by Niels Hammer
“There are two possibilities, either all models or laws of the universe are by the very nature of the universe simply impossible to fathom for the human mind, or they are not. Do you agree?”
“Yes, that’s pretty obvious, but why – ?”
“Wait, in case this is so, then there are two further possibilities. Either the predictions of quantum theories are wrong or the law of local causality is right, and as you know, the laws of quantum theories have been proven to be correct and the law of local causality to be wrong.”
And Bell’s inequalities –
“But where does all that lead us?”
“It gives us three further possibilities, either an infinite plurality of superimposed worlds, when definiteness fails, or superdeterminism, in case contrafactualness fails, or indeed total or absolute interconnectedness via superluminal information transfer. Do you have any objections so far?”
“No, not really, but I don’t understand what you’re trying to prove.”
“Wait a minute or two. Do you think that one of the Multiple Universe theories, which all are so mathematically tempting, but physically absurd, would be the best choice?”
“No, they’re crazy.”
“I agree! Now, where would you find any empirical evidence that, apart from cases of entangled particles, supports the notion that any thing moves faster than light?”
“Not as far as I know, though there has been several attempts to – ”
“So that leaves us with the last option, namely superdeterminism, a prospect, which Einstein tended to endorse; and this means that you as well as I already, at least subconsciously, have accepted the fact that we were bound to meet each other the way we did.”
She laughed at his sincerity but she had also – even in spite of herself – to agree with the apparent logic of his argument – at least for what it was worth right now – though that was not very much for several objections –
“Well, that was a rather sly display of sophistry designed to persuade me, I think.”
“The truth is great and will prevail regardless of what we believe; but I had no need at all to persuade you as I only made it plain that you more or less already happened to share my view. You only hesitated to accept it because you felt overwhelmed or maybe even coy?”
Seeing that he had made a certain impact on the way she thought and felt now – because of the sincerity of his commitment which alone authenticated his approach – he had teased her a little to soften the solemnity of his earnestness.
“I’m not at all coy, quite the contrary.”
Mock indignation.
“No, you’re certainly not coy.”
“But you just said so?”
“I did because you only acted as if you were coy whereas you’re really direct and honest enough to express what you feel, as I just said.”
“So I cannot dodge your superdeterminism?”
Her satisfied sigh gave him a further indication of gaining ground for it suggested that while she might not accept what he said hypothetically she accepted him as a realistic consequence or opportunity – though he dared not really believe it yet – for by hiding the joker of quantum indeterminacy in his sleeve he had behaved like a common sharper. A plethora of excuses could easily be invented but none of them would be valid.
“Tell me how you began this extraordinary career of redistributing the fat of the land a little?”
“Well, it’s also a long story.”
As he leaned forward to look from the swung buffalo bow of her lips to the sea-green irides of her eyes he tried – in the scintillating light of her midnight pupils – to tint her feelings – her thoughts and her images in wavelengths that were complementary to his own.
“I was studying electronics and electrical engineering but also modern history in Edinburgh when my boyfriend, Hamish, asked me for help. He had a wealthy uncle whom he was going to inherit but whom he detested, and he needed five thousand Pounds to settle an urgent gambling debt, so I did not feel I had much of a choice, as I loved him, but to deactivate his uncle’s burglar alarm when he happened to be in Monte Carlo. I did not think it was wrong, since he only seemed to get hold of money which he eventually was going to get anyway when his uncle died. And he had told me something about his uncle’s behaviour towards his mother which made me keen to readjust the scale of justice as far as I could. Anyway, we had plenty of time, and the alarm was easy to bypass, disconnect and reassemble so everything went well, but of course he got far too little for the jewels we stole, although enough to clear his debt. His uncle, however, got the full insurance sum. By discovering how easy it was we were tempted to find another empty house, and a year later I had my degree. The excitement, the joy of being able to do it and the reward made it irresistible.”
“Where’s he now, your boyfriend?”
There was not a strong current running in their present relationship and yet – bristling beneath his skin – a nauseating fear forced him to ask her for an answer that might make his elaborately constructed house of cards come tumbling down to bury him alive beneath its flimsy ruins.
“In New York. He’s a gambler, a born gambler.”
“And you’re not?”
The relief in his voice echoed through the house.
“No, he often accused me of hedging my bets so much that it took the edge off the joy. Anyway, the prospect of paid employment where one hires oneself out on a daily basis, a camouflaged form of slavery, did not appeal to me; and seeing how comparatively easy it was to acquire the funds I needed to survive, made me decide that I could just as well continue on my own when Hamish left to try his luck and skill with Poker and Chemin-de-fer in New York. However, when acting alone I had to be much more cautious, but it came as a pleasant surprise to discover that the thrill of the game did not really diminish even when the odds happened to be heavily in my favour, which I of course always did my utmost to make sure that they were.”
“But you could only do so because you had the ability to act independently, and I imagine that your innate independence might have been furthered by having been born with a cleft palate and hence having had to stand alone against the world from a very early age.”
“Yes, I certainly suffered as a child, but when I was twelve years old my history teacher advised me, after a nasty fight, to take up judo; and so I did, eventually to become fairly accomplished, at least accomplished enough to be able to defend myself; but if seen retrospectively it became my second nature. I practise once or twice a week to stay fit.”
Rubbing his shoulder he smiled and she reflected his smile unapologetically so perhaps she appreciated that he did not resent the violence of her reactions.
“But what made you decide to choose Norfolk as a hunting ground?”
“The relative richness of the game, for though the affluence is more wide-spread further south it is also better protected. I did not want to miss the North Sea, its rhythm suffused my childhood, and I have a kayak in Lowestoft, at the Canoe Club; but the decisive factor was that I have a friend, Barbara, whom I met ten years ago at a tournament, and who lives in Lowestoft with her family, so I soon became acquainted with quite a large number of people.”
Basically it was all so prosaic and predictable – at least on the surface – and on the surface only.
“Does she know what you do?”
“No, she would get a shock if I told her, but it would not change our friendship, I think. Now, what about all the other jewellery, is there still someone looking for it?”
Security would be a limiting factor. Each occupation had its own freedoms and limitations.
“No, we thought it would be best to stop the search at once.”
“I’m glad you did, but I wonder why ‘the man in Greek Road’ still kept the wristlet. It should have been sold or melted down by now, for he must have had it for clos
e to three month.”
“Do you get paid by the weight of the gold or according to the quality of the jewellery?”
“It depends, you see, all ordinary pieces are just worth their weight in gold, but of course I do not get the market value, much less than that if selling to someone like ‘the man in Greek Road,’ though more if selling to a goldsmith, but I can of course only sell unique pieces to ‘the man in Greek Road.’”
“And the precious stones?”
“The same general rule applies to them, I get much less than what they’re worth, and yet ‘the man in Greek Road’ is exceptionally straight. He always gives me a fair deal and we have a good relationship. How much did you pay?”
“Two thousand six hundred Pounds”
“It’s worth at least four thousand, but I only got one thousand five hundred, I think. He must have waited for the right customer to come along, and it must have been hard to sell. What will you do with it?”
“Give it back to Suzy Salisbury and ask her for six thousand Pounds.”
“But would that not be dangerous, I mean, for me?”
Tossing her curls back she looked through him to see the future.
“Oh no, she would be happy to get it back and she has already been reimbursed by the insurance company. And I will tell her that the rest of the jewellery appears to have been sold, probably in the Far East, Hong Kong or Macau. And concerning George’s death I will tell her that I could not discover anything that did not point to an accident, and ask her to excuse my interference.”
“Still I feel pangs of remorse for – ”
“Oh, you shouldn’t. If she knew what you had done she would reward you royally.”
“What do you mean? For having killed her husband?”
She failed to believe him although she wanted to.
“George had begun drinking more and more heavily. Neglecting himself, his business and his family he had become insufferable. They were on the point of finalising their divorce when he died. If he had died after the divorce Suzy would only have received half of the estate, now she inherited everything. And if he had been sober he would not have met with such an accident. So if she knew what had happened she would place you on a pedestal and dance widdershins around you until she collapsed to gather strength enough to continue clockwise.”
“But she will never know?”
“Nivver! You know it and I will soon have forgotten it. Nobody else knows how he died.”
“Maybe you do not live outside the law like me or ‘the man in Greek Road,’ but beyond it, and that makes me feel I can trust you.”
Drawing in his breath sharply he felt that the reflexive conclusion she had drawn had revealed the Milky Way to her heart – for she had perhaps been in need of someone in whom she could confide – or with whom she could share her experiences – but that might eventually mean that he would have to participate in her excursions.
“I felt I could trust you the instant I saw your face for at your age you have the face you deserve, and to be honest one has to live according to one’s own criteria and not according to the quiddities and quillets of the mercenaries of the self-exiled.”
The time’s plague – as always – clouded the periphery of his mind.
“So birds of a feather flock together?”
A stale metaphor ceases to be stale if and only if –
“There has to be a certain mutual affinity, a distinct measure of shared experiences and shared perspectives, a certain level of self-awareness, a certain degree of nakedness, of willingness to suffer and accept life as it is irrespective of the consequences.”
“You haven’t phoned your friend, have you?”
“Christ, no! You made me forget all about it. He must be very nervous by now, even maybe preparing to drive up here from London. He has his own spare key to the house. I’ll telephone him right away.”
“But don’t blame me for your own forgetfulness.”
“Fjodor! I hope it’s not too late?”
“I’ve been sick worrying about you. Why the hell didn’t you phone earlier?”
“It’s been so intense that I have not had a single spare second. I’ll tell you all about it later, but just now Caitlin reminded me about my promise. I had told her I had to telephone you.”
“Give her my compliments for reminding you. So it looks like a happy ending?”
“There are certain indications that point in that direction, yes!”
“I am relieved, I must say. When will I hear from you again?”
“To-morrow evening.”
“Well, now that I know you’re out of harm’s way I can at last have dinner.”
“I didn’t mean to keep you worried, but you’ll understand why and wherefore when – ”
“All right!”
He replaced the telephone and turned round to look at her – and at the bright sailing Moon that to-night framed her merry curls as an aureole or a prabhāmaṇḍalam.
“Fjodor was quite cross because I hadn’t notified him earlier and told me to give you his sincere compliments for having reminded me of my promise.”
“Oh thanks, but I only remembered it because of the implications it might have had.”
“And I forgot it because of the implications of what we have told one another.”
“I underestimated you the other day just like I did this morning, but I hope you do not overestimate me now?”
“How could I?”
“Now you’re joking?”
“Both yes and no; but it looks as if it’s going to be a fine Summer morning, that is in about three hours time, so I hope you will join me on a little expedition in my boat, armed with mosquito nets, warm clothes, blankets, a mattress, binoculars, telescope, tea and sandwiches. We can expect to hear Cuckoos, Bitterns, many different warblers, maybe even Cranes, and see an Otter or two perhaps. The Broads at Dawn is one of the real wonders of this world, but you would need some warm clothes, so I suggest that we should drive back to your house to get them right away, that is, if you’re not too tired, but around seven o’clock we can either go to sleep in the boat or drive back.”
“You have forgotten that I’m a night-bird!”
Her laughter kindled his own as well as the hopes he had kept in abeyance – afraid of the vacuum in his life they would leave if they should be wrecked by her rejection – but so far she was game.
“All right, then we might as well begin our preparations.”
He held the door for her and they went out to his car.
“Would you care to drive? I think I’ve had too much to drink?”
“Of course. Give me the keys.”
“It’s straight ahead as soon as you come out on the main road.”
“Have you forgotten that I know the way quite well.”
“Yes, I had, I had.”
“You’re quite excitable, I think, at least at the moment.”
“Your diagnosis is correct but it's probably easy to make.”
Though he felt that she was aware of how he had been bemused by her tentative accept and that she – perhaps still somewhat precariously – was beginning to share his feelings he thought that it would be best to wait till it either became impossible to wait any longer or till she took the final step – as he had tried to indicate that it had to be her responsibility to initiate the physical intimacy that would fit them together or break the green and tender bonds already formed.
“It is, you’re like an open book.”
“That’s a cliché.”
“But it’s nevertheless true and then hardly a cliché any longer.”
“Touché, and you drive quickly but carefully.”
“And you drove quickly but nonchalantly as if you did not want to let such trivial matters as traffic and road signs divert your precious attention.”
>
“I had all my attention focused elsewhere due to circumstances beyond my control.”
“I’ll have to accept that, I suppose, and yet I feel certain that you usually drive nonchalantly.”
“I can hide nothing from you, can I?”
They met in laughter. The impulse to kiss her became compelling – and she knew it but found a certain delight in postponing the inevitable. When she had parked in front of her house they walked side by side up along the moonlit driveway.
“And why should you? I have no secrets any longer, do I? You know everything about me. All the things I have kept carefully hidden.”
“No, only some sporadic fragments, but when you look at me I feel translucent.”
“It’s only because you wear your heart on your sleeve.”
“It’s not something I choose to do.”
“Is it because of me then?”
“I shall not try to deny it.”
Shaking her head she feigned to object to her responsibility although she also cherished it.
“Can you wait here or are you afraid that I’ll fly out of the window upstairs if I leave you alone for a minute?”
When the suspension was kept alive as titillation –
“You expect me to find the courage to accept the risk, so do I have any choice?”
Dignified constraint or ludicrous obsessiveness? She went up the stairs and vanished out of his field of vision so he listened to the sounds that seeped down through the wooden boards – faint and indistinguishable – as if drawers were being opened and closed – but only her faint steps to and fro across the floor substantiated her physical presence above him. She was certainly taking her time but at last the door was closed and she came down to meet him fully equipped for the wild life of the Broads.
“Have you been exercising your patience?”
“I have rather been using it up.”
His relief at seeing her again made his past suffering vanish in a smile for she appreciated being cherished to the nth degree. So accoutred with her warm practical clothes they drove back.