When you look up at the stars, you can think of Grandpa and Grandma looking down at you from up there.'

‘But what if they were still alive?'

Roger had caressed her face. ‘That's not possible, sweetheart.'

‘If you ask me, it's possible, somewhere far away.'

Jenny slid a scrunchie off her wrist, sat up, and gathered her hair into a ponytail. It wasn't hot out, but she liked sleeping in light clothing. Wearing only a sleeveless T-shirt with
Surf-Mania
written on it and underpants, she had left her athletic legs uncovered, her skin golden and smooth. Around her neck, as usual, she wore her favourite necklace, a fine metal chain at the end of which dangled a triskelion, a Celtic symbol composed of three interlocking spirals that formed a vortex. At the centre of the pendant, the letter V merged into the nucleus of the spirals. It had been a gift from her grandmother.

‘It will protect you,' she'd said when she'd given Jenny the necklace. The triskelion glowed on the soft surface of her palm.

‘What does the V mean?' Jenny had asked.

‘Your grandfather gave it to me the day he asked me to marry him. It's an amulet, and it contains our history. Your history.'

‘Why mine?'

In response, her grandmother had simply given her a smile and a shrug.

Jenny shook her head, as if to chase away that sweet memory. Her grandparents were gone now, but they hadn't left her entirely alone. That symbol still remained, a relic of her family's Gaelic origins, on her father's side. She often held it in her hands when she was afraid, or when she needed strength and courage to face some challenge, whether it was a swimming meet or an exam at school.

Soon, her mind wandered back to Alex. The attack hadn't come while she was asleep, in spite of how late it was. Jenny had been wide awake, stretched out in bed looking into empty air, her mind focused on the meet that awaited her this coming Saturday, a meet for which she hadn't trained adequately, because she'd had too much schoolwork. When the shudder swept through her, Jenny had been enveloped by a sensation of heat unlike anything she'd felt before. She felt safe. She understood that her body couldn't respond to the commands that her brain was issuing, but she also experienced the delightful sensation of floating in a sort of limbo, protected and serene. She'd closed her eyes and abandoned herself to the encounter. As if it were a dream — but both she and Alex knew very well by now that this was no dream.

For the first time, Jenny was convinced. She'd always worried that all the voices she heard and images she glimpsed were the result of some psychological disturbance, some strange form of schizophrenia. All the research she'd done on the internet — trawling through forums and blogs, hunting for a story that even remotely resembled her own — had been in vain. In the end, she'd given up. She'd secretly suspected for four long years that Alex was nothing more than a mental projection, and she'd been afraid that there was nothing on the other side. Now, even though she had no scientific evidence that he really existed, the encounter that she'd just experienced banished all doubt. Alex had asked her a specific question, clearly in an effort to determine whether she was a real person. And she had answered him.

‘You're there,' she whispered. ‘I know that you're there.'

Jenny stayed awake for a long time, with just one recurring thought to keep her company. Whatever might happen out there in the world meant nothing in comparison with the supernatural event she and Alex had become a part of. A miracle beyond one's wildest imagination.

In the silence of that late-October night, Jenny couldn't even begin to guess that the whole planet was hurtling towards a terrible fate, and that the key to everything was concealed deep inside their heads.

6

The month of November was full of new encounters, more than either Alex or Jenny could ever have imagined. Every three or four days, for at least thirty seconds at a time, they established contact. It was preceded by the usual shiver running down their spines, which was then followed by a sensation of complete peace and serenity. No noises or laments came to disturb that tranquillity. And no pain, either, except for a faint headache that followed each conversation.

It had become clear that these conversations took place entirely through the medium of thought. To prove this theory, Alex borrowed his father's miniature digital video camera and locked himself in his room for a whole weekend.

Mounted on a tripod next to the desk where he studied, the camera took in his bed and the surrounding area. He only needed a few seconds to turn it on and start it recording, and during one of the usual shudders that warned he was about to connect with Jenny, he managed to do so.

Alex, it's you
…

He felt a wave of heat sweep over him. Something was opening up in his mind.

Alex
, a girl's voice repeated inside his head.

A sigh shook his chest, just at the very moment when all physical sensation was about to drain out of his body.

Jenny, we have to see each other.

Alex thought he sensed a smile playing over her lips.

That's impossible
—
how can we meet, you … Listen, I know that you're there, I've always known it, but this whole thing is just too strange … it scares me
.

I'm scared too, but I don't care about that. I don't know how to explain this to you
:
your voice has become something I can't live without, your smile exists in my head
,
and I know it may really be different, and maybe you're different, too, but I can't imagine falling asleep tonight, or any night of my life, with the knowledge that I'll never see you, accepting that you're nothing but a dream
.

Alex's words hung in the air for a few seconds.

Maybe that's all I am. Maybe I'm just a dream
.

The best dream I've ever had in my life
.

But dreams vanish when you wake up
.

Then I never want to wake up
.

Jenny said nothing more, but now, along with her smile, a pair of large, glistening eyes appeared in Alex's mind, as well as the facial expression of someone trying to conceal their emotions by biting their lip.

I've never experienced anything like this
, Alex went on.

In his mind, those words lit up Jenny's face. Her features appeared around the glistening eyes: the trembling lips, the slightly furrowed forehead.

I feel as if I can see you
, Jenny said.
Your face just appeared in my mind
.

It was the exact same thing that was happening to Alex.

What if I was different?

What if
I
was different?

The two questions chased each other around for a few seconds in their thoughts.

You're not a dream, Jenny
.
You're a part of my life now. I want to see you, even if I have to go around the world to do it
.

Alex's last words seemed to vanquish her reluctance: two conflicting emotions had been at war in her heart. On one side was what she'd felt from the start: the feeling that warmed her heart, that made her feel alone even when she was surrounded by her friends, alone in the real world where she lived her day-to-day life. On the other was the fear that she'd fallen in love with a dream, the fear that she might suddenly wake up to see that illusion vanish into thin air, and it made her want to stop.