Michael Hoffman

Following is the 28th installment of the serial novel Withdrawal, a new episode of which will appear every Sunday morning Japan time. Comments/critiques welcome.

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Japan at Work III http://michaelhoffman.squarespace.com/stuff-lying-around/

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We sat next to each other at dinner. I'd have known her anywhere too, or so I was convinced within three minutes of our reunion. She was forty-three years old and, without looking the least bit childish, as for example Linda did, or even conspicuously young for her age, she looked no different than she did in my memory. She was someone I'd known all my life. There was no need for us to get acquainted, or to put on airs, or to be so absorbed in one another as to shut the rest of the company out. Actually I think she spoke more to Carla than to me. Clearly there was a special bond between the two of them. What did they talk about? Nothing. It was not a topical conversation. One of them would say something, the other would say something else. It was neither profound nor witty, and yet what a joy to listen to! The others evidently felt the same way. On Wayne's face was a look of pride, or maybe just contentment, that would have been smug and stupid on anyone else, or on him in a different setting. Danny, most untypical of a boy his age and of what I'd observed of his character, seemed in Viv's presence altogether at his ease, speaking when he had something to say, silent, but not sullenly silent, otherwise.

She was dressed, I was pleased to note, in a T-shirt and jeans. How well they became her! If she wore make-up I could not detect it. Her light-brown hair hung loose at her shoulders, exactly as it had thirty years before. "Would you like to come with me to the grad dance?" I could not resist saying.

"I'll go with you to Danny's."

"It's a date! I hear you have two children."

"And another on the way."

I gaped at her. "You're pregnant?"

She smiled with pleasure. "Slightly."

"How slightly?"

"Three months."

"How old are your kids?"

"Terry's thirteen, Ralph is six."

"Is Terry a boy or a girl?"

"Guess."

"Boy."

"Wrong. I'll give you one more guess."

"Wayne said you were a physiotherapist?"

"A what? No, I'm an entomologist."

"An entomologist! Insects?"

"Umhm."

"She specializes in termites," said Wayne.

"Wait a minute," I said. "I distinctly remember you saying she was a physiotherapist."

"You're mad. Why would I say that?"

"Why? Probably because you don't know the difference between the two! He never was too bright," I said with a smile to Carla, catching her eye.

"You gonna sit there and let your husband be insulted at his own dinner table?" said Wayne to Arlene. "In front of his own children?"

"No," said Arlene. "I most certainly am not." We all laughed.

"Termites!" I said.

"Actually," said Viv, "the social insects in general. They fascinate me. The complexity of their social organizations... They have war, royalty, caste systems, slaves, agriculture, even domestic animals, believe it or not. And yet everything they do is done without so much as a grain of consciousness."

"Amazing."

The doorbell rang. "Ah," said Wayne, "that must be him." His surprise guest. I'd completely forgotten. Removing the napkin from his lap, Wayne rose to open the door.

"Do you know who it is?" I asked Viv.

"No idea."

We were not kept in suspense long. Following Wayne into the dining room was Mr. Bloom. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt and a red tie, and cradled in his arms was a bouquet of yellow roses. Arlene rose smiling to take them from him. "I'm sorry I couldn't make dinner," he said.

"You're just in time for dessert," said Wayne.

"Honestly, I'm stuffed to the gills. My 'supporters' have been wining me and dining me and bending over backwards to persuade me that this community will not survive my departure. Somehow, I rather think it'll manage. Viv. How nice to see you." She rose to hug her old teacher. "Wayne tells me you're here for a conference on termites."

"Wayne has termites on the brain."

"That's funny. He said you do."

"It's a symposium of entomologists from across Canada. I read a paper on the honeybee's dance."

"The..? Pardon my ignorance."

She smiled. "An unpardonable quality in a teacher, I would have thought."

"You would have thought wrong. Appreciating our ignorance is the first and indispensable step to knowledge, as Socrates taught us. You might even say he died in defense of ignorance. However - the honeybee's dance?" She explained as she did everything - briefly, clearly and without affectation. "My major interest is in the social insects and in the amazingly complex social organizations they have evolved, without the aid of consciousness or reasoning power. Wayne once had a termite problem in the house, and so he seizes on that - though he hasn't called me the termite queen in a while, for which I'm grateful," she said, flashing her brother an affectionate smile. "Actually I have studied termites, but only as part of my overall theme. Anyway. The honeybee dance is a dance performed by scout bees to inform the hive where nectar-bearing flowers are. It is awesomely precise, and awesomely beautiful."

"Maybe I'll study entomology," mused Danny as though to himself.

"Just right for you, you little bug," laughed Wayne.

"Do you know," said Mr. Bloom, "what's even more wonderful than the complex social organizations of unconscious insects?"

"What?" said Viv.

"Human freedom." He paused. "That, to me, is the most awesome wonder in the universe, more wonderful than anything - the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies from primal matter, the mathematical precision of nature, evolution... Human freedom. Man. The only thing in the universe not determined by blind mathematical forces. From that springs Schiller's Hymn to Joy..."

"You say 'blind mathematical forces'," said Viv. "But isn't that itself wonderful? That blind force should turn out to be mathematical?"

"Oh yes! Yes! Very much so. I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm merely adding that, as marvelous as those mathematical forces are, man's potential to transcend mathematics is still more marvelous. Potential, I say. We are not born free. We are not naturally free. All we are is potentially free. Potentially."

"Mr. Bloom?"

"We're not in class now, Danny."

"Ron. I think human freedom is an illusion. Like love."

"Like love!" Wayne cried. "And have you at the tender age of seventeen concluded that love is an illusion?"

Danny reddened, but stood his ground. "We can't all be as old as you, dad!"

Wayne laughed. "No, I guess not."

"Let me put those in water for you, mother," said Carla, coming to her mother's assistance. For the past five minutes Arlene had been hovering in the doorway, evidently intending to put the flowers in water, but something had distracted her, and now, at Carla's reminder, she gasped faintly, laughed a trifle foolishly, and said, "No, thank you dear, I've got them," with that disappearing into the kitchen.

"I think Danny's right," said Mr. Bloom. Freedom is an illusion. Love is an illusion. Well? By calling them illusions have we wiped them from the face of the earth?"

"By calling them illusions," said Viv, "I think we remove them from serious consideration."

"Wrong - only from scientific consideration. Which is not," he said as though forestalling her, "the same thing. Science is wrong to exclude illusion from its world view. The greatness of man lies precisely in his illusions. In his fictions, if you will. The more science discovers about man, the more mathematically or chemically determined it finds him to be. Is this progress, or a reversion to the ancient, pre-civilized past? Consider: ancient man was prey to blind forces - the whimsical anger or bounty of the gods. It was the Greeks who first conceived of man as free. That's what tragedy is: an investigation of a new and revolutionary being - free man. Today, we increasingly see man as determined by his genes. Is modern genetic biology more 'true' than tragedy? Very likely it is. Is truth the highest goal? Not necessarily."

"Truth is not the highest goal?" Danny echoed in astonishment.

"Ron please," interposed Wayne in mock alarm. "He's at an impressionable age."

Smiling, Ron turned to me. "Do you remember," he said, "you were surprised at my preferring to teach high school instead of university? Well, that's the reason in a nutshell. I love people who are at an impressionable age. I have over the years taught everyone in this room, with the exception of Arlene and Carla - Carla, I probably would've had you next year - and if you will allow me to be your teacher again for just thirty seconds more, I will take advantage of the opportunity and exhort you to make whatever age you are an impressionable age. That's why I'm off to India - to recover my impressionability."

"Mr. Bloom?"

"Yes, Carla."

"What happened with you and that girl?"

"Carla!" Wayne was no longer clowning; he was genuinely shocked. So was I. Carla, however, was perfectly calm. So was Mr. Bloom. He did not flinch from her gaze, nor was she abashed when his eyes met hers. He smiled. "Something that never should have happened," he said quietly. "I did a very bad thing, for which I am very, very sorry, and for which I deserve a harsher punishment than I am receiving."

"Carla, I'm surprised at you!" Wayne cried, shock giving way to anger. "How dare you insult a guest in your own home? How dare you?"

"Wayne..."

"If you don't mind, Ron! I'm her father, and there are some lessons only a father can teach. Carla, apologize to Mr. Bloom this minute."

"I'm sorry, Mr. Bloom."

Arlene came in with a coffee cake, and we all sat down to dessert, effectively ending the matter, which had no sequel beyond the momentary damper it put on the atmosphere of the gathering. Mr. Bloom immediately set to work putting things right. "None for me, really, I couldn't possibly!" he cried with exaggerated warmth. Then, reconsidering, "It does look good, though. Maybe you can wrap some up for me to take home, ha ha!"

"I will with pleasure!" said Arlene, intent on showing that, if Mr. Bloom regarded his suggestion as a joke, she did not. "It's Carla's work, mostly."

"Carla! Really!" said Mr. Bloom, snatching the chance to smooth things over. "You can bake, then?"

"A little," said Carla, smiling. Sullenness and resentment had no place in her character. "Aunt Viv taught me when I stayed with her in Toronto."

"Oh," Viv said with a laugh, "she surpassed me long ago!"

"Well," said Mr. Bloom, "if Carla baked it I'll have just a little piece, just a sliver - oh, please!" he cried, seeing how much Arlene was about to cut. "Half that, half that!"

Only Wayne refused to be drawn into the unspoken agreement to wash out the stain of discord with a wave of gaiety. He picked at his cake and added nothing to the chorus of compliments, which even Danny joined with pleasant heartiness. I, as a friend of the family, knew how Danny loved his sister; I also knew that normally he would have died rather than show it. So I was pleased to see what I took to be an apparent sign of maturity in him, and even more pleased to see how Carla, lowering her eyes, lighted up at his praise. It had occurred to me once or twice before that if ever any family could make me miss having one of my own, it was this of my old friend Wayne's. Dull, stolid fellow though he was, he had certainly trumped me there.

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The next segment will appear Sunday July 6.