Genius

by Clare Nonhebel

CHAPTER 17

  When a car driven by a blonde young woman drew up, Eldred ran towards it.

  ‘Are you Louise?’

  ‘Yes. Hello, Eldred.’

  Eldred opened the passenger door and jumped in. ‘We can go to the park or the library,’ he said. ‘I've got some of my work with me.’

  Louise looked at him. ‘I’ll need to meet your mother first. You can’t just get into a stranger's car and drive off.’

  ‘Could you meet her after? I’ve got permission to go to the park.’

  ‘Then we'd better go the park,’ Louise said. ‘Easier to talk there than in the library anyway.’

  ‘Those equations were rubbish,’ said Eldred, as they drove away from the house. ‘How could they have told you I was worth interviewing?’

  ‘What were you working out, when you did them, Eldred?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Eldred. ‘I just write any old thing when I'm thinking.’

  ‘But what were you thinking about, at the time?’

  ‘Decomposition of matter,’ said Eldred.

  ‘So you've no idea what those equations mean?’ Louise asked.

  ‘They don't mean anything,’ Eldred insisted. ‘I was just doodling.’

  Louise pursed her lips and whistled. ‘Some doodles,’ she said. ‘I wish my mind idled like that. My brother's a maths and science buff; I got him to check those meaningless equations, Eldred, and he said they were similar to the calculating processes used in quantum physics and every one of those complicated calculations was correct. What do you make of that?’

  Eldred shrugged.

  ‘Did you ever hear of quantum physics, Eldred?’ Louise pursued.

  ‘I read an article on it once,’ said Eldred. ‘There's a parking space. Do you mind if I leave my football in your car?’

  As they walked through the park gates, Louise said casually, ‘You retain whatever you read then, do you?’

  ‘I suppose everybody does,’ said Eldred. ‘Otherwise there wouldn't be any point in reading because you wouldn't learn anything from it.’

  She smiled. ‘Our powers of learning are usually very selective, Eldred. I can read something three times and only retain a fraction of it and my IQ is well above average. Why do you think that is?’

  ‘I don't know,’ said Eldred. ‘Don't you find that rather frustrating?’

  ‘Not until now,’ said Louise. ‘I never knew what I was missing.’

  ‘Can you remember things that happened to you before you were born?’ Eldred asked her.

  ‘I can't - or not consciously. Some people claim to. Can you?’

  ‘Some things and not others,’ said Eldred. ‘Shall I show you my work now?’

  For an hour, Eldred talked, pointed, turned pages and explained. Louise listened, asked occasional questions, asked him to repeat certain points, and wrote shorthand notes to record Eldred's exact turn of phrase. Eldred had never been attended to so thoroughly. He became excited, expounding theories, detailing plans for future projects. Louise began to feel exhausted.

  ‘You want to acquire all the knowledge in the universe all at once,’ she said, laughing. ‘You do know you can't do that?’

  ‘Not all at once, no,’ Eldred conceded. ‘But building on the foundation of knowledge already acquired by mankind up to this time, and given sufficient resources and motivation, future generations must surely be able to acquire total knowledge eventually, don't you agree?’

  ‘It's a plausible theory,’ said Louise, ‘but I wouldn't agree that it's possible, or even desirable really. There is such a thing as the infinite. The more knowledge mortal beings acquire, the more we realize how much there is that we don’t know and can’t know by human means.’

  Eldred pondered this. ‘Are you talking about the occult?’

  ‘No. The occult has had a perennial fascination for generations of human beings but it's generally considered among responsible people to be misleading, if not downright damaging. No, I'm talking about the infinite. If it's true that we are created beings, then we have to accept that the uncreated can never fully be fathomed by mere creatures. We're limited beings with limited minds.’

  ‘The uncreated?’ said Eldred. He frowned. ‘You mean beings from other planets?’

  Louise laughed. ‘No! If there are any, I assume they must be created as well, wouldn't you? I'm talking about the creator of everything, mortal and immortal.’

  Eldred blinked. ‘You don't mean God?’

  She smiled at him. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don't wish to offend you,’ said Eldred carefully, ‘but the only other person I've met who believed in God was mentally retarded.’

  Louise let out a hoot of delighted laughter and scribbled on her notepad. ‘I've got to get that quote in!’ she said. ‘Too good to miss!’

  ‘I didn't intend to imply that your intelligence was impaired in any way,’ said Eldred anxiously. ‘I was just surprised, that's all.’

  ‘But why?’ said Louise. ‘You must have met other people who believe.’

  ‘I’ve met a few people who say they do,’ said Eldred, ‘but they live just the same way as everybody who doesn't believe. And from the books I've read, religious belief seems to be one hypothesis among others, with little or no established proof.’

  ‘Eldred,’ said Louise, ‘you're mixing two quite different ways of acquiring knowledge here. Some things you can't learn about in books, and not everything is provable scientifically.’

  ‘I know that not all knowledge can be taught,’ said Eldred, ‘but how can it not be scientifically proved or disproved? It wouldn't be knowledge if it couldn't be proved.’

  Louise smiled again. ‘I can't believe I'm having this conversation with a nine year old,’ she said.

  Eldred flushed. ‘You're telling me I'm too young to understand.’

  ‘Basically, yes,’ said Louise, ‘but that's no reflection on you. We will all be still too young to understand creation, let alone the creator, when we're on our deathbeds. That's what I'm saying, Eldred. Science is just a word. It means knowing. Humans can only know and prove what is knowable to human beings and provable by existing human methods. By definition, science has no power to examine what is beyond human powers of knowing.’

  Eldred felt agitated and sad. ‘But if there is a God and he's good, how can he allow human beings to go in search of knowledge which he knows they're not capable of attaining?’

  Louise put her arm round him. ‘I've worried you,’ she said repentantly. ‘I'm probably not explaining very well. All I'm trying to say is, there are different ways of knowing and not all of them come as the result of human effort or even human intellect. They may come in response to genuine endeavour for truth, though. Some knowledge is given - vouchsafed. Did you ever hear that word? Well, then, call it grace or gift or revelation, whatever you will, but knowledge that comes in that way isn't earned or worked for. I guess I'm only trying to tell you this because you worry me slightly, Eldred.’

  ‘Why do I worry you?’

  ‘Because your zeal to learn could burn you out,’ said Louise seriously. ‘You have such a capacity for acquiring information, but information isn't everything. In our society intellectual knowledge is almost worshipped, to the exclusion of the emotions, art, creativity, integrity, relationships, and especially the relationship between the limited created being with the infinite.’

  Eldred rubbed his forehead. ‘I'm tired,’ he said.

  ‘I'm not surprised,’ she said. ‘I'll take you home now and introduce myself to your parents so they don’t think I’ve kidnapped you. It's been wonderful meeting you, Eldred.’

  Eldred studied her eyes and realized she meant it. She was tiring, this lady, but she was worth being tired for, he reckoned. He felt suddenly overwhelmed with love for this Louise Palmer. It was a new event for Eldred.