The Executor (33 page)

Broadly speaking, two things must be true for us to be free in a meaningful way. We must be the originators of our own actions (i.e., we cannot merely be the next in a series of falling dominos). And the future must be “open” (i.e., we must be able to affect its outcome in a significant way).

It turns out that these conditions are related, and rather difficult to fulfill. They butt up, hard, against the concept of determinism, which is (again, broadly speaking) the idea that there can be only one physically possible future. Why this should be so is not simple to explain, but suffice it here to state that the question has taken many forms over the years, and is vexed in the extreme. The obvious contradiction between an omniscient deity and man’s freedom to obey or disobey him, for example, has driven many from the Church, or at least to the rear pews. In their modern incarnation, deterministic theories tend to rely on the laws of nature as the determinant—these being a more comfortable topic of conversation than God for philosophers, who are, as a general rule, an impious bunch.

Why is it important for us to be free? Picture a world in which there is no free will. In such a world, is anyone truly culpable for anything? If I am not the cause of my actions, it is irrational to hold me responsible for their consequences. From that, it would seem to follow that two of our most cherished concepts—right and wrong—are illusory, and that the main thing keeping us from a stupendously ugly existence, a chaotic and violent hell on earth, is a flimsy bit of self-delusion.

In response, some declare that we are not in fact free, and ought to abandon the idea entirely. Nietzsche, for example, labels metaphysical free will the province of the “half-educated.” But this kind of hard determinism is rare. Most moral philosophers are in fact compatibilists, acknowledging the strength of determinism but unwilling to relinquish the notion that we can be free. They want to eat their cake etc., and their proposed solutions in pursuit of this end run the gamut from hardheaded and rigorous to obscure and positively finger-wiggling. Lots of semantic games get played; lots of tinkering gets done with the meaning of “free,” “determined,” “choose,” “cause.” One detects in the compatibilist literature a kind of desperation, borne of the fear that our own powers of reason have condemned us to a world in which morality cannot be stably grounded.

Whether free will is real or incoherent, though, one point is beyond dispute: we feel free. The sensation of acting freely is integral to our consciousness. Fire off every objection in the book and it still won’t die. I raise my arm and I feel as though I am the author of this movement. I write these words, and they seem to come from deep within me. By extension, we cannot help but view others as responsible, logic be damned. This is the position of the British philosopher P. F. Strawson. Imputing responsibility, he argues, is as much part of our humanness as walking upright, and we’d be foolish to deny it. Whether we are
actually
free is less important than whether we can step outside the house without getting stabbed to death. Strawson’s theory is considered an important one in the history of the free-will debate, revolutionary at the time of its publication, in 1962, and still compellingly practical. It does, however, feel like a bit of an avoidance tactic, in that it dismisses the fundamental ontological question of whether free will exists by saying, “Who cares?” The premise of the entire philosophical inquiry is that such questions bear asking—indeed, demand it.

It was at this point that my new dissertation took up the reins.

In the three days between my visit from the police and Yasmina’s return to Cambridge, I was able to produce thirty pages of material, almost the entire introduction. With progress that rapid, it didn’t matter to me that my argument was a bit outmoded. (How could it not be? After all, the first draft dated to 1955—remarkably, seven years before Strawson himself.) What mattered was that I could be done by springtime. I even had a title—
An A Priori Defense of Ontological Free Will
—though I was thinking of shortening it, as it came off a little ungainly in translation from the German.

 

 

THOSE WERE TRYING DAYS. It was hard enough acting normal around Yasmina without having to wonder if she would come barging into my office and catch me in the act, Alma’s thesis open on the desk and my German-English dictionary in my lap. Since I was sleeping so poorly anyway, I began dragging myself out of bed at two in the morning, knees jellied, mind roaring like a fireplace; I would crash downstairs to the office and type away until I heard creaking overhead, Yasmina performing her morning ablutions. Then I would close up shop, make breakfast, and twiddle my thumbs until she had left for work. I would pass the rest of the day napping, working, and forcing down food, at six o’clock rising to greet her return with false cheer and reheated market suppers.

I knew that she knew that something was wrong. I barely spent any time in bed; I was tetchy and curt; I yawned constantly and looked more cadaverous by the day. The scratches below my eye had begun to throb all the time, such that I ceased to notice, the rhythm becoming as imperceptible to me as my own heartbeat. I sponged the site and applied concealer; it took four bandages to cover the length of the wounds. Still I sensed her studying me fretfully, wearily, much as one regards another’s misbehaving child, held in check by etiquette but nevertheless wishing to make one’s disapproval known; and I got in the habit of angling my face away from her when she entered the room. Once she started to ask was I sure I was all right, and I snapped back at her that of course I was, I was extremely busy, I was preoccupied, I had a lot on my mind, didn’t I? From her shocked expression I could tell that I had responded with disproportionate force, and I began making a conscious effort to monitor the level of my voice, to proofread my thoughts before they came out of my mouth. It didn’t matter, though, because from there on out she said nothing more, at least with respect to prodding me about my health. I suppose she assumed I was on a hot streak—I was, sort of—and that some degree of moodiness had to be excused. Great minds cannot be expected to abide by social convention, everyone knows that. So she resumed speaking only of herself, perhaps aiming to divert me from whatever it was that was so evidently troubling me. Either that or she found her own problems too absorbing to devote further thought to mine. I could only hope that she would continue to let me be. It frightened me to imagine what I’d say if pressed. As it was, I could barely keep myself in check. The urge to confess clawed at me always, the words roiling in my gut, climbing up the back of my throat, ready to vomit out at the slightest provocation. I did not trust myself and would have felt much safer alone.

But she was there, seemingly to stay. Within days of moving in, she began negotiating her way out of her lease, and a week later, we borrowed Drew’s car and used it to move over the bulk of her possessions, everything save the large pieces of furniture. The house, my house, once so beautifully spare, so perfectly balanced, filled up with her things. Her art occupied the television room. Her clothes invaded my closet. In the kitchen went her stage-V espresso machine, along with the pots and pans that had once been the tools of my trade. Though she assured me that she would get rid of anything I didn’t want, all signs indicated otherwise. I girded myself for an onslaught of redecorating.

“Can I ask you a question?”

I hurriedly turned the thesis facedown, swiveled around in my office chair. “Yes?”

“I seem to remember a carpet in the upstairs bedroom.”

“... right.”

“Did you do something with it?”

I paused. “I moved it to the library.”

“That’s what I thought. Cause the one in there isn’t the one I remember, either.”

“That one, I had to get rid of it.”

“What? Why?”

“It ... it got a cigarette burn. It had a hole in it.”

“When did that happen?”

“During the party. Also a wine stain.” I spread my hands to show her how big.

“I don’t remember that.”

“You’re probably just not remembering.”

“Okay, but I still don’t see why you had to throw it away. Those are fixable problems, and it was a beautiful carpet. Wasn’t there a pair of chairs, too?”

“I didn’t want to deal with the hassle. And I didn’t throw it away, I sold it.”

“The chairs, too?”

“Those, they’re being cleaned.”

“I don’t understand why you would bother with one but not the—”

“Look,” I said, “I’m in the middle of work.”

“Oh. Sorry.” She shut the door.

A few nights later she buttonholed me on my way to the kitchen.

“Can I talk to you about something for a minute?”

“... all right.”

She led me to the living room. “It’s the curtains.”

“Curtains.”

“I told you before that the front of the house needs more light. I mean, honestly. You can’t prefer it the way it is.”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“It’s like a crypt. The eyestrain alone is going to kill me.”

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “Read someplace else.”

“Where?”

“The kitchen. Upstairs. I don’t know. Buy a lamp. I’ll buy you one.”

“The light’s not the only thing, it’s like arctic in here. Look at this,” she said, tugging at her scarf. “This is indoors.”

“That’s why I put the heater in the TV room.”

“I can’t spend all my time up there.”

“I really don’t know what to tell you. The system is old; it was like this when I moved in here.”

“Can I at least get someone to give us an estimate?”

“It’s not something I want to spend money on.”

“It doesn’t cost anything to get an estimate.”

“There’s no point in getting an estimate if I know—”

“But you don’t know,” she said. “That’s why you need an estimate. ”

“I
know
—”

“Please don’t get upset.”

“I’m not getting upset.”

“Okay,” she said. “But, I mean.”

Silence.

“What,” I said.

“Can we finish talking about the curtains?”

“I thought we were finished.”

“Just, hear me out. That’s not going to cost more than a couple hundred dollars. Think about it: wouldn’t it be nicer than the blackouts? Restoration Hardware makes a toile, it’s kind of creamy—”

“Will you please leave it alone.”

“I can’t understand what you’re—”

“I don’t want people looking in.”

“Who would be looking in?”

“Anyone.”

“Joseph. Seriously, you really ... but—but—wait. You’re getting upset again.”

“I’m not getting upset.”

“I can see you getting upset.”

“Mina.” I pressed my fist against my mouth, and a vein of fire coursed up the side of my face. “I don’t w—I can’t deal with this right now. I’ve got work to do, I’m not feeling my best—”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Would you please excuse me, please.”

“Joseph—”

I locked my door and sat motionless at my desk, listening for the sound of her retreat upstairs.

What was she getting at? Why that line of questioning? Why so many questions about the chairs, the carpet? Did she know something? Was she trying to smoke me out? I told myself to be rational: she wanted to put her stamp on the place. Still, if she kept it up I’d surely crack. I’d never been good at what most people consider small talk, and now it felt deadly. If she kept harping ... For a moment I considered ending things with her. But how could I? After so many months, I had earned her back. That was what I had wanted. I was supposed to be happy. And grateful. And she had supported me for two years, no questions asked. And yet there I was, contemplating throwing her into the street. After what she had just been through, what she had sacrificed—for me.

On balance, I thought, it would be easier on both of us if she just went away.

In the window I saw my reflection. The area under my eye was florid, shiny, like I’d slept too long in one position.

W
elcome back,” said Linda Neiman.

“Thanks.”

She made no attempt at tact, ogling my face for a good three or four seconds before inviting me to sit and wheeling over to her drink station.

“Coffee?”

“Please.”

While her back was turned, I loosened my shirt collar (overwarm again) and felt to make sure that the gauze hadn’t slipped. It was still there, which meant that either she was staring at the dressing itself or the redness had spread beyond its edges, which I doubted could have happened in the hour since I’d put it on. Either way, I thought it took remarkable gall of her to stare. She’d probably been stared at her whole life. I didn’t tell her that, though. I wanted to, but I didn’t. I smiled and said whole milk would be fine, thanks.

As she fixed our drinks, we chatted about happenings in the department. It struck me that once upon a time I’d been sitting in this exact chair, getting spit-roasted by the same woman who now set out two mugs emblazoned with the Harvard seal, passed me a tin of almond-fennel seed biscotti, and asked if I knew about the upcoming Anscombe colloquium.

“Technically, of course, you’re still not enrolled. But I suppose I wouldn’t feel obliged to call campus police.”

“You’re too kind.”

“That’s something I’ve never been accused of.” She smiled and laid her hand atop a stack of printed pages. “Right. Let’s talk turkey. This is really you?”

“Indeed,” I said.

“Because reading it, I can’t help but wonder if someone came and replaced the Joseph I know with a robot who looks and sounds like him but is a halfway decent and efficient writer.”

Trying to capture Alma’s voice had been a challenge. It had a lightness to it, a musicality and playfulness befitting her voice in life, quite in contrast to the turbid stuff I’d spent years churning out. In doing the translation I also had to overcome a pervasive fogginess, one I could drive out for only a few minutes at a time, and then with fierce concentration. I was doing the same now, trying to appear alert and nonchalant rather than drained and anxious.