The Sun Chemist (16 page)

Connie’s phone rang. She answered it and called me.

Emanuel’s voice at the other end was rather subdued.

‘Well, nothing doing,’ he said.

‘No carotene?’

‘Not a trace.’

‘And the other paper?’

‘Quite impossible.’

‘But there must be something –’

‘I agree,’ he said. Definitely something strange in his voice.

I said, ‘What is it?’

‘Finster has found something. Something very odd.’

The three of us examined it. The fermented liquid wasn’t the colorless stuff I’d seen before, and it didn’t smell as nice. It looked like a jar of cider, and it smelled rank.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

‘This is not so easy to say,’ Finster said.

‘Hasn’t it produced what you thought?’

‘Far more than we thought!’

The bacterium from Paris was a later generation of the one used by Vava, but anything its ancestor could do it could do better. It had practically torn the soul out of the potato. It had done it at ferocious speed, and had even tried to come back for more. (‘Traces of secondary fermentation’ was Finster’s
explanation
of the phenomenon.) In the process it had produced several unwanted and at the moment inexplicable properties, which had actually brought an abrupt shift downward in the octane number. With Vava’s batatas the shift would occur on a massive scale.

I watched the puzzled frowns of the scientists in a mood of some serenity. On every point where it had been possible to check, Chaimchik had come up trumps. He’d said there was correspondence with Vava, and despite a baffling lack of copies, correspondence there had been. He had said the process
depended
on two stages. Evidently it did. He had foretold a
problem
with carotene. One had just surfaced. And he’d also said that the problem carried its own solution.

That looked like the next, and last, operation.

*

I sat with Beylis a bit later while he pored over the work of Kuhn. He impatiently flipped papers aside after reading, and I glanced at them.

Heavy stuff, Kuhn.

All the same, the phrases that made any sense made cheering sense rather than otherwise. As he had got older and investigated his subject more deeply, Kuhn had come to the conclusion that he knew practically nothing about it. The honest man had said so:

Strange stuff, the stuff in carrots that helped you see in the dark; and more of it about, evidently, than folks knew.

*

Meyer slammed his phone down and looked at me. He’d scowled horribly to hear of such long-chain compounds
containing
conjugate double bonds.

‘What the hell was that?’ he said.

‘Well, you insisted on hearing. They don’t understand it.’

‘Do
you
understand it?’

‘No, I don’t understand it.’

‘So who understands it?’

‘Nobody. That’s the point. They’re all dead,’ I said. ‘Kuhn’s dead. He spent a lifetime trying to understand it. Vava’s dead. He never began to. Weizmann’s dead. He’d
just
begun to. And Pickles is dead. He wasn’t even aware of it. But the answers are in his lab books.’

‘Lab books,’ Meyer said, grasping at something concrete. ‘Where are they?’

‘Perhaps the Bradford people will be able to let us know.’

He looked at me sharply.

‘I will think again later,’ I quoted further.

I couldn’t tell if he knew I was quoting. I couldn’t tell if he knew he was doing it himself when after a moment or two he spoke. He spoke briefly and meditatively. ‘It’s a funny world,’ he said with a sigh.

*

I did think later. I thought for most of the night. It was a noisy night. A man called Dr Foka Hirsch was having a Christmas
party. He had it at his country home at Caesarea. Foka Hirsch was a bachelor, a rich elderly bachelor, the local agent for Vickers Armstrong, and he liked to keep in touch with the scientific establishment. I’d been to his parties before. I wasn’t a very convivial guest at this one.

*

I tied things up next day, and went back the one after. I made my farewells the evening before and spent half an hour with Meyer. He told me the young man from Africa was confident of the virility of his plant and knew it would respond to forcing. He anticipated taking ten cuttings from it within three months, and ten from each of these within another three. By next winter, he thought he would have several thousand for planting out.

We had a drink on this, and then I went to Jaffa and had another with Connie and Marta. We dined at Jaffa, and afterward I bought a caftan. Connie ran Marta back first (a fond but
decorous
farewell), then she ran me back.

It was December 18th that I had arrived in Israel, and the twenty-seventh that I left. In the air it suddenly struck me that last week I’d never heard of Vava’s batatas, or ketones, or the Grignard reaction. If I was on the way now to becoming a world expert, it was only because there weren’t any others. It was in some ways a disturbing thought. The man next to me was
reading
a newspaper. The headline said, ‘
ARABS WARN: NO
INTERFERENCE
.’

Definitely disturbing.

The early-afternoon plane turned out, in the normal way, to be a late-afternoon one. It was nearly ten o’clock before I
debouched
wearily from the taxi in Russell Square. I went up to my seventh-floor eyrie, trudged along the corridor, put my key in the door, and paused. Someone was inside.

My thoughts flew immediately to St Mary and St Joseph and to Terre Haute. I left the key in the lock and very carefully put my bags down. The memorandum and my notes were in the small executive case. At the end of the corridor was the fire
cupboard
,
with its cylinders, buckets, and hose. I padded down to it, placed the case in concealment, and returned.

Having done this, it occurred to me that with or without the case, eyes could still be made to cross. I cleared my throat, coughed, and, with my heart unpleasantly pounding, unlocked the door and, leaving it open, went inside. All the lights were on. The sound was coming from the kitchen, and I went there, my bag at the ready.

She was just shutting the fridge door, having evidently got some ice for a long gin and tonic. She was in a dressing gown.

‘Caroline?’ I said.

‘Hello.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Oh, well.’ She’d had a bath, and also washed her hair. It was clinging damply to her head, giving her a rather furtive, not to say guttersnipe, look. She was looking guilty, anyway. She licked her lips. ‘I thought you’d put it off till tomorrow. It got late. I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to be at Willie’s?’

‘Things got difficult at Willie’s.’

‘But –’

‘I gave Antonia my flat, over Christmas. She’s got her bloke there.’

‘Oh. But won’t your parents –’

‘Well, I can’t go there. I’m at Willie’s.’

‘I see. Yes. I see,’ I said.

‘You can put your case down now,’ she said. ‘You’re there. How was orange-blossom land?’ She was recovering herself, and I saw that the guilt and resentment very probably had as their source the fact that she was drunk.

‘Hang on a minute,’ I said, and put down my case. I retraced my steps, and returned with the other, cautiously thinking over the matter.

‘Something wrong with the flight?’ she said.

‘Yes. Delays.’

‘Do you want anything to eat?’

‘Not really.’

‘Well, now.’

‘I brought you a caftan.’

‘That’s nice.’ She was looking definitely stoned.

‘How many have you had?’ I said.

‘Several. How many would you like?’

‘I’ll have one, just for now.’

She got it while I took my coat off. ‘Go and have a wash,’ she said as I did this. ‘You look horrible. Saturnine.’

I went and had a wash, still working the matter out. A logistical problem had to be worked out.

The drink was awaiting my return: a whisky with water.

‘And stop looking so bloody worried, as well as saturnine,’ she said. ‘You appeared as what I would describe as thunderstruck on arrival.’

‘I didn’t know it would be you.’

‘Who did you – Oh.’ She became alert. ‘Have you gone and made an assignation?’

‘No. You silly cow,’ I said irritably.

‘Well, that’s all right, then. Silly cow, eh?’ she seemed?’ rather pleased with this. ‘Go on. Abuse me. Feel free. On the other hand, a scheduled arrival would have presented you with a
composed
person, respectably seeking a night’s shelter. A proper
request
, understandable situation. Is how it seemed to me, on giving it thought, which I did, after checking flight times.
However
… usual balls-up.’ She took an enormous glug at her drink.

I sat down and took one at mine. We watched each other.

‘How was it?’ she said.

‘Busy. How was yours?’

‘Fucking awful.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘So kind. I’d curtsy if I wasn’t sure to fall over. You’d be surprised at how much kindness there is in the world. Do you know what I was doing while you were watching by night? I was wrapping little bloody gifts for about two million old ladies. You wouldn’t credit the number of old ladies they keep alive round there. They all live in these little homes, and they smile like this, and you smile back, and – oh, yes, we had the
waits
. Have your English studies led to waits?’

‘Waits?’

‘Carol singers. You’ve got to be extra jolly with them; times have changed, unlike old ladies. “Had to reach down for that one, Charlie, bottom of the barrel, ha-ha, ho-ho –” Ch-rist! And Mama shows you how to do everything, and Papa so affable, and everybody so – bloody – unremittingly – kind.’

‘You’re not marrying the family, Caroline.’

‘I have special news for you, Igor, Tovarich. I am not
marrying
any bloody one of them.’

‘You just left?’

‘In fact, yes. I rang Antonia, and she rang me back.’

‘Hmm.’

‘Not good, eh? I wasn’t there four days,’ she said wonderingly.

‘Well, it’s a pity.’

‘Isn’t it? How was Connie?’

‘Fine. Love, et cetera.’

‘Did Mr Meltzer like his cigars?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘Did Mr Weisgal like your work?’

‘I think so.’

‘Do you like me?’

‘Yes.’

A slight pause set in.

‘Was the Vava nonsense solved?’ she asked.

‘Partially.’

‘
More
letters around?’

‘I’ll have to explain later. I’m tired.’

‘Go to bed.’

‘I will presently. It’s been a long day.’

‘For me, too. I’m exhausted. Mentally exhausted.’

‘How’s Hopcroft?’ I asked.

‘Sparkling. I bought him a new case. He hasn’t got it yet. They’re doing his initials.’

‘That was nice, Caroline.’

‘I am nice.’

‘Were you nice enough to ring my mother?’

‘Oh, yes. Without response. An unresponsive family, yours.’

‘Oh.’ I’d forgotten. Just in the same moment I remembered. I’d looked in on my father in the last scrambled hours before
Israel. He’d told me there was some trouble at their country house, the central heating, the double glazing. They’d gone away for Christmas, too. I remembered him huddled over the electric fire in his Gower Street flat, studying his memoirs. He was stuck somewhere, 1935. A whole weight of things suddenly came back on me, and I finished off my drink rather suddenly.

‘Want another?’

‘Well …’

‘I’m having one.’ She swallowed hers in an enormous gulp and took both glasses. I looked after her uneasily. Definitely some difficulties ahead.

‘To set your mind at rest,’ she said, returning with the glasses, ‘you will be sleeping in your bed.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I will be sleeping in it, too.’

‘Oh.’

‘I’m certainly not sleeping on the bloody sofa.’

‘Well, in that case –’

‘And nor are you. It’s an enormous bed. I won’t rape you. You silly cow,’ she said. ‘Are you sure you don’t want something to eat?’

‘No.’

‘Well, gobble that off, and let’s get there. I’m dead.’

In the bedroom she took off her dressing gown and found she didn’t have anything on underneath. With notions of propriety she stumbled about, swearing a little, and unpacked a nightie. I brushed my teeth and got into my pajamas, then into bed.

‘Good night,’ she said.

‘Good night.’ I switched the light off.

‘I’m sorry about this,’ she said after a while.

‘Go to sleep.’

‘No, but damn it, it’s awful. I didn’t mean this at all. I was just feeling rather desperate, and now it’s got worse. Say something like “Good night, Caroline, darling,” and it would be better.’

‘Good night, Caroline, darling.’

‘You could throw in a hug while you’re at it, just to show you’re not in a raving bloody temper.’

I threw her one, and also a kiss.

‘That’s all right, then. Good night, Igor,’ she said, and tried to throw a quick one in herself as I moved away, and missed.

Whether from the drink taken or the exhaustion mentioned, she went off to sleep almost immediately. When I woke in the night, I found her still sleeping, quite neatly, on her own side. She wasn’t there in the morning. It was quite late. I heard her in the bathroom.

I lay quietly listening, and filled my eyes with gray London skies, and heard the buses passing below. A world away, under blue skies, a white house sat, armies were locked, Finster
fermented
, and part of the carbon cycle was having its shiny wart forced into life. All a long way away, that freewheeling lunacy. But in the gray North other kinds hadn’t stopped. From the bathroom a bump sounded, and an expletive rang. This was the kind that called for immediate attention.