An Imperfect Lens (19 page)

This is how Achmed appeared at Dr. Malina’s office with a piece of glass, not a small piece, in his eye and was shown immediately into a room where the doctor examined him and extracted the glass after giving the patient a pint of brandy and tying down his hands so his work would not be interfered with. “How did this happen, young man?” asked Dr. Malina as he was wrapping a bandage around Achmed’s head, covering his right eye, which, in his professional opinion that he kept to himself, would never prove useful again and might have to be removed in its entirety if infection set in.

“I was set upon,” said Achmed, “by your future son-in-law, a man of foul temper, a former friend. I’m calling the police and issuing a complaint. I did nothing to him, nothing to provoke such a vicious attack.”

11

ERIC FORTMAN HAD inspected a ship carrying rope from Burma that morning. The captain of the ship was a large black African whose vessel had seen better days. Marbourg & Sons should not send a return shipment on this particular vessel. Eric wrote up his report. The captain of the ship had a scimitar strapped to his waist. He was far taller and broader a man than Eric. His wide bare chest was alarming. “You give good word on ship,” the African said. Eric nodded. “Let me see what you have written,” he demanded. Eric opened his hand and let the notebook in which he was writing fly into the water. The captain opened his own hand, in which he held a small knife with a beautiful pearl handle, carved in the Orient but with a very sharp point.

“Wonderful ship,” said Eric. “I will tell the office. Wonderful ship,” he repeated. The two men shook hands. Back in the captain’s shabby quarters, the captain opened a bottle of whiskey and poured some in an unwashed glass, stained with some brown tobacco spots. The African took a drink himself and offered the glass to the inspector from Marbourg & Sons, who wished to decline but didn’t.

Back in his office, with its window overlooking the port, Eric wrote an accurate report on the Burmese ship, not leaving out the peculiar smell that permeated the hold, some kind of spoiled food. He was not in the business of offering favors for free. He did not like having knives flashed in his face. In the afternoon he went to the Marbourg & Sons warehouse and assisted in a count of sacks filled with feathers that were set to sail for Marseille. It was difficult work because the sacks were piled in an irregular manner and it was hard not to lose count, since one sack looked exactly like another. By the time the sun was sinking and the birds were cawing loudly and the harbor was settling in for the night and the donkeys had been taken back to the sheds behind their owners’ rooms, Eric was eager for some diversion and joined two young men who had also been counting sacks of feathers. The three of them took a carriage out to the edge of town to watch the dancing around a huge explosive bonfire by a group of very dark villagers who had come to the city, turning into performance a ritual that had once lured fish into the nets, and caused the sun to rise, and the flat, dry land to yield some fruit. A cherry-tasting drink was passed from hand to hand as the audience cheered the dancers on and the fire lit up their faces, which seemed absent, as if they were ghosts, not men.

He woke the next morning on the beach under a palm tree with a large frond covering his body. The heat of the day was beginning. His head was heavy. The moist, hot air settled unpleasantly in his lungs. There was stubble on his face. He felt in his pocket. His money was still in his purse. His tie was gone. His jacket seemed to have been torn in several places, but otherwise he was fine. He brought himself to the main road, where an Englishman, an official of some kind, offered him a ride home. He asked him if he had enjoyed his evening. The Englishman had some position in the consulate. He invited Eric to dine with him and handed him his card. He did not tell him that he had followed him to the dancers, would in the future observe all his movements in Alexandria, that this was his assignment, without excitement or obvious purpose as it may have been. Eric dozed in the carriage quite peacefully. Although he remembered little of his evening, he regretted nothing.

One of his companions from Marbourg & Sons had become ill on the tram back to the center of the city. He had been tossed out by the other riders, who were offended and frightened by his odor. He did not arrive home.

IN THE EUROPEAN Hospital, the boy who had refused to let Louis take samples of his skin stirred. He felt weak. His legs trembled. His mouth was dry. But he opened his eyes. He smelled himself. He was embarrassed. It was not his fault, he knew. He was sick. It was cholera. He knew it was cholera. He would die. But then perhaps not. He did not believe in his own death, the way young men do not, not with any conviction, not with their whole minds. He would not give in. He was as pale as the porcelain bowl that had been placed by his body. He needed to get up. He moved his legs. He moved his arms. He was thirsty. Are dying men thirsty? “I need water,” he called out. His voice was weak, but it was his voice. He recognized it. So did his father, who was hurrying down the hall, Dr. Malina at his side. When the two men entered the room, the father grabbed the wall to steady himself. But the doctor walked to the patient’s side and looked into his eyes, opened his mouth with his fingers, and said, “He may be one of the lucky ones. It seems to be passing. The worst might be over.” The father heard the
may
and the
might.

“Water,” begged the son. It was brought to him in a bowl and he drank and he drank. He vomited up some of the water, but not all of it. He lay there on the hospital bed. He was breathing. His heart was beating. If he picked up his head, he could see his chest moving. He saw his father’s face. “I’m all right,” he said. His father was silent. He was promising many things to God in return for his son’s recovery. He promised more than he would ever be able to deliver, but that didn’t matter at the moment. The deal could be renegotiated later.

The father had understood from the days right after his child’s birth that he was less of a man than Abraham. He had three sons and he would never sacrifice any of them to God. He would have run. He would have hidden his child. He would have begged God to bless some other seed, to leave him and his son watching the sheep, seeing the sun rise over the mountaintop, watching the river shrink in drought and fill in fullness when the rains came. Therefore he was an ordinary man, not a leader, not a hero whose name would be remembered for millennia. The father wanted his son to recover from cholera far more than he wanted his name in books, holy or otherwise. “Do animals love their children this much?” he asked Dr. Malina, who was listening to the boy’s stomach as it rumbled on.

“Quiet,” said Dr. Malina. He had no time for this sort of conversation. He was feeling the muscle tone in the boy’s legs. His lips were not as blue as they had been.

Later, many hours later, when the boy sat up and worried if he had dropped his schoolbag on the way to the hospital and the father called for a carriage and, wrapping his son in a blanket, carried him away, thanking Dr. Malina and the sisters again and again, no matter how the doctor protested that he had done nothing, deserved no praise, would charge no fee, had simply stood by. Monsieur Vernon, whose family had exported wool from Egypt to the Continent for a hundred years, swore eternal friendship to Dr. Malina, which thoroughly embarrassed the doctor, who knew well enough how little he had done. Later Dr. Malina wondered why the boy, that particular boy, had chased the cholera out of his system when others, no stronger, no better, no wiser, no more or less healthy, had succumbed. Could the French assistants of Pasteur ever answer that question? Was it in fact God who made the choice? That idea offended the doctor, reduced him to helplessness, an ant before the Lord on Judgment Day. He shook off the thought.

In the future, everything would be explained. What a comfort that idea was to a man still in the dark about who lives and who dies, a man whose lifework it is to ensure that fewer die and more live. What had happened just now in the hospital? Would he ever know? The boy had survived and the sheets were being washed by the hospital laundry in great vats of hot water, and science would not be served any more specimens that afternoon.

Discouraged is what the news of the boy’s recovery made Louis feel. The microbe must be there, but had not revealed itself. None of the animals in the cages at the back of the laboratory had sickened when injected with any suspicious mixture. What was Koch doing? Was he working the same way that they were? Had he an inspiration, an innovation that would show the microbe, round, skinny, long, short, on his slide? He had exhausted himself trying to force an inspiration to come into his mind.

ESTE ARRIVED AT the laboratory. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. In the evening, just as she was falling asleep, a thought had come to her. Perhaps a good soak in seawater, saltwater, would produce the cholera, since heat had failed. She wanted to try it. She came up behind Roux, who was busy peering at the cultures he had made several days before. Nothing. He saw nothing. She could tell from the set of his shoulders, from the fact that he did not turn around to look at her, although he must have heard her approach, that this was not the right time to present her idea to him. She went over to the table where Louis was carefully taking some bowel matter and mixing it in a jar with some sugar. He turned toward her. The shadows in the laboratory made it impossible for him to see every angle of her body, but he already knew them. He listened carefully to her idea. He gently explained to her why it was useless. He told her about Darwin. It took millions of years to produce life from the sea. She was disappointed. He told her that he had many ideas that were useless, several a day. He smiled at her. This restored her spirits. She stood next to him at the table. His hand brushed against hers. He was embarrassed by the touch. He had not meant to be so forward. It was an accident. She felt the warmth of his fingers for a barely a second. It is strange, she thought, how such a brief moment, such a little matter, could make her so eager to live forever. He was distracted by his longing for Este, and his fear that nothing would end happily for him.

In the late afternoon, after Este went home, Louis curled up on the couch in his lab and, pulling the cloth at the base of the couch over his legs, fell quickly into sleep. When Marcus entered, he found Louis deep in dream and didn’t disturb him. He went outside and in the alley smoked his cigarette and told his own fortune with the tarot cards he had obtained from the bazaar. He cheated, but only a little. After a while he checked back on Louis, who was still sleeping, although dusk was falling over the harbor and the lamps were lit in the café at the corner. He walked off to the Corniche and smelled the sea air of the Eastern Harbor and watched the waves, the dumb waves, repeat and repeat their only trick, to curl and unwind, to go forward and then back. He saw Venus in the sky, the evening star. He saw a fat man sitting on the sand on a small stool. He walked down to him. The man smiled, a fat man’s smile. “What has the sea washed up?” said the man. He said this in Greek, he said it in Arabic, he said it in English, he said it finally in French. Marcus understood. He put his hand on Marcus’s knee. Marcus moved away, but not far away.

“Come home with me,” said the man, “and I will reward you well.”

Here, so far from home, from anyone who knew him, who cared for him, Marcus paused. Why not? he thought to himself. One day I’ll be old and I will remember when I was on the sand in Alexandria and an old man bought me for the evening.

“I want the money on the table before,” said Marcus.

The fat man laughed. “I won’t cheat you,” he said. “Why should I? Cheating is wrong.” When the man laughed, his chins shook. His teeth were small for his big face.

ESTE ARRIVED AT the laboratory early one morning with her maid and found the animals wailing with hunger. Marcus had not appeared. She began to feed them, talking to them as she moved down the line of cages. Nocard came in and asked her if she wanted to help him operate on the skull of a pig, extracting some brain matter so they could examine the tissue.

“Yes,” said Este.

“Will this upset you, Mademoiselle?” asked Edmond. “It is difficult. It makes some people sick to watch this, and you are, after all, a woman. I mean no insult by this.”

Este was not insulted. “That’s all right,” she said. “I can do it.”

“This afternoon, then,” he said. She agreed.

Louis came into the laboratory, and she told him of the plan. “That will be unpleasant,” he said.

“I know,” said Este.

“It took me a long time to get used to watching Nocard drilling into the skull, and then an even longer time until I could do it myself,” Louis said.

“I’ll get used to it quickly,” Este said.

Louis led her to the far side of the room. Nocard could still hear them if he listened, but he had no interest in listening.

“Papa says he met Dr. Koch at the ministry, and the German says he has made no final progress. He is not ready to present his findings,” Este said.

“Neither are we,” said Louis.

“It’ll be good when you find the cholera,” said Este, “but then what will I do? You will go back to Paris. I will have no laboratory to visit, no slides to prepare. I will sit in my room and go mad.”

“You will get married,” said Louis. The words came out of his mouth as if they were stones.

“I don’t know,” said Este, “maybe not. What about you? Will you marry someone in Paris?”

“Never,” said Louis.

“Why not?” said Este.

“Because,” he said, “I would never marry if I did not want the woman to be by my side in everything I did ever after.”