The Crystal Child (31 page)

Aaron’s flow of ideas was coming at Julia too rapidly.  Yet all he had to say made a strange and marvelous kind of sense, a door opening on extreme possibilities.  “What do you mean when you say you’re still aging?” she asked, eager now to hear all he would tell her.

“Just what you see. 
This
is what it’s like to be very, very old, older than anybody has ever been, unless we take seriously the longevity of the Biblical patriarchs — something I would no longer dismiss out of hand, incidentally.  Maybe there was a time when we were offered super-longevity.  Think how that would explain everything you know about me — and a lot you don’t know.  In my eyes, you and all the others in my life are like children who still cling to childish things.  And of course you find me smug and impatient.  Suppose you had to live every day with four-year olds, to talk baby talk with them, play silly games with them?”

“You feel that way about me?  Do I seem like a four-year-old?”

He smiled sympathetically.  “You’re my best four-year-old friend.”

“Thank you so much.  And how long will you continue to age?”

“The only answer I can give is: indefinitely.”

“And how old are you now?” Julia asked.

Aaron smiled and wagged his head.  “That’s like asking what lies north of the north pole.  There’s no way to keep track.  In my case, calendar age doesn’t make sense any more.  There’s another calculus.”

“Meaning …?”

“How old is the caterpillar inside the cocoon?  How old is it when it’s been reduced to a formless liquid?  When the butterfly emerges, how old is the caterpillar then?  Or is it dead and gone?  That’s how I understand myself now.  There’s a cocoon forming around me hour by hour.  I seem to be going through a succession of internal phases, each of which starts out with bewildering perceptions — like seeing things in some odd, unfamiliar way.  There’s an artist — Escher.  He specialized in drawing the undrawable.  You get dizzy looking at his work.  He would have tried to draw what lies north of the north pole, a super-north where no one could ever travel.  Then, after a while, I adjust and can recognize that I’m in a different relationship to things, a state that has its own internal logic.  Remember the computer games we used to play?  There was one called HyperionQuest that took you through odd worlds where things were upside down or inside out or time ran backwards.  It’s like that.  How old am I? My age, I guess, is the number of  worlds I’ve passed through. But each time I adjust to a new world, I’m farther away from the world you and the others are in.  And it’s so hard to keep my footing in your world, in your foolish, small-minded world.”

She glanced back at the crystals on the table.  “And these?  What do they tell you?”

He thought for a long moment.  “They comfort me.  They’re like the icons of my faith.  Before time began, when there was no time, no change, no death, everything was ruled by one imperative.  ‘Let there be order.’  And there was.  An order outside time and matter, a crystalline order that would eventually govern everything.  The atoms, the molecules, the genes.  Where this order came from and why it exists at all is more than I can tell.  What accounts for the electron orbits, only so many in just certain places?  What accounts for the fixed configuration of the quarks?  Why is dead matter endowed with just that elegant structure?  Once upon a time, there was an order that patterned the symmetries of nature, a radiant way that reached down and became all we see.  That was the beginning and it will return in the end, final and timeless.  I call it the brightness.”

“And why you, Aaron?  Why have you been chosen to enter this state of being?”

“It’s not that I was chosen.  Rather, I chose to make the leap.  Why?  Because I did not despair.  You took away my despair.  That was an act of love, Julia.  Not simply for me, but for your mother, for all those you labored to keep alive.  I think you knew that despair was time’s deadliest ally.  You got me through.”

“I had no idea.”

His voice took on a darker note.  “Despair is still the enemy.  Please, don’t fail me now.”  He took her hand and held it to his lips.  He printed a cold kiss on her flesh. “Be with me, stand with me.  It will be beautiful.”

***

“Is Dr. DeLeon in?”

“Do you have an appointment?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.  My name is Kevin Forrester.”

“You’ll need to make an appointment,” the receptionist insisted.  “Dr. DeLeon has a very crowded schedule today.  He …”

Forrester cut him off sharply.  “Tell him I’m a friend of Julia’s.”

“Julia?”

“He’ll know who I mean.”

The receptionist, a bronzed and well-built young man in a skin-tight tee-shirt, gave Forrester a raised eyebrow, then stepped through a door behind his desk.  A few moments later, he returned to escort Forrester into Peter DeLeon’s sumptuous office.  The entire west wall was glass overlooking the shores of San Lazaro.  DeLeon’s greeting was unexpectedly warm.  “Dr. Forrester.  Am I right?  Well, this is a delightful surprise.” He stepped across the room and extended his hand. Forrester took it reluctantly.

“You’ve heard of me?”  DeLeon was gripping him in a tight handshake.

“Heard of you?  Why, of course.  One of our country’s most distinguished geneticists.  I regard you as a colleague.”

Forrester tried not to show his surprise.  He had expected DeLeon to be pig-ignorant. “All right, then.  Here’s something you may not know.  I was Julia’s consultant on Aaron Lacey’s case.”

“And that I know too.”

“Oh?  Then you know why I’m here.”

“Ah, I’m afraid not.  Do tell me.”

“I’m here to see Julia.  I want to see her now.  Today.  I don’t have much time to fool around.”

DeLeon affected surprise.  “You believe she’s here at San Lazaro?  I’m afraid not.”

“Come on, DeLeon.  Why would I be running the risk I’m taking if I weren’t sure Julia and Aaron are here?”

“I am so very sorry. On that point, you are misinformed.”

“Am I?  I have it on good authority that Aaron and Julia are here helping you study the Kong Effect, whatever the hell that is.  I want you to take me to see them.  They deserve to be in touch with a real scientist.”  He reached into the brief case he was carrying, removed a bundle of papers and deposited them with a thump on DeLeon’s desk.  “Here are some things I’ve written that relate to Aaron’s case.  A small sample of my bibliography.  I don’t expect you to understand them.”

“I’m aware of your illustrious career, Dr. Forrester.  But I assure you …”

“Look, DeLeon, let’s stop sparring.  So far neither of us has made a mistake.  But you’ll be in deep trouble if you continue stone-walling me.”

“Oh, yes?  What kind of trouble?”

“Julia has violated her parole.  Aaron is a runaway juvenile.  If someone of my reputation goes back north of the border and tells the authorities Peter DeLeon, a man long suspected of fraud and narcotics violations, is sheltering criminals and runaways at San Lazaro, it will be taken seriously.  I’m not sure what they can do to you as long as you stay out of the United States, but I doubt they’ll roll out the red carpet next time you try to enter the country.  I might even report that you’ve kidnapped Aaron.  Then they’d be sure to extradite you.  Understand, I have no interest in law enforcement.  I don’t want to make your life difficult.  My objectives are purely scientific.  I want to complete my study of the boy.  Let me do that and I’ll leave you in peace.  Phone Julia.  Tell her I’m here.  I’m sure she’ll be shocked.  She may even say she doesn’t want to see me.  If that happens, it will be up to you to persuade her to do the intelligent thing.”

DeLeon settled into his chair and stroked back his hair.  For a long moment he studied Forrester.  “This is all very sudden. Please give me a few moments.  I need to seek advice.”  He nodded toward the door.

“Fine,” Forrester answered.  “I have some calls to make.” He took his cell-phone from an inner pocket as if to serve notice that he was in touch with the outside world.  He moved back across the room and stepped into the receptionist’s space.  He took the nearest seat and waited.  It was not a long wait.  In less than an hour the receptionist approached to say Dr. DeLeon would meet him at the front entrance.  Forrester wondered whom DeLeon had called.  Julia?  Aaron?

***

“I’ve been looking over the papers you left with me,” DeLeon said as their car pulled through the gates of the Institute.  He was holding the stack of printouts Forrester had given him, still thumbing through.  “Excellent work.”

Forrester gave a snide chuckle.  “And you understood what you read?”

“Very little of the actual content.  But I understood what mattered most — from the viewpoint of life-extension science.”

“And what is that?”  He asked in an obviously bored tone, at the same time letting out an exaggerated yawn to let DeLeon know how tired he was.  He had hoped he might catch some sleep on the way to wherever DeLeon was driving them.  He had left his hotel in Los Angeles the day before and had hardly slept in two days.  He hoped DeLeon did not intend to keep him awake for the entire trip.

“Authority.  Your papers are saturated with authority. Beginning with your own credentials.  All these honorary degrees and awards.  And then all the formulas, all the marvelously esoteric chemistry.  The calculations, the graphs and charts, the learned references.  Without understanding a word of what you had to say, I was profoundly impressed.”

“That’s a pretty barbaric way of approaching science.  Like an illiterate being impressed by the size of a book.”

DeLeon’s oily smile stretched wider.  “Not quite.  Authority — or charisma as I prefer to call it — is the quintessence of medical science.  Authority is the foundation of the most powerful form of medicine known to man.”

DeLeon’s voice had taken on a histrionic resonance, the tone he assumed in public lectures when he wished to project a forceful image.  Forrester found the effect wholly repulsive.  “I have no idea what you mean.  What medicine?”

“The placebo.  The placebo is inextricably bound up with the charisma of the healer. The first step in the effective use of the placebo is to win the patient’s total confidence. That is what charisma does.  It reaches out to the patient and prepares him for acquiescence. Charisma taps the full healing power of the organism.  The greater the willingness to believe, the greater the possibility of cure.”

“And I gather you credit yourself with a goodly amount of charisma.”

“My record and reputation speak for themselves.  I know of nobody who can claim more healing power, hence more charisma.”

Forrester could not help smirking.  “That sounds to me like an open confession of fraud.”

“Of course. The placebo is based on fraud, pious fraud, if you wish.  But fraud has power.  Please, do me the courtesy of hearing me out.  I consider myself among the world’s leading practitioners of the placebo in all its forms.  You may not be aware of the fact, but I have had a standing challenge before the medical community for over fifteen years to match the success I have achieved with placebo-based medication.  My record is publicly available for all to see.  I have brought people back from the brink of death, I have added years to the lives of countless clients with medications that have, in the eyes of conventional physicians, no curative effect.  Yet in my hands, these medications work, Dr. Forrester, they work.  I am myself the best example of that fact.   How old would you say I am?   Please make an honest guess.”

“Let’s see if I can guess.  Three-hundred-and-fifty.”

“You’re being facetious,” DeLeon said.  I am seventy-nine.”  He swelled out his chest.  “Be honest.  Would you have said I was a day over sixty?  I can still press three-hundred pounds and run an eight-minute mile. How have I achieved this?  I don’t for a moment believe it has to do with diet or herbal remedies or enemas.  I use these harmless diversions to focus my life-force and preserve my youth.  Which is only to say that I have proven what the record of history makes abundantly clear: that the healing of disease has almost no relationship to the substances or practices employed.  Nor to the grand theories that are used to justify those substances and practices.  People have been cured of illness, infection, paralysis, degenerative disease, injuries of the worst kind by nothing more than the will to live.  That is the basis of the placebo.  It is the distilled elixir of the life force.”

Forrester released a weary sigh.  “If mere suggestion and wishful thinking could do that, DeLeon, why would anybody ever die?”

“I don’t claim the placebo is invincible.  No, no.  There are limits.  Ultimately, after a lifetime of neglect,  the body weakens, ages, dies.  People who have spent years ruining their health can’t expect to overcome the damage in short order.  And then, of course, not all practitioners of the placebo are skilled enough to keep their patients’ faith, especially if they themselves are poor physical specimens.  But you see this is where we have our grand opportunity, you and I.”

That caught Forrester by surprise.  “You and I … what?”

“If we were to combine our efforts.  Your scientific expertise, my persuasive powers.”  Forrester did not bother to answer.  His only reply was a grumpy snarl.  “Please do think about it,” DeLeon said.  “It could be a remarkable partnership — especially if we could offer young Aaron as living evidence of our healing powers.”

For the rest of the way to Tlaloc, neither man spoke more than a few perfunctory words.  Forrester, gazing sullenly at the passing landscape, was straining to stay awake.  For his part, DeLeon, having made his pitch, was content to have his taciturn fellow traveler remain silent.  He had made his opening gambit.  He would wait until Forrester was softened up before he made his next move.   As they approached Tlaloc, he turned to tell Forrester, “I phoned Dr. Stein.  You may want to know that she was not at all pleased to learn you were here.  I didn’t have an easy time persuading her to see you.  I can’t guarantee she’ll talk to you when we arrive.”

“She’ll talk to me.  Now that I know where Aaron is, she’ll talk to me.”