In any case it was perhaps best that Charlie not be there at Phil’s meeting with the Khembalis, so that Phil would not be distracted, or feel that Charlie was somehow coaching the visitors. Phil could form his own impressions, and Sridar would be there to do any shepherding necessary. By now Charlie had seen enough of the Khembalis to trust that Rudra Cakrin and his gang would be up to the task of representing themselves. Phil would experience their weird persuasiveness, and he knew enough of the world not to discount them just because they were not Beltway operators dressed in suit and tie.
So Charlie hustled back from the predictably irritating hearing, and arrived right at 10:20. He hurried up the stairs to Phil’s offices on the third floor. These offices had a great view down the Mall—the best any senator had, obtained in a typical Phil coup. The Senate, excessively cramped in the old Russell, Dirksen, and Hart buildings, had finally bitten the bullet and taken by eminent domain the headquarters of the United Brothers of Carpenters and Joiners of America, who had owned a fine building in a spectacular location on the Mall, between the National Gallery and the Capitol itself. The carpenters’ union had howled at the takeover, of course—only a Republican House and Senate would have dared to do it, happy as they were to smack a union whenever possible—but it had left a political stink such that very few senators were actually willing to brave the negative PR of moving into the new acquisition once all the legal wrangling was over and the building was theirs. Phil, however, had been quite happy to move in, claiming he would represent the carpenters’ and all the other unions so faithfully that it would be as if they had never left the building. “Where better to defend the working people of America?” he had asked, smiling his famous smile. “I’ll keep a hammer on the windowsill to remind myself who I’m representing.”
At 10:23 A.M., Phil ushered the Khembalis out of his corner office, chatting with them cheerfully. “Yes, thanks, of course, I’d love to—talk to Evelyn about setting up a time.”
The Khembalis looked pleased. Sridar looked impassive but faintly amused, as he often did.
Just as he was leaving, Phil spotted Charlie and stopped. “Charlie! Good to see you at last!”
Grinning hugely, he came back and shook his blushing staffer’s hand. “So you laughed in the President’s face!” He turned to the Khembalis: “This man burst out laughing in the President’s face! I’ve always wanted to do that!”
The Khembalis nodded neutrally.
“So what did it feel like?” Phil asked Charlie. “And how did it go over?”
Charlie, still blushing, said, “Well, it felt involuntary, to tell the truth. Like a sneeze. Joe was really tickling me. And as far as I could tell, it went over okay. The President looked pleased. He was trying to make me laugh, so when I did, he laughed too.”
“Yeah I bet, because he had you.”
“Well, yes. Anyway he laughed, and then Joe woke up and we had to get a bottle in him before the Secret Service guys did something rash.”
Phil laughed, then shook his head, growing more serious. “Well, it’s too bad, I guess. But what could you do. You were ambushed. He loves to do that. Hopefully it won’t cost us. It might even help.—But look I’m late, I’ve got to go. You hang in there.” And he put a hand to Charlie’s arm, said good-bye again to the Khembalis, and hustled out the door.
The Khembalis gathered around Charlie, looking cheerful. “Where is Joe? How is it he is not with you?”
“I really couldn’t bring him to this thing I was at, so my friend Asta from Gymboree is looking after him. Actually I have to get back to him soon,” checking his watch. “But come on, tell me how it went.”
They all followed Charlie into his cubicle by the stairwell, stuffing it with their maroon robes (they had dressed formally for Phil, Charlie noted) and their strong brown faces. They still looked pleased.
“Well?” Charlie said.
“It went very well,” Drepung said, and nodded happily. “He asked us many questions about Khembalung. He visited Khembalung seven years ago, and met Padma and others at that time. He was very interested, very … sympathetic. He reminded me of Mr. Clinton in that sense.”
Apparently the ex-President had also visited Khembalung a few years previously, and had made a big impression.
“And, best of all, he told us he would help us.”
“He did? That’s great! What did he say, exactly?”
Drepung squinted, remembering: “He said—‘I’ll see what I can do.’ ”
Sucandra and Padma nodded, confirming this.
“Those were his exact words?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ ”
Charlie and Sridar exchanged a glance. Which one was going to tell them?
Sridar said carefully, “Those were indeed his exact words,” thus passing the ball to Charlie.
Charlie sighed.
“What’s wrong?” Drepung asked.
“Well …” Charlie glanced at Sridar again.
“Tell them,” Sridar said.
Charlie said, “What you have to understand is that no congressperson likes to say no.”
“No. They don’t.”
“They never say no,” Sridar amplified.
“Never?”
“Never.”
“They like to say yes,” Charlie explained. “People come to them, asking for things—favors, votes—consideration of one thing or another. When they say yes, people go away happy. Everyone is happy.”
“Constituents,” Sridar expanded. “Which mean votes, which means their job. They say yes and it means votes. Sometimes one yes can mean fifty thousand votes. So they just keep saying yes.”
“That’s true,” Charlie admitted. “Some say yes no matter what they really mean. Others, like our Senator Chase, are more honest.”
“Without, however, ever actually saying no,” Sridar added.
“In effect they only answer the questions they can say yes to. The others they avoid in one way or another.”
“Right,” Drepung said. “But he said …”
“He said, ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ ”
Drepung frowned. “So that means no?”
“Well, you know, in circumstances where they can’t get out of answering the question in some other way—”
“Yes!” Sridar interrupted. “It means no.”
“Well …” Charlie tried to temporize.
“Come on, Charlie.” Sridar shook his head. “You know it’s true. It’s true for all of them. ‘Yes’ means ‘maybe’; ‘I’ll see what I can do’ means ‘no.’ It means ‘not a chance.’ It means, ‘I can’t believe you’re asking me this question, but since you are, this is how I will say no.’ ”
“He will not help us?” Drepung asked.
“He will if he sees a way that will work,” Charlie declared. “I’ll keep on him about it.”
Drepung said, “You’ll see what you can do.”
“Yes—but I mean that, really.”
Sridar smiled sardonically at Charlie’s discomfiture. “And Phil’s the most environmentally aware senator of all, isn’t that right Charlie?”
“Well, yeah. That’s definitely true.”
The Khembalis pondered this.
Robot submarines cruise the depths, doing oceanography. Slocum gliders and other AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles), like torpedoes with wings, dock in underwater observatories to recharge their batteries and download their data. Finally oceanographers have almost as much data as the meteorologists. Among other things they monitor a deep layer of relatively warm water that flows from the Atlantic into the Arctic. (ALTEX, the Atlantic Layer Tracking Experiment.)
But they are not as good at it as the whales. White beluga whales, living their lives in the open ocean, have been fitted with sensors for recording temperature, salinity and nitrate content, matched with a GPS record and a depth meter. Up and down in the blue world they sport, diving deep into the black realm below, coming back up for air, recording
data all the while. Casper the Friendly Ghost, Whitey Ford, The Woman in White, Moby Dick, all the rest: they swim to their own desires, up and down endlessly within their immense territories, fast and supple, continuous and thorough, capable of great depths, pale flickers in the blackest blue, the bluest black. Then back up for air. Our cousins. White whales help us to know this world. The warm layer is attenuating.
THE REST of Frank’s stay in San Diego was a troubled time. The encounter with Marta had put him in a black mood that he could not shake.
He tried to look for a place to live when he returned in the fall, and checked out some real estate pages in the paper, but it was discouraging. He saw that he should rent an apartment first, and take the time to look around before trying to buy something. It was going to be hard, maybe impossible, to find a house he both liked and could afford. He had some financial problems. And it took a very considerable income to buy a house in north San Diego these days. He and Marta had bought a perfect couple’s bungalow in Cardiff, but they had sold it when they split, adding greatly to the acrimony. Now the region was more expensive than a mere professor could afford. Extra income would be essential.
So he looked at some rentals in North County, and then in the afternoons he went to the empty office on campus, meeting with two post-docs who were still working for him in his absence. He also talked with the department chair about what classes he would teach in the fall. It was all very tiresome.
And worse than that, a letter appeared in his department mailbox from the UCSD Technology Transfer Office, Independent Review Committee. Pulse quickening, he ripped it open and scanned it, then got on the phone to the Tech Transfer Office.
“Hi Delphina, it’s Frank Vanderwal here. I’ve just gotten a letter from the review committee, can you please tell me what this is about?”
“Oh hello, Dr. Vanderwal. Let me see … the oversight committee on faculty outside income wanted to ask you about some income you received from stock in Torrey Pines Generique. Anything over two thousand dollars a year has to be reported, and they didn’t hear anything from you.”
“I’m at NSF this year, all my stocks are in a blind trust. I don’t know anything about it.”
“Oh, that’s right, isn’t it. Maybe … just a second. Here it is. Maybe they knew that. I’m not sure. I’m looking at their memo here … ah. They’ve been informed you’re going to be rejoining Torrey Pines when you get back, and—”
“Wait, what? How the hell could they hear that?”
“I don’t know—”
“Because it isn’t true! I’ve been talking to colleagues at Torrey Pines, but all that is private. What could they possibly have heard?”
“I don’t know.” Delphina was getting tired of his indignation. No doubt her job put her at the wrong end of a lot of indignation, but that was too bad, because this time he had good cause.
He said, “Come on, Delphina. We went over all this when I helped to start Torrey Pines, and I haven’t forgotten. Faculty are allowed to spend up to twenty percent of work time on outside consulting. Whatever I make doing that is mine, it only has to be reported. So even if I did go back to Torrey Pines, what’s wrong with that? I wouldn’t be joining their board, and I wouldn’t use more than twenty percent of my time!”
“That’s good—”
“And most of it happens in my head anyway, so even if I did spend more time on it, how are you going to know? Are you going to read my mind?”
Delphina sighed. “Of course we can’t read your mind. In the end it’s an honor system. Obviously. We ask people what’s going on when we see things in the financial reports, to remind them what the rules are.”
“I don’t appreciate the implications of that. Tell the oversight committee what the situation is on my stocks, and ask them to do their research properly before they bother people.”
“All right. Sorry about that.” She did not seem perturbed.
Frank went out for a walk around the campus. Usually this soothed him, but now he was too upset. Who had told the oversight committee that he was planning to rejoin Torrey Pines? And why? Would somebody at Torrey Pines have made a call? Only Derek knew for sure, and he wouldn’t do it.
But others must have heard about it. Or could have deduced his intention after his visit. That had been only a few days before, but enough time had passed for someone to make a call. Sam Houston, maybe, wanting to stay head science advisor?
Or Marta?
Disturbed at the thought, at all these machinations, he found himself wishing he were back in D.C. That was shocking, because when he was in D.C. he was always dying to return to San Diego, biding his time until his return, at which point his real life would recommence. But it was undeniable; here he was in San Diego, and he wanted to be in D.C. Something was wrong.
Part of it must have been the fact that he was not really back in his San Diego life, but only previewing it. He didn’t have a home, he was still on leave, his days were not quite full. That left him wandering a bit, as he was now. And that was unlike him.
Okay—what would he do with free time if he lived here?
He would go surfing.
Good idea. His possessions were stowed in a storage unit in the commercial snarl behind Encinitas, so he drove there and got his surfing gear, then returned to the parking lot at Cardiff Reef, at the south end of Cardiff-by-the-Sea. A few minutes’ observation while he pulled on his long-john wetsuit (getting too small for him) revealed that an ebb tide and a south swell were combining for some good waves, breaking at the outermost reef. There was a little crowd of surfers and body-boarders out there.
Happy at the sight, Frank walked into the water, which was very cool for midsummer, just as they all said. It never got as warm as it used to. But it felt so good now that he ran out and dove through a broken wave, whooping as he emerged. He sat in the water and floated, pulled on his booties, velcroed the ankle strap of the board cord to him, then took off paddling. The ocean tasted like home.
The whole morning was good. Cardiff Reef was a very familiar break to him, and nothing had changed in all the years he had come here. He had often surfed here with Marta, but that had little to do with it. Although if he did run into her out here, it would be another chance to talk. Anyway the waves were eternal, and Cardiff Reef with its simple point break was like an old friend who always said the same things. He was home. This was what made San Diego his home—not the people or the jobs or the unaffordable houses, but this experience of being in the ocean, which for so many years of his youth had been the central experience of his life, everything else colorless by comparison, all the way up until he had discovered climbing.
As he paddled, caught waves and rode the lefts in long ecstatic seconds, and then worked to get back outside, he wondered again about this strangely powerful feeling of saltwater as home. There must be an evolutionary reason for such joy at being cast forward by a wave. Perhaps there was a part of the brain that predated the split with the aquatic mammals, some deep and fundamental part of mentation that craved the experience. Certainly the cerebellum conserved very ancient brain workings. On the other hand perhaps the moments of weightlessness, and the way one floated, mimicked the uterine months of life, which were then called back to mind when one swam. Or maybe it was a very sophisticated aesthetic response, an encounter with the sublime, as one was constantly falling and yet not dying or even getting hurt, so that the discrepancy in information between the danger signals and the comfort signals was experienced as a kind of triumph over reality.
Whatever; it was a lot of fun. And made him feel vastly better.
Then it was time to go. He took one last ride, and rather than kicking out when the fast part was over, rode the broken wave straight in toward the shore.
He lay in the shallows and let the hissing whitewater shove him around. Back and forth, ebb and flow. For a long time he lolled there. In his childhood and youth he had spent a fair bit of time at the end of every ocean session doing this, “gru
nioning” he called it; and he had often thought that no matter how much people worked to make more complicated sports in the ocean, grunioning was all you really needed. Now he splayed out and let the water wash him back and forth, feeling the sandy surges lift and push him. Grooming by ocean. As it ran back out to sea the water sifted the fine black flakes in the sand, mixing them into the rounded tan and white grains until they made networks of overlapping black V’s. Coursing patterns of nature—
“Are you okay?”
He jerked his head up. It was Marta, on her way out.
“Oh, hi. Yeah I’m okay.”
“What’s this, stalking me now?”
“No,” then realizing it might be a little bit true: “No!”
He stared at her, getting angry. She stared back.
“I’m just catching some waves,” he said, mouth tight. “You’ve got no reason to say such a thing to me.”
“No? Then why did you ask me out yesterday?”
“A mistake, obviously. I thought it might do some good to talk.”
“Last year, maybe. But you didn’t want to then. You didn’t want to so much that you ran off to NSF instead. Now it’s too late. So just leave me alone, Frank.”