During all this Paz had been quiet, sucking it in along with a lot of Bacardi, and having obsessive thoughts about Beth Morgensen. He hadn’t thought about her for three minutes in over eight years, but now she seemed to have moved in and taken a lease on large tracts of his midbrain. What she was like in bed, how different from the Lola, the wife, how light the relationship had been, how much fun, how little like warfare. Although he knew that it was relationships just like that in their many dozens, in their ultimate ennui, that had driven him into matrimony. But still…

More to clear his mind of this garbage than because of any real engagement, he said, “Bullshit. There’s no way you can know that.”

“Well, not now, but we will. The whole field is being systematized, physicalized, which is the characteristic of all real science. We’re moving toward a real understanding of the neural code, the way the brain actuallyworks, in exactly the way that we really understand how the underlying properties of quarks establish the qualities of elementary particles, which establish the qualities of chemical elements, then molecules, then life, and so on.”

“Never,” said Paz.

“Why, never? What’s your argument?”

Paz stalled by doing a superfluous check on the grilling meat. A woman’s face and body floated into his mind, long and white, frizzy brown hair, pointy nose, slanted gray wolf eyes, small hard breasts, Silvie the philosophy major and the theory of logical types.

“The theory of logical types,” Paz said, “Alfred North Whitehead.”

Both women were delighted to see Zwick brought up short by this. “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” he demanded.

“Because a set can’t be a member of itself,” said Paz, drunkenly confident. “Say that total knowledge we have about any given subject is a set, set A. And say all the things science or people, the culture, knows is another set, set B. Any number of set A’s will fit into set B, by definition. We know everything possible about how to make flan, about the mass of the particles, about the number of barbers in Cincinnati, right? But the set ‘understanding consciousness’ is a set of a different type. It’s not another set A. It’s larger than set B, which is actually made up of all human minds. For the human mind to understand consciousness would be a violation of the theory. That particular A just won’t ever fit into the B, ever.”

Zwick stared for a moment, rolled his eyes, and said, “That is complete and utter horseshit.”

“Plus,” said Paz, “the mind is not necessarily a product of the brain. You can’t disprove dualism, and if you deny it, it’s just another belief. It’s not science.”

“‘The mind is not a product’…what is this, the Middle Ages? Thereis no mind. What we interpret as consciousness is an epiphenomenon of an instantaneous electrochemical state generated by a piece of meat. It’s an illusion devised by evolution to organize and coordinate sensory data with actions.”

“Then who am I talking to, and why should I believe you any more than you believe in spirits?”

“Hey, the proof is let me go into your skull and make a couple of tiny cuts and there won’t be a you anymore. Trust me on this, pal.”

“I do trust you, but it don’t mean shit. I could go in there and shoot my radio while it’s tuned to Radio Mambí. The radio won’t make noise anymore; does that mean that Radio Mambí just ceased to exist? Not that that would be a bad thing.”

“What, you think that there’s a substance called ‘mind’ that’s somehow floating in the ether and our brains just pick it up?”

“Not necessarily, but it’s just as logical as saying that mind is determined by the meat. And it would account for demons and dreams and clairvoyance better than your way.”

“Jesus! Thisis the Middle Ages. Where to begin? Okay, first of all, any dualism falls before Occam’s razor-that is, it adds an unnecessary level of complexity to a phenomenon that can be fully explained-”

“Fuck Occam and fuck his razor,” said Paz, and then, “Wait a second, hold that thought!”

A tiny clock had just rung its notional alarm in Paz’s nonexistent mind, and he got up and snatched the cover from the grill, revealing racks of glistening, steaming ribs at the precise moment at which they were perfectly done.

“Let’s eat,” said Paz, and everyone applauded.

During the actual dinner, Lola turned the conversation artfully away from cosmological themes, drawing Beth out about her work, which was a study of the lives of Miami street prostitutes, or girls who let boys kiss them for money, as they explained to Amelia, and herself supplied numerous amusing anecdotes about life as a neuropsych resident in the emergency room, her current duty, and also about going through med school with Zwick, his complete incompetence at any healing task, apparently a man who had never once found a vein on the first try, and often not on the twelfth either. Zwick took this good-naturedly enough, asserting that he’d only become a doctor to be able to do fiendish experiments on human beings and had no guilt about it at all.

They drank nearly half a gallon of the Spanish white, and after they cleared away and served dessert, Paz brought out a bottle of Havana Club añejo rum, and they sipped off that for a while until the child got cranky and had to be dragged off to bed.

“I’m scared to go to sleep, Daddy,” she said when he’d got her under the covers at last.

“You’re so tired you’ll be asleep before you know it.”

“Yes, but what if the dream animal comes back?”

“It won’t. It’s bothering another little girl tonight.”

“Who?”

“A naughty girl, probably. Not like you.”

“But what if another animal comes?”

“Well, in that case, would you like to borrow myenkangue? No dream animals are going to mess with that.”

“Uh-huh. Abuela made that for you, didn’t she. To protect you from the monsters.”

“That’s right.”

“Mommy says it’s just superstition.”

“Mommy’s entitled to her opinion,” said Paz blandly and slipped the charm on its thong over his head. He tied it carefully to the bedpost. “Don’t open it, okay?”

“What will happen?”

“It might stop working. Now, good night.”

“I want a story.” She got one and held out for just three pages ofCharlotte’s Web.

Back on the patio, Paz slipped an Ibrahim Ferrer CD into the machine and stood listening to the mellow voice singing an old bolero, music from the great age ofson, the 1940s, his mother’s music. It was velvet dark now, insects buzzing in the trees, jasmine floating in the air, the only light coming from citronella candles in yellow glass jars on the table. He put an arm around his wife’s shoulders and led her into a close dance. From a distance, from out in the dark yard, he heard the sound of Zwick and Beth having an argument.

“What’s all that about?” he asked into her ear.

“She’s drunk and belligerent. He doesn’t respect her mind enough. He doesn’t think people who want to have serious careers should have kids. She was looking at Amy like she wanted to kidnap her. The biological clock is running down on old Beth, and a tenure-track associate professorship don’t seem to be filling the void, nor do brilliant heartless dudes like Bobby Zwick, the poor bitch.”

“You’ve been there.”

“I have. With guys like that, too.” She gave him a hard squeeze.

“What I get for being a dummy.”

“You’re not a dummy, dummy.”

“But not as smart as Zwick.”

“No, but you’re cuter. I’m not sureanyone is as smart as Zwick. Although that line about Whitehead threw him a little. You never fail to amaze me.”

The sounds of argument faded, succeeded by some weeping, some softer talk; then, the faint creak and rattle of a rope hammock.

“Uh-oh, do you think they’re doing it back there, in our hammock?” Paz asked.