by Antonio Napoli

Why could those who had drunk eternity no longer approach the source that dissolves time?

This was the question that tormented me as I listened to the conditions imposed by the librarian for our salvation: I was to reach the Hidden River and, before the full moon faded, return with the water capable of transforming the immortality granted into the mortality restored. If I did not return in time—or if I did not return at all—the Jew would be condemned to a dreadful end: flayed alive, then devoured.
The youngest among the immortals—if “young” could still be said of one who no longer knew the difference between days—answered with a pained voice before my question could even be posed:
“We cannot go. Not because we lack knowledge of the way, but because we lack forgiveness. The river knows the heart of those who approach it: it offers the water of mortality only to those who have never scorned it.”
The lifeless eyes of the oldest among the immortals flickered with a spark of humanity as he spoke:
“Every time we have tried to leave this place, the path has folded in on itself. Immortality has changed us… not into gods, but into parasites of time. A circular time.”
“Why are you confident that I can find the Hidden River if it is true that it hides itself?”
One of the women added with a bitter smile:
“For centuries, once a year, we have gone toward the river. But the closer we get, the more the world rewrites itself to push us away. Every step we take undoes the path. Every desire we have for death is already another form of life. Thus we remain here, trapped in our own failed intent. You, however, might stumble upon salvation—precisely because you do not doubt that it is worth seeking.”
At that point, I turned to Yedidyah.
“Do you trust me? Do you fear that once I leave here, I will only think of saving myself?”
He looked at me without hesitation.
“I trust only in my God. He has saved me once, and He will not fail to do so again. I have a mission to complete.”
“As further pledge and guarantee,” said the librarian, “we will keep the Book of Memory you brought with you. After all, it has returned to its rightful place.”
Then he told the story that the original, written by Plato alongside the composition of The Laws, had been brought there by an old disciple of the divine master, a man named Philip. This man bore in his soul and on his skin the mark of an elevated knowledge: every night he dreamed of the voices of Plato’s dialogues calling him by name, and sometimes he dreamed of being a book that wrote itself. He showed the scars on his body as though they were sacred things, saying that once they had been fragments of his master’s phrases, erased by fire. It was Philip who recounted the circumstances of those burns:
“When a group of soldiers on horseback burst into the library, knocking over serene statues with disdain and tearing the ordered scrolls from the shelves in fury, the only one to oppose them was my father. He opened a codex and began reading aloud, in front of the commander, a work by Plato. At first, the captain scoffed, then threatened him, and finally grew enraged. With a powerful slap, he staggered the old man and drew his sword. But then, from the depth of that humiliation, my father spoke with a voice and eyes that tore through the veil of future times: ‘One day you will bow your head and your spirit to these words, and you will be like stunned children, sitting in the school of great Philosophers.’ Shaken by an ominous premonition, intimidated by the hidden power of those written signs, the Roman plunged his sword into the man’s chest. Then he turned to his men and ordered the destruction of everything. The horses, bumping into each other in the hall, trampled the scrolls; everything that the sword could sever was torn apart, and finally the flames denied all hope of salvation—except for me.”

“What happened to the original?” I asked the librarian.
“After being copied, we ingested it.”
“And Philip?” I asked, already dreading the answer.
“He died a natural death. He was the one who dictated his last will to us: a strange testament, according to which his skin was to cover the unwritten side of the copy of the book of his beloved master… a proposal that soon became a custom, applied also to other guests…”
“And how did the copy of the Book of Memory leave here?”
“This is a long story, and you don’t have much time,” replied the librarian. “You have a day and a half left.”
I rose silently, without looking at the librarian, who was already giving orders, nor at the Book of Memory abandoned on the table, nor at Yedidyah, whose life hung from my promise. They gave me a camel, provisions, and flasks to fill with the water from the Hidden River. I needed a hope that could make its way through the thorns of uncertainty, and that hope came with the passing of a bird of good omen, which flew above my head.
The sun climbed in the sky, lighting every corner with an increasing brightness. I moved away, heading south, where the Nile narrowed between dunes and silences, in search of a truth that spoke of another river. Behind me, the library vanished, as if it had only been a dream, or a vision.