Lost and Wanted(76)

    “I can make the rotor,” Neel said. “I can even get the funding. For the rest, I’d need you.” We had reached the plaza in front of the Center for Theoretical Physics, where my office was.

“I’m really busy these days,” I told him.

“Too busy for a completely quixotic project that might change the world?”

“Obviously not.”

Neel smiled. His hair was hidden underneath a dark red ski cap, and he’d shoved his hands into the pockets of his peacoat—possibly the same peacoat he’d owned in the days when we were meeting daily at the Hong Kong on Mass Ave., to work out the details of the Clapp-Jonnal. Neel liked even the worst Chinese food, and would always try the most unpromising dishes—Three Delights in a Nest, the Pu Pu Platter—just to see if he might discover a hidden treasure.

“It’s not that quixotic,” I said.

“Tilting at rotors,” he said.

“That might be the nerdiest joke you’ve ever made. Is there even a chance we’d actually get permission to set up a rotor anywhere near one of the interferometers?”

Neel got serious. “It’s a fairly slim chance. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. We might have to set them up in the middle of the night, like those guys with the neutrino detector in Antarctica.”

“I heard about that.”

“They got in trouble, but they ended up getting funded in the end. NSF decided that if they wanted it that badly, they must be on to something.”

“You’re suggesting a midnight heist to revise non-Newtonian gravity?”

Neel smiled. “Let me just get through February.”

“February’s a big month for you.” I hoped it sounded as if LIGO’s triumphant announcement and Neel’s wedding were just two events I was observing dispassionately from the outside. He bent down to tie his lace—he was wearing black construction boots, worn out at the toes—and I stopped to wait for him.

“Why did we break up?” he asked, standing up. “Do you remember?”

It was very cold, and it was possible that my shortness of breath had more to do with the weather than with the subject we were discussing.

    “I think it had something to do with our disagreement over Einstein’s fondness for Schopenhauer. You can do what you want—”

“?‘But not will what you want,’?” Neel finished. “Ugh. But was it really that, or was it the mind and the brain?”

“You certainly felt very strongly about that,” I said.

“I still feel strongly that there’s something we’re talking about when we say ‘human consciousness’ that extends beyond the brain and the nervous system.”

“And I still feel strongly that there isn’t—but it’s a ridiculous argument. It’s not like we’re going to change each other’s minds.”

Neel laughed and grabbed my elbow. “Change what?”

“The point is—we were absurdly self-important.”

“We were twenty-two,” Neel said. “And you were going off to Princeton.”

“You were going to Chicago.”

Neel released me, and we walked for several moments in silence down Albany Street, past the Pfizer building that was still under construction. In front of us the Kendall cogeneration plant released a sharply delineated white plume against the dingy sky.

“I’m going to Chicago next week, actually,” Neel said. “Just for two days with my parents. They want to do a party for friends who can’t make it to Mumbai for the wedding—I really can’t spare the time this close to the press conference, but it means so much to my parents.”

“Will the wedding be traditional?”

“It’s going to be in Roxy’s aunt’s backyard—so no, not entirely. We are getting a priest, though.”

“A Parsi or a Hindu priest?”

“One of each—for good measure. For the Parsi we had to find a sort of renegade. Women aren’t supposed to marry outside the faith, because their children aren’t considered Parsi. I think the rules are less stringent for men.”

“Surprise.”

“Yeah, but cut them a little slack. It’s one of the oldest religions in the world—the Parsis have been at monotheism longer than anyone except the Jews. And the ceremonies are very pretty. The priests wear translucent white robes and white hats and they burn incense. And there are a lot of eggs involved—I’m not sure what’s up with that. Roxy says that some of the priests are also magicians. For an extra tip, they’ll do some tricks after the ceremony.”

    “Parsis believe in magic?”

“I think they just enjoy it. They’re known for being fun-loving—the heaviest drinkers in India.”

“It sounds like a great wedding.”

“I wish you were coming.”

“Me, too—if it wasn’t so far. And if I hadn’t just gotten back from Europe.”

He looked at me in a knowing way, and I was sure he’d figured out the secondary motivation for my trip.

“What?” I asked.

“You remember how I asked you to be my second wife?”

It was a joke he used to make a lot, but it seemed to have acquired an entirely different meaning in the twenty-plus years since we’d been a couple.