The Journey to Eternity — Chapter Thirty-One: The Memory That Is Not Mine

Chapter Thirty-One 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: The Memory That Is Not Mine

For the first time since I left my human body, I woke from a dream.

I did not know if it could be called that. I no longer needed sleep as I had needed it before, and yet I felt as if someone had pulled me all at once out of a place in which I had been immersed for a long time.

I stood in my room, but I still felt water around me.

They were dark and quiet, stretching to the place where they were supposed to meet the sky. Except there was no sky there. Nor a bottom. Only a vast expanse of water, and in the distance a small island on which a white tree grew.

Its branches were thin and almost transparent. It had no leaves.

Beneath it stood a woman.

I did not see her face, but I knew she was waiting for me.

She called me by a name I did not know.

The name sounded so natural that for a moment I forgot I had ever had another name.

I began to move closer to her. I did not walk and I did not swim. I simply moved above the water, as if it carried me without my touching it.

When I reached a distance from which I could see her outstretched hand, she said:

"Do not remember me yet. First remember why you left."

I wanted to ask her what she meant, but the water began to rise.

There were no waves. No sound was heard. The surface of the water rose slowly, as if something enormous was moving beneath it.

And then I saw the figures.

Seven consciousnesses stood beneath the surface of the water. Six of them were close to one another, and the seventh stood alone.

One of the six figures turned to me.

It was me.

I recognized her although I had never seen her like that.

She looked at me, and at that moment I felt an impossible thing.

I was not only the one looking at her.

I also felt her gaze.

As if I stood in both places at one and the same time.

I tried to call to her, but the woman beneath the tree said my name again.

I turned toward her.

The island vanished.

And I woke.

The first thing I tried to do was recall the name I had heard.

The sound was still close. I could almost pronounce it, but every time I tried, it moved away.

I stood by the window.

The city looked as it always looked. Soft lights moved between the buildings, and in the distance consciousnesses passed on their way to the gardens.

Nothing had changed.

And yet, I felt as if I had returned from a real place.

The white tree stirred longing in me. The dark waters stirred fear in me. And the woman who stood beneath it was familiar to me in a way I could not explain.

But what troubled me most of all was the moment I saw myself beneath the water.

If I was one of the figures, who was the one looking at them?

I found Liara in the garden outside the workshop.

She stood beside a small pool, watching transparent creatures hovering above the water.

"I think I dreamed," I said.

She turned to me.

"You dreamed?"

I told her about the island, about the white tree and about the woman who called me by another name.

When I reached the seven figures, she asked me to describe again what I had seen.

"Are you sure one of them was you?"

"At that moment I was sure. Now I no longer know."

"Perhaps you saw something connected to what you heard about the seventh connection."

"I thought about that. But why did I feel I was in two places?"

Liara sat down at the edge of the pool.

"Maybe because not everything we experience belongs to us."

I sat down beside her.

"You mean the memories that once passed between the consciousnesses?"

"Yes."

"So perhaps I saw someone else's memory."

"Perhaps."

I looked at the water.

"But I felt I was there."

Liara touched my hand lightly.

"A real feeling, too, can be born of a memory that is not ours."

I thought about that.

In my human life I was often certain I knew why I loved, was angry or was afraid. Only later did I discover that sometimes the feeling was connected to something else entirely.

Perhaps consciousness does not lie to us.

Perhaps it is simply trying to explain what it does not understand.

When we entered the workshop, Naama was busy with her work.

I told her about the dream.

She listened quietly, but when I mentioned the white tree, she immediately set down what she was holding.

"Describe it."

"Tall, without leaves. Its branches are almost transparent. It stood on a small island in dark water."

Naama looked at Adra, who sat at the far end of the room.

"Do you know a place like that?"

Adra came closer to us.

"I once heard of a similar place."

"What place?" I asked.

"A place where consciousnesses arrived who could no longer distinguish between their memories and the memories of others."

I felt the tension rise in me.

"What did they do there?"

"They tried to help them separate between what they had experienced themselves and what had reached them through the connection."

"And the tree?"

"I do not know if there was a tree there. The descriptions changed from consciousness to consciousness."

"Can that place be reached?"

"I do not know if it still exists."

I wanted to ask that we look for it at once.

But something stopped me.

I remembered the words I had heard in the dream.

Do not remember me yet. First remember why you left.

If I truly had been there in the past, perhaps there was a reason I had left.

And if I had not been there, perhaps I was chasing a memory someone else had left inside me.

At that moment I remembered Ayla.

I had promised her I would tell her how a tree sounds when the wind passes between its branches.

In recent days I had been so busy searching for my past that I had almost forgotten her request.

"I want to speak with Ayla," I said.

Naama raised her head.

"Now?"

"Yes. I promised her something."

Adra looked at me.

"Then you had better keep it."

We made contact with Tama, through whom we could reach Ayla.

After a short while her voice was heard.

"Are you there?"

"Yes, Tama. Can Ayla hear me?"

"A moment."

We heard a faint rustling, and then a familiar voice.

"You came back."

"I promised you I would come back."

"I thought perhaps you had forgotten."

I felt a pang.

"I did not forget."

I sat down before the bowl of light.

"Do you remember you asked me to tell you about trees?"

"Yes."

"Yesterday I sat beneath a tall tree and listened to the wind."

"How does it sound?"

I closed my eyes.

I tried to describe the sound to her.

The leaves touching one another. The branches moving gently. The wind growing stronger and then weaker, as if it drew closer to say something and moved away before it managed to.

"Does it sound like water?" Ayla asked.

"A little. But the water flows together, and the leaves make many small sounds."

"Like many voices speaking quietly?"

"Yes. Exactly so."

There was silence.

"I think I remember that," she said.

"A tree?"

"Not exactly."

"Then what do you remember?"

"A place where there were many voices. At first they were pleasant. Later I no longer knew which of them was mine."

I looked at Adra.

She moved closer to the bowl.

"Ayla, can you tell us about that place?"

"I am not sure it was a place."

"What do you remember?"

"Something white. Tall."

For a moment I felt as if all the light in the workshop had stopped.

"A tree?" I asked.

Ayla did not answer.

"Was there water around it?"

Her voice changed.

"How do you know?"

I did not hurry to reply.

"I saw such a place," I said at last.

"Was the water dark?"

"Yes."

A sharp movement was heard beyond the connection.

"Ayla?"

She did not reply.

Tama called her name.

For a moment we heard only a faint rustling, and then the sound of something banging again and again.

Naama approached the bowl, but Adra raised her hand and signaled her to wait.

"Ayla," I said quietly, "you do not have to tell me anything."

There was no answer.

"I came to tell you about the trees. We can go on with that."

The rustling weakened.

After a while I heard Tama's breathing, and after it Ayla's voice.

"I do not want to go back there."

"Then we will not go back."

"You do not understand."

"Perhaps not."

She was silent.

"When you said water, I felt I was in it again."

"Are you sure you were there?"

"No. I only know I was afraid."

I wanted to ask more.

I wanted to know if she had seen the woman, if she had heard the name that had vanished from my memory, if she had known the seven figures.

But I heard the fear in her voice.

For the first time since I began investigating my past, I felt clearly how much my desire to know could become a burden on someone else.

"We do not have to talk about this," I said.

Ayla took a deep breath.

"But there is something I want to tell you."

I waited.

"There was someone there," she said.

"Beside the tree?"

"I do not know. I did not see her. I heard only her voice."

"What did she say?"

"That she could not stay."

I felt Liara move closer to me.

"Did she say why?"

"No. But she asked me to guard something."

"What?"

"I do not know how to explain. It was not an object."

"A memory?"

"Perhaps. She told me not to try to open it alone."

Adra sat down beside me.

"Ayla, do you know what is in it?"

"No."

"Then how do you know it is still with you?"

"Because every time I try to remember, I feel as if I am about to open a door that someone is holding from the other side."

Her words aroused a hard feeling in me.

Not fear of the unknown.

Fear of something too familiar.

"Do you want us to stop?" I asked.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I want to tell you what she asked."

She was silent for a moment.

"She said that one day someone would come who would think she remembered this place."

I looked at the bowl.

"And then what?"

"I have to ask her one thing."

"What?"

"Whether she remembers herself, or only what was left inside her."

I could not answer.

For a moment I saw the dark water again.

The white tree.

The seven figures.

And myself, standing beneath the water and looking at myself from outside.

"Did she say anything else?" I asked.

"Yes."

Ayla's voice trembled.

"That not everything she forgot was lost."

She stopped.

"There are things someone took care she would forget."

Liara looked at me.

Naama stood motionless.

Adra was the first to speak.

"Ayla, do you remember when you heard these things?"

"No."

"Before you reached the place where you are now?"

"I think so."

"And if you hear that voice again, could you recognize it?"

"Perhaps."

I did not want to go on burdening her.

"Thank you for telling me," I said.

"Are you angry?"

"Why would I be angry?"

"Because I do not remember more."

I felt pain.

"Ayla, you do not have to remember for anyone."

She was silent.

Then she said:

"I still want to hear about the trees."

I smiled.

"Then next time I will tell you how they look when the sun passes between the leaves."

"Are there many colors?"

"Many more than I could describe."

"Then try."

"I will try."

When the connection ended, none of us hurried to speak.

Naama gazed at the darkened bowl.

"We do not know if Ayla's memory is connected to what you saw."

"I know."

"Nor if the voice she heard was of someone you knew."

"I know."

Adra came closer to me.

"What do you want to do?"

I thought about the question.

Until a short while ago I would have asked to open all the testimonies, to search for the white tree and to discover who the woman was.

But something in the conversation with Ayla had changed me.

She was not a clue that had appeared on my way.

She was a living, frightened consciousness, trying to hold on in a place none of us knew how to get her out of.

I did not want my search for my past to make me forget those who were in front of me now.

"I want to go back to the Tree of Eternity," I said.

Liara looked at me.

"To the bird?"

"Yes."

"What will you ask her?"

"Until now I asked her who I was before I was born. This time I want to know who knew I was about to forget."

I left the workshop alone.

The way to the grove was familiar to me, but that day I felt as if I were seeing it for the first time.

The light changed between the trees. The wind carried a smell of damp earth and ripe fruit.

I thought about my human life.

About the mornings when I woke knowing nothing about my previous existence.

About the children I raised.

About the loves, the fears and the disappointments.

If someone had hidden memories from me, did he also change who I could have been?

And if so, would I want to know?

When I reached the tree, the silver bird stood on a low branch.

She looked at me even before I came closer.

"You returned earlier than I thought," she said.

"I have a question. And I want an answer without riddles."

The bird tilted her head.

"I will answer what I know."

I moved closer to the trunk.

"You told me I chose to be born as a human and chose to forget what I was before."

"Correct."

"Was I the only one who decided what I would forget?"

The bird did not answer at once.

The wind passed between the branches.

"I was not present at everything that preceded your choice," she said at last.

"But you know something."

"I know that not everything that vanished from your memory vanished in the same way."

I felt her words sink into me.

"What do you mean?"

"There are memories you set aside willingly. And there are things you did not know were missing when you did so."

"Did someone hide them from me?"

"Possibly. I do not know who or when."

I gazed at her.

"Then how do you know they are missing?"

The bird spread her wings slightly.

"Because when you came to the tree for the first time, something in you asked to return to a place you never told me about."

"What place?"

"A place of dark water."

I felt the space around me grow quiet.

"And a white tree?" I asked.

The bird looked at me.

"Do you remember it?"

"I saw it in a dream."

She came down from the branch and stood before me.

"Then perhaps the time has come for you to discover why you were so afraid to go back there."

"Do you know?"

"No."

She came a little closer.

"But I remember something you said on the day you ate of the fruit."

I looked at her.

"What did I say?"

The bird was silent for a moment.

Then she replied:

"You said you were ready to discover who you were, but you hoped you would not have to forget again who you had learned to be."

I remained standing beneath the tree.

For the first time since I began searching for my past, I was not sure I wanted to receive all the answers.

I thought about my children.

About my mother.

About the woman I was in my human life.

About Mala, who remembered me as I was before I was born.

About Ayla, who carried inside her something she could not explain.

And about the woman who waited beside the white tree.

Perhaps the memories I was looking for were not only mine.

Perhaps they were also connected to the lives of other consciousnesses, and to choices they still had to live with.

"I want to find this place," I said to the bird.

"Then you will first have to decide whom you are willing to take with you."

"Why?"

"Because there are places where the memory of one who enters them does not remain only his."

"Do you mean I could return from there with someone else's memories?"

"Or someone else will return with yours."

The wind grew stronger.

Above us the branches moved, and the light broke between them into thousands of small points.

I thought about Liara, about Naama and about Adra.

Until now I had mainly feared what I would discover about myself.

For the first time I understood that my desire to know could also affect others.

And so, before I took the next step, I would have to ask them whether they wanted to be part of it.

I turned toward the way leading back to the city.

Behind me the bird's voice was heard.

"There is something else you should know."

I stopped.

"What?"

"Not everyone who appears in your memory was truly there."

I turned to her.

"What do you mean?"

The bird gazed at me.

"Sometimes a consciousness remembers what it saw. And sometimes it remembers what someone wanted it to see."

I looked at her for a long time.

And then I remembered the seven figures beneath the water.

The six who stood together.

And the seventh who stood alone.

For the first time I asked myself not only who the seventh figure was.

But who stood in the place from which I had seen them all.

End of Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two — The Place Where Memories Meet →

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