When she finally managed to corner him on the phone, Dr. Fitzgerald claimed he had all the data he needed for his article. The news felt like the thinnest of daggers sliding into the soft space between her ribs.
“Can you tell me what’s wrong, then?” she said into the phone.
“Wrong?”
“With him,” she said. “With us.”
“Nothing’s wrong. He’s a beautiful child.”
“You know what I mean.”
There was a pause. “We’re looking into it. I assure you, we’re doing everything we can.”
She breathed. Wanting to say things that could not be said.
“When can we come back?”
“There’s not really a need—”
“But when?”
He agreed to see her the following Monday. In a panic, she stayed up nearly the entire weekend, desperately trying to finish Anna Karenina’s denouement. Once upon a time, this had been her favorite part of the book, for it was that strangely euphoric space in a novel after the main character is gone, where the author can get away with almost anything. When she had read it all those years ago, she had imagined a world after her own funeral, a world where she existed only in memory. But now, charging through these final pages, Levin’s protracted exchange with the peasant and his resulting epiphany about his own pious fallibility — a realization that had once struck her as desperately profound — came off as dull and belabored. Maybe it was just because she was viewing everything through the lens of transcription, but when, at 3 A.M., she finished typing out Levin’s final declaration to Kitty regarding the power of goodliness, she wanted to shoot the man and Tolstoy for creating such a blatant mouthpiece. And she hated the doctor for goading her into what she now saw as a fruitless endeavor. It was perhaps the loneliest moment of her life.
The next morning, they took the train up to Boston. When they arrived at Dr. Fitzgerald’s office, Radar ran over and punched the doctor in the groin, but playfully, as a kind of familiar salutation.
“Ray Ray!” said Charlene. “Be careful!”
“Doctah Popeye!” said Radar. “Doctah” and “Popeye” were the fourth and ninth words, respectively, in his approximately fifteen-word vocabulary.
“He’s been wanting a Popeye Band-Aid. The one you give him after the blood tests.”
“This can be arranged,” he said. The doctor swung Radar up onto his desk and looked him in the eye. “You’ve done everything we asked and more. You’ve never complained once. I think you’re going to grow up to do something amazing someday. Mark my words.”
Hands fluttering. One became two became one. Radar laughed and did the same back to him, a mirror image: two became one became. . The gesture fell apart.
“You’ll have to practice that one,” said the doctor.
A nurse took Radar from the room for a final physical and the prize of a Band-Aid.
Alone again, they sat in silence.
“Is there anything else?” the doctor said.
Charlene took a breath. From her bag she produced the stack of pages. Her stance toward them had warmed somewhat since her low point. She tidied the pile and then slid them across his desk.
“What’s this?”
“You inspired me,” she said.
He slowly glanced through the pages. Licking his fingers. She tried to read his face.
“I see a mistake,” he noted.
“Yes,” she said, hurt. “Probably. I just finished last night.”
He put the pages down and cleared his throat.
“Charlene,” he said and looked up at her. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?”
She was startled by his question. “Like what?” she said.
“Really any information can be relevant,” he said. “If there’s anything you’re not telling me, it could delay us from our conclusion.”
She considered this. She briefly toyed with telling him about her olfactory condition. She had kept this from him. She had kept many things from him.
“I would tell you anything,” she said. “I mean, I’ve told you everything.”
“Have you?” He was coming around the desk.
“Yes,” she said, shrinking back into her chair. “I think so.”
He was standing in front of her. She closed her eyes. She could smell his aftershave. The hooked barb of musk. She could feel what was about to happen, and she was not sure how she felt about it. But when she opened her eyes again, he had moved to the window. The faintest shiver of rejection.
She went to him. Placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. She could see the false familiar of his reflection.
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” she whispered.
“Are you acquainted with the principles of uncertainty?” he said suddenly.
“Yes,” she said, taken aback. She took her hand off his shoulder. “I mean — no, not really.”
“Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle,” he said. “People are often confused by it. Heisenberg stated that both the position and velocity of a particle cannot simultaneously be known. You measure one, the other will always remain uncertain. The observation affects that which is observed.”
“Okay,” she said. “What does this have to do with Radar?”
He walked past her to his desk. “This is where people confuse the issue. It’s not the act of observation which makes things inherently uncertain — it’s the system itself which is uncertain. We blame it on us, the observers, but this is merely a convenient excuse, for the uncertainty is actually built into the world. A particle can never have two definite attributes — direction and position. If you define one, the other fades into indeterminism. And so: there is no way to know everything. You must choose your knowledge.”
She could feel the tears. She willed them back, but they came anyway.
“But I’m not asking to know everything! I’m just asking for this one thing! I don’t care about anything else!” she cried. She took a step forward. “Wait, why are you saying all of this?”
“Heisenberg—”
“You don’t want to help us, do you?”
“Of course I want to help you. The question is, do you want to help you?”
“You never wanted to help us!”
“Charlene.”
“You don’t care about us!”
“Charlene, listen,” he said. “The Japanese have a saying: Shiranu ga hotoke.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“You must be prepared not to know what you want to know,” he said. “You must be prepared for the question to be the answer.”
The nurse appeared at the doorway with Radar, who was proudly holding up his elbow, recently adorned with a Band-Aid.
“We didn’t have Popeye, but we had a bumblebee,” said the nurse.
“Popeye is bye-bye,” said Radar.
The nurse sensed her intrusion. “Is everything all right?” she asked.
“It’s fine. Everything’s fine,” said the doctor. “We were just finishing up.”
Charlene wiped at her eyes and sniffed. Perhaps it was from crying, but she could no longer smell him.
“Come on, Radar,” she said. “We’re leaving.”