again like rot in his mouth. âI tried to cover her up, and I remember her breasts shivering. It was in the afternoon. Then I just ran.â
âYou should not dwell on it,â Philips said.
âNo. With a fine war in between, and so forth, youâd think Iâd have forgotten by now. But I wake up sometimes,â he burst out, âand the shame is awful. Not that I got caught with a girl and not that I was whipped; but that I ran and left her. I never saw her again. My God,â he groaned, âwe never even finished.â
âThat was more than a quarter of a century ago,â Ramesh said. âWe all hurt people. We all hate to remember hurting. But if you are clever enough to be an engineer, you are clever enough to survive such a silly thing.â
âOh no,â Morrison said. âIâm not clever. Iâm not really smart at all. Except with numbers, maybe, shapes, spaces. Iâm slow. I like being slow but I donât know enough. About myself even.â Many brilliant men skittered across the surface of his century and he could not say that he understood them, their intensity, their nervousness, the stuttering light they shed. Nor could he say that he had tried very hard to understand them. When he wrestled ponderously with a new idea, he was always disappointed to find that it was an old idea. Or nonsense. Brilliant men seemed proud and defensive and so could not be trusted. âIâm not even making sense, I suppose.â He had built a highway in the northern autumn, riding a grader sleepily and happily among elms and maples, brown in the V of his shirt, and it was a time of great crisis, or so said the newspapers, and he rode his grader aware that the earth might gape to engulf him but taking it on faith that a road was worth building. âFaith. I donât know what that is. Everybody has to die but nobody has to break his word.â He stopped short. After an embarrassed and burbling swig he went on: âDonât laugh at me. I was a faithful husband. Twice.â
âNow you are bragging.â Philips smiled. âBut I know what you are getting at, I think. You are wondering how long until the next catastrophe.â
âYes. Yes. You remember King Midas? I feel like a new kind of Midas, a twentieth-century Midas: except when Iâm working, everything I touch turns to carrion. Senecas and redwoods and wives.â
âWhat are Senecas?â Ramesh asked.
âSenecas are people who believe promises.â
âAnd what are wives?â Philips asked.
Morrison was silent.
âThey were unfaithful?â
âBoth of them,â he cried in sudden outrage. âNobody cares any more. Even about that. They were upset that I minded.â
âHere we do not worry so much about that,â Philips said. âMaybe you were not so good with women.â
âI guess not,â Morrison mumbled, knowing that for the truth. âBoth times it lasted two years.â His heart quailed then and he went on: âAll right: the second one was only a repeat. Desperation. My fault. But I loved my first wife. The way,â he stumbled, âthe way they tell you you ought to love truth and justice and things like that.â
âTruth and justice are not things,â Philips said. âWhat happened?â
âI wish I knew. It was wild for about a year and thenâoh, hell!â He wrenched the words out: âThere was somebody else all the time. And we kept on trying for another year and finally I hated her.â He sat back empty. âShe was all flesh. Nothing but flesh.â And I am growing old and not worth much these days. Not for a year now. He heard the words but knew that he had not said them aloud.
âSo are you,â Philips said. âWhat is wrong with that?â
âThe flesh is nothing,â Ramesh said.
âThe flesh is everything,â Philips said. âYou should have beaten