Fare Forward (26 page)

I listen carefully, silently questioning why he had not called me himself.

As if my mind is being read he continues, "Miss Vogel, I know that he was planning on calling you from the airport. Dr. Landsman received an important message from CERN and left immediately."

Right away I understood where he was going. It was where my grandfather had been spending so much of his time over the last few years. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN.

"I
need
to see him and speak to him," I plead. "Please, tell me where he is, I will go to Kennedy Airport now. You must have his flight information?"

He looks at me, and I think I detect sympathy in his warm smile. I realize how ridiculous I look, dripping wet from running through the rain. Completely incongruous in the clean elegance of Benjamin's vestibule. I don't care. I have already crossed the line, broken all my rules and I know there is no turning back now. The momentary stillness between us is broken by a subtle buzzing. Max reaches into a small pocket in his shirt and pulls out a phone. With the subtlest of smiles he recognizes the phone number and holds the device to his ear. I turn around quickly to stare at the wall as I attempt to release some of the incredible frustration I feel. I need to stay calm, take advantage of the timely interruption to think, while I consider the few limited options I have.

Silence.

"I see," I finally hear him say.

"Yes, certainly, I will take care of it. Of course, Dr. Landsman. I will tell her."

I stop moving. "Was that
him?"
I know the answer.

"Miss Vogel, the car will take you to where he is."

"No! No, thank you, Max. I can take a cab, a taxi. To Kennedy."

He walks over to me. "Gabriella, he is at a private airfield outside of the city. You would not be admitted if you attempted to enter yourself. We will take you there."

It is not a request but, rather, a statement of fact. I realize what is happening. He puts his hand out to take mine and turns me back toward the entryway. I hear the now familiar click of the front door as it unlocks and swings open, and see a black Range Rover pull up in front of the building. With relief and gratitude I turn to Max and throw my arms around him and hug his thin frame. I feel him stiffen slightly and realize he must be unaccustomed to this sort of display. More than anything else I could have possibly hoped for him to say, he looks at me and points toward the car.

"Gabriella, he will be waiting for you."

W
E ARE TRAVELING quickly through the night, speeding along the West Side Highway and into the tunnel toward New Jersey.

I have never been to Teterboro Airport but know that my grandfather has often traveled from there on private jets by invitation from corporations, foreign governments, or other wealthy sponsors of his research. I recognize fully that he has become an international figure, and we are all trying to adjust to the overwhelming international media attention. At the same time as certain of his theories are ready to go public, I know he still has many secrets. He never went anywhere without his bodyguards and always seemed to be traveling to an undisclosed location, attending mysterious meetings in foreign countries. There were so many unexplained absences.

It was rare that I would allow myself to think about the terrible, dark ending in what was supposed to have been a beginning. When we all met in Paris. The celebration that never happened—to honor my grandfather's achievements. We had been detained by the French government and flown back to Israel for the funeral. There was endless questioning and a secret investigation. Philip had been with me through all of it, the bond we shared was wrapped inextricably in his accompanying me through those difficult years. I remember the morning he came silently into my dorm room at Oxford. He turned on the European news station to the account of the NATO forces bombings of several international nuclear reactors and accelerators. He wanted me to believe that this was part of the plan to put an end to the terrorist cell who had targeted my family.

"It's over, Gabriella," he had assured me, "just like they said it would be. You need to move forward now."

But I didn't believe it; I knew it wasn't over.

Everything was changing and there were so many things I could no longer count on. So much about my grandfather that I did not know and the many things about myself that I was discovering. There were very few things that I felt sure of at this moment. Except for one.

My world, my life without Benjamin in it, was no longer an option.

The car accelerates as we burst out of the dark tunnel, and I can see by the lit-up odometer that we are well over the speed limit.

"Are we almost there?" I don't know how long this is supposed to take.

"Yes, Miss Vogel." The driver looks at me in the rearview mirror.

"Please,
please,
hurry."

I try to compose myself, plan what I will say. I want to return to where we had left off on the dark beach and the unforgettable night when he pulled me out of the water. I see the flashing red lights of the airport in the distance and put my face close to the window. The car slows as the guard waves us in.

"Where are we going?"

The driver points toward a hangar, and we enter the structure through the giant doors. As the car pulls in and makes a large arc, I see the most magnificent Gulfstream jet shining in the bright overhead lights, a low roar coming from the engines. Our car comes to a complete stop in front of the plane. The jet's staircase lowers silently down to the ground, I push the handle on the door and practically fall out of the car.

I see him standing at the top of the stairs.

I start to walk and then break into a run until I reach the bottom of the steps and look up. He descends toward me, and I think that he is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. I try desperately to keep my balance and wait until he stops, inches away from me.

I lift my hand to reach out and touch him as my fingers trace the lines of his face. I need to make sure that this is real, that he is not a dream. I try to steady my breathing, heavy from the run, the excitement, and everything I am feeling. With his intense eyes locked on mine, he reaches out and pulls me to him. And finally I am in his arms, kissing him everywhere.

My lips cover his eyes, his cheeks; my fingers are in his hair. I take in every piece of him, breathe him in like oxygen I have been deprived of. As my arms wrap tightly around his neck, he kisses me back with a force I have not felt before, finding his own answers in the moment. I don't stop until I need to tear myself away from him and succumb to the need to breathe. He turns my face up to his and looks into my eyes.

"Gabriella." The sound of his voice saying my name is like music to me. "There are things I cannot explain to you right now."

He seems to anticipate my questions.

"No!" I exclaim, "I need to know, I need to understand."

I let everything go. My words are filled with rage and frustration from years of mystery. The many frightening memories of abandonment and loss. He kisses me deeply and pulls me back to the moment. I realize that this is not about the past, or even the future. It is about the present. Mine. Ours.

"It is better this way."

"I heard you, everything you said on the beach. I remember, I remember all of it." I look right at him and feel the power in my words. "You said that you would never let me go again. Now I'm here, offering myself to you in every way I can. Please,
take
me."

What comes out of my mouth is emerging from my heart, everything I think and feel and believe since the first day we met.

"I couldn't let it happen." He looks so sad as he turns his head away slowly. "I couldn't survive losing you."

I know that this is the moment where everything will change as we determine the course our lives will take.

"You are the one, Benjamin. I know it now. We are meant to be together."

"I know," he says.

"I heard everything,
everything
you said. And Maggie, she told me about my grandmother and you. I saw the picture from 1943—with my grandparents in Jerusalem. And, I have this."

I hold up the amulet. He looks at it, then at me, and staggers back. "I've loved it my whole life."

"Gabriella—"

"Benjamin, I don't understand any of it, why and where you come from. But I do know one thing. We are meant to be together." Tears stream down my face.

"There are infinite possibilities, infinite choices. I'm sorry, Gabriella."

"I've made my choice." I push away his words and interrupt him. "There is only one choice for me, and it is you." I look into his eyes, knowing that the direction of my life hangs in the balance.

His face is a mask of pain and sadness, but he says nothing.

"Benjamin, I'm coming with you. Nothing matters to me if we are not together."

I didn't know I possessed this reckless side. That I would be willing to walk onto this jet and fly away from everyone and everything—my carefully constructed life. He looks at me as if he is storing this moment away in his heart.

"Gabriella, you don't mean that. So many things matter." He seems to know my thoughts. "But I made a promise to your grandfather."

"You are what matters to me now." I pull him toward me.

"I'm so very sorry. I should never have let this happen. I couldn't help myself." He takes a deep breath. "I just couldn't stay away from you."

"We are supposed to be together. I know it, I want this. I want
you.
"

He starts to back away from me. I see the frustration on his face, the sorrow that hangs in the space between us as he says, "We cannot live in the same world. It has never happened, it cannot work."

"What? No!" I yell.

"You don't understand."

I feel a power that I have never had before, a certainty that drives my actions and my words. I have no more fear. I am operating from my heart while trusting it to guide me through this moment. The next thing I say to him is everything I have felt since the truth was revealed to me at the beach. "Benjamin, I have already decided. I can't live in this world without you."

"Please, Gabriella!" He is shouting, frustrated. "Do not say that. You can and you will. You will have a long and wonderful life, right here."

I grip him tightly; my face is in the curve of his neck and my tears are on his skin.

"If I need to die to be with you forever, then I will. That is the choice I will make." I feel like I am going to stop breathing. That I can't take one more second of the uncertainty. "I'll do anything." My voice is a hush, a whisper, a statement of fact.

"Gabriella." He carefully disengages. "I must go now. I will see you in a few weeks and, I promise, you will understand. Everything."

"In a few weeks." I say it out loud and repeat his words, convincing myself. I calculate the distance between that moment and this one. I know I am running out of time with him again. I hear the engines of the jet begin to accelerate, warming up for the inevitable transcontinental flight that will take him away. "Please, tell me. Can we be together?"

We stand for what seems like an eternity, and then he pulls me into him. His lips are on my ear, and I hear him say, "We will find a way."

I breathe in the words from his heart. I am in the present but, amazingly, I can see the future I want, with him. He lifts his hand to the pilot, kisses me deeply, then turns to climb the stairs into the waiting jet.

"I'll be waiting for you," I say.

I'm in the car speeding back into the city and away from Benjamin. I think about everything that has just happened. I have that feeling once again of being on the threshold. Except that this time, I have crossed over. It has happened—everything is already different.

Especially the pieces of my life that I have cautiously relied upon as constants. My relationship with my grandparents, my friends, and even the consideration of my parents and the life they had chosen in pursuit of their work. Elements of my own character and my inability to find love.

Everything is shifting, even the most basic assumptions that I hold about the nature of the universe. It's as if I am really seeing everything I know so well, for the first time. Understanding something so familiar in a new way.

I realize that with the knowledge I have gained, everything in my own life has changed completely. I look out at the millions of lights in the architecture of the city and the stars in the night sky. As the car rockets into the tunnel, I know that this image has been one of the recurring dreams of my childhood.

"Here we are, Miss Vogel."

These are the first words the driver has spoken as we turn the corner onto my block. I was lost so completely in my own thoughts that I hadn't realized that he knew exactly where he was taking me, without asking. I blink my eyes and look out at my building, finding comfort in the familiarity of it all.

"Thank you."

I lift my bag over my shoulder. He opens the car door for me and lowers his head as I walk past him and slowly enter the building. As I stand at the elevator, I can feel his eyes on me, waiting, watching me from the car, ensuring my safe return home. This is a new feeling for me.

A messenger for Benjamin.

I slide the key into the door of my apartment quietly. Exhausted, I collapse on the bed and manage to strip off my clothes. My head sinks into the feathered pillow and I pull the covers up under my chin and stop momentarily to look out at the clear, dark sky. I fight to keep my eyes from closing. I don't want to separate yet from Benjamin and into the next day. The last thing I see before I fall into sleep are the sparkling dots of light that form the familiar pattern of the constellations in the dark black canvas outside my window. Stars, planets, and airplanes moving in the sky.

I think about the one carrying Benjamin away from me. Across the Atlantic.

I
T'S SO GOOD TO SEE you, Gabriella," Wallace Gray says as he opens the door to his office.

A welcome change from the pressures of the architecture studio, this is the closest thing I have to my grandfather in New York. Not knowing how else to survive, I try to live in the familiarity of routine. Finding any way to manage my overwhelming desire to be with Benjamin, I push myself forward through the days of the semester to reach the end. I try to concentrate on the significant task of completing the rigorous requirements of school with the prospect of our trip to the World Conference and what it represents right below the center of my consciousness. Things are off balance, but it's a feeling I'm accustomed to.