Dante's Equation Part 6

"Say the pending sale for this doc.u.ment turned out to be a nonexclusive agreement. How much would you want for a copy of it?"

"Five thousand U.S.," Gretz said, without a moment's hesitation.

Not to be gauche, Denton didn't reveal his delight. Five thousand was well below his guilt level. He'd paid nearly as much for the plane tickets.

What was he thinking? He didn't even know what the pages said.

"Is there a lot of demand for, um, Kobinski's work?"

The dealer smiled. "Doc.u.ments from the camps are always in demand, Mr. Wyle, especially doc.u.ments written by camp prisoners. Though I must say, I've only encountered two people who were looking for Kobinski's writing specifically, and you are one of them."

That smile glittered with a question that Denton could not have answered even if he wanted to:Why Kobinski?

When he left the shop, Denton had more or less an unspoken agreement with Gretz. Even so, he told himself he'd never return. He didn't know what was in the ma.n.u.script. It probably had nothing to do with the disappearance of Kobinski or anything else of interest to him or the readers ofMysterious World . And it was afragment. What could anyone say in five pages that would be worth five grand?

He debated with himself like this for three whole days. He stayed at a decent, but not exorbitant, hotel. He toured the city with, and made love to, a blond Scandinavian backpacker he met on the street. She had a face so pretty it belonged on a dairy ad, thighs like silk, and a mouth sweet and tight, even if she was only nineteen, immature in her giggling eagerness. She and her friend camped out in his room and invited him to meet them in Munich. He said he might, knowing he wouldn't. He walked them to the train station, and all the while, even as he kissed her good-bye, he was arguing with himself about the fragment.

But when the days had pa.s.sed and he knew Schwartz's letter had arrived, he found himself heading back to the shop, as if his feet knew full well what his brain didn't. He would buy the copy just because he wanted it, had wanted it from the first moment he'd laid eyes on those scratchy markings under plastic in that half-lit inner sanctum, from the instant he'd seen those tweezers. His gut was just about his only compa.s.s in life, and it said that this was more than justa story; this might well bethe story.

Had there ever been any real doubt?

FROMTHEBOOK OFTORMENT BYYOSEFKOBINSKI, AUSCHWITZ, 1943.

Last time I discussed how physics, the physical laws of s.p.a.ce and time, are not only hospitable to the mysteries of faith; they areexactly the same thing. A scientist is a blind man probing the face of G-d.

Did I already write that? Yes, that must have been the pages I gave to Georg Bruzek. The important thing is that all must be preserved. The gifts of knowledge the Lord has given to me . . . I don't care so much for my own life, but to have this knowledge die with me is unacceptable.

One of the keys to deep wisdom is that there are only a few patterns in all of creation, and they are repeated over and over. The planets revolve around the sun just as the electrons in an atom revolve around the nucleus. The whorls of a seash.e.l.l mirror those of galaxies. "As above, so below." The Micro is a mirror image of the Macro.

The physical world is made up of dualities: male/female, hot/cold, day/night, birth/death. There is no "itness," no "beingness," which does not have an opposite. Science has proven this true at every level of life: there is no particle without a corresponding antiparticle, no force without a counterbalance.

Why is this so? Because to have physical s.p.a.ce you must have a "here" and also an "other there." Before creation, everything was the same and there was only one place. To create distance and volume and expanse, opposites were necessary: poles between which life itself could be stretched.

The importance and meaning of dualities is one of the greatest secrets of kabbalah.

All dualities are mere echoes of the four great dualities. They are thesephirot, the opposing arms of the kabbalistic Tree of Life:Binah/chochmah, gevorah/chesed, hod/nezach,andketer/malkhut. These four great opposites form the lower four dimensions of s.p.a.ce and time.

Keterandmalkhutare the highest duality.Keteris the spiritual realm andmalkhutthe physical.Keteris the "Heaven" tomalkhut's"earth." It is "G.o.d" tomalkhut's"man." Some believe only in what they can see, feel, and hear(malkhut). Others suspect there is a teeming pool of meaning and energy that resides beyond or outside or throughout the physical world.Keteris that fifth dimension.

The next great duality isbinahandchochmah.Binahis our logical, rational mind.Chochmahis intuition, creativity. In the beginning, before the "big bang," everything was one thing-that "oneness" ischochmah, a spiritual state that mystics and artists strive to recapture.Binahseparates, categorizes, labels. It is the great sieve. In human psychology they call these traits left-brain and right-brain. In our physical world,binahis solid and rigid andchochmahis pure and flowing-they are land and sea, earth and water.

The third great duality isgevorah(judgment) andchesed(mercy).Gevorah's language is black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. As the Greeks said, it is blind.Gevorahlays down rigid laws and does not care about an offender's background, excuses, or motivations.

Chesed,loving-kindness or mercy, is the opposite of judgment. It is empathy, expansiveness, generosity of spirit, love. Of all thesephirot, chesedappears to be the most purely good. Could there ever be too much loving-kindness? Yes! Anything taken to its extremes creates evil. Think of a child or a society withnolaws or restrictions-chaos results. Without boundaries there is no definition, no form.

The final great duality ishodandnetzach. Hodis inward-turned, contemplative.Netzachis outward-facing, social.Hodis the introvert andnetzachthe extrovert instinct. At its best,netzachis the teacher, the benevolent leader, the mediator. At its extreme it is the bully, the manipulator-those who get a sense of self only by controlling others.Hod,in its most favorable light, is the scholar, the independent thinker. At its worst it is antisocial, cut off from the world.

There is a connection between these great elements.Binah, gevorah,andhodare "left-hand" traits.Binah(logic) separates "I" from "them." When we separate our own ident.i.ty from that of others it becomes easier to judge them(gevorah). Your judgments can become so rigid that no one else is deemed acceptable but you yourself. This is a h.e.l.l ofhod's making.

Chochmah, chesed,andnetzachare "right-hand" traits.Chochmah(intuition) says: "We are all one."Chesed(mercy) responds with love and acceptance.Netzach,therefore, thrives in relation to other people.

The thing to remember about dualities is that they are not two dots on opposing horizons. They arecontinuums. You might be more merciful than judgmental or more judgmental than merciful. But it is very unlikely you are so merciful you contain not the tiniest drop of judgment or so judgmental you lack the merest wisp of mercy!

If you picture the great dualities like pegs between whichyouare stretched-gevorahandchesedat your head and feet,binahandchochmahat your left and right hands,hodandnetzachat your chest and back, and time as the last force,malkhutandketer,pulling you between birth and death, Heaven and earth. . . . This is really what the forces in our lives are like. How can you escape such torture?

By finding the middle. In each of these dualities there is an absolute perfect middle point. On the continuum between judgment and mercy there is a point of perfect balance: judgment tempered perfectly by mercy, loving-kindness with healthy boundaries. There is a similar perfect point between logic and intuition. It is the scientist-mystic, East-meets-West. The perfect balance between the internal and external exists also-a place where we can enjoy loving relationships but retain a strong sense of self.

All of these perfect points of balance meet where? The center of all these continuums is thesamecenter. Where is this magical place? As you lie there, stretched between these poles, there is a place in the exact center of you-your heart, body, and mind-where all these points meet. If you find that place, tension and struggle disappear.

This is also the point whereketerandmalkhutmeet. G.o.d and man. G.o.d-in-you.

I have not slept for four nights. My heart has been filled up with ground gla.s.s. I have tried to think of some way, any way, out of here. My mind has grasped something, though it may be madness.

Years ago, while listing correspondences between heavenly bodies and their earthly counterparts, I came across a curiosity. Schwartzschild's "ergospheres" or "black holes" are ma.s.sive stars that have been condensed down by gravity so completely they form dimensionless objects of infinite density. These black holes are literally holes in the fabric of s.p.a.ce-time. And since my correspondence theory states that everything that exists in the heavens (macro) has an equivalent in the subatomic world (micro) then there would have to exist such Forgive me. There must exist such an ent.i.ty as a "microscopic black hole."

It was idle musing at the time. An innocent time! Now I am forced to revisit the idea in a much more desperate frame of mind. Do these gateways exist? And might they be our salvation?

It sounds absurd, yet the more aggressively I attack the mathematics the more I am convinced the idea is sound. If they exist, they must not be obvious in their behavior for good reason. Although a macro black hole would pull into it anything that crosses its horizon, it would not be as easy to engage the operation of a micro black hole. One must take into account the difference in ma.s.s between I can barely write for shaking. The ma.s.s differential is a problem. I have been working intensely on pinning down the play of forces.

Beyond these difficulties there is also the question of where such a thing would lead. I have my theories, but there is no knowing absolutely until the deed is done. Like Moses, I must believe there is a promised land.

Nothing could be worse than what Isaac No. These gateways cannot be common-no more than black holes are common in the heavens. I would have little hope that one would chance to be nearby if it were not for one factor: In the vicinity of such holes one might expect to see extraordinary good or evil. The influence from the fifth dimension and from other universes might seep through as cold seeps through a crack in the window. And surely, if there was one place on earth that could be defined as evil beyond the pale of mortal experience, it is this place, Auschwitz.

LOSANGELES.

"So what do you think? Huh?" Denton was too impatient to wait for Dave to speak on his own.

Dave Banks didn't answer. He was still glued to the pages of the Kobinski translation. Dave was an electrical engineer, sci-fi fanatic, and Denton's excollege roommate. Until today, Denton hadn't seen him since graduation even though they'd both ended up in LA years ago. Dave had never quite forgiven Denton for sleeping with his girlfriend.

Which was totally unfair. Dave hadn't even been serious about that girl, and anyway, it wasn't as if Denton had set out to seduce her; it just happened. Some people held a grudge. Others nursed it until it grew up, graduated from college, and retired.

Unfortunately, Denton's researcher, Loretta, had zero ability at science and all his current friends were wanna-be actors and models who thoughtblack hole was either a psychedelic or s.e.xual term. So Dave Banks was Denton's only alternative to reading a book. And Denton was a social animal. He learned by picking brains and soaking up atmosphere, not by any activity as numbingly solitary as reading.

Dave looked up from the Kobinski pages, his small eyes glittering. "Interesting." "How so?" Dave tilted his head thoughtfully. "Got another beer?" Denton wanted to scream with impatience. Instead, he went to the kitchen of his condo to fetch a Corona.

The dining room was open to the living room, and beyond the tastefully decorated "conversational

s.p.a.ce" (he'd used his mother's decorator-a real flamer) Denton could see that the sun was setting. The skysc.r.a.pers of Century City glowed all around them. He still appreciated the million-dollar view. He appreciated it more knowing Dave was right on his heels and lived in a c.r.a.ppy apartment in West Hollywood. It was like old times, the two of them leaning against the kitchen cabinets tossing back longnecks. The deja vu was strong because Dave had never quite left 1989. He still wore the same ragged jeans and tacky sloganed T-shirts. His thin red hair was still in a long braid down his back, ever ready for his beloved medieval fairs. "What, exactly, do you want from me?" "I want your opinion on this black hole thing." "I'm not a physicist." "Yeah, I know, Dave." Denton rolled his eyes. "But you took a couple semesters of physics. Aced them, if I recall."Dave raised his eyebrows as if to say,Yeah, so what ?, but the geek in him was pleased. He had a vain streak when it came to his intellectual prowess. Which, Denton was willing to admit, was considerably greater than his own. But then, he didn't run around with a hairstyle that had gone out in the year 1500, either. Dave pinched his nostrils with two fingers. "WhatI want to know is how you got into this?" "I told you. I'm working on a series of articles about vanishings." "Yeah, but how did youfind this?" Dave had brought the stapled pages into the kitchen and he waved them with something like awe. "I mean, this is, like, a relic. How come no one's ever found this before?"

"Someone has." Denton told him about Schwartz. Naturally, he modified the bit about how he'd seen the letter to Zurich, said he'd eyed it on the rabbi's desk instead of opening his mail. He didn't need Dave to give him thatlook , that "I've got your number" look.

Denton hated that look.

When he was done explaining, Dave flipped to the translation. "Well, if you're asking me about the math, forget it. Those equations and stuff in the margins?Way beyond me." "But what do you think of theidea , though? See, the thing is," Denton's voice got higher with excitement, "what if peopledo disappear? And what if these black holes are the reason why? The 'smoking gun,' as it were. Right? Because it does seem that there are places where disappearances are more likely to happen, like the Bermuda Triangle or Stonehenge or something. So-"

"Stonehenge? I never heard anything about people disappearing at Stonehenge."

"Whatever.You know what I mean. So what if that's because theseplaces , thesevortexes , are where the black holes are?" Dave was giving him a blank look. "Okay, never mind. Just . . . what do you think of the idea of miniature black holes? From a physics point of view?"

Dave leaned back against the counter, taking his sweet time. "There are all sorts of bizarro things at

the subatomic level, and they're still finding new stuff all the time. I mean it's not like, you know, expecting to find Bigfoot in LA. Quite the contrary." Denton's grin widened. "Great! So let's say these things exist; what-" "I didn't say that. I said it waspossible ." Well,yeah . But that was about as credible as anything ever got in Denton's line of work. He found himself thinking that Dave was annoyinglybinah -all logic, no creativity. The thought surprised him. He'd picked up more from Kobinski than he'd thought. "Okay. It'spossible . But what I still don't get is how a person could go through a black hole if it's the size of, say, an atom."

Dave shrugged. "A particle at a time would be my guess. Pretty messy." "Kobinski didn't think so! He talked about using it as an escape route." "Um, yeah, and he was inAuschwitz . I'd say he was probably a little stressed; wouldn't you?" Dave sounded peeved. He hated to be contradicted.

"There were eyewitnesses!"

"So? Even if there was a hole, and even if he did go through it, that doesn't mean he wasn't a string

of platelets when he got to the other side."

Denton supposed that was true. But like the official report of theWhy Knot Now incident, it didn't feel right. And it wasn't very satisfying, either. Talk about a bad ending. So Denton went around the problem. "Let's just say for grins that youcould go through a teensy-tiny black hole and survive. Where would you end up? Kobinski says he has a theory, but he doesn't say what it is."Dave sighed a G.o.d-give-him-patience sigh. "This is totally cliche sci-fi. Don't you watchStar Trek ?"

Denton shook his head, feeling pop-culturally challenged. "See, the theory is that a black hole has such a tremendous amount of gravity that it actuallypunctures a hole in the fabric of s.p.a.ce-time. So the question really is, 'If you found yourself outside s.p.a.ce-time where would you be?' For that matter,when would you be? Some figure that black holes are just, like, shortcuts to some other part of the universe." Dave appraised him critically. "You've really never watchedStar Trek ? Likeever ? That's amazing."

"I've seenStar Wars ."

Dave sighed. "All right. Hypothetically, a 'hole' in s.p.a.ce-time could pop you out somewhere else in the universe, possibly a gazillion miles away. So you can use 'em for s.p.a.ce travel. And they can be used as time travel devices, too, because essentially they could pop you back up anywhenas well as anywhere. But there's also a chance they'renot shortcuts to someplace else in our own universe. Maybe they go to someother universe or just, like, outside of s.p.a.ce-time. Which is not a place physical beings like you and me wanna be.

"a.s.suming," Dave continued sarcastically, "you aren't completely ripped apart when you go through a black hole, which is what mostreal scientists think would be the case."

Denton didn't think any of those explanations were likely to be Kobinski's theory. He may not have understood Kobinski's science, but he was pretty good at soaking up the general tenor of things. And it had sure sounded to him as if Kobinski had a good idea where they would go, and he hadn't thought they'd end up dead in the process. It was possible Kobinski had been just plain wrong, but somehow, Denton believed him. Then again, Denton had never had much resistance to believing just about anything-which was why he worked forMysterious World .

"Any more beer?" Dave fished.

Denton opened the fridge and stared into it, lost in thought. He felt like he was on the verge of a major insight. It was just lurking below the surface like a gigantic sea monster. He waited for it to swim up a little higher so he could see exactly how big it was, count its teeth.

In the next room the phone rang. Denton didn't answer it. It was probably a woman. He listened vaguely to the voice on the answering machine as he popped the tops off a couple of beers, still trying to bring up that idea. The person on the phone wasn't a woman; it was Jack atMysterious World . He was wondering where the Kobinski article was-sounded a little anxious. Jack rang off.

Denton handed a bottle to Dave. Dave was giving him that look. "What are you up to?"

"Who, me? Nothing," Denton said, aggrieved.

Dave continued to frown suspiciously. "So where are you going to go with this, Dent?"

"I don't know," Denton said, and it was true. Only he had the feeling hedidknow. He had the feeling it was part of that lumbering sea monster-already formed and just waiting to pop up. Dave was still giving him that look.

"What?"

"You're shafting your magazine, aren't you? That you've worked at for how long?" Dave snorted his disbelief.

Denton felt himself grow pink. "I am not! What . . . ! Why would you say that?"

No change in the Davester.

"I paid for the Kobinski pages with my own money!"

Dave gave him that look in spades.

He was making Denton feel guilty, and Denton didn't like feeling guilty. He mustered as much dignity as he could. "I didn'tsay I was going to blow them off. Jeez. I'm just . . . thinking, you know, what would be the best thing to do. You have to admit, this ma.n.u.script of Kobinski's is a lot more legit than the stuff that typically goes inMysterious World . I mean, I love 'em to death, but . . . I wouldn't want to do Kobinski a disservice."

Dave pinched his nose. "You have a point there."

Denton glowed. He loved having a point.

"But . . . this ma.n.u.script . . . it's not reallyyours , is it?"

Dave! He was still p.i.s.sed off about that girl, that ancient history. "It's not anybody's! The copyright ran out years ago."

"Yeah? What about this Rabbi Schwartz guy? He's not gonna be too happy about you sticking your nose into this."

That was true enough. Denton's subconscious already knew it was a problem, maybe because, deep down, he already knew what he was going to do. He'd dreamed about Schwartz. In the dream Schwartz had been a wild-eyed, black-bearded maniac chasing after him (chasing after a rabbit) with knives waving. Oddly, Schwartz had on a chef's white uniform and Pillsbury-Dough-Boy hat.

"Well . . . what doyou think I should do with it?"

Dave looked away coolly and chugged his beer. "I think you'll find a way to do exactly what you want to do, Dent. You always do."

3.3. Aharon Handalman

JERUSALEM.

Aharon could not believe how many cars were in the Yad Vashem parking lot-even in the middle of a workday. He'd thought it would be easier coming on a Wednesday: not so many families, maybe not so many tourists. But Israel's biggest Holocaust memorial was packed.

He scowled as he walked down the Avenue of the Righteous among Nations (or so it was marked on the map the attendant forced upon him), scowling. He pa.s.sed a statue to Oskar Schindler, huffed at it. In the distance he could see a six-branched candelabra and, in another direction, a large stone monument, the Pillar of Heroism. Such an enormous campus, such expensive buildings and artwork, all wasted on the dead. It made him sick.

The entrance to the main cl.u.s.ter of museums was a round red curve with black gla.s.s doors. He paused before he went in, preparing his defenses. His lips drew back like a horse chafing at the bit. A group of schoolchildren pa.s.sed him, filing through the door with excited solemnity. A secular group. The beautiful Jewish boys had disposable paperkippas on their heads. Disposable! It was a shame.

He couldn't help himself. "Torah is more important thanthis ," he told the teacher. The teacher smiled falteringly and hurried the children inside.