Sweet Lamb of Heaven (46)
But January is quiet in Alaska. When we flew in, the airport was almost deserted. It had that peculiar desolation of an empty public space, and in the silence our roller-bags squeaked and our footsteps rang out. Lena squealed at the sight of a rearing grizzly in a glass cage, which a placard claims is the largest bear ever shot. Paws raised, it looms over the polished expanse of floor in a perfect embodiment of overkill. She stood beside me and gripped my hand as she read aloud the sign at the bottom of the case: WORLD RECORD KODIAK BROWN BEAR. The bear’s reared-up stance was upright, almost gentlemanly.
Ned wasn’t there to meet us, happily, only a driver at the curb. Everything had been choreographed by his staff; there was a schedule with places, times, and tasks listed: 4:30 p.m. Consultant Appt. 1: Wardrobe. He’s as disinclined to be in my company as I am to be in his. No good words will ever pass between us now.
We had an appointment with his lead media person right off, in his campaign office; we were instructed today, before the first press conference tomorrow. There are even clothes I have to wear, looks custom-designed for me as though I’m Sarah Palin. Clothes have been picked for Lena, too, apparently. Really? I thought. Even for the small time?
Ned has to do everything with corporate shine, he needs to be at the top of his game from the start. And he requires similar performances from his associates.
So we met with them and tried on the clothes. It was tedious standing around as they recorded our sizes and made adjustments, trying to keep Lena in one place. A hair and makeup person came and practiced painting our faces, taking pictures of us colored in different palettes. Lena was turned out like Shirley Temple at first and looked like a beauty pageant contestant, so I said no. The media consultant trotted out a second outfit, slightly less frilly, and agreed not to curl her hair into ringlets.
I know I won’t be able to stand Ned’s platforms and opinions, much less concur with them, so I’m doing my best to learn nothing more than I have to about what I’m shilling for. This is a farce I’m acting in. Except for one dinner with some women’s church group, I don’t have any conversations on my to-do list. I hold Lena’s hand whenever I feel doubt, press her to my side when I find I’m quizzing myself on how I could have been so easily brought to heel.
But I’m not willing to take risks: I stay close to her all the time. I was given a second chance, I was rescued after a shipwreck, and my goal isn’t ambitious. It’s just to keep our heads above water.
After the meeting with the wardrobe consultant we were driven to the house, once our home. I felt anxious walking in, not sad or nostalgic; the abduction had erased even the vestigial possibility of that. But I did feel off-kilter entering the place. Lena was merely intrigued and ran around trying to identify what she remembered.
Ned has a housekeeper so everything is neat, and he’s replaced the furniture I chose with items that are new and more generic. There’s beige upholstery and beige drapes, a bland beige background everywhere; there are cut flowers on mantels and tables, as though the premises are being kept at the ready for a meet-and-greet. Behind shining cabinet doors there’s a huge flat-screen TV, and photographs of snow-covered mountains have been placed on the white walls, no doubt by a decorator connected to his media team. They’re Alaskan mountains, of course—discreetly labeled at the bottom lest anyone doubt Ned’s loyalties. Chugach Range. 2008. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.
Wrangell-St. Elias, I remembered telling Ned once, was larger than Switzerland. He’d shrugged: to him national parks were a waste of rich mineral and timberland.
But now he has pictures of them.
“Where’d my room used to be?” asked Lena. “Did I have my own room?”
“You did,” I said. “But mostly you slept in the bed with me.”
We stood at the door of the very small room that had been the nursery, which now contains an exercise bike and free weights.
“It doesn’t look like my room,” objected Lena.
“Your daddy likes to stay fit,” I said.
THE NEXT CONSULTANT made her practice standing beside me in front of a video camera. She showed us the footage on her laptop, showed Lena how she was fidgeting and playing with her hair. Lena should stand still and smile and keep her hands clasped together, she said, or at least let them hang by her sides. She shouldn’t move around, said the consultant, because it would distract from Ned.
“Your daddy’s going to make a little speech, and then he’ll answer questions.”
“What if I have an itch?” asked Lena.
The consultant smiled and said the whole thing would be over before she even knew it.
The initial response to an anomaly is typically to ignore it; this is how the scientific community has responded to the seeming anomaly of consciousness.
Then, when the anomaly ceases to be ignored, the common reaction is to try to explain it within the current paradigm . . . to date, no such effort in any discipline—be it chemistry, quantum physics, chaos theory, or computing—has proved fruitful.
No matter what theory is put forward, the central question remains: How can immaterial consciousness ever arise from matter?
When it comes to consciousness itself, science falls curiously silent. There is nothing in physics, chemistry, biology, or any other science that can account for our having an interior world. —Peter Russell, huffingtonpost.com 12.2013