Timescape

with sulfur on a hot stove. Roentgen found x-rays while he was fumbling around with a gas-filled electrical discharge experiment.”

Gordon grimaced. “That doesn’t mean everything we don’t understand is important, though.”

“Of course not. But trust my judgment in this case. This is exactly the sort of mystery that Phys Rev Letters will publish. And it will bolster our NSF profile.”

Gordon shook his head. “I think it’s a signal.”

“Gordon, you will come up for review of your position this year. We can advance you to a higher grade of Assistant Professor. We could even conceivably promote you to tenure.”

“So?” Lakin hadn’t mentioned that they could also, as the bureaucratese went, give him a “terminal appointment.”

“A solid paper in Phys Rev Letters carries much weight.”

“Uh huh.”

“And if your experiment continues to yield nothing, I am afraid I will, regretfully, not have very much evidence to present in support of you.”

Gordon studied Lakin, knowing there wasn’t anything more to say. The lines were drawn. Lakin sat back in his executive chair, bobbing with controlled energy, watching the impact of his own words. His Ban-Lon shirt encased an athletic chest, his knit slacks clung to muscled legs. He had adapted well to California, getting out into the welcoming sun and improving his backhand. It was a long way from the cramped, shadowy labs at MIT. Lakin liked it here and he wanted to enjoy the luxury of living in a rich man’s twon. He would hustle to maintain his position; he wanted to stay.

“I’ll think it over,” Gordon said in a flat voice. Beside Lakin’s sturdy frame he felt overweight, pale, awkward. “And I’ll keep taking data,” he finished.

•  •  •

On the drive back from Lindbergh Field Gordon kept the conversation on safely neutral ground. His mother rattled on about neighbors on 12th Street whose names he didn’t remember, much less their intricate family squabbles, their marriages, births, and deaths. His mother assumed he would instantly catch the significance of the Goldberg’s buying a place in Miami at last, and understand why their son Jeremy went to NYU rather than Yeshiva. It was all part of the vast soap opera of life. Each segment had meaning. Some would get their comeuppance. Others would receive, after much suffering, their final reward. In his mother’s case he was plainly reward enough, at least in this life. She oohed at each marvel that loomed up in the fading twilight, as they zoomed along Route 1 toward La Jolla. Palm trees just growing by the roadside, without help. The white sand of Mission Bay, unpeopled and unlittered. No Coney Island, here. No cluttered sidewalks, no press of people. An ocean view from Mount Soledad that went on into blue infinity, instead of a gray vista that terminated in the jumble of New Jersey. She was impressed, with everything; it reminded her of what people said about Israel. His father had been a fervent Zionist, plunking down coin regularly to insure the homeland. Gordon was sure she still gave, though she never implored him to; maybe she felt he needed all his gelt to keep up with the professoring image. Well, it was true. La Jolla was expensive. But Gordon doubted if he would give anything for the traditional Jewish causes now. The move from New York had severed his connection to all that mumbo jumbo of dietary laws and Talmudic truths. Penny told him he didn’t seem very Jewish to her, but he knew she was simply ignorant. The WASP land she’d grown up in had taught her none of the small giveaway clues. Still, most people in California were probably equally oblivious, and that suited Gordon, He didn’t like having strangers make assumptions about him before they’d shaken his hand. Getting free of New York’s claustrophobic Jewish ambience was one of the reasons for coming to La Jolla in the first place.

They were nearly home, swinging onto Nautilus Street, when his mother said too casually, “This Penny, you should tell me something about her before I meet her, Gordon.”

“What’s to tell? She’s a California girl.”

“Which means?”

“She plays tennis, hikes in the mountains, has been to Mexico five times but no farther east than Las Vegas. She even goes surfing. She’s tried to get me to do it, but I want to get in better shape first. I’m doing my Canadian Air Force exercises.”

“That sounds very nice,” she said doubtfully.

Gordon checked her into the Surfside Motel two blocks from his apartment and then drove her over to his apartment. They walked into a room full of the smell of a Cuban casserole dish Penny had learned to make when she was rooming with a Latin American girl. She came out of the kitchen, untying an apron and looking more domestic than Gordon could remember her ever being. So Penny was putting on a bit of a show, despite her objections. His mother was effusive and enthusiastic. She bustled into the kitchen to help with the salad, inspecting Penny’s recipe and banging pots around. Gordon busied himself with the wine ritual, which he was just learning. Until California he had seldom had anything that didn’t taste of Concord grape. Now he kept a stock of Krug and Martini in a closet and could understand the jargon about big noses and full body, though in truth he wasn’t sure what all the terms meant.

His mother came out of the kitchen, set the table with quick, clattering efficiency, and asked where the bathroom was. Gordon told her. As he turned back to the uncorking Penny caught his eye and grinned. He grinned back. Let her Enovid be a flag of independence.

Mrs. Bernstein was subdued when she returned. She walked with more of a waddle than Gordon remembered, her invariable black dress bunching as her slight wobble carried her across the room. She had a distracted look. Dinner began and progressed with only minor newsy conversation. Cousin Irv was going into drygoods somewhere in Massachusetts, Uncle Herb was making money hand over, fist as usual, and his sister— here his mother paused, as though suddenly remembering this was a subject she should not bring up—was still running around with some crazies in the Village. Gordon smiled; his sister, two years older and a whole lot bolder, was looking after herself. He made a remark about her art, and how it took time to come to terms with that, and his mother turned to Penny and said, “I suppose you are interested in the arts, too?”

“Oh yes,” Penny said. “European literature.”

“And what did you think of Mr. Roth’s new book?”

“Oh,” Penny said, plainly stalling for time. “I don’t believe I’ve finished reading it.”

“You should. It would help you understand Gordon so much more.”

“Huh?” Gordon said. “What do you mean?”

“Well, dear,” Mrs. Bernstein said with a slow, sympathetic tone, “it could give her some idea about… well… I think Mr. Roth is—you agree, Penny?—is a very deep writer.”

Gordon smiled, wondering if he could allow himself an outright laugh. But before he could say anything Penny murmured, “Considering that Faulkner died in July, and Hemingway last year, I guess that puts Roth somewhere in the best hundred American novelists, but—”

“Oh, but they were writing about the past, Penny,” Mrs. Bernstein said adamantly. “His new one, Letting Go, is full of—”

At this point Gordon sat back and let his mind drift. His mother was onto her theory about the rise and preeminence of Jewish literature, and Penny was responding precisely as he could have predicted. His mother’s theories rapidly became confused in her mind with revealed facts. In Penny she had a stubborn opponent, however, who wouldn’t knuckle under to keep the peace. He could feel the tension rising between them. There was nothing he could do to stop it. The issue wasn’t literary theory at all, it was shiksa versus mother’s love. He watched his mother’s face as it tightened up. Her laugh lines, which actually came from squinting, grew deeper. He could break in but he knew how it would go then: his voice would slide up in pitch without his noticing it, until suddenly he was talking with the whine of the teenager barely past Bar Mitzvah. His mother always brought that out in him, a triggered response. Well, this time he would avoid that trap.

Their voices got louder. Penny cited books, authors; his mother pooh-poohed them, confidently assured that a few courses at night school entitled her to strong opinions. Gordon finished his food, savored the wine slowly, looked at the ceiling, and finally broke in with, “Mom, it must be getting late for you, with the time difference and all.”

Mrs. Bernstein paused in mid-sentence and looked at him blankly, as if coming out of a trance. “We were simply having a discussion, dear, you don’t need to get all flustered.” She smiled. Penny managed a matching wan stretching of the face. Mrs. Bernstein poked at her beehive hairdo, a castle of hair that resisted change. Penny got