“But I’m not sure what to do now.” She touched his sleeve, and the gesture startled him. “How do I go back and raise Noah now?”
“You rely on your intellect and your…” Again, the word eluded him. “… feelings. Your feelings are good.” He was whittled down now, either to banalities or simple truths. Either way, they would have to do. “We have to say good-bye now,” he murmured.
“You’ll need to follow up with Noah’s case, though? Right?”
I don’t know, he thought, but he said, “Sure.”
“So I can e-mail you sometimes? If I have more questions?”
He nodded, but barely.
“Okay.” They eyed each other, at a loss for how to part. A hug seemed out of the question, but a handshake seemed too formal. At last she held out her hand to him awkwardly, and he held it briefly in his own large one and then on impulse raised it to his lips and kissed it. The skin was soft beneath his lips. It was the kiss of a father at a wedding, releasing his daughter from his care. He felt a pang of some obscure loss, either for her companionship or for womankind, so far behind him now.
“Be well,” he said, releasing her hand. He grabbed his battered bag and headed out the doors into the warm night.
He was free.
That’s who he was.
Free. The cars and taxis slowed, pulling over to pick up relatives and customers, and he passed by them as he headed for the parking lot, enjoying his momentum, the way his legs swung smoothly, efficiently, his mind stretching out gratefully in the dark.
He cared about Janie and Noah, but they were receding from him rapidly. His last case, and it was done.
They were back there on the ground and he was—buoyed up.
He had fought with everything he had to hang on to his life as he had once known it, and now it was gone, and he floated on the lightness of his defeat. He had applied the full force of his mind to his attempt to understand the unfathomable, and maybe he’d been able to extract one or two teeth from the maw of infinity, and now he had only to write out this last case.
He had thought that as he grew nearer to his own death the unanswerable questions would pierce him unbearably, and now he found to his shock and delight that he had no need for questions. What would happen—would happen.
How ’bout them apples?
He would finish his book now and then he could do what he liked. And when one day he could no longer read the Bard … then he’d go over the parts he had committed to memory, remembering the depth and cadence if not the lines themselves. He could babble Shakespeare to himself under the oaks all day like a crazy man.
Or he could go back to Asia. It’d feel good to be on Asian soil again. And what was stopping him? Nothing. He could go now if he liked. He could take the next flight out.
Thailand. The dense, humid air, the chaos of its streets.
Why not go? He felt the excitement beginning to pulse through him as he thought about it. He could visit the enormous Reclining Buddha, with its 108 auspicious signs carved in mother-of-pearl on the soles of his feet. He could start to meditate. He’d always been too nervous that a spiritual practice might undermine or influence his scientific objectivity, but that was irrelevant now. And if the Tibetans were right, then meditation could lead to a more peaceful death, which might positively influence his next life (though his own data was inconclusive on that score).
Maybe he’d even stop at a beach. The Phi Phi islands were supposed to be something to see. White sand like silk between your toes, blue water clear as glass. The present moment. Surrendering to that. He’d heard you could take a boat ride and see the strange limestone outcroppings rising out of the mist like something in a Chinese scroll painting: those scenes of painted mountains twisting up into the coiled, unseen sky, while one lone human lingered in a boat down below, so tiny as to be almost invisible.
He’d have to buy a bathing suit. He couldn’t wait.
Forty-Four
Janie leaned her head against the taxicab window, her arm around her dozing son, taking in the familiar sights. There was the broad expanse of Eastern Parkway, its apartment buildings and yeshivas and stately trees; the Met Foods where she bought groceries, and the dark swath of Prospect Park. The sameness surprised her, as if she had expected to find the world at home transformed. They passed the diner in which she’d met Anderson for the first time, where the waitress had YOLO tattooed across the back of her shoulders.