The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
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Chapter Eleven — The Promise Beyond Time
"Because she believes that if she leaves, you will no longer know where to find her."
Liara's words remained hanging between us.
Around us, the city's inhabitants began to disperse. Some moved silently toward the lit bridges, others stayed in the plaza and exchanged thoughts I could not hear. The great sphere of light, in which the mysterious figure had appeared only a moment before, was now completely dark.
"Why is she waiting specifically for me?" I asked.
Liara looked around us before she answered.
"I don't know what there was between you. But I do know that she has not appeared before anyone for a very long time."
"How long?"
"When I arrived in the city, they were already telling of her as though she were part of history."
I remembered that Liara had lived here for some thirty-seven thousand years.
I felt the space around me expand strangely. Thirty-seven thousand years were almost inconceivable to me, and yet here was a story that had begun even earlier.
"What is her name?"
Liara hesitated.
"We call her the Last Guardian."
"Guardian of what?"
"No one agrees on that anymore."
She took my hand.
"Come with me. There is a place where we can talk without the whole city trying to listen."
I followed her.
We crossed a long bridge, the lights beneath it moving like schools of fish in deep water. The farther we moved from the plaza, the fewer voices there were around us.
The city looked different now.
The same magnificent towers, the same floating gardens and the same waterfalls moving against the pull of gravity, but something in my sense of safety had been shaken.
Only a short while ago I had thought I had arrived at a place where death does not exist, and therefore human fears also lose their power.
Now I understood that eternity might contain other fears.
And perhaps also secrets kept for too long.
Liara led me to a small garden at the edge of the city.
It was surrounded by trees with white trunks and dark leaves, and at its center stood a round pool of water. Above it hovered three small spheres of light, which lit the place in a deep blue hue.
Liara approached the pool.
"I want to show you something."
She knelt beside it and placed her hand on the surface of the water.
Circles spread out from the place where she had touched.
Within the pool, the city appeared.
But it was not the city I had seen a moment before.
The towers were lower. The bridges looked different. In the places where floating gardens now stood, there were wide, empty surfaces.
"This is how it looked thousands of years ago," she said.
I drew closer.
Within the image, many consciousnesses moved.
One of them caught my attention.
She looked like a tall woman, wrapped in a reddish light.
She stood at the center of a large plaza, and around her dozens of consciousnesses had gathered.
"Is that her?"
"Yes."
I looked at her.
The figure moved among the others, touched their shoulders, spoke with them. Even through the image I could feel the warmth that rose from the encounter.
She did not look lonely.
On the contrary.
There was something alive in her, full of movement and curiosity.
"She was greatly loved," Liara said. "So they tell."
"What happened to her?"
Liara moved her hand.
The image changed.
I saw a vast hall, and at its center a transparent structure that looked like a great ring. Many consciousnesses stood around it.
Within the ring, worlds could be seen.
Some were covered with water, others with forests or mountains. In one of them I saw a lit city, and in another only black earth and red skies.
"That was a gate," Liara said. "One of the ancient passages between the realms of existence."
"Where did it lead?"
"Also to worlds where life depends on a body."
I felt a sharpening of attention.
"Like Earth?"
"Yes. But not only."
The reddish figure approached the ring.
Beside her, another figure appeared.
She was brighter, almost silvery.
I could not see her face.
But something in her movement made me draw closer to the water.
The two figures stood facing each other.
And then they held hands.
At that moment I felt a sharp stab of longing.
I withdrew from the pool.
"What happened?" Liara asked.
I could not answer at once.
The feeling was so strong that for a moment I wanted to cry.
I did not know whom I was longing for.
I only felt that I had lost something.
"I know this sight," I said at last.
Liara looked at me.
"From where?"
"I saw something similar in the place where the memories are kept. But there I could not see the second figure."
She turned her gaze back to the pool.
"Here, too, she cannot be seen clearly."
"Why?"
"Because this record is incomplete."
I looked at the water again.
The two figures were still standing facing each other.
"Who was the second figure?"
Liara was silent.
Then she said:
"Some claim that she went out into one of the material worlds and did not return."
"And others claim otherwise?"
"Yes."
"What do they claim?"
Liara raised her eyes to me.
"That she returned, but did not remember who she had been."
I said nothing.
Inside me, pieces of memories began to connect.
The silver tree.
The bird.
The voice that had asked whether I was ready to go out into human life.
And the figure that had stood beside me before everything vanished.
I wanted to believe that I understood.
But precisely now, when the possibility had become so tangible, I was cautious.
"Do you think that was me?"
"I think there is a reason the Guardian turned to you. But I don't know what it is."
I looked at the pool again.
"And if it really was me, why didn't I come back?"
"Perhaps you couldn't. Perhaps you didn't want to. Perhaps you didn't know where to return to."
She paused.
"Or perhaps the whole story we have been told for thousands of years is wrong."
I appreciated her honesty.
There was something frightening in a world where it was possible to preserve memories of vast periods, and yet not to know with certainty what had taken place.
"Liara," I said, "there is something I don't understand. If my consciousness existed before I was born, and if I chose to go out into a human life, why did I have to go through this whole journey in order to return?"
She looked at me.
"Perhaps you didn't have to."
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps you could have remained in the human world until the end of your life, without returning here in the way that you returned."
"But the bird came to take me."
"True."
"So why?"
Liara lowered her gaze.
"That question, I would ask her."
The silver bird appeared before we had managed to leave the garden.
She landed on the edge of the pool, looked at the water, and then at Liara.
You showed her the ancient gate.
"Yes," Liara answered.
Too soon.
I felt anger.
"When exactly will the right time be? After I spend another thousand years here without understanding what is happening around me?"
The bird turned her head toward me.
You are angry.
"Of course I am angry. You know things about me that I don't know. You lead me from place to place, and every time I come close to an answer, you tell me to wait."
She was silent.
"I am no longer the same woman you met in the grove. I chose to eat of the fruit. I parted from my body. If there is something I need to know, I want to hear it."
The bird looked at me for a long time.
Then she came down from the pool and approached me.
There is a reason I have not told you everything.
"What reason?"
Because I do not know whether the memories you are seeking will help you or harm you.
"That should be my decision."
She slowly shook her head.
Yes.
I was surprised.
It was the first time I felt that she agreed with me without adding a warning.
But before I tell you what I know, you must understand one thing. I do not remember everything that took place.
"How can that be?"
Because my memory, too, is not perfect.
I looked at her.
Until now I had thought of her as an ancient being who knew far more than I.
It had not occurred to me that she, too, could forget.
I remember that I knew a consciousness who wished to go out into human life. I remember the silver tree and the gate. I remember that there was another consciousness there.
"The Guardian?"
Yes.
"And what was the promise?"
The bird lowered her head.
I do not know its words.
"But you know that there was a promise."
I remember the moment in which it was given.
I felt excitement.
"Then show it to me."
The bird did not move.
"You can share your memory with me, can't you?"
Yes.
"Then please."
Liara came closer.
"You had better be ready for the experience not to be simple."
I nodded.
The bird spread her wings.
The silver light around them widened.
The garden vanished.
I found myself in a place I did not know.
It was wide and quiet, but not empty.
In the distance I saw tall structures, made of layers of transparent light. Between them moved many consciousnesses, some with a clear form and others like small clouds.
Before me stood the silver tree.
This time I saw it in its entirety.
It was far smaller than the Tree of Eternity, but its leaves spread a soft light, and among its branches moved many birds.
One of them was silver.
I recognized her at once.
But she was not alone.
Beneath the tree stood two figures.
One of them was wrapped in a reddish light.
The second was bright, almost transparent.
I drew closer.
I felt that I was watching something that had taken place long ago.
But then another feeling appeared inside me.
I was not only a watcher.
Something of what was happening was deeply familiar to me, as though the body I had never had in that place still remembered the movement.
The bright figure extended her hand to the reddish one.
They held hands.
And then I heard a thought.
I want to know what it feels like.
The reddish figure answered:
You know how life exists in a body.
I know about it. I do not know how it is experienced.
I felt a strange excitement.
The bright figure continued.
I want to feel time passing. I want to know what it is not to remember everything. What it is not to know what will happen tomorrow.
The reddish one was silent.
And if you forget me, too?
The bright figure came closer to her.
Perhaps I will forget your name. Perhaps I will forget this place. But I do not believe that everything we share can vanish without leaving something in me.
I felt the words as though they were coming out of me.
I did not know whether it truly was I, but something in me recognized that desire.
The desire to experience.
Not only to know.
The reddish figure moved slightly away.
I am afraid.
The bright figure touched her face.
Of what?
That you will discover a whole world, love others in it, and not want to return.
A long silence settled.
And then the bright figure said:
If I return, I will seek you.
The reddish one looked at her.
And if you do not remember?
Then I will have to learn to know you anew.
For a moment I felt an immense warmth.
The reddish figure drew closer, and the two figures merged in a kind of embrace of light.
I could not know whether the bond between them resembled human love.
But I felt a deep closeness in it.
Two consciousnesses who knew each other beyond words.
And then another voice was heard.
It is time.
The silver bird stood on the low branch.
The bright figure turned toward her.
I am ready.
The reddish one held her hand.
Promise me one thing.
The bright figure turned back to look at her.
What?
That if you return and do not remember me, you will not think that the strangeness between us proves that we never knew each other.
The bright figure was silent.
And then she answered:
I promise that I will listen before I decide.
The light around them grew stronger.
The reddish figure added:
And I promise that I will not impose my memory on you. Even if you choose not to know me again.
I felt a trembling.
That was not the promise I had expected to hear.
Not a promise never to part.
Not a promise to return at any cost.
But a promise to let the other be free, even when that freedom might cause pain.
The bright figure moved away.
The silver bird spread her wings.
And beyond the tree, a gate opened.
Within it I saw blue skies.
A sea.
Cities.
People.
The bright figure stood before it.
She turned around once more.
The reddish one remained by the tree.
For a moment I thought the bright one would return to her.
But she did not return.
She entered the gate.
The light closed.
And the reddish figure remained alone.
I came back to the garden.
Liara stood beside me.
The silver bird sat on the edge of the pool.
I could not speak.
The memory was still alive inside me.
I felt the warmth between the two figures, the fear of parting, and the desire to go out into an unfamiliar life.
But more than anything, the last words remained with me.
I promise that I will listen before I decide.
I looked at the bird.
"Was that me?"
She was silent for a moment.
I believe so.
"But you don't know for certain."
No.
I felt disappointment.
And yet, something in the memory seemed truer to me than anything I had seen before.
"Why did she say that I had promised not to leave her?"
The bird looked at me.
Perhaps that is how she remembers the promise.
"But that is not what I heard."
True.
I looked at the pool.
I thought of the Entity of Memory.
Of how memories do not always preserve what happened, but also the meaning we gave to it over the years.
Perhaps over thousands of years a promise to listen had become a promise to return.
Perhaps longing changed the memory.
But if so, why is the figure still waiting?
"I want to meet her," I said.
Liara looked at me in alarm.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"You still do not know how to protect the boundaries of your consciousness."
"Then I will learn."
The bird came closer.
You do not have to go to her.
"I know."
The promise does not obligate you to choose a bond you do not want.
"I know that, too."
I looked at them.
"But she is waiting there for a length of time I cannot even imagine. And if there is a possibility that I knew her, I want to hear what she has to say."
Liara lowered her gaze.
"You remind me of someone," she said.
"Who?"
She smiled sadly.
"Me, many years ago."
We decided not to set out at once.
Liara insisted that I first learn how to distinguish between my own thoughts and thoughts that reach me from other consciousnesses.
She led me to a small room in her home.
The room was almost completely empty.
At its center stood two chairs.
We sat down facing each other.
"Close your eyes," she said.
I did as she said.
"Now think of something you know well."
I thought of the sea.
Of a shore where I used to walk.
Of the smell of salt, the warm sand, and the waves.
"Do you see it?"
"Yes."
"And now I will send you a thought of mine. Do not try to stop it. Only notice that it is not yours."
For a moment nothing happened.
And then an image of a snowy mountain appeared inside me.
It was very high, and above it two moons could be seen.
I knew that I had never seen it.
But I could feel the cold, the wind, and the beauty in the sight.
"That is your thought," I said.
"True."
"How did I know?"
"Because you did not try to make it part of your memory."
She smiled.
"Now we will do something harder."
The image changed.
I saw a house.
A familiar house.
My home.
For a moment I felt excitement.
"That is my home."
"Yes."
"But you don't know it."
"True."
I looked at the image.
It was almost exact.
But something in it was different.
On the table stood a bowl that had not been there in my memory.
"You added something," I said.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"So that you will see how easy it is to mix up a thing you remember with a thing that comes from outside."
She removed the image.
I opened my eyes.
I felt unease.
"So someone can change my memories?"
"Someone can try to influence the way you experience them. But the better you know your own consciousness, the easier it will be for you to identify the influence."
I thought of the Guardian.
Of her loneliness.
Of the pain I had heard in her voice.
Had I truly felt her pain, or had she made me feel it?
Was there any simple way to tell the difference between the two?
"And what if someone does not mean to harm me?" I asked. "What if he simply believes so strongly in his own memory that I begin to feel it is mine as well?"
Liara looked at me seriously.
"That is one of the reasons boundaries are important even between those who love each other."
We continued to practice.
Liara sent me images, sensations, and thoughts.
Sometimes I identified them at once.
Sometimes I became confused.
In one attempt she sent me a feeling of joy so strong that I began to laugh without knowing why.
In another attempt I felt fear, and for a moment I wanted to flee the room.
"That isn't fair," I said.
"True," she answered. "And that is why I do it only because you agreed."
I looked at her.
"And if I ask you to stop?"
"I will stop."
"Immediately?"
"Immediately."
I thought of the ancient promise.
I promise that I will listen before I decide.
Perhaps then, too, before I went out into human life, I understood something about freedom and about love.
Perhaps I did not want to promise something I could not keep.
But did the one who stayed behind understand it in the same way?
When we left the room, the city was quiet.
The lights above the bridges moved slowly, and in the distance faint music was heard.
Liara stood by the window.
"There is something I have not told you," she said.
I turned toward her.
"What?"
"Many years ago I tried to reach the Guardian."
I was surprised.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted to understand why she chose to remain alone."
"And did you succeed?"
"I reached the edge of her realm."
"What happened there?"
Liara was silent.
Then she came closer to me.
"I heard her singing."
I felt a shiver.
"What song?"
"An ancient melody. I did not know the words. But I felt that they carried a great longing."
I remembered the cave.
The voices.
The winged beings that had hovered above me.
"I heard such singing, too," I said.
Liara looked at me sharply.
"Where?"
I told her about the cave beneath the Tree of Eternity.
About the whispers that became songs.
About the prayers preserved between the walls.
And about the golden ladder that had led me to the tree.
As I told it, her face changed.
"What happened?" I asked.
She did not answer at once.
"Liara?"
"That cave," she said at last, "does not appear in any account of the Tree of Eternity that I know."
"But I was there."
"I believe you."
She drew closer to the window and looked at the city.
"There is an ancient story about a passage that opens only before those who carry a certain memory within them."
I felt alertness.
"Which memory?"
"I don't know. For years I thought it was only a story."
I looked at her.
"Do you think the cave is connected to the Guardian?"
"Perhaps."
I remembered the winged beings.
The way one of them had passed beside me and made me experience a memory that was not mine.
And suddenly a thought rose in me.
"Perhaps the cave was not only a passage to the tree."
Liara turned around.
"What do you mean?"
"Perhaps it tried to show me something."
I remembered the songs.
The prayers.
The longing of beings from different worlds.
The words that carried the burden of generations.
"Perhaps everything I heard there was connected to the one who is waiting for me."
Liara looked at me for a long time.
"If so," she said, "perhaps the Guardian tried to reach you even before you bit into the fruit."
I felt the meaning of the words.
If that was true, perhaps our encounter had not begun in the City of Consciousnesses.
Perhaps she had known that I was approaching the tree.
Perhaps she had felt my coming even before I knew who she was.
At that moment a voice was heard.
Not from outside.
From within my consciousness.
You are beginning to remember.
I froze.
Liara noticed the change at once.
"What happened?"
The voice was heard again.
But you are still seeking the memory in the wrong place.
I felt her presence.
The Guardian.
She did not appear before me.
I saw no red light.
I only heard her thought.
Liara came closer.
"Is someone turning to you?"
I nodded.
"Her."
Liara's face became serious.
"Do not answer before you choose whether you want this contact."
I remembered the practice.
I tried to distinguish between my thoughts and the other presence.
She was distant, but clear.
I did not feel that she was trying to take control of me.
She was waiting.
I directed a thought to her.
I hear you.
For a moment there was no answer.
And then I felt something I had not expected.
Relief.
As though a being who had waited a very long time had finally heard a familiar voice.
I thought you would not want to hear me.
I want to understand who you are.
Silence settled.
And then she answered:
I, too, want to know who you have become.
I felt the words deep inside me.
There was no demand in them.
No anger.
Only a sad curiosity.
I do not remember you, I said.
I know.
And I cannot promise that I will remember.
That, too, I know.
For a moment I felt that we were standing facing each other, though a distance I did not know how to measure separated us.
And then I asked:
Why have you remained there for so long?
The silence that lengthened was different from any silence I had known.
I felt that within it many memories were moving.
At last an answer came.
Because at first I thought you would return quickly.
I felt pain.
And afterward?
Afterward I no longer knew how to leave.
I closed my eyes.
For a moment I saw the reddish figure standing beside the silver tree.
Waiting.
Days passing.
Years.
Worlds changing.
Consciousnesses coming and going.
And she remains.
But now you are here, I said.
I felt a delicate movement from her.
Yes.
Then perhaps you can come out.
Silence settled.
And then she said:
I am afraid.
I was surprised.
Of what?
That if I come out, I will discover that the place where I waited was the last thing still binding me to who you were.
I felt the meaning of the words.
She was not afraid only of losing me.
She was afraid of losing also the memory of herself as she had been before the parting.
I thought of Aran, who had chosen to keep his wrinkles.
Of Mira, who had created a home and a kitchen for herself in order to feel close to the life she had left behind.
And of the Guardian, who had remained in one place for a vast period, perhaps because there she could still feel that the past had not ended.
I do not know who I was then, I said. But I am here now.
I felt her attention drawing closer.
Will you come?
I looked at Liara.
She stood beside me, waiting.
She did not try to decide in my place.
I directed my thought to the Guardian.
Yes. But I want us to meet without your trying to make me remember something I do not remember.
An answer came at once.
I agree.
And even if I discover that I was not who you think I was?
This time the silence was longer.
And then I heard:
Then I will have to learn to know you as you are.
I felt relief.
I did not know whether she would succeed in keeping the promise.
But at least now there was a possibility between us to begin anew.
The contact weakened.
Before it vanished, she sent me one last thought.
There is one thing you must know before you arrive.
I waited.
I am not the only one who waited for your return.
And then she was gone.
I opened my eyes.
Liara looked at me.
"What did she say?"
I told her.
When I reached the last sentence, I saw her face change.
"What does it mean, that she is not the only one?" she asked.
"I don't know."
She turned to the window.
Outside, the lights of the city continued to move peacefully.
But Liara looked worried.
"Is there something you know?" I asked.
She did not answer at once.
And then she said:
"In this city there are very ancient consciousnesses. Some of them knew the gates even before the city was built as it is today."
"And what is the connection to me?"
"If you truly were here before your human life, perhaps there are those who remember you."
"Then why has no one turned to me?"
Liara looked at me.
"Perhaps because they are not sure it is you."
"And perhaps?"
She hesitated.
"Perhaps because they prefer that you not remember."
I felt the words settle inside me.
For the first time, a troubling possibility rose in me.
Until now I had thought my past had been forgotten by me because of the passage into human life.
But what if there were things that were not meant to be forgotten?
And what if someone else wanted me not to remember them?
I looked at the city.
At the thousands of lights, the bridges, and the towers.
It looked as peaceful and beautiful as it had looked when I arrived.
But now I knew that beneath its beauty there existed ancient stories, severed bonds, and memories that are not told.
Liara came closer to me.
"We will go to the Guardian," she said. "But not alone."
"Who will come with us?"
"Someone who knows the way."
"Who?"
She looked at me.
"Aran."
I remembered the older man who had sat beside the river.
"But he said he had grown tired of the search."
"True."
"Then why would he agree?"
Liara was silent for a moment.
"Because many years ago, when he was still exploring the worlds, he was the last one who tried to reach the Guardian."
"And did he succeed?"
"He returned."
"What did he find there?"
Liara looked at the window.
"He never told."
We went out into the street.
The light in the city deepened, and the bridges now looked like thin rivers of stars.
We walked toward the river where I had met Aran.
On the way I thought about the Guardian.
About the promise.
About the possibility that I had known her before I was born.
But one thought kept troubling me.
If I had truly gone out of my own will into human life, and if I had known that I would forget this world, why had I chosen to do so?
Had I wanted to experience life in a body out of curiosity alone?
Or was there a deeper reason?
We reached the river.
Aran sat on the same bench.
He looked at the water, as though he had not moved from his place since we had spoken.
Liara stopped before him.
"We need your help."
Aran did not raise his head.
"No."
I was surprised.
"You haven't yet heard what it is about," I said.
"I have heard enough."
He looked at Liara.
"The whole city is talking about the red light."
Liara sat down beside him.
"She wants to meet the Guardian."
Aran closed his eyes.
For a moment it seemed he was about to get up and move away.
But he remained in his place.
"Why?" he asked me.
"Because she claims we knew each other before I was born."
He looked at me.
"And do you believe her?"
"I don't know."
"Good."
He returned his gaze to the river.
"Then don't go."
"Why?"
"Because there are places you can leave without bringing anything with you, and there are places that change the way you understand everything you were."
I sat down beside him.
"I have already changed."
"Not as you think."
I looked at him.
"Were you there?"
He was silent.
"Liara said you tried to reach her."
Aran placed both his hands on his knees.
"Yes."
"What did you see?"
He looked at me for a long time.
And then he asked:
"Do you remember the first time you held one of your children?"
I was surprised by the question.
"Of course."
"Do you remember his face?"
"Yes."
"And the feeling?"
I felt the memory rise in me.
The small weight in my arms.
The warmth.
The delicate fear of holding a creature so fragile.
The immense love.
"Yes," I whispered.
Aran nodded.
"Now imagine that someone could enter that memory, experience it as though it were his, and then tell you that he was there in your place."
I looked at him.
"That is impossible."
"Here, the experience itself is not always proof of its source."
I remembered the practice with Liara.
"I know."
"No," Aran said quietly. "You are only beginning to know."
He rose.
"When I reached the Guardian, she showed me a memory."
I looked at him intently.
"Which memory?"
He lowered his gaze.
"I saw my wife."
I felt a shiver.
"The woman you searched for?"
"Yes."
"Was she there?"
Aran shook his head.
"I don't know."
He looked at the water.
"I saw her standing before me. I heard her voice. I felt her hand. She knew things that only the two of us knew."
"Then perhaps it truly was she."
"Perhaps."
He was silent.
"But when I tried to draw closer, she said something to me that my wife would never have said."
"What?"
Aran looked at me.
"She asked me to forget everything that had been before I met her."
I felt unease.
"Why?"
"So that we could be together without pain. Without longing. Without anything to separate us."
He smiled a sad smile.
"But my wife loved me also because of who I had been before I knew her. She never asked to erase part of my life."
I was silent.
"Then I understood that I do not know whether I am standing before her consciousness, before a memory, or before something created by my longing."
"And what did you do?"
"I left."
He looked at me.
"Since then I have not returned."
The three of us stood in silence.
And then Aran turned to me.
"If you want to meet the Guardian, I will come with you."
I was surprised.
"But a moment ago you said I shouldn't go."
"True."
"Then why did you change your mind?"
He looked at the river.
"Because when I was there, I fled before I understood what I had seen. Perhaps the time has come for me to return without seeking my wife in every figure that appears before me."
Liara smiled at him.
"I knew you would agree."
"Do not be so pleased with yourself," he answered.
For a moment the three of us smiled.
But then Aran became serious.
"There is one thing you must know."
We looked at him.
"The place where the Guardian is found is not a prison. It was created out of her consciousness, and it responds to everyone who enters it."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"It may show you what you long for most of all. What you are afraid of. Sometimes also what you believe you deserve to receive."
I felt the meaning of his words.
"Then how will we know what is real?"
Aran looked at me.
"We will not always know."
He paused.
"But we can decide not to accept every sight as an answer."
We left the city through a gate I had not noticed before.
Beyond it spread a quiet space, full of dark mist.
Liara walked beside me, and Aran led us.
There were no bridges or structures here.
Only distant lights moving slowly.
I felt the city receding behind us.
For a moment a thought rose in me to go back.
I had been here such a short time.
I had not yet had time to know the place, to learn how one lives in it, or to understand my new abilities.
But something drew me forward.
Not only curiosity.
Also the desire to meet the one who had waited for me.
Perhaps for thousands of years.
And perhaps for a far longer time.
The mist around us grew thicker.
And then I saw a red light.
It appeared in the distance, small and faint.
The closer we came, the larger it grew.
At last a vast space was revealed before us, and at its center stood a small house.
Not a palace.
Not a temple.
A simple house.
Its walls were made of pale stone, and on its roof grew red flowers.
Beside it stood a silver tree.
I stopped.
I knew it.
Not only from the memory I had seen.
I felt that I knew the place.
The house.
The tree.
The light.
Aran turned to me.
"From here you will have to decide for yourself whether to enter."
I looked at the door.
It was slightly open.
From within it came a warm light.
And then I heard a voice.
Not a thought.
A real voice.
A woman's voice.
She was singing quietly.
The melody was familiar.
The same melody I had heard in the cave beneath the Tree of Eternity.
I felt a shiver.
I approached the house.
Liara and Aran stayed behind.
I placed my hand on the door.
For a moment I hesitated.
And then I pushed it.
The room was small.
At its center stood a wooden table.
On it were placed two cups.
Beside the window sat a woman.
Her hair was long and dark, and her face looked entirely human.
She was not wrapped in a red light.
She did not look ancient or threatening.
She simply sat there, and looked outside.
When I entered, she stopped singing.
Slowly she turned toward me.
Her eyes filled with tears.
She rose.
For a moment I thought she would run to me.
But she remained in her place.
"Hello," she said.
Her voice was gentle.
I felt something deep inside me stir.
Not a clear memory.
Only a feeling of closeness.
"Hello," I answered.
She smiled a small smile.
"You look different."
I looked at her.
"So do you."
She laughed quietly.
"You don't know how I looked."
"True."
She approached the table.
"I prepared a place for us to sit."
I looked at the two cups.
"Have you been waiting for me long?"
She looked at the empty chair.
"Yes."
I sat down.
She sat down across from me.
For a moment we said nothing.
I felt her attention directed toward me, but she did not try to enter my thoughts.
I appreciated that.
"I do not remember you," I said.
She nodded.
"I know."
"And I don't know whether the memories I saw truly belong to me."
"That, too, I understand."
I looked at her.
"Then why did you wait?"
She lowered her eyes.
"At first because I loved you."
I felt the words inside me.
She continued.
"Afterward because I did not know how to live without waiting."
I looked at her.
"But you were free to leave."
"Yes."
"Then why did you stay?"
She smiled sadly.
"Because every time I thought of leaving, I was afraid you would arrive a moment later and not find me."
I felt pain.
I did not know whether the pain arose from her story or from something deeper within me.
"I am sorry," I said.
She raised her head at once.
"Do not be sorry."
"But you waited so long."
"It was my choice."
She looked at me.
"And I am beginning to understand that perhaps it was not a good choice."
We were silent.
Outside, the leaves of the silver tree moved in a gentle wind.
And then she said:
"There is something I want to show you."
I felt alertness.
"What?"
She extended her hand.
I did not touch it at once.
"I don't want you to put memories into me as though they were mine."
She nodded.
"I will not do that."
"Then what do you want to show me?"
She looked at me for a long time.
And then she said:
"The reason for which you went out into human life."
I felt the words sink into me.
"You know why I went out?"
"Yes."
"I thought I simply wanted to experience life in a body."
She smiled a sad smile.
"That, too, was part of your desire."
"And what else?"
She looked at the window.
"Before you went out, we discovered something."
"What did you discover?"
She turned to me.
"A place in creation that we could not understand."
I felt curiosity.
"What place?"
"A place where consciousnesses are born, but remember nothing of what came before them."
"Like human life?"
"Not exactly."
She paused.
"Human beings forget what preceded their lives, if indeed they had a prior existence. But in that place we discovered something else."
I felt a growing alertness.
"What?"
She looked at me.
"Consciousnesses that entered it did not only forget their past. They gradually lost the ability to recognize that other consciousnesses exist."
I did not understand.
"What do you mean?"
"They continued to think, to remember, and to experience. But their world narrowed and narrowed until they could no longer distinguish between themselves and everything around them."
I felt unease.
"And what happened to them?"
"We do not know."
She lowered her gaze.
"Some of them vanished from contact with the rest of creation."
I thought of the loneliness I had felt when I looked at her inside the red sphere.
"And you wanted to find them?"
She nodded.
"Yes."
"Then why did I have to go out into human life?"
She looked at me.
"Because you thought that perhaps the way to understand how a consciousness can lose its connection to others is to experience an existence in which it begins almost without memory, inside a separate body, and gradually learns to know the world and those who live in it."
I was silent.
The thought was so great that I did not know how to approach it.
"You are saying that I went out into human life in order to investigate consciousness?"
"That is how I remember your decision."
"But I remembered nothing."
"True."
"Then how could I investigate something I did not know I was investigating?"
She smiled slightly.
"That was exactly the question we argued about before you went out."
I felt something awaken inside me.
Not a memory.
A possibility.
Perhaps throughout my human life, every time I asked a question about creation, about life and about death, I continued in some way a search that had begun before I was born.
But at once I stopped myself.
It was a beautiful thought.
Too beautiful for me to accept it only because I wanted it to be true.
"I need to see what you discovered," I said.
The woman nodded.
"I know."
She rose.
"But before that, there is something I must tell you."
I looked at her.
"What?"
She approached the window.
"When you decided to go out, I did not agree with you. I thought the risk was too great."
"What risk?"
She turned to me.
"That you would not come back as the same consciousness I knew."
I felt sadness.
"And perhaps I truly did not come back."
She smiled.
"Perhaps."
And then she added quietly:
"But now, when I look at you, I am beginning to understand that perhaps that was exactly the point."
"What do you mean?"
"That you did not go out in order to return as you were. You went out in order to change."
I looked at her.
For a moment I felt that the vast distance between us was shrinking.
Not because I remembered her.
But because I managed to understand a little of the woman who sat before me.
And then a voice was heard from outside.
Not singing.
Not wind.
A deep voice, which made the windows tremble.
The woman froze in her place.
The red light around her awakened all at once.
She turned to the door.
"They have found us," she whispered.
I felt alertness.
"Who?"
She did not answer.
Outside the house, footsteps were heard.
Heavy footsteps.
Not a movement of consciousnesses.
Footsteps of something with weight.
The woman approached me quickly.
"Listen to me. Whatever happens now, do not allow them to take you to the place where there is no memory."
"Who are they?" I asked again.
She took my hand.
For the first time I felt a touch so strong that it almost hurt me.
"Those who did not want you to return."
The door opened.
And in the doorway stood a figure unlike any creature I had seen since I arrived at the Tree of Eternity.
It had a body.
A real body.
It breathed.
And I clearly saw its chest rising and falling.
I felt amazement take hold of me.
In a place where consciousnesses existed without a body, before me stood a living, breathing creature.
It raised its head.
Looked at me.
And said in a completely human voice:
"The time has come for you to return what you took before you were born."
The woman beside me tightened her grip on my hand.
And I, who had thought I had already parted from everything that could frighten me in human life, suddenly felt a very familiar fear.
Because for the first time since I bit into the fruit, before me stood someone whose breathing I could hear.
But I could not sense his thoughts.
And I understood that there are beings in creation that even eternity is unable to see into.
End of Chapter Eleven
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Ten — The City Where There Is No Death · Chapter Twelve — What Was Taken Before Birth →
