Multiversum Read online

  Scribe Publications

  MULTIVERSUM

  LEONARDO PATRIGNANI was born in Moncalieri, Italy, in 1980. A songwriter, voice actor, and Stephen King fan, he has been writing since the age of six. Multiversum is his first book, and rights to the novel have been sold in eighteen countries.

  ANTONY SHUGAAR is a writer and literary translator working from Italian and French. He has published articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Boston Globe in recent years. He is an editor-at-large for the journal Asymptote, and is currently at work on a book about translation for the University of Virginia Press.

  Scribe Publications Pty Ltd

  18–20 Edward St, Brunswick, Victoria 3056, Australia

  50A Kingsway Place, Sans Walk, London, EC1R 0LU, United Kingdom

  Copyright © Leonardo Patrignani 2012

  Translation copyright © Antony Shugaar 2014

  First published in Italy by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A.

  This edition published in agreement with Piergiorgio Nicolazzini Literary Agency (PNLA)

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publishers of this book.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Patrignani, Leonardo, author.

  Multiversum / Leonardo Patrignani; translated by Antony Shugaar.

  9781925106084 (Australian edition)

  9781922247520 (UK edition)

  9781925113242 (e-book)

  Target Audience: For young adults.

  1. Teenagers–Juvenile fiction. 2. Telepathy–Juvenile fiction. 3. Space and time–Juvenile fiction.

  Other Authors/Contributors: Shugaar, Antony, translator.

  853.92

  scribepublications.com.au

  scribepublications.co.uk

  For my father.

  In one of the countless parallel worlds,

  sooner or later, we’ll meet again.

  1

  Alex Loria was ready for the decisive basket.

  His yellow-and-blue jersey was dripping with sweat, his blond page-boy fringe curling over his forehead, above the steady gaze of a basketball player who knew he was about to score.

  He was team captain. He’d just drawn two last-minute free throws. The first had gone in nicely. Rim-backboard-rim-net.

  They were down by only one point. He couldn’t miss this shot.

  Alex wiped the palms of his hands on his shorts and then looked straight at the referee as the man passed him the ball. He gave the boy who had fouled him — a student at the school across the street from his — a chilly glance, and focused his mind on the free throw.

  ‘Let’s nail this basket and win the game. C’mon, Alex, you can do it …’ he whispered to himself, psyching himself up as he lowered his head, dribbling the ball. His teammates stood in silence, tense, ready to lunge for the rebound, while the three regulation bounces echoed throughout the high-school gymnasium. This was just an exhibition match: there were no banners held up by parents in the bleachers, no children with popcorn at courtside. But no one wanted to lose, especially not the team captain.

  Suddenly, that hollow feeling. His knees sagged. A chill ran up his spine. His eyes fogged over. While his teammates and adversaries watched aghast, Alex fell to his knees, caught himself with one arm braced against the synthetic floor of the basketball court, and started panting.

  He could feel it.

  It was about to happen again.

  ‘Will you please come down for dinner?’ Clara called from the kitchen.

  ‘Just a second, Mum!’

  ‘You’ve been saying “just a second” for twenty minutes now. Get down here!’

  Jenny Graver puffed out her cheeks in annoyance and shook her head, while she shuttled her fingers around the trackpad, shutting down the various applications running on her MacBook Pro. She looked up at the wall clock. Her mother’s tone made it clear that she would brook no further delays. Jenny stood up and met her own gaze in the mirror over the desk where she studied. Her wavy chestnut hair spilled over her broad shoulders, the shoulders of a professional swimmer. Although she was only sixteen, Jenny could already boast enough medals to fill a trophy case, all of them hanging on the wall in the upstairs hallway of the Gravers’ family home. Her athletic victories were her father’s pride and joy. Roger Graver was a former champion swimmer, and had made quite a name for himself in Melbourne.

  Jenny walked out of her bedroom and across the hall to the bathroom to wash her hands. The inviting aroma of roast beef came wafting up the stairs.

  Suddenly, that shiver. By now, she knew it all too well.

  As her eyesight blurred, she took two more steps and made a desperate grab for the edge of the sink, trying to stay on her feet. She felt her body collapse, as if none of her muscles, except for her arms, were capable of responding to her brain’s commands anymore.

  It was about to happen again.

  Where are you? the voice thundered, ricocheting through the convolutions of her brain.

  Silence.

  She heard a few distant whines, sinister and unsettling like sobs echoing from the depths of an abyss.

  Tell me where you live …

  Mel — Jenny was straining to answer, but the word was cut off halfway.

  I can hear you … I need to know where you are.

  Every syllable Alex managed to utter was like a needle driven into her skull. The pain was excruciating.

  The answer came, accompanied by a gust of shouts and infantile laughter. Everything whirled in his head like a tornado, a vortex, an indistinct storm of emotion. But that name had come through intact, reaching its intended recipient.

  Melbourne.

  I’ll find you, were the last words from the male voice, before everything went dark.

  2

  Clara Graver stripped off her rubber kitchen gloves and rushed upstairs the minute she heard the thump as Jenny collapsed to the floor. She reached the top of the stairs in a panic and tripped, almost sprawling headlong. When she reached the half-open bathroom door, she gave it a smack and flung it wide. Her daughter was stretched out on the floor, her lips flecked with foam and a trickle of blood dripping from her mouth.

  ‘Jenny!’ she screamed as she sank to her knees beside the senseless body.

  The girl’s eyes were wide open, as if staring into the distance.

  ‘Oh, my darling … Mum’s here. Look at me.’

  With a couple of light slaps to her cheeks, Clara managed to rouse her daughter. The technique was simple but effective, and by now it had become standard practice.

  Roger took the steps two at a time and came running down the hall to the bathroom. First he looked at his wife, and then at his daughter, who was gradually regaining consciousness.

  ‘Is she okay?’

  Clara said nothing, merely shrugging in reply.

  ‘It happened again?’ he insisted, even though he already knew the answer to that question.

  Jenny’s eyes slowly focused on her father’s worried face, then she reassured him. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Did you hit your head?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  He leaned down and placed his hand on the back o
f her head. His fingers were smeared red.

  ‘That’s blood, Jennifer.’ Roger’s voice sounded more resigned than concerned.

  ‘Oh my God!’ Clara cried.

  ‘Don’t worry, the cut’s not deep,’ he said, while Jenny rubbed her head.

  ‘Do you think you can stand up?’ Clara asked as she held out a hand to her daughter. Jenny bent double to get into a sitting position, and a stabbing pain penetrated her right temple. She got to her feet.

  ‘Now you lie down and rest, and I’ll make you a cup of herbal tea,’ her mother said affectionately, forcing a smile to her lips.

  Roger shook his head. ‘Jesus Christ, Clara, when are you going to get it into your head that your herbal teas are never going to cure her? Dr Coleman told us that …’

  ‘I don’t care what Dr Coleman said!’

  ‘If you’d just consider the therapy —’

  ‘We’ve already talked about it, and the answer is still no!’ she broke in, her voice firm. ‘Jenny is … Jenny will be just fine.’

  In the meantime, their daughter had moved over to the window, where she now stood, her gaze lost in the middle distance. Behind the hand-stitched curtain that her grandmother had made, Jenny could see the roofs of the terraces on Blyth Street.

  Her parents’ argument followed a script that she knew by heart.

  Her fainting spells had begun four years earlier. Jenny had just turned twelve, and she was sorting through the gifts that friends and family had brought to her birthday party. Her mother was dusting furniture in the living room when Jenny, standing in front of the television set, suddenly fell to the floor with a thump. In the brief instant when she felt her head become heavy and her eyesight blur into mist, she’d only had time to say ‘Mum’. The last thing she clearly saw before fainting was her mother’s diploma, framed and hanging on the living-room wall: Clara Mancinelli, Bachelor of Arts in Literature, summa cum laude. At the bottom of the diploma, next to the dean’s signature, was the embossed seal of the Sapienza University of Rome. The diploma was dated 8 May 1996. Exactly one week after that date, Clara had met Roger, who was on holiday in the Italian capital with a friend from Australia, and she decided to radically change the course of her life by following this new man back home to Australia. Jenny’s mother liked to say that if she hadn’t ducked into a café in Rome’s EUR quarter because she had to pee, she and Roger would never have met. And Jenny would never have been born.

  That day in the living room, when she was twelve, Jenny fainted for the first time.

  Her doctors put her through a battery of medical tests, and none of the results turned up any cause for concern. Her blood pressure was normal, and her general health was excellent — her athletic achievements backed this up. For two years running she’d won the gold medal at the regional swimming meet, and she’d even been selected to compete in the Student Olympics, to Roger’s delight. In fact, Roger coached her four afternoons a week at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre.

  Since that afternoon, her fainting spells had become increasingly frequent. Sometimes they had all the hallmarks of an epileptic fit, while at other times she seemed simply to faint. According to the doctors who Clara talked to, there was no reason to treat Jenny for epilepsy. Clara’s faith in homeopathy and Bach flower remedies clashed with Roger’s more traditional medical beliefs, but up till then, her views had always prevailed. No drugs, no medical therapies.

  In the years that followed, Jenny learned to take what she called ‘her attacks’ in her stride. She’d had them in all kinds of situations. During a school trip to Brisbane, she had collapsed in the hotel lobby while the teacher was calling the roll and assigning students to share rooms for the night. At the cinema, her friends had watched a whole film without realising that Jenny was slumped over in her seat, arms dangling, head twisted to the left. And then once at the local pizzeria, where Roger had taken her to celebrate her first gold medal, and another time at Hungry Jack’s, where the swimming team ate every Friday with the coach. To say nothing of the times that it happened at home, in her bed or in any of the rooms of the house on Blyth Street. Luckily, it had never happened in the pool. She could easily have drowned.

  What her parents didn’t know, and had never been told, was what happened every time that Jenny fainted.

  3

  The school doctor gave Alex a pat on the shoulder and, after a brief examination, told him to sit up. His office, at the end of the hallway on the top floor, next to the school library, was a shabby little room with a desk, an examination table, and a medicine cabinet. Everything was white; everything was cold and unwelcoming, just like the doctor’s sarcastic, superior tone of voice.

  ‘Captain, I want to remind you that we’re this close to the playoffs.’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ Alex replied, eyeing the doctor with confidence.

  ‘Is the championship stressing you out?’ the man insisted. ‘Or is it your homework?’

  ‘Nothing’s stressing me out,’ he said brusquely, but he knew it wasn’t true. ‘Can I go now?’

  Waiting outside the sick bay was Teo, the basketball coach. He was standing in the hallway with his back to the wall. In his hands was a biography of Michael Jordan, who he always praised as a paragon of athleticism.

  Alex ignored him and headed down the hallway, but the man trailed after him.

  ‘Alex, stop.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Everything’s fine.’

  ‘Everything’s not fine. If this is what we’ve come to, then I can’t let you play in the finals.’

  Alex looked him in the eye, and for a moment he focused on the word ‘we’ve’. This was one of the coach’s habits. He only ever thought in terms of the team. If a boy had a problem, it was a problem that affected everyone.

  ‘Whatever you think is best.’

  ‘You’re the team captain, your teammates need you. But if you collapse at a key moment in the game and you endanger your own health … then we have a problem.’

  ‘Then get yourself a new captain. I don’t know what to do about it. The doctors say there’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘That’s not what your parents say, though.’

  Alex stopped and stared at the coach, who held his gaze with a determined look.

  ‘My parents worry too much.’

  ‘If you ask me, Alex, you’re hiding something. Damn it, Alex, you’re the best player on the team, but I can’t run the risk that … that what happened today might happen again, maybe during the finals.’

  ‘Then cut me from the team. That way we won’t make it to the finals either.’

  Alex practically ran down the stairs and emerged into the open air. As he walked down Via Porpora, turning up his jacket collar to ward off the biting chill of the Milan air, his thoughts bounced around his head relentlessly. He kept on brooding until he was outside the door to his apartment building. He couldn’t let them kick him off the team just when they were going into the finals. He led the league in scoring, he was the team captain, he’d given his all in every game of the season. But if the coach decided to cut him from the team, there wasn’t a lot he could say about it.

  Alex went up to the second floor. A woman who lived in the apartment next door said hello. He gave her a tight, formal smile and a nod of the head.

  ‘I just can’t take it anymore …’ he muttered under his breath as he twisted the key in the lock of the heavy security door.

  The apartment greeted him with silence, as it always did. At that time of day, his parents were still at work. On the table by the front door, his mother had left a note for him, as usual. It said: There’s a quiche by the microwave. Do your homework! Kisses, Mamma. Alex walked past it without a glance.

  The minute he walked into his bedroom, he dropped his backpack next to his desk, took off his jacket, and sat down on the
edge of his bed. Luckily, he thought, he hadn’t hit his head. Lately, he’d been able to sense when an attack was coming on and get to his knees, making the inevitable fall to the ground less dangerous. It was a minor development, nothing important, and he hadn’t given it much notice. At best, it could keep him from splitting his head wide open one of these days.

  He lay back on the bed and put his hands behind his head, his eyes half closed.

  The first few times, only a tangled, annoying roar filled his head. Over time he’d learned to recognise a few sounds. The nicest sound he could hear was of waves crashing on the rocks. Other noises sounded like pealing bells, a hateful, continuous din.

  That was during the first year of fainting spells, when Alex was twelve. Later on, things had started to change: during the attacks, images had formed in his mind. They were blurry and confused, overlapping and blending with one another, and at first it seemed impossible to link them to anything real. Nothing that had anything to do with his life, or with any memories from the distant past.

  In one of the most vivid and most common visions, Alex found himself stretched out on a bed. He was surrounded by white walls, and there was hardly any furniture in the room. The only things he managed to see were a crucifix hanging on the wall in front of him, a vase of flowers on a nightstand to his right, and a window with a wooden blind pulled all the way down. He tried to move his hands, but they seemed to be stuck. Maybe his wrists were tied. That was unquestionably his worst nightmare. At a certain point, everything turned dark, and a succession of groaning laments began to swell and overlap. Indistinct voices, echoes of endless torments.

  Another image that surfaced repeatedly during the first few years was that of a hand. It was fairly small and plump. Alex seized it. He tried to pull it towards him, unsuccessfully. So he did what he could: he brushed it with his fingers. He couldn’t see past the hand; couldn’t make out a face, a clear outline. As soon as he tried, the little hand faded away, dissolving, crumbling, slipping like sand between his fingers.

  Among the many images that flowed through his head during those four years of attacks, he clearly remembered a beach. Sometimes, in the distance, he could glimpse a little girl, always the same little girl.