The Journey to Eternity · A serialized book by Nurit Rozenblat
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Two — Those Who Chose to Stay · Chapter Twenty-Four — What Was Before the Beginning →
Chapter Twenty-Three — She Who Crossed the Door
The space to which the record led us was unlike any place I had seen until then.
There were no cities, mountains or rivers in it. Nor sky in the sense I knew. Around us stretched a pale gray space, and within it floated transparent structures, some large and others so small they looked like drops of water.
Between the structures passed thin lines of light.
They did not move at a fixed pace. At times they grew stronger, and at times they almost disappeared, as if the whole place were breathing a slow breath.
Sahar stopped first.
"I have not been here for a long time," he said.
I looked at him.
"Do you know the place?"
"It was once called the Space of the Quiet Passages."
"Why quiet?"
"Because many consciousnesses were not meant to pass here. Only those who needed a place where they could learn to exist anew after a great change."
Eliya approached one of the transparent structures.
"I remember this place," she said. "But it looks different."
"What changed?" I asked.
"There were once many more lights here."
I looked at the empty structures.
For the first time since I began investigating the story of the disconnected consciousnesses, I felt we were approaching someone who might be able to tell us what happened after she came out of the door.
No longer a record.
No longer the memory of someone else.
But the testimony of one who had experienced the passage herself.
Adara sent a weak signal to the structures.
It passed between them, touched each of them, and disappeared.
We waited.
After a while a small light appeared in one of the distant structures.
It approached slowly.
At first it looked like a white point, but as it came closer, a form began to take shape around it.
A female figure.
Neither young nor old.
Her face was calm, and her light hair reached her shoulders. Her eyes seemed almost transparent, and within them moved shades I could not distinguish.
She stopped at a distance from us.
"Who is looking for me?" she asked.
Adara advanced one step.
"We are looking for the consciousness who crossed the gate from the disconnected space, in the period when the passages were still active."
The woman looked at her.
"Why?"
"We are trying to create a safe way for the consciousnesses still there."
The expression on her face changed.
Not much.
But something in her eyes became alert.
"They are still there?"
"Yes," I answered.
The woman turned her gaze to me.
"All of them?"
"We do not know."
She was silent.
Then she asked:
"How much time has passed?"
Sahar lowered his head.
Adara answered carefully:
"A very long time."
The woman looked at her.
"I know that time has passed. I am asking how much."
Adara told her.
I did not know the units of time she used, but I saw the change in the woman's face.
She moved slightly away.
For a moment I thought she would leave.
But then she returned.
"I did not know," she said quietly.
She invited us to enter the structure in which she lived.
The walls were semitransparent, and in its center stood a round table.
There were not many objects in it.
A few smooth stones.
A small bowl with water in it.
And on one of the walls appeared delicate signs, arranged in rows.
The woman noticed my gaze.
"Those are my days," she said.
"Do you count days?"
"Not exactly. I mark periods in which I learned something I did not know before."
I approached the wall.
There were hundreds of signs on it.
Perhaps thousands.
"What is your name?" I asked.
She smiled faintly.
"Here they call me Nera."
"Is that the name you had before the passage?"
"No."
She looked at the signs on the wall.
"My previous name I do not remember."
I felt pain.
"Did you lose it when you came out?"
"Perhaps. But I am not sure I remembered it even before that."
She sat down.
"I understand you came to ask how I succeeded in coming out."
"Yes," I said.
"Then first you should know that I am not sure I succeeded in the way you think."
We sat down before her.
Adara opened the ancient record.
We saw again the small light approaching the gate, stopping, then coming out into the open space.
Nera looked at the sight without speaking.
When the record ended, she said:
"That indeed was I."
I felt relief.
"Do you remember the moment?"
"Part of it."
"What do you remember?"
She closed her eyes.
"I remember fear. Not fear of the world outside. Fear that if I crossed, I would not know where I end."
Liara came closer.
"That is, you feared losing your boundaries?"
Nera nodded.
"In the disconnected space we were not connected to one another as the consciousnesses in the Valley of Consent were. But our boundaries were damaged. Sometimes I heard thoughts that were not mine. Sometimes I remembered things that had not happened to me."
I thought of the third consciousness I had met.
The one who feared nothing would remain of her if the foreign memories were separated.
"How did you know what was yours?" I asked.
Nera smiled sadly.
"I did not always know."
"Then how did you succeed in coming out?"
She looked at me.
"Because I stopped trying to know everything before I took the first step."
I did not understand.
"Explain to me."
Nera looked at the bowl of water.
"When I was there, I tried all the time to identify who I was. I searched for a first memory, a name, a form, something that would tell me with certainty where I begin and where the others end."
She stopped.
"But the more I searched, the more confused I became."
"And what changed?"
"One day I heard a voice beyond the gate."
I looked at Adara.
"The consciousness who waited for you?"
Nera nodded.
"She did not ask who I had been. She did not ask me to remember. She only asked whether I could distinguish between what I want and what she wants."
"And could you?"
"At first, no."
She smiled.
"So she began with small things. She would ask if I wanted her to speak or to be silent. If I wanted her to come closer or to move away. If I wanted to continue the conversation or to stop."
Liara looked at her intently.
"That is, she taught you to recognize choice."
"Yes."
Nera turned to me.
"I did not need to remember who I had been thousands of years ago in order to know that I wanted her to move slightly away."
I thought about the sentence.
It was simple.
And yet something in it seemed to me more important than all the records we had examined.
"And that is how your boundaries grew stronger?"
"Gradually. Each time I chose something and she honored the choice, I could feel that there is in me a place from which the decision comes."
She looked at us.
"I did not know whether that place had always existed in me. But I knew it exists now."
Eliya leaned forward.
"Who was the consciousness who waited for you?"
Nera was silent.
"I do not know her name."
"How can that be?" Adara asked.
"She did not tell me."
I looked at her.
"You did not ask?"
"I asked."
"And what did she answer?"
Nera smiled.
"She said her name would not help me know whether I wanted to come out."
Sahar raised his head.
"Was she one of the guardians of the passage?"
"Perhaps."
Nera thought a moment.
"I remember one more thing. She told me she would not cross the gate with me."
"Why?"
"Because if she entered my space, she might pull me toward her."
Liara nodded slowly.
"She understood that her presence needed to remain outside your boundary."
"Yes."
Nera looked at me.
"She told me something I have not forgotten."
I waited.
"I can wait for you on the other side. But you will have to be the one who crosses."
I felt the words deep inside me.
I thought of all the times I tried to help another person do something he feared.
Of the desire to make it easier for him.
To explain.
To persuade.
Sometimes even to do it in his place.
But there were steps that could not be taken for someone else.
You can stand beside him.
You can extend a hand.
You can prepare the way.
But you cannot live his life in his place.
"And what happened when you came out?" I asked.
Nera looked at the transparent wall.
"At first I did not feel freedom."
I was surprised.
"No?"
"No. I felt lost."
She smiled sadly.
"In the disconnected space I knew every movement. I knew what would happen if I approached the edge, if I moved away from the voices, if I tried to remember. Here everything was open."
"And that frightened you?"
"Very much."
"Then why did you not go back?"
Nera lowered her gaze.
"Because I could not."
A silence fell.
Adara came closer.
"What do you mean, you could not?"
"The gate closed behind me."
I looked at her.
"But in the record it was said that the passage could be stopped."
"The contact could be stopped," Nera answered. "Not the way back."
I felt a strange cold.
Not the cold of a body.
A feeling of something I had not understood until now.
"That is, you could not choose to return to the place you came out of?"
"Correct."
"Did you know that before you crossed?"
Nera was silent.
Then she said:
"No."
I looked at Adara.
She seemed troubled.
"The record does not mention that," she said.
Nera smiled sadly.
"The record shows that I succeeded in coming out. It does not show what happened after the gate closed."
I felt the meaning of the things.
All this time we had been looking for an example of success.
We found a consciousness who came out and kept herself.
But we had not asked whether she received all the information before she chose.
We had not asked whether she had a way back.
We had not asked what she lost.
"Do you regret coming out?" I asked.
Nera looked at me for a long time.
"Sometimes."
The answer surprised me.
"Why?"
"Because I left someone there."
She stopped.
"I did not know whether she would succeed in coming out after me. I thought I could go back and help her."
"Who was she?"
"A consciousness I knew there. She was very afraid. We would sometimes speak."
Nera looked at the bowl of water.
"Before I came out I promised her that if I found a safe place, I would return and tell her."
I felt pain.
Another promise.
Another door.
"And what happened?"
"I tried to return. The gate did not open. I tried to create contact. There was no answer."
"So you stayed here?"
"At first I waited by the passage. Afterward I moved to this structure. I learned to know the place. I learned to create connections."
She smiled faintly.
"But every time I heard a signal from the gate, I would stop and listen."
I thought of Eliya.
Of her waiting.
Of the fact that different people can carry inside them promises that were not kept.
"Do you still want to go back?" I asked.
Nera thought for a long time.
"I want to know what happened to her."
"And if she is still there?"
"I want to speak with her."
"And if she does not want to come out?"
Nera lowered her gaze.
"Then I will have to accept that."
Sahar rose and approached the wall.
"There is something I do not understand," he said.
We all looked at him.
"If the passage closed behind you, how did you succeed in keeping the contact with the consciousness who waited for you?"
Nera looked at him.
"I did not keep it."
"But the record shows a stable contact even after the exit."
"For a short time only."
Adara opened the record again.
We saw the two figures standing opposite each other.
The thin line between them lit up.
Then the record ended.
"We do not see what happened afterward," I said.
Nera nodded.
"After the gate closed, the consciousness who waited for me stayed with me for a while. She helped me understand the new place. But one day she said she had to go."
"Where?" Eliya asked.
"She did not say."
"Did she return?"
"No."
I looked at Nera.
"How did you feel when she left?"
Nera smiled sadly.
"I was angry."
"Why?"
"Because I thought she had promised not to leave me."
"And did she promise?"
"No. She promised to wait for me on the other side of the gate. And she kept that promise."
She stopped.
"But I wanted her to stay forever."
I listened to her.
There was something very familiar in her story.
Sometimes we receive help from someone during a hard period, and gradually begin to believe he must continue to be there even after the period ends.
Not necessarily because we are selfish.
But because his presence becomes part of our sense of security.
"And what happened afterward?" I asked.
"I learned to be here even without her."
"How?"
Nera smiled.
"At first in anger. Afterward in fear. And in the end out of curiosity."
She pointed at the signs on the wall.
"These are the things I learned since then."
I looked at them again.
Each sign represented a period.
Not a day.
Not a year.
But a change.
"Are you happy here?" I asked.
Nera thought.
"There are periods when I am. There are periods when I long. And there are days when I feel nothing special."
She smiled.
"I think that is part of life."
I asked Nera to tell us about her first attempts after coming out.
She told of the fear of approaching other consciousnesses.
Of how at first every contact aroused in her a fear that she would lose herself.
She would move away at once when someone tried to share a memory with her.
Sometimes even a simple conversation was hard.
"I felt that anything new might enter me and remain there," she said.
"And what helped you?" Liara asked.
"I learned to choose how close I wanted to be."
"How?"
Nera pointed at two stones placed on the table.
She moved them away from each other.
"At first I needed a large distance."
She brought them slightly closer.
"Afterward I learned that one can draw closer without uniting."
She left a small gap between them.
"But even now there are moments when I ask others to move away."
I looked at the stones.
"And do they honor that?"
"Not all of them."
She smiled.
"There are consciousnesses who think that if I am not willing to share with them everything I feel, I do not trust them."
I thought of Eliya.
Of our conversation in the room with two windows.
"And what do you tell them?"
"That trust does not require me to give up my boundaries."
Eliya smiled faintly.
I saw that she remembered the same lesson.
After a while Nera asked to see our records.
Adara opened before her the structure we had prepared for the new passage.
Nera examined it in silence.
"You intend to allow one consciousness to come out at a time?"
"Yes," I answered.
"And who will wait for her on the other side?"
"We have not yet decided."
Nera looked at me.
"That is an important decision."
"I know."
"It is not enough for the departing consciousness to agree. Whoever waits for her must also understand what his role is."
"What do you propose?"
Nera thought.
"That there be no one there who wants to rescue her."
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because one who wants to rescue may come too close."
She stopped.
"What is needed is someone able to stand aside even when the departing consciousness is afraid. Someone who will not pull her toward him just to ease his own fear."
I thought about that.
"And are you willing to be there?" I asked.
Nera looked at me in surprise.
"I?"
"You know the passage. You know what it feels like to cross it."
She was silent.
"I do not know if I can," she said at last.
"Why?"
"Because I remember how afraid I was. And I am not sure I will succeed in watching someone else go through it without trying to help too much."
I nodded.
She smiled sadly.
"You see? Even one who has already walked the way is not necessarily suited to lead others."
After that Nera asked who the consciousness who wanted to come out was.
I told her about the young voice.
About the memory of wind on her face.
About the desire to feel again.
Nera listened.
"She sounds ready to take a risk," she said.
"Yes."
"But that does not mean she understands what will happen if she succeeds."
I looked at her.
"What do you mean?"
"She imagines the exit as the moment when everything she lacks will return. But it may be that she comes out and does not feel wind on her face. It may be that she has no body. It may be that she remains a consciousness who needs to learn anew how to live."
Her words struck me.
I thought of myself.
Of the moment I ate the fruit.
Of the expectation that eternal life would grant me absolute freedom.
I had not thought then about longing for touch.
About the possibility of being close to my children and unable to hug them.
"We need to tell her that too," I said.
Nera nodded.
"Yes."
Before we left, I asked her one more thing.
"Would you be willing to speak with her?"
Nera looked at me.
"Through the contact?"
"Yes. Without crossing the gate. Only to tell her about your experience."
She thought for a long time.
"I am willing," she said at last. "But I do not want to persuade her to come out."
"Neither do I."
"And I want you to know that if she chooses to stay, it will not necessarily be a wrong decision."
I nodded.
"I know."
Nera smiled.
"I am not sure you know fully."
I looked at her.
She continued:
"You still feel responsible for what happened in the past. Sometimes the desire to repair an injustice can make us believe we must change the state of the one who was harmed."
I was silent.
"But perhaps some of the consciousnesses will choose to stay. And perhaps some will come out and then want to return."
"That is why we are trying to create a passage that can be returned through."
"Yes. And that is important. But even if you succeed, you will not be able to promise that all of them will be happy."
I looked at her.
"I do not want to promise that."
Nera nodded.
"Then perhaps you are beginning to understand what it means to help."
We left the structure.
The pale gray space looked quieter.
Or perhaps I was quieter.
Sahar walked beside me.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"That we are still far from a solution."
"True."
"But we found someone who can tell us what is missing in the records."
He nodded.
"And that is more important than it seems."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because records tend to end at the moment the experiment succeeds or fails. The life of the one who took part in it goes on afterward."
I thought of Nera.
Of the signs on the wall.
Of the periods when she was happy.
Of the periods when she longed.
Of the promise she had not succeeded in keeping.
She was not only proof that coming out was possible.
She was a woman who lived a whole life after the exit.
On the way back to the city I asked Eliya a question.
"Do you think one can ever know enough to make a decision without regrets?"
She smiled.
"No."
"Even after thousands of years?"
"Even after thousands of years."
I looked at her.
"Then what is the advantage of all that time?"
She thought.
"Perhaps we have more opportunities to understand why we erred."
"And is that enough?"
"Not always."
She stopped.
"But sometimes it allows us not to repeat the same mistake."
When we returned to the library, Adara opened the old records and compared them with the things Nera had told.
The gaps were many.
The records documented the moment of the exit.
They did not document the loneliness after it.
They documented the keeping of boundaries.
They did not document the fear of new connections.
They documented success.
But not the price.
"We need to change the way we examine the passage," I said.
Adara looked at me.
"How?"
"It is not enough to know whether the consciousness came out and kept herself. We need to know what happens to her afterward."
"How long afterward?"
I thought.
"As long as she agrees that we remain in contact."
Eliya nodded.
"Without turning the contact into an obligation."
"Yes."
Sahar came closer.
"And what if she asks to return?"
I looked at him.
"Then we will need to make sure she has a way."
Adara was silent.
"That is the hardest part," she said.
"I know."
At that moment a faint light appeared in the center of the table.
It did not come from the records.
It was a signal from the disconnected space.
Adara opened it.
The young voice was heard at once.
"I want to speak with the one who came out."
I smiled.
"We found her. She agreed to speak with you."
A silence fell.
Then the question was heard:
"Is she happy?"
I looked at Adara.
At Eliya.
At Liara.
None of us answered at once.
At last I said:
"Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. She lives a life of her own."
The voice was silent.
"That is not what I thought," she said.
"What did you think?"
"That one who comes out no longer suffers."
I felt the meaning of the things.
"I do not think there is a place where one never suffers," I said.
The voice sounded weaker.
"Then why come out?"
I looked at the window.
At the city.
At the lights moving between the buildings.
I thought of my human home.
Of the children.
Of all the beautiful and hard moments I had experienced.
"I cannot answer for you," I said.
"But you came out."
"Yes."
"And are you happy?"
I was silent.
I thought of what I had lost.
Of what I had discovered.
Of the possibilities that opened before me.
"There are moments when I am very happy," I said. "And there are moments when I long so much that I do not know what to do with the longing."
The voice was silent.
"And do you still want to continue?"
I looked at the lights of the city.
"Yes."
"Why?"
I thought for a long time.
"Because there are more things I want to experience. People I want to know. Things I want to understand."
She was silent.
Then she asked:
"Even if you suffer?"
"Even then."
The voice weakened.
"I need to think."
"Of course."
"I want to speak with Nera before I decide."
"We will make sure you can."
The contact ended.
I stood before the table for a long time.
I now understood that the choice to come out is not only a choice of freedom.
It is also a choice of uncertainty.
Of the possibility of erring.
Of the possibility of longing.
Of the possibility of discovering that the world outside is not as we imagined.
But also of the possibility of knowing something we did not know.
Of loving someone we had not met.
Of learning something that will change us.
I thought of myself.
Of the moment I stood before the Tree of Eternity.
Of the golden fruit.
Of the choice I made.
I did not know then what the price would be.
Perhaps even if I had known, I would have chosen differently.
And perhaps not.
But now I understood something I had not understood then.
Freedom does not promise we will choose rightly.
It gives us the possibility to choose, to bear the consequences, and to learn from them.
Before I left the library, I approached Adara.
"I want us to examine one more thing," I said.
"What?"
"Whether we can create a passage that does not close behind the one who comes out."
Adara looked at me.
"That will be complicated."
"I know."
"It may be that we will need to change part of the ancient system."
"Then we will examine how."
She was silent.
"And what if we discover it is impossible?"
I thought about the question.
"Then we will tell that to those who want to come out."
Adara nodded.
"And we will not decide in their place?"
"Not without examining what the meaning of their choice is also for the others."
She smiled faintly.
"You are becoming more careful."
"Perhaps."
"And braver too."
I looked at her.
"I do not feel brave."
"Sometimes courage is the ability to remain before a hard question without hurrying to close it."
I went out to the garden.
The lights above the city moved slowly.
I sat down beside one of the trees.
I thought of Nera.
Of the young consciousness.
Of the woman who did not want to come out.
Of Eliya.
Of the woman who had returned to my home.
Of each of them, who chose a different way.
And suddenly I felt my journey changing.
At its beginning I wanted to reach places no one had reached.
I wanted to know what preceded creation, what lies beyond time, whether there is an end to the universe, and whether a consciousness can exist forever.
Those questions still lived in me.
I still wanted to find answers to them.
But now, when I met so many consciousnesses, I began to understand that the universe is not only a space of secrets.
It is also a space of lives.
Of different desires.
Of fears.
Of connections.
Of choices.
And every consciousness in it is a world that cannot be understood only from outside.
I looked at the branches of the tree.
They moved in a wind I did not feel on my face.
I remembered the young consciousness who wanted to feel wind again.
I hoped that one day she could.
But for the first time I did not feel I had to be the one to grant her that feeling.
I only wanted to help her reach a place where she could choose her way.
And perhaps that was the greatest difference between who I was when I closed the door, and who I am trying to be now.
Once I believed responsibility meant deciding what would protect the others.
Now I began to understand that responsibility can also be the ability to give them the truth, the possibilities and the support needed, and then honor their choice.
Even when it is different from mine.
Even when it frightens me.
Even when I do not know how it will end.
The wind went on moving the branches of the tree.
I could not feel it.
But I could see its effect.
I thought that perhaps love is like that too.
One cannot always hold on to it.
One cannot always prove it.
Sometimes we know it exists only from what it allows others to be.
I remained there a while longer.
Then I rose and returned to the city.
I did not search for a great answer.
I searched for the way to continue.
And I understood that sometimes, in order to open a door for someone else, one must first learn that not everyone standing behind it asks us to lead him.
There are those who want us to wait.
There are those who want us to listen.
And there are those who want only to know that when they choose to come out, we will not try to turn them into who we think they should be.
Because true freedom is not only the possibility of leaving the place in which we were imprisoned, but the possibility of continuing to be who we are even after we have come out of it.
End of Chapter Twenty-Three
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Two — Those Who Chose to Stay · Chapter Twenty-Four — What Was Before the Beginning →
