An Imperfect Lens (11 page)

With that he went to bed.

LYDIA THREW HER arms around her daughter when, at the breakfast table, her daughter thrust out her hand. “Look, Mama, what Albert gave me last night.” There was the diamond. It was raining hard, and water leaked in through the closed doors of the terrace.

“How lovely,” said Lydia. It was of substantial size, but size, when it came to diamonds, was not the most important factor. But of course Albert would only have given his bride-to-be a diamond of the finest quality. He was in fact giving it to himself, since his wife’s assets would become his, and his wife’s financial security would be tied to his, and his father, a man of excellent reputation, would only allow his son to give his future daughter-in-law a ring worthy of the family name.

Mrs. Malina admired her daughter’s ring. In its shiny surface she saw, like a fortune-teller reading the tea leaves, the best china plates, large silver candlesticks, a linen cabinet of silk sheets, a lifetime of choice cuts of lamb, servants folding laundry in the rear quarters, a courtyard with an orange tree and a lemon tree, and children with shining hair and dresses made from patterns sent from Paris and woven with fabrics brought over the seas from the Far East. As Lydia ate her breakfast she looked out her window and saw a yellow bird shielding itself against the rain between the ironwork on the balustrade and a potted plant whose long leaves shivered from the blows of so many drops of water descending.

An absurd impulse overcame her. She stood up, threw open the doors, and stepped out onto her terrace, letting the heavy rain soak her hair, stain dark her dress, run down her face in streams. The yellow bird flew off in terror as she stepped forward. She hung on to the balcony rail as though she were in a ship caught in a storm. Her shoes were damp and seemed to cling to her feet. Her hair came unglued from the pins that had held it up, and it floated down her back, dark and heavy, a few gray streaks at the temples. There is a looseness, a permission granted by the rain, that a woman of middle years needs now and then, a woman whose daughter is about to leave the house and furnish a home of her own. Such a woman knows more about the passage of time, the passion of love for those who no longer need you, the way you stare at the backs of departing children and memorize the slope of their bones, the length of their eyelashes, the way the love of the mother for her child is destined one way or the other to become a bruised love, a wounded love, an almost unrequited love, an unbalanced love, a suffering love. It was this that Lydia Malina was for a moment putting aside as she turned her face into the rain and allowed it to drench her very bones.

“Mama, what are you doing?” Este shouted out to her mother. “Come inside, close the doors, are you mad?” Lydia reentered the room, leaving a puddle on the very fine carpet that had come on a ship to Alexandria from Kashmir, imported by the Marbourg firm where she had placed Eric Fortman, who was such a gentleman, he had immediately sent her a huge bouquet of red roses to express his gratitude.

“What were you doing out there?” Este scolded her mother. Lydia had no words for it, the joy of standing in the pouring rain.

WITH AN ADVANCE on his salary Eric Fortman bought himself two new pairs of trousers, a jacket, and several shirts. He purchased socks and garters and boots. He told his landlady that he had been at sea, a representative of the Glen MacAlan Scotch Company for many years, but was starting a new life as an importer, a businessman, a person who remained in one place for years at a time. “Roots is it you want?” said his landlady.

“I just want to be dry,” he said, because a man didn’t admit to a woman that he was ready to be given his tea and wrapped in a pair of arms, ready to see the same yard year in and year out and maybe even to plant some seeds of his own.

Eric Fortman intended to become a merchant prince in no time at all. He had seen other men do it, one good purchase, a few good gambles and a man with nothing to his name, a man such as himself, a shipwreck of a man, could find himself on top of the heap, his bank account stuffed and his future assured. As it was, he now had an office at Marbourg & Sons on the quay in the Eastern Harbor.

He was ready now for his future. He walked about among the barrels of cumin and saffron and pickled herring and stepped carefully in his new boots as he made his way through the drying fishnets. He looked out at the harbor and saw the gulls that rested on the masts of ships gathering on the jetty’s edge, and on the railings of steamships lolling in the water. He felt no regret. Home, he thought, was where England ruled, and England ruled in Alexandria, even if everyone spoke French. Cats may have nine lives, he considered, so he himself could certainly have two without disturbing the universe or calling forth the wrath of the gods.

His first assignment at Marbourg & Sons was to inspect the
Lorraine,
a ship that had pulled into port that morning and was now unloading its cargo on the left dock. The ship was to sail for Lisbon in a week with fifty barrels of Marbourg-owned powders that were meant to cure arthritis and stomach ailments and were made from the pits of pears from orchards in the valley of the upper Nile. Marbourg & Sons did not want to send this cargo on a ship that might go down, whose hull had rotted away, or whose crew was rebellious or stupid and might endanger the barrels through their actions. They wanted a ship whose furnace fired up without trouble and whose promise to deliver was not subject to revision or apology. Marbourg & Sons had had their share of disasters at sea and had learned to inspect ships before they set sail. They assumed that their new employee, Eric Fortman, having survived a disaster, would be able to distinguish between a good vessel and a weakened one. He was dispatched to check that all would be well with the expensive powders. A simple task, a simple matter, a beautiful day on the harbor, the lighthouse rose tall at the edge of the limestone ridge, the stones in the shallow water shimmered in the refracted rays of the sun.

Eric went on board, introduced himself to the captain of the ship, an Indian with a strange turban on his head who spoke a thick and heavily accented English. Despite his many years of travel with the barrels of whiskey sloshing in the hold below, he was not certain where the flaws in the ship would be found if they were there, but he knew how to chat up the men and ask a few key questions. He was perfectly able to pick up the mood of the sailors, angry or sad or hungry or undisciplined. He spent the morning looking at the condition of the pots in the scullery and the oars on the lifeboats, and he pulled on the ropes and checked knots and looked at the polish on the table. All was in order, he hoped. As he said his good-byes to the captain, the Indian placed a fat brown leather pouch in his hand. What was this?

“A thank-you for a good report,” said the captain.

“Everything is fine,” said Eric Fortman.

“I know, I know,” said the Indian, “but it is our custom to thank you for your help in speeding us on our way.”

Did he say speeding or spending, it was hard to be sure because of the Indian lilt to the sentence. Had his examination of the boat and its cargo been sufficiently rigorous?

Once on shore, Eric opened the pouch. It was filled with piastres, as well as some pounds. Was this money for Marbourg & Sons, he considered. It could not be. He had not been instructed to pick up any payments. It was for him. The tables had turned.

A FEW DAYS passed, and then one morning Este reappeared at the laboratory. Her maid, Anippe, waited outside the metal door. Her mother believed that she was spending the morning at the dress-makers. Este offered to wash and boil the glass beakers. Roux looked around for Marcus, who should have already completed this work, but who was late as usual. “Thank you,” said Roux to Este.

Louis reported that there were no extraordinary deaths among the animals in Alexandria. The three men walked over to the rabbit cage. Este followed. The rabbits were nuzzling each other, scratching at the papers at the bottom of the cage. Drinking water from the small cups Edmund had placed there. These were not sick rabbits. They wrote down the condition of the rabbits in their notebooks. The rabbits had not contracted cholera yet.

Emile prepared more syringes filled with small drops of the victims’ fluids pressed from tissue. They would inject the rats this time. It might be possible to grow the cholera on a dish prepared with beef broth and gelatin. Louis dropped some bowel matter into a beaker and added a small amount of water. With heated pincers he sealed off the neck of the glass container so no air could enter. He repeated this procedure until he had six beakers sitting on a shelf. Perhaps when they opened the beaker in a few days the cholera would be visible in the water.

Marcus burst into the laboratory. He wanted to go for a swim down at the shore. He talked about the cool water, the smooth sand, the long jetty, the red algae floating near, the red and blue panels of the cabana drapes, the turtles he had been told slept on the rocks.

“Go,” said Roux.

“Please go,” said Louis.

“Bring back a turtle,” said Edmond. He was curious. The turtles of Egypt were said to be of a particularly large genus and were said to live five hundred years. Marcus went.

Roux wanted to talk to the family or lover or friend of a victim of cholera. The waiter at the café where he had gone for his cigarettes had told him that during the night the carts had come and taken off four more bodies right from the quarter in which he lived, as well as two children and a man who worked as a bee-keeper at a big house at the end of rue de France. Roux needed to find out what they had eaten last. The cholera, like the fly on his pastry, might have been in the meat, the lettuce, the flour, some ingredient of their last meal. He needed to find out what they had eaten before they got sick. Emile was not as discouraged as one might think. He had a new idea. There was more cholera in Alexandria than when they had come.

AFTER THE EVENING meal, when her father was reading his paper, Este came to him and said, “Papa, I would like to be of service to the French scientists.”

“I’m sure they would appreciate it,” said her father. “Are you going to give them a party?”

“No,” said Este. “I meant I would like to go to the laboratory and do whatever I can do to speed their work.”

Dr. Malina put down his paper. “But you know nothing of science,” he said. “I thought you liked poetry. You wanted that Keats book for your birthday. You said you were more interested in poetry than anything else in the world.”

“I did say that,” said Este, “but I was younger.”

Dr. Malina smiled. “And now,” he said, “you want to help the scientists. What do they say?”

“They say they would like my assistance. They will explain things to me. I am a quick learner.”

“It is dangerous work,” he said.

“Your work is dangerous,” she answered. “I will be careful.”

“Tell your mother I gave my permission,” he said, “but you must take Anippe with you. It will not look right otherwise.”

Lydia Malina was not disturbed by this plan. Soon enough her daughter would be married and have other things to think about besides the French scientists and their laboratory. Most likely she would be bored in a few days and this new interest would pass. It was agreed that she would continue to do those things required for her wedding as well as continue her German lessons, a language for which she seemed to have a gift.

“I think,” said Louis to Este, who had been waiting at the laboratory door when he arrived as the light was filling the sky, “I will examine the droppings of the birds on our roof this afternoon.” He had discovered that above the slanting roof of the lab a flock of starlings had settled. If he listened carefully he could hear their shrill whistle, their two-toned call as they landed or took off. He could see the droppings on the side of the building, a white stain with a brownish center. Just this morning he had found a dead member of the bird community in the alley. It had already been torn apart by a rat or some other sharp-toothed creature that lived in the holes in the stones that formed the gutter of the street. A thousand insects were crawling across the bird’s now-mangled chest. One wing had broken off from the rest of the body, and its bone had been eaten bare. An eye was torn from its head, and its feathers were flattened, as if a cart wheel had rolled over them. The droppings might hold the cholera, if the bird had died of cholera, but perhaps the bird had died of old age, or had eaten a poisonous plant. He intended to examine the droppings. He might be able to grow the microbe from the droppings in a pure culture. He could warm up his glass, he could sprinkle lye on the concoction. He could try.

Este was holding a pail and standing in the narrow alley. The plan was for Louis to throw down anything he wanted to keep and she would place it in the pail. On the roof, the birds rose on their wings and flew off to look for food in the alleys where the garbage lay, sometimes in sacks but most often just jumbled together and tossed, waiting for time and the rays of sun that managed to seep into the narrow lanes, and the flush of rain that would come now and then, especially in the rainy season, to carry off the bones, the leaves, the roots, the shells, the meats of nuts, the lumps of gruel, the ends of bread, the unwanted food. The starlings returned to the roof and shared their pickings with their young, and sometimes they fought over a fragment of rice, a grain of wheat, a fish head, a bony tail. They squawked and fluffed out their chests in efforts to intimidate one another. If they were ill with cholera they did not seem to stop, lie down, change their tune. All they did was pause in their activities and release their droppings onto the roof or the side of the building or the dirt below. There would be ample intestinal syrup to study with the microscope, and they did have the dead starling that had fallen so providentially right outside the laboratory.

Roux prepared the slides with ooze from the small bird. He mashed its brains. He picked up tissue from under its wings, carefully marking left and right. He examined the tiny beak and looked at the multiple small bones. Nocard prepared the dishes in which they would put the retrieved substances. Would anything grow? Was there cholera in the smashed bird? They injected some bird flesh into the dog. He growled as they approached. Some days went by. Nothing grew in the dishes. The dog was not affected. He had begun to yelp in pleasure now as Marcus, half awake after a night in which for the first time he smoked a soothing brew in a water pipe, brought him his lunch.