The Art of Forgetting (5 page)

              Lloyd’s beeper chirped. He unclipped it from his belt and looked at the display. “It’s the lab. I gotta go.”

              “What about lunch?” Mark asked as Lloyd walked away.

              “We’ll have lunch on Saturday.”

              In the lab, a compact disk player on a bare counter was playing Chopin’s nocturne in C-sharp minor. Kazimir Volkov, the chief laboratory technician, fervently believed that lab mice found classical music soothing. Lloyd doubted this claim and, just to badger him, once wondered aloud whether exposing the mice to music might introduce an uncontrolled variable to the study. Without sensing the sarcasm, Volkov argued that if both the control mice and the study subjects were exposed to the same music, the variable would be, in effect, controlled. Lloyd was satisfied by the scientific tack taken by the middle-aged self-styled philosopher and the matter was permanently put to rest.

              And even if the effect on the mice might have been negligible, the laboratory assistant took solace in the fact that he was able to spark in Lloyd a feeble interest in classical music. Despite Volkov’s continued accusations of being tone-deaf, the repeated exposure in his laboratory goaded Lloyd to an enthusiastic appreciation of, if not an outright love for, Chopin’s piano sonatas.

              “You’re a hopeless romantic after all,” Volkov once said.

              “No Kaz, it’s the mathematical precision I admire.”

              “What do you know about math?” Volkov said in his thick Russian accent with a chuckle. “You’re just a doctor. Barbers used to do your job!”

              Lloyd stopped just inside the door and surveyed the lab. He immediately sensed something was wrong. Kaz sat on a metal bar stool, his shoulders slumped, peering into a plastic bin which lay on the black Formica-covered counter.

              “Why aren’t we running experiments?” Lloyd asked, walking towards the lab technician.

              Kaz turned and squinted as if he was staring into a floodlight. “We lost a comrade this morning.”

              “The hell you talking about?”

              “Wolfgang is gone.”

              Lloyd stopped at Kaz’s back and looked over his shoulder into the bin. The tiny white corpse of a mouse lay stiffly next to a freshly-plucked dandelion.

              “What happened?”

              “I knew something was wrong when he bit me. Wolfgang is a gentle mouse. He would never hurt a soul,” Kaz said.

              “What happened, Kaz?”

              “When I fed him this morning he wouldn’t eat. He was trying to walk but he couldn’t. He was jerking.”

              “How do you mean, jerking?”

              “You know, jerking. Like un-coordinated.”

              “Ataxia?” Lloyd asked.

              “I think so. Then he went to the corner of his cage and huddled there. I thought he maybe need a little rest, I don’t know. I check him an hour later and I thought he was asleep, so I left him alone, but when I come back… Well, he just looked not very good.”

              “I agree. He looks not very good.” Lloyd considered the significance of ataxia in one of his treated mice. Could it be the sign a prion-induced neurologic disorder? He exhaled forcefully trying to rid his mind of the thought. “Shit. We really didn’t need this. Not now.”

              “Is that all you can say?” Kaz turned on the stool to look at him.

              Lloyd reached in his coat pocket and fidgeted with his keys, kept looking at the tiny corpse to avoid locking eyes with Kaz. “What do you want me to say?”

              “He was a good mouse. One of the greatest mice I’ve ever known. Smart, hard-working, brave…”

              “Generous,” Lloyd said facetiously, regretting the comment as soon as the word left his lips.”

              “Yes, generous,” Kaz said. “Very generous, because he gave all he had to give. He made the ultimate sacrifice… for us.”

              “For humanity,” Lloyd muttered, the sarcasm waning.

              “Yes, for humanity. He didn’t ask for this. But did he ever complain?”

              “I never heard him complain.”

              “That’s right. No one never heard him complain.” Kaz paused. He swallowed, cleared his throat. “Perhaps you can say a few words for our fallen comrade.”

              “Me?”

              “I was raised in an atheistic worker’s paradise. Your uncle is a priest. Didn’t you learn anything from him?”

              “I haven’t gone to church in –”

              “Please, Lloyd. Just few words.”

              Lloyd inhaled deeply, opened his mouth, hesitated, licked his lips, and said, “We salute Wolfgang, born a humble tau transgenic mouse, named after one of the great composers. A mouse that selflessly devoted his life to the advancement of science and the betterment of mankind. May his sacrifice not be in vain.”

              “Amen, brother,” Kaz said, his voice hoarse. “Amen.”

              Chopin’s nocturne ended and a quiet somberness enveloped the men.

              “We’ll have to do a post-mortem,” Lloyd said after a sufficient pause.

              Kaz drew a deep sigh. “Yes, yes, I know.”

              “You need help?”

              “I know what to do,” Kaz said with a flat voice.

              Lloyd put a hand on his assistant’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Kaz.”

              Kaz nodded, exhaled through pursed lips and looked up at Lloyd. “I know.”

              Lloyd nodded, removed his hand from Kaz’s shoulder and hid it in his coat pocket, then lifted it again to glance at his wristwatch. “Look, Kaz, I have an appointment…”

              “Yes, yes, don’t worry. We’ll be fine.”

              “You’re sure?”

              “Please Lloyd,” Kaz said in his usual gritty, booming voice, “please go so I can get some work done.”

              Lloyd nodded again, turned on his heels and headed for his office which was tucked in the south corner of the laboratory. He was half-way across the room when Kaz called out at him.

              “Lloyd, you think the prion…?” He didn’t have to finish the question. Lloyd stopped but didn’t turn. He felt his ears grow hot.

              “None of the other mice we injected have ever had a problem.”

              “True, but…”

              Lloyd faced Kaz. “Kaz, let’s not tell anyone about this.”

              Kaz’s eyes widened.

              “We’ll follow the study protocol,” Lloyd said, “but no one needs to know about this until we’ve determined the cause of death.”

              “Okay, boss.” Kaz pulled a plastic bag from a drawer, cradled the tiny carcass in the palm of his hand, muttered something in Russian and gently placed the mouse in the bag.

              Chapter 3

             
R
esidents of Hinsdale, Illinois are quick to correct the unenlightened visitor who inadvertently commits the faux pas of referring to their village as a suburb of Chicago. Twenty miles west of the loop, just past the confines of Cook County, Hinsdale boasts a distinct identity with its own quaint downtown area of pristine buildings, many recognized as historical architectural landmarks. Even the topography is disparate with respect to its larger neighbor, with wooded rolling hills in place of the endless flat expanse.

              Lloyd decided to avoid the expressways so he could ride his Ducati down Wolf road through the forest preserves which were already teeming with pasty-thighed joggers and stroller-pushing couples reveling in the unseasonably warm weather. He headed west on Ogden Avenue, then turned south on York Road which brought him into the heart of the village. Turning left on an avenue whose trees came together in a shady canopy, he rode past large brick farmhouses and mini-Victorians before reaching the part of town where the hills swell higher, the woods grow thicker and the roads bend in wide, lazy curves, leaving behind the grid-like perfection of the northern neighborhoods in search of a higher esthetic element. Here the houses were larger – a few plantation homes, the occasional prairie-style and the inevitable gaudy, newly constructed maisons.
Faux châteaux
, Lloyd called them. Homes of corporate lawyers, stock traders and interventional cardiologists with more money than taste. 

              The road curved and narrowed then dipped under a wood-beamed railroad trestle bridge before rising again and twisting to the right. Lloyd slowed, checking the numbers on the mailboxes of the sparse houses before pulling into a driveway. Spalding’s house was a squat two-story building covered in tan wooden planks: a study in minimalist elegance which would have seemed less out of place had it been erected on the outskirts of Stockholm than in the American Midwest.

              Lloyd rang the doorbell. He heard the muffled sound of a deep voice followed by footsteps. The door was opened by a woman with shortly cropped white hair and sparkling eyes. She wore a ruffled blouse over a long house-skirt. A heavy jade necklace hung around her neck dipping on her bosom.

              “Mrs. Spalding?  I’m Dr. Copeland.”

              “I know. Please do come in”

              The entryway opened onto a large living area with a built-in unstained white pine bookshelf which dominated an entire wall, littered with hundreds of volumes. Cecil Spalding sat on a padded bar stool, paintbrush in hand, in front of an easel holding a half-painted canvas.

              “Well hello,” Spalding said. “Nice to see you.”

              Lloyd recognized this as a fairly typical greeting in sufferers of amnesia – vague enough that it would not betray a lack of recognition nor feign a false intimacy.

              “Hello Mr. Spalding.”

              “Cecil, this is Dr. Copeland. He’s from the university. He’s come to talk to you.”

              Spalding carefully placed the paint brush on the ledge of the easel, wiped his hands on a rag and removed his large, rectangular spectacles. “Have we met?” he asked.

              Lloyd shook his head. “I haven’t had the pleasure.”

              “A doctor… doctor… doctor,” Spalding muttered under his breath, the way one might repeat a phone number while looking for pen and paper to write it down. “Doctor?”

              “Copeland. Lloyd Copeland. I’m a neurologist.”

              “A neurologist?  Well I hope it’s nothing too serious.”

              “Not at all. I just came to chat with you,” Lloyd said.

              Spalding chuckled. “Let’s have a nice chat, shall we?” He stood up and walked towards Lloyd. “I’m afraid I’m not much of a conversationalist.” He chuckled again. He reached out and shook Lloyd’s hand and gestured to a sofa before settling in a worn leather armchair.

              Mrs. Spalding placed a hand on her husband’s shoulder. “Can I get you something to drink, Dr. Copeland?  Coffee? Lemonade?  Iced tea?”

              “Thank you, iced tea would be great.”

              “Cecil?”

              Spalding looked at his wife with a quizzical expression.

              “Some iced tea or lemonade?” his wife repeated.

              “I’m not sure I like those.”

              “You’re not thirsty?”

              “I’ll have some water, darling.”

              Mrs. Spalding stepped through a doorway into the kitchen. The two men looked at each other in silence. Then Lloyd straightened and reached into a pocket of his jacket. He hated this part, but he needed to get as much information from the visit as possible. “I don’t think we’ve met before, have we?” he asked.

              “Why no,” Spalding said with a subtle expression of relief. “No, I’m quite sure we haven’t.” He leaned forward and offered his hand.

              Lloyd removed his right hand from the pocket of his jacket, a tack wedged between his fingers. “Lloyd Copeland. Great to meet you.” He grasped Spalding’s hand and squeezed it just hard enough.

              Spalding let out something of a yelp.

              “So terribly sorry, Mr. Spalding,” Lloyd said hurriedly.

              “There was something sharp… in your hand.” Copeland tightened his facial muscles, his bushy eyebrows jutted forward.

              “Awfully sorry, let me have a look.”

              Spalding turned his hand over revealing a tiny crimson dot on the bottom edge of his palm.

              “Oh, it’s nothing,” Lloyd said as he pulled a tissue from a box on the coffee table and dabbed Spalding’s hand. “What are you painting?”

              Copeland’s face softened. There was a puzzled gleam in his eyes. “That’s a view of Lake Como from Villa Monastero.”

              “All from memory?”