The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Forty-Four: What Remains Between Us

Chapter Forty-Four of my book, The Journey to Eternity, shared here chapter by chapter as I write it. Earlier chapters: Chapter One · Chapter Two · Chapter Three · Chapter Four · Chapter Five · Chapter Six · Chapter Seven · Chapter Eight · Chapter Nine · Chapter Ten · Chapter Eleven · Chapter Twelve · Chapter Thirteen · Chapter Fourteen · Chapter Fifteen · Chapter Sixteen · Chapter Seventeen · Chapter Eighteen · Chapter Nineteen · Chapter Twenty · Chapter Twenty-One · Chapter Twenty-Two · Chapter Twenty-Three · Chapter Twenty-Four · Chapter Twenty-Five · Chapter Twenty-Six · Chapter Twenty-Seven · Chapter Twenty-Eight · Chapter Twenty-Nine · Chapter Thirty · Chapter Thirty-One · Chapter Thirty-Two · Chapter Thirty-Three · Chapter Thirty-Four · Chapter Thirty-Five · Chapter Thirty-Six · Chapter Thirty-Seven · Chapter Thirty-Eight · Chapter Thirty-Nine · Chapter Forty · Chapter Forty-One · Chapter Forty-Two · Chapter Forty-Three.

Chapter Forty-Four: What Remains Between Us

On the morning after the seventh's release I found him standing barefoot beside the pool.

The sun had not yet risen above the treetops, and the earth was cool from the rain that had fallen in the night. He stood motionless and looked at a small fish passing beneath the surface of the water.

I did not want to disturb him.

I was already about to go on my way when he asked, without turning around:

"How long does it live?"

I came closer.

"Who?"

"The fish."

"I do not know. It depends on its kind and on the conditions in which it lives."

He bent down a little.

"And does it know?"

"What?"

"That its life will end."

I watched the fish disappear beneath a floating leaf.

"I do not think it knows that the way we know."

The seventh sat down at the edge of the pool.

"So many things in this world exist without knowing how much time they are given."

"We do not know either."

He turned his face to me.

"But you chose eternal life."

I sat down beside him.

"I chose not to grow old and die as I knew death. I did not know what the life I would receive would be."

He passed his fingers through the water. Small circles spread across its surface.

"Do you regret it?"

The question surprised me.

I looked at my reflection. The face seen in the water was no longer the face I was born with, and yet I recognized myself in it.

"No," I said at last. "But sometimes I miss the simplicity of the life I had."

"What was simple about it?"

"Not much, probably. But it had an order. Morning, evening, years passing. I knew more or less what was expected of me and what I expected of myself."

He raised his hand from the water.

"And I thought that if I managed to get out, I would finally know what to do."

"And now?"

"Now I do not even know if I am hungry."

I smiled.

"That is not a bad beginning."

He looked at me in bewilderment.

"Why?"

"Because at least that is a question that is relatively easy to check."

He smiled, and this time it seemed the smile came to him without his having to think how to do it.

Liara arrived with a basket of bread, figs and fruit.

She set it down between us and sat carefully, taking care not to burden her injured arm.

The seventh took a small piece of bread.

He examined it, brought it close to his nose, and finally bit into it.

He chewed slowly.

"It tastes different from the fruit I ate yesterday," he said.

"There are many kinds of bread," Liara replied.

"I want to try them all."

"That is already a serious mission."

He looked at her.

"I have time."

We laughed.

The seventh looked at us for a moment, and then he laughed too.

There was something strange about seeing him sit beside us, holding bread in his hand, as if he were not that same ancient being around whom struggles had been waged for ages I did not know how to measure.

I thought of all the years we had spoken of him as a danger, as a prisoner, as a part torn out of a system greater than him.

And here he was, debating whether to take another slice of bread.

Toward noon Naama arrived.

"We received an answer from Sera," she said to the seventh.

He set the bread down at once.

"What did she say?"

"That she is willing to speak with you."

His face darkened.

"Why now?"

"She did not explain."

He looked toward the wall behind which he had passed yesterday.

"I want to speak with her," he said at last.

Naama nodded.

"I will prepare the connection room."

When she moved away, the seventh remained sitting.

"Are you afraid of her?" he asked me.

"No."

"I am."

He said it with a simplicity that surprised me.

"What are you afraid of?"

"That I will hear her and go back to being who I was when we were together."

I did not try to persuade him there was no reason for that.

"You can end the conversation at any moment," I said.

He looked at me.

"I know. I only hope I will remember that."

In the connection room the seventh sat facing the white wall.

Naama activated the system, and I remained beside the door at his request.

Sera's form appeared before us.

She stood upright, her face calm, but when her eyes met his eyes their expression changed.

For a long time they looked at each other.

At last she said:

"You look different."

"I am different."

"Naama said the severing succeeded."

"Yes."

"I am glad you are stable."

The seventh lowered his gaze.

"I did not know you wanted me to be stable."

Sera recoiled slightly.

"I never wanted you to cease existing."

He raised his head.

"You only wanted me unable to reach anywhere."

"That was not—"

"Do not tell me it was not so."

His voice rose.

Naama, who stood beside the system, looked at him but did not intervene.

"I stood behind that boundary for so long," he went on, "that I stopped knowing whether what I see really exists. And you were one of those who decided to leave me there."

Sera did not answer.

"Do you know the first thing I did when I came out?" he asked.

"No."

"I touched the earth."

He looked at his palms.

"Not because the earth was special. Because I could."

Sera lowered her eyes.

"I am sorry."

The seventh rose abruptly.

The chair moved back and made a sharp sound on the floor.

"You are sorry?"

He moved away from the wall.

"All these years, and now you are sorry?"

His breathing grew heavy.

For a moment I thought he would leave the room.

He reached the door and stopped beside me.

I did not block his way.

He looked at the open doorway, then at the wall from which Sera's breathing could still be heard.

"I can go," he said quietly.

"Yes," I replied.

He stood there another moment.

And then he returned to the chair.

"I want you to tell me why you were afraid of me," he said.

Sera raised her gaze.

"At first I was not afraid. I loved the connection between us. I loved the ability to think together, to feel things I was not able to feel alone."

She paused.

"But with time I stopped knowing where I ended and where you began. Sometimes I wanted to keep a thought to myself, and I could not. Sometimes I wanted to move away, and I felt you were still there."

"I did not try to harm you."

"I believe you. But I was harmed."

He listened.

"When we asked to part," she went on, "we were afraid you would try to prevent it. We were afraid you would think we were giving you up."

"And that is what you did."

"We gave up the connection. We had no right to take your freedom from you."

The seventh folded his hands.

"I thought that if I am able to understand your thoughts, I also have a right to be inside them."

"And you did not."

"No."

The word sounded almost like a whisper.

Sera came a little closer.

"We should have parted in another way. Given you a chance to understand what we were asking. Instead we decided for you, and afterward we went on holding the boundary even when the immediate danger had already passed."

The seventh looked at her for a long time.

"I am still angry."

"I know."

"And I do not know if I will be able to forgive you."

"I am not asking you to forgive me today."

He leaned back.

"Then why did you want to speak with me?"

Sera was silent a moment.

"Because yesterday, when they informed me that you had come out, I understood that I do not know who you are now. And I think I never really let you be someone separate from me."

The seventh looked at her.

For the first time since the conversation began, his face softened.

"I did not know how to be separate from you either," he said.

The conversation continued for some time.

They did not agree about everything.

There were things Sera still feared, and things the seventh was not ready to hear.

But they stopped trying to persuade each other that the past was simpler than it had been.

Before she disconnected the connection, Sera said:

"I do not know whether we can be close again."

"Neither do I," he replied.

"Perhaps it is better that we do not try for now."

He nodded.

"I want to get to know this world first."

Sera looked at him.

"I hope it will be good for you here."

The seventh did not answer at once.

"I hope so for you too."

The wall darkened.

When we left the room, the seventh looked exhausted.

He stopped in the corridor and leaned on the wall.

"I thought I would feel better after we spoke," he said.

"And you do not?"

"I feel as if something heavy moved from its place, but has not yet come off me."

I looked at him.

"Perhaps it does not need to come off all at once."

He nodded.

"I want to be alone a little."

"Of course."

He went to his room, and I continued to the garden.

I found Ayla sitting on the stone steps, in her hand the dry leaf she had kept since she came out of the place where she had been imprisoned.

She turned it carefully between her fingers.

"Ora asked to speak with me again," she said when she saw me.

I sat down beside her.

"And what did you decide?"

"That I still do not want to."

"Then do not speak with her."

She looked at me.

"I am not sure I will ever want to."

"That too is an option."

Ayla was silent.

"Yesterday I laughed with Liara," she said at last. "And afterward I felt strange. As if I am not supposed to be happy after everything that happened."

I looked at her.

"What made you think so?"

"I do not know. Perhaps I was afraid that if I am well, it means what was done to me no longer matters."

She set the leaf on her knees.

"But this morning I woke up and wanted to go to the pool. Simply because I wanted to. For no other reason."

"Did you go?"

"Yes."

"And how was it?"

She smiled.

"Beautiful."

There was no need to say more.

Toward evening I returned to Liara.

She sat beside the pool, her injured arm resting on the bench's backrest.

I sat down beside her and told her about the conversation between the seventh and Sera.

She listened until I finished.

"I am glad he did not run away in the middle," she said.

"So am I."

"But even if he had gone out, that would have been his right."

"True."

Liara looked at the water.

"You know, sometimes people think reconciliation means becoming close again. But that is not always possible, and not always right."

"Do you think they will manage to live in peace?"

"Perhaps. If they stop expecting the other to be what he once was."

We were silent.

The seventh appeared on the path behind us.

He walked slowly, but his steps were already surer.

"May I join you?" he asked.

Liara made room for him.

He sat down between us.

Above the pool tiny insects began to appear, and the evening light was reflected in their wings.

The seventh followed them with his eyes.

"I spoke with Sera today," he said.

"How do you feel now?" Liara asked.

"Still angry. But I am no longer thinking about what I will say to her next time."

He smiled slightly.

"I am thinking about what I will want to do tomorrow."

"And what will you want to do?" I asked.

He looked around.

"To walk a little beyond the garden. Naama said that if the tests are good, I will be able to go farther from the station."

"And where will you go?"

"I do not know. Perhaps to the place from which the sounds of the water I heard this morning come."

He rose.

"I want to walk around a little more before it grows dark."

We watched him move away along the path.

He stopped beside a tree, laid a hand on its trunk, and went on.

I did not call him back.

I remained with Liara beside the pool.

She looked at me.

"You are quiet today."

"I am thinking."

"About the seventh?"

"Not only."

I looked at the path where he had disappeared.

For so long I had been busy with others. Everywhere I arrived I found a new question, a person who needed help, a story that demanded of me to understand what happened and why.

I did not regret the road I had traveled.

But suddenly I felt how far I had come from the place where it all began.

I remembered that morning, before I knew these worlds, when I still lived within the order of human days. I was a woman who had already been through not a little in her life, and still went on wondering whether behind the visible things a greater truth was hidden.

I did not know then how far the desire to understand would lead me.

"I want to go back," I said.

Liara turned her face to me.

"Where?"

"To the place where my journey began."

She did not answer at once.

"To the world you came from?"

"Yes."

"In order to stay there?"

I looked at the water.

"I do not know."

Liara waited.

"I do not want to go back to the life I had," I went on. "I know it is not waiting for me as I left it. But I want to see that place again. To walk the paths I knew, to sit beneath the trees, to look at the people who go on living there."

"Why now of all times?"

I thought about the question.

"Because all this time I looked forward. I wanted to know what lies beyond the next thing. And now I want to understand what of all I went through truly changed in me."

Liara looked at me tenderly.

"Do you think you will find the answer there?"

"Not sure. But I want to go."

She laid her healthy hand on mine.

"Then go."

I looked at her.

"And you?"

"If you want me to come, I will come. But first I will need to let my arm heal."

I smiled.

"I want you to come."

"Then we have a plan."

The sun sank behind the trees.

In the station's windows lights came on one after another, and from the path the sounds of the seventh's steps returning from the garden were heard.

I thought about how he had come out into the world only yesterday, and had already begun to find in it things he wanted to see for himself.

Ayla had asked for herself days that would not be dictated by others.

Sera and the seventh had begun to learn how to exist separately, without denying what had been between them.

And I, after all the roads I had traveled, discovered that I wanted to return and walk an old road.

Not in order to restore to myself what was.

Not in order to prove that the choice of eternal life was right.

I wanted to stand again in the place from which I set out, to look at it with eyes that had changed, and to discover whether I still know how to be in it simply a woman gazing at the world.

Liara rose from the bench and reached me her healthy hand.

I rose beside her.

We walked slowly to the house, and when we reached the door I stopped and looked once more at the garden.

For the first time in a long while, no mystery that I demanded of myself to solve waited for me there.

Before me lay a road I had chosen to walk.

End of Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five — The Place I Came From →

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