Chapter 26

We took the subway to Columbia. David Borenstein had notreplied to my email. I did not mention this to Rosie whoinvited me to her meeting, if it did not clash with mine.
‘I’ll say you’re a fellow researcher,’ she said. ‘I’d like you to seewhat I do when I’m not mixing drinks.’
Mary Keneally was an associate professor of psychiatry¹ in theMedical Faculty². I had never asked Rosie the topic of her PhD.
It turned out to be Environmental Risks for Early OnsetBipolar Disorder³, a serious scientific topic. Rosie’s approachappeared sound and well considered. She and Mary talked forfifty-three minutes, and then we all went for coffee.
‘At heart,’ Mary said to Rosie, ‘you’re a psychiatrist⁴ rather thana psychologist. You’ve never thought of transferring toMedicine?’
‘I came from a medical family,’ said Rosie. ‘I sort of rebelled.’
‘Well, when you’ve finished rebelling, we’ve got a great MDprogramme here.’
‘Right,’ said Rosie. ‘Me at Columbia.’
210/290‘Why not? In fact, since you’ve come all this way …’ She madea quick phone call, then smiled. ‘Come and meet the Dean.’
As we walked back to the Medical building, Rosie said to me,‘I hope you’re suitably impressed.’ We arrived at the Dean’soffice and he stepped out to meet us.
‘Don,’ he said. ‘I just got your email. I haven’t had a chanceto reply.’
He turned to Rosie. ‘I’m David Borenstein. And you’re withDon?’
We all had lunch at the faculty club. David told Rosie that hehad supported my O-1 visa application. ‘I didn’t lie,’ he said.
‘Any time Don feels like joining the main game, there’s a jobfor him here.’
Coal-oven pizza is supposedly environmentally unsound, but Itreat statements of this kind with great suspicion. They arefrequently emotionally based rather than scientific and ignore fulllife-cycle costs.
Electricity good, coal bad. But where does the electricity comefrom?
Our pizza at Arturo’s was excellent. World’s Best Pizza.
I was interested in one of the statements Rosie had made atColumbia.
‘I thought you admired your mother. Why wouldn’t you wantto be a doctor?’
‘It wasn’t my mother. My father’s a doctor too. Remember?
That’s what we’re here for.’ She poured the rest of the redwine into her glass.
‘I thought about it. I did the GAMSAT, like I told PeterEnticott. And I did get seventy-four. Suck on that.’ Despite theaggressive words, her expression remained friendly. ‘I thoughtthat doing Medicine would be a sign of some sort of obsessionwith my real father. Like I was following him rather than Phil.
Even I could see that was a bit fucked-up.’
Gene⁵ frequently states that psychologists are incompetent⁶ atunderstanding themselves. Rosie seemed to have provided goodevidence for that proposition. Why avoid something that shewould enjoy and be good at? And surely three years ofundergraduate education in211/290psychology plus several years of postgraduate⁸ research shouldhave provided a more precise classification of her behavioural,personality and emotional problems than ‘fucked-up’. Naturally Idid not share these thoughts.
We were first in line when the museum opened at 10.30 a.m.
I had planned the visit according to the history of the universe,the planet and life. Thirteen billion years of history in six hours.
At noon, Rosie suggested we delete lunch from the schedule toallow more time with the exhibits. Later, she stopped at thereconstruction of the famous Laetoli footprints made byhominids approximately 3.6 million years ago.
‘I read an article about this. It was a mother and child, holdinghands, right?’
It was a romantic interpretation⁹, but not impossible.
‘Have you ever thought of having children, Don?’
‘Yes,’ I said, forgetting to deflect¹⁰ this personal question. ‘But itseems both unlikely and inadvisable.’
‘Why?’
‘Unlikely, because I have lost confidence in the Wife Project.
And inadvisable because I would be an unsuitable father.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I’d be an embarrassment¹¹ to my children.’
Rosie laughed. I thought this was very insensitive, but sheexplained, ‘All parents are an embarrassment to their kids.’
‘Including Phil?’
She laughed again. ‘Especially Phil.’
At 4.28 p.m. we had finished the primates¹². ‘Oh no, we’redone?’ said Rosie. ‘Is there something else we can see?’
‘We have two more things to see,’ I said. ‘You may find themdull.’
212/290I took her to the room of balls – spheres of different sizesshowing the scale of the universe. The display is not dramatic,but the information is. Non-scientists, non- physical- scientists,frequently have no idea of scale – how small we are comparedto the size of the universe, how big compared to the size of aneutrino. I did my best to make it interesting.
Then we went up in the elevator and joined the HeilbrunnCosmic Pathway, a one-hundred-and-ten-metre spiral ramprepresenting a timeline from the big bang to the present. It isjust pictures and photos and occasional rocks and fossils onthe wall, and I didn’t even need to look at them, because Iknow the story, which I related as accurately¹³ and dramaticallyas I could, putting all that we had seen during the day intocontext, as we walked down and round until we reached theground level and the tiny vertical¹⁴ hairline representing all ofrecorded human history. It was almost closing time now, andwe were the only people standing⁷ there. On other occasions, Ihave listened to people’s reactions as they reach the end.
‘Makes you feel a bit unimportant, doesn’t it?’ they say. Isuppose that is one way of looking at it – how the age of theuniverse somehow diminishes our lives or the events of historyor Joe DiMaggio’s streak¹⁵.
But Rosie’s response was a verbal version of mine. ‘Wow,’ shesaid, very quietly, looking back at the vastness of it all. Then,in this vanishingly small moment in the history of the universe,she took my hand, and held it all the way to the subway.

1 psychiatry   

n.精神病学，精神病疗法

参考例句：

• The study appeared in the Amercian science Journal of Psychiatry.这个研究发表在美国精神病学的杂志上。
• A physician is someone who specializes in psychiatry.精神病专家是专门从事精神病治疗的人。

2 faculty   

n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员

参考例句：

• He has a great faculty for learning foreign languages.他有学习外语的天赋。
• He has the faculty of saying the right thing at the right time.他有在恰当的时候说恰当的话的才智。

3 disorder   

n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调

参考例句：

• When returning back,he discovered the room to be in disorder.回家后，他发现屋子里乱七八糟。
• It contained a vast number of letters in great disorder.里面七零八落地装着许多信件。

4 psychiatrist   

n.精神病专家；精神病医师

参考例句：

• He went to a psychiatrist about his compulsive gambling.他去看精神科医生治疗不能自拔的赌瘾。
• The psychiatrist corrected him gently.精神病医师彬彬有礼地纠正他。

5 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

6 incompetent   

adj.无能力的，不能胜任的

参考例句：

• He is utterly incompetent at his job.他完全不能胜任他的工作。
• He is incompetent at working with his hands.他动手能力不行。

7 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

8 postgraduate   

adj.大学毕业后的，大学研究院的；n.研究生

参考例句：

• I didn't put down that I had postgraduate degree.我没有写上我有硕士学位。
• After college,Mary hopes to do postgraduate work in law school.大学毕业后， 玛丽想在法学院从事研究工作。

9 interpretation   

n.解释，说明，描述；艺术处理

参考例句：

• His statement admits of one interpretation only.他的话只有一种解释。
• Analysis and interpretation is a very personal thing.分析与说明是个很主观的事情。

10 deflect   

v.(使)偏斜，(使)偏离，(使)转向

参考例句：

• Never let a little problem deflect you.决不要因一点小问题就半途而废。
• They decided to deflect from the original plan.他们决定改变原计划。

11 embarrassment   

n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫

参考例句：

• She could have died away with embarrassment.她窘迫得要死。
• Coughing at a concert can be a real embarrassment.在音乐会上咳嗽真会使人难堪。

12 primates   

primate的复数

参考例句：

• Primates are alert, inquisitive animals. 灵长目动物是机灵、好奇的动物。
• Consciousness or cerebration has been said to have emerged in the evolution of higher primates. 据说意识或思考在较高级灵长类的进化中已出现。

13 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

14 vertical   

adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置

参考例句：

• The northern side of the mountain is almost vertical.这座山的北坡几乎是垂直的。
• Vertical air motions are not measured by this system.垂直气流的运动不用这种系统来测量。

15 streak   

n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动

参考例句：

• The Indians used to streak their faces with paint.印第安人过去常用颜料在脸上涂条纹。
• Why did you streak the tree?你为什么在树上刻条纹？