“Do you know what I believe, Miss Whittaker? Regarding your question on the origins of human compassion and self-sacrifice? I believe that evolution explains nearly everything about us, and I certainly believe that it explains absolutely everything about the rest of the natural world. But I do not believe that evolution alone can account for our unique human consciousness. There is no evolutionary need, you see, for us to have such acute sensitivities of intellect and emotion. There is no practical need for the minds that we have. We don’t need a mind that can play chess, Miss Whittaker. We don’t need a mind that can invent religions or argue over our origins. We don’t need a mind that causes us to weep at the opera. We don’t need opera, for that matter—nor science, nor art. We don’t need ethics, morality, dignity, or sacrifice. We don’t need affection or love—certainly not to the degree that we feel it. If anything, our sensibilities can be a liability, for they can cause us to suffer distress. So I do not believe that the process of natural selection gave us these minds—even though I do believe that it did give us these bodies, and most of our abilities. Do you know why I think we have these extraordinary minds?”
“I do know, Mr. Wallace,” Alma said quietly. “I’ve read a good deal of your work, recall.”
“I will tell you why we have these extraordinary minds and souls, Miss Whittaker,” he continued, as though he had not heard her. “We have them because there is a supreme intelligence in the universe, which wishes for communion with us. This supreme intelligence longs to be known. It calls out to us. It draws us close to its mystery, and it grants us these remarkable minds, in order that we try to reach for it. It wants us to find it. It wants union with us, more than anything.”
“I know that is what you think,” said Alma, patting his hand again, “and I believe it is quite an inventive notion, Mr. Wallace.”
“Do you think I’m correct?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Alma, “but it is a beautiful theory. It comes as close to answering my question as anything ever has. Yet still you are answering a mystery with another mystery, and I cannot say if I would call that science—though I might call it poetry. Unfortunately, like your friend Mr. Darwin, I still seek the firmer answers of empirical science. It is my nature, I’m afraid. But Mr. Lyell would have agreed with you. He argued that nothing short of a divine being could have created a human mind. My husband would have loved your idea. Ambrose believed in such things. He longed for that union you mention, with the supreme intelligence. He died searching for that union.”
They were quiet again.
After a while, Alma smiled. “I’ve always wondered what Mr. Darwin thought of that idea of yours—about our minds being excluded from the laws of evolution, and about a supreme intelligence guiding the universe.”
Wallace smiled, too. “He did not approve.”
“I should think not!”
“Oh, he did not like it at all, Miss Whittaker. He was appalled whenever I brought it up. He could not believe—after all our battles together—that I was bringing God back into the conversation!’”
“And what would you say?”
“I tried to explain to him that I had never mentioned the word God. He was the one who used the word. The only thing I’d said was that a supreme intelligence exists in the universe, and that it longs for union with us. I believe in the world of spirits, Miss Whittaker, but I would never bring the word God into a scientific discussion. After all, I am a strict atheist.”
“Of course you are, my dear,” she said, patting his hand again. She was so enjoying patting his hand. She was enjoying every moment of this.
“You think me naive,” Wallace said.
“I think you marvelous,” Alma corrected. “I think you are the most marvelous person I have ever met, who is still alive. You make me feel glad that I am still here, to meet somebody like you.”
“Well, you are not alone in this world, Miss Whittaker, even if you have outlived everyone. I believe that we are surrounded by a host of unseen friends and loved ones, now passed away, who exert an influence upon our lives, and who never abandon us.”
“That’s a lovely notion,” said Alma, and she patted his hand once more.
“Have you ever been to a séance, Miss Whittaker? I could take you to one. You could speak to your husband, across the divide.”
Alma thought over the offer. She remembered the night in the binding closet with Ambrose, when they had spoken to each other through the palms of their hands: her one experience with the mystical and the ineffable. She still didn’t know what that had been, really. She still wasn’t entirely certain she hadn’t imagined it all, in a fit of love and desire. Alternatively, she sometimes wondered if Ambrose truly had been a magical being—perhaps some evolutionary mutation in his own right, simply born under the wrong circumstances, or at the wrong moment in history. Perhaps there would never be another one like him. Perhaps he had been a failed experiment himself.
Whatever he had been, though, it had not ended well.
“I must say, Mr. Wallace,” she replied, “you are most kind to invite me to a séance, but I think I shall not do that. I have had a small bit of experience with silent communication, and I know that just because people can hear each other across the divide does not mean they can necessarily understand each other.”
He laughed. “Well, if you should ever change your mind, please do send word.”
“You may be sure I shall. But it is far more likely, Mr. Wallace, that you will be sending word to me, after I am dead, during one of your spiritualist meetings! You should not have to wait long for such a chance, for soon I will be gone.”
“You will never be gone. The spirit merely lives inside the body, Miss Whittaker. Death only separates that duality.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wallace. You say the kindest things. But you needn’t comfort me. I am too old to fear the great changes of life.”
“Do you know, Miss Whittaker—here I am, expounding upon all my theories, but I have not paused to ask you, a wise woman, what you believe.”
“What I believe is not, perhaps, as exciting as what you believe.”
“Nonetheless, I would like to hear it.”
Alma sighed. This was quite a question. What did she believe?
“I believe that we are all transient,” she began. She thought for a while and added, “I believe that we are half-blind and full of errors. I believe that we understand very little, and what we do understand is mostly wrong. I believe that life cannot be survived—that is evident!—but if one is lucky, life can be endured for quite a long while. If one is both lucky and stubborn, life can sometimes even be enjoyed.”
“Do you believe in an afterworld?” Wallace asked.
She patted his hand once again. “Oh, Mr. Wallace, I do so try not to say things that make people feel upset.”
He laughed again. “I am not as delicate as you may think, Miss Whittaker. You may tell me what you believe.”
“Well, if you must know, I believe that most people are quite fragile. I believe that it must have been a dreadful blow to man’s opinion of himself when Galileo announced that we do not reside at the center of the universe—just as it was a blow to the world when Darwin announced that we were not specially crafted by God in one miraculous moment. I believe these things are difficult for most people to hear. I believe it makes people feel insignificant. Saying that, I do wonder, Mr. Wallace, if your longing for the spirit world and an afterworld is not just a symptom of a continued human quest to feel . . . significant? Forgive me, I do not mean to insult you. The man whom I dearly loved had this same need as you, this same quest—to commune with some mysterious divinity, to transcend his body and this world, and to remain significant in a better realm. I found him to be a lonely person, Mr. Wallace. Beautiful, but lonely. I do not know if you are lonely, but it makes me wonder.”