Rebecca Goldstein - 36 Arguments for the Existence of God

Next week, Cass was back at the less-crowded seminar table-the three undergraduates had jumped ship, as well as the philosophy graduate student and a few of the English students.

In addition to Aristotle’s Poetics , Cass had brought to class the reassuring knowledge of the culminating fact on the list that he had assembled last week. Cass had been chosen, and he would not be exiled.

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:15 a.m.

subject: the missing proof

Are you awake? Any new proofs tonight?

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:20 a.m.

subject: re: the missing proof

In a manner of speaking, yes. You’ll never guess who breezed into town today. Roz!

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:23 a.m.

subject: re: re: the missing proof

Has she really been downgraded to a breeze? How is she? What’s she up to?

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:35 a.m.

subject: re: re: re: the missing proof

Pretty much the typical. She rode along with me to Frankfurter, and I dropped her off while I went to see Shimmy Baumzer (who stood me up). By the time I got back, Roz had organized a campus protest. The president’s wife, Deedee Baumzer, is a sorority girl from the University of Texas, and she’s long been pushing for less geek and more Greek at Frankfurter. Either Shimmy finally caved, or he’s feeling sufficiently sure of himself these days. It’s been a good year for Shimmy. He’s got some glitter on his faculty, and the trustees and the donors have been happy. Shimmy moved to revoke the ban on the Greeks, and there was a backlash. When Roz and I got to the campus, we passed one student with a hand-lettered sign: “Say NO to Greeks.” Roz jumped out of the car to investigate, and by the time I’d gotten back she’d joined the counter-campaign on the pagan side. She’d rallied a group of students who were chanting “Go Greek” and there were a few more kids on the other side, also chanting. And right in the middle was Roz holding a placard saying “Maccabees = Taliban.”

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:36 a.m.

subject: Hanukkah redux

It does my heart good to hear.

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:41 a.m.

subject: re: Hanukkah redux

There’s more. She intends to live forever. She’s started something called the Immortality Foundation. Here’s a link to her web site: www.immortality.org.

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:53 a.m.

subject: immortal Roz

I made a donation.

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:55 a.m.

subject: re: immortal Roz

You want to live five hundred years?

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 1:58 a.m.

subject: re: re: immortal Roz

I want Roz to live five hundred years.

to: GR613@gmail.com

from: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

date: Feb. 27 2008 2:00 a.m.

subject: re: re: re: immortal Roz

:-) Good night.

to: Seltzer@psych.Frankfurter.edu

from: GR613@gmail.com

date: Feb. 27 2008 2:01 a.m.

subject: re: re: re: re: immortal Roz

Good morning.

Cass steps onto his front porch to retrieve his newspaper and is startled by the gentleness of the day. He sniffs exultantly. The air carries the fragrance of ethereality that Cass still associates with Pascale’s billowing dark tresses. Now he can inhale that mysterious essence without the familiar clutch around his heart. Love for Lucinda has finally lifted mourning for Pascale.

He had spoken with Lucinda last night, and New England’s overnight thaw seems an appropriate response. He’d think he was dreaming if not for the persuasive detail of a sodden New York Times that he pulls out of an ankle-deep puddle of melted snow.

Their connection hadn’t been long, but it had been wonderful. He reached her as she was walking back to her hotel, and it had been like walking beside her. She was coming from a small Italian restaurant where she’d dined with some game theorists, who had all gone silly on choice bottles of 1997 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve, compliments of Apostolos Pappadopoulos, whom everyone calls Pappa. Pappa is the organizer of Lucinda’s conference, and he’s famous for his expansive good spirits. Everybody wants to get invited to the conferences that Pappa runs.

“Only it’s such a bore to be the only sober head at a table,” Lucinda had remarked good-naturedly. “I was the only one who could tell that the jokes weren’t really all that funny.” She hadn’t been able to indulge like the others, since she still wanted to get in some work, polishing up her talk. Lucinda hasn’t wanted to talk about the contents of her talk, only telling Cass that she’ll be presenting some new ideas. Cass can sense how much she has riding on the reception.

They’d spoken mostly about the conference, as she walked back from the restaurant in balmy Santa Barbara-“Poor you,” she had sympathized, “freezing in Cambridge!”-Lucinda rattling off names that didn’t mean anything to him and reporting on how good or bad she judged their delivered papers to have been. “And did you fang any of them?”

She had laughed.

“I think I might have left bicuspid imprints on a few. You know, these game theorists are a tough crowd. They’re not wussy psychologists. Wus-sologists!” She’d laughed in that adorable way she has of relishing her own humor. “I hope Pappa celebrates again in the same style after my talk. Then I can get silly on hundred-dollar bottles and laugh uproariously at bad jokes. I want to knock some major socks off these people.”

“You will, Lucinda. I get happy just thinking of all those argyles flying in the air, the game theorists scrambling to pair up their mixed-up garters after the Q & A.”

She laughed with almost as much enjoyment as if she had made the joke, but then her mood quickly modulated.

“Rishi’s giving the keynote,” she said evenly.

Rishi Chandrakar had been her colleague at Princeton, where Lucinda had far outshone him. She doesn’t understand, she had told Cass repeatedly, why Pappa would ask Rishi rather than her to deliver the keynote.

“Rishi won’t deliver the keynote. He’ll deliver the anticlimax.” And Cass had meant it, too. He doesn’t know the first thing about Rishi Chandraker, but he knows Lucinda Mandelbaum.

“That’s sweet of you to say,” she said. “Cass, you’re sweet. Tell me what’s going on at your end. Anything new?”

“An old friend from way back when showed up in Cambridge, an incredible character. I’ll tell you all about it when you get home. It would take me too long to describe over the phone.”

“One of those crazies from those cults you study?”

“Cults like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam?” He laughed.

“Yeah, like that.” She laughed back. “Did I ever tell you that when I first got to Harvard as an undergraduate I just couldn’t understand how there could be a Department of Religion? Why not departments of astrology and alchemy and chiromancy and necromancy? And then I found out Harvard actually had a Divinity School. How could they live with that and still claim Veritas as their motto?”