The Elementary Particles (22 page)

“There is drama on this little island,” Bruno went on, his voice filled with emotion. “For example, one day one of the little dogs swims too far out to sea. Luckily his mistress notices that he’s in difficulty, jumps in a boat and quickly rows out, just in time to save him. The poor dog has swallowed too much water and passed out; it looks like he’s dead, but his mistress revives him by performing CPR and everything ends well. The little dog is happy again.” Suddenly he was silent. He seemed serene now, almost rapt.

Michel looked at his watch and glanced around. His mother was quiet. It was almost noon; everything seemed too calm. He got up and went back into the other room. Gray-Hippie had disappeared, leaving his carrots on the table. Michel poured himself a beer and walked over to the window. He could see for kilometers across pine-covered hills. Between the snow-capped peaks it was just possible to see the shimmering blue of a lake. The air was warm and full of fragrance; it was a beautiful spring morning.

It was difficult to tell how long he’d been standing there. His mind had left his body and was floating peacefully among the peaks when he was brought back to reality by what he at first thought was a yell. It took him several seconds to focus on what he was hearing; then he walked quickly into the other room. Still seated at the end of the bed, Bruno was singing at the top of his voice:

They’ve all come

the boy and his brother

the screams have brought them running

To see their dying mother . . .

Inconsequential; inconsequential, shallow and ridiculous: such is man. Bruno stood up and belted out the next verse:

They’ve all come

The wop and the bum

Bringing gifts

To their dear old mum

The silence which followed this vocal performance was broken only by the buzzing of a fly as it crossed the room, before it landed on Jane’s face.
Diptera
can be recognized by its single pair of membranous wings attached at the second thoracic ring, a pair of balancing antennae (to stabilize flight) on the third thoracic ring and a proboscis which pierces or sucks. When the fly began to move across Jane’s eye, Michel knew something was wrong. He leaned over Jane without touching her. “I think she’s dead,” he said after a brief examination.

The doctor had no trouble confirming this diagnosis. He was accompanied by a county clerk, and that was when the problems started. Where was the body to be transferred? A family mausoleum, perhaps? Michel didn’t have the faintest idea, and felt confused and exhausted. If they had known how to form warm, affectionate relationships in his family, they wouldn’t be in this position—making themselves ridiculous in front of some functionary who remained icily polite. Bruno was clearly uninterested in the proceedings; he sat off to one side playing Tetris on his GameBoy. “Well . . .” said the clerk, “we could offer you a plot at Saorge cemetery. It would be a little far for you to come if you don’t live in the area, but from the point of view of transport it’s obviously the most practical solution. The burial could take place as early as this afternoon, we’re not too busy at the moment. I don’t suppose there’ll be any problems with the death certificate . . .” “No problem at all,” the doctor said a bit too enthusiastically. “I’ve brought the paperwork.” With a bright smile, he brandished a sheaf of forms. “Fuck,” Bruno said to himself, “I’m dead,” as the GameBoy played a cheerful little tune. “Are you satisfied with the idea of burial, Mr. Clément?” said the clerk, his voice sounding a little strained. “Absolutely not!” Bruno jumped up. “My mother wanted to be cremated, it was very important to her!” The clerk frowned. The cemetery at Saorge was not equipped to deal with cremation; it required specialized equipment, and there simply wasn’t enough demand to justify it. Cremation would make things very difficult indeed. “It was my mother’s dying wish,” Bruno said importantly. There was silence. The county clerk thought quickly. “There is, of course, a crematorium in Nice,” he said timidly. “We could arrange transport there and back if you’d still like to have her buried here. Of course, you would be responsible for the expense . . .” No one spoke. “I’ll give them a call,” he went on. “I’ll have to find out when they might have an opening.” He checked his address book, took out a mobile phone and had begun to dial when Bruno interrupted him again. “Oh, don’t worry about it . . .” He made a large gesture. “Let’s just bury her here. Who gives a shit about her last wishes? You’re paying for it!” he said authoritatively, turning to Michel. Michel said nothing, but took out his checkbook and inquired as to the price of a plot on a thirty-year lease. “A very good choice,” said the clerk. “With a thirty-year lease, you’ve got time to wait and see.”

. . .

The cemetery was about a hundred meters above the village. Two men in overalls carried the coffin. They’d gone for the basic white-pine model stocked at the local undertaker’s; the funeral business seemed to be remarkably well organized in Saorge. It was late in the afternoon, but the sun was still warm. Bruno and Michel walked side by side two paces behind the men; Gray-Hippie walked beside them, having insisted on going with Jane to her final resting place. The path was stony and arid; all this had to make some kind of sense. A bird of prey—probably a buzzard—glided slowly, low in the sky. “The place is probably full of snakes . . .” Bruno muttered. He picked up a sharp white stone. Then, just as they turned into the cemetery, as if to confirm his statement, an adder appeared between two bushes along the cemetery wall; Bruno aimed and threw the stone with all his strength. It shattered against the wall, just missing the reptile’s head.

“Snakes have their place in nature too,” said Gray-Hippie sharply.

“Nature? I wouldn’t piss on it if it was on fire.” Bruno again was beside himself with anger. “I’d shit on its face. Fucking nature . . . nature my ass!” he muttered angrily to himself for several minutes. However, he behaved himself as the coffin was lowered, content to make clucking sounds and nod his head, as though the event had evoked thoughts which were as yet too vague to be put into words. After the ceremony, Michel tipped the two men generously—he assumed it was customary. He had fifteen minutes to catch his train, and Bruno decided to go at the same time.

They parted on the platform at Nice. Though they didn’t know it yet, they would never see each other again.

“How are things at the clinic?” Michel asked.

“Yeah, not bad, nice and cushy. They’ve got me on lithium.” Bruno smiled mischievously. “I’m not going to go back to the clinic just yet. I’ve got another night left. I’m going to go to a whorehouse, there are loads of them in Nice.” He frowned and his face darkened. “Since they put me on lithium I can’t get it up at all, but that doesn’t matter, I’d still like to go.”

Michel nodded distractedly and climbed aboard; he had reserved a sleeping car.

PART THREE

Emotional Infinity

1

When he got back to Paris he found a letter from Desplechin. According to Article 66 of the National Scientific Research Center code, Michel had to apply to be reinstated, or ask that his leave be prolonged, no later than sixty days before the end of the original term of leave. The letter was polite and witty, with Desplechin’s caustic comments about bureaucracy; Michel realized the deadline had passed three weeks earlier. He put the letter on his desk, feeling deeply uncertain. For a year he’d been completely free to determine the direction of his research, and what had he come up with? Nothing, absolutely nothing. He turned on his computer and felt queasy when he discovered he had received another eighty e-mails, though he’d been away only for two days. One of them was from the Institute of Molecular Biology at Palaiseau. The colleague who had taken his position had initiated a research program on mitochondrial DNA; unlike cellular DNA, it seemed to have no mechanisms for repairing code damaged by radical attacks—hardly a surprise. The most interesting message was from the University of Ohio: as a study of
Saccharomyces
demonstrated, the varieties that reproduced sexually evolved more slowly than those that reproduced by cloning; random mutation, in this case, seemed to be more efficient than natural selection. This engaging experimental model completely contradicted the standard hypothesis that sexual reproduction was the driving force behind evolution; but actually, it was only of anecdotal interest. As soon as the genome had been completely decoded (which would be in a matter of months), humanity would be in a position to control its own evolution, and when that happened sexuality would be seen for what it really was: a useless, dangerous and regressive function. But even if one could detect the incidence of mutations and even calculate their possible deleterious effects, nothing yet shed any light on what they determined; therefore nothing provided a definitive meaning or practical application for them. Obviously this should be the focus of research.

Cleared of all the books and files which had cluttered the shelves, Desplechin’s office seemed vast. “Yep”—he smiled discreetly—“I’m retiring at the end of the month.” Djerzinski stood openmouthed. It is possible to know someone for years, decades even, learning little by little how to avoid personal questions and anything of real importance, but the hope remains that someday, in different circumstances, one could talk about such things, ask such questions. Though it may be indefinitely postponed, the idea of a more personal, human relationship never fades, quite simply because human relationships do not fit easily into narrow, fixed compartments. Human beings therefore think of relationships as potentially “deep and meaningful”—an idea that can persist for years, until a single brutal act (usually something like death) makes it plain that it’s too late, that the “deep, meaningful” relationship they had cherished will never exist, any more than any of the others had. In his fifteen years of professional experience, Desplechin was the one person with whom Michel would’ve liked to have a relationship beyond the utilitarian, infinitely irritating chance juxtapositions of office life. Well, now it was too late. Devastated, he glanced at the boxes of books piled on the floor of the office. “I think it might be better if we went for a drink somewhere,” Desplechin suggested, aptly summing up the mood of the moment.

They walked past the Musée d’Orsay and settled themselves at a table on a nineteenth-century terrace. At the next table, half a dozen Italian tourists were babbling excitedly like innocent birds; Djerzinski ordered a beer and Desplechin a dry whiskey.

“What are you going to do, then?”

“I don’t know.” Desplechin looked as if he genuinely did not know. “Travel . . . probably a bit of sexual tourism.” When he smiled, his face still had great charm; disillusioned, certainly—there could be no doubt he was a broken man—but charming nonetheless. “I’m joking. Truth is, I’m just not interested in sex anymore. Knowledge, on the other hand . . . There’s still a desire for knowledge. It’s a curious thing, the thirst for knowledge . . . very few people have it, you know, even among scientists. Most of them are happy to make a career for themselves and move into management, but it’s incredibly important to the history of humanity. It’s easy to imagine a fable in which a small group of men—a couple hundred, at most, in the whole world—work intensively on something very difficult, very abstract, completely incomprehensible to the uninitiated. These men remain completely unknown to the rest of the world; they have no apparent power, no money, no honors; nobody can understand the pleasure they get from their work. In fact, they are the most powerful men in the world, for one simple reason: they hold the keys to rational certainty. Everything they declare to be true will be accepted, sooner or later, by the whole population. There is no power in the world—economic, political, religious or social—that can compete with rational certainty. Western society is interested beyond all measure in philosophy and politics, and the most vicious, ridiculous conflicts have been about philosophy and politics; it has also had a passionate love affair with literature and the arts, but nothing in its history has been as important as the need for rational certainty. The West has sacrificed everything to this need: religion, happiness, hope—and, finally, its own life. You have to remember that when passing judgment on Western civilization.” He fell silent, deep in thought. He let his gaze wander around the tables for a moment, then settle on his glass.

“I remember a boy I knew in the
première
when I was sixteen. He was very confused, very tortured. His family were rich, extremely traditional; and actually he completely accepted their values. One day when we were talking he said to me, ‘The value of any religion depends on the quality of the moral system founded upon it.’ I stood there, speechless with surprise and admiration. I didn’t know if he’d come to this conclusion by himself, or whether he’d read it in a book somewhere; all I know is that it impressed me deeply. I’ve been thinking about it for forty years, and now I think he was wrong. It seems impossible to me to think of religion from a purely moral standpoint; Kant was right, though, when he said that the Savior of mankind should himself be judged by the same universal ethics as the rest of us. But I’ve come to believe that religions are basically an attempt to explain the world; and no attempt to explain the world can survive if it clashes with our need for rational certainty. Mathematical proofs and experimental methods are the highest expressions of human consciousness. I realize that the facts seem to contradict me. I know that Islam—by far the most stupid, false and obfuscating of all religions—currently seems to be gaining ground, but it’s a transitory and superficial phenomenon: in the long term, Islam is even more doomed than Christianity.”

Djerzinski looked up, having listened closely; he would never have imagined that Desplechin was interested in such things. Desplechin hesitated, then went on:

“I lost touch with Philippe after the baccalauréat, but a couple of years later I found out that he’d committed suicide. Anyway, I don’t think the two things are connected: being homosexual, strictly Catholic and a monarchist can’t exactly have been easy.”

At that moment, Djerzinski realized he’d never really thought seriously about religion. This despite knowing that materialism, having destroyed the religious faiths of previous centuries, had itself been destroyed by recent advances in physics. It was curious that neither he nor any of the physicists he’d ever met had the slightest spiritual doubts.

“Personally,” said Michel, the idea coming to him only as he spoke, “I think I needed to stick to the basic, pragmatic positivism that most researchers have. Facts exist and are linked together by laws; the notion of cause simply isn’t scientific. The world is equal to the sum of the information we have about it.”

“I’m no longer a researcher,” Desplechin said with disarming simplicity. “Maybe that’s why I’m starting to think about metaphysical questions rather late in the day. But you’re right, of course. We have to go on investigating, experimenting, finding new laws—nothing else is important. Remember Pascal: ‘We must say summarily: This is made by figure and motion, for it is true. But to say what these are, and to compose the machine, is ridiculous. For it is useless, uncertain, and painful.’ Once again, he’s right and Descartes is wrong. So tell me . . . have you decided what you’re going to do? I’m sorry about”—he made an apologetic gesture—“all this trouble with deadlines.”

“Yes. I need to get a position at the Galway Center for Genetic Research in Ireland. I need to quickly set up simple experiments, in very specific conditions of temperature and pressure, with a good range of radioactive markers. What I need more than anything is a lot of processing power, but if I remember correctly they have two Crays running in tandem.”

“Are you thinking of taking your research in a new direction?” Desplechin’s voice betrayed his excitement. Realizing this, he smiled his small, discreet smile again, almost in self-mockery. “The thirst for knowledge . . .” he said quietly.

“I think that it’s a mistake to work only from natural DNA. DNA is a complex molecule that evolved more or less by chance; there are redundancies, long sequences of junk DNA, a little bit of everything. If you really want to test the general conditions for mutation, you have to start with simpler self-replicating molecules with a maximum of a hundred bonds.”

Desplechin nodded, his eyes shining; he was no longer trying to hide his excitement. The Italian tourists had left, and they were the only people left in the café.

“It will be a long haul,” Michel went on. “There’s nothing in principle to distinguish configurations prone to mutation, but there have to be some conditions for structural stability at a subatomic level. If we can work out a stable configuration with even a couple hundred atoms, it’s just a matter of the power of the processor. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.”

“Maybe not . . .” Desplechin’s voice had the slow, dreamy quality of a man who has just glimpsed phantasmagorical new ideas from a great distance.

“My work would have to be completely independent of the center’s bureaucracy. Some of this is no more than pure speculation: too long and too complicated to explain.”

“Of course. I’ll write to Walcott, the director there. He’s a good man, he’ll leave you in peace. You’ve already done some work with them, haven’t you? Something about cows?”

“Something small, yes.”

“Don’t worry. I’m retiring anyway”—this time there was a trace of bitterness in his smile—“but I still have some influence. From an administrative point of view, you’ll have a completely independent position which can be extended year by year for as long as you like. Regardless of who gets my job, I’ll make sure there’s no way the decision can be reversed.”

They parted just past the Pont Royal. Desplechin extended his hand. He had never had a son; his sexual preference precluded it, and he’d always found the idea of a marriage of convenience ridiculous. For the several seconds they shook hands, he thought that this kind of relationship was infinitely more satisfying; then, realizing he was very tired, he turned and started back along the quai past the bookstalls. For a minute or two, Djerzinski watched as the man walked away in the fading light.