The Speed of Dark

“Here you are,” Lucia says, interrupting. Interrupting is rude, but I am glad she interrupts. She has brought the book with her. She hands it to me when I have put my duffel back in the trunk. “Let me know how you get on with it.”

In the light from the street lamp on the corner the book’s cover is a dull gray. It feels pebbly under my fingers.

“What are you reading, Lou?” Marjory asks. My stomach tightens. I do not want to talk about the research with Marjory. I do not want to find out that she already knows about it.

“Cego and Clinton,” Lucia says, as if that is a title.

“Wow,” Marjory says. “Good for you, Lou.”

I do not understand. Does she know the book just from its authors? Did they write only one book? And why does she say the book is good for me? Or did she mean “good for you” as praise? I do not understand that meaning, either. I feel trapped in this whirlpool of questions, not-knowing swirling around me, drowning me.

Light speeds toward me from the distant specks, the oldest light taking longest to arrive.

I drive home carefully, even more aware than usual of the pools and streams of light washing over me from street lamps and lighted signs. In and out of the fast dark — and it does feel faster in the dark.

Tom shook his head as Lou drove away. “I don’t know—” he said, and paused.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Lucia asked.

“It’s the only real possibility,” Tom said. “I don’t like to think it, it’s hard to believe Don could be capable of anything this serious, but… who else could it be? He would know Lou’s name; he could find out his address; he certainly knows when fencing practice is and what Lou’s car looks like.”

“You didn’t tell the police,” Lucia said.

“No. I thought Lou would figure it out, and it’s his car, after all. I felt I shouldn’t horn in. But now… I wish I’d gone on and told Lou flat out to beware of Don. He still thinks of him as a friend.”

“I know.” Lucia shook her head. “He’s so — well, I don’t know if it’s really loyalty or just habit. Once a friend, always a friend? Besides—”

“It might not be Don. I know. He’s been a nuisance and a jerk at times, but he’s never done anything violent before. And nothing happened tonight.”

“The night’s not over,” Lucia said. “If we hear about anything else, we have to tell the police. For Lou’s sake.”

“You’re right, of course.” Tom yawned. “Let’s just hope nothing happens and it’s random coincidence.”

At the apartment, I carry the book and my duffel upstairs. I hear no sound from Danny’s apartment as I go past it. I put my fencing jacket in the dirty-clothes basket and take the book to my desk. In the light of the desk lamp, the cover is light blue, not gray.

I open it. Without Lucia to prompt me to skip them, I read all the pages carefully. On the page headed “Dedications,” Betsy R. Cego has put: “For Jerry and Bob, with thanks,” and Malcolm R. Clinton has put: “To my beloved wife, Celia, and in memory of my father, George.” The foreword, written by Peter J. Bartleman, M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, includes the information that Betsy R. Cego’s R. stands for Rodham and Malcom R. Clinton’s R. stands for Richard, so the R. probably has nothing to do with their coauthorship. Peter J. Bartleman says the book is the most important compilation, of the current state of knowledge on brain function. I do not know why he wrote the foreword.

The preface answers that question. Peter J. Bartleman taught Betsy R. Cego when she was in medical school and awakened a lifelong interest in and commitment to the study of brain function. The phrasing seems awkward to me. The preface explains what the book is about, why the authors wrote it, and then thanks a lot of people and companies for their help. I am surprised to find the name of the company I work for in that list. They provided assistance with computational methods.

Computational methods are what our division develops. I look again at the copyright date. When this book was written I was not yet working there.

I wonder if any of those old programs are still around.

I turn to the glossary in back and read quickly through the definitions. I know about half of them now. When I turn to the first chapter, a review of brain structure, it makes sense. The cerebellum, amygdala, hippocampus, cerebrum… diagrammed in several ways, sectioned top to bottom and front to back and side to side. I have never seen a diagram that showed the functions of the different areas, though, and I look at it closely. I wonder why the main language center is in the left brain when there is a perfectly good auditory processing area in the right brain. Why specialize like that? I wonder if sounds coming into one ear are heard more as language than sounds coming in the other ear. The tiers of visual processing are just as hard to understand.