A server in an intricate batik vest expertly weaved through a maze of square tables carrying a large tray of colorful dishes. The heady scent of coconut, lemongrass, and coriander trailed him. He stopped at Keishin and Ramesh’s table and set a bowl of steamed rice and an array of small plates on the steel food warmers in front of them. An ironwork lamp cast a yellow-orange glow over the small feast. Keishin’s eyes flitted over the appetizer portions of satay, marinated vegetables, curries, fried bananas, egg rolls, nuts, and fruit compote, and just the sight of them made him feel full. “You always order too much,” he said, looking up at Ramesh.
Ramesh shrugged and scooped a mound of steaming fragrant rice onto his plate. “I never know how long our little chatsare going to take. I don’t want to get hungry. What’s on your mind? Having second thoughts about working at Super-K?”
Keishin shook his head and sipped his imaginary beer. “No.”
“What would you like to talk about, then?” Ramesh closed his eyes, savoring his food.
“A puzzle.”
“A puzzle?” Ramesh set his spoon down and grinned. “You have my attention.”
“I met a woman. Her name is Hana.”
Ramesh held up his hand. “I’m going to stop you right there. I don’t give advice about women—in your imagination or in real life. Remember? My wife will be the first to agree that women fall far beyond my expertise.”
“Hana isn’t the puzzle,” Keishin said, even though he wasn’t sure that he meant it. There was something about Hana and her odd stories about tea boxes and treasure hunts that piqued his curiosity, which was something that, outside his lab, had not happened in a very long time. He had met his share of beautiful women, but it was not Hana’s quiet, delicate beauty that made a part of him glad that he had stumbled into her pawnshop by mistake. Just behind the calmness in her eyes lurked the shadows of secrets, peeking out one moment and darting away the next, as though daring him to give chase. And there was nothing Keishin enjoyed more than a good puzzle. “Her pawnshop is.”
“Pawnshop?”
“It was robbed and ransacked. She believes that her father is behind it.”
“And what do you think?”
“To be honest, I don’t know what to think. I tried to convince her to call the police, but she refuses to.”
“Ah, a stubborn soul.” Ramesh eyed Keishin over his bottle of beer. “Sounds a lot like someone I know.”
Keishin rolled his eyes. “Anyway, the point is, I want to help her, but I can’t.”
“Why do you want to help her so badly?”
“You know why.”
“It’s not something I like to think about.”
“No one helped you, Ramesh. They all just stood there and watched that man attack you like you were invisible. But they did see you. They just chose not to care.”
“You did. You took me to the hospital.”
“I just wish that I had gotten there sooner. Maybe you’d—”
“Be more than just a figment of your imagination? Wishing for such things is useless. We can theorize all we want about bending space-time, but we cannot change the past.”
“And that’s exactly why I want to help Hana. I know what happens when people pretend not to see you. I will never know for sure if I would have been like those people who chose to look the other way when you were assaulted. Finding out if you are a coward isn’t something any hypothetical scenario can answer. I refuse to be the kind of person who looks away.” Keishin struggled to push the image of Ramesh bleeding on the sidewalk from his mind. He drew a deep breath. “I need to be better than that, but…”
“But what?”
“I’m not a detective. I’m a scientist.”
“Then be a scientist,” Ramesh said. “Don’t sell yourself short. Physicists have solved some of the universe’s greatest mysteries. Remember the case of the missing solar neutrinos?”
“What do solar neutrinos have to do with anything?”
“For years, we were confounded by the fact that, comparedto the predictions of our models, fewer neutrinos made their way to Earth after being emitted by the sun. It made us conclude that either our models were wrong or something happened to the neutrinos along their journey.”
Keishin nodded. “But eventually, the mystery was solved when the physicists discovered that the neutrinos everyone thought had gone missing were not missing at all.”
“Yes,” Ramesh said. “They had shifted from one type of neutrino to another, a kind that just happened to be so much harder to find. It was all a…”
