The Tree of Knowledge

by Daniel G. Miller

  Germany. That was when it had started for her. That was when she realized she was different, but also found out where she belonged. She stood on a small temporary stage in a simple brick building for the Junior Mental Calculation World Cup. The building smelled chill and dank like a wine cellar. The crowd was small, but all eyes were on her. The man that stood beside her sported a walrus mustache and glasses with a chain around his neck. She thought he looked like an underwater librarian.

  The final test was simple. On a screen in front of her, six five-digit numbers would flash for .4 seconds—just long enough for her to see—and she would be asked to add those numbers in five seconds. Ying adjusted her back brace. Her leg braces had been removed that August, but her back brace would have to stay on until she was fifteen. She looked out at the crowd expecting to see snickering faces, like what she received at school, but she saw the opposite. Just hopeful smiles. The warmth calmed her as she shifted her attention to the computer monitor in front of her.

  The screen shone pure blue. In a matter of seconds, five-digit numbers would tumble forward one after the other, and her mind would have to simultaneously memorize and add those numbers instantaneously. Answer correctly and she wins; incorrectly, she loses.

  “Are you ready?” asked the moderator.

  Ying focused and unfocused her eyes on the screen, taking herself to the place between presence and imagination. She nodded.

  As the numbers flickered forth on the screen, Ying slowed the world around her and blacked out the space. She froze each screen, holding a unique number in her mind, and placed them side by side, adding them as they were cataloged in her imagination. Seconds later, they were organized in her mind like books on a shelf with the final book being the answer. She ran her fingers across the smooth keyboard in front of her and typed in the number: 70,392. The moderator revealed the answer: 70,392.

  Her parents and the rest of the audience burst out in applause and rushed the stage to congratulate her and shake her hand. Not one face held judgment or mockery. Just amazement and awe. Ying felt special. She was somebody.

  But as she stood in Turner’s living room, Ying wondered what type of somebody she would be, should be. She was proud of what she had accomplished. Getting into Princeton, traveling to the United States by herself. Entering the PhD program. Getting an assistantship with Professor Puddles. But was that it? Was this her life? To be a math nerd, gathering dust in academia. Something about this murder, and the mysterious logic tree that came with it, had sparked something in her. She was searching.

  Ying turned on the local news in the hopes of seeing something about the murder. She clicked the wood-paneled remote to Turner’s 1980s Zenith television. Is this the first TV ever made? she wondered. Although, Turner having a TV at all is a minor miracle.

  Ying flipped the channels but was disappointed to see that all the major stations were running national news programs. She slid her thumb over the power button, intending to shut off the ancient device, but then something caught her eye.

  On the screen stood a tall, striking black-haired woman surrounded by a sea of red-shirted supporters. The woman gripped an ornate wood lectern bathed in stage lighting in some type of arena. She wore a crimson suit, which contrasted with her dark eyes that burned like embers in a fire. The effect of the lights gave the woman a godlike quality as she thundered away to the audience. And the audience. The audience, dripping in bright-red T-shirts, hats, and jackets, appeared to move in unison like a monstrous red ocean bobbing and crashing with ecstasy. Young people lined the middle and outer rails of the convention hall, holding red banners with a modern tree symbol etched in black. The camera panned around the crowd, which numbered at least five thousand, and Ying could see the entranced faces of students, children, mothers, seniors, and workers as the woman spoke. When the speaker paused, Ying could hear a booming chant of “Chris-ti-na, Chris-ti-na” echoing throughout the chamber.

  Ying leaned in to listen, joining the crowd in willing hypnosis. The speaker paused, and the roar of the crowd fell victim to the hushed silence of anticipation.

  Cristina Culebra’s voice echoed with haunting sincerity and power.

  “As many of you know, I grew up in Chile.”

  She paused and smiled as the few Chileans in the crowd hollered out their support.

  “Today, Chile is a wonderful place, but it wasn’t always that way. When I was a child, my mother and father owned a beautiful farm about an hour outside of Santiago. It was a majestic piece of land. In the mornings, the sun would come up over the mountains, and the grapevines and lemon orchards stretched for what seemed like forever. My two brothers and I would walk the fields with my papa at dawn, occasionally sneaking a grape when he wasn’t looking. He loved that farm, and he worked it every day. I could feel it when I held his hands, which were hard, cracked, and dry from the work. But underneath that tough layer of skin, I could always sense the tenderness that he felt for my brothers, Mama, and me. My brothers and I would work from sunup to sundown, racing to see who could pick grapes faster. They were older than me, so at first, they were faster, but soon I learned that with my small hands and a couple of different tricks, I could outpace them. When we were done in the fields, Papa, my brothers, and I would stumble into our home, exhausted and famished from the day’s work, and Mama would hug us and tell us to clean up for supper, and then serve us a gigantic paella. We would scarf the food down like dogs while Mama scolded us for our table manners. Shortly thereafter, we turned in for bed. I shared a room with my two brothers, and I remember the three of us just staring at the ceiling with full bellies and the warm contentment of a good day’s work and the love of family.”

  At this point, the crowd let out a collective nod as each individual recalled a treasured family memory. The speaker’s soothing words created a warm blanket of nostalgia over the willing audience.

  “Then, when I was nine years old, everything changed,” she said with a tone of heartbreak and anger. “Chile elected its first socialist president, who believed that land should be taken from those who had it and given to those who didn’t.”

  At this, the red crowd’s nostalgia transformed into anger as they erupted in a chorus of boos and shouts of “Socialist!”

  Cristina Culebra politely smiled and raised her hands to quiet the crowd.

  “The government seized four-fifths of Papa and Mama’s farm and gave it to four poor families who had never farmed before in their life. Despite my parents’ best efforts, the remaining land was not nearly enough to feed our family. For months, we attempted to survive on grapes and our remaining animals, but as we began to starve, my father decided that something had to be done. He and the other farmers went to the government and told them of our plight. He promised to help the poor families on our land if they would allow us to farm it.

  “But it was all for naught.

  “At this point, the government was practically powerless, consumed with a divided congress that could do nothing but squabble and bicker while their country crumbled and their countrymen starved. Eventually, my parents could no longer support our family, so they sold our land, had my brothers enlist in the army, and sent me to live with my aunt and uncle in Los Angeles. I never saw them again.”

  Ying watched in awe as the crowd stood ice-still as though they had been physically frozen by her words.

  The speaker paused and gathered herself for several seconds while the crowd’s silence begged her to continue.

  “I tell you this story not to earn your pity but to rouse your vigilance. Just like Chile back then, California stands on the brink of disaster. We have twenty-five percent youth unemployment, and our state is effectively bankrupt. Yet, just like my father and those farmers, we, too, are shut out while the politicians bicker and squabble.”

  The crowd again began to boo.

  “But, as much as I hate to say it, just like in the case of Mr. Al
lende, it’s not the politicians’ fault. It’s the system. We currently have a Republican governor, Democratic senate, and Democratic house. Now, I ask you to imagine a company that had a CEO who believed in one set of ideas, but before the CEO could do anything, he first had to get not one but two groups of people who believe the opposite of what he believes to agree with him.”

  The crowd erupted in laughter.

  Cristina Culebra smiled. “You laugh, but this is the comical system in which we ask our elected officials to operate every day. It’s outdated, antiquated, and absurd.

  “More than anything in this world, I want to make sure that no child ever has to go through what I went through. That no family is ever torn apart because of government bureaucracy and indifference. That every hardworking person can realize their dream and that their government will do everything it can to make sure that happens.

  “But if we want to make that dream a reality, we can’t keep doing the same thing with the same system.” The speaker began to pound the podium with her fist, and the crowd cheered. “We need a new leader. And we need a leader who can take action without wondering whether one hundred and fifty-five different legislators of different political parties agree.”

  At this, the crowd once again erupted in hypnotic support.

  “And that is why I ask that on November 4, you don’t just vote for me for governor, but vote to temporarily suspend the legislature so that I can do what it takes to make sure all of us realize the dream that’s within our reach.

  “I believe that we can make California the beacon of hope for America, and the world.”

  As the sea of red exploded in ecstasy, Turner returned to his living room with a stack of old papers in his hand to find Ying staring transfixed, her face inches from the TV screen.

  “Ying, I’ve found some materials that we should review,” he said excitedly.

  Ying continued to watch Cristina Culebra as she came to the crescendo of her speech. Was this what she had been looking for?

  “I believe that California can be the model of what a society can be.”

  “Ms. Koh, will you turn that off, please, so that we can get to work,” Turner said with increased urgency and irritation.

  Ying heard his words but didn’t process them. The charismatic woman on the screen had her transfixed.

  “I believe that California can be that magical place where every child receives a world-class education and unrelenting opportunity!”

  Suddenly, Turner stormed over to the television, slammed on the power button, and shouted, “Turn that damn thing off!”

  Ying snapped back as though being awakened from a trance. She blinked and looked up at the professor’s face in shock. His cheeks were red, his fists clenched, and his eyes squinted in frustration.

  “Oh, I-I’m so sorry, Professor Turner. I just turned on the TV to see if the murder was in the news and got kind of wrapped up in that speech.”

  “Yes, I know,” Turner grunted as he moved away from Ying and toward the coffee table. “Ms. Culebra tends to have that effect on people.”

  “She’s running for governor of California?”

  Turner began to arrange the papers on the coffee table, his hands showing a faint tremble. “Yes.”

  “Do you think she’ll win?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Turner mumbled as he put on his glasses and looked over his materials.

  Ying let out a short laugh of disbelief. “You don’t like her? She seemed pretty impressive to me. I mean, you have to admit that what she was saying has a lot of truth. Government in the US is kind of pathetic. One of the things that I miss about Singapore is how well everything works. This is something I could get excited about.”

  “Yes, but that comes at a cost. If you speak out against the government in your beloved Singapore, you might get sued, caned, or imprisoned.”

  “But that’s limited to people who agitate against the government, like Communists,” said Ying dismissively. “If you’re a normal person, everything is better. The train system is clean and on time. The streets are perfectly paved. Housing and health care are cheap and plentiful. And all of that’s because Lee Kuan Yew came in, took charge, and looked out for the people. I never could have come to America to study if it weren’t for him. Maybe Cristina Culebra can do the same thing for California.”

  Turner glanced at Ying and rolled his eyes. “Believe me, she won’t.” He waved her over to the sofa. “Now, enough about Cristina Culebra. Come over here and look at this. Class is in session.”

  Chapter 14

  “Hello, Eva,” said Albert sternly as he met the eyes of the girl for whom he had felt so much.

  He assessed her face. It had not lost its mesmerizing power. Her dark-brown, almost black, eyes still gleamed like onyx. The light freckles around her cheeks softened her raw beauty, and her hair still cascaded perfectly around her face. Yet, despite all the similarities to the girl he had known, Albert realized that something was different. Her eyes that once danced with hope and imagination were now controlled and cynical; her once-joyful smile was now a cold, arrogant sneer. Albert found it both unnerving and attracting, like an electrical storm.

  “Hello, Dilbert,” she said with a seductive smirk, the old nickname bringing back memories of his college days, and his affection for the shy and brilliant teenager.

  Albert wanted to let go and sink into that past—it was wonderful seeing her face again, even changed as it was—but he couldn’t forget the picture of the dead security guard that Detective Weatherspoon had showed him.

  “How could you do it?” he asked hoarsely.

  Eva looked down, and for a moment, Albert thought he saw real regret, but as she tilted her head up, it vanished. “Ahh, you cracked the cipher. I knew you would, but I was hoping you and your chubby little girlfriend would take a bit longer to solve it.”

  “She’s not chubby, and she’s not my girlfriend,” Albert blurted out, surprising himself with his anger and spontaneity.

  Eva raised a hand to calm him. “I was just teasing. I’m sure she’s a great girl.”

  “She’s my graduate assistant and—” Albert stopped, shook his head, and looked up at the sky in frustration. He noticed the clouds crashing together on the back of a growing wind.

  How is she doing this? Why is she getting to me so much?

  “Relax, Dilbert,” said Eva. She lovingly brushed the chest of Albert’s suit coat and picked off some of the lint and hairs on his shoulder. “I didn’t come here to talk about you and your personal life. I came here to set the record straight.”

  Albert nodded, trying to slow his heartbeat and flush the red from his face. “OK.”

  “I want you to know that I never intended for that security guard to die. I’m sure you noticed that when you cracked the cipher. I was trying to pacify him. He had a weak heart and it couldn’t take the strain.”

  “OK. Fine. But what the hell were you doing sedating a security guard and robbing a bank?”

  Eva began pacing. “As you know, my family is in the security and defense business.” Albert nodded but squinted skeptically. “We have designed a virtually uncrackable security system. It will change how the world secures data, arms, everything. Unfortunately, a professor at Princeton made the same discovery and outlined the system in a journal and then stored it in the bank.”

  “OK. Why did you steal it? Couldn’t you just buy it from him?”

  “He would never sell it. But we feel that the benefits of this system are too great for society to keep locked away. Don’t you see? It was for the greater good.”

  “Why do you care about what I think?” asked Albert. Strangely, he found himself hoping for a particular answer.

  “Honestly? Because I was hoping that if you knew the truth, you might reconsider what you’re about to do and look the other way. I feel sick that the security gu
ard died, but there’s nothing you or I can do to bring him back. And putting me in jail isn’t going to help anyone.”

  Eva looked at Albert and slowly blinked her big brown eyes.

  “So, you want me to just do nothing? To pretend I couldn’t solve the tree?”

  “I was actually hoping you would just solve this tree.” She handed him a decoded logic tree. The tree appeared similar but the content was harmless. “You know me. You know I’m not a criminal. I was trying to do the right thing.” With that, she slowly slid her small, cool hand into Albert’s and glanced at him shyly.

  For a moment, Albert was lost. Holding Eva’s hand was like being transported into a utopian world where the two of them could live happily ever after. He smelled the ocean air as they sat holding each other on an imaginary Los Angeles beach. He pictured her bright eyes as they laughed over a home-cooked dinner. His mind raced as they discussed the great issues of the day while sipping chilled glasses of Chardonnay.

  But after a brief second, his rational self yanked him back to the gray parking lot outside the police station. Albert tore his hand away from Eva’s as if to physically break the connection to their imagined world and backed away. He handed the imposter logic tree back to her. “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. I believe you had no intention to harm, but the fact is that a man is dead, and I wouldn’t feel right covering it up. If you’re truly innocent, you should be judged by a jury, not me.”

  As the words tumbled from Albert’s mouth, he could see Eva’s shoulders and head fall. She looked like a judge who had just offered a man on trial one last chance at mercy but knew that she must execute a sentence.