1.6 The Big Split
1.6.1 The Story
Aboard Air France Flight 004
About to depart for Paris 8:45 pm Wednesday 1 April 1987
Alenby heard the Flight Attendant’s warning too late. In the act of stepping aboard Air France Flight 004, he bumped his head in the entry-way.
"Hum, I entertain the impression that Boeing is making ever smaller jets," he complained, rubbing his forehead.
The Flight Attendant, a short, thin young woman with a professionally bright manner, seemed to take this as a compliment. "Indeed, Excellency," she said with a wide smile, "Air France is proud to claim that this AirBus 0.007, recently made available by EurAir Corporation, is the smallest, most fuel efficient, and most Gaea-friendly mass-transport passenger aircraft in the sky. May I take your flight bag? Flight bags normally go in our 0.007 overhead micro-bins, but this flight bag is just a little"—she lowered her voice—"excessively dimensioned."
Despite the feeling of dizziness and of incipient headache occasioned by his misadventure, Alenby thought quickly. The selection of surgical dressings and medications he carried on his person were adequate to treat his injury, if that should become necessary, and otherwise to sustain health throughout the flight. He would probably not need anything in his bag before Paris. Anyway, in case of an emergency, this little Flight Attendant person seemed disposed to be helpful. In fact she looked up at him with the air of adoration that was normal for persons of the weaker sex to reserve for taller men. So he handed over his bag, turned away and moved toward his reserved window seat 8A.
But another shock awaited him—that seat was already occupied! His features congealed in an expression of displeasure, he pressed forward to glare at the offender with the petulance he normally reserved for a pasteurized Camembert masquerading as the real thing.
The interloper did not flinch. Petite, fine-limbed, her glossy champagne-colored hair neatly but not too-neatly groomed, she continued to occupy seat 8A with the featherweight aplomb of a ballerina posing to a burst of applause. She looked up, and Alenby was startled to recognize her eyes—gleaming brown like chocolate fondue!
Uncharacteristically speechless, he registered tiny details of her person. About thirty, he guessed at first, but perhaps older since her hair owed its pale sheen to an abundant admixture of gray. Her smile revealed teeth that, while white and strong-looking, were somewhat irregular, incisors protruding slightly to give her lips the form of a shallow vee. Whatever her physical shortcomings, though, she acted damnably self-assured, an irritating trait in the weaker sex....
She spoke—crisply, in a voice whose tart overtones recalled a more-than-adequate white of the Entre Deux Mers persuasion, Château Turcaud perhaps.
"Yes, Excellency, I know I’m in your seat. Here, take mine." She indicated the seat beside her. "You’ll be more comfortable on the aisle."
She was right, he realized. The cabin wall curved about her head and left shoulder with space to spare, but for him it would have been intolerably confining. He subsided—not without some slight difficulty, for his hips made a tight fit between the arm rests of seat 8B.
"I beg your pardon," she was saying, "I’m Ada. May I call you Alenby? I happened to learn your name through—but no matter, we are together…."
Together? What was she talking about, Alenby wondered tensely. But when she raised the arm rest between them and nestled closer, he did not draw away. He sensed his bulk, blessedly unconfined, spreading like a deflating balloon across the space between the two seats, and he felt Ada’s breath eddying warm about his jowl. He inhaled her personal aromas. Very nice, redolent actually of the Midi--tomato and eggplant, garlic and olive oil.... And a Bandol Rosé splashed in the glass under the sun-dappled arbor of Restaurant Miramar in Le Ciotat….
Time to relax, to let go, he told himself.
He tried to relax, willing himself to believe for the moment that his puzzling experiences, the lost valise and all the rest, were not real, nothing to worry about. His feverish attempts to rationalize them had been totally unnecessary. His latest theory, for example, was clearly untrue; he had certainly not taken up a forgotten appointment as coach of a Lithuanian middle-school gymnastics team. Much more likely, he was merely suffering hallucinatory side-effects from Comadoz, his current sleep-regulating medication. He knew that, like any combination of powerful stimulants and soporifics compounded to ensure a refreshing and natural overnight sleep experience, Comadoz will occasionally gave rise to a warped perception of reality. In all probability, he told himself, the whole illusion, including this disturbingly attractive person of the weaker sex, will blow over by the time Flight 004 arrives at Roissy. Then he’d simply go ahead with his plans—pick up his Morgan Aero, and then--off to Strasbourg for a nice lunch.
So he let go, relinquished his personal steering wheel to the small, neatly manicured (no nail polish) hands of this person of the weaker sex, who had a moment before administered a brief nibble at his left ear lobe. Rather pleasant sensation, he admitted to himself. Like that first spoonful of a white-grapefruit sorbet....
"But of course," she went on in a ruminative tone, "no tabloid report of an alien being, no matter how imaginative, can have the impact of the real thing. Oh, this is so exciting, to be right up close to a—a U-person, I mean a man, a man from our companion universe U! A dimensionally disadvantaged man. A real man!" As she said this she again leaned close, enveloping him in her natural body odor with its intimations of the warm South, and dropped a slim hand on his broad, strong and slightly pudgy one.
Though receptive to the erotic element of her gesture, Alenby felt no stirring of incipient tumescence. Apparently, his current course of Prixaloft had done little to restore his virility.
"Let’s summarize," he suggested finally, organizing his features in the warily patronizing expression he normally reserved for females from the West Coast who advocate a diet of brown rice and carrot juice and consult astrologers. "You assert that my provenance is an exotic universe denoted by the letter U, upper-case bold-face to judge from your tone of voice?"
"Yes, we call it U, a universe parallel to yet entirely separate from our own familiar, cozy universe, u in lower-case italic."
The color of her lips, Alenby observed, was that of the center of an aged Argentinean sirloin steak, grilled à point. He withdrew from its pocket his show handkerchief, which happened to be the same color, and meditatively pressed it to his lips.
"U and u," he muttered, mimicking her differentiation between the names of these so-called parallel universes. "You are, I assume, joshing?"
She assured him that U and u were indeed parallel universes, and more than that, companions, twin universes almost, having separated only sixty seven years previously, a mere moment in cosmological time....
But before she could finish her thought, the cabin audio-visual system broke in with a canned Safety announcement. Alenby listened with the respect he always accorded matters of safety, but with no particular interest--until he was astonished to observe that the message came, not from the flat image of a face on a screen but from a realistic three-dimensional image of the speaker, smiling and gesturing as it talked and walked along the aisle.
"Cute, isn't it," Ada said, smiling at his reaction. "It's HV--that's holovision--the latest piece of techno-trivia to beguile us here in u.
"And as to the safety thing," she added, "I had them attach an extension to your seat belt."
Alenby frowned. An extension? Nonsense, he had never before needed an extension. But he’d let go, he reminded himself, so he didn’t protest. He remained calm. Best to play along, he decided.
"Thank you," he said, fastening the seat belt, "it does in fact fit. But tell me, ah, Ada, how did you identify me as—whatever you said?"
"A U-person?"
"Precisely, whatever that might signify."
He permitted himself a discreet chortle. Might as well humor this midget busybody, he thought. Within seven hours he would be free of her. And within twelve, settled at his usual table in Chez Schreiber in Strasbourg, contemplating an intriguing slice of tête de veau. Unless Monsieur Schreiber had some other suggestion....
"In answer to your first question, Alenby, very simply. Your physical characteristics fit the U-person profile—great height and girth, for example. But the clincher is your use of a penetrating artificial perfume—bologna, I believe it's called."
"Bologna?" Alenby could not hide his surprise. He knew bologna as a smoked sausage whose gastronomical virtues justified the bother of importing it into America in contravention of Pure Food regulations. It was an unFrench sort of thing, to be sure, but, with a glass or two of a rustic Chianti, an agreeable nosh. Obviously this Ada person meant something else entirely. Cologne, perhaps?
"Yes," she said, "of course, I meant cologne. So difficult to keep track of these curious alien expressions! Anyway, authorities on exotic macro life-forms agree that cologne is the unique signature of U-person-hood. Incidentally, what is the purpose of cologne? Is it to ward off evil spirits?"
Alenby tried to laugh. Evil spirits—how droll! But what was the purpose of cologne? It was a little distasteful to think about, actually—covering up offensive body odors and all that. His cogitation on that point was interrupted by an announcement about Safety aboard this aircraft, followed by another about Sécurité. The aircraft began to move into position for takeoff.
"As for what is meant by the term ‘U-person,’" Ada resumed, "I'll try to explain, but—well, I only know what scholars have inferred from periodicals, novels and the like, published prior to Prohibition. Also from now-elderly people testifying to that era."
She's probably insane, Alenby thought. Might make a fuss, maybe sue. Better play along....
"Prohibition," he repeated, struggling to suppress a tone of levity "you mean, I assume, the unfortunate ban on wine that was in effect in America from 1920 until its repeal in 1933? What, may I ask, does Prohibition have to do with whatever you are talking about, U-persons and so on and so forth?"
Abruptly dropping her seductive mode, Ada responded in the stilted manner of a diligent pupil reciting a history lesson:
"By the early years of the twentieth century, the United States had become a powerful nation, one that many others looked to for guidance. Yet the American people were unhappy. How might we relieve this national malaise? they asked themselves. After much thought and discussion, they agreed that the solution was to prohibit a popular beverage, but they could not decide which. One moiety wanted very strongly to prohibit the consumption of wine, and the other wanted with equal fervor to prohibit the the consumption of milk, which is a bodily secretion of the females of mammals like cattle, sheep, and...stoats, I think it is--"
"Excuse me, not stoats," said Alenby. "You must mean stoat, collective singular, you know. But what was this moiety that wanted to prohibit milk?"
Annoyed at the interruption, Ada replied curtly that the moiety was the pressure group Mothers Against juvenile onset diabetes and Animal Milk, or MA'AM, for short, which formed the nucleus of a national political party that eventually propelled its founder, Edith Bolling Wilson, to the White House. And resuming her recitation mode:
"At the time, in 1920, the gathering forces of the anti-wine and anti-milk groups were almost equally balanced. The resulting psychic tension grew and grew until it ripped the very fabric of space, with the result that the universe suffered the cataclysmic event known as the Big Split: ‘Light of the light, splitting up universes’ as it were. The formerly intact universe split into two universes, alike in all respects except that in one of them, subsequently known as U, the consumption of wine and other alcohol-containing substances was prohibited, while in the other, the universe u, the consumption of milk and all other animal parts and products was likewise prohibited.
"And unlike what I gather is the case in U," she added in a normal voice, "here in u, Prohibition is the law."
Prohibition. Milk. The law. Alenby heard the words, but they make no sense, so he paid no attention to them.
An announcement came over HV: Air France Flight 004, bound for Simone de Beauvoir Airport, Paris, was about to depart.
Simone de Beauvoir—shouldn’t that be Charles de Gaulle? Alenby wondered. Anyway, what was Edith Bolling Wilson doing in the Oval Office? But coming as it did on top of so many other breaks from his notion of reality, the discrepancies quickly passed him by.
The cabin floor tilted up sharply and the engines roared as the aircraft took off.
1.6.2 Alenby Learns the Nature of Universe u
Aboard Air France Flight 004
About 9 pm Wednesday 1 April 1987
Alenby felt his throat muscles knotting. He was always nervous at takeoff. He could never be sure of timing his Snifitin nasal spray with the precision needed to forestall the inconvenience of clogged sinus passages at a time of rapidly changing cabin pressure. The touch of Ada's hand gave him little comfort. He closed his eyes and focused his mind on an eternal verity: on no account should wine be offered with chocolate desserts. He relaxed, breathing steadily, and then felt his throat tighten again as a troublesome counterexample hovered at the edges of his consciousness. What about a dark, sweet and faintly toasty Rasteau with a chocolate soufflé? He became aware of Ada’s voice cutting through the subsiding drone of the engines:
"Yes, Alenby, U and u are quite close--at least as distances are measured in hyperspace. So it’s not surprising that we occasionally make contact with U-people. Apparently I have the good fortune to make such a contact."
Alenby frowned. "Excuse me," he said, "but I fail to see any reason for excitement, since our universes are apparently quite similar to each other. For example, the words you quoted, ‘Light of the light, splitting up universes’ are aside from one minor and totally inconsequential error, precisely those familiar to us macro life-forms of U, also." Neatly put, he thought with a self-congratulatory smirk.
Ada nodded, smiling. "Yes, our universes are alike in many respects, in all but one respect in fact. There is but one basic difference—and I fear you may have missed this—food. In u, human society has evolved to embrace excellent nutrition."
At the word food, Alenby started like a jolted blob of barely-set aspic. At the word nutrition, however, he recovered his customary air of complacency.
"Nutrition, being that which happens after food has passed one's palate, is unimportant," he declared. "Therefore I perceive little of interest in this excursion in hyperspace, as you call it. Indeed, your universe u seems to me much as usual, except for the seats being somewhat cramped for first class. What is it you find so, ah—?"
"Romantic!" Ada breathed. "To be close to a U-person is to be closer to the barbaric era before Prohibition, when"—here she lowered her voice to a whisper and put her lips directly to Alenby’s ear—"when men of imposing loft and thickness—men like you, Alenby—proudly trod the earth, killing animals and clothing themselves in garments fashioned from those animals’ hides and hair—"
"If you’re talking about my jacket, it’s not hair. It’s wool, actually, the finest Hebridean—"
"Finally killing the animals," Ada pursued, "and eating their still-bleeding flesh!"
Alenby took his red show handkerchief out of his lapel pocket, dabbed it to his lips, folded it and stuffed it back in his pocket. Then he took it out again, folded it a trifle more carelessly, and stuffed it back in his pocket again. "Well," he said finally, "few authorities consider it proper to offer meats quite as lightly cooked as you describe. Bleu, to be sure, but not actually leaking, ah, blood. But that quibble aside, your picture of the culinary practices of U is basically correct. We do indeed consume meat and other bounty of nature. In fact, it is with a view to spending three weeks eating the finest of such comestibles that I am currently embarked on my vacation in France. Don’t tell me you u-people are…vegans."
He essayed an urbane little laugh—unsuccessfully, for the v-word had suddenly lost its power to amuse him.
"Not just vegans," said Ada. "It's true that we u-people avoid animal-based foods as a matter of law, but many of us also avoid refined foods and foods of low nutritive content per calorie, including all fats and oils whether of plant or animal origin. It’s a tradition of respect for reason and science, really."
"Yes," said Alenby, "but this so-called reason and science you speak of, surely it’s dangerous! Health-care authorities assure us that to maintain health we need a varied diet including milk and other dairy products for building strong bones and teeth, and seafood for that protective omega whatever it may be. And poultry, and red meat packed with high-quality proteins to maintain our strength."
"Oh, how preProhibitionistically romantic!," Ada exclaimed with a laugh. "But to be serious for a moment, our scientific knowledge of the nutritional needs of the human body is entirely consistent with common sense. The human body works best on the diet to which it adapted tens of thousands of years ago through evolution, namely a whole-food, plant based diet."
Whole-food, plant-based liberal commie nonsense, Alenby thought, and inimical to the very concept of a nice lunch. But he managed to hide his inner turmoil, and heard out her discourse on this so-called common sense with a benign smile—until:
"Anyway," she concluded, "it’s a tradition backed with the force of law."
This time the mention of law hit Alenby with unnerving force. "The law!" he gasped, his normal rosé coloration giving way to the yellow hue of certain wines produced in the vicinity of Arbois. "A tradition with the force of—! Meaning that I can’t get a simple foie gras de canard truffé without risking a confrontation with—?" His throat tightened again, throttling his normally mellow voice to a squeak. He paused and swallowed a few times.
He turned and looked into Ada’s shiny brown eyes. "Tell me, what’s the point? What’s the point of life? In u, I mean."
Ada repressed a smile. Very soon, as soon as she could indulge her desire in comfortable and discreet ambience, she would show him a thing or two about the point of life. But for the moment she was content to play to his epicurean leanings.
"Ah, the point of life. If I am not mistaken, you alluded to truffles. In u, we have a plenitude of truffles—the black sort, the truffle of Perigord, the so-called melanosporum."
Alenby started. "A plenitude of—of the fabulous and rare diamont noir of gastronomy, as Brillat-Savarin called it?"
"Yes," said Ada, gratified at Alenby’s reaction, "the black diamond of gastronomy—as fabulous as ever, but not rare any more. Thanks to a feat of genetic engineering by a team of French scientists, the secret of propagating the melanosporum is a secret no longer. Nowadays, in France, truffles are no more expensive than mushrooms. We have lots of truffles--and they are so good! In fact, truffles is the whole point of my vacation in France!"
That last was a lie. In fact she and practically everyone in France had long since tired of truffles, and the once prized fungus was usually used only to feed pets and American tourists.
But Alenby did not suspect deception. His mind was on truffles.
A plethora of truffles! Yet there had to be a downside. Because of this foolish Prohibition business there had to be a dearth of foie gras and oeufs brouillés and so on and so forth that are needed to transport the mysterious fragrance of truffles to the palate, to the pleasure centers of the brain, to the soul…. Preoccupied, Alenby hardly noticed the hot-summer perfumes of Ada’s breath, the pressure of her lips writhing against his jowl as she whispered her proposal:
"Alenby, make it our vacation. You will join me, won’t you?"
"Oh, absolutely, by all means." Surely, he thought, there were chefs out there who knew the tricks of truffles....
Ada exhaled. "That’s good, very good. Now you must allow me to record your image in my locket. There’ll be a brief flash of light. Smile please. Say peas! There!" She slipped the shiny, hook-shaped object back in its place over her right ear—an ear, he noticed, pale rose and translucent, like a cornet of the tiny squid served in a reduction of red peppers as sometimes served as a folie du chef at Restaurant les Pyrénées in St-Jean-Pied-le-Port.
"Locket?" he repeated. "Did you say that gadget hanging on your ear is a—ah—locket?"
"Yes, a Compulocket—a microcomputer actually. Many women wear lockets. It’s a convenient means of keeping track of one’s lovers. Each visual image may be complemented by adding phone numbers, vex addresses--people do vex other people in U, surely?--anniversary dates, codes denoting any unusually interesting sexual perversions, all that sort of thing." To this she added something in a low voice, to the effect that by agreeing to be recorded in her locket he had testified under pain of perjury that he was free of any and all sexually transmitted diseases whatsoever.
"Hum, it looks like a hearing aid," he said.
"A hearing aid? I’ve heard of that device, but I’ve never actually seen one. Hearing problems are so rare among people under a hundred years old."
"Presumably you mean under fifty—" Alenby rejoined, but before he had time to bring out the statistic he’d seen somewhere, that most Americans suffered significant loss of hearing before that age, a certain aroma claimed his attention.
"By the way," he said, nostrils flaring. "I believe I detect the mysteriously enticing woodland scent of truffles now. Hmmm—very faint but quite unmistakable. They must be about to serve dinner."
***
Though conveyed to his gourmet's perceptions in a medium aqueous rather than unctuous, the savors of truffle pleased Alenby enough that he could tell Ada with at least mild conviction that that the truffle-laden main course, Pâtée Ducru (Pâtée politely rendered in the English-language menu as Broth rather than as Swill) was well up to U standards for airline food. But he felt a vague disappointment, a nagging perception of something lacking. He was slow to emerge from his state of denial that the missing element must have been excessive protein and fat.
After dessert, digestive and coffee, the couple slept beneath a shared blanket of a material that resembled the most luxurious of fabrics. But it was not real wool.