Chapter 7: A young man approaches a woman
A young man, pale of skin and blue of eye, sat in a mostly empty café in Locarno in Switzerland. The summer sun of the late 1960’s shone vivid from the clear sky, the white-capped peaks of the mountains glistened under it, as did the ripples on the water of the harbor. A cargo boat created eddies in its wake as it nosed out of port.
A beautiful young woman, hair awry and fingers smudged multi-coloured, hurried in, a portable easel case dangling from one long arm. She looked around, saw all the tables full, saw an empty seat across from the pale young man, a man who looked a bit morose. The sunset chose that moment to flame his hair and flash off of his eyes, slightly downcast as they were and looking at a book of paintings that she happened to own a copy of as well. On balance, he seemed a prudent enough choice. She made for the empty seat in the café full of empty seats she could not see.
“Ciao. Posso unirmi a voi?” Her Italian was imperfect, but adequate she’d found.
He looked up, saw her, smiled.
“Please do.”
Her world slowed a little, then sped up. She found herself sitting across from him, an espresso close to hand.
“Yes, I’m studying neutrons at CERN. We used to think that they were the among smallest particles in the world, then Gellman and Zweig charmed the world, or at least the world of theoretical physicists.”
The pale young man nodded, eyes intent on her, soaking in her depth, her breadth, her intellect.
“I’ve read of quarks. I’m sure I don’t fully understand them, I just don’t have the math. But I love the poetry of their flavors. Tiny poetic specks, in combination making up the universe.”
“You know of quarks at all? That’s amazing. What is it that you do?”
“Me? I’m an oculist, a beggar, a simple man from Ulster. I collect entrance fees to see the balance point of the world, then nudge it out of level. Nothing special, nothing sacred, nothing profane. Just me.”
Nonsense words, but they had the right rhythm and with a hint of will rolled over her, sounded reasonable and interesting, then sought out her nooks and crannies, infiltrated her synapses, reconnoitered between her thighs and found the ground hospitable.
Time once again slowed, sped up. She found herself seated across from him at a dinner table overlooking the waters of the lake.
“Yes, there’s a wreck under there, just off that point, about 25 meters down. I spent a little time on Kalymnos diving for sponges and learned the techniques, so I dropped off of a skiff with a large rock and plummeted into the depths of Lake Maggiore, the light fading above me.”
His lips glistened slightly as he raised his glass of pinot grigio. She realized that she had been staring at them, thinking about them more intently than the meal deserved, and returned her eyes to the plate in front of her.
Time slowed, sped.
“I had a delightful time in Malawi last year. There was a striker on the national team who had gone slightly sideways, ethically. I executed a minor sting and as a result advanced someone wealthy’s position sufficiently that I don’t really have to work this year.”
Time slowed, sped.
Somehow, he had evoked a bedroom with a view of mountains and lake, no curtains between the wall-to-ceiling glass, the bed and the view.
Time slowed, sped, slowed, sped.
She returned to herself in her own small rooms in CERN, a set of crucial equations written in an unfamiliar hand on papers she had crushed in her fist due to some barely remembered impetus. She contributed to a Nobel, found a partner and occasionally remembered why she woke up thrashing and ecstatic a few times a year, the meat of her hand clenched between her teeth.