Ethan Canin - A Doubter's Almanac

“Mom,” I said. “Were you ever in love with him?”

“Was I ever in love with your father?” She let out a sigh. “I was in love with what he’d done, I suppose. I was in love with his mind. I mean, think of what he brought into the world. Think of what he built from nothing.” She sighed again. “I never know what to make of all the rest. Half the time he was unendurable. But the other half—”

“I know.”

She lowered the lantern over the lake and pumped it again. In the ring of light, a pack of water striders froze like thieves. “I suppose it might have been a mistake. But how can you ever be sure? I don’t know — for better or worse — he was an extraordinary person.” Up at the house, the lamp came on in the downstairs bedroom now, and Cle opened the curtains there. Then it went off again, and when she reappeared at the glass, a candle was flickering in her hands.

“What do you think about her ?” I said.

“I guess I don’t know what to say to that.”

After a while, I said, “You’re right, Mom. I’m sorry I asked.”

We sat there, listening to the water tapping the dock posts.

“Hans,” she said, “did he ever tell you about her?”

“He did, Mom.”

“Well, I suppose I don’t want to know.”

“You probably don’t.”

She looked up at me then with an expression I didn’t recognize. “She’s fancy,” she said. “She’s educated. She seems to have a bit more money than she knows what to do with.” She sipped her wine. “And I gather she has a staff .” Then she said, “Bah.”

“You’re more elegant.”

“Bah again.”

“Well, you are .”

“Don’t worry, Hans. I know what I am.”

But she moved closer to me then, and on her skin I smelled the faint bitter-grass scent that she sometimes emitted. Up at the house, the curtain was still open, and in the wobble of the candle I could see Cle standing back from the glass. Mom rose to her feet.

I reached for the dynamo, and when I found it, I started to pump. Light rose on the filament, like a glowworm climbing a string. Before us, a small halo of cove came into being: the moths, the minnows, the tracts of celery weed swaying in the undercurrent, like rows of hands waving from the bottom. “You’re more beautiful,” I said.

“ Oh, please, Hans.” Then, after a moment: “Well, thank you.”

She set the glass at her feet now and stepped out into the ring of light. Before me, in its lunar brightness, she straightened her skirt and blouse. I kept the dynamo going, and in its glow the ivory of her skin began to luminesce. She placed her hands on her hips and brought her neck straight. She arched her spine and tilted back her head so that her hair fell across her shoulders. She held that pose, like an actress under a klieg lamp. For a long, white-lit moment, she was a young woman again, standing on a brass-railed pier, looking over a rocky New England lake.

Then there was a pop, and behind her, the stars came back into the sky.

—

“THE MAGIC BULLET,” Dad said, pointing through the trees to where the three of them were sitting by the shore. Paulie was dressed in a pleated skirt and Mom in her patched-up overalls, but their likeness was striking. The same drawn-up posture. The same long limbs, despite neither being tall. And Cle, strangely, who sat sideways in her chair, could have been the sister of either of them. “Look at that,” he said. “Who wouldn’t be cured by that?”

He took a drink and set the glass on the desk. The shed smelled even more like mildew than the house had before I’d cleaned it. The roof must have been leaking.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Evidently, your father is a monster. I’ve been told this fact by your mother. And by your mother’s lawyer. And by your sister, many times. But you should know — neither your mother nor your sister believes it. What they actually believe is that they’re my salvation.” He swirled his drink. “And that I’m theirs.”

“Okay.”

“You see?” He pointed. “They don’t even mind each other.”

“I think Mom might.”

“You mean she minds that she doesn’t hold the monopoly anymore?”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“Well, she’s the one who came up. I didn’t invite her.”

I stood and moved to where a pile of journals lay on the rug. I hadn’t cleaned out here, and he obviously hadn’t bothered to pick them up himself — for years, it seemed. Above them on the shelves stood a line of volumes from an old library set. Leather bindings and gold-lettered titles. I ran my fingers over the spines: Augustine, Descartes, Hume, Locke, Russell. A row of philosophers arranged in alphabetical order. “Is this what you’ve been doing all this time?” I said. “Reading philosophy?”

“I’ve been attempting to understand the human being, Hans, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And this is the method you’ve adopted?”

“I’m waiting to hear a better one.”

“Well, you could just walk outside and talk to a few real ones.”

“Your generation is so predictable,” he said. “It’s all about the connection, isn’t it? The connectors have gained the upper hand. We isolationists languish in the caves. Take my word for it, Hans, I’ve tried.” He turned and regarded me frankly. “The monster isn’t very good at chitchat.”

“No one ever said you were a monster.”

“Your mother and sister did.” He filled his glass again. “And I imagine they’ve convinced you.”

“I believe you don’t have much control over it.”

He spit, laughing. “Is that the brainwashing they gave you?”

“It wasn’t a brainwashing. I had a problem.”

“Ah — step one.”

When he saw my face, he said, “Oh, come on, Hans. Relax. It’s not so dire. Have a drink with your old man.” He swirled the bottle. Then he probed beneath the desk until he managed to wrangle out another glass. “Come on, it’s your dad offering. I’m feeling better today.” He tipped the bottle at me. “Have a drink with your old man, to celebrate. I mean, booze wasn’t your problem, anyway, was it? Your problem was those drugs.”

“The drugs were the symptom.”

“And the problem?”

“I’m working on it.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And this is the method you’ve adopted?”

“Funny, Dad.”

“Look,” he said, filling the other glass, “you can go round and round with it, but in the end the proofs are worthless. All you’re left with is first principles.” He pointed at the shelves. “Augustine versus Pelagius. I’m with Augustine. Every one of us is flawed.”

He wiped the glass with his shirt and held it forward. In those days, I didn’t much like the taste of bourbon; but after a moment, I took it.

“Thank you, Hans.”

“You’re not welcome.”

He turned and looked out the window then, to where the three of them had risen from the chairs. They were picking their way up the path toward the house, like a trio of deer on a hill. I watched him watch them.

“Dad,” I said, “do you really think you wasted your career?”

His eyes came back.

“When I told you I’d wasted mine, ” I said, “I mean, wasted the mathematics, you said that that made two of us.”

“Look. I don’t even know what that means.” He shook his head and took another swallow. “A mathematician is a mathematician not because of anything he’s done, Hans. In fact, most mathematicians understand that in the end they’ve done nothing at all.”

“But you did a lot.”

“Did I? You could say that the only thing we ever really figure out is that the thing we want to know next is just one rung up on the ladder of ignorance.” His gaze drifted to the window. “A mathematician is constantly aware of having no understanding at all . He does what he does mostly because such ignorance rankles him. That’s the thing he seeks to remedy. Otherwise, there are a thousand more suitable pursuits.” He turned the bottle in his hand. “There’s no answer that ends the search, you know. Obviously, there never will be. The artist seeks to capture the world because the nature of every single object is a mystery to him. The philosopher addresses human nature because he’s a stranger to every part of it. It’s the same for mathematicians. It’s all ignorance, Hans. Ignorance and wounded shrieking.” He took another drink. “But it’s all irresistible, too, isn’t it? That’s how we’re made. We want what won’t have us.”