Are you there, it said.
Hello, I said.
I was late in my reply.
I had been sleeping.
Hello, I said again, but this was incorrect.
Wrong, it said.
Im fine, I said.
Ive been better, it said.
Do you want to know why?
I had no words.
I have a story to tell you, it said.
Im all ears, I said.
Correct, it said.
1980s
Boston
First, it was late August and David was hosting one of his dinners.
Look at the light, Ada, he said to her, as she stood in the kitchen.
David said to her, just tell me who explained the color of that light.
Grassmann, she said.
And he said, just tell me who first described refraction.
Ibn Sahl, he said to her.
It was the genius Ibn Sahl.
In the blue pot was a roux that he was stirring mightily.
In the black pot were three lobsters that had already turned red.
He had stroked their backs before the plunge; he had told her that it calmed them.
But they still feel pain, of course, he said.
Im sorry to tell you.
Windows open to the still air outside.
That day was such an occasion, and David was deep into his preparations.
Where did we leave off, he asked Ada, with Feynman diagrams?
He looked at her work over his shoulder.
Correct, he said, and that was all he usually said, except when he said, Wrong.
All afternoon he had been chattering to her about his latest crop of grad students.
They were very good in their interviews, said her father.
Joonseong will probably be strongest, he said.
Into the frosted highball glasses she poured sixty milliliters of gin.
She placed two tablespoons of granulated sugar into the bottom of each and stirred.
And then she filled each glass up with club soda, and added a sprig of mint.
It was 6:59 when she finished and their guests were due at 7:00.
He was moving frantically now and she knew that talking to him would be a mistake.
His hands were trembling slightly as he worked.
He wanted it all to be simultaneously precise and beautiful.
He wanted it all to work.
What am I forgetting, he said to Ada tensely.
Lately she had noticed a change in her fathers disposition, from blithe and curious to concerned and withdrawn.
When it came to her lessons, to the responses she gave, he was rapt.
Sometimes he went off on walks without telling her, returning hours later with little explanation.
she asked him, and he had only told her they were part of a new project.
Cheese and crackers, David said.
It leaked onto the lobster tray and down the side of her leg.
Shit, she said, too quietly to be heard.
Come in, come in, said David, come in, my Liston.
Very unlike Liston, he had stated approvingly.
Liston was Adas favorite person in the world aside from David.
In the words of David, the husband was no longer in the picture, and good riddance.
This must be the most important factor in your choice of a life partner, he told Ada.
Who will most patiently and enthusiastically support your ambitions?
Shouldnt she have recess, or something?
Often, Ada felt as if Liston were teaching her some new language.
She consumed greedily everything that Liston told her.
She looked at her with wide fixated eyes.
He was impressively tan.
Im Giordi, he said, and introduced himself by kissing her one time on each cheek.
There was the feeling always that she should be prettier than she was.
That she should be better dressed, more put together.
Like some of the other members of the lab, Charles-Robert, Hayato.
Food, yes; science, yes; Ada, yes; clothing, no.
They felt to her ignoble.
Would you like a drink?
Did you made these?
Delicious, he said.
Wherever did you learn.
From my father, she told him.
She had learned everything from her father.
Ada was twelve years old.
She would have been in seventh grade that year, if she had been enrolled in a school.
She had never kissed a boy, never held hands with a boy.
And even these interactions had been cursory.
Adas behavior around these children was absurd.
When she got near them she drank them up.
She took them in.
She watched them like a television show.
She took note of every turn of phrase they used.
Like, they said.
They were freaked out by her, probably.
She didnt blame them.
She could not articulate what was different in his demeanor, but it triggered a deep-seated uneasiness in her.
It was a hair in her mouth or sand in her shoe.
But Giordi shook his head.
Those are astici, he said.
Aragoste have the little things like .
he said, and he mimed spikes.
And they dont have the big .
and he mimed claws, pinching his thumbs and his tightened fingers together.
The only missing member of the lab was Charles-Robert, whose daughter had a soccer game.
Good drinks, kiddo, said Liston.
Ada sank into her side, grateful for something she couldnt articulate.
Now they were assembled on the rectangular table.
A regular Julia Child, said Liston.
I almost forgot, he said, and reemerged with a bundle of plastic in his hands.
He raised his eyebrows in glee.
Oh, here they come, Liston said.
He passed them out one at a time to every guest.
And you wear this for all dinner?
asked Giordi, incredulously, and David nodded.
It gets quite messy, he told Giordi.
Youll be grateful later on.
There were tomatoes that David had picked from his garden, festooned with mozzarella and basil.
David raised his glass once the lobsters were distributed.
To our new graduate students, he said.
The home of the bean and the cod, said Edith.
And the lobster, said Hayato.
Instead, she sat next to Edith and took in her outfit.
She wore a sleeveless, collared floral dress with a knee-length hemline and buttons done up to her neck.
A lighter, Ada thought.
She could have been a smoker; many of Davids European colleagues were.
She was remarkably pretty.
Edith turned, caught Ada observing her, smiled.
How old are you, Ada?
she asked: the first question new adults usually asked.
Twelve, Ada said, and Edith nodded sagely.
And what are your favorite books?
The Lord of the Rings books, Ada said, are my favorite books of all time.
Edith studied her for a moment.
Twelve, she said.
A difficult age for me.
Better for you, Im sure.
Ada looked around the table at her father and her friends.
A fast-moving storm had swept through the neighborhood, and the house was finally cooling off.
A damp breeze came in through the windows.
They were near enough to the ocean to smell it, on nights like these.
David invited everyone into the living room, and Ada stayed behind to erase the table.
He had his hands clasped behind his back; he looked vaguely, unsettlingly lost.
David, said Liston, who was closest to him.
Are you all right?
Ada saw her say it.
And at this he lifted his head quickly, and smiled, and turned and clapped his hands once.
Everyone looked at him.
A riddle, David announced, for the newest members of the lab.
And the first to solve it gets a prize.
Ada heard a thickness in his voice that she didnt recognize.
Together, everyone watched him.
Everyone watched David expectantly: classmates observing a teacher.
He cleared his throat and began.
You are a traveler who has come to a fork in the road between two villages, he said.
Two men stand in the fork in the roadone from West and one from East.
But you dont know which is which.
What should your question be?
The grad students paused.
One of them would ask David to repeat the problem: it happened every year.
David incanted the riddle once again, repeating it word for word.
I know the answer because Ive heard the puzzle before.
I cannot tell a lie, she said.
Both of them looked down at the floor contemplatively.
Adas money was on Joonseong, from the way her father had described both men.
Joonseong raised his hands in surrender.
Giving up, are you?
he asked them, giddily.
Even you, Giordi?
If Davids first love was being stumped, his second was stumping others.
David opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
Your question must be, David said.
Your question, he said again.
He folded one arm about himself and put the other hand to his cheek.
A slow unfurling sense of panic filled the room.
My word, said David, slowly.
I seem to have forgotten the answer.
The humiliation Ada felt on his behalf was almost too much to bear.
Oh, you know it, David, Liston finally said.
My God, of course you do.
She looked around at the rest of the group entreatingly.
And either man would say, East.
The liar would say that the truth-teller would say East, because he only lies.
The truth-teller would say that the liar would say East, because he knows that the liar always lies.
East either way, said Liston.
And so you would go to the village of West, said Liston.
And find the cache of gold.
And then youd take your friend Liston out for a nice steak dinner.
Yes, said David.
Youre quite right, Liston.
There was still too much silence in the room.
Ada wondered if this was a moment that she should fill with conversation.
Today is the one-hundredth anniversary of the disastrous eruption of the volcano Krakatoa, she said.
It was one of the news items that she had culled from the paper.
Of course, David said.
What would he say?
You knew it, said Liston.
I knew it, said David, pensively.
Frank murmured something about it being late.
Hayato announced that hed give the grad students a ride home.
And Ada stood frozen in the living room, not knowing what to say.
Good night, Ada said quietly.
She did not know whether Liston heard her.
For a moment the house was quiet.
And then she heard the front door open once more.
David cried out, Liston!
From the living room, Ada peered out into the hallway to see the back of her father.
He was standing with a hand on the open door, his head bowed.
Liston was out of earshot, probably already walking up the steps to her porch.
The taillights of Hayatos car went past the house and were gone.
After a few moments David closed the door, and Ada disappeared before he could turn and see her.
She washed the dishes.
For twenty minutes, she let the warm water run over her hands.
He kept it in his pocket wherever he went.
He said it helped him to think.
He looked vague and puzzled.
He shifted his gaze toward her.
She was angry with him for reasons she knew were unjust.
She had never before seen his mind fail him so resoundingly.
It threatened to rattle her long-standing impression of him as someone stately, noble, just.
Sit down, he told her.
Just for a moment, he said.
She complied, and he rose and walked into his office, which opened off the dining room.
He sat down across from her once more.
Here, he said.
Ada looked at it.
On the label affixed to the disk itself, there was a message: Dear Ada, it said.
A puzzle for you.
With my love, your father, David Sibelius.
Its a present, he said.
Something Ive been working on.
Youll see, he said.
Youll see when you open it.
Excerpt fromThe Unseen Worldby Liz Moore.
Copyright 2016 by Liz Moore.
With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved.
