Fever (39 page)

“All right, pipe down,” yelled Charles harshly. Then in a calmer voice he said, “Maybe you can learn to surf, Jean Paul.”

“Really,” said Jean Paul, his face brightening.

“They only surf in Southern California,” said Chuck, “where all the weirdos are.”

“Look who's talking,” retorted Jean Paul.

“Enough!” yelled Charles, shaking his head for Cathryn's benefit.

“It's all right,” said Cathryn. “It reassures me to hear the kids bicker. It convinces me that everything is normal.”

“Normal?” scoffed Charles.

“Anyway,” said Cathryn, looking back at Charles. “One of the things I don't understand is why the Weinburger made such an about-face. They all couldn't have been more helpful.”

“I didn't understand it, either,” said Charles, “until I remembered how clever Dr. Ibanez really is. He was afraid the media would get hold of the story. With all those reporters milling around, he was terrified I'd be tempted to tell them my feelings about their brand of cancer research.”

“God! If the public ever knew what really goes on,” said Cathryn.

“I suppose if I were a real negotiator, I should have asked for a new car,” laughed Charles.

Michelle, who had been vaguely listening to her parents, reached down in her canvas tote bag and pulled out her wig. It was as close a brown to Cathryn's hair as she had been able to get. Charles and Cathryn had implored her to get black, to match her own hair, but Michelle had remained adamant. She had wanted to look like Cathryn, but now she wasn't so sure. The idea of going to a new school was terrifying enough
without having to deal with her weird hair. She'd finally realized she couldn't be brunette for a few months and then become black-haired. “I don't want to start school until my hair grows back.”

Charles looked over his shoulder and saw Michelle idly fingering her brown wig and guessed what she was thinking. He started to criticize her for stupidly insisting on the wrong color but checked himself and said mildly: “Why don't we just get you another wig? Maybe black this time?”

“What's the matter with this one?” teased Jean Paul, snatching it away, and jamming it haphazardly on his own head.

“Daddy,” cried Michelle. “Tell Jean Paul to give me back my wig.”

“You should have been a girl, Jean Paul,” said Chuck. “You look a thousand times better with a wig.”

“Jean Paul!” yelled Cathryn, reaching back to restrain Michelle. “Give your sister back her wig.”

“Okay, baldy,” laughed Jean Paul, tossing the wig in Michelle's direction and shielding himself from the last of his sister's ineffectual punches.

Charles and Cathryn exchanged glances, too pleased to see Michelle better to scold her. They still remembered those dreadful days when they were waiting to see if Charles's experiment would work, if Michelle would get better. And then when she did, they had to accept the fact that they would never know whether she had responded to the immunological injections or to the chemotherapy she had received before Charles took her out of the hospital.

“Even if they were sure your injections had effected the cure, they wouldn't give you credit for her recovery,” said Cathryn.

Charles shrugged. “No one can prove anything, including myself. Anyway, in a year or less I should have the answer. The institute in Berkeley is content to let me pursue my own approach to studying cancer. With a little luck I should be able to show that what happened to Michelle was the first
example of harnessing the body to cure itself of an established leukemia. If that . . .”

“Dad!” called Jean Paul from the back of the car. “Could you stop at the next gas station?”

Charles drummed his fingers on the steering wheel, but Cathryn reached over and squeezed Charles's arm. He took his foot off the accelerator. “There won't be a town for another fifty miles. I'll just stop. We could all use a stretch.”

Charles pulled onto the dusty shoulder of the road. “Okay, everybody out for R-and-R and whatever.”

“It's hotter than an oven,” said Jean Paul with dismay, searching for some sort of cover.

Charles led Cathryn up a small rise, affording a view to the west, an arid, stark stretch of desert leading up to jagged mountains. Behind them in the car, Chuck and Michelle were arguing. Yes, thought Charles. Everything is normal.

“I never knew the desert was so beautiful,” said Cathryn, mesmerized by the landscape.

Charles took a deep breath. “Smell the air. It makes Shaftesbury seem like another planet.”

Charles pulled Cathryn into his right arm. “You know what scares me the most?” he said.

“What?”

“I'm beginning to feel content again.”

“Don't worry about that,” laughed Cathryn. “Wait until we get to Berkeley with no house and little money and three hungry kids.”

Charles smiled. “You're right. There is still plenty of opportunity for catastrophe.”

W
hen the snows melted in the lofty White Mountains in New Hampshire, hundreds of swollen streams flooded the Pawtomack River. Within a two-day period, its level rose several feet and its lazy seaward course became a torrent. Passing the town of Shaftesbury, the clear water raged against the old granite quays of the deserted mill building, spraying mist and miniature rainbows into the crystal air.

As the weather grew warmer green shoots thrust up through the ground along the river, growing in areas previously too toxic for them to survive. Even in the shadow of Recycle, Ltd., tadpoles appeared for the first time in years to chase the skittish water spiders, and rainbow trout migrated south through the formerly poisoned waters.

As the nights became shorter and hot summer approached, a single drop of benzene appeared at the juncture of an off-load pipe in one of the new chemical holding tanks. No one supervising the installations had fully understood the insidious propensities of benzene, and from the moment the first molecules had flowed into the new system, they began dissolving the rubber gaskets used to seal the line.

It had taken about two months for the toxic fluid to eat through the rubber and drip onto the granite blocks beneath the chemical storage tanks, but after the first, the drops came in an increasing tempo. The poisonous molecules followed the path of least resistance, working their way down into the mortarless masonry, then seeping laterally until they entered the river. The only evidence of their presence was a slightly aromatic, almost sweet smell.

The first to die were the frogs, then the fish. When the river fell, as the summer sun grew stronger, the concentration of the poison soared.