Multiversum (9 page)

‘Both you and Jenny,' Marco went on, ‘might have done a certain thing, in the past. But you also might have done the exact opposite of that thing … in a parallel universe. A dimension in which you exist, just as she exists, but where her life headed in a completely different direction, as did yours.'

‘Marco, I don't even know how you could think of such a thing! And I don't know how this stupid theory of yours can even help me right now. I talk to Jenny, but only in my damn head, and that's the problem! The reason is simple: I'm crazy.'

‘Alex, listen. Two days ago, you left on a journey that was supposed to take you to her. She was the one who told you where to go; she gave you specific directions. She was there this morning on the pier, just like you were. You were standing right next to that lamppost. She was standing right next to that same lamppost. But she was in a parallel dimension.'

‘A parallel dimension … okay, Marco, I get it. It's a good story. Well done, this time you've really outdone yourself in terms of imagination.' Alex's voice was sarcastic and resigned at the same time.

‘I'm not making anything up, my friend!' Marco exclaimed, getting more and more excited. ‘There's a massive amount of scientific proof: tons of books and research papers on the topic. I've been looking into this for years, ever since the day of the accident, ever since I asked myself this question for the first time.'

‘What question are you talking about?'

Marco didn't reply immediately. In his head, thousands of data points were clustering in search of order.

‘Is there a world where we stayed home that day, where I can now walk like a normal person? A world where my parents are still alive?'

‘And did you find an answer to that question?'

‘Yes, I did, and then some.'

Marco's voice was shaking. The emotion of it all was too powerful. He'd never confessed to anyone that he'd thought about this. He'd never told anyone, not even Alex, that it was the accident that had pushed him to pursue this research for the very first time.

‘That world is the Multiverse, Alex.'

12

After that short, ridiculous conversation with Alex, Jenny had given up and gone home. She'd stood there waiting for another ten minutes or so, but then she realised that stubbornly holding out would serve no purpose.

The Graver home was enveloped in silence when Jenny got back. As she took off her jacket, she reached out her right hand, groping at the wall until her fingers found the light switch by the front door. The lights in the hallway illuminated a pair of Impressionist prints, a wrought-iron umbrella stand, an antique chest, the carpet she was standing on with its picture of two border collies embracing, and the steps leading upstairs.

Why?
she wondered as she climbed the stairs, heading for her bedroom. Once she was in the safety of her room, she slammed the door behind her and took off her boots. Then she sat down on the side of her bed.

Tears were already starting to roll down her cheeks. Jenny crushed a pillow against her face, and then hurled it furiously against the cupboard door.

‘None of it's real! I'm an idiot! Nothing but an idiot!'

As she shouted, she saw her schoolbooks piled on the desk. She had a series of tests coming up in the next few days, but Alex's imminent arrival had made her forget about everything else. So now she was behind in her studies, convinced she had wasted far too much time on a foolish dream, and, worse, completely unprepared to start back at school.

I never want to hear that voice again.

Jenny leaped up, grabbed her diary, and stormed out of the room. A few determined strides took her to the top of the stairs. When she got downstairs, she walked into the kitchen and flung her diary into the recycling bin.

‘I've had it!' she shouted. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying.

Over the past several days, she'd been too easily distracted at school. She had been scolded the day before for looking dreamily out the window while her maths teacher was explaining an important equation. And Jenny had received a C on her history test — a C, from a straight-A student.

Might as well throw myself into my schoolwork
, she thought as she sat down at her desk.
It'll take my mind off the fact that I've become a sad little mental patient who hears voices and thinks they're real.

Before opening her maths textbook, Jenny took one last look out the window, up at the sky.

‘How could I have ever believed that it was real …' she said aloud, as she watched the clouds piling up and becoming dark and threatening.

She couldn't imagine that, outside the window overlooking the street, the cool Melbourne air was the same air that Alex was breathing.

Multiverse. When Marco uttered that word, Alex hung up as if by reflex. His hands were shaking, and the tangled mass of information was stubbornly resisting all his attempts to order his thoughts. The only thing he knew for sure was that he had travelled halfway around the world to be stood up for a date.

He started walking along the Esplanade as the wind picked up and shook the branches of the trees lining the beach. With his hands in his pockets, he walked along briskly, heading nowhere in particular. He'd travelled all that way just to prove to himself that Jenny really existed, and now he had to accept the fact that she lived in a parallel dimension.

‘Of course she does!' he exclaimed, and then stopped short to catch his breath. A few passers-by eyed him curiously. The expression on his face was a clear snapshot of the confusion that reigned inside him at that moment.

Then, a second later, his vision suddenly clouded over.

‘My mum gets angry whenever I talk about us …'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know. But I love you
.'

‘I love you too
.'

‘I can't wait to grow up
.'

‘Will you come and get me
?'

‘Of course, Jenny
.'

Alex opened his eyes wide, finding himself face to face with an astonished old man who was walking past. He'd remembered something. In what hidden corner of his mind had he found that conversation? How deep had he gone? Both he and Jenny, as small children: it was a vague memory of childish voices, or possibly nothing but a fantasy. But the two of them were together.

Alex pulled his phone out of his pocket and pushed the green button to redial Marco's number.

‘Tell me all about it,' he said in a determined voice.

‘Then you believe me,' Marco sniggered with satisfaction.

‘I never said I believed you.'

‘They call it the Theory of the Multiverse,' Marco went on. ‘It's a set of alternative universes outside our space-time continuum.'

Alex hesitated before responding. ‘You don't expect me to swallow all this, do you?'

‘You'll swallow it, believe me, you'll swallow it … but just a tiny bite at a time.'

‘So let me see if I get this … I was there, she was there, we were talking to each other through our thoughts but we were in two different worlds?'

‘More or less. If you like, two different realities of the same world.'

‘How many realities do you think exist? How many Melbourne piers and lampposts do you think there are?'

‘For all I know, there might be an infinite number of dimensions. But now we're in the realm of pure hypothesis.'

‘We're in the realm of
your
hypotheses, Marco. This whole thing is sheer madness. I thought that I'd lost my mind, but now I'm starting to think that you're the crazy one.'

‘Crazier than you? You're the one travelling around the world in search of imaginary girls.'

‘Okay,' Alex admitted, doing his best to rein in his agitation. ‘Point taken. Go on.'

‘You and Jenny are talking to each other from two parallel dimensions.'

Alex ran a hand through his hair, pulling back his blond fringe. A dog appeared from behind a tree and ran straight at him without barking. When the dog was almost at his feet, it looked up, cocked its head to one side, and gazed at him with a pair of eyes that made his heart melt, almost begging Alex to pat it. A few metres away, Alex saw a huge bodybuilder, easily two metres tall, dressed in a skimpy jogging outfit, grabbing the puppy's leash and pulling it towards him, as if annoyed.

‘Marco, do you realise what you're saying? What about me? Who am I in Jenny's dimension? Or, perhaps I should say, do I exist there?'

‘You ought to exist, yes, though we can't take that for granted.'

‘Then in
my
dimension, she exists! Her, or another version of her.'

‘In your dimension, Jenny's life probably followed some other path. And the same thing is true for you in her world. She expected to meet you on that pier, but in her reality you're probably back in Milan and have no idea who she is. Still, both in your dimension and in hers, many things have stayed the same. Evidently, Melbourne has the same mayor in both dimensions, and the layout of Altona Pier hasn't changed much. That's why the information seemed to match and you trusted her.'

Alex looked around. The pier, the beach, the ocean. Was it really possible that somewhere out there was another world with a pier, a beach, and an ocean just like the ones before his eyes? With one tiny difference: that world had the Jenny he'd been talking to.

Alex took a deep breath and filled his lungs with salt air. It was up to him to decide what to do next: believe in his friend's theory and go on looking for Jenny; or give up entirely and go back to Milan and his safe, uneventful life as a student.

He had no doubt about his decision.

He still believed that Jenny was real, and he was going to do everything he could to find her.

She, on the other hand, never wanted to hear his voice again.

13

I should try to find her …
Alex started walking at a frenzied pace.
If Marco's right, and if Jenny's life in this dimension isn't all that different, then in this reality she probably lives in the same house.

His thoughts kept getting tangled up and refused to leave him alone.

He was on the other side of the world, all by himself. No one had showed up to meet him, but he refused to stop believing in her. Jenny was already a part of his past: she'd been there in his childhood.

Unless that memory is a hallucination, too
, thought Alex as he stopped to tie his shoelaces on the low wall that separated the footpath from the beach.

No, that couldn't be. Jenny had to exist; he would search for her everywhere in this city, and with even greater determination. He'd worry about a place to sleep later.

As he walked up the Esplanade, he began randomly stopping people on the street, asking everyone he met if they could tell him anything about the Graver family. He couldn't think of any better plan and, deep down, he believed that if he went on asking every passer-by he encountered until sunset, basic statistics suggested that he'd be sure to find at least some information.

First, he spoke to a man running an ice-cream van. He wasn't able to find out anything about Jenny, but he was forced to buy an ice-cream before he could get even a useful, not to mention understandable, answer out of the man.

‘Thanks a lot …' he muttered under his breath as he walked away, with a half-melted ice-cream still in his hand.

A few minutes later he crossed paths with a woman out walking her dachshund, and he stopped her. He tried asking her a few questions, but the woman's broad Australian accent made it impossible for Alex to understand a word she said. After a few clumsy attempts to communicate through gestures, he gave up and continued along the Esplanade.

A trio of girls around the same age as him seemed to be making fun of him in their own slang; a man in a suit and tie dismissed him rudely; a couple in their early thirties thought they knew who Alex was talking about, but then realised that he'd said ‘Graver', not ‘Braver'; last of all, a woman kept following him, trying to give him a pamphlet about a certain Church of Jesus. She didn't know anything about Jenny's family, but to make up for it she was willing to spend plenty of time spreading the word of Christ and inviting Alex to services at her parish.

Around five that afternoon, he sank down on a bench, exhausted.

Jenny … where are you
?

Immediately after asking that question, he felt a shiver go through him, clamping his eyes shut and taking him into a deeper dimension of his mind. His thoughts floated in silence, untethered from his surroundings.

Can you hear me?
thought Alex. This time his words echoed in the void.

Silence.

Jenny, where are you? Can you hear me?

Total silence. Suddenly, a shout.