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"Compared to what we have right now, this minute?" I asked.
"Yes."
"In this case I agree, they don't seem to be a part of the equation at all," I replied.
"The secret is in keeping things that way," said Helen, "and to advance the widening of universal love."
"You are a wise woman," I said in response and kissed her.
"Wise?" she repeated and laughed. "No, I am not wise. I learned a bit of history, and from that I leaned to be happy. We are both happy being here together, are we not?"
I answered that I was delighted, and more so. Indeed I was. Nor did we talk all the time. The talking became interspersed with periods of quiet 'contemplation' in ever-more-intimate times.
"It is essential that we are together," she said at one point. "You evidently had a need to complete something that hadn't been completed. Love demands us that we allow it to unfold as completely as possible; which is to say, it needs to unfold as universally as possible."
"Erica couldn't do this," I said to Helen. "She said it was irresponsible to do this. I even convinced myself that this was a legitimate response."
"Oh, have you changed your mind?" asked Helen. "Are you ready to say now: What has this got to do with anything?"
I told her that I was coming around to that. "But that isn't easy either," I said. I was going to say that it is "damn hard." Except that kind of language, I felt, didn't fit into the supportive atmosphere that she had established. I explained that Erica appeared to have made a valid point by wanting to act responsibly.
"That's where the problem is rooted, Peter. What appears to be valid isn't necessarily valid," said Helen and looked at me with her clear brown eyes as if she could see right through me. "What is a valid response for the situation we are in?"
I really didn't dare answer that question.
She explained that our larger world is so precarious that we stand already with one foot in our grave as tens of thousands of nuclear bombs were hanging over our heads. She explained that our lives were hanging on a thread so thin that a single madman in a rage of insanity could push the world over the edge. She reminded me that we were breeding madmen like crazy in modern times, and were elevating them to high positions of power. "That is what I define as irresponsibility," she said. "This is a valid example of what irresponsibility is. But loving one-another, that's not irresponsible."
Helen suggested that in real terms Erica had actually acted irresponsibly without being aware that she had. Helen suggested that our greatest need in the nuclear age is to protect our existence and our civilization. Everything needs to be focused on this absolute requirement. Nothing is inconsequential anymore. She suggested that whatever Erica was trying to protect by acting 'responsibly,' was actually supporting the very same mentality that has become a mortal danger to us all.
"The nuclear paradox can only be resolved," said Helen, "by developing a platform of universal love for our humanity, the humanity that we all share. We need to get back to something that is real, that reflects a universal truth, the truth that we are all human beings with human qualities. Defending division and isolation, politically or socially, is the wrong response. It's an invalid response. It's an invalid approach to taking responsibility. It is invalid, because by pursuing such a course one is working against oneself. It simply isn't a valid response for us, in terms of what needs to be done."
I didn't know how to answer. I didn't know anymore what the question was. Was she asking me to agree?
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