* * *
—
What Elizabeth didn’t tell Mad was that she knew very well why Calvin had eagerly accepted Donatti’s ridiculous offer. But his reason was so short-sighted—so dumb—she hesitated to share it. She wanted Mad to think of her father as a rational man who made smart decisions. This proved just the opposite.
She found it in a folder labeled “Wakely,” which contained a series of letters between Calvin and a would-be theologian. The two men were pen pals; it was clear they’d never met face-to-face. But their typed exchanges were fascinating and numerous, and lucky for her, the folder included Calvin’s carbon copy replies. This was something she knew about Calvin: he made copies of everything.
Wakely, who was attending Harvard Divinity School at the same time Calvin was at Cambridge, seemed to be struggling with his faith based on science in general, and on Calvin’s research in particular. According to his letters, he’d attended a symposium where Calvin had spoken briefly and, based on that, had decided to write to him.
“Dear Mr. Evans, I wanted to get in touch with you after your brief appearance at the science symposium in Boston last week. I’d hoped to speak with you about your recent article, ‘The Spontaneous Generation of Complex Organic Molecules,’？” Wakely had written in the first letter. “Specifically, I wanted to ask: Don’t you think it’s possible to believe in both God and science?”
“Sure,” Calvin had written back. “It’s called intellectual dishonesty.”
Although Calvin’s flippancy had a tendency to annoy a lot of people, it didn’t seem to faze the young Wakely. He wrote back immediately.
“But surely you’d agree that the field of chemistry could not exist unless and until it was created by a chemist— a master chemist,” Wakely argued in his next letter. “In the same way that a painting cannot exist until it is created by an artist.”
“I deal in evidence-based truths, not conjecture,” Calvin replied just as quickly. “So no, your master chemist theory is bullshit. By the way, I notice you’re at Harvard. Are you a rower? I row for Cambridge. Full-ride rowing scholarship.”
“Not a rower,” Wakely wrote back. “Although I love the water. I’m a surfer. I grew up in Commons, California. Ever been to California? If not, you should go. Commons is beautiful. Best weather in the world. They row there, too.”
* * *
—
Elizabeth sat back on her heels. She remembered how vigorously Calvin had circled Hastings’s return address in the offer letter. Commons, California. So he’d accepted Donatti’s insulting offer, not to further his career, but to row? Thanks to a one-line weather report from a religious surfer? Best weather in the world. Really? She moved on to the next letter.
* * *
—
“Did you always want to be a minister?” Calvin asked.
“I come from a long line of ministers,” Wakely answered back. “It’s in my blood.”
“Blood doesn’t work that way,” Calvin corrected. “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask: Why do you think so many people believe in texts written thousands of years ago? And why does it seem the more supernatural, unprovable, improbable, and ancient the source of these texts, the more people believe them?”
“Humans need reassurance,” Wakely wrote back. “They need to know others survived the hard times. And, unlike other species, which do a better job of learning from their mistakes, humans require constant threats and reminders to be nice. You know how we say, ‘People never learn?’ It’s because they never do. But religious texts try to keep them on track.”
“But isn’t there more solace in science?” Calvin responded. “In things we can prove and therefore work to improve? I just don’t understand how anyone thinks anything written ages ago by drunk people is even remotely believable. And I’m not making a moral judgment here: those people had to drink, the water was bad. Still, I ask myself how their wild stories—bushes burning, bread dropping from heaven—seem reasonable, especially when compared to evidence-based science. There isn’t a person alive who would opt for Rasputin’s bloodletting techniques over the cutting-edge therapies at Sloan Kettering. And yet so many insist we believe these stories and then have the audacity to insist others believe them, too.”
“You make a fair point, Evans,” Wakely wrote back. “But people need to believe in something bigger than themselves.”