The Three-Body Problem

“It’s okay,” Ye said from the door. “Those are pictures Dong Dong drew when she was little.”

Wang picked up the birch-bark notebook and gently flipped through it. Ye had dated each picture for her daughter, just like she had been doing for Nan Nan in the living room.

Wang saw that, based on the dates on the pictures, Yang Dong was three when she drew them. Normally, children of that age are able to draw humans and objects with clear shapes, but Yang Dong’s pictures remained only messes of random lines. They seemed to express a kind of passionate anger and desperation born out of a frustrated desire to express something—not the sort of feeling one would expect in a child that young.

Ye slowly sat down on the edge of the bed, her eyes staring at the notebook, lost in thought. Her daughter had died here, ended her life while she slept. Wang sat next to her. He had never felt such a strong desire to share the burden of another’s pain.

Ye took the birch-bark notebook from him and held it to her chest. In a low voice, she said, “I wasn’t good at teaching Dong Dong in an age-appropriate manner. I exposed her too early to some very abstract, very extreme topics. When she first expressed an interest in abstract theory, I told her that field wasn’t easy for women. She said, what about Madame Curie? I told her, Madame Curie was never really accepted as part of that field. Her success was seen as a matter of persistence and hard work, but without her, someone else would have completed her work. As a matter of fact, Wu Chien-Shiung went even further than Madame Curie.21 But it really isn’t a woman’s field.

“Dong Dong didn’t argue with me, but I later discovered that she really was different. For example, let’s say I explained a formula to her. Other children might say, ‘What a clever formula!’ But she would say, ‘This formula is so elegant, so beautiful.’ The expression on her face was the same as when she saw a pretty wildflower.

“Her father left behind some records. She listened to all of them and finally picked something by Bach as her favorite, listening to it over and over. That was the kind of music that shouldn’t have mesmerized a kid. At first I thought she picked it on a whim, but when I asked her how she felt about the music, she said that she could see in the music a giant building, a large, complex house. Bit by bit, the giant added to the structure, and when the music was over, the house was done.…”

“You were a great teacher for your daughter,” Wang said.

“No. I failed. Her world was too simple, and all she had were ethereal theories. When they collapsed, she had nothing to lean on to keep on living.”

“Professor Ye, I can’t say that I agree with you. Right now, events are happening that are beyond our imagination. It’s an unprecedented challenge to our theories about the world, and she’s not the only scientist to have stumbled down that path.”

“But she was a woman. A woman should be like water, able to flow over and around anything.”

*   *   *

As Wang was about to leave, he remembered the other purpose for his visit. He mentioned to Ye his wish to observe the cosmic microwave background.

“Oh, that. There are two places in China that work on it. One is an observatory in Ürümqi—I think it’s a project by the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Space Environment Observation Center. The other is very close by, a radio astronomy observatory located in the suburbs of Beijing, which is run by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Peking University’s Joint Center for Astrophysics. The one in Ürümqi does ground observation, and the one here just receives data from satellites, though the satellite data is more accurate and complete. I have a former student working there, and I can make a call for you.” Ye found the phone number and dialed it. The ensuing conversation seemed to go smoothly.

“You’re all set,” Ye said as she hung up. “Let me give you the address. You can go over anytime. My student’s name is Sha Ruishan, and he’s going to be working the night shift tomorrow.… I don’t think this is your field of research, right?”

“I work in nanotech. This is for … something else.” Wang was afraid that Ye was going to ask more questions about why he sought this information, but she did not.

“Xiao Wang, you look a bit pale. How’s your health?” she asked, her face full of concern.

“It’s nothing. Please don’t worry.”

“Wait a moment.” Ye took a small wooden box out of a cabinet. Wang saw from the label that it was ginseng. “An old friend from the base, a soldier, came to visit me a few days ago and brought this—take it, take it! It’s cultivated, not very precious. I have high blood pressure and can’t use it anyway. You can slice it thinly and make it into a tea. You look so pale that I’m sure you can use the enrichment. You’re still young, but you have to watch your health.”