A Doubter's Almanac (43 page)

Today was the day Knudson Hay was arriving.

When we entered the cabin, I saw that Mom had already changed into her yellow dress and her cocoa-colored stockings. She was sweeping the floor, but the way her wide belt held her upright made her look as though she were holding her breath as she worked. When she was finished, she walked through the rooms turning on table lamps. Bernie had already been brushed.

When Knudson Hay’s car appeared, a silver glare between the trees, we all went to the windows. A few minutes later, when it nosed out of the woods and began crawling down the narrow driveway, my mother smiled at my father like an actress. “Go,” she said, pushing him toward the porch. At the threshold, she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek.

Dad nodded, then opened the door and stepped outside. I heard his strangely jovial call. “Well, you don’t say, Chairman Hay! Up here in the north woods! An honor, Professor, an honor! Up here with us in the great north woods!”

—

“I
REALLY DON’T
care,” said my mother.

“Neither do we,” said Paulie.

It was early evening, and Paulie and I were sitting across from my mother in a booth at the back of the Green & White, a truck stop on the state route north of Felt City. My father and Knudson Hay were twenty minutes farther up the road, at the Belle View Supper Club, the only establishment within an hour’s drive of the cabin that served a steak.

“Life’s just fine in Tapington,” said my mother. In her cinched dress, she still seemed to be holding her breath. “I have to admit, though, it would be nice to be able to go shopping every once in a while.”

“Like at Lord and Taylor,” said Paulie.

My mother smiled. “Yes—well, that’s true, isn’t it? There’s one on Fifth Avenue near Grand Central. I once bought a purse there.”

Paulie sucked thoughtfully on her Coke. “How far would we be from New York?” she asked.

“Well, from Princeton Junction it’s seventy-five minutes on the train. And then you’re right in the middle of Manhattan, on Thirty-fourth Street.” She sipped her tea. “It’s quite thrilling, actually.”

“So, what exactly is he here for?” Paulie said.

“I’m not sure, sweetie.”

“Yes, you are,” I said.

My mother wouldn’t smile. “Well, for one, they haven’t seen each other in fifteen years.”

“Why don’t you just say it?” I turned to Paulie. “They’re talking about Dad getting his old job back.”

“We know that, Hans.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Because I wanted to hear what Mom had to say about it.”

“It’s important to remember,” said my mother, “that life is fine where we are. We don’t
need
anything more than what we already have.” She looked meaningfully across the table. “Tell me that both of you understand that.”

—

T
HAT NIGHT, WHEN
the phone rang, I rose from bed and leaned through the doorway. “Was that him?” I said.

“It was, honey.” Mom was at the table with a glass of wine. The clock radio on the counter flipped to 1:12. Behind me on the porch, Paulie snored softly.

“Is he okay?”

“Go back to sleep, sweetie. They’re going to be a while. They’re still talking, I guess.” She squinted across the room at me.

“Are
you
okay?” I said.

“Oh, Hans.”

I moved into the kitchen and sat down across from her.

“This all makes me a little nervous,” she said.

“You want to go back there, don’t you?”

“Oh, I don’t think I really know.”

“You’d have things to do.”

“I have plenty of things to do in Tapington.”

“You’d have friends.”

She sipped her wine. “I like the people in Ohio.”

“But they’re not really your friends.”

“Well—perhaps not. But they’re fine enough people.” Then she added, “And I have your father, and I have the two of you. I don’t need any more than that. We don’t know what’s going to happen, anyway. He’s probably just out here saying hello to Dad.”

“Dad’s not your friend.”

She laughed. “You’re wrong about that, Hans.”

“You wish you had
real
friends.”

“He
is
my real friend.”

Out on the lake, a boat engine started up—a flashlight fisherman, out for catfish. We watched the red bow light slide east in the darkness, then shift to green as it turned north.

“You make a decision,” I said, still looking out the window. “Then you turn it into the right one.”

“That’s right,” she answered.

—

S
OMETIME LATER, WHEN
I woke again, the moon was low in the screens. I tiptoed into the living room, where Mom was slouched in a chair. In the dark, I could see Dad’s overcoat in a heap on the floor. On the couch behind her, then, I saw him, sprawled across the cushions.

Later still, when the slam of a car door woke me for good, the lake was in full light. The silver car was in the driveway, and my father was standing alongside it. Knudson Hay looked up from the steering wheel. Dad was in his usual pose, his hands against his sides, his gaze to the ground. They shook hands through the window. Hay gave a short salute and turned to back out. My father watched him move up the drive.

By the time he was inside, I was dressed.

“Good morning, everybody,” said my mother, ducking to peek out at the road. She sat down on the couch. “Come in, honey,” she said to Dad. “Why don’t you sit down and tell us what happened?”

My father didn’t move from the door. “It was a long evening. We talked about a lot of things.”

Paulie walked in from the porch, rubbing her eyes.

“Well,” said Mom, “did he?”

“Did he what?”

“
Ask you,
sweetheart. Did he ask you to come back?”

Dad looked out the window. Then he said, “What do you want to hear, Helena? Yes, he
did
. You were right.”

“Oh, honey.” She turned to smile at Paulie and me. “That’s wonderful.”

Now Dad went to the window and leaned down to see all the way to the water. “I just need a little more time to think about it,” he said.

“Of course you do. There’s no hurry.”

He shielded his eyes and gazed out at the cove. “Look at those boats, kids. You built a couple of marvelously seaworthy craft out there. They’re quite something, aren’t they?”

“Well, thanks, Dad,” said Paulie.

My parents were not affectionate people—certainly not my father—but my mother rose from the couch then and crossed to him, smoothing the front of her blouse. At the window she reached her arms around his neck and rested her head for a moment on his chest.

“Who’d like to have a sea battle in one of those things?” said Dad.

“I would,” I said.

“I think we
all
would,” said Mom. “Wouldn’t we, Paulie?”

“Good,” said Dad. “Because that’s just what we need right now—a good old sea battle. A good old Battle of Trafalgar. How about it, everyone?”

The Real Are Almost All Irrational

A
T DINNER THE
next day, my mother made pork chops and applesauce and scalloped potatoes, my father’s favorites. She left everything heating in the pans until we heard the shed door slap shut. When we saw him making his way down from the woods, we all sat at the table. He was finishing off a cigarette, and his cheeks were sunburned from our day on the lake. Something about him seemed quite different. Mom clicked her tongue and whispered, “Don’t say a word till he’s had a chance to eat something. He’ll bring it up when he’s ready.”

He came in and sat down. He took a sip of water, then turned his head and glanced back up at the shed.

“You look stricken,” said Paulie.

“Shh,” said my mother.

“Well, no. I’m not stricken at all.”

My mother dished out his applesauce and went back to the stove for the potatoes. “Well, how did your work go out there today?”

“It went fine, Helena.”

“Tell us,” said Paulie.

“Sweetheart,” said my mother.

“What do you want to know?”

“Paulie—shhh,
please
.”

“Are we going to move or not?”

“Paulie!”

“No, I’m happy to talk about it.” He leaned over and crushed his cigarette into the ashtray on the windowsill. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, okay then,” said Mom. She looked at Paulie. “In that case, I, for one, would like to know how he asked.”

“In the normal way, dear.” He took a bite of pork chop and slowly chewed it. “There’s a position open, in topology.”

“Oh, Milo!” My mother set the applesauce at the center of the table and slid back into her seat. “That’s perfect.”

He cut off another bite of pork. “It’s not perfect.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s
algebraic
topology, Helena.”

“Well, close enough.”

“Close enough? To what?”

“To what you do.”

“It’s not close in the least to what I do.”

“Well, that’s okay.”

“It’s a bunch of equation hashers.”

“You’ll just have to make it your own, then.”

“I’ll just have to do
what
?” He dropped his fork and turned to the window. Then he said, “And it’s probationary, on top of that.”

“Well, what does that mean?”

“It means it’s an”—he could hardly say it—“it’s an
assistant
professorship.”

There was a silence. My mother reached for the water pitcher and refilled our glasses. “Oh dear,” she said. Then, after a moment, “Well, I think that must be procedural.”

“Procedural?”

“I just don’t see Knudson doing anything like that himself. Remember, you’re a Fields Medalist.”

“You’re damn right I remember that.”

“It’s some kind of university work-around. I’m sure it’s a technicality.”

“The technicality, Helena, is that they’d have my balls in a nutcracker.”

I laughed. Dad glanced over.

“No, they wouldn’t,” said Mom.

“I never expected to have to go begging.”

“You didn’t, Milo.
They
begged. Knudson came all the way out here to ask you.”

“So what? If it were an endowed chair, I might consider it. But it’s not. It’s an
assistant
professorship. An assistant. Fucking. Professorship.” He pushed back his chair and got up. Then he moved into the kitchen and bent to drink from the faucet. Over his shoulder, he called out, “But at least the
pig’s
out on his ass.”

“What is that, Milo?”

“Yevgeny Detmeyer’s on his way out—to Chicago, I think. At least I got
that
much.” Through the door I saw him spit. “Good riddance to the bastard.”

“Oh, honey, I wonder if that’s why it happened so suddenly.”

“
Suddenly?
I left fifteen years ago, Helena.”

Paulie said, “Are we moving or aren’t we? Mom, what happened?”

“Your father and I will have to discuss it.”

“Oh, no we won’t.”

“Of course we will. We can talk about it after dinner. But right now we want to hear
your
thoughts about it, kids.” She turned. “Tell us what
you
think of the news.”

“It’s not news, Helena.” He strode back to the table and pulled out his chair. “I like it fine right here.
That’s
the news. One crappy last-minute offer from a washed-up tyrant doesn’t change one goddamn thing. I’m fine right where I am.”

“I am, too, but—”

“It’s too late, Helena.”

“Of course it’s not.”

“It is.”

“Milo. Please.”

“Helena, I already said no to them.” Then he sat down, took another bite of pork, and said, “So, kids, what do you think of
that
news?”

Thomson’s Lamp

I
FOLLOWED THE
sound up the bed of the creek. It wasn’t coming from the beaver marsh. As I moved upstream, it grew louder. A dull, steady cracking, like the unhurried blow of a hammer. The sun had just risen, and I was a half hour into my dose. I’d taken a strong one.

At the peak of a rise, I climbed into a pine tree. When I reached a certain height, I saw him. He was a short way ahead in the clearing, swinging a branch against a tree. After one of the blows, the branch flew from his grip, and he picked it up again, stumbling. He swung it against the next tree, falling over when it hit. Again it flew into the brush. Again he rose, stumbling, and set off after it.

—

T
HAT NIGHT AT
dinner, the sign above my mother’s head read:

I HAVE BEEN WOUNDED

I looked over at Bernie, who was crowded into the corner on his mat. He wouldn’t meet my eye. I turned to Paulie, who took no notice. Mom had made hamburgers. My sister was eating hers the way she always did, as though she’d never tasted one before. After each bite, she opened the bun and looked inside.

“So, Paulie,” I said. “How was
your
day?”

She looked up curiously. “What?”

“How was your day?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how was your day?”

She glanced at my mother. “Did something happen to him?”

My father was examining me, too, tearing off bites of his burger and eyeing me across the table like a cop deciding whether to pull his handcuffs.

That’s when my mother made a sound—a single high-pitched gulp that might not have been so startling if it had been included among wails or sobs, or even among a string of odd laughs. But it wasn’t. It stood there alone, a solitary, warbling gasp like the call of a loon. She took a sip of water and kept the glass at her lips.

“What on earth was that?” said my father.

“Just be quiet, Dad,” said Paulie.

He tore off another bite of burger. “Was it Princeton?”

“Come on, Dad.”

“Is that what you’re crying about? About Princeton University? Well, I’ll tell you”—he looked around the table—“I’ll say it again. Fuck. Princeton. University.”