by Don DeLillo
“The breath you take is the life we save”
BIZENE POLYTHENE COATING
UDGA inspected and approved
WALKER–ATKINSON METALIZED UNDERSURFACES
From the folks at Uniplex Syntel
EVALITE CHROME PANELING
The glamour name in surgical supplies
DREAMAWAY
Bed linen, mattress and frame
A division of OmCo Research
“Building a model world”
Sandow stood before the organ on the natural rock shelf and waited for the bearded man and the nurse to stop wheeling. When they did, all was quiet except for an underground stream nearby and the last sobbing echo of the triumphal march barely reaching them from a distant surface of the huge cavern. Sandow, a balding thickset man, wore a sort of Oriental smile, a pained look subtly altered by decades of erosion.
“I’d like to open my remarks by reaffirming my friendship with the old gentleman despite going our separate ways more than twenty-five years ago due to clashing ideologies, which explains my presence here, symbolic of a coming together, a let’s-join-hands-type-thing, and what a setting it is, ladies and gentlemen, a basilica if I may use that word in a nonsectarian sense of earthen rock and the relics of an unknown civilization these many feet down to light our torches in tribute to this gentle soul of science, who, when we were young men, he and I, espoused all there was to espouse in those benighted days of the principles of scientific humanism, including, as I recall, individual freedom, democracy for all peoples, a ban on nationalism and war, no waiting for a theistic deity to do what we ourselves could do as enlightened men and women joined in our humanistic convictions, the right to get divorced; but who, as I understand it, has now returned to the ideas and things from which so many of us were so eager to flee, proving, I suppose, that there’s a certain longevity to benightedness, and I won’t take up the time here providing you with a list of this great ex-scientist’s current convictions beyond mentioning the secret power of the alphabet, the unnamable name, the literal contraction of the superdivinity, fear of sperm demons; so to enlarge on an earlier statement this is not only a coming together but a going away in a way, for having come to science and humanism, so has he gone, and in lieu of an eternal flame, which I had hoped to borrow for the occasion, we are here to light our torches to Shazar Lazarus Ratner, reasoning what better way to honor this man, this scientific giant, than to have the Nobelists light their torches from an eternal flame, which I’d wanted to get flown in from one of the nations in or near the cradle of civilization, simply borrowing the flame and returning it after the ceremony and they could bill us at their convenience but I was wary of pressure groups and I foresaw the remark from someone in such a group saying ‘cradle of whose civilization,’ for there is always this prejudice against Western civilization having its own cradle and calling it the cradle when other peoples have their own ideas of where the cradle is and even whether or not there is a cradle as we employ the term, being merely self-descriptive and not, I don’t think, intending to pre-empt, none of which, as I thank you for your time and attention, has any bearing on the pigeons.”
Apparently reacting to a prearranged word or phrase, one of the laureates stepped out of the line and approached a crate that was set beneath the natural stage where the organ was located.
“The pigeons,” Sandow said. “Let us release the pigeons. The releasing of the pigeons, ladies and gentlemen.”
The man raised the top of the box and about fifty pigeons came shaking out, like a series of knots unraveling on a single line, and flew toward the top of the cavern, veering just before they got there into an opening in the rock wall, merely a whisper now.
“The presenting of the roses,” Sandow said. “The boy steps up to the great medico-engineering feat and symbolically presents the roses.”
Billy strode to the tank and was lifted in the air by Dr. Bonwit and held standing on the curved surface of the transparent shield. Below, he saw the small figure of Ratner, pillowed in deep white. The doctor stood on one side of the tank, the nurse on the other, and together they supported Billy as he displayed the flowers for the benefit of the old gentleman.
“Ratner sees the roses,” Sandow said. “The old gentleman acknowledges the floral bouquet.”
The doctor and nurse lowered Billy to a straddling position on the tank. Bonwit turned a dial, activating a chambered device set into the clear shield directly over Ratner’s face and about a foot from Billy’s crotch. Immediately a bit of static was emitted from the interior of the biomembrane, apparently the sound of Ratner breathing through the bacteria-filtered talk chamber.
“The boy prepares to listen to the circulated words,” Sandow said.
Bonwit took the flowers and inserted them in a sort of scabbard at the side of the biomembrane. Without the bouquet Billy was able to settle into a more comfortable straddling position. On his back Ratner looked directly into the boy’s face. In a gesture of respect the latter leaned forward, trying to indicate his eagerness to hear the old gentleman’s remarks. He was in fact neither eager nor respectful but the occasion seemed to demand gestures. Ratner wore a black beret and a long fringed prayer shawl that covered him from shoulders to feet.
“The old man speaks to the boy,” Sandow said. “Sunk in misery and disease he speaks actual words to the little fellow on the tank.”
The small ancient face was glazed like artificial fruit. The beret, however, gave the old man a semblance of heroic bearing. His arms were crossed on his chest, baby fists curled. What Pitkin had referred to as nose-blow was indeed being discharged from Ratner’s eyes. Fortunately just a trickle. Far corner of each eye. Slowly the withered lips parted and the old man spoke.
“The universe, what is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“It began with a point. The point expanded so that darkness took up the left, light the right. This was the beginning of distinctions. But before expansion, there was contraction. There had to be room for the universe to fit. So the en-sof contracted. This made room. The creator, also known as G-dash-d, then made the point of pure energy that became the universe. In science this is what they call the big bang. Except for my money it’s not a case of big bang versus steady state. It’s a case of big bang versus little bang. I vote for little. Matter was so dense it could barely explode. The explosion barely got out. This was the beginning if you’re speaking as a scientist. The fireball got bigger, the temperature fell, the galaxies began to form. But it almost never made it. There was such density. Matter was packed in like sardines. When it finally exploded, you almost couldn’t hear it. This is science. As a scientist my preference is definitely little bang. As a whole man I believe in the contraction of the en-sof to make room for the point.”
Billy raised his head and looked toward the laureates standing in line with their unlighted torches.
“He votes for little bang,” he said. “The noise was muffled.”
Then he crouched over the biomembrane as Ratner prepared to speak once again.
“The en-sof is the unknowable. The hidden. The that-which-is-not-there. The neither-cause-nor-effect. The G-dash-d beyond G-dash-d. The limitless. The not-only-unutterable-but-by-definition-inconceivable. Yet it emanates. It reveals itself through its attributes, the sefiroth. G-dash-d is the first of the ten sefirothic emanations of the en-sof. Without the en-sof’s withdrawl or contraction, there could be no point, no cosmic beginning, no universe, no G-dash-d. I learned this not long after I looked through my first telescope growing up as a boy in Brooklyn. But I failed to understand at that time.”
Ratner paused here, apparently to regain his strength, and Billy glanced toward the others and made another capsule report, as he assumed they wished him to do, having traveled from every part of the world to be here for the ceremony.
“No universe without contraction. Grew up in Brooklyn, a boy, non-believing.”
He turned his attention to Ratner once more. The lac
quered face was unevenly puffy. Where teeth were missing, the inflamed sockets had bulged to the point of convexity, leaving a mouth divided between shaky teeth and burnt-out gummy nubs. Finally the old man’s voice resembled a wind-up toy’s, metallic and unreal, but Billy didn’t know whether this was the result of his physical condition or the purifying action of the electronic talk chamber.
“We come from the stars,” Ratner said. “Our chemicals, our atoms, these were first made in the centers of old stars that exploded and spread their remains across the sky eventually to come together as the sun we know and the planet we inhabit. I started out with binoculars, viewing the sky. It seemed remarkable to a boy like me, underfed and pale, with a small mental vista, that there was something bigger than Brooklyn. In those days of no television, the stars could be awesome to a boy, the way they swarmed, thin as I was, growing up, with binoculars. Later I got a telescope, my first, bought from a junk dealer, with a tripod, borrowed, and I stuck it out the window, top floor, and gazed for hours. Star fields, clusters, the moon. I read books, I learned, I gazed. Knowledge made me punch my fists against the walls in awe and shame. Our atoms were formed in the dense interiors of supergiant stars billions of years ago. Stars millions of times more luminous than our sun. They broke down and decayed and began to cool. Atoms from these stars are in our bones and nervous systems. We’re stellar cinders, you and me. We come from the beginning or near the beginning. In our brain is the echo of the little bang. This is science, poeticized here and there, and this you can compare with the kabbalistic belief that every person has a sun inside him, a radiant burst of energy. Try to reach a mystical state without radiant energy and see what happens.”
“Secondhand telescope,” Billy said to the others. “Gazed at the stars and learned we’re made of them. Pale and thin for his age.”
“When I go into mystical states,” Ratner said, “I pass beyond the opposites of the world and experience only the union of these opposites in a radiant burst of energy. I call it a burst. What else can I call it? You shouldn’t think it’s really a burst. Everything in the universe works on the theory of opposites. To see what it looks like outside the universe, you have to go into a trance or two. According to Pitkin, G-dash-d could live anywhere. He doesn’t need the universe. He could set up headquarters east or west of the universe and not miss a thing. But this is Pitkin. A rare attempt to interpret. The mystical writings. The mystical oral traditions. The mystical interpretations, oral and written. These exist beneath the main body of thought and thinking. You don’t go into a trance reading the everyday writings. The hidden texts, try them. The untranslated manuscripts. The oral word.”
Billy looked at the laureates, then shrugged from his position atop the shield.
“Written, oral,” Ratner said. “Black, white. Male, female. Let’s hear you name some more.”
“Day, night.”
“Very good.”
“Plus, minus.”
“Even better,” Ratner said. “Remember, all things are present in all other things. Each in its opposite.”
Billy turned and shrugged once more.
“I gazed constantly, learning, a young man, top floor still, gaining weight. Finally I realized a portable telescope no longer suited my needs and aspirations. I married a woman whose father had a house with a backyard. I thought here I could build what I truly needed, a ten-inch reflector with rotating dome. So with his permission and blessing we moved into his house.”
“In the desert, I bet, for the clear air.”
“In Pittsburgh,” Ratner said. “There we lived and built. Halvah helped me, my wife, grinding the mirror, assembling the mount, measuring and cutting wood, sending away for instructions, pasting and hammering. I started to accumulate academic degrees, to go beyond amateur ranking. All that reading, it was paying off. I continued to gaze. It was awful, Pittsburgh, in those days. Smoke, soot, particles of every description. There was a steel mill two blocks away. I had to gaze between shifts. Many times Halvah’s father tried to read to me from the writings. I paid no attention, acquiring my degrees, corresponding with leading minds in the sciences and technologies. He would hum as he read, a sound of piety, fear and shame. Smoke came pouring over the backyard. Thick black ash fell all over the dome. I had to stand on a chair and sweep off the top with a broom. I gazed whenever possible, I ate the cooking, I corresponded with the leading minds. Sometimes I punched the bedroom door, plentifully replete as I was with knowledge of the physical world. My father-in-law hummed, Fish, my father-in-law. I asked Halvah what kind of writings these were that her father never ceased to read from. I said Halvah what writings are these? I inquired of her what manner of writings her father so incessantly read. The mystical writings, she said. I resilvered the mirror, these being the days before widespread aluminum. He tried to give me instructions, Fish, in the secrecy of things, the hiddenness, the buried nature. Did I listen or did I sit in my dome, rotating, gazing, an occasional belch from the food?”
Billy reported to the others: “Telescope in a dome in the backyard. Marriage to the man’s daughter owning the house. Science pays off. He gazes between shifts.”
The metallic lilt of Ratner’s voice, when again he spoke, seemed to possess an extra shading, a suggestion of querulous tremor.
“You know what you remind me of?”
“What?”
“Somebody who’s giving only one side of the story,” the old man said. “Don’t think I can’t hear that you’re reporting only science, leaving out the mystical content, which they could use a little exposure to, those laureates with their half a million Swedish kronor. It was less in my day. And don’t think I didn’t notice all that shrugging when I was saying black-white, male-female, a little bit of everything present in its opposite. Because I noticed.”
“Some things are hard to summarize.”
“Give the whole picture,” Ratner said.
“I’ll do better.”
“If you want to repeat, repeat both sides.”
“From now on you’ll see improvement.”
“How many sefirothic emanations did the en-sof emanate?”
“Ten,” Billy said.
“In words, what can we say about the en-sof?”
“I don’t know.”
“Something or nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“There is always something secret to be discovered,” Ratner said.
“A hidden essence. A truth beneath the truth. What is the true name of G-dash-d? How many levels of unspeakability must we penetrate before we arrive at the true name, the name of names? Once we arrive at the true name, how many pronunciations must we utter before we come to the secret, the hidden, the true pronunciation? On what allotted day of the year, and by which of the holiest of scholars, will the secret pronunciation of the name of names be permitted to be passed on to the worthiest of the initiates? And how passed on? Over water, in darkness, naked, by whispers? I sat in my dome, rotating, knowing nothing of this. Nor of the need to exercise the greatest caution in all aspects of this matter. Substitution, abbreviation, blank spaces, utter silence. The alphabet, the integers. Triangles, circles, squares. Indirection, numerology, acronyms, sighs. Not according to Pitkin, however. If you listen to him, everything means exactly what it says. Not one ounce of deviation. Interpretation isn’t one of his strong points, Pitkin. He’s not so good, Pitkin, when it comes to interpreting.”
Ratner’s toy voice hissed and crackled through the chambered slot. The laureates were silent, standing in size places. Pitkin sat nearby on a large stone, silent, one hand covering most of his face, the mink fedora well back on his head, legs crossed and white flesh showing between the top of his black socks and his hitched-up trousers. The doctor and nurse were silent, respectfully set back about ten yards from the biomembrane, one on each side. Sandow was sitting on the edge of the organ bench, silent. Somewhere beneath them the hidden stream moved over smooth rock, making a faint smacking sound. From the boy’s
viewpoint the decals on either side of the tank appeared to be lettered in reverse. He looked closely at the old gentleman, tiny inside his prayer shawl, face gleaming with polymerized sweat.
“Go into your own bottom parts,” Ratner said. “Here you find the contradictions joined and harmonized. This is a good place to look for the secrets you didn’t even know existed. If you think I’m lying, knock once on top of the tank.”
“I do not knock.”
“The writings have a substructure, a secret element of the divine. Kabbalists delving into esoteric combinations of letters widened the meaning of particular texts. I allowed this much to flow from Fish’s lips, progressing as a man, winning prizes in the sciences, sharing the marriage bed with my Halvah, stinky feet or not, ashes raining down. The way Fish hummed as he read. It began to get to me. What is there in these writings, I asked myself, that this man should hum? A noise of shame, fear and humiliation, my Halvah’s father’s humming. I refitted the tracks under the dome so it could rotate more smoothly. I learned physics to go with astrophysics. Radio astronomy to match my astronomy. I punched the walls with knowledge. Halvah gave birth, a baby, born screaming. The only nonmystical state where the opposites are joined is infancy. So perfect they often die, babies, without cause. What’s your opinion?”
“I was an incubator baby.”
“Then you know what it’s like, living in a tank. Look who I am. Someone whose air is cleaned every four hours. A face that collapses at the slightest provocation. Climb in for a minute. Come, lift the shield. I want to whisper in your ear.”
Pretending he hadn’t heard these last few words, Billy looked away to make his report.
“The mystical humming of his father-in-law. A child is born. Punching the walls. The dome rotates with added smoothness.”
Reluctantly he turned once again to the figure in the biomembrane.
“Don’t look down your nose at esoterica,” Ratner said. “If you know the right combination of letters, you can make anything. This is the secret power of the alphabet. Meaningless sounds, abstract symbols, they have the power of creation. This is why the various parts of the mystical writings are not in proper order. Knowing the order, you could make your own world from just reading the writings. Everything is built from the twenty-two letter elements. The alphabet itself is both male and female. Creation depends on an anagram.”