Miss Buddha

by Ulf Wolf

  He was about to answer, somewhat flippantly, that he was talking to her, but he knew that this was not what she meant—and the rush of what she meant filled him from toe to head with his next breath.

  :

  Julian lived less than three blocks away from the Athenaeum, and they walked there—purposefully. The moon was out, young, slivery and pale. Other guests were leaving the function as well, and they saw many expensive cars—some chauffeur-driven—pull out and slowly set courses. They said nothing, until they reached Julian’s small house—a cottage rental, owned and maintained by the school.

  “Here,” said Julian, and pointed. As they turned onto the short asphalted walk up to the front door, Julian found Kristina’s hand in his, not sure how. He led the way to the door, let go her hand, found his keys, and let her in.

  :

  Later, neither Kristina nor Julian would be able to put a precise finger on how or even why what followed followed. Julian often saw himself as a little possessed. The rush of what she had meant at the dinner had filled him so thoroughly, so vibrantly, so vibratingly, that there was no room for other thought, or other emotions, or for even the tiniest grain of reason.

  As for Kristina, admiration for the younger man metamorphosed to need shortly after crossing his threshold, but she never saw it coming, nor could she fight it when it did.

  When she finally left Julian’s house the sun was not long in rising, and most of the bird population was already up and about. Her car was the only one at the Athenaeum parking lot—conspicuously alone, thought Kristina, but to hell with that.

  What she decided on her drive home was: never again. Just that, and with such undiluted intention that the decision held firm, and does to this day. She slipped, fine. Nothing she could do about that now that it was done. But she would never, ever, again.

  Julian, on waking and finding, not surprisingly, Kristina gone, made no similar pledge. He would have, again, in a heartbeat. For what he had discovered was the one love of his life. The beautiful, colorful woman who understood him. There was (he was convinced of this) for each person on this Earth, precisely one specific mate; there was only the one other who you were meant to find. Few did, and most settled for alternatives—some alternative poorer others. The few who did find their true companion were the lucky, the magically lucky ones.

  Kristina Medina was his fated companion. But she was married, and not unhappily. They had met too late. By lunchtime he had arrived at that conclusion, and so it crystallized into decision: he would stay true to this love for the rest of his life, but he would also honor her situation, and not pursue her in any way. He would file as cherished and holy memory their night together, and he would carry this in his heart for the rest of his days. After all, not many get to experience this, he was in fact lucky.

  :

  The next several months saw Julian absorbed in the details and execution of his macro-time project, which is how he thought of it. Depending on who thought or talked about it, it carried several other names: the Colombia-Borneo Laser Experiment, the Parallel Laser Project, the Polarity Change Confirmation Experiment. The official name, however, the one used in the header on all his grant applications said Cal Tech Twin-Particle Polarity Experiment.

  By early spring 1999 the sun, who, astronomically speaking, had been quite agitated through the winter, had finally settled down. Very little activity now, and from what the astronomers predicted, none to speak of for the next two weeks.

  So, Julian set the date: April 11.

  :: 72 :: (Pasadena)

  If he could have scripted the weather, he would not have changed a thing. There were no clouds over Colombia, none over Borneo, and none over Cambridge. There were no winds either place. It was as if a sunny and curious Earth was playing along and now holding its breath.

  Even the sun was behaving.

  At precisely noon Greenwich Mean Time the Cambridge lab fired the twin-particles at their respective beams. They both left the planet’s surface as positive—this was verified beyond a doubt and documented.

  They were fired at angles calculated to hit their respective lasers beams at an altitude of about 15,000 kilometers and approximately 30,000 kilometers apart.

  What was termed the Colombia Twin would hit its laser (which would then instantly change the particle’s polarity to negative) precisely 3.62 millionths of a second before the Borneo Twin hit its laser, which would be far too little time for any local communication to cross 30,000 kilometers even at light speed. In other words, no such communication could possibly take place between the particles before the Borneo Twin found its target.

  The Borneo laser’s job was to receive its twin, read its polarity and report back. It did.

  The Borneo Twin polarity was negative.

  At precisely one minute past noon, another twin pair was fired, both leaving with negative polarity this time.

  The Borneo laser reported back: positive.

  Eighteen more twins were fired exactly sixty seconds apart, and in each instant the changed polarity of the Colombia twin was faithfully (and instantly) reflected in its Borneo sibling.

  Julian had proven instant, non-local communication between the twins. And in macro-time.

  It was not until the following morning, when the lack of headlines about his successful experiment took him a little aback—a cluster of suicide bombings in Yemen and Afghanistan was the main topic of the day, that and the omnipresent Y2K speculations: would the world actually come to a standstill at midnight December 31?—that he returned to the printouts that covered his desk—now interspersed with congratulatory telexes and emails—and asked himself the same question Kristina had asked him, but with added depth: he had now proven what, exactly?

  He knew there was more, much more; something much larger than the fact that nonlocal communication does in fact exist—now even to the theoreticians’ macro-satisfaction.

  He felt as if he had pried open an ancient door or window, and—were he to be absolutely honest: he found himself afraid to look inside.

  :

  The next time they met—a few months after the successful twin-particle project, Kristina was by her husband Daniel’s side along with Frank and Katiana, her parents. The occasion was a one-million-dollar grant made by Cortez Construction in favor of Cal Tech’s Quantum Physics Department—Julian’s domain. Kristina’s doing.

  Finally seeing her again, Julian had trouble breathing, but Kristina took it in stride. Although Julian tried to steer clear of her, she cornered him briefly after dinner, while the Department Head entertained her parents and Daniel tried to avoid legal questions from a couple that recognized him from the papers.

  “It’s really for you,” said Kristina, referring to the grant.

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Julian.

  “You’re a brilliant man, Julian Lawson.”

  “The world doesn’t seem to care.”

  “The world is too busy looking in wrong directions,” she replied. Then added, “Too busy to observe what you have done.”

  He smiled. “I have to admit,” he said. “It was a bulls-eye.”

  “I know,” she said. Then repeated, “You are a brilliant man. And I’ve managed to convince my parents of that as well.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” said Julian again.

  “No need to say anything.”

  The silence that followed touched them both with the same warm hand.

  “Did you ever,” began Julian.

  “I’ve been meaning,” began Kristina at the same time.

  The silence returned. Then Julian said, “You go first.”

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” said Kristina, “that it can never happen again.”

  “Of course not,” said Julian.

  “You understand why?”

  “Yes, I understand why.”

  “You do,” said Kristina.

  “Yes.”

  The silence returned.

  “I would v
ery much like for us to be friends,” she said after a while.

  Julian did not answer right away. Instead he looked around the room. At Kristina’s parents now sharing some story with his Department Head, at her husband still fending off legal questions, at the waitresses sifting through the crowd with drinks of various kinds. Then he looked back at Kristina and said:

  “I would like that.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  And so they did indeed become friends.

  Kristina’s hunger was for knowledge. She sought to catch glimpses of that underlying and mystical reality that the world at large seemed so firmly determined to remain blissfully ignorant of, and she would sometimes show up unannounced at Cal Tech to take part in, or at least observe, what Julian was doing.

  Julian—the treasure of that further and further away night safely ensconced in his heart—found her visits less and less troubling, and in the end learned to accept her presence with equanimity.

  :: 73 :: (Pasadena)

  She arrived unannounced as usual.

  Julian did, however, look up in surprise: Kristina Medina usually arrived unannounced on Wednesdays, and this—as far has he knew—was not Wednesday.

  And here she was, as colorful and beautiful as ever. And excited about something, something near the surface, he could see it in her eyes.

  He leaned back in what he thought of as his Department Head chair, which always creaked no matter how well he oiled the springs.

  “Kristina.”

  She didn’t answer. Instead she looked around for somewhere to sit, a futile exercise. “Just put it on the floor,” he said, pointing to a pile of papers on one of the chairs. She did. Sat down.

  “Julian,” she said, aglitter.

  “Yes, Kristina.”

  Who, before getting to the point, remembered something, “Oh, by the way, happy anniversary.”

  “What?”

  “Twenty-one years.”

  “What’s the date?”

  “April eleven.”

  “Well, I’ll be. You’re right.”

  Kristina smiled. Then got to the point, “Remember Ruth?”

  “No.”

  “Ruth Marten.”

  “Should I?”

  “Yes.”

  A past Kristina enthusiasm finally arose to be recognized.

  “The precocious one?”

  “She’s more than that, Julian. Believe or not, but this girl is studying quantum physics.”

  “She’s what?”

  “I caught her reading Goswami’s Self-Aware Universe the other day.”

  “How old is she?”

  “Ten and change.”

  “Well, I’ll be.”

  “Exactly.”

  This had barely had a chance to sink in, when Kristina added, “I want you to meet her.”

  “Sure.”

  “There is something about this girl,” said Kristina. “Something,” but then couldn’t find the next word. Instead she said, after a heartbeat or two:

  “Twenty-one years, and still the world at large doesn’t care.”

  “That’s pretty much the size of it.”

  :: 74 :: (Pasadena)

  Kristina showed up in his office the following afternoon, Ruth in tow.

  Julian made room for them, then offered some coffee, which they both declined.

  “Tea, perhaps?”

  “Any green tea?” wondered Kristina.

  “Sorry, no,” said Julian, remembering it was her drink of choice. “I need to buy some,” he added, all the while looking at Ruth, struck by the incongruous, though he wasn’t sure precisely what the incongruous was. Then he saw: eyes, as blue as eyes could be, he’d venture, and hair, as black as hair could be. On the same head. That’s what.

  “I’m fine,” said Ruth.

  Julian nodded. All right then. Sat down. He took another long look at the black and blue. The very black and the so very blue. “So this is Ruth,” he said, as much to Ruth as to Kristina. Then, straight to Ruth, “The precocious one.”

  Kristina frowned at that, and Julian realized he was way off base here. Not quite sure what to say he rose again, and extended a hand across the table to Ruth. “I’m Julian,” he said.

  Ruth rose, took the hand, shook it for some time, and said, “The precocious one knows.” Then finally let go of Julian’s hand and sat back down.

  Julian remained standing. Then finally managed, “Well, here we are.”

  “You two need to get acquainted,” said Kristina.

  “I would like that,” said Ruth.

  “You’re reading The Self-Aware Universe,” said Julian.

  “I’ve just finished it,” she answered.

  “What did you think of it?” he asked, then sat down again behind his desk.

  “I thought it sincere,” she said.

  “Do you think it the truth?” he asked.

  “Yes,” said Ruth. Then added a question of her own, “Have you read it?”

  “Me? Yes. A long time ago, though.”

  “Do you believe it is true?” she wanted to know.

  “Parts.”

  “Which parts?”

  “The quantum action at a distance,” Julian said. “We’ve proven that.”

  “Yes you have,” said Ruth. “Twenty-one years ago, yesterday.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Of course,” she said. Then added, “Kristina told me.”

  Julian looked over at Kristina, at his all-alert now long-time friend. She nodded, yes, yes, she had told her.

  Ruth’s next question stunned him into silence, for he had asked himself the same question, many times. “It was a brilliant experiment. Well-conceived and well executed. Why is it then that the world has forgotten all about it?” Then, as afterthought, “If indeed it ever cared.”

  There was something terribly unreal about the words this girl was using. They belonged to no girl, no teenager even. Old words. Old meanings. As if the girl he saw didn’t exist or was growing more and more transparent, revealing something, someone else. He looked away. Listened to the words again, memory talking.

  The truth was that he had no more answer for Ruth than for himself, and so said nothing.

  “Why is it that the world doesn’t care?” said Ruth into the silence.

  That, too, was a question that he had pondered off and on. “I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head slowly. “I really don’t know.”

  “I think it is afraid,” said Ruth.

  “You think what?”

  “I think the world is afraid,” she said. “I think it does not dare to know.”

  Then Julian found himself asking the same question Kristina had recently found herself asking: “Who are you?”

  “Ruth Marten,” said Ruth.

  “I know,” he answered. “But really, beneath her, who are you?” Not at all sure where “beneath her” had come from.

  Ruth held his gaze but did not answer. Julian nodded again, as if in reply. Then heard himself ask another question he wasn’t sure he heard quite right: “How can I be of help?” is what he asked.

  Ruth turned and looked at Kristina, who seemed as surprised as Julian at the odd question. She turned to face Julian again.

  “Teach me,” she said.

  “Teach you what?”

  “Quantum Physics. Particle Physics. Teach me what you know.”

  As a request, it was not only surreal but impossible. That’s what reason suggested. But Julian was not listening to reason just then. Instead he said, “I can do that.”

  “Great,” said Ruth.

  “She can come here after school, any time she wants,” he said to Kristina, but really meant to inform Ruth.

  “Great,” said Ruth.

  :: 75 :: (Pasadena)

  The walk from Pasadena Polytechnic School—situated not even half a block from the Cal Tech campus—to Julian’s Quantum Department (as it was more or less incorrectly called)
was about five adult minutes, a little longer with legs Ruth’s size.

  And so she showed up a little after three o’clock the next day. William, Julian’s assistant cum secretary had been told (Kristina thought of this, and made sure Julian did it) to expect a young girl now and then, and apparently he had taken this odd piece of news in stride for he looked up at her when she stepped into the department reception. “Ruth?” he wanted to know.

  “Yes.”

  “Just a second.”

  He called Julian on the intercom, and a moment later Julian appeared at his office door. “You don’t mess around,” he said across the room. Two or three people looked up at this, from Julian to Ruth to each other, then returned to their respective tasks at hand.

  “You said any time,” Ruth explained.

  “Yes, I did. Come in.” He held the door open for her, and she scurried into the clutter, moved some papers and sat down. Julian followed suit.

  “I’ve thought about the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment,” she said.

  This, again, should not, could not, have come out of her mouth, but it did, clear as day, and with more to follow, that was obvious. Julian thought briefly about the suspension of disbelief that writers talk about, something readers must engage in more at some times than at others—something he must do right now, he decided. Thoroughly. And did.

  “Einstein never did accept it,” she said.

  “No, he did not,” Julian confirmed.

  The EPR experiment—which is how he (and most of his colleagues) thought of it—involved two spinning electrons, paired and spinning in opposite directions on their respective axes so that their total spin always equaled what the physicists referred to as zero—the opposite directions negating each other—and, this being part of the order of the particle universe, they always do. Should one electron shift direction of its spin, the other, paired electron, to maintain this holy zero, will also, and instantly, shift spin direction for the sum of the spins cannot, not even for a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second, ever be other than zero, no matter how far apart spatially the two electrons.