Chronica (4 page)

"They name many of their coffee houses after Hakam, and their proprietors take his name," Bellarmine continued. "Someone by the name of Hakam is said to have opened the first coffee house in Constantinople about sixty years ago."

Ruggero walked into the coffee house alone, while Bellarmine and Galileo waited outside. The servant came out a few minutes later, and pronounced Hakam's safe to enter.

The three walked into a dimly lit room, vivid with tobacco smoke and coffee and a cascade of Greek, Turkish, and Arabic voices. Galileo's eyes watered with pleasure. Bellarmine said something to Ruggero, who nodded and approached a well-dressed Ottoman on the far side of the room.

"Would that be Hakam?" Galileo asked.

"Presumably, or his assistant at very least," Bellarmine replied.

Ruggero returned with Hakam, who smiled, bowed extensively to Bellarmine, and ushered the three to a table. Ruggero thanked Hakam and passed him some coins.

"I took the liberty of procuring a cup of
kaweh
for you," Bellarmine said to Galileo.

"Thank you," Galileo replied. "It looks to be a very expensive beverage, judging by what your priest paid the proprietor."

"Only a small part of that payment was for the
kaweh
," Bellarmine advised.

***

Galileo insisted on a second cup of coffee, and wanted a third.
 

"Too much at one time is not good," Bellarmine said. "It will not get you intoxicated like wine, but it will disaffect your humor."

Galileo started to object–

"And we have only a limited amount of time to see the room behind that wall." Bellarmine gestured to the wall against which Hakam was standing, sipping coffee himself, and alternately watching Bellarmine's table and a colorfully, scantily clad young woman who was slowly undulating her body.

"I can see why he would find her of interest," Galileo said, appreciatively.

Hakam, noticing Bellarmine's gesture, approached their table.

"Is the room ready for us?" Ruggero asked Hakam, in Turkish.

Hakam nodded and led the three to the far wall. He pressed his hand against a panel, which opened to reveal a key hole. Hakam produced a key and applied it to the hole. He pulled a door open, and waved Bellarmine, Galileo, and Ruggero into the room.

"I will await outside, here with you," Ruggero said to Hakam, who nodded.

***

Bellarmine and Galileo entered the room and closed the door behind them.

The room was well lit, but Galileo could not locate the source of the light. It was not sunlight or flame, Galileo was reasonably sure. There was a chair in the center of the room, glistening with all kinds of metallic and reflective elements.

"This is the Instrument of which you spoke," Galileo said, "which you wished to show me?" He shuddered, easily imagining how he could be tortured in such a chair.

"Yes," Bellarmine replied. "And this is one of the things the Instrument produced." Bellarmine picked up a bound book from a table near the glistening chair and gave the book to Galileo.

The astronomer sat in one of two plain wooden chairs at the table. He stroked the book, narrowed his eyes, and gasped. The title read,
Dialogo sopra i due massimi systemi del mondo
. It was indicated as published by the presses of Landini, in Florence, in the year 1632 AD – 17 years in the future.

Its author was Galileo Galilei.
 

***

"Clever forgery!" Galileo exclaimed, half in anger, half in admiration. "Your scribes at the College seek to publish some confusing document under my name, and therein mislead the world about my real contentions!"

"I think it is not a forgery," Bellarmine said, "or, at least, something not as simple as a forgery. I think you will agree, if you continue reading."

But Galileo turned away from the text, and focused instead on Bellarmine. "It is a
Dialog about the Two Chief World Systems
, purportedly written by me, except I did not write it. Therefore, it is a forgery."

Bellarmine shook his head no. "I think you would do better to say not that you did not write it, but you did not write it yet."

"Preposterous," Galileo said. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Would it surprise you to know that I read your
Sidereus Nuncius
, produced via that very Instrument at which you have just been staring, in 1599, the year Clement VIII made me a Cardinal – a good decade before you would even make the observations with your telescope that would form the basis of that essay you published in 1610?"

"Produced as in printed, as by Gutenberg's marvelous press?" Galileo asked.

"No, not printed by this Instrument per se," Bellarmine said. "But the Instrument made your printed books possible for me to read, by a process far more marvelous than the press."

"Forgive me, Eminence – but none of this makes sense. It cannot be true that you read a text of mine before I even wrote it!"
 

"I assure you it is," Bellarmine said. "You see, I have been an admirer of your work – albeit secretly – for quite some time. Perhaps even longer than you."

Galileo harrumphed, and returned his attention to the book. "Why did I need to travel to Athens with you to see this? Not that I minded the hot beverage and other things in that room outside." Galileo smacked his lips. "But you obviously have been here before, knew about this book – why did you not just take this book back with you to Rome? Surely it would be more safe there in your keeping than here."

"It is not permitted. The books must stay in this room."

"Not permitted by whom?" Galileo asked.

"I do not know with any assurance," Bellarmine replied. "I met him three times. He said to me at one point that he was St. Augustine. At another that he was Heron of Alexandria."

Galileo's eyes widened. "The author of
Catoptrica
,
about reflecting surfaces?"

"I believe so. Yes," Bellarmine said. "He also spoke of Ptolemy, but of meeting and knowing him, not being him."

Galileo shook his head in disbelief. "I would suffer even your instruments used for torture in return for a conversation with Ptolemy, were that in the remotest sense a real possibility. But your informant is clearly a lunatic."

"There is no way I can conclusively prove at this instant what I am telling you," Bellarmine allowed, "not about seeing
Sidereus Nuncius
in 1599, eleven years before you wrote it, not about the legitimacy of your authorship of the
Dialogo
that you see before you now, which apparently requires seventeen more years before it comes into being in the world outside of this room. And not about the Instrument you also see before you, and the man who claimed to use it to bring those and other books to me."

"Other books from the future?" Galileo asked. "I still do not believe that."

"Yes, from the future," Bellarmine replied. "But they are no longer in this room. He is concerned about leaving them here, for the same reason he does not want them to leave this room. He wants to avoid 'contamination of the future' – those were his very words."

"But he had no concern about me seeing this
Dialogo,
" Galileo said.

"No concern," Bellarmine said. "In fact, he wanted me to bring you here, to show you this book."

Galileo raised an eyebrow.

"He has a plan for you," Bellarmine said—

The conversation was interrupted by a flashing light and a strange sound in the room.

"We must leave," Bellarmine said. "The light and the sound are a signal that we must vacate the room."

Galileo looked again, very intently, at the book on the table. He had opened it to the first page, and he turned now to the second.

"You cannot take that with you," Bellarmine reminded Galileo. "If you do, Hakam will stop you."

Galileo looked at the second page another minute, then nodded and closed the book. "I understand. I needed to make sure this book was really written by me – I know my own thought and my own writing."

"And was it?" Bellarmine asked, also wanting the answer to that question.

Galileo rose. "It is impossible. But I believe it was."

***

The two opened the door. Hakam bade the two to leave the room, which they did. Hakam closed the door behind them and locked it with his key.

Ruggero and Hakam had been joined by two tall men of rugged build, armed with swords. They stood on either side of Hakam, with their backs to the door, and their eyes fixed on Galileo, Bellarmine, and Ruggero.

"Did we commit some offense?" Bellarmine asked Ruggero in Italian, which he reckoned was the least likely of his tongues to be understood by Hakam. The armed men and Hakam stood impassively – whether in courtesy or lack of understanding of Bellarmine's words, it was impossible for him to tell.

"I do not believe so," Ruggero replied in the same language. "I think Hakam only wants to insure that you do not enter the room at this juncture. He says it is a question of your safety."

"I understand," Bellarmine replied. He looked at Hakam. "May we sit at a table and have more of your delicious
kaweh
?" Bellarmine asked Hakam, in Turkish.

"Certainly," Hakam replied, and pointed with a smile to an open table on the other side of the room. Hakam beckoned another man, of average height, and instructed him to show his honored guests to the table across the room and bring them more
kaweh
. The two armed men stood by the door, expressionless.

The four reached the table, and Hakam's man bowed with a flourish and receded.

"Yes," Bellarmine told Galileo. "You can have one more cup of coffee."

Galileo smiled broadly.

***

"Why is it unsafe to stay in the room with the Instrument," Galileo asked, after their coffees arrived.

"From what I understand, the signal was telling us that another Instrument was soon to arrive, to materialize, in the room," Bellarmine replied. "And that arrival greatly disturbs the air in the room – charges it like a bolt of lightning – with the consequence that anyone inhabiting the room at that moment is put at risk."

"I should like to see that," Galileo said.

Bellarmine said nothing.

Ruggero's eyes were fixed on Hakam and the two men with swords, still standing by the door.

"Will this new Instrument be conveying more fictitious books, or perhaps the man who claims to be Augustine?" Galileo asked.

"Impossible to say, at this point," Bellarmine replied. "But I think you already know in your soul that the book you held in your hand was not a fiction – even though it has somehow, contrary to all sense and reason, not yet been written by you."

"Tell me about the other books from the future," Galileo said. "I assume they were not all written by me?"

"That is correct," Bellarmine said, "and I wanted to talk to you about one in particular–"

"Forgive me, Excellence," Ruggero said to Bellarmine and pointed to the door. Hakam had opened it, and he and the two men were walking inside.

***

Bellarmine, Galileo, and Ruggero walked to the door, which was now bolted shut. Ruggero put his ear to the door and shook his head. "I hear nothing," he said.

The door opened about five minutes later. Hakam bid Bellarmine and Galileo to enter, and gestured to the table near the glistening chair. There were now two books upon it. One of them was in a binding Galileo had not seen before.

Hakam and the guards left the room and closed the door, leaving Galileo and Bellarmine within. Galileo went to the table. He picked up the book with the strange binding and started to read.

"This is the other volume from the future that I spoke of," Bellarmine said to Galileo after a few minutes. "It is from the very far future, hence its unusual binding. You'll see that the pages are also numbered. Your works are discussed beginning on page 27, and on many subsequent pages."

Galileo was too engrossed to speak, except to mutter, "Yes, yes," several times, as he devoured the words in the book, written in Italian. "There is much that I do not understand here," he eventually said.

"Of course," Bellarmine said, soothingly.

"How long will I be permitted this time, to read this book?" Galileo asked.

"For my part, you can stay here with me, as long as you like," Bellarmine replied. "But our host or this Instrument may say otherwise."

Galileo nodded, almost absently, and turned his attention back to the book.

Bellarmine sat at the table in the other chair, and picked up the other book, the
Dialogo
. He had read this more than once in its entirety, but it still thrilled him to read it.

"Do you not find it peculiar that you wanted me to read this book, but it was not here, but when we returned to this room less than an hour later, this book was here?" Galileo finally came up for air, almost two hours after they had reentered the room.

Bellarmine, still seated at the table, expanded his hands. "Your question touches on the essence of this Instrument. It apparently travels through time in much the same way as a vessel traverses the sea. If that is so – and I have seen ample evidence that it is – then if I had indicated at some future time the desirability of the text you are now reading being situated in this room, at this very time, then someone from the future might well have sought to fulfill that desire and traveled back to this time with the volume which is now in your hands."

Galileo shook his head in amazement, confusion, and just a glimmer of understanding. "I suppose that is no more incredible than what I have been reading here about how my theories have been revised by this Albert Einstein."

Bellarmine nodded. "Yes, the Jewish genius in the future who will overturn everyone's understanding of the Universe, just as you seek to do with your own observations now."

Galileo let out a great sigh. "I think I can see that the notion that the sun is the center of our system is . . . a relative thing, not as absolute as first I thought. We must take care not to make the same mistake with Copernicus as the world has been making for lo these fourteen centuries with Ptolemy."