The Garden of Rama(Rama III)

RETURN TO THE NODE Chapter 4
1 April 2204

Today was unusual in every respect. First, I announced as soon as everyone was awake that we were going to dedicate the day to the memory of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who died, if the historians are correct and we have properly tracked the calendar, exactly one thousand years ago today. To my delight, the entire family supported the idea and both Richard and Michael immediately volunteered to help with the festivities. Michael, whose art history unit has now been replaced by one on cooking, suggested that he prepare a special medieval brunch in honor of the queen. Richard dashed off with TB, whispering to me that the little robot was going to return as Henry Plantagenet. I had developed a short history lesson for Simone, introducing her to Eleanor and the twelfth century world. She was unusually attentive. Even Katie, who never sits still for longer than five minutes, was cooperative and didn't interrupt us. She played quietly with her baby toys most of the morning. Simone asked me at the end of the lesson why Queen Eleanor had died. When I responded that the queen had died of old age, my three-year-old daughter then asked if Queen Eleanor had "gone to heaven."

"Where did you get that idea?" I asked Simone.

"From Uncle Michael," she replied. "He told me that good people go to heaven when they die and bad people go to hell."

"Some people believe there is a heaven," I said after a reflective pause. "Others believe in what's called reincarnation, where people come back and live again as a different person or even as a different kind of animal. Some other people believe that each special life is a unique miracle, awakening from conception to birth, and going to sleep forever at death." I smiled and tousled her hair.

"What do you believe, Mama?" my daughter then asked.

I felt something very close to panic. I temporized with a few comments while I tried to figure out what to say. An expression from my favorite T.S. Eliot poem, "to lead you to an overwhelming question," whisked in and out of my mind. Luckily I was rescued.

"Fare thee well, young lady." The little robot TB, dressed in what was supposed to pass for medieval riding garb, walked into the room and informed Simone that he was Henry Plantagenet, king of England, and husband of Queen Eleanor. Simone's smile brightened. Katie looked up and grinned.

"The queen and I built a grand empire," the robot said, making an expansive gesture with his little arms, "that eventually included all of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, and half of what is now France." TB recited a prepared lecture with gusto, amusing Simone and Katie with his winks and hand gestures. He then reached in his pocket and pulled out a miniature knife and fork, claiming that he had introduced the concept of eating utensils to the "barbaric English."

"But why did you put Queen Eleanor in prison?" Simone asked after the robot was finished. I smiled. She had indeed paid attention to her history lesson. The robot's head pivoted and looked in Richard's direction. Richard held up a finger, indicating a brief wait, and rushed out into the corridor. In no more than a minute TB, a.k.a. Henry II, returned. The robot walked over to Simone. "I fell in love with another woman," he said, "and Queen Eleanor was angry. To get even with me, she turned my sons against me..."

A short time later Richard and I were involved in a mild argument about the real reasons why Henry imprisoned Eleanor (we have discovered many times that we each learned a different version of Anglo-French history) when we heard a distant but unmistakable shriek. Within moments all five of us were topside. The shriek repeated.

We looked up in the sky above us. A solitary avian was flying a wide pattern a few hundred meters above the tops of the skyscrapers. We hurried over to the ramparts, beside the Cylindrical Sea, so we could have a better look. Once, twice, three times the great creature flew around the perimeter of the island. At the end of each loop the avian emitted a single long shriek. Richard waved his arms and shouted throughout the flight, but there was no indication that he was noticed.

The children became restless after about an hour. We agreed that Michael would take them back to the lair and Richard and I would stay as long as there was any possibility of contact. The bird continued flying in the same pattern. "Do you think it's looking for something?" I asked Richard.

"I don't know," he said, shouting again and waving at the avian as it reached the point in its loop where it was closest to us. This time it changed course, inscribing long graceful arcs in its helical descent. As it grew closer, Richard and I could see both its gray velvet underbelly and the two bright, cherry-red rings around its neck.

"It's our friend," I whispered to Richard, remembering the avian leader who had agreed to transport us across the Cylindrical Sea four years earlier.

But this avian was not the healthy, robust creature that had flown in the center of the formation when we had escaped from New York. This bird was skinny and emaciated, its velvet dirty and unkempt. "It's sick," Richard said as the bird landed about twenty meters away from us.

The avian jabbered something softly and jerked its head around nervously, as if it were expecting more company. Richard took one step toward it and the creature waved its wings, flapped them once, and backed up a few meters. "What food do we have available," Richard said in a low voice, "that is chemically most like the manna melon?"

I shook my head. "We don't have any food at all except last night's chicken - Wait," I said, interrupting myself, "we do have that green punch the children like. It looks like the liquid in the center of the manna melon."

Richard was gone before I had finished my sentence. During the ten minutes until he returned, the avian and I stared silently at one another. I tried to focus my mind on friendly thoughts, hoping that somehow my good intentions would be communicated through my eyes. Once I did see the avian change its expression, but of course I had no idea what either expression meant.

Richard returned carrying one of our black bowls filled with the green punch. He set the bowl in front of us and pointed at it as we backed away six or eight meters. The avian approached it in small, halting steps, stopping eventually right in front of the bowl. The bird dropped its beak into the liquid, took a small sip, and then threw its head back to swallow. Apparently the punch was all right, for die liquid was drained in less than a minute. When the avian was finished, it backed up two steps, spread its wings to their full extent, and made a full circular turn.

"Now we should say you're welcome," I said, extending my hand to Richard. We executed our circular turn, as we had done when we had said good-bye and thank you four years earlier, and bowed slightly in the avian's direction when we were finished.

Both Richard and I thought that the creature smiled, but we readily admitted later that we might have imagined it. The gray velvet avian spread its wings, lifted off the ground, and soared over our heads into the air.

"Where do you think it's going?" I asked Richard.

"It's dying," he replied softly. "It's taking one last look around the world it has known."

6 January 2205

Today is my birthday. I am now forty-one years old. Last night I had another of my vivid dreams. I was very old. My hair was completely gray and my face was heavily wrinkled. I was living in a castle - somewhere near the Loire, not too far from Beauvois - with two grown daughters (neither of whom looked, in the dream, like Simone or Katie or Genevieve) and three grandsons. The boys were all teenagers, healthy physically, but there was something wrong with each of them. They were all dull, maybe even retarded. I remember in the dream trying to explain to them how the molecule of hemoglobin carries oxygen from the pulmonary system to the tissues. None of them could understand what I was saying.

I woke up from the dream in a depression. It was the middle of the night and everyone else in the family was asleep. As I often do, I walked down the corridor to the nursery to make certain that the girls were still covered by their light blankets. Simone hardly ever moves at night but Katie, as usual, had thrown her blanket off with her thrashing around. I put the cover back over Katie and then sat down in one of the chairs.

What is bothering me? I wondered. Why have I been having so many dreams about children and grandchildren? One day last week I made a joking reference to the possibility of having a third child and Richard, who is going through another of his extended gloomy periods, almost jumped out of his skin. I think he's still sorry I talked him into having Katie. I dropped the subject immediately, not wanting to provoke another of his nihilistic tirades.

Would I really want another baby at this juncture? Does it make any sense at all, given the situation in which we find ourselves? Putting aside for the moment any personal reasons I might have for giving birth to a third child, there is a powerful biological argument for continuing to reproduce. Our best guess at our destiny is that we will never have any future contact with other members of the human species. If we are the last in our line, it would be wise for us to pay heed to one of the fundamental tenets of evolution: Maximum genetic variation produces the highest probability of survival in an uncertain environment.

After I had thoroughly awakened from my dream last night, my mind carried the scenario even further. Suppose, I told myself, that Rama is really not going anywhere, at least not soon, and that we will spend the rest of our lives in our current conditions. Then, in all likelihood, Simone and Katie will outlive the three of us adults. What will happen next? I asked. Unless we have somehow saved some semen from either Michael or Richard (and both the biological and sociological problems would be formidable), my daughters will not be able to reproduce. They themselves may arrive at paradise or nirvana or some other world, but they will eventually perish and the genes they carry will die with them.

But suppose, I continued, that I give birth to a son. Then the two girls will have a male companion their age and the problem of succeeding generations will be dramatically lessened.

It was at this point in my thought pattern that a truly crazy idea jumped into my brain. One of my major areas of specialty during my medical training was genetics, especially hereditary defects. I remembered my case studies of the royal families of Europe between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries and the many "inferior" individuals produced from the excessive inbreeding. A son produced by Richard and me would have the same genetic ingredients as Simone and Katie. That son's children with either of the girls, our grandchildren, would have a very high risk of defects. A son produced by Michael and me, on tiie other hand, would share only half his genes with the girls and, if my memory of the data serves me correctly, his offspring with Simone or Katie would have a drastically lower defect risk.

I immediately rejected this outrageous thought. It did not, however, go away. Later in the night, when I should have been sleeping, my mind returned to the same topic. What if I become pregnant by Richard again, I asked myself, and I have a third girl? Then it will be necessary to repeat the entire process. I'm already forty-one. How many more years do I have before the onset of menopause, even if I delay it chemically? On the basis of the two data points thus far, there is no evidence that Richard can produce a boy at all. We could establish a laboratory to permit male sperm selection from his semen, but it would take a monumental effort on our part and months of detailed interaction with the Ramans. And there would still remain the issues of sperm preservation and delivery to the ovaries.

I thought through the various proven techniques of altering the natural sex selection process (the man's diet, type and frequency of intercourse, timing with respect to ovula-tion, etc.) and concluded that Richard and I would probably have a good chance of producing a boy naturally, if we were very careful. But at the back of my mind the thought persisted that the odds would be still more favorable if Michael were the father. After all, he had two sons (out of three children) as a result of random behavior. However much I might be able to improve the probabilities with Richard, the same techniques with Michael would virtually guarantee a son.

Before I fell back asleep I considered briefly the impracticality of the entire idea. A foolproof method of artificial insemination (which I would be required to supervise, even though I was the subject) would have to be devised. Could we do that, in our current situation, and guarantee both the sex and the health of the embryo? Even hospitals on Earth, with all the resources at their command, are not always successful. The other alternative was to have sex with Michael. Although I did not find that thought unpleasant, the sociological ramifications seemed so great that I abandoned the idea altogether.

(Six hours later.)

The men surprised me tonight with a special dinner. Michael is becoming quite a cook. The food tasted, as advertised, like beef Wellington, although it looked more like creamed spinach. Richard and Michael also served a red liquid that was labeled wine. It wasn't terrible, so I drank it, discovering much to my surprise that it contained some alcohol and I actually felt high.

All of us adults were, in fact, slightly tipsy by the end of the dinner. The girls, Simone especially, were puzzled by our behavior. During our dessert of coconut pie, Michael told me that 41 was a "very special number." He then explained to me that it was the largest prime that started a long quadratic sequence of other primes. When I asked him what a quadratic sequence was, he laughed and said he didn't know. He did, however, write out the forty-element sequence he was talking about: 41, 43, 47, 53, 61, 71, 83, 97, 113... concluding with the number 1,601. He assured me that every one of the forty numbers in the sequence was a prime. "Therefore," he said with a twinkle, "forty-one must be a magic number."

While I was laughing, our resident genius Richard looked at the numbers and then, after no more than a minute of playing with his computer, explained to Michael and me why the sequence was called "quadratic." "The second differences are constant," he said, showing us what he meant with an example. "Therefore the entire sequence can be generated by a simple quadratic expression. TakeI(A0 = N2 - N + 41," he continued, "where N is any integer from 0 through 40. That function will generate your entire sequence.

"Better still," he said with a laugh, "consider f(N) = N2 - 81N + 1681, where N is an integer running from 1 to 80. This quadratic formula starts at the tail end of your string of numbers, f(1) - 1601, and proceeds through the sequence in decreasing order first. It reverses itself at 40) = f(41) = 41, and then generates your entire array of numbers again in increasing order."

Richard smiled. Michael and I just stared at him in awe.

13 March 2205

Katie had her second birthday today and everyone was in a good mood, Richard especially. He does like his little girl, even though she manipulates him outrageously. For her birthday he took her over to the octospider lair cover and they rattled the grills together. Both Michael and I expressed our disapproval, but Richard laughed and winked at Katie.

At dinner Simone played a short piano piece that Michael has been teaching her and Richard served a quite remarkable wine - a Raman chardonnay, he called it - with our poached salmon. In Rama poached salmon looks like scrambled eggs on Earth, which is a bit confusing, but we continue to adhere to our convention of labeling foods according to their tastes.

I'm feeling buoyantly happy, even though I must admit that I am slightly nervous about my coming discussion with Richard. He is very upbeat at the present time, mostly because he's busily working on not one, but two major projects. Not only is he making liquid concoctions whose taste and alcohol content rival the fine wines of the planet Earth, but also he is creating a new set of twenty-centimeter robots based on the characters from the plays of the twentieth century Nobel laureate Samuel Beckett. Michael and I have been urging Richard to reincarnate his Shakespeare troupe for several years, but the memory of his lost friends has always stopped him. But a new playwright - that's a different question. He has already finished the four characters in Endgame. Tonight the children laughed gleefully when the old folks "Nagg" and "Nell" rose out of their tiny garbage cans shouting, "My pap. Bring me my pap."

I am definitely going to present to Richard my idea of having a son with Michael as the father. He will, I am certain, appreciate the logic and the science of the suggestion, although I can hardly expect him to be terribly enthusiastic about it. Of course I have not mentioned my idea at all to Michael yet. He does know I have something serious on my mind, however, because I have asked him if he would look after the girls this afternoon while Richard and I go topside for a picnic and a talk.

My nervousness about this issue is probably unwarranted. It is doubtless based on a definition of proper behavior that simply has no application to our present situation. Richard is feeling good these days. His wit has been very sharp lately. He may throw a few sharp zingers at me during our discussion, but I bet he will be in favor of the idea at the end.

7 May 2205

This has been the spring of our discontent. Oh, Lord, what fools we mortals be. Richard, Richard, please come back.

Where to start? And how to begin? Do I dare to eat a peach? In a minute there are visions and revisions that a minute... In the next room Michael and Simone come and go, talking of Michelangelo.

My father always told me that everyone makes mistakes. Why did mine have to be so colossal? The idea made good sense. My left brain said it was logical. But deep down inside the human being, reason does not always carry the day. Emotions are not rational. Jealousy is not the output of a computer program.

There were plenty of warnings. That first afternoon, as we sat beside the Cylindrical Sea and had our "picnic," I could tell from Richard's eyes that there was a problem. Uh-oh, back off, Nicole, I said to myself.

But later he seemed so reasonable. "Of course," Richard said that same afternoon, "what you are suggesting is the genetically correct thing to do. I will go with you to tell Michael. Let's get this over as fast as we can, hoping one encounter will be all that is necessary."

I felt elated at the time. It never occurred to me that Michael might balk. "It would be a sin," he said in the evening, after the girls were asleep, within seconds after he understood what we were proposing.

Richard took the offensive, arguing that the entire concept of sin was an anachronism even on Earth and that Michael was just being silly. "Do you really want me to do this?" Michael asked Richard directly at the end of the conversation.

"No," Richard answered after a brief hesitation, "but it's clearly in the best interests of our children." I should have paid more attention to the "no."

It never occurred to me that my plan might not work. I tracked my ovulation cycle very carefully. When the designated night finally arrived, I informed Richard and he stalked out of the lair for one of his long hikes in Rama. Michael was nervous and fighting his feelings of guilt, but even in my worst doomsday scenario I had not . imagined that he might be unable to have intercourse with me.

When we took off our clothes (in the dark, so Michael would not feel uncomfortable) and lay beside each other on the mats, I discovered that his body was rigid and tense. I kissed him on the forehead and cheeks. Then I tried to loosen him up by rubbing his back and neck. After about thirty minutes of touching (but nothing that would be considered sexual foreplay), I snuggled my body against his in a suggestive way. It was obvious we had a problem. His penis was still completely flaccid.

I did not know what to do. My initial thought, which of course was completely irrational, was that Michael did not find me attractive. I felt terrible, as if someone had slapped me in the face. All my repressed feelings of inadequacy burst to the surface and I was surprisingly angry. Luckily I didn't say anything (neither of us talked during this entire period) and Michael couldn't see my face in the dark. But my body language must have signaled my disappointment.

"I'm sorry," he said softly.

"It's all right," I answered, trying to be nonchalant.

I propped myself up on an elbow and caressed his forehead with my other hand. I expanded my light massage, letting my fingers ran gently around his face, neck, and shoulders. Michael was completely passive. He lay on his back without moving, his eyes closed most of the time. Although I am certain he was enjoying the rub, he neither said anything nor uttered any murmurs of pleasure. By this time I was becoming exceedingly anxious. I found myself wanting Michael to caress me, to tell me that I was all right.

At length I rolled over with part of my body across his. I let my breasts drop gently on his torso while my right hand played with the hah on his chest. I leaned up to kiss him on the lips, intending to arouse him elsewhere with my left hand, but he pulled away quickly and then sat up.

"I can't do this," Michael said, shaking his head.

"Why not?" I asked quietly, my body now in an awkward position beside him.

"It's wrong," he answered with great solemnity.

I tried several times in the next few minutes to start a conversation, but Michael did not want to talk. Eventually, because there was nothing else for me to do, I dressed silently in the dark. Michael barely managed a meager "Good night" when I left.

I did not return immediately to my room. Once I was out in the corridor I realized that I was not yet ready to confront Richard. I leaned against the wall and struggled with the powerful emotions engulfing me. Why had I assumed everything would be so simple? And what would I tell Richard now?

From the sound of Richard's breathing I, knew that he was not asleep when I entered our room. If I had had more courage, I might have told him right then what had happened with Michael. But it was easier to ignore it for the moment. That was a serious mistake.

The next two days were strained. Nobody mentioned what Richard had once referred to as the "fertilization event." The men tried to act as if everything was normal. After dinner the second night I persuaded Richard to take a walk with me while Michael put the girls to bed.

Richard was explaining the chemistry of his new wine fermentation process as we stood on the ramparts overlooking the Cylindrical Sea. At one point I interrupted him and took his hand. "Richard," I said, my eyes searching for love and reassurance in his, "this is very difficult..." My voice trailed off.

"What is it, Nikki?" he asked, forcing a smile.

"Well," I answered, "it's Michael. You see," I blurted out, "nothing really happened... He couldn't..."

Richard stared at me for a long time. "You mean he's impotent?" he asked.

I nodded first and then completely confused him by shaking my head. "Probably not really," I stammered, "but he was the other night with me. I think he's just too tense or feels guilty or maybe it's been too long - " I stopped myself, realizing I was saying too much.

Richard gazed across the sea for what seemed like an eternity. "Do you want to try again?" he said eventually in a completely expressionless voice. He did not turn to look at me.

"I... I don't know," I answered. I squeezed his hand. I was going to say something else, to ask him if he could deal with the situation if I tried one more time, but Richard abruptly walked away from me. "Let me know when you make up your mind," he said tersely.

For a week or two I was certain that I was going to abandon the entire idea. Slowly, very slowly, a semblance of cheer returned to our little family. The night after my period was over Richard and I made love twice for the first time in a year. He seemed especially pleased and was very talkative as we cuddled after the second intercourse.

"I must say I was really worried there for a while," he said. "The thought of your having sex with Michael, even for supposedly logical reasons, was driving me crazy. I know it doesn't make rational sense, but I was terribly afraid that you might like it - do you understand? - and mat somehow our relationship might be affected."

Richard was obviously assuming that I wasn't going to try again to become pregnant with Michael's child. I didn't argue with him that night because I too was momentarily content. A few days later, however, when I began reading about impotence in my medical books, I realized myself that I was still determined to proceed with my plan.

During the week before I ovulated again, Richard was busy brewing his wine (and maybe tasting it a bit more often than necessary - more than once he was a little drunk before dinner) and creating little robots out of Samuel Beckett's characters. My attention was focused on impotence. My curriculum at medical school had virtually ignored the subject. And since my own sexual experience has been comparatively limited, I had never personally been exposed to it before. I was surprised to learn that impotence is an extremely common malady, primarily psychological but very often with an exacerbating physical component as well, and that there are many well-defined treatment patterns, all of which focus on lessening the "performance anxiety" in the man.

Richard saw me preparing my urine for ovulation testing one morning. He didn't say anything, but I could tell from his face that he was hurt and disappointed. I wanted to reassure him, but the children were in the room and I was afraid there might be a scene.

I didn't tell Michael that we were going to make a second attempt. I thought that his anxiety would be reduced if he didn't have time to think about it. My plan almost worked. I went with Michael to his room, after we had put the children to bed, and explained to him what was happening while we undressed. He had the beginnings of an erection and, despite his mild protests, I moved quickly to sustain it. I am certain that we would have been successful if Katie had not started screaming "Mommy, Mommy" just when we were ready to begin intercourse.

Of course I left Michael and ran down the corridor to the nursery. Richard was already there. He was holding Katie in his arms. Simone was sitting up on her mat, rubbing her eyes. The three of them all stared at my naked body in the doorway. "I had a terrible dream," Katie said, holding tightly to Richard. "An octospider was eating me."

I walked into the room. "Are you feeling better now?" I asked, reaching out to take Katie. Richard continued to hold her and she made no effort to come to me. After an uncomfortable moment I went over to Simone and draped my arm across her shoulder.

"Where are your pajamas, Mother?" my four-year-old asked. Most of the time both Richard and I sleep in the Raman version of pajamas. The girls are quite accustomed to my naked body - the three of us shower together virtually every day - but at night, when I come into the nursery, I'm almost always wearing my pajamas.

I was going to give Simone a flippant answer when I noticed that Richard too was staring at me. His eyes were definitely hostile. "I can take care of things here," he said harshly. "Why don't you finish what you were doing?"

I returned to Michael to try one more time to achieve intercourse and conception. It was a bad decision. I made a futile attempt to arouse Michael for a couple of minutes and then he pushed my hand away. "It's useless," he said. "I'm almost sixty-three years old and I haven't had intercourse for five years. I never masturbate and I consciously try not to think about sex. My erection earlier was just a temporary stroke of luck." He was silent for almost a minute. "I'm sorry, Nicole," he then added, "but it's not going to work."

We lay silently side by side for several minutes. I was dressing and preparing to leave when I noticed that Michael had fallen into the rhythmic breathing pattern that precedes sleep. I suddenly remembered from my reading that men with psychological impotence often have erections during their sleep, and my mind dreamed up another crazy idea. I laid awake beside Michael for quite a while, waiting until I was certain he was in a deep sleep.

I stroked him very softly at first. I was delighted that he responded very quickly. After a while I slightly increased the vigor of my massage, but I was extremely careful not to wake him up. When he was definitely ready I prepared myself and moved over on top of him. I was only moments away from achieving intercourse when I jostled him too roughly and he awakened. I tried to continue, but in my haste I must have hurt him, for he uttered a yelp and looked at me with wild, startled eyes. Within seconds his erection had vanished.

I rolled over on my back and heaved a deep sigh. I was terribly disappointed. Michael was asking me questions, but I was too distraught to answer. Tears suffused my eyes. I dressed in a hurry, kissed Michael lightly on the forehead, and stumbled out into the corridor. I stood there for another five minutes before I had the strength to return to Richard.

My husband was still working. He was down on his knees beside Pozzo, from Waiting for Godot. The little robot was in the middle of one of his long, rambling speeches about the uselessness of everything. Richard ignored me at first. Then, after silencing Pozzo, he turned around. "Do you think you took long enough?" he asked sarcastically.

"It still didn't work," I answered dejectedly. "I guess - "

"Don't give me that shit," Richard suddenly shouted angrily. "I'm not that stupid. Do you expect me to believe that you spent two hours naked with him and nothing happened? I know about you women. You think that..."

I don't remember the rest of what he said. I do recall my terror as he advanced toward me, his eyes full of anger. I thought he was going to hit me and I braced myself. Tears burst from my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. Richard called me horrible names and even made a racist slur. He was insane. When he raised his arm in a fury I bolted from the room, rushing down the corridor toward the stairs to New York. I nearly ran over little Katie, who had been awakened by the shouting and was standing dumbfounded at the door of the nursery.

It was light in Rama. I walked around, crying intermittently, for most of an hour. I was furious with Richard, but I was also deeply unhappy with myself. In his rage Richard had said that I was "obsessed" with this idea of mine and that it was just a "clever excuse" to have intercourse with Michael so that I could be the "queen bee of the hive." I hadn't replied to any of his rantings. Was there even a smidgin of truth in his accusation? Was any part of my excitement about the project a desire on my part to have sex with Michael?

I convinced myself that my motivations had all been "proper," whatever that means, but that I had been incredibly stupid about this entire affair from the very beginning. I, of all people, should have known that what I was suggesting was impossible. Certainly after I saw Richard's initial response (and Michael's too, for that matter), I should have immediately forsaken the idea. Maybe Richard was right in some ways. Maybe I am stubborn, even obsessed with the idea of providing maximum genetic variation to our offspring. But I know for certain that I did not concoct the entire thing just so I could have sex with Michael.

It was dark in our room when I returned. I changed into my pajamas and plopped down, exhausted, on my mat. After a few seconds Richard rolled over, hugged me fiercely, and said, "My darling, Nicole, I'm so so sorry. Please forgive me."

I have not heard his voice since then. He has been gone now for six days. I slept soundly that night, unaware mat Richard was packing his things and leaving me a note. At seven o'clock in the morning, an alarm sounded. There was a message filling the black screen. It said, "FOR NICOLE DBS JARDINS ONLY - Push K when you want to read." The children were not yet awake, so I pushed the K button on the keyboard.

Dearest Nicole, this is the most difficult letter I have ever written in my life. I am temporarily leaving you and the family. I know that this will create considerable hardship for you, Michael, and the girls, but believe me, it is the only way. After last night it is apparent to me that there is no other solution.

My darling, I love you with all my heart and know, when my brain is in control of my emotions, that what you are trying to do is in the best interests of the family. I feel terrible about the accusations that I made last night. I feel even worse about all the names I called you, especially the racial epithets and my frequent use of the word "bitch." I hope that you can forgive me, even though I'm not certain I can forgive myself, and will remember my love for you instead of my insane, unbridled anger.

Jealousy is a terrible thing. "It doth mock the meat it feeds upon" is an understatement. Jealousy is completely consuming, totally irrational, and absolutely debilitating. The most wonderful people in the world are nothing but raging animals when trapped in the throes of jealousy.

Nicole, darling, I did not tell you the complete truth last year about the end of my marriage to Sarah. I suspected for months that she was seeing other men on those nights she was spending in London. There were plenty of telltale signs - her uneven interest in sex, new clothes that were never worn with me, sudden fascinations with new positions or different sexual practices, phone calls with nobody on the other end - but I loved her so madly, and was so certain that our marriage would be over if I confronted her, that I didn't do anything until I was enraged by my jealousy.

Actually, as I would lie in my bed at Cambridge and picture Sarah having intercourse with another man, my jealousy would become so powerful that I could not fall asleep until I had imagined Sarah dead. When Mrs. Sinclair called me that night and I knew I could no longer pretend that Sarah was faithful, I went to London with the express intention of killing both my wife and her lover.

Luckily I had no gun and my rage upon seeing them together made me forget the knife I had placed in the pocket of my overcoat. But I definitely would have killed them if the melee had not aroused the neighbors and I had not been restrained.

You may be wondering what all this has to do with you. You see, my love, each of us develops definitive patterns of behavior in his life. My pattern of insane jealousy was already present before I met you. During the two times that you have gone to be intimate with Michael, I have been unable to stop the memories of Sarah from returning. I know you are not Sarah, and that you are not cheating on me, but nevertheless, my emotions return in that same lunatic pattern. In a very strange sense, because the idea of your betraying me is so impossible to conceive, I feel worse, more frightened, when you are with Michael than I did when Sarah was with Hugh Sinclair or any of her other actor friends.

I hope some of this makes sense. I am leaving because I cannot control my jealousy, even though I acknowledge it to be irrational. I do not want to become like my father, drinking away my misery and ruining the lives of everyone around me. I sense that you will achieve this conception, one way or another, and I would prefer to spare you my bad behavior during the process.

I expect that I will be back soon, unless I encounter unforeseen dangers in my explorations, but I do not know exactly when. I need a period of healing, so that I can again be a solid contributor to our family. Tell the girls that I am off on a journey. Be kind especially to Katie - she will miss me the most.

I love you, Nicole. I know that it will be difficult for you to understand why I am leaving, but please try.

Richard.