Friday, March 1, 2013

Of Rosemary and Time


At the request of Sir Harry, I was asked to receive a visitor. When I requested more background, all I got was that the person was involved in a small research project, and that my cooperation would be appreciated.

"How appreciated?" I inquired.

"I'll think of something."

"You do that."

I was also informed that this personage went by the name of Rosemary, and that I could expect her around 3:pm two days hence.

At precisely this time a limo pulled up to the Manor, and shortly after my minder Irving brought the visitor to the solarium where I was about to have tea. I beheld a woman of indeterminate age, dressed in a functional blouse, jacket and skirt, white hair neatly tied back in a bun. "Good to meet you, My Lady," she said. "Sir Harry speaks of you with respect."

Hah, I thought. Never shows any to me.

"And that's a lovely outfit. Your son's, I suspect."

This caught me by surprise. True, I was wearing one of Sebastian's sheath dresses, but for this Rosemary woman to suss this out so fast indicated that she had been well and truly briefed. Just what was going on here?

"I was just about to have some tea," I said. "You'll join me?"

"Delighted to," Rosemary replied.

With perfect timing, my cook Henri wheeled in a cart containing the tea, a selection of jams, and a plateful of scones that were bound to break down any conversational barriers that might arise. Indeed, any possible barriers quickly disappeared when I learned of the particular research Rosemary was doing.

"Time," she stated. "We are interested in time."

I was going to press her on just who 'we' were, but let it go. If she was employed by Sir Harry, the enquiry would go nowhere fast.

"You see," Rosemary continued, "given your particular...skill...it has been noted that you were always able to wait a considerable time, and never losing focus, before...implementing... that skill."

"You mean shooting someone at a distance." (Rosemary kept skirting around the issue. I don't skirt around anything -- except maybe with the Compte de Rienville, and in this context he was not an issue.)

"Yes. In short, how do you manage to wait, sometimes for a long period, before conditions are, how shall I put it, favourable."

An interesting question, and I thought a bit before responding.

"Rosemary, this might sound a bit odd, but if I'm in for a lengthy wait, I think of time itself. I begin with the second. Do you know the definition?"

"No."

"Well, the General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1967 defined a second as 9.192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium
133 atom. Working all that out can take about two hours."

Rosemary stared at me, then said, "Sir Harry did mention that you have a doctorate from M.I.T. So thinking about time compresses time for you?"

"To be sure. And of course there is Montaigne."

"Of course there is. And what has the good Michel to say on the topic?"

"If memory serves, Montaigne wrote 'Time is a thing of movement, appearing like a shadow....To Time belong the words before and after, has been and shall be, words that show at a glance that Time is evidently not a thing which IS. For it would be a great silliness and manifest falsehood to say that something IS which has not yet come into being or has already ceased to be.'  Now exploring all that is good for half a day."

Rosemary looked at me, then said with some conviction, "This is really good information. I and Sir Harry thank you."

"It's always nice to have Sir Harry a bit in debt."

The rest of the session was spent in pleasantries, but before she left, Rosemary made a rather significant point. She obviously knew well my ability with the long gun, and hence got in a critical and very true last word where time is concerned.

She stated crisply, "I remember reading in a novel, possibly one of Nelson de Mille's, the following: 'There is a time to sow and a time to reap. Miss either of these times and you're fucked."

Interesting lady, Rosemary.











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