Dazzled, the others watched Jonathan unveil his new plans. Always a little slow, Dave asked about the legal and ethical implications of the idea, while Jake and Oskar leapfrogged ahead with technical questions.
“Now this is interesting,” Oskar said, bestowing his highest praise.
As for Orion, he felt hopeful for the first time in months. Instead of lecturing about release dates, and talking up ISIS products, Jonathan was presenting new ideas. Instead of trying to shut down criticism, he was encouraging debate. In the past he’d sacrificed quality for speed and talked incessantly about market share. Now he proposed building a new system from scratch. Orion saw the plan opening, blossoming like fireworks trailing sparks and smoke in the night sky. They would tag and trace every touch on every piece of data, capture and collect what had been ephemeral. What possibilities for research! What challenges for new analysis! He understood the idea immediately, and the scribbles on the whiteboard were not scribbles to him, but poetry. The design Jonathan unveiled was that elegant.
Aldwin asked, “How will we staff this? Start a new group?”
“Yeah,” said Jonathan. “But we’ll keep the project confidential. No analyst or investor input! And we need somebody to spearhead it.”
“I will!” Orion surprised himself with his alacrity. “I’d like to,” he amended.
Jonathan smiled. It was not his fault that his smile looked so mischievous, that his blue eyes sparkled and the corners of his mouth curled as though anticipating some particularly delicious meal. He had always known his old friend would come around. Turn away long enough, and people think you have forgotten them entirely. Show your displeasure, and first they hate you, and then they despair, and finally, scarcely acknowledging it to themselves, they miss you. Change the game again, to see if they follow. The best ones can. The smart ones always do.
“You would have to leave what’s left of the Lockbox group,” Jonathan told Orion. “Would you be willing to do that?”
God, yes, Orion thought. “Definitely,” he said aloud.
“Maybe we could work something out,” Jonathan said. “I think that you’d be great.”
Such faith in him! For long months Orion’s efforts had been ad hoc, troubleshooting substandard code. But to start up this new Fast-Tracking venture, to head his own group, design and build a system to his own standards—to work with autonomy! The idea thrilled him. Orion was moved by Jonathan’s trust, and his gesture to restore their friendship. Jonathan had not given up on him; Jonathan still saw him as one of the founders.
“You would report directly to me,” Jonathan told Orion, “so I can keep an eye on you.”
Orion chose to take this as a compliment. He took this, as intended, as a formal job offer, and he nodded in agreement. He accepted.
Perhaps in the old days, men built their reputations, and then their fortunes. Orion had made his fortune first. He had not designed algorithms like Oskar and Jake, or established administrative systems like Dave and Aldwin, or sold Lockbox and ChainLinx to the first clients as Jonathan had, flying all night to charm his way into Disney and CNN when he was still a graduate student with one suit. Too diffident, too dreamy, too cautious, too much a programmer, Orion was worth over twenty million dollars even in this depressed market, but he had not been well employed. He did not sit on the executive board. He was not vice president of anything. Heading a new group, he would step up. He had a chance to justify his wealth, to prove that his success was more than accidental, to become a self-made man.
Meet me downstairs, Orion e-mailed Sorel as soon as he returned to his desk.
“I’m right here.” She was standing behind him, watching him type.
“What happened?” she asked him as they waited for the elevator.
“Shh!”
She looked at him questioningly. “What?”
“You won’t believe this …,” he told her in the elevator, but just then someone else joined them. Somebody from Marketing, ALOK on his badge. Orion could not keep track of the new hires anymore, nor did these recruits know him. Could they have any idea, for example, that Orion had named their company over beers in Somerville so many months ago? Jonathan said then that he wanted some kind of acronym for “Internet Security System,” and Orion had remembered his fourth-grade unit on Egyptians and his report on Isis—baker, spinner, weaver, daughter of the Earth and sky. This new guy, Alok, had no idea. There were no historical inscriptions at ISIS, no steles recording early triumphs. No hieroglyphs with bird-headed vulture capitalists and the four founders arrayed like boy kings on the elevator’s smooth gray walls.
The doors parted, and Orion ushered Sorel through the lobby with its mobile of oblong mirrors, and its revolving doors of thick, rubber-edged glass.
Into the fresh spring air they hurried, away from ISIS. Sorel thought he wanted to buy lunch at the deli at One Kendall Square, but Orion saw too many ISIS worshippers there. He ushered her into the furniture store Pompanoosuc Mills, vast and airy, filled with handcrafted Shaker furniture—or rather the kind of furniture Shakers would have built if they had softened on celibacy and simplicity and fashioned bunk beds and glass-fronted china cabinets.
Sorel followed him to the back of the store where they admitted to the saleswoman that they were just looking, that they would indeed let her know if they had any questions about woods or pricing, and settled down together, pulling up two spindle-backed chairs to a cherry dining-room table.
Orion said, “Jonathan’s got a new plan.”
“He needs one.”
“Just listen!” Orion watched her face as he told her. He watched the way she sucked her lower lip, appreciating the new scheme immediately, savoring the news.
“You must be joking!”
“Wait. There’s more. I’m going to be the team leader of the Fast-Track group.”
“You?”
“What’s wrong with me?” He was a little offended. “Don’t you think I can?”
“Of course you can. I just wonder why Jonathan likes you now.”
“I think … it’s just … we go way back,” Orion struggled to explain. “I think when you go that far back with someone, the friendship never disappears completely, and sometimes, eventually, the relationship regenerates.”
“Like a starfish growing a new arm,” said Sorel.
“Don’t you think sometimes it works that way?”
“I don’t trust him, I’m afraid.”
“You don’t know him as well as I do,” said Orion.
“That’s why I’m in a better position to judge.”
“You’re a cynic,” he said.
“Probably.”
“I think with some people you have shared a history, and it’s very deep.”
“He says one kind word. You turn to mush.”
“Kind word? He’s giving me this huge new project.”
“The project sounds brilliant—if you can pull it off.” Sorel tilted her chair back. “I’m afraid he’s setting you up.”
“No,” Orion said. “He wouldn’t do that. This new group is real, and he wants me to run it. He’s finally found a way to use me.”
“That’s just it.”
“Sorel!” He turned on her in exasperation.
“Sorry.”
“You would make a good spy,” he said.
“Why?”
“You don’t trust anybody. You wear black overcoats. You admit you like disguises.”
“I don’t disguise myself from you.”
“No?” He turned toward her, and captured her hand in his. “Then why is your phone number unlisted?”
“Why did you try to find my phone number?” she asked, puzzled. “I only use my cell.”
“And why do you disappear all the time?”
“What do you mean, ‘disappear’?”
“You don’t show up, and I have no idea where you are.”
“I don’t have to tell you where I am. I’m touring!”
“Where are you
touring? Davis Square?”
“I have a career.”
“You mean The Chloroforms? That’s your career?”
“You don’t think programming is my career, do you? I came here to be a performance artist and study physics. You don’t think I’m going to start rallying round ISIS and all that.”
“I’m sure you were perfectly happy with ISIS when you sold your stock,” Orion said, thinking of Sorel’s little house.
“Look, I’m the consistent one,” said Sorel. “I’ve always said ISIS is my day job. You’re the one obsessed with Jonathan. He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. You’re always looking for affection, even when the relationship is frayed. Even when it’s broken.”
“Let’s leave Molly out of this,” said Orion.
“You always do.” Sorel pushed her chair back from the table. “ISIS is a case in point. So is Jonathan. You’re loyal to everybody. It’s a shame, really, that I’m …”
“That you’re what?” Orion asked.
“So fond of you.”
22
Oneness. Jess read the word on the screen displaying Rabbi Helfgott’s PowerPoint presentation. He was speaking that evening at the Tree House, at Jess’s invitation.
What is Oneness?
Every particle in the universe desires to be One.
raindrop
spark
soul
“It is amazing to think,” Rabbi Helfgott told the group of close to thirty Tree Savers, “that all through the world, every neshamah, every spirit, whether we know it or not, desires the Oneness that is God. This applies to every living being—animal, plant, insect—trees included. Oneness is our natural state. Our default condition. Unfortunately, too often in our lives, we fall away. The question is: How do we return?”
No one spoke. Some Tree Savers listened closely from where they sat on chairs and couches; others fidgeted, bemused, on the floor, and the rabbi watched them and gazed upon the Jewish faces among them—Jessamine Bach, Noah Levine—as he moved on to the next slide.
Tefillah—Prayer
Tshuvah—Repentance
Tzedakah—Charity
“In our tradition, this is the magic formula,” the rabbi said. “This is the answer.”
Jess considered the rabbi’s three-part solution for reengagement with the eternal. “Does this cover everything a soul can possibly do?”
“Yes!” declared Rabbi Helfgott. “For sure. Yes!”
“What about civil disobedience?” Leon asked.
Now everyone was listening. “That would depend on various factors,” the rabbi said diplomatically. “Peaceful or violent? Legal or illegal? Safe or dangerous?”
The Tree Savers hemmed and hummed, debating among themselves, and Daisy said, “I think if you see people interfering with the Oneness of the world, you have to stop them.”
“But that’s the question,” said Jess. “Is stopping them actually some kind of charity? Or prayer? Or does civil disobedience come under the category of repentance? And is it only quiet, peaceful protests that count? Or social justice by any means necessary?”
“Who’s more Jewish?” Noah asked. “Mahatma Gandhi? Or Malcolm X?”
In his younger days, Rabbi Helfgott might have felt the discussion slipping away, but he had lived and worked in Berkeley for seventeen years. Magisterially, he raised both hands. “Let me put this on the table. Mahatma Gandhi or Malcolm X? These are very interesting people, but when it comes to more or less Jewish—the answer is simple. Neither was a Jew! However, let’s look in depth at our first point: Tefillah. Prayer.”
“Wait,” Jess interrupted once again. “I want to understand whether social action can be a kind of prayer.”
Rabbi Helfgott smiled. “No.”
“No!” She could not conceal her surprise.
“Social action is original,” said Rabbi Helfgott. “But praying is prescribed. In social action we improvise, depending on the situation. However, in the Jewish tradition when we pray, we read words already set down for us. Social action is ad hoc. Prayer is total catastrophic insurance, covering every possibility.”
“So you’re saying it’s better to be spiritually derivative than creative?” Jess asked.
“Absolutely!”
The room was silent. Ha! Helfgott thought. Who was radical now? The Tree Savers? Or their bearded guest speaker in his frock coat? Who was pious now? Students feeling their way on a unique spiritual journey? Or their rabbi who dared suggest that the soul’s journey was not unique at all, but scripted?
“This is the gift of our tradition,” the rabbi said. “You wish for Oneness—you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. The wheel is already there for you. Spinning! You wish to speak to God? You know what to say for every occasion.” He lifted up a blue prayer book and watched the Tree Savers’ faces: some skeptical, some puzzled. All surprised.
“Therefore social action is not prayer. However, when it comes to charity, this is another story. And the word tzedakah, ‘charity,’ has another meaning. ‘Justice’!”
Rabbi Helfgott took a sip from his water bottle, for he did not drink or eat anything in nonkosher houses, not even Tree Houses.
“We look at the problems of the world. The poor, the homeless, the oppressed. We look at the endangered species of the world. We say, ‘What can I give? What can I do for those who have so little? For those who are silent?’ Prayer is one method. Giving of time and money is another. Are prayer and social action the same? No. Are they connected? Absolutely. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills. Look to the sea. Look to the Earth. Look to the trees. If they aren’t God’s messengers, they are definitely His witnesses. Look to the world and unite with what is natural around us. I myself have discovered in California more evidence of the Shechinah, the Holy Presence, than I ever saw in my childhood. I myself grew up in an urban environment! One scraggly plant, one asphalt playground. What did I know from the natural world? Until I, who lived in Crown Heights, began driving my van through the golden hills along 280—what did I know? Until I, who grew up in books, took my family to Point Reyes National Seashore, to see the wildflowers blooming and the waves crash over the rocks—what did I understand? My wife and I saw the immensity of the ocean! Our children saw Tomales Bay. Then I, who never noticed the landscape, came to repent my ignorance. Then I dedicated my heart to the cliffs, the wind, the trees. To the refreshment of our planet speedily in our day.”
Silence.
Nervously, Jess scanned the faces around her. Some looked at Helfgott with respect. Others with curiosity. No one spoke. Then suddenly, Arminda said, “Yeah!”
Leon applauded, and the others joined in.
“He was great,” Leon told Jess that night as they cleaned the kitchen.
Jess twirled her mop happily. “I knew he would be!”
“Clergy are always great. We should have him write an op-ed for us. Something about Wood Rose Glen.”
“I don’t think he knows anything about Wood Rose Glen,” Jess said.
Leon stopped scrubbing the stove. “We could explain what Pacific Lumber is doing and why we need to stop them—and he could put it in his own words.”
“Wouldn’t that be like using him?” Jess asked.
“Only in the best possible way.”
Jess thought about this. “Even if it’s for the best, I wouldn’t want to. I mean, I couldn’t use a rabbi for publicity.”
“No, of course not. No more than he wants to use you, taking your invitation to preach.”
“Couldn’t you imagine a free exchange of ideas?”
“Everyone’s got an agenda,” Leon said wearily. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
“If you want him to write an op-ed, then you ask him,” Jess said.
“I’ll be up north.”
“Don’t go,” Jess murmured as she mopped, moistening the tiles at his feet.
“Come with me,” Leon said.
“I can’t. I have to work. I promised George.”
“And what did you promise him, exactly?”
“It’s just such a great opportunity.”
Leon turned his back on her and finished scrubbing the commercial stove with steel wool. “You keep saying that.”
“It’s true.”
Jess was cataloging the McClintock cookbook collection. Arriving at noon and leaving in the late afternoon, she spent at least five hours every weekday with the books. George was never home in the afternoons. He had given Jess a code of her own for the security system: 1759, the year the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy were published, and she came and went as she pleased. Apart from Concepcion, who cleaned three times a week, Jess worked alone.
At first she had felt overwhelmed by the house, its airy symmetry, its silence. Now she was accustomed to the place, but she caught herself wondering, Is this still Berkeley? George’s neighborhood felt as far from Telegraph as the hanging gardens of Babylon. You could get a good kebab in Jess’s neighborhood, and a Cal T-shirt, and a reproduction NO HIPPIES ALLOWED sign. Where George lived, you could not get anything unless you drove down from the hills. Then you could buy art glass, and temple bells, and burled-wood jewelry boxes, and dresses of hand-painted silk, and you could eat at Chez Panisse, or sip coffee at the authentically grubby French Hotel where your barista took a bent paper clip and drew cats or four-leaf clovers or nudes in your espresso foam. You returned home with organic, free-range groceries, and bouquets of ivory roses and pale green hydrangeas, and you held dinner parties where some guests got lost and arrived late, and others gave up searching for you in the fog. That was George’s Berkeley, and even in these environs, his home stood apart, hidden, grand, and rambling; windows set like jewels in their carved frames, gables twined with wisteria of periwinkle and ghostly white.