Richard Powers - Galatea 2.2

"I discovered the names that were given to some of the most familiar objects," Shelley's creature says somewhere. "I learned and applied the words, 'fire,' 'milk,' 'bread,' and 'wood'. ."

One day I would teach this speech to a machine that had learned to read. Maybe not E, or F, but G, or son of G. And my machine would understand.

"I distinguished several other words without being able as yet to understand or apply them," the girl child's monster would tell mine. Words "such as 'good,' 'dearest,' 'unhappy.' "

"You don't eat," Diana accused me.

"I eat. I eat a lot. You saw how much I put away at lunch.' "I bet that was your only meal that day."

"I lose track sometimes. Lentz and I… We get to training at such weird hours."

"You don't eat unless someone feeds you. Is that it?"

I knew what was coming. But I had nowhere to run. I wanted to tell her then. Before any court of confusion. My evacuated life left no air for anyone. Least of all someone as kind as Diana.

But Diana hadn't offered anything rejectable yet. Nothing but the most generic friendship.

"Most experimental neurologists can't cook," she said. "They're fine until they get to the part of the recipe that says 'Season to taste.' This throws them for a loop. They like the 'Measure carefully into bowl.' They tend to hang out up there."

"Connectionists," I mimicked, "cook brilliantly. They start out at random, and a few thousand iterations later. ." Two funny deflections, then I'd flee before she could extend the invitation.

"I bet novelists know how to shape a recipe."

"Maybe back when. The age of plot and closure. Times have changed. It's all microwave these days."

"I know what," she said. "You can cook a meal for me." So simple. A sudden, happy inspiration.

She'd had mercy. Given me one she couldn't expect me to accept.

"Well, Diana, that sounds great in theory. But unless it's Jiffy Pop, and you bring the matches to light my stove's pilot. ."

"At my place. I have all the utensils. And I won't get in your way at all."

"Just stand by and laugh?"

"Something like that."

"All right, then. All right. I rise to the challenge. Moules Provisoires."

"Oh. My. The man's done this before."

I had, in fact. But I didn't care to give her the details.

I got to her place Saturday evening. I managed to carry all the provisions on my bike rack. Even the tapers. I rang the bell, ready with a funny opener about ruined anything tasting better by candlelight. The door was opened by a little boy. I started to mumble something about getting the address wrong.

"Mom," the boy called back into the house. "The writer's here!"

"The writer?" Diana answered from within. "Tell him to use the tradesman's entrance."

The kid looked up at me, wrestling with the command. His face searched mine for clues. I watched the solution— irony —ripple through him until he let me in with a wry smile.

Diana appeared, doubling my shock. She carried a younger boy in her arms. I must have looked like a blithering undergrad.

"Here's Richard," she said, addressing the child. "Can you say 'Hi, Richard'?"

"Rick would be fine," I said.

This child wasn't about to say anything. I saw it in his features. The slightly spatulate face. The fold to the nose and ears. Speech would be long and hard in coming.

'This is Peter." The cheerful matter-of-fact. My worst-case fears came home to roost. I knew her. I could never pretend ignorance again.

"Hello, Peter." I didn't know how to carry on. "I once wrote a book about someone named Peter."

Peter hunched up into a little ball. He peeked out sideways.

"He's a little shy with strange people," the older brother said. "But for a Down's baby, he's a genius."

"And this is William."

"Do you know what it says on the Brazilian flag?" William asked me.

"I used to know."

"You probably did," Diana cracked.

"It says, 'Ordern e Progressa. ' "

"No kidding! What does that mean?"

William thought. "It means — order me some soup?"

Diana choked with shame in mid-laugh. "Oh, sweetheart! No. That was just a little joke of mine."

"I know," William pouted.

"What's the Netherlands?" I asked.

"Easy one. Red stripe, white stripe, blue stripe." He drew them in the air, visualizing as he described. Then he pointed at me. He waved his index finger in a pedagogical sweep. "Also Luxembourg," he warned.

"Yeah. There's a reason for that."

"I know, I know. Here's one. Red circle on white background?"

"Easy one. Japan."

"No fair!" Adults weren't supposed to know anything.

"Don't get him started," Diana said on our way to the kitchen. "He can do all hundred and eighty of them."

"Hundred and eighty-six," William corrected.

"What if you take Netherlands and double it? Hold a mirror up to the bottom?"

That one took a couple of steps. "Thailand?"

"You're good, man. You're good."

"Formerly known as Siam."

"Population?"

"Approximately fifty-one million."

"Approximately," Diana sighed.

"Name seven countries where Spanish is the principal language."

"Easy one," William said, the index finger now a fencing foil. The most extraordinary boy I will ever meet.

"Come on, you guys," Diana said. "Peter and I need food. Don't we, Peter?"

Peter curled up in his hedgehog defense. But he kept his eye on me at all times.

I put William to work washing the mussels. "Is it just the four of us?" I asked Diana.

"Yes. I'm sorry. I should have told you. I assumed you knew."

"What, from Lentz? Nobody is real but him. Hadn't you heard?"

"It's such a small world over at the Center. I guess I'm used to everyone knowing everything about everybody."

"And nothing much about anyone."

"Well, we all have our work, first."

"How do you do it?"

"Do what?"

I held my hands out, one toward the kitchen counter, the other toward some remote lab. 'Two lives. Alone."

"Huh!"

"I mow the lawn," William said.

"How much does she pay you?"

'Two-fifty."

"Holy moly. There are laws against that, you know."

Diana made to fillet me with the lemon knife. "Don't make waves, writer. Or I'll give you something to write about."

The meal came together. And William and I managed it without assistance from the feminine half of the world. We made a bucket brigade of the dishes. Peter sat nearby, chattering with his hands.

"Look," William called. "Pete's helping!"

I heard the sound of dismayed discovery behind me. "What do we do with these?" Diana stood by the counter, holding the tapers and floral sprig that I'd tried to leave hidden in the bottom of my bag. She looked at me dead on. Her eyes started to water.

"Light them, of course." But recovery came two beats too late. I shrugged, and even that hurt. This is why I asked you not to ask me here.

Diana put the tapers in elaborate candlesticks that she first had to unwrap from newspapers. We lit them and doused the lights. But the darkness scared Peter. He coiled forward against himself. Diana turned the lights back on. We let the candles burn.

William had more fun with the shells than with the insides. He did, however, enjoy dipping his mussels in the wine sauce and dribbling all over the table. Peter worked away at his compote. He insisted on trying one mussel. He got half of it down, with a look of utter stupefaction.

'They're both going to have the runs for days," Diana said.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be silly. They get the runs from jelly toast."

William bit his cheek. I didn't know how badly, at first. All at once, he stopped talking. I thought it was a clown act. Pantomime. I started to laugh, until William's silent, red-faced distress made Peter break out in tears and lower his face into his plate. Diana was up in a fraction of a second, before I knew what was happening. "It's okay. Petey, it's okay." Diana lifted her boy and hugged him to her. She repeated the litany various ways, glossing with a flurry of hand motions.