A Vomit of Diamonds (7 page)

XVIII

It was nearing eleven o’clock by the time
Sarah dropped off her charges back at the guest house. The other
group had already arrived and were assembled in the drawing-room,
filling it up with a lively exchange that was only amplified by the
merging.
A French evening ensued. The kind one
reads about in novels that repeat verbatim the dialogues and
meaningful glances exchanged during a private party hosted by a
great lady in Paris; events which frequently take place in
Bouchard’s own creative writings. For example:

“With an address in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain was a handsome baroque mansion; it belonged the House
of Chichi and had been built during the height of Madame de
Pompadour’s influence over at Versailles. Within, chandeliers
fountained from ceilings and portraits worthy of belonging in the
Winter Palace decorated walls; a Parian marble staircase
communicated between the floors and sets of glazed furniture turned
rooms into living spaces; ornaments from across the seas gave
purpose to its stands and vases of exotic flowers perfumed the air.
In short, all the things that announce taste could be found in this
house, whose present occupants included the Dowager Duchess de
Chichi and her recently ennobled grandson Zola, known henceforth in
high society as Monsieur le Duc de Chichi.

Gathered in the red salon on this
summer evening were important ladies and statesmen of the upper
echelon, men of letters and celebrity artists, whose geniuses the
aristocrats poked and prodded with the condescending interests of a
child jabbing at a washed-up jellyfish. Presiding over it all like
an Empress of China in her imperial court was the exuberant Madame
de Chichi herself; a thin-figured woman with an expressive face and
a body that perpetually shook with gesticulations — a thousand
words conveyed in a single wave of the hand. This grande dame was
tonight attired in black to better contrast with the set of chunky
rubies she loaded on for the occasion. Indeed, her personality was
still full of pizzazz despite the winters she had
endured.

‘That hair!’ exclaimed Madame de
Chichi, passing by a mature socialite while making her rounds of
the salon. ‘These old things?’ to a compliment of her jewels.
‘Jealousy is the one thing love and hate have in common,’ she
remarked after listening to a saucy scandal involving a countess,
her husband, and her other man. ‘You’ve never tried paprika?!’ was
the dumbfounded question addressed to a sojourning Romanov. ‘But if
all art was tasteful then where would you be?’ she said to a school
of art critics. ‘I don’t miss the old days one bit. I adore my
neck,’ was her response to a reminiscence of earlier decades. ‘Fame
is the cheapest form of power,’ she quipped to a group discussing a
rising political figure whose reputation preceded him.

While all this high humor took place,
over near a tall window commanding a gossipy view of a polished
street whereon escutcheoned carriages and glazed landaus passed by
on their way to other mansions, three young nobles stood talking
familiarly about things of existential import. Among them was Zola
de Chichi; a youth of one-and-twenty summers with a slim figure and
medium height, light skin, black hair and green eyes.”

Returning to present time and
geography, Maxine filled the role of Madame de Chichi of the
Faubourg Saint-Germain; leading the brouhaha with the effervescence
of a lady worthy of being noticed by Louis XIV of France. “That one
is full of pizzazz,” appraised Balzac Bouchard, thinking of casting
such a personality in one of his stories.

“Nerd!” exclaimed Maxine at Perry,
whose explanation of quantum transportation proved most
enlightening. “Oh, Minho,” was said at one point with an
affectionate shake of the head. “Rome is the mature version of Game
of Thrones,” stated to a person who wondered about the differences.
“Probably astrobiology,” replied to a question regarding her field
of interests. “I’ve always been attracted to little green men,” the
tongue-in-cheek reason. “Let’s play charades!” suggested at a later
stage. “You can only use astronomy-related words or phrases,” was
the rule.

“
I’m not sure if I’d want to be an
observational astronomer if it means spending months in a creepy
house at night all by myself,” Annika commented, in regards to
Karl’s isolated situation. “You scared?” Minho retorted with a
mischievous grin. “It is lonely,” the former pointed out, not
unreasonably. Indeed, the encounter had been a reality check to all
the young and aspiring stargazers in attendance.

“
Does it make sense for a scientist
to be wary of the supernatural?” a person from the other Coonabara
group posed for all present to consider. “Why not?” was Minho’s
fast contribution. “That’s actually a good question,” said Maxine,
momentarily sober. “I believe so,” Balzac spoke up, the philosophic
nature of the question emboldening him to share his thoughts; “for
rationality and imagination are different chemical reactions in the
brain.”

“
That’s an interesting way of
looking at it,” Perry noted, nodding wisely. “History provides many
examples of scientific men who were slaves to their active
imaginations,” Balzac continued, encouraged by his audiences’ kind
attentions; “Take Isaac Newton for example, a brilliant physicist
who pursued alchemy during his free time and in secret. Or Wolfgang
Pauli, the genius behind the Pauli Exclusion Principle, who was
convinced that it was not a coincidence when things broke or
malfunctioned in his presence. In fact, I’m sure the latter was
chilled to the bones every time he experienced the Pauli
effect.”

“
Good point,” the same person from
the other group conceded, pleasantly surprised to hear Bouchard
speak animatedly. “That’s exactly what I was going to say,” Minho
confirmed, adopting a complacent posture for comedic effect. “And I
knew you were going to say something like that!” Maxine exclaimed
at Minho; thus having the last laugh.

“Where are you from?” a second year
with curly brown hair asked an unsuspecting Bouchard. “Thailand,”
was the latter’s mechanical reply. “Really?” Minho looked
surprised; “I thought you were Egyptian or something,” he said,
puzzled. “I’m also half French,” Balzac added. “Ah,” Minho
returned, all made sense now. “I have a friend living in Bangkok,”
Maxine joined in, matter-of-fact; “I visited her a couple years
back. It’s so hot there! I swear, you could fry an egg on my
face!”

“When did you move to Australia,
Minho?” Annika asked her new Korean friend. “At the beginning of
Year Eleven,” the other replied curtly, though well-meaning. “And
is your family still in Korea?” Maxine asked, all curiousness and
gossip once more. “Yeah,” he confirmed, “I stayed at a boarding
school in Brisbane.”

It was one o’clock by the
time the soirée broke up. Though whispered tête-à-têtes continued
behind closed doors well past two. “Perry,” Balzac called from the
other bed. The house was heated, comfortable and dark. “Yeah?” came
the reply. “Can you tell me about gravitational lensing?” Balzac
asked; it was terminology he had caught Karl, or was it Eric using.
“Now?” Perry returned, his usual calm broken by a hint of
incredulity. “Are you busy?” retorted the other. “All right,” said
Perry with an acquiescent sigh. “In simple English!” Balzac
reminded, imparted in the manner a child might adopt when dictating
the story arc of his father’s bedtime narrative. “Basically,” said
the gentle man; “
strong gravitational
fields cause light to bend around massive objects like galaxies,
which means that astronomers can study objects that are behind them
simply by looking at their halos around it.”

XIX

Not surprisingly everyone woke up late
that same morning; luckily, their program did not start till later
during the day. Sarah came by the guest house at half-past eleven.
“Tired?” she asked, grinning knowingly at the party assembled in
the living room; decidedly hung-over. “Today we’ll break up into
groups again,” she continued, herself alert and ready for action;
“We’ll walk around the campus in the afternoon so you get a feel of
the place, and then tonight visit another two telescopes. But
first, I’ll take you guys for,” and she consulted her watch, “lunch
I guess.” So saying she led them once again to the
refectory.

As was planned, they spent the
afternoon touring the grounds like school children at a museum;
their teacher acquainting them with the exhibit’s history and
purpose. None of the buildings were entered though as they were
locked from the outside; its rulers leading vampiric lifestyles and
only returning to their haunts come twilight. “It’s less creepy
during the day,” Annika observed, as they walked up to the house
with the dome on its roof. “Karl’s place,” it was now referred to;
coined by witty Maxine no doubt.

Towards the end of their excursion, as
if turning a bend in the river and coming face to face where the
water falls — gasp, they came upon an enormous satellite dish
perched atop a windmill-like tower. The locals called this radio
telescope “The Dish”; naturally. It was a reasonably large
structure, though shorter than The Dome. Apparently famous too;
having made an appearance in the movie “The Dish”.

Sarah pressed the buzzer next to the
door; The Dish was the only structure at Coonabara Observatory to
operate during the day. “Let’s see if we can get a tour inside,”
she said with a serious smile, adding in a conspiratorial tone:
“Don’t tell the other group.” A dozen or so seconds later they were
welcomed in by a happy man who went by the name of
Andrew.

“I was a consultant for the movie,”
Andrew affirmed, as proud as a patriot. “Cool!” said Maxine; the
others nodded in agreement. “Though many of the scenes were filmed
on sets,” Andrew conceded, “a few important ones were shot here.”
So saying he took them through these sacred locations. “In all of
the scenes were you see the dish turn,” said he, walking, pointing,
and narrating like a tour guide in Beverly Hills; “That was me in
the control room inputting the commands!”

The control room did not reflect its
half a century age; redone, decidedly, to resemble a bridge on some
research vessel. “The dish has to be monitored constantly,” their
guide explained, importantly; “For example, when it’s windy
outside, the dish has to be returned to its stationary position.” A
person in the audience asked how that might look from outside. “An
upside down umbrella,” he quipped without pause. “Do you mind
explaining a bit about how the telescope works? Andrew,” Sarah
suggested.

“Of course,” said Andrew, obligingly.
You see, many celestial objects in space like stars, pulsars,
quasars, galaxies and nebulas among other things, emit radio
waves,” he explained in a manner belonging to a scholar, a drastic
departure from the fanboy attitude of before; “The radio waves hit
the dish,” and here he demonstrated with his hands, cupping the
palm of one to represent a dish, and stacking his fingers on the
other to denote incoming radiation hitting the dish; “are reflected
into the aerial and converted into electric currents, which we can
then use to determine the composition and motion of the
source.”

For the full Dish experience, they
were given hard hats, taken up to the top of the tower and shown
the machine responsible for turning the telescope. The room smelt
funny, and the gears were smirched in black oil. “As you can
imagine,” Andrew spoke in a tone of lost opportunity; “this part
was filmed on a set.”

By the afternoon’s end, whatever
energies had been replenished at lunchtime were all expended.
However, the tour was not quite over yet, apparently. “One last
stop,” said Sarah. So saying she took them up to an observation
point. “Whow,” Minho noted, speaking for everyone. The view of the
Coonabara Ranges from this height was truly grand. Appearing to
Bouchard like waves of green ocean during a tempestuous
storm.

XX

Supper was a hearty fare, in that it
was good for the heart. Conversation on Bouchard’s side of the
table revolved around the tedious process of publication. “Once you
submit your paper to a journal,” explained a forty-something
astrophysicist in a cartoony t-shirt and puffed vest, “the editors
will either reject it right off or send it to two academics to
review it. Not being rejected right off is your first victory. Your
second one comes months later when the reviewers give you a chance
to make revisions. At this point the editor usually gives you
anywhere from a few weeks to less than two months to respond to the
reviewers’ comments. Then,” he said with mock exasperation, “you
re-submit your manuscript, the reviewers go through your responses,
and if they like what they see then they’ll approve your paper for
publication.” Here Maxine interjected: “And if they don’t?” The
astrophysicist shrugged his shoulders; “Then you either beef up the
manuscript and submit it to another journal or,” he added
condescendingly, “you look for a journal with a lower impact
factor.”

Stomachs thusly warmed with dessert —
steaming apple crumble, a welcome treat on a Saturday forecasted to
be very cold — the students soon set off to make good on their
respective engagements. Bouchard’s school drifted off towards the
telescope helmed by the famous Dr. Macnamara; an observational
astronomer who won himself a reputation by identifying many of the
solar system’s most flamboyant comets. “Dr. Macnamara was Eric’s
supervisor,” Sarah noted to the group, as they waited in front of a
small rectangular bunker whence the professor emeritus
presided.