Babylon and Other Stories by Alix Ohlin Page B

know.”
    “What a wonderful place to write a book,” she said, and inhaled with deep satisfaction, as if catching the scent of unborn books in the wind. She caught Claire's eye. “Thank you for letting me come.”
    Carson was waiting for them on the dock, a surprise, since he regularly worked every day until five and would brook no interruption, which habit had led Claire to offer to pick up the girl in the first place. Yet here he was, reaching out a long arm to catch the prow and rope it to the dock. Then he grabbed Jocelyn Gates's hand and pulled her up. The two of them laughed and moved from handclasp to shake. Jocelyn would not permit her suitcase to be carried for her, so she trudged after Carson up the hill to the house. Halfway there she paused to readjust her grip and said again to Claire, who was behind her, “It's so beautiful here.”
    “Yes.”
    “A refuge,” she said, her eyes glowing, blue coals. “I hope I won't disturb your peace.”
    “Don't mention it,” Claire said.
    Because the desk in Carson's office was small, the two of them settled on the kitchen table, where they could spread the manuscript out in stacks. Claire shut the door to her office and tried to work, but on a trip to the washroom she heard them already arguing. She couldn't make out the specific words, only the general grievance in Carson's voice, and from this tone she suddenly heard her own name rising and realized he was calling her.
    She stood in the doorway.
    “This woman,” Carson sputtered. His face was flushed but Jocelyn's was not. “She wants me to tell my story. She wants me to sell the material. Would you tell her, please, that science is not a
story
? Will you please agree with me on this so I'll know I'm not insane?”
    Claire looked at Jocelyn, who smiled politely.
    “I think I'm the wrong person to ask,” Claire said, and Carson groaned. “I mean, you know I'm no scientist.”
    “So? You still know that a scientific theory is a model, not some fairy tale.”
    “Well, yes, and I'm not saying that it's fiction. But I do kind of think—sorry, Carson—that science is a story we tell ourselves about the world. In a way.”
    Carson said, tight-lipped, “It's not just any story.”
    “The important thing here, Carson,” Jocelyn said, “is that we tell it well.”
    Over the next three days Carson and Jocelyn worked on the book. They fought often and loudly while Claire, in her office, didn't even pretend to work and just listened. For some time it seemedthey couldn't even agree on terms or the meanings of words. She heard Carson's voice, strained and hoarse through the walls. “Order and disorder are only categories. They don't hold up, statistically.” Jocelyn's voice flowed quietly under his. She was trying to simplify Carson's theories, to put his arguments into the plainest terms. They could be expanded later, she told him. The book was a pyramid requiring a foundation, a wide and basic layer.
    Claire thought of the phrase Carson, quoting Jocelyn, had used to describe this process: hammering it out. This was certainly what it sounded like, voices striking hard as metal, Car-son's strident, hers relentless, pounding his science into flatness like nails into wood. Claire was afraid for him to see his work— so famously abstract—popularized and, inevitably, reduced. Moreover, for him to cooperate in the reduction. And she was surprised by Jocelyn's persistence, her conviction that his ideas could be explained to the average reader. She kept on hammering.
    “So all things tend naturally toward a simpler state,” Claire heard her say.
    “Where do you get this
naturally
?” Carson sounded anguished by her lack of precision. “Where? You're creating some kind of animism that isn't inherent in the work.” Claire pictured him spreading his palms, trying to explain. “There is no
naturally.
Things can only happen according to the physical laws of the universe.”
    “So explain those laws to