Zig Zag (9 page)

Maldonado
considered the question.

"An
ugly dude."

"Well,
I can assure you that there are some cute ones, too. And not all of
them are 'dudes.'" She smiled. But he'd turned serious and
stopped joking.

"There's
something else that intrigues me about you. You're at the top of your
class, you're guaranteed a scholarship to the best place in the
world, your future couldn't be brighter... As if that weren't enough,
you just finished college and you could ... I don't know, sleep for
twenty hours straight, climb the Alps, do anything you wanted. But
instead, you march right out and take a killer exam to get one of
twenty spots in David Blanes's summer course. I mean, this Blanes guy
must be pretty spectacular."

"He
is." Elisa's eyes lit up. "He's a genius."

Maldonado
scribbled something down.

"Do
you know him personally?"

"No,
but I admire his work."

"Most
public universities in this country hate him. Did you know that?
That's why he had to teach this course at a private institution..."

"The
world is full of envious people," Elisa said. "Especially
the world of science. But, yeah, I've heard that Blanes can be
difficult."

"Would
you like to do a dissertation on him?"

"Obviously."

"Anything
else?"

"What?"

"I
asked you if you'd like to do a dissertation on him and you said,
'Obviously.' Is that all you have to say?"

"What
else do you want me to say? You asked me a question and I answered
it."

"That's
the problem with you physicists," he lamented, making more
notes. "You take everything so literally. What I wanted to know
is, what's Blanes got that everyone's so into him? I mean ... I know
they say he's a fucking genius, he's been nominated for the Nobel
Prize, and if he wins he'll be the first Spaniard to win the damn
Nobel in physics. I know all that shit. But what I want to know is,
what's his deal? You know? His course is called..." He looked at
one of his papers and read, falteringly, "'The topology of time
strings in visible electromagnetic radiation.' That doesn't exactly
clear a lot up for me."

"You
want me to sum up the whole of theoretical physics to you with one
answer?"

Maldonado
seemed to seriously weigh the possibility.

"OK,"
he replied.

"Fine.
Let's see. I'll try to summarize..." Elisa was in her element.
She liked explaining as much as she liked understanding. "You
know about the theory of relativity?"

"Yeah,
Einstein. 'Everything is relative,' right?"

"The
theory of relativity is a little more complicated than that. But what
I'm trying to say is that it works in almost every situation, except
in the world of atoms. That's where quantum physics comes in.
Together, those theories are the most perfect intellectual creations
humans have ever conceived. They can explain
almost
anything.
But the problem is, we need
both
of
them. What's valid on one scale doesn't work on the other, and vice
versa. And that's a big problem. For years, physicists have been
trying to combine the two theories into one. Does that make sense?"

"Sure,
it's like any country's political parties, right?" Maldonado
suggested. "Both sides are wrong, and they still never agree on
anything."

"Something
like that. Anyway, one of the most popular theories that attempts to
combine them is called string theory."

"I've
never heard of it. String?"

"Yeah.
String theory. Also called superstrings. It's an incredibly
complicated mathematical theory, but basically what it comes down to
is quite simple..." Elisa quickly cast her eyes around for an
object, and then settled on the paper napkin around her cup. While
she spoke, she folded it in half and then creased it into a sharp
edge with her long fingers. Maldonado watched, intrigued. "According
to string theory, the particles that make up the universe, you know,
electrons, protons ... all of those particles are not little balls,
like we learned to visualize in elementary school, but are actually
elongated, like strings..."

"Things
like strings...," Maldonado pondered aloud.

"Yeah.
Really fine strings, because the only dimension they possess is
longitude. But they have a special property." Elisa raised her
hands to Maldonado's eye level, holding the napkin taut so that he
was looking at the crease. "Tell me what you see."

"A
napkin."

"That's
the problem with you journalists. You worry too much about
appearance." Elisa smiled playfully. "Forget what you
already think it
is.
Just
tell me what you think you
see."

Maldonado
squinted and stared at the sharp edge that Elisa held up before him.

"Um...
A line. A straight line."

"Good.
From your perspective, it could be a string, right? A thread. Well,
the theory states that the strings that make up matter only look like
strings from certain angles. But if we look at them from another
perspective..."—Elisa flipped the napkin up and held the
rectangular surface before him— "then they have other
dimensions, and if we could unroll them, or 'open' them..."—she
unfolded the napkin all the way now, so that it became a large
square—"then we could see even more dimensions."

"What
a trip." Maldonado looked impressed. Or else he was a good
faker. "So, have those dimensions been discovered?"

"Ha!
Not even close," Elisa replied, balling up the napkin and
stuffing it into her cup. "'Opening' a subatomic string requires
machines we don't have yet: incredibly powerful particle accelerators
... But that's where Blanes and his theory come in. He thinks there
are some strings that can be opened with low levels of energy. Time
strings. He's mathematically proven that time is made up of strings,
just like everything else. But they can be opened with accelerators
that already exist. It's just very difficult to carry out the
experiment."

"So
what you're talking about, in practical terms"— Maldonado
was scribbling furiously—"is time travel? Going back to
the past?"

"No.
The idea of traveling back through time is total science fiction.
Basic laws of physics make it impossible. There's no way to go back
to the past, sorry. Time can only travel forward, into the future.
But if Blanes's theory were correct, there would be another
possibility ... We could open time strands and
see
the
past."

"See
the past? You mean... Napoleon, Julius Caesar? Sorry, kiddo, but
that
sounds
like science fiction."

"You're
wrong. It's very possible." Elisa looked at him, amused. "Not
only is it possible, it's run of the mill. We see the past every
day."

"You
mean old movies, faded photographs, all that?"

"No.
We're seeing it right now." She laughed at his expression.
"Seriously. You want to bet?"

Maldonado
glanced around.

"Well,
OK, some of those professors have seen better days, I'll grant you
that." Elisa laughed and shook her head.

"You
being serious?"

"Completely."
She looked up, and Maldonado did the same. Night had fallen. A
blanket of shimmering stars shone brightly in the black sky. "The
light from those stars takes millions of years to reach the earth,"
she explained. "They may no longer exist, but we'll still be
seeing them for a long, long time. Every time we look at the sky, we
go back millions of years. We can travel through time just by looking
out a window."

They
were both silent for a moment. The sounds and lights of the party
faded away for Elisa, who was much more interested in the magnificent
silence that rose above her like a vaulted cathedral. When she looked
back down, and then over at Maldonado, she realized he felt the same
thing.

"Physics
is a beautiful thing," she murmured.

"One
of many," he responded, staring at her.

They
continued their conversation, though at a more relaxed pace. Then he
suggested they stop and get something to eat, and she put up no
resistance (it had gotten late and she was hungry). Maldonado jumped
up and headed for the bar.

While
she was waiting for him, Elisa glanced around indifferently. There
were still plenty of hangers-on at the party, enjoying the warm
summer temperatures. An old Umberto Tozzi song was playing, and here
and there groups of students and professors stood chatting animatedly
beneath the party lights.

Then
she noticed a man watching her.

He
was a completely anodyne fellow, standing on the embankment's lower
deck. His checked, short-sleeved shirt and well-pressed trousers were
wholly unremarkable. His hair was graying, and his only
distinguishing feature was a big gray mustache. Elisa guessed he was
a professor, though he wasn't speaking to any colleagues. Or doing
anything else, for that matter.

Except
staring at her.

His
gaze intrigued her. She wondered if she knew him from somewhere, but
concluded that he must be the one who recognized her. Maybe he'd seen
her picture in the paper, too.

Suddenly,
he whipped his head around quickly (too quickly) and vanished behind
one of the groups of gathered professors. She was more disturbed by
his rapid departure than his staring. It was like he was faking it,
like he'd realized that Elisa had become aware of him.
Caught
me, damn it.
But
when Maldonado returned with two big, paper-wrapped sandwiches, a bag
of potato chips, and beer and another Diet Coke for her, she forgot
the incident. It wasn't the first time an older man had stared at
her, after all.

ON
the
ride back to Madrid, they were mostly silent, but Elisa felt entirely
at ease in the car, being driven home by a boy she hardly knew. She
somehow felt at ease in his company. Maldonado made her laugh from
time to time with his ironic quips, but he'd stopped asking
questions, and Elisa was glad about that. She took advantage of the
situation by asking
him
questions
instead. His life was quite straightforward: he lived with his
parents and sister, and he was into traveling and sports (two things
she loved, too). It was almost midnight when Maldonado's Peugeot
pulled up in front of her apartment building on Claudio Coello.