And maybe you can join us at the zoo when our tigers arrive. Recently a pair of Bengal tigers were rescued off Khembalung after a flood. The papers in India call them the Swimming Tigers, and they are coming for a stay at the National Zoo here, and we will have a small ceremony when they arrive.
That would be great. The boys would love that. And also An idea had occurred to her.
Yes?
Maybe also you could come upstairs and visit us here, and give one of our lunchtime lectures. That would be a great way to return a favor. We could learn more about your situation, and, you know, your approach to science, or to life or whatever. Something like that. Do you think Rudra would be interested?
Im sure he would. It would be a great opportunity.
Well not exactly, its just a lunchtime series of talks that Aleesha runs, but I do think it would be interesting. We could use some of your attitude here, I think, and you could talk about these programs too.
Ill talk to the rimpoche about it.
Okay good. Ill put Aleesha in touch.
After that Anna worked on the stats again, until she saw the time and realized it was her day to visit Nicks class and help them with math hour. Ah shit. Throw together a bag of work stuff, shut down, heft the shoulder bag of chilled milk bottles, and off she went. Down into the Metro, working as she sat, then standing on the crowded Red Line Shady Grove train; out and up and into a taxi, of all things, to get to Nicks school on time.
She arrived just a little late, dumped her stuff, and settled down to work with the kids. Nick was in third grade now, but had been put in an advanced math group. In general the class did things in math that Anna found surprising for their age. She liked working with them; there were twenty-eight kids in the class, and Mrs. Wilkins, their teacher, was grateful for the help.
Anna wandered from group to group, helping with multipart problems that involved multiplication, division, and rounding off. When she came to Nicks group she sat down on one of the tiny chairs next to him, and they elbowed each other playfully for room at the round low table. He loved it when she came to his class, which she tried to do on a semiregular basis.
All right Nick quit that, show the gang here how youre going to solve this problem.
Okay. He furrowed his brow in a way she recognized inside the muscles of her own forehead. Thirty-nine divided by two, thats nineteen and a half round that up to twenty
No, dont round off in the middle of the process.
Mom, come on.
Hey, you shouldnt.
Mom, youre quibbling again! Nick exclaimed.
The group cackled at this old joke.
Its not quibbling, Anna insisted. Its a very important distinction.
What, the difference between nineteen and a half and twenty?
Yes, over their squeals of laughter, because you should never round off in the middle of an operation, because then the things you do later will exaggerate the inaccuracy! Its an important principle!
Mrs. Quibler is a quibbler, Mrs. Quibler is a quibbler!
Anna gave in and gave them The Eye, a squinting, one-eyed glare that she had worked up long ago when playing Lady Bracknell in high school. It never failed to crack them up. She growled, Thats Quibler with one b, melting them with laughter, as always, until Mrs. Wilkins came over to join the party and quiet it down.
After school Anna and Nick walked home together. It took about half an hour, and was one of the treasured rituals of their weekthe only time they got to spend together, just the two of them. Past the big public pool, past the grocery store, then down their quiet street. It was hot, of course, but bearable in the shade. They talked about whatever came into their heads.
Then they entered the coolness of their house, and returned to the wilder world of Joe and Charlie. Charlie was bellowing as he cooked in the kitchen, an off-key, wordless aria. Joe was killing dinosaurs in the living room. As they entered he froze, considering how he was going to signify his displeasure at Annas treasonous absence for the day. When younger this had been a genuine emotion; sometimes when he saw her come in the door he had simply burst into tears. Now it was calculated, and she was immune.
He smacked himself in the forehead with a Compsognathus, then collapsed to the rug face-first.
Oh come on, Anna said. Give me a break Joe. She started to unbutton her blouse. You better be nice if you want to nurse.
Joe popped right up and ran over to give her a hug.
Right, Anna said. Blackmail will get you everywhere. Hi hon! she yelled in at Charlie.
Hi babe. Charlie came out to give her a kiss. For a second all her boys hung on her. Then Joe was latched on, and Charlie and Nick went into the kitchen. From there Charlie shouted out from time to time, but Anna couldnt yell back without making Joe mad enough to bite her, so she waited until he was done and then walked around the corner into the kitchen.
How was your day? Charlie said.
I fixed a data error all day long.
Thats good dear.
She gave him a look. I swore I wasnt going to do it, she said darkly, but I just couldnt bring myself to ignore it.
No, Im sure you couldnt.
He kept a straight face, but she punched him on the arm anyway. Smartass. Is there any beer in the fridge?
I think so.
She hunted for one. There was some good news that came in, did you see that? I forwarded it. The Khembalis got a couple of grants.
Really! That is good news. He was sniffing at a yellow curry bubbling in the frying pan.
Something new?
Yeah, Im trying something out of the paper.
Youre being careful?
He grinned. Yeah, no blackened redfish.
Blackened redfish? Nick repeated, alarmed.
Dont worry, even I wouldnt try it on you.
He wouldnt want you to catch fire.
Hey, it was in the recipe. It was right out of the recipe!
So? A tablespoon each of black pepper, white pepper, cayenne, and chili powder?
How was I supposed to know?
What do you mean? You should have known what a tablespoon of pepper would taste like, and that was the least hot of them.
I guess I didnt know it would all stick to the fish.
Nick was looking appalled. I wouldnt eat that.
You arent kidding, Anna laughed. One touch with your tongue and you would spontaneously combust.
It was in a cookbook.
Even going in the kitchen next day was enough to burn your eyes out.
Charlie was giggling at his folly, holding the stirring spoon down to Nick to gross him out, although now he had a very light touch with the spices. The curry would be fine. Anna left him to it and went out to play with Joe.
She sat down on the couch, relaxed. Joe began to pummel her knees with blocks, babbling energetically. At the same time Nick was telling her something about something. She had to interrupt him, almost, to tell him about the coming of the Swimming Tigers. He nodded and took off again with his account. She heaved a great sigh of relief, took a sip of the beer. Another day flown past like a dream.
Another heat wave struck, the worst so far. People had thought it was hot before, but now it was July, and one day the temperature in the metropolitan area climbed to 105 degrees, with the humidity over ninety percent. The combination had all the Indians in town waxing nostalgic about Uttar Pradesh just before the monsoon broke. Oh yes just like this in Delhi, actually it would be a blessing if it were to be like this in Delhi, that would be an improvement over what they have now, they need the monsoon very badly.
Another heat wave struck, the worst so far. People had thought it was hot before, but now it was July, and one day the temperature in the metropolitan area climbed to 105 degrees, with the humidity over ninety percent. The combination had all the Indians in town waxing nostalgic about Uttar Pradesh just before the monsoon broke. Oh yes just like this in Delhi, actually it would be a blessing if it were to be like this in Delhi, that would be an improvement over what they have now, they need the monsoon very badly.
The morning Post included an article informing Charlie that a chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf had broken off, a chunk more than half the size of France. The news was buried in the last pages of the international section. So many pieces of Antarctica had fallen off that it wasnt big news anymore.
It wasnt big news, but it was a big iceberg. Researchers joked about moving onto it and declaring it a new nation. It contained more fresh water than all the Great Lakes combined. And pouring down toward it, researchers said, was the rapid ice of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, unimpeded now that the Ross Shelf in that region had embarked. This accelerated flow of ice had big implications. The West Antarctic Ice Sheet was much bigger than the Ross Ice Shelf, and if it broke up sea level might rise a few meters, quite quickly.
Charlie read on, amazed that he was learning this in the back pages of the Post. How fast could this happen? The researchers didnt appear to know. Charlie followed it up on the web, and watched one trio of researchers explain on camera that it could become an accelerating process, their words likewise accelerating a bit as if to illustrate how it would go. It might happen fast.
Charlie heard in their voices the kind of repressed delirium of scientific excitement that he had once or twice heard when listening to Anna talk about some extraordinary thing in statistics that he had not even been able to understand. This, however, he understood; they were saying that the possibility was very real that the whole mass of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet would break apart and float away, each giant piece of it then sinking more deeply into the water, thus displacing more water than it had when grounded in placeso much more that sea level worldwide could rise by an eventual total of up to seven meters. It depended on variables programmed into the modelson they went, the usual kind of scientist talk.
And yet the Post had it at the back of the international section! People were talking about it the same way they did any other disaster. There did not seem to be any way to register a distinction in response between one coming catastrophe and another. If it happened it happened. That seemed to be the way people were processing it. Of course the Khembalis would have to be extremely concerned. The whole League of Drowning Nations, for that matter. Really everyone. All of a sudden it coalesced into a clear vision, and what he saw frightened him. Twenty percent of humanity lived on coasts. He felt like he had one time driving in winter when he had taken a turn too fast and hit an icy patch he hadnt seen, and the car had detached and he found himself flying forward, free of friction or even gravity, as if sideslipping in reality itself
But it was time to go downtown. He was going to take Joe with him to the office. He pulled himself together, got out the stroller so they would spare each other their body heat. Life had to go on; what else could he do?
Out they ventured into the steambath of the capital. It really didnt feel that much different than an ordinary summer day; it was as if the sensation of heat hit an upper limit where it just blurred out. Joe was seat-belted into his stroller like a NASCAR driver, so that he would not launch himself out at inopportune moments. Naturally he did not like this, and he objected to the stroller because of it, but Charlie had decorated its front bar as an airplane cockpit dashboard, which placated Joe enough that he did not persist in his howls or attempts to escape.
They took the elevators in the Metro stations, and came up on the Mall to stroll over to Phils office. A bad idea, as crossing the Mall was like being blanched in boiling air. Charlie, as always, experienced the climate deviation with a kind of grim I told you so satisfaction.
At Phils they rolled around the rooms trying to find the best spots in the falls of chilled air pouring from the air-conditioning vents. Everyone was doing this, drifting around to find the coolest drafts, like a science museum exercise investigating the Coriolis force.
Charlie parked Joe out with Evelyn, who loved him, and went to work on Phils revisions to the climate bill. It certainly seemed like a good time to introduce it. More money for carbon remediation, new fuel efficiency standards and the money to get Detroit through the transition to hydrogen, new fuels and power sources, carbon capture methods, carbon sink identification and formation, hydrocarbon-to-carbohydrate-to-hydrogen conversion funds and exchange credit programs, deep geothermal, tide power, wave power, money for basic research in climatology, money for the Extreme Global Research in Emergency Salvation Strategies project (EGRESS), money for the Global Disaster Information Network (GDIN), an escalating carbon taxand so on and so forth. It was a grab bag of programs, many designed to look like pork to help the bill get the votes, but Charlie had done his best to give the whole thing organization, and a kind of coherent shape, as a narrative of the near future.
There were many in Phils office who thought it was a mistake to try to pass an omnibus or comprehensive bill like this, rather than get the programs funded one by one, or in smaller related groupings. But the comprehensive had been Phils chosen strategy, and Charlie agreed with it. He added language to make the revisions Phil wanted, pushing the envelope in each case. Now was the time to strike.
Joe was beginning to get rowdy with Evelyn, he could hear the unmistakable sound of dinosaurs hitting walls. All this language would get chopped up anyway; still, best get it armored against attack. Bill language as low-post moves to the basket, subtle, quick, unstoppable.
He rushed to a finish and took the revised bill in to Phil, with Joe leading the way in his stroller. They found the senator sitting with his back directly against an air-conditioning duct.
Jeez Phil, dont you get too cold sitting there?
The trick is to set up before youre all sweaty. He glanced over Charlies new revision, and they argued over some of the changes. At one point Phil looked at him: Something bugging you today? He glanced over at Joe. Joe here seems to be grooving.
Its not Joe thats getting to me, its you. You and the rest of the Senate. Because the current situation requires a response that is more than business as usual. And that worries me, because you guys only do business as usual.
Well Phil smiled. We call that democracy, youth. Its a blessing when you think of it. Some give-and-take, and then some agreement on how to proceed. How can we do without that? If you have a better way of doing it, you tell me. But meanwhile, no more If I Were King fantasies. Theres no king and its up to us. So help me get this final draft as tight as we can.
Okay.
They worked together with the speed and efficiency of old teammates. Sometimes collaboration could be a pleasure, sometimes it really was a matter of only having to do half of it, and the two halves adding up to more than their parts.
Then Joe got restive, and nothing would keep him in his stroller but a quick departure and a tour of the street scene. Ill finish, Phil said.