Miss Buddha (33 page)

The Borneo laser reported back:
positive.

Eighteen more twins were fired exactly sixty
seconds apart, and in each instant the changed polarity of the
Colombia twin was faithfully (and instantly) reflected in its
Borneo sibling.

Julian had proven instant, non-local
communication between the twins. And in macro-time.

It was not until the following morning, when
the lack of headlines about his successful experiment took him a
little aback—a cluster of suicide bombings in Yemen and Afghanistan
was the main topic of the day, that and the omnipresent Y2K
speculations: would the world actually come to a standstill at
midnight December 31?—that he returned to the printouts that
covered his desk—now interspersed with congratulatory telexes and
emails—and asked himself the same question Kristina had asked him,
but with added depth: he had now proven what, exactly?

He knew there was more, much more; something
much larger than the fact that nonlocal communication does in fact
exist—now even to the theoreticians’ macro-satisfaction.

He felt as if he had pried open an ancient
door or window, and—were he to be absolutely honest: he found
himself afraid to look inside.

:

The next time they met—a few months after
the successful twin-particle project, Kristina was by her husband
Daniel’s side along with Frank and Katiana, her parents. The
occasion was a one-million-dollar grant made by Cortez Construction
in favor of Cal Tech’s Quantum Physics Department—Julian’s domain.
Kristina’s doing.

Finally seeing her again, Julian had trouble
breathing, but Kristina took it in stride. Although Julian tried to
steer clear of her, she cornered him briefly after dinner, while
the Department Head entertained her parents and Daniel tried to
avoid legal questions from a couple that recognized him from the
papers.

“It’s really for you,” said Kristina,
referring to the grant.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Julian.

“You’re a brilliant man, Julian Lawson.”

“The world doesn’t seem to care.”

“The world is too busy looking in wrong
directions,” she replied. Then added, “Too busy to observe what you
have done.”

He smiled. “I have to admit,” he said. “It
was a bulls-eye.”

“I know,” she said. Then repeated, “You are
a brilliant man. And I’ve managed to convince my parents of that as
well.”

“I don’t know what to say,” said Julian
again.

“No need to say anything.”

The silence that followed touched them both
with the same warm hand.

“Did you ever,” began Julian.

“I’ve been meaning,” began Kristina at the
same time.

The silence returned. Then Julian said, “You
go first.”

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” said
Kristina, “that it can never happen again.”

“Of course not,” said Julian.

“You understand why?”

“Yes, I understand why.”

“You do,” said Kristina.

“Yes.”

The silence returned.

“I would very much like for us to be
friends,” she said after a while.

Julian did not answer right away. Instead he
looked around the room. At Kristina’s parents now sharing some
story with his Department Head, at her husband still fending off
legal questions, at the waitresses sifting through the crowd with
drinks of various kinds. Then he looked back at Kristina and
said:

“I would like that.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

And so they did indeed become friends.

Kristina’s hunger was for knowledge. She
sought to catch glimpses of that underlying and mystical reality
that the world at large seemed so firmly determined to remain
blissfully ignorant of, and she would sometimes show up unannounced
at Cal Tech to take part in, or at least observe, what Julian was
doing.

Julian—the treasure of that further and
further away night safely ensconced in his heart—found her visits
less and less troubling, and in the end learned to accept her
presence with equanimity.

::
73 :: (Pasadena)

She arrived unannounced as usual.

Julian did, however, look up in surprise:
Kristina Medina usually arrived unannounced on Wednesdays, and
this—as far has he knew—was not Wednesday.

And here she was, as colorful and beautiful
as ever. And excited about something, something near the surface,
he could see it in her eyes.

He leaned back in what he thought of as his
Department Head chair, which always creaked no matter how well he
oiled the springs.

“Kristina.”

She didn’t answer. Instead she looked around
for somewhere to sit, a futile exercise. “Just put it on the
floor,” he said, pointing to a pile of papers on one of the chairs.
She did. Sat down.

“Julian,” she said, aglitter.

“Yes, Kristina.”

Who, before getting to the point, remembered
something, “Oh, by the way, happy anniversary.”

“What?”

“Twenty-one years.”

“What’s the date?”

“April eleven.”

“Well, I’ll be. You’re right.”

Kristina smiled. Then got to the point,
“Remember Ruth?”

“No.”

“Ruth Marten.”

“Should I?”

“Yes.”

A past Kristina enthusiasm finally arose to
be recognized.

“The precocious one?”

“She’s more than that, Julian. Believe or
not, but this girl is studying quantum physics.”

“She’s what?”

“I caught her reading Goswami’s Self-Aware
Universe the other day.”

“How old is she?”

“Ten and change.”

“Well, I’ll be.”

“Exactly.”

This had barely had a chance to sink in,
when Kristina added, “I want you to meet her.”

“Sure.”

“There is something about this girl,” said
Kristina. “Something,” but then couldn’t find the next word.
Instead she said, after a heartbeat or two:

“Twenty-one years, and still the world at
large doesn’t care.”

“That’s pretty much the size of it.”

::
74 :: (Pasadena)

Kristina showed up in his office the
following afternoon, Ruth in tow.

Julian made room for them, then offered some
coffee, which they both declined.

“Tea, perhaps?”

“Any green tea?” wondered Kristina.

“Sorry, no,” said Julian, remembering it was
her drink of choice. “I need to buy some,” he added, all the while
looking at Ruth, struck by the incongruous, though he wasn’t sure
precisely what the incongruous was. Then he saw: eyes, as blue as
eyes could be, he’d venture, and hair, as black as hair could be.
On the same head. That’s what.

“I’m fine,” said Ruth.

Julian nodded. All right then. Sat down. He
took another long look at the black and blue. The very black and
the so very blue. “So this is Ruth,” he said, as much to Ruth as to
Kristina. Then, straight to Ruth, “The precocious one.”

Kristina frowned at that, and Julian
realized he was way off base here. Not quite sure what to say he
rose again, and extended a hand across the table to Ruth. “I’m
Julian,” he said.

Ruth rose, took the hand, shook it for some
time, and said, “The precocious one knows.” Then finally let go of
Julian’s hand and sat back down.

Julian remained standing. Then finally
managed, “Well, here we are.”

“You two need to get acquainted,” said
Kristina.

“I would like that,” said Ruth.

“You’re reading
The Self-Aware Universe
,”
said Julian.

“I’ve just finished it,” she answered.

“What did you think of it?” he asked, then
sat down again behind his desk.

“I thought it sincere,” she said.

“Do you think it the truth?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Ruth. Then added a question of
her own, “Have you read it?”

“Me? Yes. A long time ago, though.”

“Do you believe it is true?” she wanted to
know.

“Parts.”

“Which parts?”

“The quantum action at a distance,” Julian
said. “We’ve proven that.”

“Yes you have,” said Ruth. “Twenty-one years
ago, yesterday.”

“You know about that?”

“Of course,” she said. Then added, “Kristina
told me.”

Julian looked over at Kristina, at his
all-alert now long-time friend. She nodded, yes, yes, she had told
her.

Ruth’s next question stunned him into
silence, for he had asked himself the same question, many times.
“It was a brilliant experiment. Well-conceived and well executed.
Why is it then that the world has forgotten all about it?” Then, as
afterthought, “If indeed it ever cared.”

There was something terribly unreal about
the words this girl was using. They belonged to no girl, no
teenager even. Old words. Old meanings. As if the girl he saw
didn’t exist or was growing more and more transparent, revealing
something, someone else. He looked away. Listened to the words
again, memory talking.

The truth was that he had no more answer for
Ruth than for himself, and so said nothing.

“Why is it that the world doesn’t care?”
said Ruth into the silence.

That, too, was a question that he had
pondered off and on. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head
slowly. “I really don’t know.”

“I think it is afraid,” said Ruth.

“You think what?”

“I think the world is afraid,” she said. “I
think it does not dare to know.”

Then Julian found himself asking the same
question Kristina had recently found herself asking: “Who are
you?”

“Ruth Marten,” said Ruth.

“I know,” he answered. “But really, beneath
her, who are you?” Not at all sure where “beneath her” had come
from.

Ruth held his gaze but did not answer.
Julian nodded again, as if in reply. Then heard himself ask another
question he wasn’t sure he heard quite right: “How can I be of
help?” is what he asked.

Ruth turned and looked at Kristina, who
seemed as surprised as Julian at the odd question. She turned to
face Julian again.

“Teach me,” she said.

“Teach you what?”

“Quantum Physics. Particle Physics. Teach me
what you know.”

As a request, it was not only surreal but
impossible. That’s what reason suggested. But Julian was not
listening to reason just then. Instead he said, “I can do
that.”

“Great,” said Ruth.

“She can come here after school, any time
she wants,” he said to Kristina, but really meant to inform
Ruth.

“Great,” said Ruth.

::
75 :: (Pasadena)

The walk from Pasadena Polytechnic
School—situated not even half a block from the Cal Tech campus—to
Julian’s Quantum Department (as it was more or less incorrectly
called) was about five adult minutes, a little longer with legs
Ruth’s size.

And so she showed up a little after three
o’clock the next day. William, Julian’s assistant cum secretary had
been told (Kristina thought of this, and made sure Julian did it)
to expect a young girl now and then, and apparently he had taken
this odd piece of news in stride for he looked up at her when she
stepped into the department reception. “Ruth?” he wanted to
know.

“Yes.”

“Just a second.”

He called Julian on the intercom, and a
moment later Julian appeared at his office door. “You don’t mess
around,” he said across the room. Two or three people looked up at
this, from Julian to Ruth to each other, then returned to their
respective tasks at hand.

“You said any time,” Ruth explained.

“Yes, I did. Come in.” He held the door open
for her, and she scurried into the clutter, moved some papers and
sat down. Julian followed suit.

“I’ve thought about the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment,” she said.

This, again, should not, could not, have
come out of her mouth, but it did, clear as day, and with more to
follow, that was obvious. Julian thought briefly about the
suspension of disbelief that writers talk about, something readers
must engage in more at some times than at others—something he must
do right now, he decided. Thoroughly. And did.

“Einstein never did accept it,” she
said.

“No, he did not,” Julian confirmed.

The EPR experiment—which is how he (and most
of his colleagues) thought of it—involved two spinning electrons,
paired and spinning in opposite directions on their respective axes
so that their total spin always equaled what the physicists
referred to as zero—the opposite directions negating each
other—and, this being part of the order of the particle universe,
they always do. Should one electron shift direction of its spin,
the other, paired electron, to maintain this holy zero, will also,
and instantly, shift spin direction for the sum of the spins
cannot, not even for a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a
second, ever be other than zero, no matter how far apart spatially
the two electrons.

Now, as in all of quantum physics, much of
what is observed depends upon the observer, and the same holds true
for the electrons: the exact axis of rotation, for example, is
never determined until the observer chooses to look for a definite
axis, at which point the electron will accommodate the observer and
present its axis as both locatable and measurable.

The crucial point of the EPR experiment is
that once the observer chooses to observe the axis of one of a pair
of electrons and has determined a definite spin around that axis;
at that very instant its twin, which—theoretically—may be
thousands, even millions of miles, if not light years away, also
acquires a definite spin along the same determined axis. How does
the twin know which axis (which angle) was chosen, and which
direction the spin? There is no time to receive that information by
any conventional, space-traveling signal. The speed of light—the
fastest thing there is, according to Einstein—simply is not fast
enough.