Multiversum Read Free Page A

better, Jenny,’ said her mother as she brought the roast to the dinner table.
    â€˜Why don’t you let her say for herself whether she’s all better or not,’ Roger broke in. Clara only sighed, sitting down as if nothing had happened.
    But Jenny wasn’t interested in what her parents had to say that evening. She couldn’t think about anything other than Alex.
    It finally worked: I told him where I live .
    She’d been trying to do it for what seemed like ages. Over the last year, she’d tried to communicate something about herself besides her name to him, but she thought it might be too hard. What’s more, she’d never really been willing to admit that the voice in her head might belong to another human being. And there was one other thing that had kept her from trying to communicate with him: the pain. Maybe the boy who had reached out to her with the name Alex didn’t feel the sheer physical pain that she did during the attacks, but for her it was torture. Each individual word perforated her brain, like a stab through her head from one temple to the other. This time, though, she was sure that she’d clearly enunciated the name of her city.
    Jenny had only a very vague idea of the person she was contacting. His name was the only clue she had. His voice seemed to belong to a young person, probably someone her age, and during her visions she’d managed to glimpse his eyes, and make out the blond shock of hair hanging over his forehead.
    There were times when she wondered if she wasn’t building a gigantic house of cards that was sure to collapse sooner or later, destroying all her illusions. Because that was what she feared the most: losing the sensation that had followed her through every moment for years now, the hope that the voice she heard might belong to another flesh-and-blood human being.
    That night, she went to bed with a clear mind. She smiled as she looked up dreamily at the ceiling. The glow-in-the-dark stars that her father had put up so many years ago were still there, shining down for her as she dropped off to sleep. Cassiopeia, the square shape of Pegasus, Andromeda, and then there were Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, the Great Bear and the Little Bear, separated by the twisting body of Draco. A firmament all for her.
    Jenny closed her eyes.
    Alex was out there; she felt sure of it. He was somewhere on the planet. And they were somehow able to communicate. She couldn’t live without him any longer.
    That afternoon, after gobbling down some quiche and a bottle of pear juice and killing an hour or so watching television, Alex decided to go to the library. There was a new building site across the street from his apartment block, and since that morning a crew of construction workers in fluorescent orange overalls had been drilling with jackhammers. The noise made it impossible for him to think. His mid-term exam in philosophy was getting closer, and he’d studied thirty per cent, at most, of the chapters that his teacher had assigned the class.
    With his backpack slung over one shoulder, he caught one bus and transferred to another, getting off in front of the university library. He’d been there before: it was a quiet place, populated with older kids who were mostly attending the Politecnico. As he walked into the reading room, he scanned the tables for an empty seat and headed for the first one he found.
    He half-heartedly started going over his notes, and then pulled out his philosophy textbook.
    He was underlining in pencil a phrase from Kierkegaard when the usual shudder paralysed his back, immobilising every last nerve ending in his body.
    Then something strange happened.
    He looked around, waiting for the moment to arrive. He expected to fall out of his chair, but he didn’t sprawl out onto the floor at all. He remained seated, motionless, both arms on the table. He felt his body becoming heavier, but he was able to move his head