Alix Ohlin - Babylon and Other Stories

Jocelyn leaned over to trail her fingers through their rippling needles. “It's beautiful here,” she said.

“I know.”

“What a wonderful place to write a book,” she said, and inhaled with deep satisfaction, as if catching the scent of unborn books in the wind. She caught Claire's eye. “Thank you for letting me come.”

Carson was waiting for them on the dock, a surprise, since he regularly worked every day until five and would brook no interruption, which habit had led Claire to offer to pick up the girl in the first place. Yet here he was, reaching out a long arm to catch the prow and rope it to the dock. Then he grabbed Jocelyn Gates's hand and pulled her up. The two of them laughed and moved from handclasp to shake. Jocelyn would not permit her suitcase to be carried for her, so she trudged after Carson up the hill to the house. Halfway there she paused to readjust her grip and said again to Claire, who was behind her, “It's so beautiful here.”

“Yes.”

“A refuge,” she said, her eyes glowing, blue coals. “I hope I won't disturb your peace.”

“Don't mention it,” Claire said.

Because the desk in Carson's office was small, the two of them settled on the kitchen table, where they could spread the manuscript out in stacks. Claire shut the door to her office and tried to work, but on a trip to the washroom she heard them already arguing. She couldn't make out the specific words, only the general grievance in Carson's voice, and from this tone she suddenly heard her own name rising and realized he was calling her.

She stood in the doorway.

“This woman,” Carson sputtered. His face was flushed but Jocelyn's was not. “She wants me to tell my story. She wants me to sell the material. Would you tell her, please, that science is not a story ? Will you please agree with me on this so I'll know I'm not insane?”

Claire looked at Jocelyn, who smiled politely.

“I think I'm the wrong person to ask,” Claire said, and Carson groaned. “I mean, you know I'm no scientist.”

“So? You still know that a scientific theory is a model, not some fairy tale.”

“Well, yes, and I'm not saying that it's fiction. But I do kind of think — sorry, Carson — that science is a story we tell ourselves about the world. In a way.”

Carson said, tight-lipped, “It's not just any story.”

“The important thing here, Carson,” Jocelyn said, “is that we tell it well.”

Over the next three days Carson and Jocelyn worked on the book. They fought often and loudly while Claire, in her office, didn't even pretend to work and just listened. For some time it seemed they couldn't even agree on terms or the meanings of words. She heard Carson's voice, strained and hoarse through the walls. “Order and disorder are only categories. They don't hold up, statistically.” Jocelyn's voice flowed quietly under his. She was trying to simplify Carson's theories, to put his arguments into the plainest terms. They could be expanded later, she told him. The book was a pyramid requiring a foundation, a wide and basic layer.

Claire thought of the phrase Carson, quoting Jocelyn, had used to describe this process: hammering it out. This was certainly what it sounded like, voices striking hard as metal, Car-son's strident, hers relentless, pounding his science into flatness like nails into wood. Claire was afraid for him to see his work— so famously abstract — popularized and, inevitably, reduced. Moreover, for him to cooperate in the reduction. And she was surprised by Jocelyn's persistence, her conviction that his ideas could be explained to the average reader. She kept on hammering.

“So all things tend naturally toward a simpler state,” Claire heard her say.

“Where do you get this naturally ?” Carson sounded anguished by her lack of precision. “Where? You're creating some kind of animism that isn't inherent in the work.” Claire pictured him spreading his palms, trying to explain. “There is no naturally. Things can only happen according to the physical laws of the universe.”

“So explain those laws to me.”

“Look, miss, I didn't realize that you came up here for a scientific education. I thought you came here to work on my book.”

“I'm your reader,” Jocelyn said without a pause. “Explain it to me.”

“Maybe you're not my reader,” he said. “Maybe I have no readers. The kind of people you're talking about don't want to know about my work. Couldn't understand it even if they did.”

“They want to.”

Other times, as Claire passed through the kitchen, she saw them working smoothly, heads together, one nodding, the other speaking, in a low and constant and rhythmic tone, like two birds on a branch. In the evenings she and Carson cooked dinner for their guest. By tacit agreement they all three avoided the subject of science, instead discussing politics or weather, the natural beauty of the region, the improvements Claire and Carson had made to the cottage in order to live in it year-round. Conversation stayed polite and almost distant, with none of the contention or excitement that echoed through the rooms during the day.

Claire took the boat across to Bob's, and Jocelyn asked to go with her. She needed to use the phone to check in at the office.

“Although I'd rather not,” she said at the dock, hands on her hips, looking out at the water. “The office seems a bit unreal at this point.”

“It'll seem real enough once you get back,” Claire said.

She raised an eyebrow. “I guess,” she said.

“Whenever I go back to the city,” Claire said, “I feel like I could take up my old life again in a minute, and this is the place that seems unreal.”

Jocelyn nodded. “Do you ever miss it there?” she asked.

Claire wasn't sure whether this question was sincere or merely conversational. Possibly it was an editor's technique, a way of seducing writers, giving them the sense that she was curious about them, or about the knowledge they could provide. Claire took a breath and looked out over the lake. A string of starlings lassoed themselves into a circle, twisted, formed into a symbol that looked, for a second, like infinity. “Sometimes,” she said.

“You grew up here?”

“In the city. This was our summer place.”

Jocelyn reached over and touched the water. “Can you get across the lake in the winter?”

“Usually,” Claire said. “If not, well, we have a lot of food stored.”

“Must be a long winter.” When Claire didn't answer, Jocelyn added, “But beautiful.”

Inwardly, Claire rolled her eyes. Of course it was beautiful, but beauty had little to do with it. She had come here not just to be with Carson but to prove she could live here. Putting up food, trying to get Bob and the rest of the village not to look at her as one of the “summer people,” insulating the cottage, chopping wood, all the other chores — the chores had everything to do with it. “My parents built the house,” she finally said. “We were always working on it. They never intended it to be lived in year-round. But Carson needed a quiet place to work. And I can work from anywhere.”

“Lucky for him,” Jocelyn said.

“Not lucky. Just something I was able to do,” Claire said. She felt Jocelyn's gaze on her. “I was glad to be able to offer it.” She was speaking unwillingly but couldn't stop, the words being reeled from her as if the other woman held a line. She felt she had to explain, to give Jocelyn the correct impression of her life, the necessity of it bearing down on her with a pressure like physical weight. “This isn't a sacrifice for me,” she said. “I like living here. I don't just see to Carson's needs. It's not like he's the, you know, reclusive man of genius and I'm the handmaiden.”