The Journey to Eternity · A Philosophical Novel by Nurit Rozenblat
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Eight — The Life Before Life · Chapter Thirty — What We Could Not Forget →
Chapter Twenty-Nine — What Memory Hides
When I woke the next day, the first thought that rose in me was that I had never truly known when my life began.
Until yesterday I had been certain that I was born on a certain day, in a certain place, to a woman who became my mother and a man who was my father. I knew where I grew up; I remembered the first home, the voices of childhood, the people who accompanied me and those who are no longer here.
And now it turned out that all of these were perhaps only the beginning of a single chapter in a much longer existence.
I did not know how to feel.
Should I rejoice that death is not necessarily final for me? Should I fear the possibility that I had lived whole lives I do not remember? And perhaps the strangest thing of all was that this knowledge did not change the way I loved my family.
My children were still my children.
My mother was still my mother.
My longing for her had not diminished just because I may have existed before she was born.
I thought about the silver bird.
She knew things about me that I did not know about myself, and yet she left me with more questions than answers.
But this time I did not want to seek her out.
I wanted to discover for myself.
Liara was waiting for me in the square outside the workshop.
"Did you sleep?" she asked.
I smiled.
"I no longer know if it can be called sleep."
"Rested, then?"
"Not exactly that either."
She laughed quietly.
"You are beginning to sound like one of the ancient consciousnesses."
"That worries me."
She looked at me.
"Why?"
"Because I still want to feel like an ordinary woman sometimes."
Liara placed her hand on my arm.
"You do not have to stop being who you were in order to discover who else you were."
We walked together to the workshop.
On the way, I told her again about the conversation with the bird.
She listened as if she were hearing it for the first time.
"There is one thing I do not understand," she said at last.
"Only one?"
"If you chose to forget your previous lives, why did you also choose to return to them?"
I thought.
"Maybe I did not know I would return."
"And maybe you knew you would have the possibility of choosing anew."
I looked at her.
"Do you think I left myself a way back?"
"I think you should find out."
Naama was waiting for us by the table.
Adra and Eliya were already there.
"Ready?" Naama asked.
"For what, exactly?"
"The archive."
I looked at her.
"I am not sure."
She smiled.
"That is a better answer than an automatic 'yes.'"
Adra came closer.
"We do not have to look for all the answers today."
"But yesterday a sign appeared that is connected to some presence in the room."
"True."
"And maybe it is connected to me."
"Maybe."
"So how will I know?"
Adra looked at me.
"We will go to the place where the things were kept and see what can be learned."
There was no great excitement in her.
She spoke as if she were suggesting we go out for a walk.
And maybe that was exactly what I needed.
The way to the Archive of the First Structures passed through a part of the city I had never visited.
The farther we moved from the familiar squares, the more the surroundings changed.
The buildings grew lower, the distances between them widened, and the light took on a soft hue I could not identify.
There were no streets there in the human sense.
The paths seemed as if they were created each time someone wished to pass along them.
In one place I saw a narrow bridge stretching over a deep space.
As we approached it, I noticed that beneath it there was neither water nor earth.
There were images.
Thousands of small images, moving slowly.
I saw a city that had vanished, a forest of astonishingly tall trees, creatures I did not know, and skies in which three suns could be seen.
I stopped.
"What is this?"
Adra looked down.
"Memories of places."
"Who kept them?"
"Those who wished them not to disappear entirely."
I bent down.
In one image I saw a woman standing at the edge of a black sea.
She held something small in her hands.
I could not make out what it was.
And then the image vanished.
"Does she still exist?" I asked.
"I do not know."
"And the place?"
"That is not certain either."
I looked at the space beneath the bridge.
"So even here, things can disappear."
"Yes," Adra replied.
"I thought eternity preserved everything."
"Eternity allows things to continue. It does not promise that nothing will be lost."
We continued walking.
Her words remained with me.
At the end of the path stood a structure unlike anything I had seen before.
From a distance it looked like a small mountain.
But as we came closer, I understood that it had no fixed form.
One moment I saw high walls in it, and another, broad steps leading to a lit opening.
For a moment it reminded me of an open book.
Then a shell.
And finally a simple structure with one door.
"Why does it change?" I asked.
"Because it was built in eras when different consciousnesses understood the concept of 'place' in different ways," Adra replied.
"And how does it know what to show me?"
"Maybe it does not know. Maybe you simply see what you are able to understand."
I thought about that.
How many things in the universe might be before us all the time, yet we are unable to see them because we have no way to imagine them?
I stood before the door.
It opened quietly.
Inside, a tall figure awaited us.
I could not determine whether it was a woman or a man.
Her face was delicate, but shifted slightly each time I looked at it.
"Welcome," she said.
"This is Nora," Adra introduced her. "She keeps some of the ancient records."
"Keeps?" I asked.
Nora smiled.
"Sometimes. At other times I mostly listen to people who are trying to understand what they are looking for."
"And do you know everything that is here?"
"No."
"Then who does?"
"I am not sure there is one person who knows everything."
I liked the answer.
It reminded me of the silver bird, but unlike her, Nora did not sound as though she were deliberately hiding something from me.
"We are looking for records of an ancient system," Adra said. "Seven connections, a separation that was not completed by consent, and an old authorization that is still being used even now."
Nora listened.
"I know the story," she said.
I felt excitement stir.
"Do you know what happened?"
"I know part of what was preserved."
"Then tell us."
Nora looked at me.
"Before I tell you, I want to show you something."
She led us to a large hall.
There were no shelves in it.
Instead, thousands of points of light hovered in the air.
Some moved around one another; others stood alone.
In the center of the hall I saw seven large lights.
Six of them were close to one another.
The seventh stood a little farther away.
I moved closer.
"This is the sign we saw in the workshop."
"Yes," said Nora.
"What does it represent?"
"An ancient attempt to create a way in which consciousnesses could act together without one of them losing its right to choose."
"So why is the seventh separate?"
"Because his role was different."
"What role?"
Nora looked at the lights.
"The first six dealt with the action itself. The seventh was meant to remind them that there are things one must not do merely because one can."
I stood in silence.
"Was he in charge of the others?"
"No. He was not a ruler. He could not decide in their stead."
"So what could he do?"
"Ask them to stop and listen to those whom the action would affect."
I thought of Ayla.
Of Nir.
Of the consciousnesses that remained in the disconnected spaces.
"And what happened when he asked them to stop?"
Nora did not answer immediately.
"This time, they did not wait for him."
The lights changed.
I saw them draw closer to one another.
Thin lines stretched between them.
For a moment a beautiful form was created, almost like a flower.
Then one of the lines tore.
The lights trembled.
Some of them moved away.
Others remained connected in a strange way, as if they tried to part but could not.
"Is that what happened?" I asked.
"That is a visualization of what was recorded. Not an image of the event itself."
"And what happened to the consciousnesses?"
"Some of them managed to leave. Others remained bound to places they had not chosen."
"And the seventh?"
Nora looked at the solitary light.
"We have no record of consent from him."
"But did he disappear?"
"So it appears in the later records."
"Then perhaps he was harmed."
"Perhaps."
"And perhaps he still exists."
"That is also a possibility."
I looked at the light.
I did not know why I felt sorrow.
Perhaps because I thought of someone who tried to speak and was not heard.
"There is something more," Nora said.
The lights vanished.
In their place, two signs appeared.
One was clear.
The other, blurred.
"Someone changed the way the approval given to the system could be used," she explained.
"Why?" Adra asked.
"To allow it to continue preparing for an action even if one of the connections had not yet answered."
"But not to carry out the action," Eliya said.
"Correct."
"So someone used the preparation as if it were approval?" I asked.
Nora looked at me.
"That is one of the possibilities arising from the records."
"And who did that?"
"We do not yet know."
I thought of the voice we had heard from the receiving station.
Of the warning to look not only for who asks to enter, but also for who gave him the way.
"And perhaps whoever did that is still trying to use the same way," I said.
Nora did not answer.
But I saw Adra and Eliya exchange a look.
We continued to a smaller room.
On the walls were signs I did not know.
In the middle of the room stood a dark mirror.
I looked into it.
I did not see myself.
"What is this?" I asked.
"A mirror of testimonies," Nora answered.
"Does it show the past?"
"Only things that were preserved in it."
I moved closer.
"Can anything be seen?"
"No. There are testimonies that belong to those who chose to keep them for themselves."
I thought of the silver bird.
Of how she had said that a record exists of my request to forget.
"And what if someone forgot their own testimony?"
Nora looked at me.
"That is an interesting question."
"Is there an answer?"
"Sometimes the record can be found. But it must be verified that it truly belongs to the one asking to see it."
I felt my heart, which was no longer a human heart, as if it missed a beat.
"I think perhaps there is something here that belongs to me."
I told Nora about the silver bird.
About the life before life.
About how I had chosen to forget.
She listened without interrupting.
"Do you remember anything from that time?" she asked.
"No."
"Not even a sensation?"
I thought.
"Sometimes there are places that feel familiar to me, but I do not know whether it is truly a memory."
"It could be a memory. And it could be something else."
"So how can one know?"
"There are records intended to preserve the continuity of identity even when a consciousness changes its form of existence."
"And can it be checked whether I have such a record?"
"Yes. But only if you wish it."
I looked at the mirror.
For a moment I thought of my human life.
Of how I would not want someone to open my thoughts without my permission.
"I want to know whether a record exists," I said. "But not to open the memories themselves."
Nora nodded.
"That can be done."
I stood before the mirror.
It remained dark.
For a moment nothing happened.
And then a faint light appeared.
Within it I saw a small sign.
A line that split into three directions and reunited at a single point.
I did not recognize it.
But as I looked at it, I felt as if someone called my name in a language I no longer know how to speak.
"What is this?" I asked.
"An identifier preserved for a consciousness that existed before its human life."
"Mine?"
"A match was found to your continuity."
I stood without moving.
"So it is true."
Nora looked at me.
"What is true?"
"That I did not begin my life when I was born."
"This record attests to an earlier existence of yours."
I looked at the sign.
It did not awaken a clear memory in me.
I heard no voice.
I saw no face.
But knowing that it belonged to me filled me with excitement.
I had been there.
Somewhere.
At a time I did not remember.
"Do I have a name?" I asked.
"Perhaps. But it does not appear in this part of the record."
"And can it be known what I did?"
"Not without opening additional testimonies."
I thought about that.
"I do not want to open everything at once."
Nora nodded.
"There is no need."
"But I want to know whether I was connected to the system of the seven connections."
She looked at me.
"It is possible to check whether your identifier appears in its records."
I felt fear.
"And what if it does?"
"Then we will know it appears there. Not necessarily what you did."
I looked at Liara.
She stood quietly.
"I want to check," I said.
Nora placed her hand on the mirror.
The light changed.
For a moment dozens of signs appeared.
And then only one remained.
That same sign.
My sign.
Beside it, seven dots appeared.
Six, connected.
And the seventh, alone.
I stood without moving.
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"That your identifier appears in one of the records connected to this system."
"So I was part of it?"
"Not necessarily. It may be that you were a witness to an event; it may be that you were involved in another way."
I looked at the lights.
"Can it be known?"
"Yes. But that is already part of your personal testimony."
I fell silent.
I did not know whether I was ready.
We left the room.
I needed time to think.
Liara walked beside me.
"Are you afraid?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Of what?"
"That I will discover I did something that harmed others."
She looked at me.
"And if you discover that?"
"I do not know."
"Do you think the woman you were before your human life is exactly who you are now?"
I thought.
"No. But she is part of me."
"Then perhaps you will need to know her before you decide what you think of her."
I looked at her.
"You are right."
On the way back we stopped beside the bridge beneath which the memories of places drifted.
I gazed at them.
I thought about how worlds, too, have a past.
Places, too, can change until they are unrecognizable.
And perhaps consciousnesses, too.
"Liara," I asked, "do you think it is possible to be the same consciousness and yet a completely different person?"
"Yes."
"How?"
"Like a river. The waters keep changing, but we still call it by the same name."
I smiled.
"That is a beautiful answer."
"I hope it is also a true one."
I looked at the memories.
Perhaps I did not need to fear so much who I had been.
Perhaps I simply needed to know her.
When we returned to the workshop, Naama stood by the window.
"How was it?" she asked.
"I found something I did not know existed."
"What?"
"A record of myself, from before my human life."
She turned.
"Truly?"
"Yes."
I told her about the mirror.
About the sign.
About the seven connections.
Naama listened.
"So there is some connection between you and the ancient system," she said.
"Yes. But I do not know what it is."
She thought for a moment.
"Perhaps we should examine the record without opening the memories themselves."
"How?"
"We could try to learn in which event your identifier appeared."
I nodded.
"That sounds right to me."
Adra returned later with additional information.
"I found an old testimony about the separation," she said.
"Whose?" I asked.
"We do not yet know. But the one who kept it asked for one thing to be recorded."
"What?"
Adra looked at me.
"That a temporary approval must not be used as if it were full consent."
I felt a shiver.
"And who said that?"
"The name does not appear."
"But there is an identifier?"
Adra nodded.
"Yes."
"May I see it?"
She showed me.
A line that split into three directions and reunited at a single point.
My identifier.
I stood before the sign.
I could not take my eyes off it.
"Was that me?" I asked.
Adra looked at me.
"If the identifier belongs to you, the record states that you were a witness to that change. But we will have to examine the details of the testimony to know precisely what you said and what your role was."
I looked at the sign.
For a moment I felt as if the distant past were drawing closer to me.
Not as a memory.
As a possibility.
Perhaps I had been there.
Perhaps I saw what occurred.
Perhaps I tried to stop it.
And perhaps not.
"I want to know," I said.
Adra nodded.
"We can return to the archive."
"Not now."
She looked at me in surprise.
"Why?"
"Because I want first to think about what I have already discovered."
Later I went out alone to the garden.
I sat beside a tall tree.
The wind moved through the leaves.
I remembered Ayla.
I had promised to tell her how a tree sounds when the wind passes through its branches.
I listened.
I thought about how memory is not only what we remember.
Sometimes it is also what we choose to preserve.
Sometimes it resides with someone else.
And sometimes it waits for us in a place we do not know exists.
I looked at the sky.
Until yesterday I thought my journey began the day I ate from the fruit of the Tree of Eternity.
Now I knew my story had begun much earlier.
But I did not know where.
Or why I had chosen to forget.
I rose from the stone.
There was curiosity within me.
Not that same simple curiosity that had led me to the tree the first time.
A deeper curiosity.
The kind born when we realize that perhaps we do not know ourselves as we thought we did.
When I returned to the workshop, Naama was waiting for me.
"We have received a message from the inner space of the receiving station," she said.
"From whom?"
"We do not know."
"What does it say?"
Naama showed me the words.
Do not activate the old authorization.
I looked at them.
"Why?"
"We do not yet know."
"Can we ask?"
"Yes."
Naama sent the question.
We waited.
For a moment nothing happened.
And then an answer appeared.
Because it does not belong to the one trying to use it.
I felt the air around me change.
"So someone is using the authorization of another consciousness?"
"That is how it appears from the message, but we still do not know who sent it or whether it is accurate."
I thought of my record.
Of the seven connections.
Of the seventh connection, which did not approve the separation.
"Naama," I asked, "do you think there is a connection between what we found today and what is happening at the station?"
She looked at me.
"I think we should look into it."
We stood by the window.
The city was quiet.
"There is something I do not understand," I said.
"What?"
"If someone used an authorization that was not his so long ago, why does it still exist?"
Naama considered.
"Perhaps because it was never cancelled."
"And why not?"
"Perhaps they did not know it was needed. Perhaps they could not. And perhaps someone wanted it to remain."
I looked at her.
"Do you think someone is waiting to use it again?"
"I do not know."
We fell silent.
And then a faint sound was heard from the bowl on the table.
Naama turned at once.
"Someone is on the channel."
I drew closer.
"Who?"
She opened only the communication channel.
At first, a murmur was heard.
And then a woman's voice.
"Can you hear me?"
"Yes," Naama answered.
"I do not know how long I will be able to speak."
"Who are you?"
There was silence.
And then the woman said:
"I am the one who tried to stop the separation."
I looked at Naama.
Adra drew closer from the next room.
"Which separation?" she asked.
"The one carried out before the seventh approval was received."
I felt a shiver.
"Were you there?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know who the seventh connection was?"
The woman did not answer immediately.
I heard something that sounded like a deep breath.
And then she said:
"I know why he did not answer."
The voice began to weaken.
"Why?" I asked.
Silence followed.
And then the last sentence was heard.
"Because someone used his authorization before he managed to choose."
The connection was severed.
We stood in silence.
Naama tried to establish contact again, but no answer came.
Adra looked at me.
"It seems we have found someone who knows what happened."
"Or at least someone who claims to know," I said.
Adra smiled a little.
"You are learning."
I looked at the bowl.
I did not know who the woman was.
I did not know whether she had known me.
I did not know whether my testimony was connected to her attempt to stop the separation.
But for the first time since we began investigating the ancient stations, I felt that the past was not merely a collection of records.
It held people.
It held fears.
It held choices.
And it held voices that went unheard.
I thought of the last voice we had heard.
Of a woman who tried to stop something and did not succeed.
And of a consciousness that did not get to choose.
And then I thought of myself.
Of who I was before I was born.
Perhaps I, too, stood there.
Perhaps I, too, tried to say something.
And perhaps the time has come for me to hear what I had to say.
End of Chapter Twenty-Nine
↑ Book index · עברית · ← Chapter Twenty-Eight — The Life Before Life · Chapter Thirty — What We Could Not Forget →
