Charmed Particles (21 page)

Lily, being now a teenager, and attempting to make sense of the world by dividing it into neat and orderly categories—right and wrong, valid and invalid, useful and not useful—had been horrified when she'd learned about the public position Rose had taken on the issue of the collider.

“What were you thinking?” Lily asked the next morning, the paper spread open on the table, its headline announcing: L
EADING
C
HALLENGER IN
M
AYORAL
R
ACE
C
OMES
O
UT
A
GAINST
S
UPER
C
OLLIDER
.

Rose, joining Lily at the breakfast table, explained that it was a political decision—that although she was sympathetic to the logic that the collider would allow scientists to answer many of the fundamental scientific questions about the origin of the universe, she had made a decision as a political figure to adopt a public opinion more in line with those of her constituents than reflective of her own understanding of the risks and rewards of the issue, something that was often required of politicians, she explained.

“But Mom, you know better than this,” Lily protested.

“What I know,” Rose said calmly, as though trying the line out on Lily, “is that our citizens need a leader who shares their concerns.”

“But you don't really believe this is dangerous, do you?”

“I don't know,” Rose said candidly. “But the voters need someone who understands their fear and will offer them some degree of protection.”

“So you're pretending that you agree with something that's factually incorrect?”

“Lily.” Here Rose took a deep, calming breath. “As you age, it is my firm belief that you will come to see that the world is not as black and white as you imagine it to be.”

“But Dr. Mital says—”

“Dr. Mital works at the Lab. It is in his interest for the collider to be built.”

“But he also lives here. You saw the map. It could go right under their house, as well as ours. Do you think he would support this if there were any danger?”

“Lily,” Rose continued patiently, “I think you would be surprised to learn some of the seemingly incomprehensible things people may do when their careers are at stake.”

Only after she'd said it, only after it escaped her mouth and she heard it out loud did Rose realize that Lily had won the argument. Sometimes she wondered if it wouldn't have been easier to raise a child who was not quite so bright, though when she shared this with Randolph in her next letter, he'd teased her:
But Rose, you'd be so disappointed if you didn't think she was smarter than the both of us
.

Now, over breakfast, Lily and her mother no longer worked together on the crossword. Instead, Lily read the editorial page, her fingers worrying the amulet her father had sent her the month before from the markets of Marrakesh, while her mother fielded phone calls and worked on response letters to her constituents.

In her letters to Randolph, Rose had never permitted herself to bore him with the mundane details of their lives. Rather, she aimed in her letters to address more important, universal themes. However, once Lily had begun to so vocally criticize her mother's position on the collider issue, Rose found herself unable to resist noting in her next letter that Randolph really should enjoy not having to put up with being the target of contempt from such an opinionated child.
You are lucky to be the one she idolizes and not the one she takes for granted
, she wrote, scribbling her signature at the bottom of the page and shoving the letter into an envelope.

Lily, meanwhile, continued her own campaign, sending her father clippings of articles and annotating the more outrageous editorials that appeared in the paper.

Randolph, reading their letters by candlelight in the sparse cell of the mountaintop monastery where he had stopped to collect his mail and replenish his supplies, had begun to think of the issue of the collider not as a conflict brewing among the citizens of Nicolet, but more specifically, as a conflict brewing in his home between the two women he loved most in the world, and, more importantly, as one that he was not at all sure how to solve.

Many of the Lab's young physicists found it difficult to take seriously the concerns voiced by the protesters who gathered at the Lab entrance. Such fear seemed, to the young scientists, to be entirely baseless and thus impossible to comprehend. Many of them believed that the only real danger of a project like this wasn't radiation, but rather simple, old-fashioned construction accidents.

Lunch in the Lab cafeteria often included a table at which one of the young physicists read the day's letters to the editor aloud to his tablemates, all of them exasperated. Abhijat, however, did not feel so free to laugh at these letters. He had begun to worry that, ultimately, it didn't matter whether the town's fears were rational or not. Regardless of what the Lab did, it didn't look like the protestors—or their concerns—were going away any time soon, and surely the Department of Energy would take that into account when making their decision.

“How goes your campaign amongst the savages?” one of their younger experimentalist colleagues, Dr. Cohen, asked as he joined Abhijat and Dr. Cardiff at their table in the cafeteria.

“It does us no credit,” Dr. Cardiff reminded him gently, “to engage in ad hominem attacks on those who see this issue in a different light than we do.”

“I don't think it's an ad hominem attack,” Dr. Cohen argued, “to point out the obvious—that their fear is based on nothing more than a lack of education.” Several of his contemporaries nodded in agreement.

Dr. Cardiff maintained his ever-patient expression. “I think it is more accurate to say that their fear is based on a
difference
in education,” for after speaking with many of the opponents, he knew it was far too simple to cast them as uneducated bumpkins. “It's not that they are incapable of understanding the science. It's simply that this is not what they've spent their lives doing, as we have. It does us no credit to think of them as stupid.”

Another colleague chimed in, “If you ask me, the people who are really dangerous are the ones who understand a small amount of physics—enough to think they understand what's going on, but really, only enough to be paranoid.”

“Perhaps,” Dr. Cardiff allowed. “But then the responsibility to educate them on this issue rests with us.”

“Really, Gerald?” Dr. Cohen's voice was quick to take on a thick veneer of sarcasm. “I'm supposed to put my work aside so I can teach these people the basic principles of particle physics, in hopes that they'll grasp even a
portion
of the issue and allow us to build this here. No. It's too much. That is not my job.”

Abhijat couldn't help agreeing that it was a poor position in which to find themselves.

“What we must understand,” Dr. Cardiff said, directing his comments at Dr. Cohen, but hoping his words would also reach his dear friend Dr. Mital, whom he knew to be both tortured by the uncertainty over the collider and full of frustration with his fellow citizens, “is that because they don't know the science, for our neighbors this is a matter of trusting that we have no nefarious motives, that we're not being blinded to some danger by our own career aspirations. And that sort of trust is a difficult thing to ask of people when the stakes are so high.”

In the next issue of the
Herald-Gleaner
, there appeared yet another letter to the editor—this one by Dr. Abhijat Mital, theoretical physicist, National Accelerator Research Laboratory.

To all of my friends and neighbors who ask,
What good is this science? To what practical purpose?
I say this: We don't know what will be revealed to us by the experiments made possible by the Superconducting Super Collider.

We don't know, and that is exhilarating. It is the worst kind of stagnation of the imagination, of passion for life, and of curiosity to suppose that we already know everything worth knowing. What is progress, I ask, if not a belief, a faith in the idea that there is always more to know?

And, at the home of Ms Lily Winchester, a letter bearing an airmail stamp and a postmark from Siberia arrived.

My dearest Lily
,

While I have been impressed by and obliged to you for your very thorough reportage on the matter of the proposed super collider, I do hope that you will not overlook the opportunity to engage in all of the wonders attendant with discovering your own world as a young person growing into adulthood. This is a wondrous time of change in which you find yourself, and I trust that you will always keep your eyes open to the astonishing possibilities of your own life, your own world. I do hope, also, that you will try to go easy on your mother. She has her reasons for opposing this, and my hope for you is that as you grow, you will begin to understand the shades of grey that exist in a world that can often seem deceptively black and white. Now I must take my leave of you, for I am about to set off on a great trek across Siberia to join the Nenets people in their annual reindeer herd. I will be on the lookout for a special gift for you, to be delivered in person when I next return
.

Your loving father
,

Randolph

CHAPTER 14

In a Distant and Barbarous Land

April 9, 1988

Mr. Winchester
,

I write to you on behalf of the Nicolet Ladies' Auxiliary in hopes that you will consider accepting our invitation to serve as the keynote speaker for our annual garden party and luncheon. Your account of your expeditions will make a thrilling addition to our program, and we would be honored by your acceptance
.

Sincerely
,

Mrs. Albert Steege

Nicolet Ladies Auxiliary
,

Luncheon and Garden Party Committee Co-Chair

April 11, 1988

Mrs. Steege
,

Thank you for your recent correspondence. My husband is away on an expedition and out of contact until next month, when I expect to speak with him briefly by phone from the Lulimbi Research Station. At that time, I will share with him your invitation. Thank you for your interest in his work
.

Sincerely
,

Rose Winchester

May 24, 1988

Mrs. Steege
,

Many thanks for your recent invitation to serve as the keynote speaker for the Nicolet Ladies' Auxiliary Club's annual garden party and luncheon. I apologize that my travels have prevented me from responding sooner. I would be delighted to accept your kind invitation. Your suggested date is most amenable, as it will correspond with my next visit home. You may contact my wife Rose to arrange further details for the event
.

Yours in a spirit of everlasting adventure
,

Randolph Winchester

It was with relief that the editor of the
Nicolet Herald-Gleaner
included the following article in the next issue, happy to note that it had nothing at all to do with the collider.