Einstein's Secret

by Irving Belateche

  “Clavin didn’t die in a car accident,” I said.

  “You already know?”

  “You’re the one who told me.”

  Eddie cocked his head. “What?”

  “In another version of history, you took me to the Caves and you told me about Clavin.”

  Eddie leaned back in the easy chair and stared at me, wide-eyed, as if he were facing an alien, which in a way he was. He was silent for a full thirty seconds before he spoke again. In a quiet, almost reverential tone, he said, “What do you mean another history?”

  “You’re right, Eddie. Einstein’s secret is about time travel. What he called a bridge.”

  “I never told anyone that.”

  “You told me.”

  He stood up, and I wasn’t sure if he was going to kick me out, so I forged ahead. “I used the bridge. You did, too.”

  “This is science fiction, right?”

  “When you told me about time travel, I was the one who thought it was science fiction. But you have a theory, don’t you? About Einstein and time travel. And your plan is not to tell me about it just yet. First, you want to tell me about Clavin.”

  “This can’t be happening.”

  “There’s another history that plays out. Or, I should say, almost plays out. It’s a history that would’ve replaced this one.”

  “How can I have told you what I believed if I don’t remember telling you?”

  “I don’t have an answer.”

  “And how is it that you remember the other history?”

  “I don’t know. But that’s what Einstein’s secret is all about. Time travel is messy. He couldn’t understand how it worked.”

  Eddie took a deep breath. “So do you have any proof of any of this?”

  “History isn’t changing anymore.” At least, I hoped it wasn’t. Because that was my proof. “Clavin isn’t in the hospital up in Rockville. He died in that car accident. Like he always did.”

  Eddie wouldn’t have to go to the Caves to check that out. Clavin’s obituary would be right there on the Internet, as it’d been when I’d found it so many years ago.

  Eddie hurried into his bedroom and returned with his laptop. He sat down and clicked away on his keyboard. Then he looked up, stunned. “The trails are gone.”

  “Because there’s no more time travel,” I said, and silently thanked Clavin for sealing the wormhole.

  Eddie went back to tapping away on his laptop, probably racing through the Internet verifying that the trails were truly gone. I sat back, relieved and pleased that the changes had stopped.

  After another couple of minutes, Eddie let out a sigh. “So I miss out on the adventure of a lifetime.”

  “It was more of a nightmare than an adventure.”

  “This bridge—where was it?”

  I told him I’d fill him in on everything later. He deserved to know. But for right now, I had a couple of other loose ends to take care of.

  In the back of my mind, I hoped that I wouldn’t have to fill him in. Ever. Maybe history would correct itself enough to wipe out what Eddie knew about time travel. And what I knew about it.

  I was afraid that the more I talked about it, and the more I thought about it, the more the other history had a chance of returning. I’d learned that facts were malleable, and I didn’t want to risk changing the historical record again.

  *

  I headed to Greenley’s with the intention of running into McKenzie. In the prior version of this day, McKenzie had spotted me at Greenley’s with Eddie, and though there was no way to know if that had played a role in my getting fired, I wanted to change that part of my day.

  This time, McKenzie and I would have an amiable conversation about my classes. Then I’d wait and see if that fateful phone call from the department still came. Professor McKenzie would like to set up a meeting with you in the morning.

  The coffee shop was packed, and as I stood in line, I realized just how much I wanted my firing to have been part of the other history. A trail that had blazed through this history. A history where I got to teach at UVA. A history where I’d been given a fresh start.

  I ordered my coffee and waited at the counter.

  It wasn’t long before Professor McKenzie walked in. He got in line without noticing me, but my hunch was that he soon would. Then I’d get the first hint of whether my dismissal belonged in this history or not.

  He glanced around the shop, and his eyes fell on me. I smiled. He returned my smile with the same forced smile he’d used when he’d spotted me with Eddie. That was a bad sign. It wasn’t Eddie that had motivated his forced smile. It was the fact that he had to deliver bad news.

  McKenzie stepped out of line and headed my way. Another bad sign. Last time he hadn’t approached me. But this time I was alone. He didn’t have to wait until tomorrow to deliver the bad news.

  “How are you?” he said.

  “Good. Ready for the semester.” Unless you’re going to fire me.

  “I’m glad I ran into you. I was going to set up a meeting, but this is much more convenient.”

  I braced myself.

  “Next year the University is launching an Interdisciplinary Initiative,” he said, “and the Governing Board wants our department heavily involved.”

  I nodded, as if I were interested in the Interdisciplinary Initiative, when in reality I was just waiting for him to lower the boom.

  “I’d like you to join our meetings with the Physics and Biology Departments,” he said.

  A huge grin took over my face, and I quickly dialed it down, so it looked more like the reaction of a professional, pleased with a career opportunity, rather than a kid, pleased with a surprise birthday gift.

  “We want to develop more interdisciplinary courses with those departments, and that seems like it might be something right up your alley.”

  “It is, and I’d love to do it.”

  “Good. I’ll have the Assistant Director email you the information. Good luck with your classes.” And with that, he was on his way back to stand in line.

  “Thanks,” I said, but he didn’t turn around.

  The barista called out my name, and I grabbed my coffee and headed out.

  *

  As I walked across campus to my next stop, the Iliad, I thought about the Initiative. Had the other history wiped it out? Was that why McKenzie had fired me? He’d looked over the instructors for this semester and thought, Why did I hire this guy again?

  But with the Initiative alive and well, I was a good fit. With my appointment, McKenzie could keep Alex, his star professor, happy, and he’d found an adjunct well versed in the history of science. An adjunct who’d be willing to devote a lot of time to working on this Initiative.

  Now it was up to me to deliver.

  I walked into the Iliad and saw Laura behind the counter, immersed in a book. Her short red hair swung down over one of her cheeks, but even with her face partially hidden, her beauty captivated me, as it had the first time I saw her.

  “Hi,” I said.

  Her hazel eyes took me in. I was a stranger, but I wondered if she could sense that this stranger already loved her. “Do I know you?” she said.

  That was a shock. She did sense something. “I don’t think so,” I said, hating that I had to start off with a lie. “Wait—we must’ve met in one of those multi-universes that I’m always reading about.”

  She smiled. “That’s right. Thanks for reminding me.” She closed her book. “What can I help you with?”

  “I’d like to pick up my class handouts.”

  “Which class?”

  “5055.”

  Her jaw didn’t tighten in anger. This time around, she was able to hide her resentment. “So you’re the lucky winner,” she said, still choosing the same words, but saying them without hostility.

  “What do you mean?” I was sticking to the script, though I knew exactly what she meant.

  “You’re Alex’s friend from college.”

 
; “Jacob Morgan.”

  “I’m Laura,” she said.

  “How do you know Alex?” I asked.

  “I was in the Ph.D. program with him.” She stood up and started toward the back of the store. “I’ll get your stuff.”

  So she wasn’t going to bring up my villainous act of stealing her job. Unfortunately, there was a downside to that. Our little confrontation had forced us to open up. It had laid the groundwork for our first date.

  She returned with the box of handouts and began to ring me up. “Did Alex tell you we have something in common?”

  She was going to bring it up.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m a new adjunct, too.”

  “Really?” I blurted out, and as soon as I did, I knew I’d just summoned the missing hostility.

  “You’re shocked that UVA would hire a mere store clerk?”

  “I’m sure you’re no mere store clerk.”

  “Not anymore.”

  I smiled. “Congratulations.”

  “And congratulations to you. Cash or credit?”

  I handed her my credit card. She slid it through the card reader and waited for the receipt to print out. Neither of us said anything. The silence was awkward, but not uncomfortable.

  The receipt printed, and she handed it to me, along with a pen.

  I signed it and gave it back to her. “Thanks.”

  “The department is a stickler for receipts,” she said, then opened the box of handouts and put a copy inside.

  I picked up the box, ready to head out and call her later, like I had in our previous meet and greet, but then decided that in this history, the right history, I didn’t just walk out.

  “How about dinner when your shift is done? I mean unless there’s a policy against instructors—” That was ridiculous. Why was I bringing up University policy? We were going to have dinner, not a relationship. At least, not yet.

  She laughed. “I’ll have to consult the instructor handbook. Meanwhile, why don’t you come by around six-thirty?”

  “Great.” I picked up the box and headed out. “See you then.”

  *

  Five weeks later, there was no doubt that we were a couple. And that made it hard for me to hide anything from her. Not that there was anything to hide except for my one secret. But it was a whopper. I wanted to tell her about Einstein, and I no longer feared the trails of the other history. I’d talked to Alex a few times, and he’d thought it was all over, too, though he was vigilant. “You never know,” he said.

  My opportunity to bring it up to Laura came in late November, on Jackson Hill. If there was a more appropriate place, I couldn’t think of one. Laura and I had hiked up for what she thought would be my first introduction to Gray’s Cabin.

  Inside, she told me the story of Corbin Gray, while I lingered over the Life magazine in the display case. It was the original magazine, the one with Dwight D. Eisenhower on the cover. There was no hint of any other history on the cover or anywhere else in the cabin. Still, this place would forever bring me back to the day when I’d nearly gotten Laura killed.

  We continued our hike to the peak, where dusk was falling and a few stars were starting to shine. “I have to tell you something,” Laura said. “And I know it’s going to sound weird.”

  Not as weird as what I could tell you, I thought.

  “Remember when you first came into the Iliad and I asked if we knew each other?” she said.

  “Yeah, and I reminded you that we’d met in one of those multi-universes.”

  This time she didn’t smile. She went right on with what she was planning to tell me. “It wasn’t some vague feeling. It was strong. Like I’d known you before. A long time ago. And then somehow forgotten about you until you walked into the store. Like we’d been best friends in junior high and then one of us moved away.”

  She looked at me, and I was close enough to her to see the pleading in her eyes cutting through the dusk. She wanted me to acknowledge that what she was saying, and feeling, was true. That I’d forgotten, too, and that together we’d be able to solve the mystery.

  “I guess we’re going to have to go back through our junior high school days with a fine-toothed comb,” I said.

  “It could be even further back than that. Like elementary school.”

  Over the previous weeks, we’d already talked a little about our past. We’d grown up in different parts of the country, but her family had moved a few times. She was hanging her hope on the possibility that she’d lived near me for a short while.

  At the summit of Jackson, she spread out a blanket, and I opened a bottle of wine. The night soon engulfed us, blending its darkness with the timeless glow from the stars above. That made it easy to slip into a conversation about our childhoods.

  We weren’t able to find a time and place where our paths had crossed, but hearing more about her life brought me closer to her. Sadly, for her the conversation was a grand disappointment. She was having a hard time accepting the fact that her instincts could be so wrong. She badly wanted to solve the mystery.

  So badly that I felt compelled to tell her she was right. That we had met before. That her instincts were spot-on.

  I wanted to say those things, but I didn’t.

  Someday, if we stayed together, which I thought we would, I’d have to tell her. But even if she grew to trust me completely, how could she ever believe such a far-fetched story?

  “Maybe it’s a kind of reverse déjà vu?” she said, toward the end of the night.

  “What’s that?”

  “I’m creating memories that didn’t happen based on what’s happening now. That sounds ridiculous, right?”

  “It sounds just like reverse déjà vu,” I said. And it sounds like reconstructed memories.

  She kissed me. “Well, it’s a messy theory right now, but I’ll work on it.”

  She had the messy part right, and I wondered if she’d eventually get the time-travel part right, too. But that wasn’t a comforting thought. Maybe her use of the word “messy” was another trail, a subtle one. And maybe her memory of meeting me long ago was also a trail.

  If they were, I hoped they wouldn’t grow. But if they did, I’d know why. Another wormhole, another bridge, had opened up.

  THE END

  If you’d like to read more by Irving Belateche, please try:

  “H2O,” a Science Fiction Thriller

  “The Disappeared,” a short story, a Supernatural Thriller

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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

 

 

 
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