The Man in the Tree

Chapter Twenty-one

Margaret was not quite sure what to make of Wilcox. He had fitted himself unobtrusively into the household, as if he had always been there. Under his easy flow of talk there was a feeling of reserve, of something not spoken. Was that it, or was it the deceptions he practiced on them all, with evident enjoyment, when he picked silver coins out of their ears or made fans of cards appear and disappear?

One afternoon she found him in the living room playing with some ping-pong balls on a marble-topped coffee table. One of them fell off, and he said, "Damn." He looked up. "Maggie, come and watch this, will you? I need the audience."

She sat down across from him. "What is it?"

"A new thing I'm trying. It may not be any good." He gathered up the balls in one hand, dropped them in a row on the table. While they were still bouncing, he passed his hand over them: it was the same row of bouncing balls, but now there were five instead of four. He did it again; now there were six. She couldn't see where the extra balls were coming from, although she leaned over to watch. Another pass, and there were five balls; then four; and finally a single ball tapping on the marble. Wilcox picked it up, tossed it into the air; she distinctly saw it rise, but it never came down. He grinned at her.

"How did you do that?"

"Tricks of the trade."

"I think that's so frustrating."

"Because you're not sure if it's real magic or not?"

"Well -- I know it isn't."

"But there's always a moment when you're not sure, isn't that true? I think that's the point. You know, when I was nine, I was a bit slow for my age, and I absolutely believed in magic. I thought it would be a great thing to learn how to do it, so I asked my mother to bring me a book from the library. Well, it was a disappointment at first, because what I had in mind was turning flowerpots into bicycles, or whatever, and this was all about deceiving people with matchsticks and rubber bands. But once I got over that, it began to be very interesting, especially the close-up work. The big stage illusions, the ones that mystify everybody, are actually quite easy. Those are mechanicals, you know, like the glass box on wheels -- a girl gets in, they cover it with a cloth and whirl the box around, then whip off the cloth and she's gone, or else the magician himself pops out. All the big theatrical illusionists are using that now -- you've probably seen it yourself."

"Yes, on television."

"Well, the only skill involved there is the skill of the people who invented the trick. Aside from that, it's all showmanship. People don't care so much about skill, they just want to be amazed. They like to believe in magic, just for a moment; I think that's what it's really all about."

Wilcox borrowed Irma's car every afternoon to drive into St. Petersburg and see his assistant. After ten days she was discharged from the hospital, and Wilcox brought her out to the house to say good-bye. Her name was Nan Leach; she was a tall, slender blonde, handsome rather than pretty; her right leg was in a brace, and she walked by swinging her leg from the hip. "It's still pretty stiff," she told them. "I'm supposed to have therapy when I get home."

Her right leg, stretched out in front of her with the foot on a hassock, was not quite so shapely as the other; it was swollen around the knee, and the calf looked shrunken.

"That's a shame," Gene said. "Let me see. Do you mind?" As the others watched, he knelt and put his fingers on her knee.

"No, that's all right," she said with an air of faint surprise, glancing at Wilcox.

Gene stroked her knee for a moment, then drew his hand away suddenly. Her body jumped a little.

"I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

"No. It's all right, it just felt funny." She looked at Wilcox again. "We'd better go."

Wilcox kissed the women, Irma a little more thoroughly than Margaret. "Come back, Mike," said Gene.

"I will, in a month or two."

One afternoon a few days later, she found Pongo setting the table in the dining room. "Seven for dinner," he explained. "We could handle it in the kitchen, but Gene wants to be fancy."

"Who are the two extras?"

"Couple of professors from the university. I'm going to give them fish -- brain food."

At dinner time, when she came in, the others were just gathering around the table. Gene, at the far end, was listening intently to a slender, dark-haired man. His voice was high-pitched; he had an accent that Margaret could not identify. "No, that is not the problem," he said. "That is not the problem. We understand pretty well how the universe began. First there was the primordial atom, which exploded in what we call Big Bang."

The other newcomer said, "But isn't it true that the math shows that if that happened, the universe never would have formed galaxies and planets -- all that matter would have just kept on expanding indefinitely in a big sphere?" He was a rumpled, pudgy young man with a faint brown mustache.

"That is a very good point," said the dark-skinned man. "Yes, and therefore we must assume a discontinuity either in the primordial atom, or in the way it expanded during the first few milliseconds." There was something odd about his vowels; he said "univarse," and "primardial."

"Maggie, let me introduce you," said Gene. The others turned in their chairs, and the two newcomers stood up. "Margaret Morrow, my secretary. This is Nirmal Coomaraswami, a famous theoretical physicist -- "

"I am not so famous as all that," said Coomaraswami, laughing nervously. "Very glad to know you."

"And this is Stan Salomon, he teaches biology at the University of Florida."

"Margaret." His hand was plump and cool.

She took the empty place next to Salomon. "We were talking about the creationism controversy," he said. "You know, whether God created the universe or whether it just happened."

"Yes, and that is what science cannot tell us," said Coomaraswami. Pongo put a bowl of soup in front of him; he glanced at it in apparent surprise. "We know what happened," he went on, "and we know when it happened, with a very high degree of certainty. But creationists want us to say why it happened. This is not a scientific question."

Pongo finished serving the soup and sat down across from Irma.

"That may be," said Salomon. "But the origin of man is a scientific problem, and that's what bothers me. Did you know," he said to Margaret, "that we have to give equal time now to the creationist theory in biology classes?"

"No, really? I think that's awful."

"It is not awful. It is not awful," said Coomaraswami. "We should examine both theories and see how well they explain the facts. Then let people decide for themselves."

"It's religion in the schools," said Salomon.

"That is not necessarily so."

"Creationism isn't religion?" Salomon demanded.

"No, not necessarily. The Bible account of the creation is a myth. In Hindu religion there is also a creation myth, slightly different. All over the world there are these creation myths. But even if we say that a myth is not true, that is not to say that creation cannot be true."

Margaret was watching him in fascination. His skin was no darker than Pongo's, but it was a different color, a ruddier brown; his crisp black hair, faintly glossy, clung to his neat narrow head. His fingernails and the tips of his fingers were pink.

"That's nonsense," said Salomon, with his soup spoon half raised to his lips. "The evidence for evolution -- "

"Yes-yes, I know, but please let me finish. Of course there is evidence that living organisms have evolved from other organisms. There is no question about that, and that is a very good point. But it is possible to say that organisms were created by God, and then evolved into other forms, or that there are a limited number of forms -- sort of Platonic ideals -- that organisms can evolve into."

"The fossil record -- " began Salomon, but fell silent because Anderson was speaking.

"I remember," he said slowly, "in one of Hemingway's letters he talks about a new kind of shark that appeared in the ocean off Cuba. Nobody had ever seen it before. They were black, with no dorsal fin, and their stomachs were full of swordfish swords. I couldn't help wondering, what if creation is still going on?"

Early one morning, before it was light, she went into the courtyard. The fountain was making a lonesome sound. A red spark glimmered not far away. "Oh," she said, "is that you, Piet?"

"Yes, it's me." He rose and came toward her. "You couldn't sleep?"

"No."

"You have been looking a bit tired. Do you often have insomnia?"

"Fairly often."

"Have you tried hypnosis for it?"

"No. Do you think that would work?"

"Well, we can find out if you are a good subject, at least. Do you want to try now? Wait until I turn on the fountain light. Now stand there, please, and close your eyes."

Margaret did as she was told, feeling foolish.

"Now I want you to be aware of your right arm," said Linck's voice. "Feel how relaxed it is; it is very relaxed and soft, there is no tension in it. Your right arm is very relaxed, and now it is becoming lighter. It wants to rise because it is so light, almost as light as a balloon, and now it is rising, you can't stop it from rising, and you don't want to stop it. It is lighter and lighter, your arm is rising because it is so light . . . "

His voice went on, remote and almost inaudible, talking about her arm. She could feel her arm coming up a little, but she was not sure where it was. And his voice went on.

"You can open your eyes now," he said.

To her surprise, her right arm was extended almost at a right angle from her shoulder. She lowered it, feeling even more foolish.

"That was very good," Linck said. "You are a good subject, much better than Gene."

"Oh, have you hypnotized him?"

"No, because he is a very bad subject. But if you want to do something about your insomnia, I don't think we will have any trouble."

They had their first session that night in Linck's sitting room upstairs. Linck had her stare at the illuminated crystal of a clock in the darkened room, and suggested to her that her eyelids were growing heavy, that she was becoming drowsy, that she could not keep her eyes open. After she closed them, his voice went on, and she felt herself drifting deeper and deeper into a black velvety space in which she was aware but bodiless and without anxiety or volition. He told her that she would remember everything he said to her unless he ordered her not to, and that she would always awake from trance feeling refreshed and cheerful. He told her that in future she would always go directly into trance when he said, "Go to sleep, Maggie."

In their second session, two days later, Linck told her to imagine herself in an elevator descending very slowly down an endless shaft; each time the elevator passed another floor, her trance was deepened. He repeated his previous suggestions, and told her that when she went to bed she would feel relaxed and drowsy, and would have no anxiety about getting to sleep. That night she slept nine hours.

In their third session, Linck gave her a "sleep blanket": he told her that whenever she wanted to go to sleep, she could imagine a warm blanket being pulled up gradually over her body; when it got to her chin, she would fall into a deep natural sleep. And it worked.

Gradually and gently the world was slipping into winter. They turned off the air conditioning, opened the sliding glass doors to the garden and the clerestory windows in front. Loose papers blew like birds around the living room until Gene brought out a boxful of glass paperweights to put on them.

One afternoon she found him in his workroom, bent over the drawing board. "Gene, these letters ought to be signed."

"Okay." He laid his brush aside. A half-finished drawing was in front of him; others were spread out to dry on the table. They were delicate pen sketches with a wash of sepia: faces, floating hair, oak leaves. "What are those for?" she asked.

"Christmas cards." He scrawled his name at the bottom of a letter, picked up another one.

"Oh, my. I wish I could do that."

"Can't draw?"

"No. I can draw a pig, and that's about all."

"Let me see your pig." He pushed a blank card toward her.

"I don't want to spoil this."

"That's all right, there are plenty more."

Margaret took the pen he gave her and made a pig: a sort of bucket shape on its side for the head, then a round body, four stick legs, and a curlicue for the tail.

Gene looked at it without comment. "Would you like to make some cards? I'll show you a way without drawing."

"Yes, I'd love to."

"Get rid of these letters and I'll meet you in the dining room."

When she got there, Gene was spreading newspapers over one end of the table. When he was finished, he began taking jars of paint out of a shopping bag. "This is tempera -- it'll wash off, but it's messy. Get me some spoons from the kitchen, will you, and some little bowls, and a glass of water."

"How many spoons?"

"Half a dozen."

Gene arranged the open paint jars, bowls, and spoons in the middle of the table. "Sit down and I'll show you what to do. First you fold a card in half, like this. Then you drop a little paint on it, wherever you want." He dipped up some red with a spoon, then blue, then a few drops of yellow. The paint stood up in biobs on the shiny white card. "Now you just fold it over." He demonstrated, pressing the card down vigorously with the heel of his hand.

He opened the card. The paint had spread and run together in a symmetrical winged shape; there were veins in it and subtle shadings where the colors had blended.

"My goodness, that's beautiful!" Margaret said.

"Try it."

Her first attempt made a sort of cabbage shape with yellow eyes. She tried again, with different colors, and got an orchid. Gene was mixing colors in one of the bowls to make a brownish violet. He spooned some of this onto a folded card, then added a little water. When he opened it, it was a veined brown-violet shape, like a block print, with delicate traceries around it. "Oh, let me try that," she said.

Irma wandered in after a while, then Pongo, then Linck, and they all sat around the table until nearly dinner time, making Christmas cards. As the colors dried, new patterns became visible in them. "Look at this rabbit," they said to each other, or, "Here's a demon standing over a tree." When they counted them, they discovered they had made more than a hundred cards, each more beautiful than the others.

Later Margaret said, "I know I can't draw, and I certainly can't paint. So where did the beauty come from?"

"Well, folding the card makes the design symmetrical, of course, and that's part of what we mean by beauty. Then the colors mixing on the card gave you all kinds of subtle gradations, and the surface tension of the paint made it form veins and so on. Remember that you chose the colors, and where to put them; that makes your cards different from anybody else's."

"Yes, I saw that. Irma's are big splashy flowers, and yours are like misty watercolors."

"Sure. And Piet's are dark and brooding because he uses so much black. So don't say you didn't do it, because you really did. But the rest of it came from just the physical properties of the paint and the card -- if that's beautiful, it's because the universe is beautiful."

"Like the coquinas?"

"Maybe."

"But what's it for? Just for our benefit?"

"I don't think so. There's beauty in the universe that nobody ever saw until the invention of the microscope. Crack open a stone, or split a piece of wood, and you'll see beauty. But what if you never cracked that stone, or split that piece of wood?"

"Isn't that a little like, if a tree falls in the forest when nobody's there, is there a sound?"

"Well, is there? Depends on what you mean by sound. If it's just waves of compression and rarefaction in the air, then the answer is yes -- if it's what you experience when those waves hit your ear, then the answer is no. A long time ago I used to think that when we make art we're celebrating the natural world, praising it, and that's what it's all about. What I think now is that we're here because we can make a kind of beauty the universe can't make by itself. The natural world can make a crystal, or an ocelot, or a poplar tree with the wind blowing through it, but it can't make a painting, or music, or stories. And there's a kind of beauty that we create in intellectual things, maybe -- mathematics, physics."

"You don't think that's just there, and we're discovering it?"

"Oh, no. Mathematicians will tell you that mathematics is not descriptive except by coincidence. It isn't a science. And even physics -- somebody, I think it was Leon Cooper, once said that when God created the world, he didn't bother to make any fine structure. A tree was just a tree, until somebody cut one down, and then he had to hurry up and create the rings and so on. And when somebody invented a microscope, he had to create all the fine structure that you can't see with your naked eye -- cells and corpuscles and bacteria. And when we invented more and more powerful instruments for looking at the insides of atoms, of course he had to make electrons and protons and neutrons. And now it's quarks and !eptons and so forth, and that's why particle physics is such a mess, because God is making it all up as he goes along."