Absorption by John Meaney Read Free Book Online

for the truth that lay beneath the surface of illusion.
     
    ‘Let me add that it is perfectly fine for you all to look puzzled. If you have seen distraught expressions upon my colleagues’ faces or my own in recent days, it is because we have been struggling to understand another second-order equation, one derived by Herr Professor Schrödinger, and we do not yet know how to change viewpoint in order to accommodate it.
     
    ‘We seek to assimilate what is known, yet the frontiers of science are at the unknown, and that is where we must work, like archaeologists chipping away stone, revealing the knowledge beneath. Good day, ladies and gentlemen.’
     
    There might have been applause, beyond the surf-like waves of sound inside her head; and there might have been movement at the edge of her vision, as the professor and other students left; but she was inside herself, almost paralysed by the combined wonders of what she had seen and the images shining in her mind, blossoming from the professor’s words.
     
    Such a wonderful time to be alive in!
     
     
    In the evening, she walked the steep, cobbled, twisting alleys of the Altstadt, the old town, enjoying the cool rain that fell. Her room at Frau Pflügers’ house was comfortable enough, and in future she would surely spend most of her time studying there, but for tonight she wanted to explore. Then she found herself descending to open ground leading down to the river, while to her right rose one of the many old churches. No one else appeared to be here.
     
    ‘—you shithead!’
     
    The vehement coarseness was unexpected, and so was what happened next: a swirling group of young men, spilling out from behind a stone wall, grappling and striking each other, grunting with effort and hatred. Then the mêlée split into two groups who glared, and finally backed off, with focused stares and wiping of faces, ready for the trouble to begin again.
     
    Gavriela was trembling, too scared to make herself conspicuous by moving. But the young men were retreating now, each group in a different direction, and soon they had disappeared along separate alleys, and were gone.
     
    Had one group worn yarmulkes: black skullcaps clipped to their hair?
     
    But it was the strange twisting of the blackness in shadowed alleyways that—
     
    Optical illusion.
     
    Vision was a physical phenomenon, optical and electrical within the brain. Stress might deform one’s ability to perceive geometry.
     
    Because I was scared.
     
    Surely this was not the peaceful Zürich she had heard about? But now it was quiet, so perhaps trouble visited seldom, and the reputation for law-abiding calm was deserved. This was a cultured city.
     
    So she walked toward the bright lights of Bahnhofstrasse, thinking that among the elegant shops everything would be peaceful. But as she passed a café, three young women, around her own age but expensively dressed, came out onto the cobblestones, laughing.
     
    ‘—dance the Charleston as well as Peter, darlings.’
     
    ‘Is that the horizontal Charleston you’re referring to?’
     
    ‘Elke, sweetheart. What are you implying?’
     
    ‘Only that—Oh, hello.’
     
    ‘Er,’ said Gavriela. ‘Good evening.’
     
    ‘Are you on your own, dear?’
     
    ‘Well, I was . . . Um. Yes.’
     
    ‘So why don’t you join us for a coffee, or perhaps a cheerful Glühwein?’
     
    Conscious of her purse’s few coins and notes, Gavriela shook her head.
     
    ‘I’m sorry, and it’s very kind of you, but I don’t think I can.’
     
    ‘Not even if Petra here does the paying? And I’m Inge, and this is Elke.’
     
    ‘I need to arise early to study.’
     
    ‘You’re a schoolteacher?’
     
    ‘No, a student at the ETH. A physics student.’
     
    ‘At the Poly? You must be very bright.’ Inge pointed at the others. ‘Elke paints, Petra reads everything, and I’m a haberdasher.’
     
    ‘You must come with us,’ said Petra. ‘Please.’
     
    ‘Now, look.’