“Listen to me carefully, Jew.” The voice sounded remote coming from behind the mask. “You must sit up.”
Aharon drew in a sharp breath. “Sit? I… I cannot. I’m injured.”
“You are not injured. Gravity is heavier here. Moving is difficult, but it can be done. Sit up or die, your choice.”
Had he imagined something human in the voice? Nothing human could be so cruel. Aharon believed the threat completely. If he did not sit up he would die. And yet… did that mean that if he could sit he would live? He heaved a quivery sigh and tried to gather his strength. The voice said he could move, that he was not paralyzed but only burdened by gravity. The implications of that were too unfathomable to provide any relief, but it did make him try. He strained. It was impossible. Perhaps, if he had been asked when he’d first arrived, before the day of terror and the journey had worn his reserves to nothing, but now…
Even as he told himself he couldn’t do it, the desire for self-preservation worked miracles. He managed to turn onto one shoulder and press his palms deep into the floor. Grunting like a pig, spittle flying from his lips, he leveraged his upper torso partially off the floor. His arms shook uncontrollably. His heart was going to burst under the strain.
“Now hold it,” the voice said.
Aharon didn’t, couldn’t, answer. He felt veins popping out on his neck. A stab of agony raced from one side of his chest to the other like a warning shot across a bow.
The masked figure turned to the assembly and the crowd shook the roof with their pounding staves.
Without warning, Aharon’s elbows collapsed. He slammed to the floor, his left eyebrow splitting on the stone, sending blood into his eyes. He moaned. Was it over? Please, God, let it be over.
The pounding was still reverberating in the room, but the voice spoke again, to him alone this time, urgent and low. “Listen—you must give me something, anything. A wallet, a letter, a watch. Do it quickly.”
Aharon opened his eyes. The figure was bending over him, one hand held out. The hand trembled, white and long-fingered… and hairless.
Aharon tried to see the eyes behind the mask, but they were buried in shadow. “Who are you?”
“Never mind.”
“You’re… You’re human, nu?”
No answer.
“Yosef Kobinski?”
The figure gasped in surprise, drew back. There was only that mask and, behind it, what?
“Yes. Now do as I said. Hurry!”
“In the back. Inside my jacket.”
The figure reached over him and sought the place—felt the stiffness of the rolled-up manuscript and pulled it free. The bound pages were thrust into the air in triumph as the figure stood. The assembly roared.
Aharon felt paws on his arms and legs. He was being lifted. The terror came back in a rush.
“Reb Kobinski!”
The figure had its back to him, still raising the manuscript for the crowd.
“Reb Kobinski!”
The mask turned. Aharon had the strange idea that those eyes, those human eyes, glared maliciously at him. But he only saw them for a moment before he was carried away.
Aharon was taken to a room that, while dark and smelly, was private. It had a bed that, while rough and scratchy, was still a bed. There was warmth under the covers, filthy as they were. These small comforts, after a day of horrors, were like manna from heaven. Exhausted, he slept.
He was abruptly awoken—shaken from sleep by the paw of one of those creatures. He looked up to see a delicate rodentlike face and intelligent eyes set atop a huge torso and surrounded by a mass of brown fur. The creature bore a torch, its fire thick and low, barely illuminating the dark room. It moved back when Aharon’s eyes opened, bowing its head subserviently.
Behind it was the figure in the gold mask, sitting on a chair beside the bed.
Aharon tried to sit up and speak and was reminded that he could not sit up. This had the immediate effect of depressing him, as all that had happened came back and he realized that he was still lost. So it was not over. He lay weighted against the cushions, eyes on the figure, and said nothing.
“That will be all, Tevach. You can go. Make sure no one disturbs us.”
The masked figure spoke in Hebrew and the animal grunted something back that sounded like “My Lord,” in Hebrew, which Aharon found extremely offensive. The creature shuffled to the door.
When they were alone, the figure took off the mask. Underneath was the face of an old man—but not as old as Aharon had expected. The man in the chair looked fit, muscular, even muscle-bound, like those men in magazines, something that Aharon couldn’t help thinking was anathema for a Jew. The old man leaned forward and used both hands to straighten out first one leg, then another, his face lined with pain.
“My joints. They’re disintegrating. They weren’t built to withstand the gravity on Fiori.”
“Fiori?”
“That’s the name of this accursed rock. That’s what the natives call it. I call it Gehenna. And I—I am the king of Gehenna.” There was dark irony in his voice.
“It really is Hell?” Aharon asked tremulously.
“One of the many. Charming, isn’t it?” The man oozed an aloofness, a cold disdain, that Aharon couldn’t understand. He studied the face.
“You’re not Yosef Kobinski. You must be his son, Isaac, nu?”
An expression of outrage flickered in the man’s eyes. “I am Yosef Kobinski. How did you know about my son? Or about me, for that matter?”
The words were threatening. Aharon chose to ignore the tone. “That? That is a long story. But, if you don’t mind my saying, you don’t look so bad as you should, for a man of one hundred and five.”
Kobinski’s eyes narrowed. “Two thousand five?”
“Yes.”
Kobinski sat contemplating. His eyes were far away, as if he was doing equations in his head. “Einstein showed that gravity bends light. It also bends time. It’s been thirty years here, sixty on Earth.”
“Even for thirty years—how could you survive a place such as this?”
“Did I survive?” Kobinski asked bitterly.
“You never tried to go back?” Aharon asked.
“No.”
“You didn’t try? I can see that Auschwitz was not much of an option. But you must have thought, after some years had passed, that maybe—”
“Be silent,” Kobinski commanded, in the voice of a man who expected obedience. He put a hand to his mouth. “You said you were from Jerusalem.”
“Yes. Israel is a country now—a Jewish nation. Eretz Israel—it exists!” It was a blessing to say this to a Jew who had no idea. But if he was impressed, Kobinski didn’t show it.
“However,” Aharon added, “just to prepare you—it might not be what you’d expect. There’s much secularism—you see it everywhere. You could hardly believe we fought so long for something and, the younger generation especially, they don’t have any idea what it means. Not like you and I. At the wall—”
“And Auschwitz?”
“Auschwitz? It’s a memorial now. They call it the Holocaust. Six million died.”
Kobinski’s hands on the arms of the chair tightened until his skin was white with the strain. “Six million,” he whispered. “And when did it end?”
“Nineteen-forty-five. The Americans and the Russians liberated the camps.”
Kobinski looked away, was silent for a moment, then said, “It was only a matter of time. Even we knew that. But it was too late for six million. And too late for…”
“Yes?” Aharon frowned. “Listen—isn’t it a simple matter of finding the gateway again, the hole thing, and stepping through? You’ll come with.”