her mind that she could have repeated them or defended them, they nevertheless seemed true to her, instinctively, exactly true. As she read Mr. Malisoff’s words, she knew what had motivated him to write—Andrew’s blustering, grandiose claims, his circular reasoning. She knew that as well as if God himself had whispered it in her ear. Just then, she saw Andrew as the world saw him, and she did it all at once, as if he had turned into a brick and fallen into her lap—who he was was that solid and permanent for her—he was a fool.
As she returned from San Francisco to Vallejo on the ferry, Margaret thought that if someone had asked her five days ago, or ten years ago, whether she “believed in” Andrew’s work, she would have said, “Of course,” without even thinking about it, but now she saw that “belief” was a kind of parasite that she had taken on by typing, by listening, by worrying about his reactions to the name “Einstein.” She was infected with the “Aether” and with a vision of the universe that not only was alien to her, but was suddenly (in the middle of San Pablo Bay) terrifying in its vastness. Nothing worked as a charm against it, or a corrective, or a remedy. The book she had brought along to read dropped from her hands, ineffective against the images.
A few days later, she went to her knitting group. As she was taking off her overshoes and shaking out her umbrella in the front hall at Mrs. Tillotson’s (Mrs. Tillotson, who still bore her married name, had returned to the knitting group bolder and more self-confident than ever), she heard the words “She is a saint!” When they stopped talking as soon as she entered the parlor (living room, Mrs. Tillotson called it), and everyone smiled at her, she knew that the saint was herself, and that they had been talking about her with some animation—their eyes were bright when they looked up to greet her. Lucy May had said the same thing. It was peculiarly painful all of a sudden to know that her friends and relatives valued her life not for anything she had done, but for what she had put up with. It was like being told she was a dolt, only in nicer language. The next week, she didn’t go back, and when she saw Mrs. Tillotson on Marin Street one day a while later, she turned away from her, even though she knew Mrs. Tillotson had seen her.
But there was no defense against the typing. He was into volume two now. He projected another four years of hard work before he could even think about publication. He would not make the same mistake twice.
Except that, Margaret knew, he would.
1923
PART FOUR
1928
THE ISLAND GOT QUIET, since everyone in the world agreed that there would be no more wars—civilization had learned its lesson. The navy made up its mind not to build many ships, and especially not large, expensive ones. The mishap with the California, a huge cruiser that upon launching had broken away from its restraints and skidded all the way across the strait, only to get stuck in the mud off Vallejo, was perhaps the reason that the island had begun to look awfully small and old-fashioned to a lot of people. Would it become an airfield? Would they build submarines? Was the future in airplanes landing on the decks of ships? Was Oakland more convenient for all of these operations? Why was the shipyard on the island, anyway? Why had anything happened the way it had? No one could remember, and starting anew seemed altogether more possible than sorting it all out. Andrew’s job changed, too. Whereas he had once overseen the dropping of the time ball, now he sent out a set of time clicks by radio transmission. And time itself was different now, more a matter of counting something than observing the heavens. The navy kept asking Andrew when he thought he might retire. He kept not saying. He knew that when he was gone they would tear down the observatory, his nest and mole hole.
One day, Andrew brought Pete home for supper. Was it really ten years and more since they’d heard from him? But there he was, walking down Marin Street, in Vallejo, not dead after all. He looked down-and-out, but in his characteristic way—his clothes were classic and a little well taken care of, rather than flashy and new.