Fare Forward Read online

  "You only fear what you do not understand, what you cannot see. Soon we will show you—the proof!"

  I am glad to have escaped the sensations I felt while he was speaking. I look across the table at Emily and see the pride, admiration, and respect on hers and everyone's faces as they stand to honor my grandfather. He looks so small standing on the podium. But, there is something else, something new in his eyes. It's a certain resolve. As if it no longer matters to him what others think. That what matters now is what he knows in his heart to be true.

  What he has always known.

  A cool breeze blows into the massive white tent; it circles me and stirs up the hem of my dress, pulls the hair across my face, and conceals my eyes momentarily. As I turn my head, I recognize a familiar face across the room, staring intently at me. It's the face that I could not get out of my mind. I blink and try to look out across the darkness, but when I attempt to find him again, he is gone.

  "And so," my grandfather says, "I want each of you to remember that there is much light in the darkness of this world. Thank you so much for recognizing my team with this award. None of this is the work of one person. I cannot take credit without recognizing my peers and key collaborators."

  He proudly names each of his research associates and assistants of the last few years. All at once, I know why I have felt the familiar sensation, the signs of my premonition. The last name he says, clearly and carefully, is Benjamin Landsman.

  * * *

  19

  * * *

  IT WAS TIME for my life to begin.

  You've saved others, the voice inside of me whispered. It's time, to save yourself.

  Being in New York felt like standing in a doorway, a threshold to a turbulent sea of energy and strength, a blended collection of human qualities—wisdom and ignorance, suffering and joy. Architecture school was everything: an attempt at victory of the spirit over the forces of gravity and greed and an opportunity to lose myself in the limitless potential of the city. Escape the ghosts of my past.

  Several weeks earlier, the architecture critic had stood in front of the room. She seemed much younger than I expected given her accomplishments and dense resume. A look of sympathy was subtly evident on her face.

  She read the vague program of the first assignment out loud to the eager students. "You will face the challenge of developing a poetic sensibility in the translation of your ideas into architectural composition. This time of investigation is meant to be a bridge between the realities of real-world construction, and the limitless opportunity of your own imaginations."

  My heart had accelerated in response to her words. The challenge of translating abstract ideas into something that could be built—out of bricks and mortar, steel and stone excited me. We were chained to our desks by the magnetic draw of the work and our passionate commitment to the search for meaning and knowledge. I observed with curiosity that the pursuit of physical pleasure and sexual experimentation was often used as an antidote to the emotional stress of the studio by some of my classmates. I had chosen not to partake in the potential opportunities, but maybe it was time for change.

  Try something new.

  My grandfather had prepared me for everything he knew lay ahead; the challenge of the curriculum and the power of my own questioning. He had his ways of encouraging me.

  "Proof." I had looked down at his finger as he pointed to the yellowed page in the autobiography of the architect Louis Kahn, several weeks before I left for New York.

  "Everything must begin with poetry and end as art." He read the words then stopped and looked right into my eyes. "You see, Gabriella, this is what you are doing."

  I had leaned against his desk, squinting in the faint light of his library as I attempted to read the small print above his finger.

  "You are looking for meaning, searching for answers. Creating architecture that expresses the spirit of this time. It is a worthy effort, Gabriella," he had said in encouragement.

  "I'm not sure where this is all going, but maybe I can find something." I hesitated. "It's how I can understand myself, by creating things."

  Architecture, paintings, garbage—at least I was trying.

  He nodded and hugged me, filling me with love and encouragement. Sent me out into the world with those words.

  * * *

  Typical of the architecture student's way, the real work gets done in the middle of the night. I have been in the studio for more than twelve hours and look around. The floor is littered with evidence of time spent: empty coffee cups and paper, fragments of the wood and cardboard used to build our models. It's the night before the first major midterm review and the studio is glowing, charged by the energy of those working late into the night. The activity inside the studio contrasts the stillness of the campus outside.

  Avery Hall, the school's neoclassical home since 1912, acts as the late-night incubator of a diversity of possible futures. Its starkly defined symmetrical proportions communicate to the world a recognizable iconography, the old belief that the secret of architectural quality is known, universal, and endlessly repeatable. Yet, the chaotic studio spaces within bristle with new ideas. The future of architecture evolves while the world sleeps.

  We each have a desk, laptop computer, printer, and pin-up board filled with images and photographs, quotations, schedules, and reminders. The essence of our lives reduced to this small area of space. A world unto itself that reveals so much about its occupant. The first day of school, I had quickly staked my claim on a desk in the rear of the studio, as far from the social hub of the room as possible—concealed, safe in the intimacy of the corner.

  It had been hours since I had taken a break, and I was working on a particularly challenging aspect of the current assigned project. I can feel the reduced energy in the room as students leave for the night. A song called Dreamer plays through my headphones, the words are insulation from the distractions of the studio. I stare at the symphony of lines on the page before me and feel the space around me disappearing.

  "Gabriella!" The voice is muted by the blasting percussion boring into my eardrums.

  I know it's Philip. He made quite a splash on the campus when he arrived bringing his paintings, his guitar, and his attitude of sexual freedom and challenge to our space. I don't turn around to meet his eyes. Instead, my hand reaches up and smoothes the hair on the back of his neck, the familiar shape of the curve down to his shoulder. I loved the reckless abandon with which he lived his life and always hoped that somehow it would wash off on me.

  "Let's go, kid, time to take a break. Burgers and beer at the club. We're all going. Enough torture." He squints at the overflowing basket of discarded drawings next to my desk. "It's time for something pleasurable for a change."

  "What are you doing, Philip?" I feel his arms wrap around me in a bear hug as he stops to breathe me in. I loved him in so many ways—just not the way he hoped. "I'm perfectly happy right here."

  "Tonight, Gabriella. Tonight—I'm going to show you something you'll never forget."

  He looked at me with a smile that would have melted most women.

  "Our relationship is very special to me, Philip. I'm not going to screw it up with sex."

  "You can love many people; you just love them differently. That's all it's just different."

  "Just friends, Philip," I laughed in response to his constant offers.

  "You and me." He teasingly points his finger at himself slowly, puts it against his mouth in a kiss then presses its wetness back onto my lips. "You and me, Gabriella. That's never going to change."

  "Stop it, Philip." I push him away, wiping my mouth with the back of my sleeve in mock disgust, laughing at his arrogance and the power of his personality. "You're shameless."

  "I know—but that's what you love about me, right?"

  "One of the things."

  "So?"

  "Platonic."

  "I'll try, but you don't make it easy." He winks at me.

  "I know you." I p
oint my finger into his ribs. "What you're thinking. Don't forget—we're way past that." But I wondered what was wrong with me.

  He looked at me and shook his head. "You're never going to change, but don't expect me to give up."

  I thought back to our adventures together in Europe. We had traveled, many times, through the back roads of Wales and Scotland together, painting the landscape and exploring Roman ruins. I knew he didn't share my powerful need to understand history.

  "Archaeology, Gabriella? Really. What is so bloody interesting? You spend your life trying to find things in the past."

  "It's the foundation of the world around us."

  "Well, it's time to live in the present."

  "Easy for you to say."

  "What is?"

  "To live in the present only."

  "Easier that is."

  "Don't you feel your past, who you are, everywhere around you?"

  "I don't know, Gabriella—"

  "Like the roots of a tree, you can't see them because they're buried deep underground. But they're there. Holding you up, feeding you, giving you strength to withstand the wind, the storms, the years."

  "And the future, you probably think that's somewhere in your tree too?"

  "I can hear it—in the breeze that blows through the branches. The sound in the shimmer of the leaves. It's like a promise. Besides, I must have inherited it. My grandmother was an archaeologist."

  "Of course she was." He rolled his eyes. "But you can't go through life only believing in music and art, poetry and—"

  "And what, Philip?"

  "Love."

  "Why not. What else is there?"

  * * *

  20

  * * *

  WHEN WE WERE AT Oxford together, Philip and I always traveled without a map. We believed that what we might happen upon unexpectedly, where fate would lead us, would be more interesting than any plan. We found bed and breakfasts, villages, and the secrets of another world. We stayed in the same room to save money, often sleeping in one bed. I could remember many times opening my eyes to see him looking down at me. Embarrassed that I had caught him, he would quickly turn his face away.

  "Philip, what is it?"

  "You were dreaming, Gabriella. Saying crazy things. About Paris. Are you okay?"

  "It pulls me back in, Philip. I can't get away from it." I wondered what else I had revealed.

  "You can't blame yourself. You have to stop this. Please, stop torturing yourself." I could feel his power, his breath so close to me. The pounding of his heart. "We've been over this so many times. How could you have known? Nobody could have known."

  It was the same conversation over and over, but now we were in New York, and I had come to my desk in the corner to find a small rose in a recycled plastic coffee cup with a card signed, your British secret admirer. I remember smiling at his thoughtfulness. The image of the red flower incongruous in the presence of everything else in the architecture studio.

  I feel him pull me off the stool and away from my desk as he pries the pencil out of my hand. It's tempting, even for me.

  "I really can't." I try not to laugh. "I still have so much work to do, get ready for tomorrow, but thanks anyway. Philip, you go." I am completely unconvincing.

  "Gabriella, I am not taking no for an answer this time." He shakes his head as his long dark hair covers his eyes, the accent quite irresistible. He drops the bag that has been thrown over his shoulder until moments before. Clearly he needs both hands for something. Before I can brace myself, he grabs me under the arms and pulls me off the stool, practically throwing me over his shoulder. I feel the strength in his arms encircling my body, twisting the delicate fabric of my blouse as I try to object. I know I'm resisting with half a heart. Getting out of the studio is exactly what I need.

  "Philip, no!" But it's too late.

  I have been drawing and redrawing the same lines on the page—zoned out. We look at each other for a minute, and, rather than resist, I surrender.

  "Nice rose." He winks at me.

  We burst out of Avery Hall, past the tall granite columns, and run down the great steps of the university campus, out into the cold New York night. Our laughter pierces the silence of the darkness. We connect with a giddy mob of exhausted students, re-entering the world where time is measured in ways other than drawings completed and models built. We all feel the power of being in this place, on the cutting edge, the danger and promise of it. The lights in the other buildings are dark, all are sleeping giants, while the windows in Avery Hall glow around the clock. Time stands still in the pursuit of truth in the visual arts as we try to balance our lives and straddle the moving border between the known and unknown.

  Whenever I am in a group of my peers, a self-conscious caution is always my companion. Controlling any release, protecting the parts of myself I have kept hidden for so many years. Never one to miss out on any experience of the mind, I wonder whether it is time to let myself go physically as well. I had allowed myself experimentation in the past, approaching the experience detached, with my emotions buried—safe—below a web of protection. It felt like an investigation, an experiment to be evaluated and analyzed like scientific data. Hardly inspiring.

  Philip was trying, though, he was relentless.

  He grabs my hand and interlaces his arm with mine. The undeniable pleasure in this intimate connection surprises me, and our eyes meet briefly, mine questioning, his smiling. He pulls his coat around my shoulders then wraps his arms around me.

  Dan, another classmate, runs up to us and tries to grab me away from Philip.

  "Well, well, the great Dr. Vogel's granddaughter has decided to join the regular people."

  Philip shoves him away from me. This is not a connection I like to advertise.

  "No way, Gabriella? Why didn't you tell me?" another girl asks, as she realizes who Dan has mentioned. "You are related to him?"

  "Yes, he's my grandfather." I try to compose myself, not wanting my voice to betray my feelings. "He used to teach here but lives in Boston now."

  As if who and where he is needs clarification. There are posters all over campus advertising his upcoming visit. I had seen many of my classmates reading the details in the article that had been circulating. In light of the massive press coverage of the recent event at the museum, everyone seems to know about my life and my grandfather's theories.

  "Didn't you see Gabriella on the cover of the papers a few weeks ago with him? Their pictures were everywhere after that awards ceremony. Your grandfather is going to explain the universe. The 'Theory of Everything,' right?"

  If it was possible to disappear I would have done so on the spot.

  "Oh my God. Gabriella, I didn't even put it together, of course it's you," she says. "You just look so different in the pictures."

  Yes, I tried. Getting dressed up to attend an awards ceremony afforded me the chance to break away from my normal all-black, no-makeup look.

  "Thanks." I'm trying to be gracious. "That was a big night for all of us."

  "Come on, guys, leave her alone. Let's go!"

  Philip saves me. We break into a run and pull away from the others; the race to get down Broadway and to the door of the club first is on.

  As we approach the entrance, the powerful beat of the drum and guitar vibrate out the door. The crowded space is dark and full. Bodies press against each other. Students ready to release the stress of the week with live music, beer, and an atmosphere of suggestion and possibility. I am relieved to have an excuse to change the subject, the deafening music an opportunity to escape from the conversation and questions about my grandfather.

  My other life.

  It's nice to be out with a group of my peers. Not worrying about anything, as time carries us along in its crush of forward motion. Exploration, challenge, friendship, intimacy, these are the markers that highlight our lives.

  It feels good to get out. I should try this more often.

  * * *

  21
r />   * * *

  IT WAS IN SITUATIONS like this where I was beginning to become aware of the effect I had on men. Philip's eyes move down the axis from my eyes and mouth across my blouse and down the length of my body. Taking everything in.

  I observe him in a detached way; this is a power that I have not fully explored.

  The lights, beer, and crush of people on the dance floor are beginning to make my head spin, compressing movement and energy. There is something in the way the music and the flashing lights are taking hold, and I need to find a chair.

  "Let's sit, Philip."

  I gesture back to the tables as I try to find a place far away from the large speakers. I know that he can't hear me above the blast of the band, and if he understands what I'm trying to say, he ignores me and instead, pulls me onto the dance floor. I recognize a force of intense pressure between my eyes. It's the familiar sensation, the rising feeling that always accompanies my ability. To see the future.

  No. Not now, I plead silently.

  I had decided that this power, this ability, this curse I have lived with for so long would not invade my new life in New York. With all the force of will that I can find, I try to push it away and focus instead on Philip and the music. I look up at him and his eyes meet mine. I know that his logic is distorted by fatigue and alcohol, yet he interprets this as interest and reaches out for me, wrapping his arm around my waist as he pulls me into him. I feel his hands move into the loose sleeves of my blouse and up my arms to my shoulders as the heat from his palms burns into my skin. I lean into him as we move together to the music, and my hands reach up and circle around the back of his neck. I close my eyes tightly as I push away the feeling, the powerful dark images, the familiar sensation. Instead, I try to lose myself in the moment and the feeling of being so close to him.