“Haven’t you ever thought of it that way?”
Victor had not been thinking along these lines. He puts the cigar in his mouth and puffs on it for a moment, considering. The question at least seems to merit an answer from him.
“I find it unnecessary to attribute the universe we can observe to a God—a being—man has made in his own image. Vengeful. Obstinate. Wrathful. There is no need for it, and no evidence to support it. If it makes you feel better to think about it that way, fine. But don’t bring this Institute into disrepute because of it.”
Theodore knows he should quit while he is behind. But part of him wants to at least explain, if not necessarily defend, the idea that came to him at that moment on the podium. The old habits of intellectual debate die hard.
“I understand, Vic—I know I was wrong to say it. Hell, I’m not even saying I believe in anything like that. Like I said, it was just an idea that came to me in that moment … of panic. Based on something I was daydreaming about a few weeks ago. It was just a kind of ‘What If?’ moment. You know, that’s how we need to think about things—or at least I do—if we are going to move things forward. We can’t be afraid to ask ourselves any kind of question.” He can see that Victor is following along, tracking his thoughts. “Haven’t you ever wondered, why there is anything, as opposed to nothing at all?”
“That’s a pointless question,” he says, tapping the ash from the cigar into a ceramic bowl painted with a vivid African design. “Since there very clearly is something. Our job is to figure out how it came to be the way it is. Leave the philosophizing to the priests and the rabbis, and the … philosophers. As scientists, we can only go by observable, testable data. Not irrational thoughts or feelings. Or a vision that pops into your head.”
He has to argue this, he can’t let it go. “But what about this, Vic—what if we are not allowing ourselves to see all the data that’s out there, because it doesn’t fit our conceptions of what is knowable. Or measureable. Maybe we can’t see everything that will give us the answers we need using our five senses—mainly our eyes and ears—and the instruments that our hands and minds can fashion.”
“As a physicist, I hope that is not the case.” Victor sighs and emits a nebulous halo of smoke which curls and encircles his head. “I know that we tend to underestimate the distance to be traveled before we reach a Final Theory. But, as a physicist, I have to believe that it is attainable. I have to believe that the Large Hadron Collider will get us very close to the answers we need.” He stares at Theodore, as if he is unsure of who he might be, how he got into his office. “And if you don’t believe that as well, perhaps you’re not the right man to take over the job of leading this Institute.”
Theodore knows he has crossed the line yet again. He needs to back off now.
“I’m sorry, Vic. I know I was wrong. You know me—I have to push it to the limit, and sometimes I get in trouble for that. Would you want someone who didn’t ask the hard questions running this place? Would you want someone who always thinks inside the box?” He knows he has nothing to lose now. He looks around at the office, the windows high above them, which could have been his. “It’s just that, through the course of history, every time we think we’re ninety-nine percent of the way to knowing all there is to know, someone comes up with a radical new way of looking at things, and all the old received wisdom is proven to be a hundred percent wrong.”
“That’s fine—I understand that too. But you were totally out of line in California, and we can go round and round about these things all day, but the bottom line is, you put me and the Institute in a very bad light. I’ve supported you from the very beginning. And I’ve been the one who was setting things up for the vote on Wednesday to go a certain way. And now you repay me by doing something like this?” He stubs the cigar out, jabbing it into the bottom of the African bowl. “No more talk—enough.” He pulls a piece of paper from underneath a book and slides it across the desk.
“This is a letter of retraction we have drafted for you, which we will publish in the next issue of Physical Science Journal. Take it home and read it over. If you want to keep your job here, you must sign this letter and have it back to me first thing tomorrow morning.”
Theodore holds the sheet of paper in his hand and glances through it. Certain words jump out at him: misspoke, misunderstanding, metaphor, and also use of the word God. He feels his face tense into a frown.
“You need to sign this, Ted. Your career is on the line. And even signing this, I can’t make any guarantees. I’m doing what I can. I think I can make sure you keep your job, and that’s a lot. You can stay on board, continue with the Plasma Dynamics research you and Pradeep have started. Keep your head low for a while and let this blow over.”
What he doesn’t say, but is evident in his remark, is that the Directorship is out of the question. He can continue with the Plasma Dynamics research because Pradeep will be busy taking over leadership of the Institute.
Theodore closes his eyes and lets his head fall back. He takes a deep breath and leans back in the chair. Of course, it was to be expected. How could it have been any other way?
He knows there is nothing for him to do but sign this. If he signs it, he can continue working, keep his house and some semblance of the life he and Ilene have come to know. He should be thankful he isn’t being fired on the spot.
“I’ll sign it.” He opens his eyes and looks at Victor again. “I’m sorry, Vic. I’m sorry I put you in a tough situation.”
Victor folds his hands on his belly. The most distasteful task he has to do today is done.
Theodore takes the paper and stands. And as he does so, his mind turns back to the question that has been haunting him. He looks at Victor and decides to ask him one more time.
“Even if we do eventually come up with a final Theory of Everything, that tells us exactly how it all works, there is one question science will never be able to answer.”
Victor stares at him, his sad eyes wide and unyielding, waiting for him to speak.
“Why?” Theodore says. “Why is there anything, as opposed to nothing at all?”
ANOTHER WAY OF looking at things eventually presents itself to Theodore, later that evening, as he takes his seat in one of the balcony boxes at the theater where the symphony orchestra is about to begin: He should be thankful that he has anything at all. Ilene is settling herself into the seat next to him, a plush velveteen-covered chair with tapioca-yellow arms that are carved and burnished with golden filigree. The symphony is one of their rare nights out together, an infrequent indulgence along with an occasional restaurant dinner or student recital at the university music hall. The long gaps between these nocturnal adventures into the heart of the city are more a sign of the satisfaction that exists within their lives at home than a constraint applied by their finances. At the beginning of each season, a schedule of performances arrives in the mail, and the two of them consult the calendar to select three or four concerts they will plan to attend. It had seemed to be a good omen that Theodore’s all-time favorite piece, Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, was scheduled just two days before the Board Meeting at which he would be named to the position of Research Director, and they had both been looking forward to this evening as a kind of laudatory prelude to a week of celebration.
Now, the idea that he might not even be able to treat himself to an event such as this looms before him like the empty chasm of air beyond the railing of the balcony. He pictures himself stuck at home with a stack of high school physics papers to grade, or, worse, slogging through the evening shift at the supermarket, suffering the ignominy of bagging groceries for their more well-to-do neighbors. There are different levels of anguish and pain. He has not told Ilene yet about the letter Victor gave him to sign. He assured her when he arrived home from work that everything would be okay—he had talked to Victor and his job was secure. That was all she needed to know for the moment. He didn’t want to spoil their night out with too many details—l
et her enjoy it. And he wanted to be able to sit here in their box, alone together with her one last time as someone who might still have a chance to do something important, something that might change the world forever.
The soloist for this evening’s performance strides onto the stage to the applause of the conductor and the sixteen hundred people in the audience. What always amazes Theodore is how a soloist can simply walk up to the piano and nod at the conductor and then immediately begin striking the keys with such force and control and precision. To the soloist, it must almost be as natural and thoughtless as breathing. The conductor nods back, raises his arms high in the air … and then drops them. A long rumbling roll of the tympani sends a delicious thrill up Theodore’s spine as the soloist bangs out the first block chords of the piece, falling down the scale into a series of triplets, then gliding back up the keys again in a protracted ornamental run to introduce the theme. The music has the chilling crispness of icicles melting in the dim Norwegian sun, a pristine stream of notes that trickle past, underwoven by oboes and strings. There is a grandeur to this music that has always spoken to Theodore—the trumpets calling out their staccato punctuating rhythms to interrupt now and then the flowing melody that this rather stocky young woman is eliciting from the keys. The soloist must not be much older than twenty-five—a prodigy, a full lifetime of making beautiful music ahead of her. The lonely job of a solo performer such as this in a way reminds Theodore of the work he himself does, the hours of secluded repetition, the hard-fought process of bringing ideas to life. But this young woman must be able to crystalize all of her efforts into a twenty- or thirty-minute performance in front of an audience that is ten times as large as the one in that ballroom in California. What kind of stage fright must someone like her overcome?
After the churning bombast of the opening movement, the performers have now settled in to the quiet contemplation of the middle section of the piece. This is probably the easiest portion to play; a sequence of evenly-spaced chords that transpose the powerful A minor theme into the soothing key of D flat major. This is the part that Theodore should probably try to learn first, but he is attracted more to the third movement, the soaring finish that also happens to be the most technically difficult. He has spent the better part of the past year slowly adding to the number of phrases he can at least play correctly, if not proficiently and in time. Every time he attempts to play it, it comes out sounding awkward and forced—and nothing like what he is hearing tonight. But it does provide him with the enormous benefit of understanding exactly how splendid this young woman’s talent really is. Theodore is now witnessing something only perhaps a few dozen people on earth can actually do.
He looks over at Ilene, and it appears that she is enjoying herself. She enjoys these evenings out with him, but he knows that she doesn’t appreciate the music the same way he does, doesn’t comprehend the structure and meaning behind the phrasing and harmonies that are evolving within the piece as it moves from one strain to the next. She treats this as another type of indulgence of him, his eccentric tastes and habits. If it were up to her they would go to the 17-screen cineplex at the far end of the strip mall down the road from their suburban home and watch a romantic comedy about a woman and a man who love each other but won’t allow themselves to admit it until a series of progressively more absurd and embarrassing incidents forces them into the realization that they were meant for each other all along and forever. If it were up to her they would never buy a piece of original artwork. Her tastes are simple, mundane, yet that is part of what he has always loved about her—she is an earthbound counterweight to his speculative flights of fancy. She watches daytime television shows about cooking and Lifetime original movies about women who are drawn to handsome, dangerous men who abuse them. And she loves the modest split-level home his earnings have bought them.
Lately, he has been remembering for some reason a day trip they took together when they were very young, married only a year perhaps. He must have still been in graduate school in Indiana, living in the tiny two-bedroom rental house off campus with only their small mutt terrier long-since passed away and their dreams. They went with another grad school couple, not much more than acquaintances really, a guy he knew from one of his classes and his wife, to a small town in the countryside perhaps an hour or two away, where there is a replica Christmas village that sells holiday crafts and blue and gold ornaments and marzipan candies all year round. It must have been in the fall, this trip, for he has a distinct image of walking to the top of a small rise with Ilene’s hand in his, the other couple, whose names he has long forgotten, standing next to them beneath an elegant sycamore tree whose leaves had just turned, and looking out over the town squatting down below, with one of its chimneys emitting a twirl of smoke. He has been wondering why this particular moment has popped up in his memory after all these years, so vivid it seems as if it might have happened only yesterday. And he decides now, as the quiet middle movement of the concerto draws itself to a close, that it must have been for him a moment when he could feel the dream spread out before him, when they had it all to live for, their whole lives still ahead—raising children, buying houses, doing work that might someday change the world—all of it was there ahead of him. Even in the past couple of weeks, when he was still anticipating taking over Victor’s job, he knew, his subconscious propelled this image up from within, because he knew deep inside that although the Directorship would be a huge leap in salary and status, it wasn’t really what he had always dreamed of doing. His dream has always been to discover something that will change the world forever—perhaps even the ultimate discovery, the Theory of Everything. And this job, directing the research of others, no matter how prestigious it might be, is really more administrative than anything else and would signal the end of his quest to change the world with his science.
At least that’s how he would like to think of it. Maybe that’s just a story he would like to believe because the job he has been aiming for the past nine months, since Victor announced his imminent retirement, is now beyond his reach.
There is a brief pause, as the third movement is about to begin. The soloist takes a deep breath and stretches her fingers, curling and uncurling them discreetly by her lap in preparation for the whirlwind of notes that is to come.
After a subtle overture from the clarinets, the soloist dives into the final movement with a dramatic run up the keyboard and then back down again. Then a sequence of breathtaking dancing notes leads into the string section driving home the main theme. This third movement is the piece of music he most loves—it seems to transpose into sound his vision of what his work might someday ultimately be—generous, grand, and full of heart and meaning—as expansive and finely-tuned as the universe itself. From this vantage point in the box high above the stage, he can see the music ebb and flow across the orchestra like a living thing, the lone piano answering the call of the strings, echoing their song back in a starker and more intricate pattern.
There are perhaps fifty or sixty musicians playing in unison here, fifty lines of melody woven together to create a unique vision of reality. Theodore thinks about the minds of each of these musicians focused on their music, each of them playing one part, but all of them contributing to this unified, complex, giant sound that pervades the auditorium. Each line of melody expressed by one of these musicians is a fragment of consciousness. He watches one of the oboe players, a thin, reedy woman with her lips pursed tight; the music that comes out of her horn started with a thought in her head, and ultimately originated as one grand thought in the mind of Grieg, the composer. Grieg first pictured and heard the notes she is playing a hundred and forty years ago.
Now the oboe player has a few measures of rest, as the soloist beats down on the keys to produce a stunning crash of block chords. She sets her oboe down in her lap, lays it across her legs as if she were riding a bus to work and the instrument were nothing more noteworthy than an umbrella on a rainy day. The work she does is magnificent,
but to her it is still a job. She plays her part, contributing to and enhancing the whole. She does not have to shine forth like the dramatic, dark-skinned soloist. Perhaps Theodore has always overestimated his own talent—maybe he has always been destined to be more like the oboist, playing her supporting role. Only a chosen few can stand out from the crowd. Only once in a hundred years or more can a man change the course of history through his science. Why should Theodore have imagined that it might have been him?
The very last crescendos are happening now. The final towering runs up and down the scale, with the full orchestra building ever louder and more intensely behind the majestic rhythm of the keys. Now, the trumpets blare their recapitulation of the symphony’s main theme, capped off by seven staccato repetitions of a single shimmering chord—but wait. Wait. Wasn’t that a wrong note he heard?
It was. It was off—one of the trumpets, one of the notes of that chord was clearly out of key. He heard it; he knows this symphony so well, has listened to it so many times on the sound system at home and in his car, that he knows a wrong note was played, just a half-tone off, a slip of the finger perhaps, one valve of the trumpet left open or not closed. That wrong note has thrown the whole thing off. The spell has been broken, even though the soloist and all the rest of them are still hurtling towards the finish.
He glances over at Ilene to see if she has noticed it too. But, of course, she hasn’t. She is still smiling that secret smile to her self, the one she does when she is lost in her thoughts and nothing around her seems to matter. She isn’t paying any attention to the details of what’s going on. To her, the symphony is just a generally enjoyable experience, another entertainment. It has no meaning in and of itself.
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