Mr G

by Alan Lightman

  At the ramparts, I expected attendants and servants to greet us. When none appeared, Belhor explained that he lived in his castle alone. He seemed not unhappy with this solitary existence, and yet not altogether satisfied with it either—but far too proud to acknowledge a need for anything he did not have. For long swaths of time, he said, he never emerged from his castle. The two Baphomets evidently dwelled somewhere else, and he pointed vaguely to a dim region beyond the castle. “All of this,” he said with a sweeping gesture, “as well as I myself came into being when you created the new universes.”

  “I did not knowingly make you,” I said. Now that I had entered Belhor’s abode, I felt an uneasiness that I was not accustomed to, almost an obligation to do his bidding, or at least to show sympathy to him even against my own judgment. As if he were slowly inhaling my independence and will. Was I his guest? Or an intellectual sparring partner? Or a target of his immense ego and force?

  “No, you did not knowingly make me,” Belhor said. “But you created certain capacities, let us say. When you created time and space and then matter, you created the potential for animate matter. And from there, it is only a few logical syllogisms to arrive at the existence of new minds. And then the ability to act, for good and for ill.”

  “And how would I destroy you?” I said.

  “What an interesting question,” said Belhor, “and straightforward. But I do not believe you would want to destroy me. You would have no one of my intelligence to converse with. To answer your question, it is not so easy to destroy me. You can destroy me only by destroying the worlds you have made. Is that something you wish to do? I do not think so. You are proud of what you have made, and you are rightfully proud.” Belhor hesitated and stared at me, as he had often done in the past. “But why should we spend our time talking about destruction, when there is so much exquisite creation about, thanks to you.”

  During this conversation, we had walked through one great hall after another. In each hall, Belhor paused to adjust the trappings on one of his many thrones. Pictures of the Void adorned the shimmering ceilings, melting out of the nothingness, then slowly vanishing, then appearing again.

  “I want to speak to you of good and evil,” said my host as we walked through an interior courtyard. Leafy fronds of emptiness hung over pale green pools, bordered by flowing benches and couches and reclining chairs. Everything was immaculate. Everything shimmered into faint visibility, then dissolved, then reappeared in different form. “There are creatures in our new universe,” said Belhor. “Creatures with great intelligence, who knowingly do harm and cause suffering. You have observed such things?”

  “Yes,” I said. “And it grieves me. All suffering grieves me.”

  “I admire your compassion,” said Belhor. “But I want to suggest that evil, maliciousness, greed, deceit, while being unfortunate, are in fact necessary.”

  “Necessary? I could have prevented those despicable qualities. I should have prevented them.” I felt that perhaps I should stop saying such things to Belhor. He seemed to take my sympathies for weakness. Belhor was a creature who understood only power and strength. Still, a most interesting creature. His mind.

  “With all due respect,” said Belhor, stopping to pick up a piece of fleeting debris on the mosaic floor, “I do not think you could have prevented those attributes once you brought the universe into existence. Those ‘despicable qualities,’ as you call them, are a mandatory part of existence, an unavoidable dimension of behavior.”

  “I cannot agree,” I said. “I can conceive of creatures who are wholly good. If I can conceive of them, then they could exist.”

  “And what do you mean by ‘good’?” asked Belhor.

  “The doing of deeds to benefit others, for example. The living of a life devoted to beauty.”

  “Ah,” said Belhor. “And please tell me, how do you know whether a particular deed benefits another being? And please tell me the definition of ‘beauty.’ ”

  “You understand these things as well as I.”

  “Yes,” said Belhor. “But I understand them only because I understand their opposites. I understand evil. I understand ugliness. I maintain that good can be defined only in its contrast to evil, beauty only in its contrast to ugliness. Qualities such as these must exist in pairs. Good comes with evil. Beauty comes with ugliness, and so on. There are no absolutes in the universe, no unitary qualities. All qualities are bound to their opposites. Come, let me show something to you.”

  I followed Belhor through a corridor that led out to a coliseum, which was enclosed by a vast shimmering wall. The structure was decorated with a fine etching, intricate and beautiful. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the etching consisted, in fact, of names, billions upon billions of names. “Whenever a creature in the universe dies, its name appears on this wall,” said Belhor. Indeed, during the few moments we lingered there, new names appeared so rapidly that the etchings proceeded to wind round and round on themselves, sprouting little shoots like the tendrils of a growing plant. “Listen,” said Belhor. One could hear something like faint moans coming from the wall. And also faint laughter. But both so indistinct that it was difficult to tell one from the other. Moans and laughter, countless tiny voices, all crowding against and on top of one another, so that it seemed like a single sound, a great whispered rush of existence. “The recorded voices of the dead,” said Belhor. “Recorded while living. So many little lives, each too faint to hear. And who would want to bother listening to one or the other of them. But added together, they make a perceptible sound. As you can hear, the individual sufferings and joys quite cancel themselves out. What remains is the great combined mass of them, a single breath.”

  “I know many of those names,” I said.

  “You astonish me,” said Belhor.

  “Your Wall of the Dead is fascinating,” I said, “but it has little to do with our discussion.”

  “Yes, but I wanted you to see it. We were speaking of whether absolutes exist in the universe. I hold that they do not. There are only relativities. This you said yourself. In fact, didn’t you decree that there would be no state of absolute stillness in the new universe? Wasn’t that one of your organizational principles?”

  I looked at Belhor without disguising my irritation. “I was thinking of physical principles, not principles of behavior or aesthetics. You know that.”

  Belhor laughed. “But did you not argue a while back that animate and inanimate matter should follow the same rules and principles?”

  “Yes, I see your logic,” I said. Belhor bowed. “But let us think about this for a moment,” I continued. “I can agree that beauty and ugliness are relative concepts. A particular creature with six appendages on its body might be considered highly beautiful on its home planet and a horror on a planet where similar creatures had four appendages. But behavior is different, is it not? Isn’t it true that a creature who kills another creature is committing a wrongful act, in absolute terms? I can answer my own question. If a creature kills another creature for personal survival, for food for example, this is not a wrongful act. But suppose a creature kills another creature when food is not the motive. Can we not say that this act is absolutely wrong, without reference to anything else?”

  “What about the case of warfare?” said Belhor. “Suppose your creature is fighting in battle to defend its family, its commune. Under these conditions, is it not permissible, even honorable, to kill the enemy?”

  “Yes. That is the same as for personal survival.”

  “What about to kill when one’s honor has been disgraced?” said Belhor. “Or to kill in revenge when one’s child has been murdered? How many more exceptions do you need before you will agree that absolute evil does not exist? Evil, good, beauty, ugliness—none of these can be determined in the absolute, without a particular context.”

  “Perhaps,” I said. I found that a storm was now raging inside of me. I wanted to leave the castle, to walk in the open nothingness of the Void. I wanted
empty space.

  “If we agree that absolutes do not exist in any form,” said Belhor, “then I believe that I have won my argument that good can exist only if evil also exists. Start with one quality in one situation, and it becomes the other in a different situation.”

  Long ago, perhaps eons ago, we had left the Wall of the Dead and were now moving through a palatial hall. Two grand thrones were placed at opposite ends of the hall, facing each other. “We have arrived here at last,” said Belhor. “The Chamber of Triumph.” Belhor looked contentedly about the vast hall. Then he took a seat on one of the thrones. “Both of us are more powerful than anything else in existence, are we not? Sit in the other throne, my friend, it is waiting for you. Sit.”

  “I cannot,” I said.

  “Isn’t it a fabulous throne?” said Belhor. “Do you feel it is beneath you?”

  “I will not sit here.”

  Belhor smiled and rose. “Suit yourself. If you will not sit on the throne, neither will I.”

  “We are not finished with our conversation,” I said. “While you have made some valid points, I do not concede the argument. I do not believe that evil and ugliness are necessary, as you put it. Perhaps none of the qualities we have discussed are necessary. Perhaps we can dispense with all of these categories. Let the universe be as it is, without calling some things good and some bad, some beautiful and some ugly.”

  “That is an interesting point of view,” said Belhor.

  “But then, tell me why do some creatures feel a rapture when listening to music, or a thrill when seeing a wind move across a field, or a satisfaction when they have helped another being? We do not have to call such feelings good, or beautiful, but they exist nonetheless.”

  “Yes,” said Belhor, “I grant you that. And some creatures gain pleasure from inflicting pain on others. And some spend their tiny lives living only for themselves. And some are crippled and wounded at a young age. We do not have to call these things evil or selfishness or suffering. But they exist. We can say that they are merely what is.”

  “I cannot accept these actions you mention even if they are what is,” I said.

  “Now you speak of acceptance,” said Belhor. “That is another matter entirely. We must coexist with things we cannot accept, even when we have infinite power.”

  “Not all things can be contained,” I said.

  “Well spoken,” said Belhor. “It is such a pleasure to converse with an intellectual equal.”

  “Is that an absolute pleasure or a relative pleasure?”

  Belhor laughed, and the castle trembled with his laughter. “I will be very interested to see what becomes of your experiment with Aalam-104729. We will have to wait and see.” Belhor gestured towards a curving staircase. “Come, we have not yet gone up to the towers.”

  Unlikely Companion

  I thought. I did think. I am thinking. I will think.

  For eons, it has been quiet and still in the Void. Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva have been sleeping. It is almost the serenity of long long ago, before time. At that ancient moment of eternity, before time and space, all of my thoughts happened at once. But I did not have so much to think about.

  Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva have been sleeping. And I have been thinking. And while I have been thinking, the eternal music of the Void has softened and slowed like the breathing of a great animal falling asleep, with ever-increasing spaces between inhales and exhales, in and out, until there are eons between breaths, until each breath is a low moaning note.

  I have been thinking about Belhor. A strange fellow, he is. As much as I detest elements of his character, he is the most interesting being I’ve encountered. At the beginning of the Era of Creation, I thought that perhaps I might converse with some of the more intelligent creatures in the new universe. And I do hear their voices. But they cannot hear mine. They can see what I’ve done, but they cannot hear me. Their intelligence is limited. Their understanding is limited, certainly. For how can they fathom the infinite? Or immortality? Or the Void? How can a creature of substance and mass fathom a thing without substance or mass? How can a creature who will certainly die have an understanding of things that will exist forever? All of these aspects of mortal existence have prevented a true communion between the new cosmos and me. But Belhor, like me, is not made of matter and flesh. Like me, he travels both in the material universe and in the Void, he can experience not only the one but also the many. Belhor, like me, can inhabit a realm without time and without space. Like me, Belhor is immortal. And he is immensely intelligent, even witty at times. He is my dim shadow. He is my antipodal companion. He is the thin black line. He is the beckoning voice in the Wall of the Dead.

  I will wait and wait, until time has run out. And then I will exhale more time. But … not all things can be contained. That, I have learned. The suffering and joy, they cannot be contained, they spill, like events and like time. The irrational lives with the rational. Another thing I have learned, and this of myself: I can take chances. I can act, even with doubts.

  I admit now, as I think with myself, that the “good” and the “evil” are not easily defined—whether or not they are both necessary, as Belhor proclaims. Do not the circumstances themselves prescribe how one should act and behave? Who can decide in advance of the circumstances how one should behave? Of course, it helps to have principles that one can believe, but even these do not always determine what is good and what is bad. Perhaps the good is what makes a thing whole, makes a life harmonious with all its surroundings. Perhaps the good, like music, forms a completeness of being, while evil divides and fractures. I will wait and wait, until time has run out. And then I will exhale more time. But not all things can be contained. Even the questions cannot be contained.

  The Void is nearly asleep. There I can see Aunt and Uncle, sleeping, sleeping, and they diminish to two dancing dots, dancing a waltz that moves slower and slower. How long will they sleep? Eons. And Belhor sleeps in his castle. But the new universe does not sleep. It unwinds and evolves, it builds and destructs, it sings and it sings and it spins to the future.

  Uncle Deva’s Dream

  Uncle Deva has awakened. In an unusual break with past habit, he has bounded up with ideas and energy while Aunt Penelope remains asleep. Ever since her birthday party, she has slept longer and longer intervals and, when awake, spends more time brushing her hair.

  I had a dream, said Uncle D, stretching and yawning. It was not a very restful sleep. I dreamed I was taking a long walk through the Void, in places I had not ventured, and then there they were, thousands of creatures from the new universe, all begging me for second lives. Of course, I referred them to you, Nephew. I didn’t know what to say to them. And you told them that they had to go back inside the universe and be dead. They didn’t take the news well.

  An unpleasant dream, I said to Uncle. I can see that you are distressed.

  Yes. The dream quite woke me up. Also, your aunt snores more loudly than the sharpened spines of a puya. Nobody can sleep next to her.

  You don’t have to worry, I said. Material lifeforms could never get out of the universe and into the Void.

  I understand that, said Uncle D. But they looked so forlorn … Nephew, now that the thing has been running for a few zillion ticks, I don’t know how many, couldn’t we let the creatures have a little bit of a second life, at least the intelligent ones? Some little remnant of them that continued on? Their lives are so quick.

  But they are material, I said. It would have to be a nonmaterial remnant, and then it would be different from everything else in Aalam-104729. You’ve said yourself that the things in the new universe have a different essence than things in the Void. It is the nature of material things to pass away.

  I know, I know, said Uncle D, and he sighed. But there must be something. Perhaps just at the moment of death they could feel a little piece of the Void.

  Some of them have that feeling now, I said. At least they feel a mystery. They sense that there are big
things they do not know, even though they have no way to know them.

  That’s what you said before, said Uncle. Religion. But a mystery is mysterious. I want them to have something more than that.

  At that moment, we heard Aunt P rustling about, calling for her slippers. She’s up, said Uncle. But she can wait. Nephew … those figures from my dream haunt me. I can see them still. One mortal life isn’t enough. Cannot we do something for them, something that will not violate your precious rules of materiality? Uncle reached over and plucked up Aalam-104729, which had been slowly drifting by. Although it was continually expanding, it did not seem as swollen as before, as if it had successfully digested a big meal. So much inside this thing, said Uncle. And yet I can hold it so easily. So many creatures yearning for more life, yearning for something more.

  Perhaps we could give them just a tiny glimpse of the Void, I said. But I worry that it might be too much for their minds.