The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Forty-Six: Between Two Worlds

Chapter Forty-Six 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 · Chapter Forty-Five.

Chapter Forty-Six: Between Two Worlds

The next morning I went back to the garden and found the seventh sitting on the stone steps, trying to tie a strip of cloth around his foot.

He lifted his gaze to me.

"Naama said that if I want to go out to the path outside the station, I should wear shoes."

"And you decided to start with straps, of all things?"

"The shoes were more complicated."

I sat down beside him.

He tried to pass the end of the cloth under the knot he had already made, but the strap came loose.

"May I?" I asked, and held out my hand.

"Show me. Don't do it for me."

I showed him how to pass the strap through and pull both ends. He watched my movements with concentration, then tried it himself.

The first knot came undone.

The second time, he succeeded.

He looked at it with satisfaction.

"For so long I knew how things work," he said, "but I didn't know how to do even this."

"Now you do."

He stood up, took a few steps, and checked that the strap stayed in place.

"You look tired," he said.

"I didn't sleep much."

"Because of the visit to your world?"

I nodded.

He sat back down.

"I thought about what you told me. That you reached the place you wanted to see, and still it was hard for you to be there."

"Yes."

"I want to ask you something."

"Ask."

"If the people you left there are still alive, why didn't you go to them?"

I looked at him.

The question was simple. The answer was not.

"Because I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"That they wouldn't want to see me. That they would want to, and I wouldn't know what to say. That I would find out they are angry with me."

He was silent for a moment.

"And if you don't go?"

"Then I won't know."

The seventh looked at the knot on his foot.

"When my passage opened, I wanted to get out more than anything. And yet I stood there and couldn't move."

"I remember."

"Naama stood on the other side. I saw her waiting for me."

He raised his eyes to me.

"Maybe you too need to know that someone will be waiting for you there."

I did not answer.

He stood up and went out to the path, walking carefully in the new shoes.

I stayed on the steps.

I thought about the people I had left behind.

About someone who once waited for me by the dining table, about someone who could tell my mood by the way I opened the door.

And about my daughter.

When she was little, my daughter would ask me to sit beside her until she fell asleep.

Sometimes I stayed long after she had closed her eyes, watching her face in the faint light that came in from the hallway.

She would reach out a hand in her sleep and search for mine.

Over the years she stopped doing that.

She grew up, became independent, began hiding small things from me and telling me others with excitement. Sometimes she asked for my advice, and sometimes she got annoyed when I tried to give it without being asked.

I loved the woman she was beginning to become.

On the day I set out on my journey, I didn't know I was parting from her for so long.

I thought I would return.

Even when I already understood that the world I had reached was different from everything I had known, I kept putting off the thought of returning.

At first, because I didn't know how.

Later, because there was always something more urgent.

And now, when the way was open, I had no excuse left.

I found Naama in the workroom.

On the table before her lay the diagrams of the passages, and beside them panels on which changing data appeared.

"I want to know how much time has passed in my world," I said.

She put down the tool she was holding.

"Since you left it?"

"Yes."

"We haven't checked that before."

"I know."

She gestured for me to sit.

"The pace of time is not the same in all worlds. The way you passed between them also affects the difference. Until yesterday's visit we had no current point of comparison for your world."

She turned to the panel and began to work.

I sat facing her and listened to the small sounds of the devices.

I wanted her to hurry.

Just as much, I wanted her to stop.

At last she raised her head.

"According to the points of correspondence we have, a little more than three years have passed there."

I looked at her.

"Three years?"

"About three years and two months. There could be a deviation of a few weeks, but not much more."

I leaned back.

Three years.

My daughter was three years older.

Three years of birthdays I didn't celebrate with her, conversations I didn't hear, moments when she may have needed me.

I thought of the possibility that she had fallen in love, that she had been hurt, that she had succeeded at something big and wanted to tell me.

I also thought of the smaller things. A day when she was ill. An evening when she came home tired. A morning when she made a decision and had no one to ask.

I didn't know which of those things had actually happened.

And that was perhaps the hardest part.

"Are you all right?" Naama asked.

"I'm trying to understand what three years mean in someone else's life."

Naama was in no hurry to answer.

"Do you want to go back there?"

"Yes. But first I want to know if I can make contact with her."

"With whom?"

"With my daughter."

Liara sat by the window in her room, trying to fold a large cloth with one hand.

Her injured arm rested on a cushion.

I went over to her and took the edge of the cloth.

"I can do this," she said.

"I know. But it will be easier for us together."

She smiled and made room for me.

We folded the cloth in silence.

"I spoke with Naama," I said.

"About your world?"

"Three years have passed there."

Liara stopped folding.

"How do you feel about that?"

"I don't know. All this time I thought of the return as if it were waiting for me in the place where I left it."

I sat down facing her.

"I have a daughter, Liara."

She raised her gaze to me.

I had told her about her in the past, but I had never spoken about her like this.

"I know," she said.

"I've been thinking about her since we returned. About what she is doing now. Whether she still lives in the same place. Whether she is happy."

I fell silent.

"And I'm afraid to hear that she needed me and I wasn't there."

Liara set the cloth aside.

"She may be angry with you."

"I know."

"She may also have missed you."

I looked at her.

"And if she no longer wants me to be part of her life?"

"Then you will have to respect that."

She moved a little closer.

"But right now you don't know what she wants."

I lowered my eyes.

"I'm also afraid of the possibility that she does want me back."

"Why?"

"Because I can't promise her that I will live the way I lived before."

Liara was silent.

"I am no longer the same woman," I went on. "Even my body is not the same body. How can I stand before her and ask her to believe me?"

"Maybe you will have to give her time."

"And maybe she will never believe."

"That is also possible."

I sat facing her and felt how little control I had over what would happen.

At last I said:

"I want to try."

Liara took my hand.

"Then try."

In the afternoon a brief rain fell.

I stood under the shelter at the edge of the garden, when Ayla came and stood beside me.

She held a folded piece of paper.

"I wrote to Ora," she said.

"Do you want to send it to her?"

"Yes. I tell her that I'm not ready to meet her. And if I ever want to talk, I will turn to her myself."

"It sounds as if you've thought about it a lot."

"I have."

She looked at the paper.

"I still feel a little uncomfortable."

"You're allowed to."

"But I don't want to change what I wrote."

"Then don't change it."

She smiled a small smile.

"I'll ask Naama to pass it on to her."

Before she left, she looked at me.

"You're sad today."

"I'm thinking about my daughter."

"Is she in the world you came from?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to see her?"

"I hope so."

Ayla nodded and went on her way.

I watched the rain.

I thought about how both Ayla and the seventh had begun building lives for themselves that did not depend on the decisions of others.

And I stood here, so afraid of my daughter's choice that I had almost denied her the possibility of choosing.

In the evening I went back to Naama.

"I want to send a message," I said.

She led me to a small room near the passage.

On one of the walls there was a communication panel, and beside it lay several devices I recognized from my previous visits.

"Our system does not send messages directly to people," she explained. "But it can connect through the passage to the local communication networks of your world. We will need an address or a number that you know."

"I remember her phone number."

Naama nodded.

"We'll check whether it is still active."

She entered the details I dictated to her.

After a moment, a confirmation appeared that the number was assigned to an active service.

I felt relief, and immediately after it, fear.

"Will she see who the message is from?" I asked.

"We can display your name. But if she changed her device or deleted your contact details, she may not recognize the source."

"I want her to know it's me."

Naama turned to me.

"How would you like to write it?"

"On paper, if possible."

She brought me paper and something to write with.

"When you finish, I'll pass on the wording exactly as you write it."

I thanked her.

She went out and closed the door behind her.

I sat facing the blank page.

I wrote my daughter's name.

I looked at the letters.

How many times had I written that name in my life?

On notes I left in the kitchen, on gifts, on envelopes, in short messages sent in the middle of the day.

Once I could write to her almost without thinking:

Have you eaten?

When are you coming back?

Call me when you have a moment.

Now I didn't know how to begin.

I wrote:

My beloved,

I stopped.

Did I still have the right to address her that way?

I erased the words.

I tried again.

I know a long time has passed.

That, too, was not enough.

I set down the writing instrument.

I could have told her about the grove, about the fruit, about the worlds I had passed through.

I could have tried to explain why I had disappeared.

But what would a young woman feel, suddenly receiving a message from her mother after three years of absence?

Maybe she would think someone was tormenting her.

Maybe she would be angry.

Maybe she would think the message was fake.

I began writing again.

This time I didn't try to explain everything.

My beloved,

It's Mom.

I know a long time has passed, and I know there is no way for me to ask you to understand what happened in a few sentences.

I am alive.

I want to see you and tell you everything, if you are willing.

I will not come without your consent.

I love you.

I read the words again.

They were simple.

There were no answers in them.

But they held the only thing I knew how to say with certainty.

I added my full name.

Then I remembered something.

I turned the page over and wrote one more sentence:

When you were little, you would ask me to leave the door open a little, so you could see the light from the hallway.

I looked at the sentence.

It proved nothing.

But it was ours.

When Naama returned, I handed her the page.

She read it quietly.

"Are you sure you want to send it?"

I looked at the words.

I wanted to ask for more time.

To write a longer explanation.

To add an apology.

To promise things I didn't know whether I could keep.

But I didn't want to keep putting it off.

"Yes."

Naama transferred the text to the panel.

"The message will be sent as an ordinary message. She will see the words, not the way they arrived."

I nodded.

She pressed the final sign.

A few moments passed.

Then a confirmation appeared.

"The message has been delivered to the device," she said. "That still doesn't mean it has been read."

I looked at the confirmation.

There was nothing unusual about it.

A small sign on a panel.

And yet, for the first time in three years, words of mine had reached my daughter.

"If there is a reply, could you pass it on to me?" I asked.

"Of course."

Naama handed me a small device.

"It will receive the response through the same channel."

I held it.

"Thank you."

I went out into the corridor.

The door of the seventh's room was open.

He sat on the floor, trying to tie the shoe straps without looking at his hands.

When he saw me, he raised his head.

"I managed it faster this time," he said.

"I see."

He looked at me.

"Did something happen?"

"I sent a message to my daughter."

He stood up.

"Did she answer?"

"Not yet."

He looked at the device in my hand.

"Are you waiting?"

"Yes."

He thought for a moment.

"When I was behind the boundary, I didn't know if anyone would come."

I looked at him.

"And now?"

"Now I know there are things people do only when they are ready."

He sat back down and went on tying the straps.

He did not ask me to stay.

I continued on my way.

Liara was sitting by the window when I came in.

She set down the book in her hand.

"Did you send it?"

"Yes."

"How do you feel?"

I sat down beside her.

"Frightened."

She smiled a little.

"That, at least, is a clear answer."

I smiled too.

I placed the device on the table.

I tried not to look at it.

After a few moments, I looked.

Liara noticed, but said nothing.

"I'm thinking about everything she might write," I said.

"I know."

"And what if she doesn't answer at all?"

"Then it will hurt."

I looked at her.

"You're not trying to encourage me."

"I'm here with you."

She held out her uninjured hand.

I took it.

We sat in silence.

Time passed slowly.

Now and then sounds came from the garden, footsteps in the corridor, a door that opened and closed.

Life around us went on.

And I waited for words to appear on a small device.

I thought about my daughter when she was a child.

About the first time she managed to ride a bicycle without me holding her.

I ran behind her, my hands held out in the air, though there was no longer any need for them.

She turned to me and shouted proudly for me to let go.

I let go.

She kept riding.

Now, after years, I wanted to know whether she would agree to let me be part of her life again.

I couldn't run after her.

I couldn't decide for her.

I could only wait.

A short sound came from the table.

I froze.

Liara raised her head.

The device blinked.

I reached out my hand, but stopped before I touched it.

For a moment I was so afraid that I almost asked Liara to read it in my place.

At last I picked it up.

A message appeared.

Mom?

One word.

I felt my breath stop.

I read it again.

Then another message appeared.

Is it really you?

I put a hand to my mouth.

Liara moved closer to me.

"What did she write?"

I showed her.

She read it and handed the device back to me.

Tears began running down my cheeks.

I didn't try to stop them.

I wrote:

Yes, my beloved. It's me.

I waited.

The reply came almost at once.

Where were you all this time?

I looked at the words.

They held the question I feared more than any other.

There was no way to answer it in a single sentence.

But now I knew who was waiting on the other side.

My daughter.

The young woman who had gone on living, growing, and changing while I was not there.

She did not write that she forgave me.

She did not ask me to come.

But she asked.

Liara sat beside me in silence.

I looked at the message for a long time.

"What will you answer?" she asked at last.

"I want to tell her the truth."

"Then tell her."

"I don't know where to begin."

Liara looked at me.

"Maybe with the thing you are sorriest about."

I lowered my eyes to the device.

I thought about all the explanations I had.

About the passages, about the distance, about the time whose passing I hadn't understood.

All of them were true.

But none of them was the first thing my daughter needed to hear.

I began to write.

I am sorry I wasn't there.

I stopped.

I read the sentence.

I added:

I didn't know so much time would pass. But I should have found a way to reach you sooner.

My hand trembled.

I have a lot to tell you, and I know some of it will be hard to believe.

I am not asking you to forgive me now.

I only want you to know that I never stopped loving you.

I sent it.

I waited.

This time the reply did not come at once.

Liara stayed beside me.

Outside, rain began to fall.

I heard it striking the windowsill, and then growing stronger.

After a while, a sign appeared that the message had been read.

Nothing more.

I waited more.

At last I placed the device on the table.

"Maybe she needs time," Liara said.

"Yes."

I stood up and went to the window.

Outside I saw the path the seventh had walked that morning.

I thought about how his freedom had begun the moment he managed to pass through the door.

Mine had begun long ago, when I chose eternal life.

But now, facing the dark window, I felt how much that choice still went on affecting people who had not chosen it.

I couldn't change what had already happened.

I could only decide that I would no longer go on disappearing from their lives without giving them a chance to tell me what they wanted.

As I was about to return to the chair, the short sound came again.

I picked up the device.

My daughter wrote:

I don't know if I believe you.

I swallowed.

Beneath the sentence another message appeared.

But I want to see you.

I read the words again and again.

Liara stood up and came closer to me.

"What happened?"

I held out the device to her.

She read it and smiled.

"She wants to meet you."

I nodded.

I couldn't speak.

I looked at the screen.

For three years, my daughter's life had gone on without me.

I didn't know which woman I would meet.

I didn't know what she would say when she saw me, or whether she would believe the story I would tell.

But she had asked to see me.

I held the device and began writing a reply.

This time I didn't erase the words.

I want to see you too.

Tell me when and where is convenient for you.

I will come.

I sent it.

Liara placed her hand on my shoulder.

We remained standing by the window.

I didn't know what would happen at the meeting.

But for the first time since I returned to the world I came from, I didn't have to guess whether someone wanted me to come back.

My daughter had told me.

And now all that remained was for me to keep my promise.

End of Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven — The Face She Did Not Know →

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