by Betsy Draine
“Funny thing. He wasn’t the only one nosing around. Another guy came into the gallery today also asking about icons. A big, tough-looking customer with long hair and a pushy manner. Reminded me of a wrestler. He hadn’t shaved for a few days, and he had an accent, maybe Russian. He was hard to understand. He almost gave me a heart attack. Came up behind me without my hearing him and—boom!—there he was, in my face.”
“That’s the same creep who was staring at me this morning in the parking lot of Whole Foods!”
Dan sat up, alert. “Tell me about it.” I did. There wasn’t that much more to tell.
Dan turned to Ken. “Did you get a name, any information from him?”
Ken shook his head. “Sorry.”
“What did he want to know?”
“Whether I had any icons for sale or knew of any other local gallery that might. Whether any had come through the shop lately. He was gruff, only asked a couple of questions, then he turned and left. No ‘thank you’ or other pleasantries.”
“Dan,” I said, “the auctioneer at Morgan’s told me a man with a Russian accent called him the day after the auction, asking for information about Charlie—that is, wanting to know who bought the icon and how to reach him. The auctioneer relayed his name and number to Charlie. It has to be the same guy.”
“It’s interesting that this guy hasn’t been to Toby’s gallery asking for information.” Dan pursed his lips.
“I wonder why?” asked Ken.
“My guess is because he’s already searched it.”
Now I was truly alarmed. “He must be the one who broke into the gallery. And our house as well.”
Dan turned to Ken. “If he comes in again, see if you can get a name or number where he can be reached. Tell him you may be able to help him find what he’s looking for. Make something up.”
“Definitely. I’m sorry I didn’t come up with something at the time.”
“What else can you remember about him? Age? Height? What was he wearing?”
“Thirties or forties, I’d say. Over six feet tall, husky but solid build. He was wearing a brown leather jacket.” That description matched my recollection of the man in the parking lot, though he wasn’t wearing a jacket at the time. “Oh, and one other thing,” Ken added. “He had a gold tooth up front.”
Dan got out his notepad. “Did either of you see what kind of car he was driving?’
“I did,” I said. “A black sedan, new-looking. An Audi, I think, but I’m not sure.”
“Okay,” said Dan, jotting a note. “Big guy in his thirties or forties, speaks with an accent, long hair, has a gold tooth, last seen wearing a leather jacket and driving a late-model sedan, color black. Shouldn’t be hard to spot if he’s still around. I’ll put out a bulletin on him in the morning: wanted for questioning.”
“I’m glad you said in the morning.” The mock-stern voice belonged to Colleen, who had just come through the front door, balancing a tray crowded with bowls of dessert fixings. “You’re not still talking shop, I hope,” she huffed. “You’re off duty, for crying out loud. We’re here to make a dinner! Give me a hand, will you?”
“Yes, dear,” Dan cringed with pseudo-meekness, as if he were a henpecked husband in a ’50s sitcom. He shot Ken a wink. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard Dan and Colleen go through this routine.
“All right, then,” said Colleen, calling a halt to their spousal game. She was an attractive redhead with an infectious smile. Her cheeks were pink, which meant the wind was up again outside. With Dan’s help, she settled her tray on the sideboard and slipped out of her coat. Then she joined Gloria and Toby in the kitchen. “Mmm! That duck smells good.”
Toby’s main course was in fact a triumph. At the table there was no more talk about the Russian. The wine flowed freely, and I felt myself beginning to relax. It pleased me that Angie seemed to be enjoying herself too, though she was among people she didn’t know. She followed the chitchat with interest and even joined in when the conversation took a philosophical turn. That’s often a feature of our dinners, thanks to Ken, who’s a great reader and whose tastes include physics and astronomy. Sometimes Toby is the only member of our group who goes along with Ken on these excursions, but this time Angie added her convictions to the mix.
“So, I’m reading this new book on the cosmos,” Ken began. “And it starts out with a terrific question, which is, why is there something rather than nothing?”
“What kind of question is that?” protested Colleen.
“It’s a real question,” said Ken. “Obviously the universe exists. But why does it exist instead of nothing? Well, the author argues that there may have been nothing to begin with, but from a physics point of view, nothing is unstable, so it had to give rise to something, namely the universe.”
Colleen pursed her lips. The only sound was the scraping of silverware. “But I have a simpler explanation,” Ken went on.
“I hope so,” said Colleen.
“Okay,” said Ken. “So why does the universe exist instead of nothing?”
“I’ll tell you why,” Angie piped up. “It exists because God created it.”
Ken looked a bit crestfallen. “All that does is take the question back a step. Why does God exist instead of nothing? Where did God come from?”
“That’s simple. He’s always existed,” said Angie.
“That’s possible,” conceded Ken. “But here’s my solution. If you assume there was nothing to begin with, then, yes, there had to be a cause for something to exist. But why assume that there was nothing to begin with? Isn’t it a fifty-fifty proposition that something might have existed all along?” He turned to Angie. “You don’t even have to invoke God. The something could just as easily have been a set of physical laws, or quantum fluctuations, or who knows what, that gave rise to the universe.”
“In other words,” said Toby, “your answer to the question of why is there something rather than nothing is, why not?”
“That’s the gist of it,” Ken beamed.
“Hmm,” said Colleen. Angie crinkled her brow. We ate for a while without talking. It seemed to be a conversation stopper.
“Okay,” Ken said. “Here’s another puzzle.”
“Ken,” warned Gloria in a cautionary tone.
“I know, honey. Just one more. Here’s the question: how old is time?”
Toby raised his fork. “I think I know the answer to that one.” Toby reads Scientific American.
“Please,” said Gloria, exasperated. “I agree with Colleen. It’s another trick question.” Gloria, who in contrast to her soft-bodied husband is skinny and high-strung, propped her chin in one hand, elbow on the table. Dan was shaking his head, too. He didn’t see much point in these flights of fancy.
“Toby thinks he knows the answer. Okay, tell her.” Ken waved a finger at his wife.
“Well,” Toby began, “if everything in the universe, including space and time, started with the Big Bang, then space has been expanding ever since and so has time.”
“Right,” said Ken. “And astronomers can date the Big Bang as occurring 13.8 billion years ago, so that’s how old time is. It’s 13.8 billion years old, the same age as the universe.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Angie. “Time is forever.”
“Is it?” asked Ken.
“It’s logical. If the Big Bang happened whenever it did, there was a time before it happened.”
“Maybe not,” Toby replied in a let’s-be-reasonable tone of voice. “If time came into existence with the Big Bang, then the question of what existed before time isn’t meaningful.”
“Right-o,” said Ken, pouring himself another glass of wine.
Angie pushed her chair back from the table. “So you’re saying that the Big Bang was the start of everything, is that right?” Ken and Toby nodded in the affirmative. “And all this stuff happened after it?” She raised her arms palms upward, taking in the room, the house, Bodega Bay, the planet, and the stars. “Well, how
can you have an after without a before?” That stymied them. Sensing an advantage, Angie pressed on. “So there must have been a time before the Big Bang.” She folded her arms.
“Well …,” Ken began.
“She’s got you there,” said Gloria.
“We can’t really say if there was a before,” Ken limped along.
“Of course there was a before,” said Angie. “If you can imagine 13.8 billion years ago, then you can imagine 13.9 billion years ago, can’t you? So wasn’t that before?”
Ken looked down at his plate. “Maybe there was another universe before this one that expanded and contracted and then expanded again. More like a Big Bounce. So maybe time began … a second time.” He foundered.
“I don’t see why it has to be so complicated,” said Angie. “Why don’t you just admit that time is forever? Just as God is forever, which he obviously is. And if the universe started 13.8 billion years ago, all that means is that’s when God created it. That’s the time he picked. He could have picked an earlier time or a later time, but God picked that time. What’s the problem?”
Ken scratched his ear, looking perplexed. Toby’s cheeks creased into a broad smile.
“Pass the bread, please,” said Angie, mentally dusting off her hands.
7
THE FOGHORN WOKE ME. I lay in the dark, counting the seconds between its eerie notes: ten, as usual, never varying. Finally, I fumbled for my clock and saw it was just past five. The call of the foghorn wasn’t necessarily bad news for my day’s plan. In fact, it’s a constant feature, day and night, all year long, because of the dangerous rocks off Bodega Head. But last night’s news had forecast morning fog, and it’s not wise to take the winding road up to Fort Ross in that kind of weather. I might have to cancel my research at the fort’s library. With this worry nagging at me, there would be no more sleep. I gently rose and crept into the kitchen.
Before dawn on this stretch of the coast, and especially in fog, there’s no radio reception, so I couldn’t get the weather report that way. I made a cup of tea and fired up my computer. The Internet would give me an hour-by-hour forecast, which was necessary for planning the trip. In addition, the computer could deliver data by zip code, which we definitely would need. Conditions in San Francisco can generally predict temperature and rain in our bay, which is only sixty miles from the city and similarly exposed to the sea. But getting to Fort Ross entails climbing mountains and negotiating a tortuous road. Conditions there could be very different from the city and even from Bodega Bay—clear when we are foggy, foggy when we are clear. It took me a while, but I figured out that the fog would lift from the mountain by ten. That should allow time to get to the fort, do the work, and get home safely.
I switched to my e-mail and kept looking out the deck window to track the light, which hung like a white curtain, blocking a view of the harbor. The horn kept calling. Some may find its one note comforting, the ultimate lullaby, like a heartbeat, slowed nearly to coma. I find it alarming, which is what it’s intended to be. It must be my Portuguese sailor’s blood welling up to sense danger on the rocks—my mother’s ancestors were Gloucester fishermen, immigrants from Portugal a century ago. Luckily, there’s a series of sand dunes between us and the horn, so its sound is muted at our house. Angie and Toby slept blissfully through its muffled calls, until I filled the air with the aroma of coffee and pancakes.
Over breakfast, we talked about the wisdom of our excursion. Looking out the window, Toby argued for postponement, but when he saw how disappointed I was, he volunteered to do the driving and skip an afternoon at the gallery, provided we would start home early. With that as the plan, I sent them off to get dressed while I packed a lunch in the cooler, since there’s no restaurant at the fort, or anywhere near it.
It’s always tough to get Toby out the door, so I wasn’t surprised that we didn’t start till 11:00. The sky was still white, but the landscape by now was visible. Nonetheless, the usually bright views of the ocean from Route 1 were dulled by the cloudy weather. Steel-gray waves crashed onto black rocks and brown beaches, producing a dirty gloom. A few intrepid tourists wrapped in rainwear walked the shore, intent on proving that their Saturday had not been ruined by a little weather.
At Goat Rock, in Jenner, farther up the coast, we hit the first mist cloud. We were in and out of it in a few seconds. That was just the remnant of the morning fog. A sign appeared, announcing that it was twelve miles from Jenner to Fort Ross, a short distance as the crow flies, but Toby and I knew that the way consisted of a steep, perilous climb along ocean cliffs on a veritable corniche. Suddenly a hawk swooped across our windshield, and I watched it sail past the cliff and over the steely sea. On our left there was a photographer standing at the side of the road trying to catch a view of the fog over the Jenner rocks. A white car far ahead of us was disappearing into mist.
I tried not to fret as our Nissan Altima began its steep climb. For a while we were the only car on the road, until a pickup truck loomed up behind us, flashing its lights. There’s no passing on this road. Instead, there are turnouts, and etiquette requires that slower drivers pull off whenever someone comes up behind. Fortunately, at the height of the grade, the road swerved inland to cross the hill at its crest. Toby clicked his turn signal, slowed, and took the first turnout. The pickup shot by, driven by a young guy, of course, and it soon disappeared. Toby shook his head and eased back onto the road. I began to breathe more calmly. A few minutes later another car appeared behind us, but the driver thought better of passing and dropped back to a safe distance. As the road twisted and turned, we gradually lost sight of him.
Now we were greeted by a series of exclamatory signs. First, “Rough Road.” That was an understatement. Then, “Rock slide area next 8 miles.” Sure enough, the road there had been shored up by a retaining wall with wooden scaffolding that looked like it was starting to buckle. I was about to say something about it when Angie saw a big yellow diamond of a sign, stamped with the image of a black cow. She couldn’t help but laugh. Where would a stray cow come from, with a sea cliff on the left and a retaining wall on the right? Actually, there are cattle ranches nearby, and it’s not unusual to see a cow or two grazing on the wrong side of their fence—as if there weren’t enough road hazards. “Oh, boy,” said Angie, “I’m glad I’m not driving.” That made two of us.
Toby continued carefully, hugging the right side of the road to allow as much room as possible for traffic that might be coming the other way. They would be on the ocean side, a steep, curvy descent bordered only by a low wall. We would be facing that on the way back.
It was a relief when we finally spotted Fort Ross spread out below us on a broad swath of green. The encampment tops a bluff overlooking a sheltered cove, which at one time harbored the small boats of native peoples and Russian settlers. The bluff is wide enough to house the reconstructed stockade and its redwood buildings, surrounded by acres of farmland. As the road circled down toward the site, it flattened out, and as we approached the fort, the tall stockade walls made a striking impression. At this lower elevation, most of the fog had burned off, and by now the sun was high. The fort looked inviting and prosperous, with a superb view of the sea.
That’s how it must have looked in the 1830s, after two decades of colonization by the Russian-American Company. By that date, about a hundred Russians and as many Native Alaskans and local Pomos, along with their children, filled the compound and spilled over into villages outside the stockade. The Russians’ hunting and farming barely sustained them, but they maintained a healthy trade in the thick furs of sea otters. If not for competition with the Hudson Bay Company operating farther north, they might have stayed indefinitely, but by 1841 they were negotiating to sell the property. All Russian nationals were ordered home. The property changed hands several times until it was acquired by the California Historical Landmarks Committee and eventually incorporated into the national parks system.
We drove through a grassy field to the visitor c
enter, parked, and walked up to the entrance along a short path bordered by orange poppies and purple phlox. At the information desk inside I inquired about my appointment, while Toby and Angie set out to peruse the exhibits. Our plan was to meet again in an hour for a picnic lunch, after which they’d continue touring the fort while I worked in the library.
The tiny library was tucked away behind the information desk. The older woman who managed the desk doubled as the librarian. She checked my name against a register, then led me behind the counter and through a door that wasn’t accessible to the general public. “It’s been a busy day for us,” she joked. “You’re the second person who’s come in.”
The little room was efficiently organized. A table with chairs filled the central space, surrounded by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. The shelves were crammed with books and cardboard file boxes packed with records, architectural drawings, photographs, and documents. I looked around for a card catalog but found that the holdings were listed in several plastic binders stacked on the table. “Are you looking for a particular item?” the librarian asked.
I briefly explained my mission.
“You might check this one first,” she said, extending a thin, green-covered binder marked “Oral Histories.” “If it’s not listed in there, try this one,” she added, tapping a thicker white-covered binder next to it. “It has everything alphabetized by authors’ names. Just holler if you’ve got a question. Materials don’t circulate, but you’re allowed to photocopy things if you want to. There’s a coin-operated machine in the hall.”
“Thank you,” I said, setting right to work. It didn’t take long to locate what I wanted in the first catalog binder: “Federenco, Andreyev (1844–1907). ‘My Life.’ Category: Oral History. Typescript prepared by Natasha Veronsky (daughter), 1905. Annotated.” A catalog number followed.
The slim oral-history folders, with catalog numbers on their spines, were grouped together on four shelves of one bookcase, so finding it should have been easy, but the file wasn’t there when I looked—or rather, it wasn’t in its proper place. There was a small sign on display on the table that stated: “Please do not return items to the shelves. Leave them here for the librarian.” That’s the policy in most libraries, and in most cases users ignore it. Aiming to be helpful, people constantly reshelve books they have consulted, but as often as not they misplace them, creating havoc in the system and causing trouble for the next user. Fortunately, this collection was small enough to scan, and soon I found the errant work, which some absentminded do-gooder had returned to the bookcase one shelf above its rightful place. Withdrawing it, I made a mental note to follow the rules when I was finished.