She’s not getting into any taxi. She’s not running away from any world. The young conductor pops into her head. If she did run away, at least she’d never have to see him again. She’ll never have to think about him either. She then immediately contradicts herself by imagining a hypothetical dialogue between them. They’re talking about her novel. How do they know they’re aliens? he asks. She says they don’t know. The question you should be asking is: How don’t I know they’re aliens? The young conductor says this is like asking how do we know what we see is real — that we’re not just the product of inconceivably sophisticated software, or the creation of an over-arching consciousness, a part of a game created by that consciousness for its own amusement; a consciousness that some have called God? The girl closes her eyes. Once again, someone’s trying to steal her thoughts. I’m sorry, she says, but I think you’re just regurgitating something I’ve already said. The words have hardly left her mouth when, deep within, the girl hears the sound of a thousand voices speaking in unison, growing louder and louder, saying every idea in the world has been thought of, that there’s nothing she’ll ever conceive or imagine that hasn’t been spoken of or written about before. Then the voices fall silent, and the conversation with the young conductor of the orchestra comes to an end. She won’t be having these kinds of discussions again, she thinks. They’re finished for good. An inner voice reminds her, “The clown, in an ecstasy, drinks deeply from the holy chalice, to heaven lifts up his entranced head. .” Yes, they’re finished for good, as is her friendship with the young conductor. They didn’t miss her at all, said the brilliant composer. The statement could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. For a nobody, he certainly has a good way of gauging the situation. They didn’t need her, she repeats. Perhaps she should pay them a visit. The girl dismisses the thought and concentrates on a single point on the ceiling. She doesn’t want her imagination to wander. “3.11 The method of projection is to think of the sense of the No World.” She writes about the old professor, says he only acquires full significance when he’s thought of as part of a much bigger picture, as in that terrible image of him staring out through the windows of a control room at the vast emptiness of space. When her father gets back, tired after a long vigil in the station, they converse on a number of trivial topics, after which he asks her how the writing’s going. It would be better to ask if she knew the beginnings of certain novels. But that would be expecting too much of him. She’s content to just record them in her notebook. “One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware. .” “Stately. .” The girl decides to leave the room and go for something to eat — not knowing exactly where to go, or perhaps, unconsciously, she does know, but it won’t occur to her until she reaches the lobby, when it will suddenly dawn on her, as if by chance, as if spontaneously — except it won’t be by chance, for the knowledge has always been there in her unconscious, and it only needed the right moment, the right suggestion, to bubble up into her conscious mind, and perhaps entering the lobby was all the suggestion it needed. It’s not the first time the thought occurred to her, she just hasn’t dared follow through on it. She knows it’s one of those things her father forbids her to do, although he doesn’t say it directly, because he doesn’t have to, and she doesn’t ask, because she knows better, because his answer’s implicit. The Grand Central Station looms imposingly before the girl, with its vaulted glass ceiling, its huge displays announcing the arrival and departure of trains, whether they’ll be on schedule or delayed. It reminds the girl of an airport, although a gray, old, and filthy one. The place is crowded, and the girl suspects that all these people are getting back after a short weekend away somewhere. Even a train station knows Sundays are horrible, she thinks. She passes a kiosk on her way to a café in which, seated at the back, watching her as she enters, is the elusive cousin Dedalus. The girl can’t help suspecting that Cousin Dedalus and McGregor are in fact the same person. That would explain why McGregor seems to want to avoid crossing paths with her, and why her father was so surprised when she told him she met Cousin Dedalus. She walks right past him, close enough to say hello, to sit down and interrogate him about the churches and cathedrals, those transmitters and receivers of intergalactic messages, but he turns his face as she passes, as if to avoid being seen by her, and she ends up sitting far away from him. The girl takes notes in her notebook. She wants to describe the behavior of someone who has nothing else to do with his time but wait. Wait for what? she wonders, still convinced the answer will mark a turning point — although she knows simply asking herself the question won’t yield an answer. She finishes her meal without having thought of a single particular quality to distinguish Cousin Dedalus from McGregor. So what will she call him from now on, this Dedalus/McGregor? She looks around the station. She can’t think of anything that makes him stand out from the crowd, and no one around her in the station is acting strangely — acting like someone who has nothing to do but wait — although she knows every single one of them has something about them that they don’t want the rest of the world knowing. The girl thinks she’ll never again be able to enter a train station without thinking about her father and his associate, the man she’s now convinced is Cousin Dedalus. Perhaps she’ll never be able to enter a train station again without thinking the way they do about the commuters — that some of them aren’t really commuters at all.
He can’t sleep. So he leaves the light off and gets up, moving through the darkness toward the window, and looks down at the street below. He then looks at the building opposite, then the bakery, the lingerie store, and the shoe and handbag store that’s closed for the August vacation. Sundays are pointless, he thinks. Fortunately, he missed this one. He got back late from his assignation with the black prostitute and spent most of the day sleeping. He then got up and ate some leftovers from the fridge, drank lots of water to defuse his hangover, and even managed to write a little. He doesn’t have the stamina for drinking he once had, but he can’t help himself when he’s around the black prostitute, or any prostitute for that matter. He finds he has to drink when he’s around them. The girl’s different though. He doesn’t drink when he’s with her. There’s a car waiting in front of the hotel. Its droning engine is distracting him. The streets are dimly lit but he can still see the white envelope in the driver’s hands. He gets dressed and goes down to the lobby, limps nervously with the help of his cane toward the receptionist, and asks if there’s a letter for him. There is. He sits in the nearest chair and tears open the envelope. It’s a scene in which the girl illustrates the connection between two different characters, the quality that brings them together, making them one. “4.1 Connections represent the existence and nonexistence of states of affairs. The female student is lying next to the window smoking. The old professor of philosophy is standing with his hands in his pockets on the other side of the room, thinking about his wife, who’s threatening to report him to the Academy. He lights his own cigarette and starts walking back and forth in the room, toward and away from her. There’s a guilty silence between them. We should make love tonight, and not stop until we die, he says. She doesn’t respond. He looks at the ground. She doesn’t know whether he’s being serious or ironic. Nobody can keep making love until they die, thinks the female student, smirking. She looks out onto the street. She’s in a cynical mood. How can she die making love when she hasn’t finished reading the philosopher W? The cigarette smoke bothers her. She waves her hand to dissipate the plumes moving toward her face. He wants to know if she still loves him, if he can at least count on that. The female student keeps looking out the window as if she hadn’t heard the question, as if there was a guilty silence between them. I could easily dump her, he says. The female student shudders, but she tries to ignore his use of the word ‘dump’ to describe divorcing his wife. 4. A thought is a proposition with a sense.” There are more pages, but the screenwriter decides to stop reading and return them to the envelope, which he folds in two, and puts in his jacket pocket. He stays seated, thinking a while, alone except for the receptionist — perhaps more a night watchman than receptionist. A couple of tourists ring the doorbell. So he plays the night watchman himself by letting them in and accompanying them to the elevator. Good evening, they say in passing, but the screenwriter doesn’t answer; he just nods his head. Back behind the desk, the receptionist turns the radio on and lowers the volume until it’s practically inaudible. I won’t sleep now, the screenwriter says as he exits onto the street. The fresh air calms him, clears his lungs. He walks slowly in the direction of the river, the sound of his cane on the pavement echoing in the evening silence. As he approaches the bridge, he notices a dim light flickering under it. He gets closer, and sees a group of tramps sleeping around a candle. The screenwriter thinks the place resembles a campsite. There are cardboard boxes and rags piled up beside the piers. Sundays are vile, he keeps thinking, although he’s not sure these poor guttersnipes would agree with him. It’s probably a special day for them, a day when they receive alms from their parishes, or something. He laughs at the notion, turns, and begins the slow walk back to the hotel. Once in his room, he continues reading where he left off. “4.2 The sense of an accusation is its agreement with the possibilities of existence of states of affairs. The woman has followed through on her threats and reported the professor to the board of the Academy. The director considers an immediate dismissal, but decides to allow him to finish his classes, since the school vacation is drawing near, and at that point, the old professor’s contract will be up. Of course, he won’t be offered a new one, but the director’s still anxious to avoid a scandal. Perhaps the female student’s parents will agree to keep the matter under wraps. The director calls her mother twice, but no one’s at home, so he leaves a message after the second attempt. He’s never met her father, and he’d rather discuss the matter with someone he knows. He doesn’t have his phone number anyway, he says aloud, as if to offer himself an excuse. A scandal will harm the Academy’s image, he thinks. He needs time to plan ahead for damage control.”