The unlikely case of Abel Martin

Por J. Guillermo Sánchez ( http://diarium.usal.es/guillermo ) translated by A. Prieto

 

When I woke up I felt two woman’s arms around me; I turned around and felt a shock: who was the stranger lying next to me?  She half-opened her eyes and told me gently: “Abel, what’s wrong?” I was surprised to hear that question in Spanish, my native language. I looked around and saw that I was in a room dimly lit by the light of an alarm clock that was completely unfamiliar to me. I wondered if I was dreaming, but it all seemed so real that I had to be awake. I tried to reconstruct what I had done the night before, right before going to bed. I remembered that after a strenuous day of work I had gone to bed alone. That had been the case ever since I had lost contact with my lovely Sveta. As usual, I had fallen asleep wondering where she was. But again, I heard the same words: “Abel, why don’t you answer me? Instinctively I got up and saw that the bedroom I was in led to a hallway flanked by three doors; two of them remained ajar. I looked into one room and saw a girl sleeping peacefully. In another room, there was another older girl who, noticing my presence, looked at me and said: “Dad, is it time to get up? A new shock ran through my entire body. I was standing next to a stranger, with girls who seemed to be my daughters in a place I could swear I had never seen before. What if it was all a Machiavellian operation by the KGB to make me think I was crazy? I decided to behave as if I had experienced amnesia, but I had memories, and quite accurate ones, the problem was that they did not fit at all with what I was experiencing.

The following days were a terrible nightmare: strangers who introduced themselves as friends, colleagues or neighbors; places I had never been; gadgets that seemed like science fiction as if I had jumped several years into the future. I felt deep emotions when I was reunited with my parents, my sister and brother and their children, in my memories it had been many years since I had seen them and the image I had of them. However, they claimed to have seen me in the last few months and even talked to me on the phone just a few days ago. My nephews referred to me as an uncle with whom they had frequent contact, but I only had the memory of the eldest of them, a twenty-year-old, whom I only remembered as a child of a few years. For a while I lived in utter confusion.

Apparently, it was a case of amnesia, but with a very special feature: in my mind there was no such amnesia, but my memories did not correspond to what was supposed to have been my life. I tried to find some of the people who were part of my memories such as Sveta. My failures were constant, although sometimes people existed but did not remember me.

Months went by and from conversations with my relatives and friends I was reconstructing what was supposed to have been my real life. Not only the memories I had of my life were affected, but also everything that had happened in the world. The Internet (an invention that was totally unknown to me) was very useful because it allowed me to access newspaper archives, including images of everything that had happened. Of the history of the world in recent years, only a few characters were in my memories, such as the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. I did not remember Gorbachev or the fall of the Berlin Wall or the collapse of the Soviet Union, events that were completely implausible to me. Nor did I remember news that should have had a strong media impact, such as the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle or the catastrophe at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Instead, he remembered events that apparently had not happened, such as the failure of the Soviet manned expedition to Mars in 1996. I meticulously wrote down everything I could remember. My whole life flowed into my thoughts with enormous clarity. I had always had an excellent memory and had no sense of having lost it. I compared what my life and the world must have been like with my memories, sometimes there were things that coincided but in most cases they did not.

Given this, I came to a surprising conclusion: since 1980, probably since February, all my memories had nothing to do with reality. I had made up 20 years of life in a single night, and not only of my own life but of everything that had taken place for the last 20 years.

 

It didn’t make sense! Little by little I became convinced that my memories were an invented reality. I tried to explore the existence of similar clinical cases, although I always found substantial differences with my own. I was persistently left with the feeling that there must be facts in my past that neither I nor those around me knew about. In addition, there was something very strange: I could speak perfectly well in Russian, a language that according to my acquaintances I had never studied.

 

I often went to the psychiatric, usually at their initiative. I had become a curious case that all psychiatrists wanted to have on their curriculum. Almost three years went by since that fateful awakening when one morning I received a call from Dr. Galán -the psychiatrist who had followed my case from the beginning- summoning me to his office for the next day at 5 p.m. I looked at the digital clock on my desk.

 

I looked at the digital clock on the wall of the waiting room: 4:40 p.m. on Tuesday, February 8, 2003. As was usual for me, I had arrived early for my appointment. At 5:00 p.m. Dr. Galán opened the door to his office and kindly invited me in. As soon as I crossed the door, I noticed the presence of a tall, slim, light-eyed woman, who must have been about my age.

 

-This is Dr. Irina Kuznetsova from the University of California, an eminence in the study of consciousness, although, as you may have noticed from her last name, she is of Russian origin. She has taken an interest in your case and may be able to help you,” said Dr. Galán.

 

She addressed me in Spanish, with a slight Russian accent:

-Nice to meet you Mr. Martin or should I call you Dr. Martin?

- Call me by my name: Abel – I replied.

 

Doctor Galán asked us to continue in Russian, without worrying that he would not be able to follow us; at the end we could give him a summary.

After a brief protocol conversation Dr. Kuznetsova continued:

-Let me summarize your case, I would like to be sure I understood: “On May 4, 2000 you underwent an MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) brain scan after a persistent migraine. Nothing abnormal was observed, but when he woke up the next morning, he did not recognize anyone, not even his wife, to whom he had been married for eight years.” In fact, he could not remember anything that had actually happened to him in the last twenty years; he could not even recognize his two daughters.  “The strange thing is that this was not a usual case of amnesia. You have memories of those years but they correspond to an imagined life. Moreover, and this is the most surprising thing, you could speak Russian, a language you had not studied, and which I see you know quite well”.

 

I confirmed what she said and she kept on talking:

-You were born in 1957 in a small town. Through scholarships you obtained a degree in classical languages from the University of Salamanca in 1979. You began your doctorate at the same university. While doing so, you participated in a congress on Classical Languages in Seville in February 1980. From that moment on, his memories and his real life come into conflict.

To avoid confusion,” he added, “I will use two terms: real life, to refer to what we assume it has been your life from February 1980 to May 4, 2000, which you yourself have compiled based on information provided by your family and those who know you best, and remembered life, to refer to what you claim to remember from 1980 to May 4, 2000. Both before and after this period his memories and his real life seem to coincide. In his real life he abandons his doctorate in 1981 after passing the competitive exams to become a high school teacher of Latin and Greek. He gets married for the first time in 1986 and splits up without children in 1989. He got married again in 1992 to a colleague at the Unamuno Institute, where he continues to work today. He has recently gone back to work after a leave of absence of more than a year.  He has two daughters, who are 10 and 7 years old.  Those who know him define him as a very enthusiastic person for his work and for teaching in general, not given to fantasies. Since his incident, with the help of his family, in particular his wife, he has been reconstructing the story of his own life and of what happened in the world from February 1980 to May 2000 Is that so?

-That’s right,” I replied, adding, “The use of that invention I didn’t know about, the Internet, has allowed me to catch up easily. But after two years, I am still perceiving everything you as something learned but not lived.

- In your remembered life things happened very differently. At that congress of Classical Languages in February 1980 he met Sveta Petrova, who was accompanying the Soviet delegation as an interpreter, with whom he fell in love to the point that a few months later he met her in Odessa, today Ukraine, and they went to live in Novosibirsk (Russia). There he received his doctorate with a thesis on Indo-European under the supervision of Professor Federov, a renowned linguist, and devoted himself to the study of extinct languages. According to his account, not only his life but the history of the world in general went very differently. For example: Gorbachev was not president of the USSR. The USSR fell into a new Stalinist era. You, who, because of your facility with ancient languages, were taken to collaborate in a service specialized in decoding messages. For this you were considered to be in possession of state secrets and were forbidden to travel to the West. I am surprised by the detail with which you describe this period in a text of more than 300 pages”.

-By the way, and don’t take this as irony, haven’t you considered publishing it as a novel?  Your story is a real euchronia of what would have happened in the Soviet Union if Gorbachev had not been president; besides, his life is quite exciting”.

-It’s not the first time I’ve had that remark made to me. They even insinuated that it was a propaganda ploy to launch a successful novel. I have been given a multitude of possible explanations. But no one has explained to me how I can speak Russian without having studied it, or how after the incident I have published articles on ancient languages that I was not supposed to know (don’t forget that in my real life my knowledge of languages was limited to Greek and Latin). Or how I can remember facts about people I have never met and cities I have never lived in. Sometimes I wonder if everything that has been happening to me since that morning in May 2000 has really been a nightmare.

- So let’s get down to business!  -Kuznetsova exclaimed, and continued, “I lived in Novosibirsk in 1983 in a period that should coincide with your presence there. I actually lived next to Novosibirsk in the same place you claim to have lived: Sciencia, a small secret town created for the scientific community where the Department of Classical Languages was located, in which you supposedly worked. There is little written information about this town and that time, so you will hardly have any knowledge of what the daily reality was like in Sciencia. A brief conversation about that time should lead you to accept definitively that your story is the fruit of your imagination.

At that moment I had the feeling that Irina’s face was familiar to me. It had been about 20 years, she must have been in her twenties then. I searched my memories, a name came to me, I stared at her and exclaimed, “Irina Soboleva Sergevena!”

 

I noticed that her face paled. After a few seconds she answered: “I haven’t been called that name for a long time, it was my maiden name.  I would like you not to use it again and don’t ask me why”.

 

-Don’t worry,” I said, thinking that there had been many controversial experiments at Sciencia. Perhaps Irina had participated in some of them and would prefer not to be associated with them.

 

We continued talking about life in Sciencia: fashionable places and other topics of daily life, we even had common acquaintances. Although I did not remember that any Spaniard had been there, a fact that would not have gone unnoticed. Nor did he remember Sveta.

 

By digging deep in the conversation, we had forgotten Dr. Galán, who remained unperturbed sitting in a corner of the office, contemplating the scene as if it were a play. He interrupted us saying: “Don’t you think it’s about time you told me what conclusion you have reached? From your gestures it must be quite interesting”.

 

Irina, in Spanish, said bluntly: “Abel has lived in Russia! By that I don’t mean that his story is true. Probably what he has been told about his life is not the whole truth.” He fixed his gaze on mine, telling me, “Or perhaps, consciously or unconsciously, he is hiding some facts from us. Perhaps Sveta is a real person; if so the simplest thing would be to find her and get her testimony.”

 

-I have made inquiries to locate her,” I replied, “I have even tried through the Russian embassy. All to no avail. It is not strange, for as you well know, Sveta Petrova is a very common name in Russian, and it is even possible that, like you, she has married and changed her name. Probably the only way to find her is to travel to Novosibirsk, although the mere thought of doing so overwhelms me. I am still terrified of meeting the police of the former USSR.”

Irina offered to give me several contacts of people who lived in Novosibirsk around 1982-83. She also showed interest in my visiting her at her research center in La Jolla (San Diego), where I could undergo various tests.

 

I left more confused than I had arrived. Before the visit I was convincing myself that it had all been a fantasy which I had built up in my mind to fill the emptiness of a bland life, as some psychoanalyst had told me. Now I was again wondering what was real and what was fantasy in my memories.  I decided to go to Novosibirsk and to do it alone and as soon as possible. The summer holidays were coming up, that would give me time.

 

A few weeks later I took the plane to Moscow, where I would connect with another flight to Novosibirsk. Since I took off, I often felt that I was back in my remembered life.

 

I had been in Moscow only 3 or 4 years ago, at least in my imagination. I landed at Domededovo airport, which I did not know. I was not surprised, as I had been informed that it was a newly built airport. From there I had to transfer to Sheremetyev airport. I took a cab and had to negotiate the price. That took me back to my life in the USSR, where official prices were one thing and real prices were another.

 

As I skirted Moscow, I contemplated in the distance recognizable buildings and others that I did not remember having seen. I was very struck by the presence of German cars of the highest range instead of the Volga and Lada, which the nomenclature used to use. As I approached Terminal 1 of Sheremetyev Airport a shiver ran through my body as I spotted the silhouette of Aeroflot Tupolev aircraft, a scene that was very familiar to me. In one of these planes I took off for Novosibirsk, where I stayed in the historical center, in a hotel of the Intourist agency which, at least in my memories, was the one I used regularly, since it practically monopolized tourism in the USSR. Although remodeled, the hotel was also familiar to me. It had changed its name, but a waiter confirmed that its previous name matched what I thought it was.  I felt more and more confused, as if retouched real images were superimposed in my mind. There was no doubt in my mind: I had been there before, like a movie set, but part of the scenery had changed.

 

I began a pilgrimage in which I managed to contact some of the people I already knew, at least that is how I perceived them. I introduced myself as a linguist who had met them at a congress in Seville in 1980. In the first years following that congress, I told them, I had visited Novosibirsk sporadically. Now I was trying to locate an interpreter named Sveta Petrova. I did not give any more details, as I wanted to avoid being taken for a madman. No one remembered me or Sveta, perhaps some vague and distant memory. For me, things were quite different. I had the feeling of meeting again people I had seen relatively close to me. Desperate, I returned to Salamanca more confused than ever. Maybe, I thought, this was all turning me crazy.

 

A few months later I received an e-mail. The sender was Sveta Petrova. I felt a pang in my heart. With a dazed mind I opened it. It was written in Spanish and tersely read:

 

“Dear Abel: Through Professor Sergei Novikov I learned that you were looking for me. It has been several years since I settled in Moscow, how long it has been since I heard from you! More than once I have wondered what my life would have been like with you. My phone number is + 7 (495) 4145010. Call me, I’m sure we’ll have a lot to tell each other. Best regards. Sveta”

 

I was struck by the fact that the only information she gave me was that she lived in Moscow; surely she had reasons for that. I was tempted to call her immediately, but almost like a sleepwalker I opted to buy a ticket on the first plane to Moscow. It was a flight taking off the next morning. Through the Internet I located the address to which the phone number she had given me corresponded. I spent the night in a blank, almost catatonic state – at last I would see Sveta and solve the enigma surrounding my life!

 

The plane left on time, and landed in Moscow at 2 pm. I immediately took a cab and headed for the address where she was supposed to live. On the way there, a multitude of questions and queries swarmed in my head. The cab pulled over next to an apartment building in a nice area. I entered the lobby; besides seeing the receptionist, I noticed the presence of two security guards. I asked the receptionist about Sveta Petrova. She told me that there were several Sveta’s there but none with that last name. I was determined not to telephone her so I begged her to let me wait there. She showed me an armchair, I sat down and opened a book of which I did not get to read a single line. Several hours passed.

 

At about 10 p.m. a security guard approached me, and with not very good manners asked me to leave the building. As this was happening, the door to the lobby opened and a beautiful woman walked through: It was her! She was just as I remembered her but looking better. It had been five years since I had last seen her, I felt, and on that occasion the Soviet police arrested me in my own home and separated me from her. I was confined in one of the secret cities where I lived as in a prison. No matter how hard I tried I lost contact with Sveta. I had almost given up hope of ever seeing her again. Then it was that one morning I woke up next to a stranger and it turned out that everything before had been a nightmare.

 

But there was Sveta again, not a figment of my imagination. She recognized me immediately and we melted into a long embrace and I felt her lips pressing against mine. We went up to her apartment almost without a word, and then she asked me why I did not send her the promised letter. I searched the last corner of my brain, and I remembered that at the Seville congress we had agreed to meet in Odessa, where she lived. Beforehand, I would have to take the necessary steps to obtain the authorizations I needed to continue my doctorate there. I promised her that I would send her by letter (telephone communications with the USSR were difficult) the date when we would meet in Odessa. She told me that letter never reached her nor did she ever hear from me again.  She thought that she had been for me a passionate adventure of a few days.

 

Then, I thought, all the memories of my life in the USSR were the fruit of my imagination! I returned to Spain and fell into a deep depression.

 

Little by little I banished those disturbing memories. From time to time I fantasized, looking for a logical explanation for what had happened to me. One day, half asleep, I was watching a documentary on television when I heard something that startled me. The presenter was saying that some physicists thought it was a real possibility that time did not follow a single direction, that over time our life would be divided into parallel lives, each of which would follow different paths. Something like a tree that starts from a common trunk and forks into a multitude of branches, each of which represents a life path. We would live multiple lives, but we would only be aware of the one corresponding to each of the paths. These paths, our multiple lives, would never meet again.

 

I felt like Archimedes shouting eureka after discovering the principle of buoyancy with which I could assure Heron II of an infallible way to prevent his crown from having no metal other than gold. I had finally solved my questions: I had lived two lives, what Dr. Kuznetsova called my real life and my remembered life, and probably many more. These lives should have gone their separate ways, but some very improbable reason made my lives intersect.

 

The euphoria was short-lived, another madness within madness. I tried to keep those thoughts out of my head, as they were incredibly fantastic. But day after day I searched the internet for words like: “Parallel Universes”, “Parallel Universes”, “Multiple universes” and other similar ones. I came up with millions of related web links. Gradually I identified the links whose contents came from authentic scientific sources and relevant scientists. I was amazed at the naturalness with which some of the most brilliant minds contemplated the existence of multiple universes (which they usually called multiverse) as a real possibility, even as a necessity. In many cases these theories speculated about realities that I considered more fantastic than my own history. These ideas became an obsession. Although it seemed incredible, the possibility that I had lived two parallel lives was the only rational explanation I could find. Sherlock Holmes’ words to Watson came to mind, “When all that is possible has been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable it may seem, is the truth.”

 

But if so, what would have become of my alter ego?

 

USSR, in an unidentified place

 

A man who says his name is Abel Martin wakes up in a strange place. He hears voices in what he thinks is Russian, a language he doesn’t know. An electronic calendar reads: 04 – 05 – 2000.  Day after day he is interrogated without understanding the questions of his tormentors. After a while he finds himself in front of a woman. Although many years have passed since he last saw her, he recognizes her, it is Sveta Petrova. He had a passionate affair with her at a congress in Seville. He still remembers the date: February 1980. But since then he had not heard from her, what was she doing there?  – he wonders.