Schrodinger's Gat (14 page)

“
He’s got a funny way of showing it.”

“
It got Abraham’s attention,” says the rabbi. “If it makes you feel better, some scholars think that Abraham knew that God would change his mind at the last minute.”

“
So, what? Abraham was calling God’s bluff?”

“
Exactly. We usually think of God testing Abraham, but what if Abraham was also testing God? Can you imagine the chutzpah? Abraham goes up the mountain thinking, ‘Sure, the Almighty God told me to kill my son, but He’ll back down, just watch.’ Unbelievable! But even so, it took an incredible amount of faith on Abraham’s part. He was so confident in God’s goodness that he knew God wouldn’t allow him to kill Isaac. So in a sense you could say that Abraham’s behavior was rational, but it was only rational if he accepted the premise that God was good. The belief in the goodness of God came first; reasoning based on that belief came second. If Abraham had only reason and not faith, he could never have passed the test.”

“
And everyone would have lived happily ever after.”

“
Sure,” says the rabbi with a smile. “The way you were living happily ever after before you met Tali.”

“
Fine,” I say, finishing my drink. “Kick a guy when he’s down. I should probably get home.” I throw some money on the table and get up.

“
I’m not trying to convince you of anything, Paul. But I can tell you’re a very smart, very analytical person. You remind me of Tali in some ways. And just like Tali, you’re in danger of outsmarting yourself.”

“
It was nice talking to you, rabbi,” I say. “Goodnight.”

“
Goodnight, Paul. Get some rest.”

I walk out of the bar and trudge to my car. The stars twinkle mutely overhead. Some days I wish the voice of God would speak to me, but it never does. That
’s not my particular brand of crazy. All I hear is an old man’s voice repeating:
When are the girls going to come home?

I should go home, but I really don
’t feel like being alone right now. I want to be with my kids, to hear them playing in the next room, like they used to back before my life went to hell. I know it’s not going to be like it was, but I drive to the house anyway. I’m willing to accept a pale copy of the way things used to be. I’m willing to put up with Deb’s abuse and the kids’ resentment, just to see them, to make sure they’re OK.

I ring the doorbell and brace myself for Deb
’s onslaught. But Sylvia answers the door. “Hey, Dad,” she says, acknowledging my presence without betraying any emotion. Indifference is the best I get from her these days. She turns around and starts to walk away, probably back to the TV show whose laugh track emanates from the living room.

“
Sylvia,” I say, standing uncertainly on the stoop. I know her well enough to understand that her response is calculated, a deliberate attempt to put me off guard. The door is open, she’s saying. Why don’t you come in? Oh, that’s right, this isn’t your house anymore.

“
Is Mom home?” I ask.

“
She’s upstairs.”

“
Could you get her?” I ask, trying not to let my frustration show. The same rules apply to estranged spouses as to vampires: you can’t come in unless you’re invited.

Sylvia dawdles a moment, shrugs, and then yells upstairs.
“Mom! Dad’s here!” Then she disappears into the living room. A couple minutes later Deb comes downstairs. She’s wearing a bathrobe and her hair is wet.

“
What is it, Paul?”

“
Hi, Deb. Sorry to stop by without calling; I just really wanted to see the kids. May I come in?”

“
This isn’t really a good time, Paul. You can’t just show up like this.”

“
I know, I know. I just had a really bad … several really bad days, in fact.”

“
The school’s been calling here. You haven’t been showing up for work.”

“
I quit,” I say.

“
You should tell them that.”

“
I think they’ve figured it out. Please, Deb. I won’t stay long.”

She hesitates for a moment.
“Five minutes, Paul. I mean it.” She goes back upstairs.

I step inside. From the foyer I can see into the living room, where Martin and Sylvia are enthralled in one of those horrible Disney sitcoms where everybody overacts and the laugh track is deafening.
“Hey, guys,” I say. No response. I wait a moment. “Hey, guys,” I say louder. Still nothing. I find myself getting angry. It’s not their fault, I tell myself. They don’t understand what I need, and it isn’t their job to give it to me. They’re just kids.

“
Martin, could you pause the show a minute?” I say. I’ve got to speak loudly to be heard over the caterwauling of the show, and it comes out as a near-yell. Martin shows no sign of having heard me. I walk over to him, take the remote out of his hand, hit the pause button, and set the remote back down on the arm of couch. Neither of them looks up.

“
Hey, guys,” I say for the third time, irritation creeping into my voice. “Could you look at me a second?”

Neither of them looks. I see Martin reaching for the remote, but I grab it before he can get to it. I hurl it against the wall; batteries go flying. That gets their attention. They
’re both staring at me now, with fear in their eyes. Great.

I hear Deb coming down the stairs.
“What was that?” she says, coming into the living room.

“
I’m sorry,” I say, hurriedly going to fetch the remote.

“
Dad threw it against the wall,” says Martin.

“
It scared me, Mommy,” says Sylvia, leaping into her mother’s arms.

Jesus Christ, somebody give this kid an Oscar. I
’m down on my hands and knees, trying to find the damn batteries. One has rolled under the couch.

“
I think your time is up,” says Deb acidly.

“
I’m sorry,” I say again. “I just … Goddamn it. Sylvie, can you reach under the couch and get the battery? My arm is too big.”

“
Paul.”

“
Martin,” I say, “can you get it?”

Martin doesn
’t move.

“
It’s OK,” I say. “I’ll just move the couch. Can you get up for a sec, Martin?”

Martin looks up at his mom, but he doesn
’t get up.

“
Paul, we’ll get it. Just go, please.”

I throw my shoulder into the couch, shoving it back a foot or so. Martin nearly tumbles onto the floor. I grab the battery, snap it into place and slide the cover on. I toss it to Martin.
“There! Now you can watch your fucking retard show!”

Trembling with fury, I get to my feet. I leave, slamming the door behind me. I get into my car, drive down the street a quarter mile or so and pull over. I don
’t want to have a breakdown in front of the house, but I know I’m in no condition to drive. I slam my fists repeatedly against the steering wheel, letting loose a minute-long string of profanity.

Why am I so angry? I acted like a complete asshole in there. I want to go back and apologize, but I know I
’ll just make things worse. What the hell is my problem? I take a few deep breaths, put the car back in gear, and head for my apartment.

Once back home, I make myself a drink and sit down. Occasionally I think that I drink too much, but more often I
’m convinced that I don’t drink enough. I honestly think I might be better off if I put more effort into short-circuiting my critical thinking abilities on a regular basis. I spend way too much time second-guessing myself and reflecting on my own shortcomings. You’d think that being hyper-aware of your own failings would lead to being a better person, but it never seems to work out that way. I’m self-conscious without being self-aware.

I can see exactly where I went wrong. Hell, I could see where I was
going
to go wrong before I even showed up at the house. And that’s exactly the problem: I knew that going to see the kids was a bad idea but I did it anyway. And then, when I was proved correct, I got mad about it. Why? Because I knew it was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. I’m mad at myself for doing something that I knew I was going to be mad at myself about.

It
’s Heller’s fault, I think. Him and that damn book. He’s got me looking for the hand of Ananke wherever I go. And the more you look for it, the more you see it, and the angrier you get that she won’t just leave you alone. And then the anger blinds you to any other options you might have, and you end up making exactly the mistakes Ananke knew you would make. And that just makes you angrier.

There was a band that was popular when I was in college called Rage
Against the Machine. But that’s not right, I realize now. You can’t rage against the machine; rage is
part
of the machine. If you’re going to have any chance of extricating yourself from the machine’s gears, you’ve got to act calmly and deliberately, with a clear head. On the other hand, if Heller is right, then acting rationally is no help either: Ananke can anticipate rational behavior as easily as irrational. Maybe, I think, the only option is to get stinking drunk. I pour myself another and think about what Rabbi Freedman said about subjugating reason to a higher power. The true God is a God of love, he said. So you have to put reason aside and start with love, and then everything presumably starts to make sense. But how can you put reason aside? How can you force yourself to stop looking for reasons, even for a moment? It’s all well and good to say, ‘start with love and go from there,’ but why pick
love
of all things? Why not hatred or blind religious devotion or Cthulhu or the Flying Spaghetti Monster? Once you put reason aside, you’ve opened yourself up to all sorts of superstition and nonsense. The kind of shit that makes people fly airplanes into buildings. I mean, suicide bombers aren’t irrational people; they’re perfectly capable of making rational decisions on a day-to-day basis. What sets them apart from normal people is that one little gap in their ability to reason, that moment where they set reason aside and said, “Oh, Allah wants me to blow myself up to glorify Him? Makes sense to me!” And I still don’t see the difference between God telling Abraham to kill Isaac and God telling a man to strap explosives to his body and walk into a crowded marketplace in Baghdad. If you’ve got to actually kill someone to find out whether you’ve been listening to the wrong god, then the true God really needs a better way of vetting his prophets.

My thoughts drift
back to what Rabbi Freedman said at the hospital. He talked about how children live in the moment; how they don’t have a good sense for the difference between the subjective and the objective, what he called the
in here
and the
out there
. Maybe that’s why we get drunk, I think: It blurs that line, tears down that wall for a few hours. There’s no longer any observer and observed, no Yang and Yin, just raw consciousness, the here and now. Three drinks later, and that’s gone too.

The next morning I awake with a word in my head: Peregrine. I don
’t know how they are involved in what’s going on with Tali, but I’m convinced they are somehow involved. Heller mentioned Peregrine the first time I saw him, and apparently someone from Peregrine went looking for Tali at her parents’ house shortly before she disappeared. If I was going to figure out what happened to Tali, Peregrine was a good place to start.

I
find the business card that I had pilfered from Tali’s desk and call the number. A man answers.

“
Peter Girell,” he says.

“
Hello, Mr. Girell,” I start awkwardly. “My name is Paul Bayes. I’m calling you because I’m a friend of Tali Stern.”

“
Yes?” he says.

“
Do you know Tali?”

“
I’ve met her, yes. What’s this about?”

“
Well, Tali is missing. Nobody’s seen her for a few days. I found your business card on her desk, and I thought you might be able to shed some light on her disappearance.”

“
I see,” he replies. For a moment, neither of us speaks. I take it from his reply that he knows something, but isn’t overly eager to talk about it.

“
If you have some time free today,” I say, “I’d be happy to meet you at your office. Are you at the Peregrine building in the city?”

“
I don’t work at Peregrine anymore,” he says curtly.

“
Oh,” I say. “I’m sorry. Well, if there’s—”

“
Are you a cop?” he asks.

“
No,” I reply. “Just a friend of Tali’s.”

He
’s quiet for another moment. Then: “I’ll meet you at the Starbucks on Huntington, in San Bruno, at eleven o’clock. Does that work for you?”

“
I’ll see you at eleven,” I reply.