Lessons in Chemistry(109)
“You mean by men.”
“I mean by artificial cultural and religious policies that put men in the highly unnatural role of single-sex leadership. Even a basic understanding of chemistry reveals the danger of such a lopsided approach.”
“Well,” he said, realizing he’d never seen it that way before, “I agree that society leaves much to be desired, but when it comes to religion, I tend to think it humbles us—teaches us our place in the world.”
“Really?” she said, surprised. “I think it lets us off the hook. I think it teaches us that nothing is really our fault; that something or someone else is pulling the strings; that ultimately, we’re not to blame for the way things are; that to improve things, we should pray. But the truth is, we are very much responsible for the badness in the world. And we have the power to fix it.”
“But surely you’re not suggesting that humans can fix the universe.”
“I’m speaking of fixing us, Mr. Roth—our mistakes. Nature works on a higher intellectual plane. We can learn more, we can go further, but to accomplish this, we must throw open the doors. Too many brilliant minds are kept from scientific research thanks to ignorant biases like gender and race. It infuriates me and it should infuriate you. Science has big problems to solve: famine, disease, extinction. And those who purposefully close the door to others using self-serving, outdated cultural notions are not only dishonest, they’re knowingly lazy. Hastings Research Institute is full of them.”
Roth stopped writing. This rang a bell. He worked for a well-regarded magazine, yet his new editor had come from The Hollywood Reporter— a rag—and he, Roth, despite his Pulitzer, now reported to someone who referred to news as “buzz,” who insisted “dirty laundry” was a key part of every story. Journalism is a for-profit enterprise! his boss was always reminding him. People want the sleaze!
“I’m an atheist, Mr. Roth,” she said, sighing heavily. “Actually, a humanist. But I have to admit, some days the human race makes me sick.”
She got up, collecting their cups, and set them down near the eye wash station sign. He had the strong feeling that their interview was over, but then she turned back to him.
“As for my undergraduate degree,” she said, “I don’t have one, nor have I ever claimed I did. My entry into Meyers’s graduate program was based solely on self-study. Speaking of Meyers,” she said, her voice hard as she removed the pencil from her hair. “There’s something you should know.” Then she told him the whole story, explaining that she’d had to leave UCLA because when men rape women, they prefer women not to tell.
Roth swallowed hard.
“As for my background, it was my brother who raised me,” she continued. “He taught me how to read, he introduced me to the wonders of the library, he tried to shield me from my parents’ devotion to money. The day we found John hanging from the shed rafters, my father didn’t even wait for the police to arrive. Didn’t want to be late for a performance.” Her father, she explained, was a doomsday showman now serving twenty-five years to life for killing three people as he performed a miracle, the true miracle being that he hadn’t killed more. As for her mother, she hadn’t seen her in more than twelve years. Gone for good in Brazil with an all-new family. Avoiding taxes turns out to be a lifetime commitment.
“But I think Calvin’s childhood really takes the cake.” She went on to explain the death of his parents, then his aunt—the result of which had landed him in a Catholic boys home, where he’d experienced abuse at the hands of priests until he’d grown big enough to stop it. She’d found his old diary buried in the boxes she and Frask had stolen. Although his childish scrawl was often impossible to read, his sorrow sang.
What she didn’t tell Roth was that it was within the pages of Calvin’s diary that she’d discovered the source of his permanent grudge. I’m here even though I should not be, he’d written, as if implying that there’d been an alternative. And I will never ever forgive that man, him. Never. Not as long as I live. After reading his correspondence with Wakely, she now understood that this was the father he’d hoped was dead. The one he promised to hate until the day he died. It was a promise he’d kept.
Roth stared down at the table. He’d had a normal upbringing—two parents, no suicides, no murders, not even a single wayward touch by the priest in his parish. And yet he still found plenty to complain about. What was wrong with him? Just as people have a bad habit of dismissing others’ problems and tragedies, so too did they have a bad habit of not appreciating what they have. Or had. He missed his wife.
“As for Calvin’s death,” she said, “I’m one hundred percent responsible.” He paled as she went on to describe the accident and the leash and the sirens, and how because of it, she would never hold anyone back in any way, ever again. As she saw it, his death spawned a series of other failures: blindsided by Donatti’s theft, she’d given up her research; determined to help her daughter fit in, she’d enrolled her in a school where she did not; worse, she’d become the very person she least wanted to be, a performer like her father. Oh, and also, she’d given Phil Lebensmal a heart attack. “Although I don’t actually consider that last one a failure,” she said.
* * *