Ratner's Star

by Don DeLillo

  “It’s hard to picture.”

  “We have acrostics too.”

  “Do you have numbers?”

  “Is Mickey a mouse?” Ratner said. “Of course we have numbers. The emanations of the en-sof are numbers. The ten sefiroth are numerical operations that determine the course of the universe. Constant and variable. The sefiroth are both. I could go into sefirothic geometry but you don’t have the awe for that, being mathematical. Sefiroth comes from the infinitive ‘to count.’ The power of counting, of finger-numbers, of one-to-ten. We also have gematria, which you probably heard about, assigning numerical value to each letter of the alphabet. I won’t even tell you about the hidden relationships between words that we discover in this way. It would be too much of a feast to set before someone who isn’t ready for it, a lifelong eater of peanuts, by which I refer to myself as viewed in the face of Fish’s revelations, gazing, a man, backyard, night upon night, galaxies and nebulas, my head filled with NGC numbers. The steel mill went on strike. I gazed like a madman. You couldn’t get me out of the dome with threats to my child. I decided to study the sun. Adjustments, new equipment, unsilvered mirror, precautions. The sun is a frightening thing to view through a telescope, solar wedge or no solar wedge. I thought ahead to the helium flash. The final expansion. Having come from the stars, we are returned. The sun within us, the source of all mystical bursts, is perfectly counterbalanced by the physical sun that presses outward, swallowing up the orbits of the nearest planets.”

  Beneath the beret, Ratner’s face sagged a bit. The lustrous muscles went slack and there was a suggestion of reinforced flesh about to melt.

  “Picture this,” he said. “From that great unstable period, the sun collapses drastically. It becomes the same size as the former earth. Now we’re right inside it, mongrelized with three other planets, compacted down to a whiff of gas. The sun proceeds to cool, white dwarf, red dwarf, black dwarf, a dead star, dark black. No energy, no light, no heat, no twinkle. The end.”

  “Can I get off now?”

  “We come from supergiant solar bodies, great hot ionized objects, and we end in the center of a dead black sphere. We’re part star, you and me. Our beginning and end are made in the stars. Light, dark. High, low. Big, little. Go ahead, take it from there.”

  “East, west.”

  “Up,” Ratner said.

  “Down.”

  “In.”

  “Out.”

  “Give me a few, to test my fading powers.”

  “Love.”

  “Hate,” Ratner said.

  “Innocence.”

  “Kilt.”

  “Very good,” Billy said after a thoughtful pause.

  The old man lay back, panting gently. A few minutes passed. Finally he stirred himself.

  “When the strike ended I went back to gazing by night. I studied eclipsing stars, flare stars, variables of every kind, reading star catalogues in my spare time, memorizing star tables, taking the cooking into the dome with me, a real fanatic. Also I feared the sight of Fish, always with the writings in his hand. He took books and folios into the toilet with him and stayed for hours. We could hear the humming from his bedroom half the night. He pushed his armchair into a corner and sat with his back to the room. This kind of transcendence I feared, a scientist, still young, pledged to the observable, welcomed into organizations, reaching a peak of knowledge, Pittsburgh, the backyard, my own dome, handmade, that rotated. The night sky was sensational. I made charts and calculations, identifying novalike variables, Cepheids, cool and hot stars, egg-shaped doubles. The child developed putative diarrhea, terrible, a living diaper. Did I realize I was being punished for knowledge without piety or did I sit in the observatory, scanning, light from the universe entering my eye?”

  “Looks like trouble’s coming,” Billy said to those assembled in the Great Hole. “He fears this person Fish who’s always in the toilet reading. The kid is sick. A question is asked about piety and sitting.”

  “Come in and browse,” Ratner said. “I know a few words I want to whisper in your ear. Come, pay a visit. Bonwit does it all the time, the doctor, holding his breath. A thing he denies doing to make me feel better. Come, let me whisper.”

  “I can hear you from right here.”

  “Pay a dying man a visit.”

  “I’ll catch something. The shield might jam behind me and then where am I? I can hold my breath just so long.”

  “Browse a while.”

  “Put yourself in my place,” the boy said. “What if the shield jams while I’m in there and then you die? What happens then? I’m probably taking a chance just sitting up here. All they told me was the flowers. Present the flowers.”

  “So this Fish,” Ratner said. “This in-law Fish of mine. My Halvah’s father. He begins to get to me with a remark passed at dinner about the hidden source of the mystical writings, doctrines and traditions. A secret beginning in the Orient. All this esoterica. Born in the East. Moving as if by stealth to other parts of the world. Always this obscurity. This secret element. I’ll tell you an interesting piece of news. If you think I’m making it up, tap once on the shield. A dying man has no shadow. First heard from Fish. The person about to die lacks all shadow. Knock once if I’m lying.”

  “I don’t understand the question.”

  “You know what you remind me of?”

  “What?”

  “A golem,” Ratner said.

  “What’s that?”

  “An artificial person.”

  “No such thing.”

  “According to instructions in the secret manuscripts, you get a little earth, run some water over it and then recite the letters of the alphabet in esoteric combinations with the four consonants of the t-dash-t-r-dash-g-r-dash-m-m-dash-t-dash-n. From this you get a golem.”

  “I’m almost ready to knock once.”

  “Light from the universe entered my eye,” Ratner said. “I am in the dome, gazing, an ordinary night, through the eyepiece, open clusters, rich fields, my name being mentioned in the journals, this and that prize coming my way, a signer of petitions, the arts, the sciences, the humanisms, our child still in diapers, a tragedy, making watery excess thirty times a day, my Halvah up to her wrists in baby-do. Suddenly what do I see? A thing beyond naming. Not a thing at all. A state. I am falling into a state. Radiance everywhere. An experience. I am having an experience.”

  Breaking the long silence that followed, Billy spoke to the others.

  “An ordinary night in the dome, getting famous, he starts to see something. The in-law Fish is winning.”

  Ratner’s left thumb quivered slightly.

  “There’s nothing more I can say. I lived my life. Good, evil. Aphelion, perihelion. Hungry, full. Since then I have often fallen into states, passing beyond the opposites of the world. What use was a telescope after this? I had the states. Every experience was a new experience. It’s something you don’t get used to. Fish instructed me. In time I went back to my original roots, Eastern Parkway, the dispersed of Judah. We prospered as a family, learning fear, shame, piety and awe, my mind no longer filled to satiation with knowledge of the physical universe. Being pious I felt no need to punch the walls. They kept in touch with me, the leading minds, still an award or two, invitations every week. Only one I accepted, to visit Palomar, the two-hundred-inch reflector. I sat in the observer’s cage right inside the telescope. Just the cage was bigger than my whole dome. I looked at some galaxies in detail. Nice, I liked it. When I climbed out they told me they had a special honor. A star. They gave a star my name.”

  “Falling into states,” Billy said to the others. “Back to Brooklyn, the walls no longer punched. He visits Palomar. A star is named.”

  “Lift the shield and climb in,” Ratner said. “I know some words to whisper. Come, take time. Make the sacrifice. A dying man needs visits. Be a sport for once in your life.”

  “Infectious danger.”

  “Hold your breath and lift out the shield. Take time
. It’s a worthwhile whisper or I wouldn’t ask.”

  “I’m scared in plain English.”

  “We’re all scared,” Ratner said. “Who isn’t scared? You, me, the laureates. Terror is everywhere. This I learned from the writings. Fish, humming, gave me his folios to take back to Brooklyn. Pitkin advises every day on the terror around us. Take demons, for example. You wouldn’t think there’s a connection between demons and the sperm in your testicles. The terror of onanism is that bodiless demons are able to make bodies for themselves from the spilled seed. Look at a drop of semen under a microscope and see how amazed you become at the concentration of life in that small area, the darting swarm, a phenomenon irresistible to demons. To be onanistic is to make children for the demonic element. You become the father of evil spirits. How can the pious and the G-dash-d-fearing campaign against such things? It’s not easy, believe me. Nothing in the writings is easy. If I give the impression I abandoned science for the easy life, knock once. In returning to my roots I entered a world of strict mystery. A lot of loose ends, true. But great strictness in the numerology, the permutations, the legends, the symbolism, the esoteric combinations of letters, the compiling of substitutes for the ineffable name, the secrets of golem-making. In words, what can be said about the mystical state I entered while looking through the telescope in the dome in Pittsburgh, the yard covered with soot, double shifts at the mill?”

  “Nothing.”

  “The first man was a golem before he gave names to things,” Ratner said. “He was unformed matter waiting for a soul. Golem-making is laden with danger. What else can I say to a person who reminds me of one?”

  The old gentleman’s face appeared to be collapsing. Clear matter was being discharged from his pores as the face itself began to settle. This degenerative action was such that even the beret was affected. It slid forward a bit and to one side, coming to rest at a sharp angle over Ratner’s left eye, much more rakish than the occasion seemed to warrant. His voice, running down, was a mechanized caw, barely a trace remaining of the desperate melodies of Brooklyn. He raised his right hand slightly.

  “What is this but a place?” he said. “Nothing more than a place. We’re both here in this place, occupying space. Everywhere is a place. All places share this quality. Is there any real difference between going to a gorgeous mountain resort with beautiful high thin waterfalls so delicate and ribbonlike they don’t even splash when they hit bottom—waterfalls that plash; is this so different from sitting in a kitchen with bumpy linoleum and grease on the wall behind the stove across the street from a gravel pit? What are we talking about? Two places, that’s all. There’s nowhere you can go that isn’t a place. So what’s such a difference? If you can understand this idea, you’ll never be unhappy. Think of the word ‘place.’ A sun deck with views of gorgeous mountains. A tiny dark kitchen. These share the most important of all things anything can share. They are places. The word ‘place’ applies in both cases. In this sense, how do we distinguish between them? How do we say one is better or worse than the other? They are equal in the most absolute of ways. Grasp this truth, sonny, and you’ll never be sad.”

  Billy felt himself being lifted in the air. It was Dr. Bonwit, removing him from the biomembrane and setting him on the floor. Although he wasn’t sure he liked all this lifting, he was glad to be off the tank. Observing size places he returned to the front of the line. Pitkin approached the tank, put his ear to the chambered slot and then departed. As Bonwit and the nurse busied themselves at the cart that held the silicone preparation, Sandow rose from the organ bench.

  “Let us light the torches,” he said. “The lighting of the ceremonial torches. The torch-lighting commences, ladies and gentlemen.”

  Holding a lighted candle, Pitkin stood now at the base of the natural stage. As Sandow called their names, the laureates proceeded in alphabetical order to touch the wicks of their torches to Pitkin’s candleflame. Then each returned to the line. As he waited for his name to be called Billy began to get nervous. He didn’t know why; lighting a torch would be easy compared to straddling a biomembrane and being invited inside. Yet his nervousness grew. He actually feared the sound of his name being called. Person after person was summoned and the tension accumulated. He’d never experienced anything like this. He began to doubt that he’d be able to respond when his name was finally called. It made no sense. There was nothing to fear. It was just his name being spoken aloud as part of a series of names. His distress increased as Sandow reached the M’s. What did it mean? His name had been called hundreds of times in a dozen places. Routinely he’d acknowledged it. It was his name, wasn’t it, and he was the person who answered, right? He felt pressure building, a tightness in his chest and throat. Sandow got closer to T. There was no clearly defined threat and yet the pressure built. He’d faced worse threats with relative poise. From LoQuadro and the void core to Endor’s hole’s hole to Grbk and his nipples to Mohole’s big greenie. Through all these nonspecific threats he had endured if not prevailed. The current threat, if it even qualified as such, was in a different category, he felt. The others, vague as they were, definitely qualified as threats. This one went too deep to be defined. (Existenz.) Maybe there was no word or phrase that quite described the tenuous nature of being. (Oblivio obliviorum.) To exist was to have being or actuality. To have life; live. To continue to live. To be present under certain circumstances or in a specified place. (Nihil ex nihilo.) Maybe he would not occur when his name was called. It wasn’t merely a question of not being there to answer or of not being able to respond because of the pressure in his chest. Maybe he would not occur. (Nada de nadiensis.) The calling of his name might pre-empt him. The name itself might assimilate his specific presence.

  “Twillig.”

  He realized he had no torch. No one had given him a torch. Nevertheless he walked over to Pitkin, not knowing what else to do and finding it a reasonably easy procedure. To counteract an intangible threat to one’s sense of existence it may be necessary only to take a step from here to there. He looked up into the long coarse beard, feeling the sense of constriction begin to leave his body. Pitkin remained motionless, the candle burning at eye level.

  “I have no torch.”

  “Well put,” the advisor said. “You could make a career uttering truths.”

  “What happens next?”

  “The old gentleman told me to tell you something even though you were in such a hurry you couldn’t take time to pay a visit before the face collapsed and they had to inject. It was so serious they filled the needle right in front of him. That serious I never saw it. But he took time to give me a message, face or no face, even though a certain person I’m looking at was too much of a smarty pants to climb inside. He told me whisper to the golem in his ear.”

  After a pause, Pitkin’s lips began to move. However, no sound emerged.

  “What did he tell you to whisper?”

  The lips paused a second time. When they moved now, however, words were soon to follow.

  “The universe is the name of G-dash-d. All of us. Everything. Here, there, everywhere. Time and space. The whole universe. It all adds up to the true name of G-dash-d.”

  Another laureate’s name was called and the man advanced to light his torch. Pitkin’s lips were still moving. Billy moved out of the way as the remaining two or three people responded to Sandow’s roll call. Finally all the laureates were back in line, this time with lighted torches. Sandow took his place at the keyboard and began playing a profound lament, the neon pulsing through the clear pipes in slow motion. Pitkin, still holding the candle, moved toward Billy in an earnestly furtive manner, sideways, inch by inch, eyes straight ahead, feet not lifted from the ground.

  “For once in my life I talk without looking,” he said. “You who I looked at before, hair-splitter, I’m only talking this time, making sure you’re reminded not to fidget. Arithmetic monkey, keep your knuckles off the ground. One squirm and out you go goodbye. Even watch with the way you bre
athe. Never through the nose. You who I’m talking to.”

  “I understand you’re growing a beard,” Billy said.

  Swiftly, with no excess motion, Dr. Bonwit had put on a surgical mask, raised the shield, climbed into the tank and administered the facial injection, hunched over Ratner’s shrunken form. Now he and the nurse wheeled the biomembrane toward a man-made opening beyond which, Billy assumed, an elevator waited. Pitkin followed them, his feet alternately gliding and bumping over the ground. Finally the biomembrane, its sponsor decals gleaming, disappeared into the opening, followed first by Pitkin and then, as the music reached a despondent coda, by the laureates in single file, their lighted torches casting shadow-tremors on the walls. This left Sandow, who climbed down from the stage and hurried out of the Great Hole.

  This in turn left Billy, still shaken by the awareness that his own specific presence could seem so insubstantial, so nearly imaginary, a condition easily threatened by a one-word utterance. Pessimistic echoes were still diminishing as he headed through the opening. He came to a tall gate fastened across a shaft that was broad enough to hold a freight elevator. The elevator had already departed, however, leaving only the nurse behind, Georgette Bottomley, a slender figure dressed in white.

  “They could fit all those people in one elevator?” Billy said. “Plus the tank too?”

  “Plus the tank too but not plus Georgette.”

  “No room for one more?”

  “I don’t mind telling you I’m peeved off about that. Whenever doctor wants to get in his clientele’s good graces, it means nurse have to wait. All my professional life I’ve been standing aside for the parade to go by. There’s a chain of priority, you got to understand. This time it was doctor first, patient second, Nobel Prize winners third, rhythm section fourth, old man with beard fifth, Georgette in her accustomized place bringing up the rear. I’m good and peeved. I’ll say it again.”