The Last Theorem

20 MARRIAGE

Now that he was everything that he had dared to dream of being, namely, free, famous, and married to Myra de Soyza, it seemed to Ranjit that his personal world just kept getting better and better. There was, however, a larger perspective that kept intruding itself on his private musings, and in many ways that wasn’t good at all.

Take the situation in North Korea, for instance. First off, there seemed to have been a regime change. Blustery luxury-loving Kim Jong Il was gone.

In some ways that was almost a pity. Kim might have been a nut, but he had been the kind of nut that had always stopped just short of an actual large-scale attack on his neighbors. Now there was this new guy. He was always referred to as “the Adorable Leader.” If he had a proper name, it seemed to be too precious to share with the decadent West.

But if the Adorable Leader’s identity was secret, what he did was all too public. Their latest generation of nuclear rockets, the Adorable Leader’s generals claimed, could easily cross the northern stretches of the Pacific Ocean. This meant that they could strike actual United States of America soil—at least Alaska, perhaps even the northern corner of Washington State. What’s more, the generals boasted, the new rockets were definitely reliable. This talk made all of their neighbors increasingly nervous. Those that didn’t already have their own nuclear stocks were under increasing pressure to acquire them.

Nor was the rest of the world much better off. In Africa the continent had backslid to some of the worst days of the twentieth century. Once again they were seeing the armies of boy soldiers, some of them barely into their teens, drafted when their families were murdered, and fighting for stocks of illicit diamonds and even less licit ivory….

It was discouraging.

There was, though, one thing that did trouble Ranjit when he let himself think of it, and it came up when Mevrouw Beatrix Vorhulst looked in on a conversation with lawyer De Saram to ask, “What would anyone like for dinner?”

It was the same question that someone had to ask every morning, but this time it got a different reception. Myra turned to look inquiringly at Ranjit, who cocked an eyebrow at her, sighed, and spoke to their hostess. “That’s something we’ve been talking about, Aunt Bea. We think you’d probably like to have your house back.”

It was the first time Ranjit had ever seen Beatrix Vorhulst look indignant. “Dear boy, not at all! We’re glad to have you stay here as long as you like. You’re family, you know. We like having you here, and we’re honored, besides, and—”

But De Saram, having studied Myra’s face, was shaking his head. “Perhaps we’ve missed the point, Mevrouw,” he said. “They’re married. They want their own home, not a piece of yours, and they’re absolutely right about it. Let’s all have another cup of tea and consider the options. And as to a place for the two of you to live, you already have one, Ranjit. What used to be your father’s home in Trincomalee is now yours, you know.”

Ranjit turned to examine Myra’s face. The expression on it was very much what he had been expecting. “I don’t think Myra wants to live in Trinco,” he reported sorrowfully to the group, but she was already shaking her head.

“Trinco’s beautiful,” she said. “I’d love to have a place there, but—”

She didn’t finish. “What then?” De Saram asked, puzzled.

Ranjit answered for her. “It was a very nice house for one elderly man,” he said. “But for us—that is, for a couple who are probably going to want washing machines, dishwashers, all sorts of appliances that my father had no reason to bother with—well, what do you say, Myra? Do you want to start making changes in my father’s house?”

She took a deep breath, but managed to compress her reply to one word: “Yes.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “You wouldn’t rather tear it down and start over from scratch? No? All right. Then the first thing we do is get Surash to find us an architect who can make floor plans of what we’ve got to work with—he knows every Tamil in Trinco—and we invite him here with the plans and you and he start creating. With,” he added, “me available for creative inputs any time I’m asked. Meanwhile, Myra, you and I move our bodies into a hotel. How does that sound?”

Mevrouw was frowning more deeply than Ranjit had ever seen her. “There’s no reason for that,” she declared. “We’re perfectly comfortable with you here until the place in Trincomalee is ready for you.”

Ranjit looked at his wife, then spread his hands. “All right, but I do have another suggestion. Myra, love? Didn’t I once hear you say something about a honeymoon?”

Myra looked surprised. “No. You haven’t. I admit I think a honeymoon would be grand, but I haven’t said a single word about it—”

“Not since we were married,” Ranjit agreed, “but I remember exactly what you said to me, right in this room, a few years ago. You told me about all the wonderful parts of Lanka that I’d never visited. So let’s go visit them, Myra. While everybody’s getting the rest of our lives ready for us.”

The best place to start was the easiest, Myra declared, so the first place they tried was the turtle hatchery in Kosgoda, because Myra had loved it as a child and, mostly, because it was close enough for practice, then Kandy, the island’s grand old city. But a week later, when they had done them both and were back in the Vorhulst house and the staff wanted to know how they’d liked it, their responses were tepid. They had been recognized in Kosgoda, and small crowds had followed them about all day. Kandy had been worse. The local police had taken them around the town in a police car. They had seen everything, but hadn’t once been allowed to wander at will.

Over the dinner table Beatrix Vorhulst listened sympathetically as Ranjit explained that it was nice to be driven around, but they really would have liked to mingle with the crowds. She sighed. “I don’t know if that can happen,” she said. “You’re the best sight the people have for sightseeing purposes. You see, the trouble is that we’re a bit short on world-famous celebrities here in Lanka. You’re about all we’ve got.”

Myra disagreed. “Not really. There’s the writer—”

“Well, yes, but he hardly ever comes out of his house. Anyway, it’s not the same. If we were somewhere thick with movie stars and all kinds of famous people—Los Angeles, for instance, or London—you two could just put on some dark glasses and you’d hardly be noticed.” And then her expression changed. She said, “Well, come to think of it, why not?”

And when everyone was looking at her, she explained: “You’ve got all these invitations from all over the world, Ranjit. Why not accept a few?”

Ranjit blinked at her, then turned to Myra. “What do you think? Should we try to have a real honeymoon—Europe, America, whatever you like?”

She glanced at him, then around the table thoughtfully. She finally said, “I think that would be wonderful, Ranjit. If we’re going to do it, let’s do it soon.”

He gave her a curious look, but turned at once to questioning about what specific invitations were available. It wasn’t until they were heading to bed that he thought to ask her, “You do want to do this, don’t you? Because if you don’t want to—”

She laid a finger across his lips and then, unexpectedly, followed with a kiss. “It’s just that I think if we’re going to do long-distance traveling, it might be better to do it soon. Might be a little more difficult later on. I wasn’t going to tell you until the doctor confirmed it, but I won’t see her until Friday. The thing is, I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant.”