After another pause, Lopera said, "See that guy in the purple shirt? That's Ricardo Valente Sharpe, but everyone calls him Ric. He came in second. We used to... We're friends."
"Mmm." Elisa remembered his name perfectly, because she'd seen it immediately after her own on the list of test scores, and because it was such a strange last name. "Valente Sharpe, Ricardo: 9.85." Elisa had scored 9.89 out of 10, which meant that this kid had come in only four one-hundredths of a point below her. That had caught her attention, too, of course. "So that's Ricardo Valente Sharpe."
He was skinny, with short, straw-colored hair and an aquiline profile. Just then, he seemed to be concentrating as hard as everyone else on the speaker's words, but there was no doubt that he had an air about him, something that made him seem different from everyone else. Elisa picked up on it instantly. He wore (in addition to the purple shirt) a vest and black trousers, which in and of itself was enough to make him stand out in a sea of jeans and T-shirts. And he certainly seemed to think he was special. Welcome to the club, Ric Valente Sharpe, she thought brazenly.
Right at that moment, he turned and looked at her. He had incredible blue-green eyes, but they were somehow cold and disconcerting. If he noticed Elisa in any way, he gave no sign of it.
"Are you staying for the party?" Lopera asked, when Elisa made as if to leave.
"I haven't decided yet."
"OK. Well... see you."
"Yeah, sure."
Actually, she was planning to get out of there as fast as possible, but a feeling of tedium made her dawdle when the brief applause died down after the speech. The music came on and the students began to make their way toward a makeshift bar where drinks were being served, below the dais. She told herself that after having made that much effort to get there, taking that awful bus ride, it might actually be a good idea to hang out for a little while, although she suspected it would be the average dull party with no atmosphere.
She had no idea that that particular evening would turn out to be the beginning of her living nightmare.
THERE were jokey signs taped to the bar, the kind that science students find so hilarious. The one for physics was a few sentences long and bore no graphics:
THEORY MEANS KNOWING WHY THINGS WORK EVEN IF THEY DON'T WORK. PRACTICE MEANS THINGS WORK EVEN IF NOBODY KNOWS WHY. IN THIS PHYSICS DEPARTMENT, THEORY AND PRACTICE GO HAND IN HAND, BECAUSE NOTHING WORKS AND NOBODY KNOWS WHY.
Elisa was amused. She ordered a Diet Coke and held the napkin-wrapped plastic cup, looking for a quiet place to have her drink and then leave. In the distance, she saw Victor Lopera chatting with his friend, the ineffable Valente Sharpe, and some other oddballs. She didn't feel like joining the Round Table of Geniuses just then, so she decided to leave it for another time and instead walked down the embankment and found a spot to sit on the grass. She leaned back against the trunk of a pine tree.
She could see the sky starting to dim and caught sight of the moon rising on the horizon. She watched it as she sipped her soda. She'd loved the night sky ever since she was a little girl. At first she'd wanted to become an astronomer, but then she'd discovered that simple mathematics were infinitely more wonderful. Math was something nearby, something she could manipulate. Not so the moon. The only thing the moon could do was mesmerize her.
"The ancients used to think she was a goddess. Scientists are less flattering."
As she heard the voice, she thought, surprised, that this was the second time this evening that a stranger had decided to strike up a conversation with her. She turned to face the person speaking, her brain emitting a lightning-speed report on the most likely (most desirable?) possibility. She was wrong. It wasn't Four-One-Hundredths-Less Ric Valente Sharpe (how could she even have thought?), but another young man, tall and attractive, with dark hair and light eyes. He wore a T-shirt and khaki Bermuda shorts.
"The moon, I mean. You were staring at it very curiously." He had a backpack, which he dropped on the grass to hold out his hand. "I'm Javier Maldonado. That's the moon. And you, must be Elisa Robledo. I saw your picture in the school paper, and here you are. Lucky me. Do you mind if I sit down?"
She did mind, especially because he'd already sat down, invading her personal space and forcing her to scoot over in order to avoid his huge, flip-flopped feet touching hers. Elisa, however, told him to go ahead. She was intrigued. She watched the guy take some papers from his backpack. At least he had an original pickup line.
"I snuck in through the back door," Maldonado confessed conspiratorially. "I'm not even a science major. I'm doing journalism at Alighieri, and for our final project we have to write a special report. I'm supposed to interview graduating physics majors. You know, talk to them, ask little questions about their lives, their studies, what they do in their free time, their favorite sexual position." Maybe he picked up on the calm seriousness with which Elisa was staring at him, because suddenly he stopped. "OK, I'm an asshole. But the interview is serious, I swear." He showed her his papers. "I chose you guys because you're famous."
"Us?"
"The students doing Blanes's course. I mean, my God, they say he's the biggest hotshot there is in physics. Would you mind answering a few questions for an aspiring journalist?"
"Actually, I was just getting ready to go."
All of a sudden, Maldonado leaped comically to his knees.
"I'm begging you... I haven't gotten a single person to accept yet... I have to finish this project or I'll never even get hired as a copywriter for Soap Opera Digest. Worse, they'll make me go interview a politician at parliament. Have mercy. It won't take much time, I promise..."
Smiling, Elisa looked at her watch and got up.
"I'm sorry. The last bus back to Madrid leaves in ten minutes and I can't miss it."
Maldonado stood, too. A malicious expression danced on his face, and Elisa admitted to herself that she found it slightly alluring. She was amused. Probably thinks he's gorgeous.
"Well, look, I'll make you a deal. You answer a few questions, and I'll drive you home. All the way to your front door. Word of honor."
"Thanks, but..."
"You don't want to. Of course. I understand. After all, we just met. OK, what about this? Today, I ask you a few questions, and only if you want to, we finish up another day. How's that? Five minutes. That way you'll make your bus."
Elisa was still smiling, both amused and intrigued. She was about to relent when Maldonado spoke again.
"You liked that one, right? OK, come on."
He gestured to the very spot they'd just stood up from. I can listen to him ask questions for five minutes, she thought.
ACTUALLY, she listened to him for longer than that and spoke for even longer. But she couldn't blame Maldonado, who, far from playing dirty, was friendly and attentive. He even went so far as to remind her, at just the right time, that her five minutes were up.
"Should we leave it here?" he asked.
Elisa stopped to consider the other alternative. She hated the idea of leaving this little Eden to get back on that awful bus. Besides, over the past few months she'd been living in her own world, and now that she was finally talking to someone (someone who respected her as a person and didn't just think she was a brilliant student or a cute girl), she realized that she actually needed the company. "I still have a little time," she said. A few minutes later, Maldonado interrupted once more to warn her that she was going to miss her bus. She appreciated his polite concern. And told him to continue. He didn't remind her again.
Elisa felt totally at ease chatting away with him. She answered questions about why she studied physics, what the department was like, whether it was a friendly atmosphere, and about her infinite passion for the natural world. Maldonado let her blather on, jotting down a few things here and there as she spoke. At one point, he said, "You know, you don't really fit my image of a scientist. Not at all."
"Oh? And what's your image of a scientist?"
Maldonado considered the question.
"An ugly dude."
"Well, I can assure you that there are some cute ones, too. And not all of them are 'dudes.'" She smiled. But he'd turned serious and stopped joking.
"There's something else that intrigues me about you. You're at the top of your class, you're guaranteed a scholarship to the best place in the world, your future couldn't be brighter... As if that weren't enough, you just finished college and you could ... I don't know, sleep for twenty hours straight, climb the Alps, do anything you wanted. But instead, you march right out and take a killer exam to get one of twenty spots in David Blanes's summer course. I mean, this Blanes guy must be pretty spectacular."
"He is." Elisa's eyes lit up. "He's a genius."
Maldonado scribbled something down.
"Do you know him personally?"
"No, but I admire his work."
"Most public universities in this country hate him. Did you know that? That's why he had to teach this course at a private institution..."
"The world is full of envious people," Elisa said. "Especially the world of science. But, yeah, I've heard that Blanes can be difficult."
"Would you like to do a dissertation on him?"
"Obviously."
"Anything else?"
"What?"
"I asked you if you'd like to do a dissertation on him and you said, 'Obviously.' Is that all you have to say?"
"What else do you want me to say? You asked me a question and I answered it."
"That's the problem with you physicists," he lamented, making more notes. "You take everything so literally. What I wanted to know is, what's Blanes got that everyone's so into him? I mean ... I know they say he's a fucking genius, he's been nominated for the Nobel Prize, and if he wins he'll be the first Spaniard to win the damn Nobel in physics. I know all that shit. But what I want to know is, what's his deal? You know? His course is called..." He looked at one of his papers and read, falteringly, "'The topology of time strings in visible electromagnetic radiation.' That doesn't exactly clear a lot up for me."
"You want me to sum up the whole of theoretical physics to you with one answer?"
Maldonado seemed to seriously weigh the possibility.
"OK," he replied.
"Fine. Let's see. I'll try to summarize..." Elisa was in her element. She liked explaining as much as she liked understanding. "You know about the theory of relativity?"
"Yeah, Einstein. 'Everything is relative,' right?"
"The theory of relativity is a little more complicated than that. But what I'm trying to say is that it works in almost every situation, except in the world of atoms. That's where quantum physics comes in. Together, those theories are the most perfect intellectual creations humans have ever conceived. They can explain almost anything. But the problem is, we need both of them. What's valid on one scale doesn't work on the other, and vice versa. And that's a big problem. For years, physicists have been trying to combine the two theories into one. Does that make sense?"
"Sure, it's like any country's political parties, right?" Maldonado suggested. "Both sides are wrong, and they still never agree on anything."
"Something like that. Anyway, one of the most popular theories that attempts to combine them is called string theory."
"I've never heard of it. String?"
"Yeah. String theory. Also called superstrings. It's an incredibly complicated mathematical theory, but basically what it comes down to is quite simple..." Elisa quickly cast her eyes around for an object, and then settled on the paper napkin around her cup. While she spoke, she folded it in half and then creased it into a sharp edge with her long fingers. Maldonado watched, intrigued. "According to string theory, the particles that make up the universe, you know, electrons, protons ... all of those particles are not little balls, like we learned to visualize in elementary school, but are actually elongated, like strings..."
"Things like strings...," Maldonado pondered aloud.
"Yeah. Really fine strings, because the only dimension they possess is longitude. But they have a special property." Elisa raised her hands to Maldonado's eye level, holding the napkin taut so that he was looking at the crease. "Tell me what you see."
"A napkin."
"That's the problem with you journalists. You worry too much about appearance." Elisa smiled playfully. "Forget what you already think it is. Just tell me what you think you see."
Maldonado squinted and stared at the sharp edge that Elisa held up before him.
"Um... A line. A straight line."
"Good. From your perspective, it could be a string, right? A thread. Well, the theory states that the strings that make up matter only look like strings from certain angles. But if we look at them from another perspective..."—Elisa flipped the napkin up and held the rectangular surface before him— "then they have other dimensions, and if we could unroll them, or 'open' them..."—she unfolded the napkin all the way now, so that it became a large square—"then we could see even more dimensions."
"What a trip." Maldonado looked impressed. Or else he was a good faker. "So, have those dimensions been discovered?"
"Ha! Not even close," Elisa replied, balling up the napkin and stuffing it into her cup. "'Opening' a subatomic string requires machines we don't have yet: incredibly powerful particle accelerators ... But that's where Blanes and his theory come in. He thinks there are some strings that can be opened with low levels of energy. Time strings. He's mathematically proven that time is made up of strings, just like everything else. But they can be opened with accelerators that already exist. It's just very difficult to carry out the experiment."
"So what you're talking about, in practical terms"— Maldonado was scribbling furiously—"is time travel? Going back to the past?"
"No. The idea of traveling back through time is total science fiction. Basic laws of physics make it impossible. There's no way to go back to the past, sorry. Time can only travel forward, into the future. But if Blanes's theory were correct, there would be another possibility ... We could open time strands and see the past."
"See the past? You mean... Napoleon, Julius Caesar? Sorry, kiddo, but that sounds like science fiction."
"You're wrong. It's very possible." Elisa looked at him, amused. "Not only is it possible, it's run of the mill. We see the past every day."
"You mean old movies, faded photographs, all that?"
"No. We're seeing it right now." She laughed at his expression. "Seriously. You want to bet?"
Maldonado glanced around.
"Well, OK, some of those professors have seen better days, I'll grant you that." Elisa laughed and shook her head.
"You being serious?"
"Completely." She looked up, and Maldonado did the same. Night had fallen. A blanket of shimmering stars shone brightly in the black sky. "The light from those stars takes millions of years to reach the earth," she explained. "They may no longer exist, but we'll still be seeing them for a long, long time. Every time we look at the sky, we go back millions of years. We can travel through time just by looking out a window."
They were both silent for a moment. The sounds and lights of the party faded away for Elisa, who was much more interested in the magnificent silence that rose above her like a vaulted cathedral. When she looked back down, and then over at Maldonado, she realized he felt the same thing.
"Physics is a beautiful thing," she murmured.
"One of many," he responded, staring at her.
They continued their conversation, though at a more relaxed pace. Then he suggested they stop and get something to eat, and she put up no resistance (it had gotten late and she was hungry). Maldonado jumped up and headed for the bar.
While she was waiting for him, Elisa glanced around indifferently. There were still plenty of hangers-on at the party, enjoying the warm summer temperatures. An old Umberto Tozzi song was playing, and here and there groups of students and professors stood chatting animatedly beneath the party lights.
Then she noticed a man watching her.
He was a completely anodyne fellow, standing on the embankment's lower deck. His checked, short-sleeved shirt and well-pressed trousers were wholly unremarkable. His hair was graying, and his only distinguishing feature was a big gray mustache. Elisa guessed he was a professor, though he wasn't speaking to any colleagues. Or doing anything else, for that matter.
Except staring at her.
His gaze intrigued her. She wondered if she knew him from somewhere, but concluded that he must be the one who recognized her. Maybe he'd seen her picture in the paper, too.
Suddenly, he whipped his head around quickly (too quickly) and vanished behind one of the groups of gathered professors. She was more disturbed by his rapid departure than his staring. It was like he was faking it, like he'd realized that Elisa had become aware of him. Caught me, damn it. But when Maldonado returned with two big, paper-wrapped sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, and beer and another Diet Coke for her, she forgot the incident. It wasn't the first time an older man had stared at her, after all.
ON the ride back to Madrid, they were mostly silent, but Elisa felt entirely at ease in the car, being driven home by a boy she hardly knew. She somehow felt at ease in his company. Maldonado made her laugh from time to time with his ironic quips, but he'd stopped asking questions, and Elisa was glad about that. She took advantage of the situation by asking him questions instead. His life was quite straightforward: he lived with his parents and sister, and he was into traveling and sports (two things she loved, too). It was almost midnight when Maldonado's Peugeot pulled up in front of her apartment building on Claudio Coello.
"Some building," he said. "Is being rich a requirement for making it as a physicist?"
"For my mother, it's a requirement for anything."
"We haven't even talked about your family ... What does your mother do? Mathematician? Chemist? Genetic engineer? Inventor of the Rubik's Cube?"