The bell rang again.
“Ursula—”
“The bell, Orson.”
He passed a hand over his face. “Probably somebody’s at the door.”
“That seems likely.”
He crossed the parlor weavingly, his cerebellum buzzing, and yanked the front door open without looking who it was. A man and a woman and a teenager stood on the stoop: all three were wearing Western-style pearl-button shirts and immaculate blue jeans and sneakers. They’d have made a nice family, of a certain sort, if the teenager hadn’t been chewing on an unlit meerschaum pipe. The same pipe that I smoke, Orson thought, feeling his scalp start to prickle.
“Can I help you?”
“You already have,” said the woman. “So much more than you know.”
“Mr. Orson Card Tolliver?” said the teenager gravely.
“Of course it’s him,” the man mumbled.
“Mr. Orson Card Tolliver?”
Orson nodded. “What is this?”
“This,” the teenager said, “is a momentous occasion. Could we, uh, impinge on you briefly?”
If Orson hadn’t been reeling from what his wife had just told him, he might have been slightly quicker on his feet. His callers were past him by the time he’d recovered, inside the house already, waiting respectfully at the entrance to the parlor. He could think of no response, at that point, but to ask them if they’d like a cup of coffee. The adults hesitated, looking curiously startled; the teenager said he’d like one very much. He seemed in a position of authority over the others, who spoke — when they dared speak at all — in timid, obseqious chirps.
Ursula, unflappable as always, brought out coffee and strudel, which everyone agreed was very tasty. The woman said something too quietly to hear — to Ursula, apparently — and Ursula asked her to repeat it.
“This coffee,” said the woman.
“Do you like it? It’s Venezuelan.”
“I’ve had this coffee before.” Her eyes fluttered closed. “This coffee exactly.”
“Yes, you have,” said the teenager. “And you’ll have it again.” He gave Orson a wink. “Am I right, Mr. Tolliver?”
“She’ll have it again right now,” Ursula said, refilling her cup.
Orson shot his wife a look of mute appeal, which she ignored.
* * *
We now reach the point in this history, Mrs. Haven, when I begin to feel us rushing toward each other. We’re still far apart, you and I — very nearly a decade, and five hundred miles — but our trajectories are starting to converge. The inevitability of it makes my mouth go dry.
* * *
The teenager was called Haven, the man’s name was Johnson, and the woman was referred to as “Miss M.” No first names were mentioned. They obviously belonged to a cult of some kind, though they passed out no literature; there was an odd air of leisure about them, or at least about Haven, as though they’d come to town to see the sights. My father decided they were trying to convert him, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who rang the doorbell once a year, and he felt more at ease right away. It always relaxed him to talk to the Jehovah’s Witnesses. What they wanted was so easy to refuse.
“You’ve been expecting us for some time, I imagine,” Haven said.
“I’ll admit something to you,” said Orson. “I haven’t.”
“Ah!” said Haven, smiling good-naturedly, as if to show that he could take a joke. “So you deny that you have access to the future?”
“More strudel, Mr. Haven?” said Ursula, taking his plate.
“Thank you kindly, Mrs. Tolliver.” Haven dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Perhaps the time has come to state our business.”
Orson raised his eyebrows. Ursula focused her attention on the strudel. Haven radiated courtesy and calm.
“The Codex, Miss M., if you please.”
“The Codex,” the young woman echoed. A book was produced from a briefcase and set on the table.
“Ach, du Scheisse,” said Ursula under her breath.
“Since well before the three of us met,” Haven said, “my two, uh, colleagues and I have been fellow travelers. Like a great many other Americans, Mr. Tolliver, we’ve read your book and been affected by it.” He nodded to himself. “I say ‘affected,’ but a better descriptor might be ‘altered,’ or even ‘transformed.’”
“Reconfigured,” Johnson suggested. The woman mouthed a word that looked like reborn to Orson. His scalp started prickling again.
“We were affected by your book, Mr. Tolliver, as I’ve said. We intuited that it contained, uh, mysteries. We intuited this, and felt altered even by this as-yet-inchoate knowledge. But it wasn’t until the publication of the paperback edition, with its supplementary directives, that the way became clear.”
“Directives?” said Orson, shifting uneasily on the couch.
Haven opened the Codex to a crisply dog-eared page. “‘Science can offer you what no religion can,’” he read aloud. “‘Science does more than simply recount bygone miracles for credulous ears; science shows us its miracles, then explains them for us, and even, occasionally, brings new miracles about. Trust in science, dear reader — in empirical science — and you will live the existence that countless religions have promised: you will never walk alone. You will be part of a continuum of intelligence and rational thought that began with the first question man ever asked.’” He paused a moment. “Did you write those words, sir?”
“I may have,” Orson stammered, trying to dodge his wife’s triumphant stare. “But I think you kids — well, I think you might be placing undue emphasis—”
Haven waited, politely, for Orson to finish. When it became clear nothing more was forthcoming, he turned the page and kept reading.
“‘Science in the twentieth century — physics especially — has moved from the study of what we can see and judge with our five senses to things too vast and/or infinitesimal to perceive. This, in turn, has ushered in the most fascinating phase of scientific exploration in human history, one that challenges our commitment to science as never before. Common sense — on which we have always relied as our first defense against superstition — is no longer adequate. In fact, to see the world as the great minds of physics now see it, we, the scientific faithful, must be prepared to put our common sense aside.’”
“Now, right there,” Orson protested. “Right there, you see? You’ve got to be careful, you know, not to read too much into that. I’m not saying we should do away with common sense altogether, obviously.”
Haven squinted at him. “Obviously.”
“All right, then,” Orson muttered. “I just wanted to get that on the record.”
Johnson — who was taking down the conversation in what looked to be some form of shorthand — gave a squeak of assent. Haven picked up where he’d left off.
“‘Science hasn’t yet vanquished religion — not fully — but it will surely do so, given time. One day, perhaps very soon, a system will be developed: a system of applied philosophy (philosophy in the classic sense, meaning a passion for knowledge) that will distill the accomplishments of all human inquiry into the elixir that religion has repeatedly promised, but never achieved. If you must live by belief, in other words, believe in Science.’”
“I get it,” Orson said roughly (though he was enjoying the performance more than he was willing to let on). “You like the book. You agree with the afterword. No law against that, in this country at least. You’re all enlightened souls.” He glanced involuntarily at Ursula. “What I want to know is, what did you come to see me for? What’s your agenda, Mr. Haven? What have you got up your sleeve?”