"What about this other key?" he asked.
I told him, "That's to our apartment."
The renter was standing under the streetlamp when I got home. We met there every night to talk about the details of our plan, like what time we should leave, and what we would do if it was raining, or if a guard asked us what we were doing. We ran out of realistic details in just a few meetings, but for some reason we still weren't ready to go. So we made up unrealistic details to plan, like alternate driving routes in case the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge collapsed, and ways to get over the cemetery fence in case it was electrified, and how to outsmart the police if we were arrested. We had all sorts of maps and secret codes and tools. We probably would have gone on making plans forever if I hadn't met William Black that night, and learned what I'd learned.
The renter wrote, "You're late." I shrugged my shoulders, just like Dad used to. He wrote, "I got us a rope ladder, just in case." I nodded. "Where were you? I was worried." I told him, "I found the lock."
"You found it?" I nodded. "And?"
I didn't know what to say. I found it and now I can stop looking? I found it and it had nothing to do with Dad? I found it and now I'll wear heavy boots for the rest of my life?
"I wish I hadn't found it." "It wasn't what you were looking for?"
"That's not it." "Then what?" "I found it and now I can't look for it." I could tell he didn't understand me. "Looking for it let me stay close to him for a little while longer." "But won't you always be close to him?" I knew the truth. "No."
He nodded like he was thinking of something, or thinking about a lot of things, or thinking about everything, if that's even possible. He wrote, "Maybe it's time to do the thing we've been planning."
I opened my left hand, because I knew if I tried to say something I would just start crying again.
We agreed to go on Thursday night, which was the second anniversary of Dad's death, which seemed appropriate.
Before I walked into the building, he handed me a letter. "What is this?" He wrote, "Stan went to get coffee. He told me to give this to you in case he didn't get back in time." "What is it?" He shrugged his shoulders and went across the street.
Dear Oskar Schell,
I've read every letter that you've sent me these past two years. In return, I've sent you many form letters, with the hope of one day being able to give you the proper response you deserve. But the more letters you wrote to me, and the more of yourself you gave, the more daunting my task became.
I'm sitting beneath a pear tree as I dictate this to you, overlooking the orchards of a friend's estate. I've spent the past few days here, recovering from some medical treatment that has left me physically and emotionally depleted. As I moped about this morning, feeling sorry for myself, it occurred to me, like a simple solution to an impossible problem: today is the day I've been waiting for.
You asked me in your first letter if you could be my protégé. I don't know about that, but I would be happy to have you join me in Cambridge for a few days. I could introduce you to my colleagues, treat you to the best curry outside India, and show you just how boring the life of an astrophysicist can be.
You can have a bright future in the sciences, Oskar. I would be happy to do anything possible to facilitate such a path. It's wonderful to think what would happen if you put your imagination toward scientific ends.
But Oskar, intelligent people write to me all the time. In your fifth letter you asked, "What if I never stop inventing?" That question has stuck with me.
I wish I were a poet. I've never confessed that to anyone, and I'm confessing it to you, because you've given me reason to feel that I can trust you. I've spent my life observing the universe, mostly in my mind's eye. It's been a tremendously rewarding life, a wonderful life. I've been able to explore the origins of time and space with some of the great living thinkers. But I wish I were a poet.
Albert Einstein, a hero of mine, once wrote, "Our situation is the following. We are standing in front of a closed box which we cannot open."
I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the vast majority of the universe is composed of dark matter. The fragile balance depends on things we'll never be able to see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Life itself depends on them. What's real? What isn't real? Maybe those aren't the right questions to be asking. What does life depend on?
I wish I had made things for life to depend on.
What if you never stop inventing?
Maybe you're not inventing at all.
I'm being called in for breakfast, so I'll have to end this letter here. There's more I want to tell you, and more I want to hear from you. It's a shame we live on different continents. One shame of many.
It's so beautiful at this hour. The sun is low, the shadows are long, the air is cold and clean. You won't be awake for another five hours, but I can't help feeling that we're sharing this clear and beautiful morning.
Your friend,
Stephen Hawking
MY FEELINGS
A knocking woke me up in the middle of the night.
I had been dreaming about where I came from.
I put on my robe and went to the door.
Who could it be? Why didn't the doorman ring up? A neighbor?
But why?
More knocking. I looked through the peephole. It was your grandfather.
Come in. Where were you? Are you OK?
The bottoms of his pants were covered in dirt.
Are you OK?
He nodded.
Come in. Let me clean you off. What happened?
He shrugged his shoulders.
Did someone hurt you?
He showed me his right hand.
Are you hurt?
We went to the kitchen table and sat down. Next to each other. The windows were black. He put his hands on his knees.
I slid closer to him until our sides touched. I put my head on his shoulder. I wanted as much of us to touch as possible.
I told him, You have to tell me what happened for me to be able to help.
He took a pen from his shirt pocket but there was nothing to write on.
I gave him my open hand.
He wrote, I want to get you some magazines.
In my dream, all of the collapsed ceilings re-formed above us. The fire went back into the bombs, which rose up and into the bellies of planes whose propellers turned backward, like the second hands of the clocks across Dresden, only faster.
I wanted to slap him with his words.
I wanted to shout, It isn't fair, and bang my fists against the table like a child.
Anything special? he asked on my arm.
Everything special, I said.
Art magazines?
Yes.
Nature magazines?
Yes.
Politics?
Yes.
Celebrities?
Yes.
I told him to bring a suitcase so he could come back with one of everything.
I wanted him to be able to take his things with him.
In my dream, spring came after summer, came after fall, came after winter, came after spring.