“Seven weeks to change your life and hers,” Devi said. “Seven days to make the world. Seven words on the Cross. Seven times to perfect your soul so when you finally meet God, you’re the best you can be. Don’t be selfish, Julian. Think of her. You’d rather her immortal soul spin and toil for eternity? Over and over, trying and failing?” Devi shook his head. “Now that sounds like nothing but suffering for the sake of nothing but suffering. Look at yourself—your bones are crumbling. You are turning to dust before my eyes. Your body can’t take even one more time. But long gone are the days when you swore to me you were never going back, and I pretended to believe you. You’ve really gone out of your way to answer a question I of all people didn’t need answered: how does a man live when he must live without the thing he can’t live without? Poorly, that’s how. So go—for the last time go—and do what you can.”
“Like what?”
“To have something you’ve never had,” Devi said, “you must do something you’ve never done.”
This is it, ladies and gents!
Make it real.
Make it last.
Make it beautiful.
4
The Importance of Being Julian
THE RIVER ENDS. HIS MAKESHIFT DINGHY GRINDS AGAINST A muddy decaying bed. Julian turns off the headlamp to find the light, but there is nothing to see and nowhere to climb. Dusting himself off, he turns his headlamp back on and proceeds down the dried-out riverbed. It’s better than walking on ice, that’s for sure.
After a long time, the tubular walls of the cave get smoother, grayer, and the rocks under his feet disappear. He bumps his ankle against something that feels like iron. He leans down. It is iron. It’s a single rail. If it was a live rail, he’d be in real trouble. He wonders why it isn’t live. He walks and walks and walks. To look for the light, he once again switches off the headlamp. Finally, in the dark tunnel ahead of him he sees a faint yellow glimmer and hears some distant noise.
The tunnel empties into a train station. He pulls himself up onto a platform in a cavernous space, all of it in near total darkness except toward the opposite end around a blind curve. Julian recognizes the station. He’s been here many times, a thousand times. In case there’s any doubt, on the wall, a red circle with a blue line through it tells him what it is.
It’s Bank.
It’s the Bank tube station in the City of London. He is on the Central Line platform, with its unmistakable sharp bend (the station was built around the vaults of the Bank of England). Julian can almost hear the shriek of the screeching wheels as the train turns the corner. Another day, that is, not today, because today there are no trains because the rail is cut.
Just past the curve, he sees a cluster of ragamuffin people spread out on the platform near the exit to the lobby that leads to the escalators that lead to the street. They’re jammed together and sunk to the ground amid a few lit lamps. From the lobby, he can hear a single voice talking, modulating up and down the octaves, as if giving a soliloquy. Intermittently, the voices on the ground laugh.
It looks as if the crowd might be using the Underground as a bomb shelter. Which would explain why there is no live rail. The rail is cut at night, because people sleep in the Underground.
Julian pats himself on his proverbial back. Finally, he has guessed his destination correctly.
It’s London, during the Second World War.
To fit in with the times, Julian bought a three-piece Armani suit, two sizes too big. No one wears fitted suits in the 1940s. On his feet are waterproof combat boots. On his head is a newsboy cap, the kind even King George liked to wear. Julian kept his hair curly and longish, slicked back, away from his forehead, and he shaved, though after time in the cave, his stubble feels an inch thick as he runs his hand over his face.
He steps into the lobby between the platforms and languishes at the rear of the crowd, trying to catch the voice echoing off the tiled tubular walls.
On the platform, some are already lying down, covered by blankets as if this is where they will sleep, but in the poorly lit