Fare Forward Page 4

  Winking.

  This beach was my summer. It held so many memories of time with Emily and Lily, my grandparents, and the beautiful town of Gloucester. I remembered the many nights we spent as children lying on the beach together looking up at the dark sky, counting the shooting stars and tracing their momentary arc. I knew their life continued well beyond our line of sight. It made me think about what we can see and feel and touch—and what we cannot. What comes before and what comes after, our endless search for answers and the drive to explore and understand everything.

  The beach, the house, and my family history were an open book, waiting for us to discover the many mysteries they contained.

  "Wow, look at this one, Gabriella!"

  I remembered clearly the day Emily had held up a small yellowed photograph in a tarnished silver frame of a distinguished looking couple leaning against a ship's railing. They smiled into the camera with a fierce pride and independence.

  "Emily, please, put that down," I had begged her. "We're not supposed to touch things in her studio."

  I hadn't wanted to cross the line into my grandmother's private world. There was so much that I couldn't understand, the many treasured objects that I knew had been carried across the barren landscape of Eastern Europe, things that contained the vibrations of a lost world. Evidence of a life of struggle and oppression from which my family had emerged. Yet, these were the adventures of our summers in Gloucester, and we took our charge to uncover the secrets around us very seriously. Detectives we were— determined to understand it all.

  The powerful memories flood my mind.

  "You are welcome, children, to explore whatever you want when you are here. I have no secrets from you." My grandmother had swept into the room and saw Emily holding the photograph. She seemed pleased with our inquiry. "You like that picture? That was taken in 1943. Such an incredible time, the beginning of everything for me."

  She had walked over and picked it up, smiling at a private memory as she closed her eyes.

  "Who are they?" Emily's impatience broke the silence.

  She turned and faced the three of us, knowing how much we loved her stories.

  "Those people are Gabriella's great grandparents." She placed the frame back down on the windowsill. "My parents. They were traveling on a ship with Albert Einstein, on their way back from Japan. It was very exciting you know. He won a very special award. The Nobel Prize."

  She emphasized the word Nobel, and I thought I was the only other one in the room who knew what it meant.

  "My Papa is going to get one too." I directed the comment at my friends who immediately nodded in agreement.

  My grandmother laughed and said, "I don't know about that, sweetheart."

  "Where was the picture taken?" Lily asked.

  "At the Port of Haifa, in Israel. Well, it was called Palestine in those days. That was how people traveled, on big beautiful steamships. It took a long time to go places."

  "Isn't Haifa near where you live during the year, Gabriella? Near Zzzfat or however you say it?" Emily exaggerated the word.

  My grandmother was lost in her memory and continued, "And then my parents traveled to Jerusalem where I joined them."

  "You were there too?" Lily asked.

  "Yes, and I met Professor Einstein and some other fascinating people." She turned away from us momentarily when she spoke, as if she didn't want us to see something in her eyes. "But most important, that's when I met your grandfather."

  "Yes, my Papa knew Albert Einstein, the famous scientist. He is brilliant like him." I was so proud.

  "We know who he is, Gabriella." Emily glared at me.

  "Well, I love your stories, Grandma Sophie," Lily had continued, looking around the room, inspecting everything. "You always teach us so much."

  The collection of possessions reflected the very mixed class of Eastern European aristocracy, farmers, and Jewish intellectuals we had descended from. This blended background explained my physical appearance—and my temper. The "Russian peasant princess," my grandfather liked to call me.

  Gloucester was so different from where we had come from. At its heart a small village, this northeastern cape of Massachusetts was primarily inhabited by blue-collar workers and fishermen. However, there was another side to this place. It was home to many artists, writers, and thinkers and fostered a rich history of invention. There was a romance about this town that inspired so much creativity, its fragmented beauty continuous through all seasons. Our home in Gloucester had always been a gathering place for artists and writers, and I could feel the power of those who had been in these rooms. Of their minds.

  "This painting is beautiful." Lily had pointed to a painting that hung near a chair on the wall in the studio. "Squares, but soft, glowing— what squares would look like in heaven," she said, her face lit with excitement, "or if Gabriella painted it."

  "No." My grandmother smiled. "That is quite a compliment, but that is a painting by a famous artist named Mark Rothko. Now he was really something." She pushed up the sleeves of her flowing caftan as if just thinking about the painter raised her body temperature. Her hands smoothed the hair down and away from her face as her eyes closed in a dramatic gesture. "He loved to remind your grandfather that what really matters is the way we feel, the emotion in our lives. This he wanted to express with color, scale, and the simplest of forms. Rectangles! He used to say 'there is no such thing as a good painting about nothing!'"

  She shook her head at the genius of the simple statement and continued, "He wanted to question the physics, the science of your grandfather, 'so complicated' he used to say. But you see, they were all looking for answers—just in different mediums. Physics or art, it doesn't really matter, right? We are all searching for something."

  She stopped and knelt down to look at the three of us, her captivated audience. "Your lives should also be about ideas. Creating things. Decide what you want to change and how you think the world should be."

  This was how I grew up in this place: talking, dancing, kissing, questioning, laughing, and always, always creating. These were the beautiful memories that returned whenever I came here, and I would let myself live in them, especially when I was alone on the beach. But so many years had passed and everything had changed—Lily's accident, my parents' and the recent death of my grandmother, even my grandfather's retirement. Leaving me to navigate graduate school in New York with Emily as we prepared to fulfill a lifelong dream of living in the city together.

  I strip off my torn sweatpants and zip up the insulated top that so many of the surfers wear: a treasured necessity to protect against the frigid, biting waters and the shifting tides brought by the New England fall. The changing temperatures are no deterrent for the hypnotic and magnetic quality the sea has on me.

  I walk with my eyes closed toward the water. The first wave kisses my toes as if to beckon entry into this world below. I inhale sharply at the tingling pain of the ice cold water and the sudden shift in perception. I know that even though the sun still rises high in the sky, the tides are moving into the currents of fall and winter and the waters have come from distant places. Carrying messages.

  I enter the surf with confidence drawn from years of play on this shore. As I submerge below the surface, the chains of gravity are released, and the compass of tides guide my movement. My hair becomes weightless, circling my head and covering my eyes. I lose the sounds of the world above as the wind, sea gulls, and waves disappear and are replaced by my own internal rhythms. I hear the beating of my heart, the sensation of blood as it courses through my veins and pounds in my ears, my body cushioned by the mass of salt water. Floating and suspended in time.

  But this time, there is something else. Something new.

  I try to control the images, the unclear premonition, the recent dreams of these waters betraying my memories of the safety of this place. I feel it, the powerful danger, twisting and pulling me down into the sea. I want to escape the image of myself gasping for air, the se
nsation my mind creates as the burning rush of water enters into my lungs. The terrifying feeling of the power of the current, twisting and throwing my form around, claiming my body to the deep cold depth. I shoot up out of the icy water and explode back into the atmosphere. Proving to myself that I do have control as I push away the dark thoughts. They have no place in this ritual end-of-summer swim that marks my new beginning.

  Trust that in the end, you can find a beginning.

  This was one of the last things my grandmother had said to me before she was gone. She had asked me to promise her that I wouldn't forget: our gift she had called it. I could see it in her, she knew her future and she was not afraid. She had smiled and held me tightly as she said goodbye, promising that things were going to happen as they were meant to, as they needed to. The many things made clear right before the last time she went away.

  When she never came back.

  I push back against the powerful force of the undertow and out of the sea, wrap myself in the towel that has been warmed by the sun, and turn around to face the horizon. I will take this moment with me, the sense of endless possibility and promise. The feeling that I am standing on the threshold of everything that awaits.

  * * *

  8

  * * *

  “TEDDY!"

  My beautiful golden retriever bounds over the dunes and tries to reach the water. "No, Ted." I grab his collar. "You're not swimming today, let's get back to the house." I notice the unmarked black vans that line the driveway. "You are wild today; what's going on?"

  He prances madly around me and wags his tail as if he understands. I stop and tighten the towel around my body as I suddenly feel cold and frightened. Something was wrong, the energy had shifted.

  "And be careful with that ladder!" I can barely hear Maggie's authoritative voice coming from the house over the howling wind. "We just had all the shingles repaired."

  I pull open the screen door. "Maggie, where are you?" I try to keep my voice calm and not betray my rising anxiety, praying that my instincts are wrong.

  "There you are!" Maggie had worked for my grandparents since before I was born. She reaches out and pulls me toward her, practically knocking the air out of me. She joyfully shouts, falling over herself in the exuberant realization that I am not an apparition but actually standing in front of her. I feel the strength and warmth of her arms as they wrap me in her bear hug. The delicious perfume of onions and fresh basil present on her skin has always reminded me of home. "Another summer, another year gone by." She shakes her head in disbelief. "Just look at you."

  "I know, Maggie."

  "My little pet, starting architecture school already or as we like to call it architorture?" She looks me over with suspicion and a raised eyebrow, unsure whether I am beginning the most exciting phase of my life or some sort of sentence in a prison. She circles behind me, looking for some telltale sign of distress. A reason to call the whole thing off.

  "Who are these people?" I ask and try to shift her focus.

  "I hear you get no sleep, no fun. They work you so hard there—for what?" She clucks disapprovingly, not understanding why I seem to be submitting to this strange form of tortuous education when the guest house and studio await. She wraps her arms around me again, and I soak in her familiarity and the connection to my past.

  "It's okay." I try to gently pry myself out of her bear hug. "I'll be fine. Remember, we've been planning this for years."

  Her eyes lock onto my wet bathing suit.

  "What is it?" I can see she is trying to decide what to say but I feel the need to explain the obvious. "I just went for a swim." Teddy wags his tail in agreement.

  I look at her and cross my arms over my chest, hoping she won't notice the sand and salt water that both Teddy and I drip onto her clean floors.

  "I asked you not to do that, go there I mean, without someone with you, watching. You know, Gabriella, the tide is so dangerous."

  "But." I'm surprised by this sudden change of heart. The beach house was a place where I could do whatever I wanted. "I always swim alone."

  "Well it's not a good idea. Anymore."

  She seems nervous, more agitated than I have seen her in a while. She wipes a tear quickly from her eye with a handkerchief that she pulls out of her dress and wrings her hands in a nervous habit I have seen many times before, and I know I need to change the subject. Unfortunately, the next one is no better.

  "What's going on?"

  Out the window I see a team of men fanning out across the property, up into the trees and surrounding the house. Teddy hasn't stopped barking at their unusual presence on the property. Maggie fixes her hair with one hand as she clears her throat and stands as straight as possible.

  "Oh, it's nothing, dear, just updating the alarm."

  "Don't be ridiculous, they're everywhere. All over the property."

  Maggie pats the invisible perspiration off her brow. I know she is buying time as she avoids the question. Then there is banging.

  "For God's sake," she mutters under her breath as she strides over to the front door to face a strange man. "Yes?" She seems so small next to him, but I know she would protect this house—and everything in it—with her life.

  "Excuse me, Ma'am. We need to get access to the house now, the safe room."

  "I just wish this wasn't necessary," she says softly, to herself. "Follow me. This way."

  "Maggie?" I ask. "Where are you taking him?"

  "Wait here!" She points her finger at me.

  I take two steps back, stunned by the intensity of her words.

  I return to the window and I hope the men might have disappeared while my back was turned, but there seems to be even more of them.

  "There we go." She returns after a few minutes with a new conviction in her voice. "Everything is fine."

  "What are you talking about?" I put both my hands on her shoulders as I force her to stop moving. "What is going on?"

  "It's all this security." She sighs as her eyes scan the blinking lights on the new digital keypads. "It's some sort of state of the art system, very fancy, new technology, cameras, motion sensors—" She stops suddenly, probably feeling my anxiety. "Maybe it's just another one of his toys?"

  "Stop it, Maggie. I'm not a baby anymore. You can't protect me from this. Look at these people outside. And what's this about a safe room?"

  Despite the attempt to reassure us both, she is not convincing either one. It is the subject that lies right below the surface. The history that wraps itself like a shroud around my heart. The darkness in my life that I was always trying to escape and the terrible guilt I lived with. That I could have done more, sooner. That I might have saved them.

  Paris.

  It happened just five years earlier as I had begun to really comprehend the magnitude of my grandfather's work. An international authority on theoretical physics and cosmology, he traveled around the world lecturing and had a passionate and growing following of scholars who began to put forth his hypotheses. We all knew that he was at the center of a vital shift taking place in the academic community. Questioning the fundamental nature of what was true and real and what place science and religion could hold to answer questions about our world.

  The possibility of our universe not being unique or alone.

  I knew there were others, too, competing scientists who were looking for similar answers, the proof, sponsored by governments or other sources who wanted access to the information. The way into tunnels that might connect our world to other worlds—other universes. I was accustomed to the extreme vigilance, the security and caution that had always surrounded my grandparents' lives, but things were changing.

  It was summer, and I was at Oxford taking a painting seminar before starting college there. We had planned a family reunion in Paris. My parents were coming, and my grandfather was to have presented some groundbreaking research at a meeting in Geneva. My grandmother had stayed back at the beach in Massachusetts. It was meant to have been a rare hap
py time together, but instead, it was a terrifying, tragic ending.

  We were gathered in a small restaurant on the Left Bank celebrating when I started to feel the familiar sensations: when I knew what was going to happen.

  But I didn't want it. I tried to push it away, deny the power it had over me. I rationalized that it was from the small space and cigarette smoke that I was unaccustomed to. So, I said I needed to get some air. I ran out leaving my parents and grandfather at the table as I tried to push away the feeling and understand why it was happening—what exactly the cause was. But I could not. This time, it was too powerful. Darker than anything I had ever felt before, a blackness as time slowed down: dread and fear and sadness—overwhelming, painful, paralyzing darkness.

  He had come to look for me.

  "Gabriella!" I heard his worried voice as my grandfather ran out of the small restaurant to find me. "There you are."

  I remember how I had leaned over the stone bridge that connected the beautiful city on either side of the Seine. I looked down into the dark waters below as if the answers I was searching for might have been there, my head in my hands as I tried to slow my breathing.

  "What? Oh yes, Papa. I'm so sorry. I don't feel well. It's my head and—well, it's something about this place. I wish Grandma Sophie was here, she would know what to do, she would understand."

  "Understand what?"

  And then, it happened.

  The explosion, the fire, the suspension of time as the small restaurant we had just emerged from was engulfed in flames—with my parents inside. I could still close my eyes and feel the sensations: the extreme heat on my face, my grandfather's arms restraining me from running back into the inferno, the burning pain in my throat for days from my anguished screaming.

  Maggie's soft voice pulls me back into the present.

  "Gabriella?"

  She looks me up and down, one eyebrow raised, as if she is trying to determine what is different. Deciding how to change the conversation that seems to be not helping either of our moods. She reaches out for my hand and holds it in hers for a moment, a sadness in her eyes as if she knows my thoughts.