Q: A Novel (13 page)

“Very nice, dear,” she says.

I enter the fray for the first time. “I believe the Greeks could expect to live to be approximately thirty-five. A bit longer for Athenians, a bit shorter for Spartans. Prospects obviously varied greatly depending on wealth and class.”

John Deveril says, “I thought your expertise was in things that
might
have happened, not things that actually did.” This is the first time John has ever insulted me directly in front of Q. I am not sure why my contribution to the conversation bothers him. I expect he is just feeling generally dyspeptic. Q does not appear to notice. She is helping Professor Fernthrop with the construction of the east side metopes, depicting the mythical battle between the Olympian gods and the giants.

Herm Alouise attempts to make peace by moving ahead with the conversation. “Well, surely it’s a lot better to live to seventy-five, as we do on average, than to thirty-five.”

“I wonder about that,” Handy says.

“Great,” says John contemptuously. He is no longer making any effort to conceal his impatience with the dinner guests, and with Handy in particular. “Now I suppose you’re going to argue that living longer isn’t a good thing.”

“I do not deny it can be a good thing,” Handy says calmly. “I just question whether it is an absolute good. Consider the converse for a moment. We know that longer life is theoretically possible. Yet we do not sit around lamenting that we will not live to be one hundred or one hundred and fifty. Besides, what would be all that different about our existences if we lived longer? We would still need to go to school and choose careers and go to work. We would still wait on lines at the cheese counter and sit in traffic. And death would remain a part of our lives. Friends and family would die. We would die. Only the timing of things would change.”

May Fernthrop says, “People tend to forget the downside of living longer. Long life can be a blessing, but it can also be a curse. It depends entirely on one’s quality of life, and there are no guarantees with respect to that.” May pats her husband on the hand. His structure is really coming along; the yams are a surprisingly functional substrate.

“Very nice, dear,” May says.

“It’s true,” I say. “There’s an episode of
The
Twilight Zone
where a guy wishes for immortality, but he forgets to ask for youth, so he just keeps getting older and more infirm, but he never dies. For him, it’s a curse, not a blessing.”

John Deveril shoots me another dirty look. Needless to say, it is particularly unacceptable for me to substantively enter the debate on any side other than his, but I am emboldened by his earlier slight.

“Are there any universal goods, Mr. Handy?” Herm Alouise asks, deferentially.

“How shall we define the term ‘universal’?” Handy asks in reply. Thinking aloud, he says, “Suppose we confine ourselves to things that people have experienced life both with and without. If it is unanimously agreed that life is better with the object or condition than without, then we shall call this a ‘universal’ good. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” says Herm.

“Well, then,” says Handy, “I put it to the table: by this definition, are there any universal goods?”

Each of the guests thinks for a moment, with the exception of John Deveril, who continues to treat the conversation with utter disdain.

“Shoes,” says Kristen Topper. “Comfortable shoes are a universal good.”

Murmurs of agreement.

“Well done,” says Handy. “I concur. What else?”

“Clean water,” says May Fernthrop.

“Touché.”

“The Internet,” says Shep Hemsley.

“Absolutely!” Handy says. “What could be more valuable than information?”

John Deveril looks up from his dinner and says, “You live in the woods, right?” No one pays him attention, and the listing of items of undebatable virtue resumes.

“Liquid gel pens,” says Herman Alouise.

“Teflon,” says Joan Deveril.

“Luggage with wheels,” I say.

“Yes!” says Tristan Handy. “The question is, what took so long? Society had luggage and wheels for centuries. Why didn’t anyone think to put them together sooner?”

“Right! I have always wondered the same thing,” I say enthusiastically, whereupon a spirited discussion ensues about the possible causes of the conspicuous delay in the development of luggage with wheels.

“Perhaps fabric needed to evolve.”

“Could be a patent problem.”

“Could this be patented?”

“Oh yes, you can patent anything.”

“I think wheels and luggage are in the common domain.”

“But not the combination.”

“Ah. Could you pass the cranberries?”

“You know what I think is a universal good?” John Deveril asks rhetorically, deigning to look up once again from his meal. “Quiet,” he says. “I think quiet is an absolute good.”

The table’s attention returns to the meal.

Myron Haines finally
breaks the silence. “You can have your Teflon pans and your fancy suitcases,” he says, “but I would rather live in the seventeenth century.”

“You have to be kidding me,” says John Deveril.

“I’m not sure there is such a thing as an absolute good,” Myron says, “but the things you all have listed certainly are not examples, if one indeed exists. None of you have acknowledged Handy’s earlier point. The mere existence of convenience items such as luggage with wheels breeds consumerism. And you are ignoring completely the fragmentation of society resulting from all the technological changes. Television and online chat rooms destroy community. I would rather live for forty years in a real community where people socialize and communicate than for seventy years in a fragmented, anomic society.”

“For whatever it’s worth, I’ll take life in the twenty-first century any day of the week,” Kristen Topper says.

“That’s because you’re a corporate shill,” says Myron, prompting Kristen to frown.

“Well, I’m no corporate shill,” Shep Hemsley says. “I am just a humble stage manager. But I agree with Kristen. Horse-driven carriages are romantic and all, but people forget about the poop. I have read that one could smell nineteenth-century London from twenty miles away.”

Under his breath, John Deveril spits, “I could smell the homeless guy from twenty miles away.”

“I’m with Shep,” says Herm Alouise. “To my mind medical advances end the argument. I don’t know where
I’d
be without Beano.”

“I would miss my soaps greatly,” says May Fernthrop.

The guests nod in agreement.

Joan Deveril asks, “What about you, Mr. Handy?”

Handy runs his hand through his beard. “Thank you, gentle hostess, for asking this. This interrogative makes for the most stimulating dinner conversation, and I am very happy for it,” he says, “but I am not sure the question can be answered objectively by the socially situated self.”

“Helpful,” John mutters.

“The belief in the directionality of life is fundamental to human psychology. We need to believe things are progressing toward some idealised vision of the good life.” He pauses. “The truth is, I do not think the conditions of society make any difference to one’s experience of life. By nature, man will never be perfectly satisfied. The cause of his dissatisfaction is of no moment. Medicine will never be a panacea. There will always be illness. There will always be death and therefore disappointment. This is the human condition. Progress is an illusion. Without the belief that life will someday be better, people would despair. It is a necessary optimism but, of course, ultimately a false one.”

This is a bit of a downer and John Deveril will hear none of it. He reenters the conversation with the force of a tornado. “This is moronic!” he cries. “Are you all seriously listening to this nonsense?” He tries to calm himself and continues, “Life isn’t perfect, but it’s absurd to say there’s no difference between living today and living three thousand or five hundred years ago. Furthermore, you used the letter
z
!”

“I most certainly did not,” says Handy.

“In the word ‘idealize.’ ”

“I employed the British spelling.”

This only further enrages John. “However you spell it, the general point is still idiotic. Sure, some people with eclectic preferences would rather live in Elizabethan England. But for every such person, a thousand would choose to be born in twenty-first-century America.”

This generates a series of murmurs at the table, as John Deveril’s proposition is debated in sidebars. This all ends when Q speaks for the first time that evening.

“My father is right,” she says conclusively. Everyone pays close attention as she speaks. This is in part because she has held her opinion back for so long and in part because she is the most recent victim of the very phenomenon that is being debated.

“I am a gardener,” she says. “I romanticize the simpler days as much as anyone. Some aspects of modern society are deplorable. But no one can deny that many of the things we have spoken of this evening are improvements of the human condition. On the whole, life today is better than it has ever been.”

Again, I am mesmerized by Q’s support for her father. It is instinctual and complete and utterly mysterious. How can one explain this? This remains the question I would like to put to the table. But for this meal, at least, the debate is ended.

Tristan Handy responds first. “Well,” he says, “certainly no one can deny that this is the finest meal in the history of Thanksgiving.”

Here, Harvard Fernthrop rises from his chair, adjusts his jacket and bow tie, and says, “Many years ago . . .” He nods graciously then returns to putting the finishing touches on the pediments.

Cries of “Well said, well said” and “Couldn’t have put it better myself.”

May pats Professor Fernthrop on his hand and says, “Very nice, dear.” The professor appears pleased, and the guests return to their dinner in peace.

Years later, when
I obsess about this and everything else, I will look back on this moment and wonder what would have happened if John Deveril had left things alone. Handy’s is a gracious concession. John Deveril has been rude and condescending, but Handy never responds in kind. It is yet another sign of his brilliance that he instead turns the acrimonious debate to the one subject about which there can be no dispute: Joan Deveril’s unmatched hospitality.

If the goodwill in the room had been allowed to linger, I am not sure what would have happened. I had no doubt about what needed to be done, but it was repugnant to me and I was eager for any excuse not to do it. I am sure I could not have spoiled such a gentle moment. I would never have done it in the evening, and the day after that would have been that much harder. If another day had passed, and another still, the momentum behind my relationship with Q would have been that much greater, and inertia, as we all know, can be a powerful force. Perhaps in the end I would have left anyway, but perhaps not.

I am honest enough to admit that I do not know for sure. It is a peculiar aspect of male arrogance to proclaim what he would have done if things were different or what he would do if presented with such and such a situation. Everyone believes he will act bravely when life presents him with his greatest test, but in the end there are few heroes. In my end, when I acted, it was not with noble motivation or grave dispassion. What I did may have been the correct thing to do—I do not know—but I know it was done in a fit of rage.

The spark, of course, is John. Q’s support for his position emboldens her father. It is clear to everyone at the table that the conversation has been exhausted. But he renews the argument. When he does so, there is a palpable sense of ennui, but he is undeterred. He is John Deveril.

“My beautiful daughter has summarized the essence of the issue,” he says. “Progress is a complicated concept. We are tempted to expect a straight line between where we are and where we want to be. Life does not work that way. Sometimes we take steps forward, and sometimes we take steps backward. But even when we take that occasional step backward, and even when our most beloved are victimized by these retreats, as my beloved daughter has been, we must not lose sight of our overall direction. Like Q, I believe that this overall direction of change has been positive.”

His comments may be reasonable. Again, I do not know. I think few people, if any, actually hear what he says. The table is overwhelmed by fatigue with the conversation and disbelief that John has chosen to continue it. John Deveril will win this argument by dint of his relentlessness. It is clear that no one but he will have the last word on this. Even the apparently indefatigable Tristan Handy has thrown in the towel. He is absently picking at some of Joan’s Vidalia onion casserole. The other guests may be in agreement, or tired of the insufferable, bombastic display, or some combination of the two. Whatever the case, no one is speaking.

It hits me then. This is how it is with bullies. They force themselves upon the world and shape it to suit their needs. Truth, civility, and honor are all inconveniences they need not suffer. They are not required to be honest with their daughters or gentle to their wives or to express so much as a single word of appreciation for a meal of unimaginable delight. No one holds them accountable. The universe bends to their will. Here and now, as John Deveril drones on, I draw the line in the sand.

No more.

“We need to assess the agents of social change in a nuanced manner,” John continues. “We need to identify the forces that make life undeniably better for everyone because such forces do exist, and if we paint society with too broad a brush, then we will stifle their good works. Even in the most hateful, oppressive regimes, there are men of goodwill whose work needs to be identified and nurtured. This is why it is a mistake to blanketly rail against the corporatization of America. We need to distinguish between responsible business and irresponsible business, between companies like my own, which build in a socially responsible manner . . .”

I say it without even thinking: “ . . . and those that destroy.”

“Yes,” John says, “and those that destroy.”