A Stranger's House (5 page)

“Sorry,” I said. “Life in the world of Neuroscience and Behavior.”

“References,” she said, and her face went back into the dark as she looked down the hall and away from me. She looked down, and her shoulders fell.

“See you at lunch?” I said.

She was silent, and turned to me. I could see her face again. This time there was no expression, no look at all.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and gently rubbed it. “What's wrong?” I said. I paused a second. I smiled. “You got your Wheaties today, remember?”

She shrugged, though the movement, I knew, meant nothing. It was only a sign to me that she could tell I was trying to make her feel better.

She said, “There's nothing wrong, but then there's plenty. Sure, we can have lunch.” She looked at me. “In the computer room.” She paused. “But if I told you it was my period, would you believe me?” She smiled. “If I told you I was part of that clinical study on PMS they're doing over at Tobin, would you believe me?”

I laughed at her, at this woman I'd thought had been hired by Will because she was pretty, because she was beautiful in her athletic way. At first I'd been jealous, not for any secret love I held for Will, but because, once I'd gotten to work with her in the laboratory, I'd seen how professional she was, even though she was only a senior back then; how meticulously she learned to block brains, slice and set and mount and stain, all within a week and a half, when it had taken me three. Since then Will had had her co-write three papers, the latest with her name listed first, when the closest I had come had been the second name on two papers, the third on two more.

But that jealousy had disappeared over the last two years, when I had seen in her that this was her career, that co-writing papers and staining cresyl-violet thin slips of rabbit brain were what she wanted to do for the rest of her life. She wanted to be here in the laboratory, her white lab coat on, her eyes peering into a microscope
to trace lesions made in single cells of the Red Nucleus, all this to contribute to a larger canvas, that of Artificial Intelligence. She wanted to try to find exactly
where
in the brain reaction occurred, which particular neuron fired which particular neuron and on and on into the circuit that would inevitably make a rabbit blink.

There had been a time when I, too, had felt that way, when I couldn't wait to get here in the morning, to get things rolling, to go downstairs to the basement and run rabbits so that I might contribute to the whole of science, but that, like the jealousy I had felt toward Sandra, had been lost, too. Now I merely came to work—
work
—and assisted in research. I would stay here, I knew, as long as grants from the government held out, and, judging from the success of the research done in this former boys' dormitory, that money would keep coming in, and I would have a job. Nothing more: only a job. Sometimes I wept over this, over the realization that there might not be anything more for me to do than be here; but most times I just worked, collected my pay, accepted my benefits, comforted, somehow, by the knowledge that if indeed I ever had a baby, the insurance would have covered everything.

I looked at Sandra, and thought I had seen some sort of hope slipping away from her. I thought maybe she was losing something, or perhaps she had already lost it.

I said, “If you tell me you're having your period, I'll believe you. But if you tell me the truth at lunch, I'll believe you even more.” I smiled at her, not sure whether or not she could see me in the darkness. “In the computer room.”

“Okay,” she said, and took hold of my hand on her shoulder. She squeezed it, let go, and turned toward the computer room at the far end of the hall. I watched her move toward the bare bulb at the hall's halfway point, and saw her burst into color as she passed beneath it, her white coat brilliant, her brunette hair shiny in the French braid, the pale blue of her shirt cuffs below her lab coat sleeves. Then she disappeared again into the dark.

 

Rabbit running would be easy today. We were at the beginning of a new study, the rabbits fresh, delivered only last night by Mr. Gadsen, the animal supplier for most of the labs on campus. He was an old man, short and a little overweight, but you could tell by looking at him that he had been in shape at one time: his forearms were still thick and hard, his shoulders broad. He had a fringe of white hair just above his collar in back, and always had on his Boston Red Sox cap, the bill crumpled and soft. He always wore a red corduroy shirt and ancient, dirty Levi's and a Levi's jacket, the elbows worn through to show red shirt.

He was a good man, I knew; he treated the rabbits as best as anyone could, though none of us had ever been out to his farm in Leverett to find out what happened out there, how he was able to raise these animals so well. They were always healthy, bright, clean. Seldom did any of them come in sick.

But Mr. Gadsen—no one, except perhaps Will, knew him to have a first name—drank too much, his nose and face flushed no matter what time of day or year. A couple of times I'd stepped into Will's office, just after a new batch of rabbits had been delivered downstairs, only to find Mr. Gadsen leaning forward in the old rocking chair, Will in the blue chair, each with a Styrofoam cup in his hand, Mr. Gadsen with a fifth of some off-brand whiskey in his other hand.

“To new rabbits,” Mr. Gadsen would laugh and look up at me each time. He always gave the same toast, holding the cup in the air as if it were fine crystal: “May your happiness multiply as quickly
as do my rabbits,” and he would laugh again, knock back the slug of whiskey, his BoSox cap never falling off no matter how quickly he snapped back his head.

I felt sorry for him, always smelling of booze and animals: rabbits, guinea pigs, blue jays, cats, everything else he handled. That smell made me want to cry for him sometimes, but most often I had to smile because he seemed happy, and he cared for the animals.

About a year ago, for no other reason than that he wanted to try someone new, Will decided to buy some animals from a different supplier, this one out near Worcester. When Mr. Gadsen had called to find out how many rabbits we would need for the next study, it had been left to me to explain that we had used somebody else, Will in London to visit a laboratory, everyone in our own lab busy with something else.

“Goddammit,” he had said over the phone, though not to me. “I can't believe it, I can't believe it,” he whispered again and again. I didn't know what to do, only held on the line while he whispered, and then he began to cry, a soft wheezing sound.

“Mr. Gadsen,” I said. “Mr. Gadsen,” but I could think of nothing else to say.

He caught a deep breath. “That's fine. That's just fine with me, little lady. You tell Will, Mr. Professor and rabbit professional nonesuch, that as soon as he's ready I'll be here. I'll be here with fine, healthy rabbits just waiting for His Royal Highness Will Flinter's mighty word, and then he'll have healthy, ready rabbits again.” He hung up.

Of the twenty rabbits we took in from that new supplier, we lost twelve in two weeks to enteritis, the sickness passing from rabbit to rabbit to rabbit, though they were never in contact with one another, each kept in its own metal cage. When we called the supplier, told him all the rabbits were dying of diarrhea, he had blamed it all on us, told us we hadn't kept things clean enough in our lab. A lie. We kept our lab as clean as any on campus, as clean, according to an animal-use expert Will had called in to inspect our place before the university's biannual tour, as any lab in the state.

We'd had to call in Mr. Gadsen to help us save the last eight.

That Thursday morning Sandra, Paige, Wendy, and I watched from the secretaries' room window as he climbed down from the
cab of his rusted-out Chevy van, slammed the door closed, and straightened out his collar. He tucked in his tails, though they hadn't been out. He was smiling to himself, and took off his cap, ran his hand back across his bald head as if there were still hair to keep in place.

The four of us laughed a quiet laugh, and Paige said, “I love him. He's perfect.”

“He is,” I said. Sandra and Wendy nodded.

He walked into the laboratory as if he owned the place; Sandra and I had had to run from the office to the stairs down into the basement to catch up with him.

As we went past Will's office Sandra called out, “He's here,” but Will didn't make a move, too proud, I knew, to admit to choosing the wrong supplier.

We followed Mr. Gadsen into the rabbit room—the Green Room, we called it—the walls painted a nauseating mint green some twenty years ago. The Green Room, too, because it was the waiting room for the rabbits, where they stayed before they went on to perform in the next room down, where those electrodes would be clipped on.

He moved from cage to cage, saying nothing, merely looking, peering in at frightened, white animals, each one jammed back into the corner of its cage.

“God bless it,” he whispered when he'd seen them all. He looked at us for the first time. His eyes were full, not with the rheumy look of old age, but with tears. He had his hands in his back pockets, and stood there, just looking at us. Then he sniffed and looked down at the cement floor, shiny with the thick coat of polyurethane that helped the rabbit handlers keep the floors as clean and germ-free as possible, the floors washed down two or three times a week.

“That bastard ought to be taken out and shot,” he said. “The bastard who sold you these animals.” He moved one foot across the floor, then gently kicked at nothing with his old Army boot. I looked at his boots, noticed he'd shined them since the last time I'd seen him. He looked back at the cages. “Not only are these godforsaken things sick, but they're just not healthy. They're just not well-cared-for in the first place. You can tell by their eyes, by the look, and you can tell by the lay of the ears, whether they're up and hearty
or down and crushed, that's what you can tell. Whether they're sick or not, you can look at their eyes and ears and tell if they're taken care of or not.”

I looked back at the animals, and saw that he was right, that their ears were a little different somehow, something so small I couldn't have seen it unless he'd pointed it out. Even then I wasn't sure whether I was actually seeing a difference, or if it had been merely the suggestion he had placed in me that made them look different.

It was in their eyes, too, just as he said, a cloudy look, a dead look you could only see if you stared at them long enough, let your breathing go slow while you just watched the rabbit back there in its cage, its front paws drawn up, its ears flat. That was death, I knew, death slow through the eyes, and I wondered if that was how it happened to everything: rabbits, blue jays, monkeys. People.

Sandra, too, was peering into a cage now, and I turned to tell Mr. Gadsen Yes, I could see it, but he was already gone.

When I got up to Will's office, Mr. Gadsen was leaning against the edge of Will's desk, knuckles of both hands resting on the desktop. He was shaking his head, and Will was back in his chair, his hands holding onto the edge of the desk as if to keep him from falling backward. He was looking up at Mr. Gadsen.

Mr. Gadsen said, “All's I can tell you is that they're sick. That's all. And that they came to you that way. I know about this place, know you and your people well enough so's I can tell you your people didn't make them sick.” He stopped, looked straight down, his knuckles still resting on the desktop. “And I'll tell you,” he said, “that there ain't no guarantee but I can save them.” He quickly looked up. “You'll still lose another one or two irregardless, but you can try and save what you can.” Then he straightened up, pulled from inside his jacket a ziplock Baggie filled with yellow powder. He held it up to his face and seemed to study it under the fluorescent lights. He squeezed it a little, then dropped it on the desk.

“Terramycin,” he said. “Mix it with their water. Tablespoon per half-gallon. Just enough. And keep it in their water until I come back. And I'll come back, believe you me. I'll come back with a fresh batch, and you'll be goddamned if you ever buy from that idiot out in Worcester again.” He had a hand in his back pocket again, his index finger pointed like a gun, each hard tap another shot
through the desk and into the floor. “That's all I'll say. Just that if you want good rabbits, you'll come to me. That's all.”

He turned, and if he saw me leaning against the doorjamb he pretended he didn't, and just brushed past me, out into the hall and through the heavy, steel double doors outside. The doors banged shut.

I said, “Well?” I had my arms crossed.

Will picked up the Baggie and looked at it a moment. Then he threw it at me, and I was quick enough to catch it.

He said, “Do it,” and that was it.

We lost, just as Mr. Gadsen had figured, two more rabbits. The ones left were dull, dim-witted, and were never successfully conditioned. They'd been sacrificed without being of any use at all. And we'd bought every rabbit since from Mr. Gadsen.