Page 25 of Never Tear Us Apart
‘Professor, I need to get out of here . . .’ I feel my throat tightening, refusing to let more air into my lungs.
‘I understand, and you will. But please, call me Sal,’ he says. His tone is calm, lilting. ‘Sal to my friends. For we will be friends, in time – when you have come to realise the truth and that you can trust me. So, call me Sal in anticipation of that moment, please? Let me explain a little. If you listen and think about what I say, your anxieties will calm, and begin to recede. Do you agree?’
‘OK.’ I nod. He’s right; I need distraction to get through the next ten minutes without screaming.
‘As far as I know, we are the only two people in the universe who have happened upon this phenomenon, and through my research, I have come to believe that what is happening to us is somehow connected to the islands. But with only myself to study, I have very little evidence to help me understandwhy us? So, I would like to know everything that happened to you before you first found yourself here, if you please?’
Taking a deep breath, I focus on the question. ‘It wasn’t like you described it, like being pulled out of reality,’ I begin.‘It was like falling into a deep sleep, which is what makes the most sense. I was in the hot sun; I had recently had a head injury. I saw a doorway, and I walked through it. At least in my mind. In the real world. I fainted. That’s what happened to me.’
‘A head injury. Interesting,’ Sal says. ‘I also suffered a blow to the head before I first fell. I don’t imagine that a bump to the cranium unlocks time travel by itself. But perhaps it is a catalyst, shaking loose some unknown realm of the mind, which in certain people, perhaps people with a particularly coded DNA, thins what we understand of reality.’
‘Or I fainted,’ I say, trying not to notice that he is successfully distracting me from my own fear. ‘And this is my brain making me process trauma all over again. It likes doing that. The crash triggered it.’
‘Ah, you were in a crash. What sort of crash?’
‘Car accident.’
‘I was knocked off my bike,’ Sal tells me, as if he’s just discovered we are secretly related. ‘I do believe there is something unique about the island, its topography and geology that may create this gateway – I have studied as best as I am able, and I have theories . . .’ He catches the expression on my face, which I imagine is bewildered and uncomfortable. ‘But that is enough for now. You need to understand, and the best way to understand is to see.’
He gets up with the same stoic grimace he sat down with, returning to his table to write something down with the stub of his pencil. His concentration is intense as he goes through piles of papers and notes, until he finds what he’s looking for. Then he takes the chair and pulls it to be opposite where I am huddled.
‘When I’m . . .relocated, I never know how long I am going to be there. So, I have two policies, and I suggest you adoptthem also. If I find myself in what I recognise as the further past, I leave a mark, something where it will still be found in centuries to come. I have written my name in medieval illuminations. I drew my initials on the very edge of a painting. Something that will last and can be verified. If I go into what I perceive as the future, I read. Sometimes, this means going to a library and reading everything I can about history and committing it to memory. In another future time, I have found all I need on a small device. And once, I was able to place a small disc on my temple and learn French in under a minute.’ He smiles. ‘It was quite marvellous.’
‘Like Keanu Reeves inThe Matrix,’ I say. ‘So you’re saying you can go into the future too?’
‘I’m unfamiliar with that title,’ he frowns. ‘Clothes travel with me, but only once have I succeeded in holding on to an artefact. I have yet to determine why this item, on this occasion. Multiple experiments have not yielded any concrete evidence.’
Fear is encroaching on me again. I feel the crushing weight of the stone above my head, breathe in the thick, acrid air that’s billowing outside. It feels, smells and tastes so real.
‘Prof— Sal, I really need to get out of here.’
‘I am going too fast.’ He smiles gently. ‘I must remember that you know nothing yet. So, from the beginning . . . I am a professor of physics. I was born in Malta in 1962, but in my first life, I moved to Milan to study and ended up staying. In the summer of 1992, I came back to Malta to visit my mama, and for the celebrations – fifty years since the end of the Siege of Malta. I hired a bicycle while my wife rested – Elena was pregnant with our first child at the time, you see – and I was caught by a truck on a sharp bend. All was well; I was thrown and hurt but not too badly. I didn’t want to scare Elena or cause a fuss, so I dusted myself off and pushed thebike back to town. A few days later, as we were preparing to go out, something happened – I don’t know what. All I know is that when I came round, I was in the same place but another time – this time, but more than thirty years ago – 1909, to be precise. And then I was thrown about across space-time with no rational explanation, as I have outlined. Yet this timeline is the one the island wants for me the most. This is where it returns me to most often, where it keeps me – where I hope I am meant to be for some greater reason that I do not understand. That is all I can do to ease the pain of missing my Elena and never knowing what the face of my child would look like. To hope I have a purpose here.’
A thin siren sounds somewhere close by, signalling the end of the raid. Scrambling to my feet, I stumble up the steps and into the bright daylight, not waiting to see if Sal is following. The sun shines fiercely, even if the sky is hazed with pulverised debris. Desperate to get away from this mutilated house, I plunge into the cool dark of the hallway and fall out of the front door onto the street.
People emerge from somewhere, tentative and careful, squinting at the sky. There’s a terrible familiarity to it: ordinary people trying to live ordinary lives when the world refuses to let them.
‘Here.’ Sal arrives behind me, clutching something. ‘This is what I wanted to show you. My evidence.’
Sal hands me a battered leaflet with the dates1942–1992printed on it.FIFTY YEARS SINCE THE END OF THE SIEGE OF MALTA.
‘I got back to my own time only once.’ His voice is low. His body shields the paper from passers-by. ‘I was metres, minutes, from finding Elena. But the island took me again. It let me bring this with me.’
Then, in the corner of my eye, I notice something spinning, spiralling, growing larger and more intense. Everything around me disintegrates into atoms, and all that is left is an idea of me lost in the darkness.
Chapter Eighteen
Cold tiles rest under my palms. After a moment, my eyes adjust to the dark, and I see that I am no longer in the bright daylight outside the half-house that Sal lives in. I’m inside; somewhere above me, jazz music plays on scratchy vinyl. Low lanterns light a stairway. The air smells of perfume and beer. Outside the door, I can hear male voices shouting and singing in languages I don’t understand.
As I start to straighten up, the world collapses again, and I am plummeting down, accelerating into nothing until I am delivered into a field of barley.
Soft, long stems of green flow like tides under the wind, back and forth, side to side. The sun is bright, and in the distance, I see figures working in the field.
Then I am jerked out of that moment, upwards, so fast I swear I see the curvature of the earth. My stomach churns; my head spins; my heart races. I breathe in, and there is nothing to inhale.
Music vibrates the freezing thin air: male voices singing in Latin. Calm, cool marble rises to meet the soles of my bare feet. I have lost my shoes somewhere in the tumult. The scent of incense fills the air, and somewhere far off, I can hear shouting. Slowly, I realise I am in a church or a cathedral. Cautiously, I turn towards the sound of the commotion and see a small, dark-bearded man bearing down on me, a sword raised above his head. A short cape flares behind him as he swings the blade. His eyes are filled with fury.
Instinctively I cower, but just before the blow comes down, I am disintegrated and strung out like pearls across the cosmos. The only thing that follows me is the singing, though I hear female voices now and not Latin: it’s some other language, distant and strange, a powerful chorus drawing me into its harmony. My single discordant note becomes part of a beautiful whole. For a moment, there is perfect peace.
