Chapter 36

New York, August, Saturday—Present Time

I woke up early, feeling strangely rested, in a plush hotel bed with crisp white sheets and a soft feather duvet. I rolled around restlessly, then remembered the memory box. Pauline was still in a deep sleep. I dressed in the hotel robe, grabbed the box, and locked myself in the giant bathroom. Coffee could wait.

I positioned myself on the bathroom rug and took the items out gently, holding some to my face, and looking carefully at others. They smelled like Baba; they smelled like my childhood; they smelled like home. There were small handkerchiefs I remembered using as a child, my stuffed animal from when I was in elementary school, a wedding picture of my parents, my silver baby spoon, and my baby earrings.

I read Baba’s letter again, every word precious to me. When did she write this? It must have been right after we spoke Monday. How long did it take her to put this box together for me? Did she have time to put all the items in it before she… I wiped the tears and searched for my great-grandfather’s journal.

The journal was in a simple brown cardboard-covered spiral notebook, somehow well preserved. So Baba brought it all the way from Ukraine, even though she says she’d never read it? Interesting how we manage to keep our most painful memories with us. I re-positioned myself more comfortably on the rug and flipped through the pages. A great deal was filled out, in tiny letters, in Russian. I scanned through it, finding some entries on World War II, marriage, my grandmother and her sister being born. So did he write a memoir of sorts? I flipped to the first page to check if he started with his childhood, and dropped the journal.

Not possible…

The first page did have a title.

My Life by Mark Minchin.

Mark Minchin was one of the names on the list of students I still had from the University of Bern Archives. And it was the name on the letter I’d found in Jane Eyre.

I somehow never knew that my great-grandfather’s name was Mark. How did I not know? What was wrong with me? Did I know his wife’s name? I quickly looked through the journal. It was Anna.

All right, calm down. This doesn’t mean anything.

I flipped through the early pages of the journal. Stories of childhood in the village of Lepetikha. He was one of thirteen siblings. The village was in the Pale of Settlement, where the Jews were restricted to live by the Tsar. I flipped further. He was sent by his family to study medicine at the University of Bern, because the Tsar only allowed a small number of Jews to attend the universities in Ukraine. I flipped frantically through the pages, nearly ripping them, but there was no mention of Rebecca. He wrote that he had returned from Bern and worked with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Leningrad for some time after the revolution. He eventually returned home and moved his family to Odessa and established a medical practice. He said something about him being in hiding during Stalin’s time because he feared being arrested as a Jewish physician.

Nothing about Rebecca. Must be the wrong Mark. Another dead end.

Then I remembered and slowly turned the journal pages to the last entry, where Baba said he wrote on the day of his death. And there it was, in barely legible writing, written with the shaking hand of a dying man:

Dear Zoya, this is for your eyes only. You were always my best helper.

When I was a young man, I attended the University of Bern in Switzerland and then practiced surgery in Bern. I was engaged to marry a Swiss physician. Her name was Rebecca Miller. I went home to check on my family’s safety during the Great War and to perform an errand for Lenin and was unable to ever return to her. I tried. Many times. But there was a great deal of fighting and trains weren’t able to go through. And then, when the Revolution took place, the Red Army wouldn’t allow me to leave. I was recruited as a surgeon and told I would be killed as a deserter if I left. I regret every day of my life that I didn’t try. She must think I abandoned her.

If you ever get a chance to find her, please tell her I loved her until the last breath I took. Just as I love you and your sister.

I closed the journal and held it to my heart. “I found her for you, Mark, but too late.” So that’s what happened. That’s why Mark never came back. Rebecca never found out. I wondered if Rebecca ever found happiness in her life with Edward. I wished I could ask David or his mother. I wished I could ask my grandmother if her parents were ever happy. I set the journal gently back in the box. I knew it all, now: the love, the separation, and the heartbreak.

I had to tell David. But how could I call him after the way I’d treated him? I washed my face and decided to think about it later.

I touched my sister’s photograph before closing the lid on the box, and I thought of the robin. “Is this what you wanted me to find out, Ella? Is this why you led me to the store to buy the ring and follow you to Bern? You wanted me to know our great-grandfather’s story? Thank you.”

Pauline knocked on the bathroom door, and I heard her tired voice: “I’m awake now. You don’t have to hide. I called for breakfast.”

I waited until she had coffee to tell her about my great-grandfather’s journal.

“Well, this all make sense now,” she said, spreading jelly on her toast.

“How exactly does this all make sense to you?”

“Mark and Rebecca couldn’t be together and have their love. So Rebecca put her love in the ring—for her descendants to have. You were meant to find it and then meet David. Don’t you see?”

“How could something so abstract as love be preserved in a piece of jewelry? And I’m not Rebecca’s descendant. I’m Mark’s.” I shook my head.

“Well, somehow Fate led you to find this ring and then find David. Look.” She showed me her phone. “Nicolas messaged me from Johannesburg this morning. I asked him what he thought about all this. He says he hopes we believe him now about the meaning of coincidences.”

“Well, yes, I do believe him now. You can tell him that,” I agreed. “But the whole trapped-love-in-a-ring thing eludes me.”

“Be patient. There is more. He says that quantum physics—I have no idea what that is—has a theory that souls are made of negative potential energy electrons that have a memory. Do you understand any of this? He said you would.”

“I had to study quantum physics in premed. I don’t remember any discussions about the energy of souls, though.”

“Here, read it yourself. I don’t understand physics.” She handed me the phone.

I read the rest of the text.

So if a soul is made of energy, it could stay somewhere in the universe. And maybe this energy could be then transferred into an object or a person? And a certain, somehow sensitive, person could be able to perceive this energy.

“Wait,” I said. “I think I understand. He’s saying that some of Rebecca’s energy was transferred to the ring, and then, since I was related to the man she loved, I was able to perceive some of this energy!”

“I guess?” Pauline shrugged her shoulders and poured another cup of coffee.

“All right. And what if great love had strong energy associated with it, as well? And the energy of it could also stay in the universe until it found the right people who could sort of absorb it?”

“You mean that you and David absorbed the love Rebecca and Mark had? From the ring?” Pauline asked.

“Right!”

“That’s exactly what I said before! But without needing quantum physics. I think it’s very romantic.”

“The only problem is that this somehow feels very predestined to me. As if I had no control over who I fell in love with,” I said.

“Did you feel you had control?”

“Yes and no. I did try to resist the feeling. I think I did. And I did run away from him. But I also felt absolutely incredible when I was with him.” Memories of David holding me in his arms suddenly flooded my mind. “To be honest, I can’t imagine living the rest of my life without him,” I admitted to Pauline, as well as to myself.

“If you feel so strong, what does it matter if it was choice or not? Fate is not such a bad thing. Many people dream about it.”

“You’re right. I’m being stupid. Now I just need courage to go find him again and apologize.”

“You’ll find courage. I know you will. Until then, I am here with you.” Pauline hugged me.

“Thank you.” I hugged her back.

It was after I got dressed for the day that I realized that what Nicolas said could explain the bird that accompanied me in Europe. Maybe the energy of my sister’s soul transferred to the robin, because she loved those birds. I hoped I would see it again. The truth was I didn’t mind that I’d been sensitive to Rebecca’s and Ella’s energies. I’d enjoyed my adventures and feelings I’d experienced. I was grateful for the strength Rebecca’s ring had given me when I stood up to Haber.

I touched my finger out of habit and realized the ring wasn’t on it. After a brief moment of panic, I remembered that I had taken it off on the airplane. I’d faced Dean Haber all on my own, without the ring. Well, what do you know… I dug in my backpack for Rebecca’s ring and put it back on. I liked being on my own, but I missed her company.