Fare Forward (35 page)

He smiles at a distant memory. "They all did."

"And it was that night, wasn't it, that you gave her the amulet?" I know the answer.

"That's right."

"Did you know it would be mine?"

"Of course."

I put my head down on his heart and I wait; I breathe.

"What else did you see?"

"I stopped it; I needed to wake up. I wanted to make sure—that you were still here. That you hadn't left me."

He shakes his head.

"Promise me.
Tell
me, Benjamin."

He slides his hands slowly up my legs as he turns to face me. "I will show you," he says.

I have offered all I am to him, and he has accepted. We have learned everything about each other. The past, the present, and the future. I am addicted to him and I want it all.

This is the only way I will be satisfied.

W
E STAYED TOGETHER LIKE this for several days, living only in each other.

Even if I had allowed myself, my mind, my heart, the permission to imagine this, I would not have been able to. I would never have let myself hope for what I knew I had found. The sun rises and sets, marking time. The moments, the years we want to create. I marvel at the incredible sequence of events that have led me to the miracle of Benjamin and our relationship. Parts of my life that I had always needed every ounce of courage to face do not scare me any longer. Everything seems clear, as if I am on top of a mountain looking out, having gained the perspective to see things more clearly.

My eyes are closed, but I feel my wakeful consciousness coming back to me. I can sense from the light outside that it is early morning and I have the familiar feeling of being watched. I open my eyes very slowly and see his face. He sits on the bed, smiling at me, and I have to remember to breathe as my eyes focus on him. "Benjamin."

"I love to watch you sleep; sometimes you say incredible things."

I try to turn away to hide my embarrassment, but he leans over and holds me down, pinning my hands into the bed on either side of me.

"How . . . are . . . you . . . this . . . morning?" The words are barely audible as he says them in between kisses, his mouth everywhere on me. He reluctantly releases my hands and pulls the covers away, the electricity in his touch instantly reminds me of everything we have shared.

"I feel wonderful." I try to grab him and pull him back into bed with me. I know we are going to Masada at the end of the day and I want as much time alone with him as possible.

A lifetime would have been about right.

"Are you ready to get up?" He slips away from my grasp. "I have an enormous breakfast—just for you."

His eyes sparkle. The subject of my appetite is now a source of humor between us.

I reach out for him. "No. That's not what I want right now. Come back to bed with me, please?"

He takes my hands and touches the inside of each of my wrists with his mouth then pulls me toward him and into his arms. My head rests on his chest, and I can feel the deep powerful beating of his heart. I don't want this time to end. I have not allowed myself to think about what will happen next.

I notice the silence of the city, the wind outside the balcony, and the aromatic smell of coffee and breakfast coming from somewhere in the house. Benjamin tilts my face up to his. He looks at me as if he is storing the image away, recording every detail, and then, his face changes.

"What is it?"

"Gabriella, I want you to understand something; it is very important that you do."

He has a seriousness about him that I have seen before. I nod slowly, preparing myself for whatever he is going to say.

"Your grandfather has devoted his life to asking the most profound questions about the nature of reality. Some of the answers he already had, just as you do."

"I don't have any answers."

"You do, as did your grandmother."

"Our gift?"

"Yes, and since it is considered to be of the mystical realm, it is not deemed threatening to sources who might not, you might say,
agree.
"

I concentrate on his words and remove my instinct to let my emotions, rather than the rational side of my brain be in control.

He stops and looks right at me. "You understand?"

"Yes." But it is clear that there is much more.

"There are very real threats, forces who want access to the information he possesses," he says slowly.

I look straight ahead."I have had the sense for a while—"

"And others, Gabriella, who are trying to
silence
him."

"Others? I just don't understand why."

"I have tried to warn him." He turns away from me, unable to meet my eyes.

"The last few months, Benjamin, things have not been right with him. He's different—I feel it. Like there's a darkness surrounding him. It's something I haven't felt in a very long time." My mind flashes back to the increased security, the night at the museum with Emily, and especially the state of his library at the beach. I know it's connected to the terrible darkness and the images of the explosion in Paris I've been seeing.

"Yes."

"But this time, it's different, it's a feeling that he is
choosing
something. Going away. And not coming back," I say.

"He has always known that this reality, the one that we can see and feel and comprehend is not the only, let's call it 'truth.' As a scientist, his goal was to find the evidence."

"So, he has spent his life looking for the proof, the existence of other dimensions."

He looks at me cautiously, protectively. "He is completing the task that others before him began."

"Benjamin, I know it's you. You found him when he was young and you helped him. Isn't that right?" I try to retain my composure but feel the tears coming down my face. "And Einstein, right? Who else? How many others have there been? How many others have known?"

He turns to face me. "Many others."

"Then why, why did they not reveal the proof?"

Benjamin looks at me with a sadness I have not seen before.

"Gabriella."

"It has something to do with you, doesn't it, Benjamin?"

"Yes."

"Please tell me why; I need to know."

"I was sent here—to stop them."

"What?" I am not expecting this.

"In every generation events happen. Circumstances arise where people are tested. Throughout time we have come and observed how your world would handle these situations. What choices they would make. We needed to see whether your world was ready." He walks over to the wall of windows that overlook the city and stands there, his arms crossed, his back to me.

I climb out of bed and pull his shirt around my bare body. As I come up behind him, I slip my arms through his and step into him. "Benjamin, please."

"Your grandfather planned to continue the work of Einstein and—reveal everything. But he needed to understand, just like Einstein did. We had to tell him why he could not."

"
We?
So there are others, like you?"

"Yes. Our task is to monitor the rules of the universe, the laws of nature you might say. Otherwise." He looks out the windows and shakes his head as if he is remembering a scenario just like the one he is describing. "Otherwise, Gabriella, terrible things happen."

"Do you mean things that we cannot understand? That simply make no sense at all?"

"Some scientists have tried to measure what may not be measurable. Others have looked for reasons to explain things that there simply are no answers for."

"Like natural disasters, tsunamis, the Holocaust."

"Some of those are inflicted by nature but others like the systematic destruction of people are caused by—"

"Man," I say.

"That's right. There is a difference between destruction and death by unavoidable natural occurrences and those that are intentionally committed by human beings against each other. Those are the rules we are talking about, the ones that involve choice."

"Like choosing our fate?"

"Gabriella, I have broken the rules."

"You? How, Benjamin, could you possibly—"

"By changing your fate. And mine." He shakes his head. "I was not supposed to help your grandmother, to take her through."

"My grandmother knew about everything, didn't she?"

"Your grandmother was a very brave woman. She knew everything about his work and she understood about the
ports.
"

"She knew she was going to die."

"She wanted to try to cross over, to go through the tunnel with me. So she—"

"Could live in your world."

"Free of illness and subject to very different laws of time."

"But she died."

"Her soul was able to go but not her body, Gabriella."

"He would never have let her go, so he blamed you, but not anymore. You heard what he said. He forgives you; he forgives her. He understands now."

"I knew he would."

"And you, Benjamin?" The question I have been afraid to ask. "What about you?"

There is silence for what seems like an eternity. He strokes my hair, his lips touch the top of my head as he pulls me into him. "Your grandfather always thought that he needed me to help prove his theory. But he does not. He's found the proof, all of the answers, and he's done it on his own. He knows this. But I'm afraid—"

"What is it?"

"If your grandfather chooses to reveal the proof, then I can't stay here. It is impossible."

I need to calm myself, to fight back the panic I am feeling and control my own selfish needs—somehow process the information and consider whatever limited options I have. I look at him and feel as if for the first time in my life, I am pleading. Begging.

"Benjamin, I can't, I won't live in this world without you. If you cannot stay here, then please,
please
let me go with you."

"Our worlds are not meant to intersect. It cannot be."

"Benjamin—"

"No matter what happens, you must always remember how much I love you. Promise me that, Gabriella. Always remember."

"Yes. I will." As the words come out of my mouth, I barely recognize my own voice.

I
STAND ALONE ON the terrace and look out over the Old City. I wait for Benjamin to come back with the car and feel a certain resolve. I understand now. Everything has become perfectly clear. I will accept what he has told me, because it is bigger than anything I could have imagined. All the things in my life have led me to this moment: my grandfather's life's work, everything he has sacrificed and worked so hard for. All will now be revealed as it must.

And I will lose Benjamin.

I feel the space between us growing, marked only by the silence. He drives quickly, and we descend over the road on the way out of Jerusalem, down through the Judean Hills toward the Dead Sea. There are no words, only his hand held tightly to my heart, my head turned away as I look out the window. The sun is behind us and lights up the hills that are dotted with vegetation and the occasional Bedouin flock. It is an overwhelmingly beautiful sight, and I lean back onto the headrest of our Jeep, the warm air all around me. I turn my body back toward his and move my hand slowly up his arm and around the back of his head. Even though I try not to, I
need
to look at him. He takes his eyes off the road for a second and, as his eyes meet mine, I feel the power of the connection between us.

"Benjamin." I want to tell him that I feel like I'm going to vanish without him. Dissolve. "I want to remember all of this."

"You will."

"I've decided that it's safer to live in the past."

"No," he says. I can hear the pain in his voice.

I pull my hand away from his. I need to be strong. I look out at the mountains and the Dead Sea. "I used to love to come here with my family when I was a little girl and I want to remember."

"You do remember though."

"I want to
remember
what it felt like when things were simple. When my life approximated some semblance of normalcy."

"Do you know where we are?"

"The lowest place on earth. There." My finger points to a dark opening in the limestone hills. "The caves of Qumran."

"Where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered."

I remember the amazing story of how in 1947, a Bedouin shepherd boy was searching for a lost goat near Qumran on the shores of the Dead Sea. He entered a cave and stumbled upon one of the most significant archaeological finds ever made. I know this is where Benjamin met my grandmother.

"This is where you found her isn't it? She was on the archaeological expedition under the British Mandate."

"1943."

"Where were you?" I ask.

"At the top of the mountain. In the cistern."

There is so much more I want to know about that time when they were together, so many years before I was born. I question him as I feel the backs of my fingers brush lightly along his cheek.

"Masada."

"For many generations the story of Masada was considered only legend." He seems relieved to move the conversation to something less intimate.

"When you were with her then, in 1943, it wasn't known yet?" I ask.

"It wasn't until 1963, when the area was excavated by a large international expedition that proved the legend to be fact."

"But
you
knew."

He turns his head to look at me, to make sure that I will understand what he is about to say. "Masada is one of the most enduring examples of the determination of individuals. To be free. To choose their fate through their own actions."

Of course, I knew the story very well, both from visits to the mountain and the incredible legend of the place, the story that was told to me over and over as a child: the mountain that rose in the solitude of the Judean Desert.

"Look, there it is." I point to the flat-topped mountain in the distance. "It's ironic, don't you think? The ancient history that has taken place in this small part of our world and now, the group of scientists gathering to propose the theories that will change all our futures, forever."

"Another link between two thousand years ago and today," Benjamin says quietly.