Ghost, page 19
AS SOON AS HE OPENS THE DOOR, David feels as though he’s entered a backroom political caucus. A dozen people sit around a long mahogany table, hunched over and talking in low voices. The air is warm and thick, and the room is illuminated by a single window and a crystal chandelier. On the dark wood walls are portrait paintings in heavy frames, possibly past presidents and deans.
“Come in, David,” says Ronald Mickleweed, with a welcoming but concerned look on his face. Ronald introduces David around the table. For a few moments, David feels everyone looking at him as if he were a strange bug brought into a museum. Then, apparently satisfied with their preliminary assessment, they sit back in their chairs and turn toward President Buckingham. The president is a plump man in his fifties with bushy eyebrows, a bulbous nose, and spectacles that dangle around his neck on a black cord. David vaguely remembers something he read about President Buckingham, a man who came from a small village and later changed his name from Budzko to Buckingham, a man who learned six languages on his own. The president projects confidence and optimism.
“We much appreciate your coming, David,” says the president. “We wouldn’t have bothered you like this, but I’m afraid that you’re inextricably tied up in this mess, certainly as far as the Society for the Second World is concerned.” One of the assistant attorneys removes a yellow notepad from her monogrammed briefcase and begins taking notes. Ronald has told them about David, says the president, and they’ve read some of the background information. As David can imagine, they’ve been very concerned about their linkage to this Society. The long and the short of it, says the president, is that they cannot bring legal action against these people, as much as they’d like to. The president goes on to explain that the published statements of the Society, when examined closely, do not actually say that professors Mickleweed and Grindlay endorse the claims of the Society. The implication is there, of course, but an implication does not provide grounds for a suit. “Am I summarizing the case correctly, Sheila?” The chief counsel nods and whispers something to one of her assistants.
“Those people should be put in jail,” William Grindlay says.
“I agree with that,” says Professor Arthur Petit, dean of science. Professor Petit is vast, almost spherical. He wears an open sports shirt without a tie and, like Ronald Mickleweed, gives the impression of a man seldom wrong. “This is the price we pay for free speech. We have to eat a lot of garbage.”
“What we would like, we can’t always do,” says Sheila Pillbeam, chief counsel.
“That is true,” the president says with an unhappy laugh. At any rate, to bring David up to date, they’ve been discussing the matter for some time, and they feel that they must respond to this Society. There’s a nodding of heads. The faculty and the university have been associated against their wishes with an organization that pays no attention to scientific evidence and makes unfounded and dangerous claims about important issues. Basically, says the president, this Society is intellectually dishonest. The university stands for intellectual honesty. The president pauses and looks around the table. “Do we all agree with what I’ve said?”
“I agree up to the point where we decide to respond,” says Professor Mildenstein of the economics department. “When you respond, all you do is give legitimacy to these people. That’s what they want. Better to let them wither on the vine.”
“But they’re not withering on the vine,” says Ronald, squinting with his good eye at Professor Mildenstein. “Their membership is growing. Half the population believes in the supernatural.”
“Wait a precious minute,” says Professor Elaine Gilchrist, dean of humanities, a brown-haired woman with sunken cheeks and penetrating eyes. “We’re not challenging the supernatural wholesale here. We’re contesting some particular claims that involve our faculty.”
“Of course we’re challenging the supernatural,” says William Grindlay, rolling his eyes.
“Personally, I wouldn’t be comfortable with that statement,” says Professor Gilchrist, “nor would many of my faculty. The supernatural has many facets, some of them subtle, and there is a wide range of views. We’re a university, after all, and we encourage a range of opinions.”
“What in the world are you talking about, Elaine?” says Professor Petit.
For starters, says Professor Gilchrist, she’s talking about the whole of religion. Professor Petit may not be religious himself, she says, but she assures him that many of the faculty are. She’s talking about divine inspiration, which, as everyone knows, is the root of a great deal of art and literature. In fact, she’s talking about inspiration of all kinds. The metaphysical experience, to use Emily Dickinson’s expression. She’s talking about Jung’s archetypes, and about Kant’s transcendent reality. She’s talking about the cultural power of totems and icons and talismans. “There’s a lot more to the supernatural than ghosts and spoon bending.”
“I never knew this about you,” says Professor Petit. “All of these years. I’m astounded.”
“All I’m saying is that there are subtleties and nuances,” says Professor Gilchrist. “We can’t lump everything together.”
“Well said, Elaine,” says the shriveled Professor Jacubois of anthropology, thumping the floor with his cane. “Magisterial.”
“I can’t believe this conversation,” says William. “I’ve got a headache. I think I’m going to let a little blood to cure it. Does anyone mind?”
“Let’s be civil to one another,” says the president.
Please, says Ronald. We’ve got brilliant people sitting around this table. We should be able to put our heads together. How’s this for a statement: We are contesting any claim of the Society that contradicts scientific data. Does everyone agree to that?
Heads bob.
“You okay with all this, David?” asks Ronald.
David nods his approval as well. The meeting is not as dull as he thought it would be. Nevertheless, he has trouble focusing on all the remarks, and he finds his mind drifting back to Bethany. All those years they lived together are becoming a fog in his mind. Could it be that he misremembers? The poems he read to her in the bath? The mornings he sat listening to her play the piano? Surely they had a piano. He pictures it in his mind, sturdy and made of light brown wood, with a busted music stand that kept falling down. What exactly did she play? He cannot remember. And, it now occurs to him, if he cannot remember what she played, perhaps she didn’t play anything at all. Or, if she did, perhaps he never sat listening to her on sunny Saturday mornings, as he remembers. And what about the thousands of their other days and nights together? They sit at the breakfast table, sections of a newspaper scattered about, a blue glow in the air from the blue-colored walls, her putting cubes of sugar into her coffee with her fingers. Has he misremembered that as well? How can he be certain of anything that occurred in the past? He cannot be certain of thoughts. His thoughts, her thoughts. Even if every minute of their twelve years together had been recorded on a video camera, with oceans of gigabytes, that camera could not show thoughts. Hasn’t he built a universe of thoughts? Unrecorded, except in his mind. Untested and untestable. Even recently, when they made love in his apartment. Did it actually happen? How can he prove that it happened? Already, the image of that moment is beginning to fade. Soon, it too will slip into the fog. Already, her bitterness and unhappiness are softening, becoming part of the faint circle of her, a circle that grows smaller and smaller. The only thing he knows for sure is what happens this instant, this razor blade of the present. But immediately the present is past. What were those twelve years with Bethany? A glance? A thought? Which world is true, the world of faulty memory or the world of the fleeting present—also faulty because it disappears as soon as it begins? The day that he went wobbling across the front yard on a two-wheeler for the first time—he sees the clouds in the sky, he sees his father waiting for him at the bottom of the hill. Then, in his father’s strong arms. You rode like a prince, his father said to him. Did he imagine that? Someone is talking. David looks up, into the face of the president.
“Which brings us back to our response,” says the president. “Any ideas?”
As distasteful as it is, says Professor Petit, we are going to have to stage a public demonstration, a test of some of the claims of the Society.
Ronald agrees. We’ll have to make sure the demonstration is decisive.
There is general agreement around the table.
“Is there any downside to this plan?” says the president, turning to Ms. Pillbeam.
Ms. Pillbeam appears to be a woman in her forties. She wears a close-fitting blouse that emphasizes the curve of her breasts, yet she carries herself with a certain ruthless masculinity, as if to say that she’s well aware she’s risen to the top in a man’s world and she can do battle with all comers. “You’re making yourself vulnerable,” says Ms. Pillbeam. You’ll have everyone watching, she says. The public. The press. If the demonstration doesn’t produce the results you want, you’ll look foolish.
“The results we want?” says Ronald. We’re doing a scientific test, he says. The facts are the facts. Any results are by definition the results we want. Unless we get a string of horribly bad luck. These people in the Society are opposed to the facts.
“I’d be very careful,” says Ms. Pillbeam, looking not at Ronald but at President Buckingham. You should meet with some representatives of the Society beforehand, she says, and work out the conditions and ground rules of the demonstration. You want everyone agreeing in advance exactly what’s going to be done, how it’s going to be done, and what results will show what. “You don’t want any surprises.” Ms. Pillbeam’s assistants look at her with admiration.
Very sensible, says the president. We’ll form a little subcommittee. Ronald. Elaine. Arthur. Please get in touch with those people and discuss the arrangements. The president turns to David and thanks him for coming to their powwow. “I imagine that you’ll be part of any demonstration. You seem to be in the middle here.” The president pauses and smiles. “I understand that you and Ronald were classmates. Ronald speaks highly of you. He says that you were always a thinker.”
“Ronald was the whiz kid.”
“I can believe that,” says the president, beginning to put away his papers. We are still counting on his winning us a Nobel. He winks at Ronald. There’s one other thing I want to ask you, says the president. Since you’re here. The president hesitates, as if not sure he wants to ask the question. “Do you believe that you affected the…what do they call it?…the R box, with your mind?”
William hisses.
“I’ve already talked to David about this,” says Ronald.
“But here we all are,” says the president. He looks intently at David. “I respect whatever you believe. I’d just like to know.”
“Yes,” says David. “I believe that I affected the R box with my mind. Dr. Tettlebeim has the results. There are recorded results.”
“It doesn’t matter what he thinks,” says William. “I don’t mean to insult you, David, but it really doesn’t matter what you think. It doesn’t matter what I think or what Ronald thinks or what any of us think. What matters are the experimental results.”
“Well, I for one want to know what David thinks,” says the president. He puts on his spectacles and peers at David as if his face were a line of newspaper print.
“So do I,” says Professor Gilchrist.
“And the other thing,” says the president. “The thing that you saw at the mortuary. What about that? I’ve read only secondhand accounts. Can you tell us about that?”
“It’s hard to describe.”
“Try. Please.”
“We shouldn’t push David if he doesn’t want to talk about it,” says Professor Jacubois.
“Did you see anything unusual?” asks the president, ignoring Professor Jacubois. “Anything…you know. Or is the press just making this up?”
“I saw something,” says David.
The president moves forward in his seat toward David. “You did?”
“Yes.”
Professor Petit and Professor Mildenstein look at each other and shake their heads as if David is a sad case. David sees them out of the corner of his eye, pretends that he doesn’t see them.
“You believe that you saw something,” says the president, placing a slight but unmistakable emphasis on the word.
David feels a rush of hot blood in his face and a tightening of his stomach muscles. “Yes.”
“That’s interesting,” the president says, and continues staring at David for a few moments. Then he looks away. “Well,” he says, standing up, “I think we’ve accomplished something this afternoon.” We appreciate David taking the time, says the president. Ms. Lanier, the president’s personal assistant, also rises.
“You don’t believe me, do you,” says David.
The president has taken two steps toward the door, Ms. Lanier following close on his heels with a cell phone already out of her purse. “I acknowledge your beliefs,” says the president.
“I’m not asking that,” says David. “I’m asking if you think that I saw something unusual at the mortuary.”
The president pauses. He glances at Ms. Pillbeam. “How could I know what you saw?” says the president. “I wasn’t there.”
“But I was,” says David. “And I’m telling you that I saw something unusual. It was like a vapor. It came out of a dead body. For five seconds. It looked at me.” Everyone in the room has become silent. “That’s what I saw at the mortuary, on April twenty-third.”
“That’s certainly something unusual,” says the president.
“Do you believe me?” asks David.
“I believe our meeting is finished,” says Ms. Pillbeam.
“No, it’s not finished,” says David. He is standing now.
“I believe that you think you saw something unusual,” says the president. “What more can I say? I wasn’t there.” He turns to the other faculty, as if to get their support for his reasonable position.
“You haul me into this urgent meeting of yours,” says David, “to help with your demonstration or whatever it is, protecting your intellectual honesty, and you think I’m a nutcase all along. You don’t respect me at all. You think I’m a nutcase. You’re mocking me. And you’re using me.”
“I’m sorry that you feel that way,” says President Buckingham.
“I want to apologize to you, David,” says Ronald.
Ms. Pillbeam begins saying something, but David doesn’t wait to hear what it is. He strides past the president and out the door, down the long, empty corridor, and he runs down the four flights of steps, taking pleasure in the thrashing of his legs and the pounding of the stone steps against his feet, the shock as he hits each landing. Outside, in the courtyard, he is surprised to see light, grass, sky.
STANDING JUST OUTSIDE THE DOORWAY of the sitting parlor, he sees Mrs. Lupo, her three children, her son-in-law, and her daughter-in-law, all waiting to speak to him. Now he can’t remember their names. He would ask Martin, but Martin is interviewing job applicants. Mrs. Lupo wears a wide-brimmed blue hat, which sets off her black dress and shoes. Her legs rock back and forth under the coffee table, and she has picked up the latest bird magazine. Two of her children, in their forties, dab at their eyes with Kleenex. Should he walk into the room?
There’s Ophelia in the hallway. Do you know their names? he whispers. Nope, says Ophelia. Just start gabbing. They’ll tell you their names. What’s that thing you’re wearing around your neck? he asks Ophelia. It’s a crystal, she says. Crystal energy. Crystal energy? Yeah, she says. I’ve given up on the black box. I never could get it to float. People have been telling me about crystal energy. You should try it.
He walks past the sitting room again. What is that phrase Martin says to the grieving families? Let the evening come. But first, he should listen to them. Always listen, Martin says. They will tell you what they need.
One of the sons wants to see the slumber room. Mr. Lupo hasn’t been brought there yet, David explains. Can you show us the slumber room anyway? asks the son. All of us would like to see it. Because of what happened. We thought maybe…The son looks at David. His face is pockmarked, like Aidan’s, and David pictures Aidan as he slides under the wave. Patrick reaches out from his boat, but it is too late. Aidan sinks below the surface. His face becomes a dim ocher stone and disappears. And now Julia has appeared to Patrick in a dream. How unpredictable it all is. He should have said that to President Buckingham.
IT IS A CLASSROOM IN ONE of the old buildings of the university, with wooden chairs and desks, a scuffed wooden floor, a blackboard, a chart of subatomic particles on the wall, portraits of Faraday, Darwin, Madame Curie. It is a room David remembers from his student days.
