In the Field

by Rachel Pastan

  After the seminar, there was a reception with babka from the Hungarian bakery Miss Floris liked. Then Kate and Thatch adjourned to Kate’s lab until it was time to go to Whitaker’s house for dinner. “I’ll make you coffee for a change,” Kate said, lighting the Bunsen burner.

  But Thatch shook his head. “No thanks.”

  “No coffee?” she said.

  “Ulcer.”

  Kate tried not to let him see how much this upset her. “Tea?” she suggested. “A cookie?” She reached for the tin of chocolate walnut cookies she kept on a shelf behind her fixatives.

  “No, thanks. All that babka. Miss Floris never changes.” He smiled, but it wasn’t the alert, cheerful smile Kate remembered. “And neither do you. It’s good to see you, Kate.”

  Kate thought of Whitaker’s bonsai. “Remember Krause’s coleus plants?” she said, thinking how young and stupid she’d been in those days.

  “Plectranthus scutellarioides,” Thatch said.

  “Cutting out all those fiddly shapes.”

  “What a terrible experiment that was!”

  Kate nodded. “He was a good teacher, though. It was sad, how few people were at his funeral.” Krause had died the year before, of a tumor in his lungs.

  “I was sorry I couldn’t be there.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean you,” Kate said irritably. There was a pause. Then she said, “I heard about Cynthia. I mean, I heard she lost another pregnancy. I’m so sorry, Thatch.”

  Thatch nodded as though he was thinking it over. “She’s had a tough time.”

  “I can imagine,” Kate said, which wasn’t strictly true.

  “It’s hard—when you want something so badly,” Thatch said. “Then, just when it seems as though it’s finally within reach, it’s snatched away.”

  “She’s still young.” Kate meant to sound comforting, but she was afraid the words had come out dismissive.

  “I want to hear about your harvest,” Thatch said.

  So she began to tell him about the red spot, and the breaks on the short arm of chromosome nine, and her sense, as yet unconfirmed, that the two were related. “Of course I haven’t had a chance to take a look under the microscope yet. So it’s still just a hunch.”

  “What do you mean you haven’t had a chance?” Thatch teased. “I would have thought you’d stay in the lab all night if necessary. With a tantalizing kernel like that!”

  Kate could picture Sarah’s face if she didn’t come home all night. “Oh, I’ll get to it,” she said. Then she had a thought. “We could do it while you’re here,” she said. “We could do it together.”

  Thatch smiled. “You don’t need my help.”

  “I’d be glad to have it,” she said.

  Thatch held up his empty hands.

  Kate took the lid off the cookie tin. “Take one,” she said. “You’re starting to look like a scarecrow.”

  Thatch took a cookie, took a bite, and set it down. “Delicious,” he said.

  “Mrs. Sonnenfeld makes them,” Kate said. “It’s a family recipe she brought from Germany.”

  “You mentioned she was German.”

  “She’s a wonderful baker, and cook, too.”

  “Living there has worked out well for you,” Thatch said.

  “Yes it has.” Kate felt her face grow warm. “I’ve become very fond of both of them,” she said. “The mother, and the daughter.”

  Thatch took another nibble. “The daughter is the fierce doctor?”

  “She can be fierce,” Kate said. “Sometimes.”

  “A widow?”

  “No. She never married.”

  “Ah,” Thatch said.

  What did that mean? Kate wished she had made coffee after all, it would have helped her think.

  She wanted Thatch to see Zimmer’s letter. She would show him, in a minute or two. But of course, he wouldn’t see that there was any problem. Go, he would say. Why on earth wouldn’t you go?

  “Listen,” she said. “Even if you don’t want to offer me the benefit of your insights on my red-spot kernel, we could take another look at those bronze locus results. Since you’re here.”

  “Isn’t that paper basically done?”

  Kate shrugged. “I was thinking of changing the scope a little. We could go over it tomorrow and you could see what you think.” It was true that she had thought about changing the scope. It was true that she would welcome Thatch’s collaboration. Besides, if she put Thatch’s name on a paper for which he had done no work, how would he bear it?

  “I wish I could,” he said. “But I’m going home tomorrow.”

  “Nonsense,” Kate said.

  “I am, though.”

  Kate stared at him. “That’s ridiculous! You just arrived. I haven’t heard word one about the work you’re doing, which you didn’t even talk about in your seminar. A person might be excused for thinking you weren’t doing any work at all!” She regretted the words the moment she said them, but Thatch let them go by.

  “Next time I’ll stay longer,” he said.

  “What about tonight? We could talk it over after dinner. There’s a thing or two you could do on the project when you get back home.”

  “Kate,” Thatch said. “You don’t need my help. I know you don’t.”

  No, she didn’t need his help. She didn’t need anyone’s help, not with the work. It was other things she needed help with, and no one was giving it, except maybe Fred Zimmer. “Whitaker wants you on the paper,” Kate said.

  Thatch looked surprised. “Whitaker?”

  “Yes.”

  Thatch began fiddling with the knobs of Kate’s microscope. “I have a performance review coming up at the Rockefeller,” he said. “I haven’t published enough for promotion.”

  “Oh, Thatch.”

  “I can’t tell you what the problem is, exactly. I’ve had trouble thinking clearly. Or, I start things, but then I forget why I thought they were good ideas.” The animation he must have been working to keep in his voice, minimal though it had been, drained away, and his words reached her limply, like seaweed washed up on the shore.

  “Let’s stay in the lab tonight,” Kate urged. “We’ll go to dinner, and then we’ll come back here. All right? We’ll take another look at the bronze locus slides. You can sleep on the train tomorrow.”

  Thatch nodded without saying anything. Or she thought it was a nod. She could see so clearly the gawky boy he used to be, standing in the greenhouse, his trousers too short, offering her part of his meager pay. The cheerful first-year graduate student loping down the hall, poking his head around the door of the lab she shared with Hiram Cole. The young man standing in the glimmering darkness of his backyard, throwing water on the fire. Do you know what I think life is?

  A minute later, Whitaker barged in. “Come along,” he said. “We don’t want to keep Mrs. W. waiting.” He frowned at Kate. “Did you want to stop home and change?”

  She looked down at her neat trousers and pressed white shirt. She’d worn decent shoes instead of her work boots, and the thin silver chain Sarah had given her for her birthday. “I’m all right as I am,” she said.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Whitakers lived in a handsome, drafty Victorian house high up on the hill. Kate had been there a number of times, mostly for the annual Christmas party, but occasionally for a dinner like this one. “Tell us the news from New York,” Mrs. Whitaker said to Thatch as she seated him in a green silk-covered chair near the fireplace. She was a thin, energetic woman with iron gray hair pulled back in a bun. “I grew up on Lexington, you know. How I ended up out here practically in the wilderness, I’ll never understand. Once, when we were still young, Evelyn got an offer from Columbia, but he turned it down. I could have been taking taxis and going to the opera all these years.” She smiled at her husband and he smiled back, obviously pl
eased with everything: his house, his wife, his decision to stay at Cornell. “Have you been to the Met?” Mrs. Whitaker asked Thatch. “Cynthia would love it. There’s nothing like all that gorgeous sound washing over you.”

  Thatch shook his head. “But she got us tickets to Anything Goes for my birthday.”

  “Evelyn says you’re rushing back tomorrow. I told him he should have made you stay at least a week.”

  “Thatch isn’t mine to order around anymore,” Whitaker replied.

  “Unlike some of us,” Kate said, trying to sound jovial.

  “Not that you do what I tell you to, either, all the time,” Whitaker said.

  “Kate has always had a mind of her own,” Thatch said. “But if she insists on doing something, you can be sure it’s the right thing to do.”

  Caught off guard by the compliment, Kate looked at the rug, which was chartreuse with dark brown lozenges around the edges. Quite different from the rich red-and-blue patterns of Mrs. Sonnenfeld’s carpets.

  “Shall we go into the dining room?” Mrs. Whitaker stood and offered her arm to Thatch. Whitaker and Kate followed them across the wide polished oak planks.

  “Thatch is a loyal friend,” Whitaker told Kate. “I confess there was a time I thought the two of you …” He squeezed her arm. She kept moving her feet, first the right one and then the left one. They felt so light without her work boots, it seemed she might float away.

  Mrs. Whitaker had prepared a feast. There was roast duck on a platter surrounded by rings of cooked apple. There were mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, pickled onions, and a silver basket of bowknot rolls. The candles in their glinting candlesticks seemed to throw out a lot of heat as Whitaker stood at the head of the table holding the carving knife. When the food was served and the wine poured, he raised his glass. “To my wife, who has stood by me all these years, even though I kept her from the opera.”

  “I did take that vow to obey,” Mrs. Whitaker said, smiling, as they drank the toast.

  “I’m dedicating my book to her,” Whitaker said.

  “Book?” Thatch asked.

  “My textbook on genetics. People are still using Castle, if you can believe that! When we know so much more now.”

  “I didn’t know you were writing a textbook,” Thatch said.

  Whitaker picked up the wine bottle and offered it around, but his was the only glass that needed refilling. “I’d like to be remembered for something,” he said.

  Thatch laughed. “You’re a Titan in the field, Whit.”

  Whitaker held his wine up to the light. “There was a time I thought my work would be indelible. But science just keeps moving faster.” The flurry of objections to this was obligatory yet also heartfelt. But Whitaker shook his head. “Who in my generation will be remembered, I ask myself. Morgan? Müller? A maverick like Richard Goldschmidt?”

  “Müller!” Kate objected. “If anyone is remembered for X-rays, it will be Fred Zimmer.”

  “And what about your generation?” Whitaker asked. “Of course it’s anyone’s guess who among you will make the next great advance. There’s no knowing what discoveries any of you might stumble upon. Luck’s as important as talent in this game. More important! Talent, luck, and perseverance. Not necessarily in that order.” He downed his glass and picked up the bottle again.

  “Evelyn,” Mrs. Whitaker said, “I think John could use more duck.”

  “This work of Paul’s has been getting a lot of attention,” Thatch remarked, handing up his plate although it still had plenty of food on it.

  Whitaker set down the bottle and carelessly piled on another slice. “With more sure to come. He’s publishing it in PNAS,” he said.

  “What work?” Kate asked.

  “Oh, it’s remarkable!” Thatch’s face grew animated as he began to explain. “He’s shown that one single gene is responsible for the synthesis of one single enzyme. A one-to-one correlation! A colleague from the Rockefeller went up to visit him, and he couldn’t talk about anything else when he got back.”

  Kate, who had been detaching a last sliver of meat from the bone, set down her fork and knife. “He’s publishing that?”

  “It’s going to completely revolutionize our understanding of the gene! If it holds up,” Thatch added, misunderstanding the look on her face. “And you’ll never guess what organism he used.”

  “Neurospora,” Kate said.

  “Neurospora!” Thatch echoed. “An inspired choice!”

  Kate stared at Thatch: at the tired eyes that had brightened as he recounted his friend’s success. She thought of Paul’s eyes—green and alert under tawny brows. “That was my idea,” she said.

  Thatch laughed. Then, seeing her expression, he stopped laughing. “Well,” he said. “Then you know all about it.”

  “Apparently not,” Kate said.

  “I’m sure Paul could select his own organism,” Whitaker said, drinking his wine.

  “Well he didn’t,” Kate said sharply. “I spent two weeks in Cambridge sorting out the cytology for him. He never told me he was ready to publish. He never so much as showed me a draft!” She looked around the table, prettied up with Irish lace: at the Great Man who worried he would be forgotten; his loyal wife who had cheerfully offered up her desires for his imperatives; her old friend who had mislaid his ability to do the thing they were all trying so hard to do, decode the secret language of the invisible world.

  Then she was struck by another thought. “A member of the National Academy would have had to submit it for him,” she said to Whitaker.

  “I always like to help out a protégé,” the Great Man said.

  Thatch finally agreed to go back with Kate to the lab after dinner. She asked to use the telephone to let the Sonnenfelds know she’d be late, and Mrs. Whitaker showed her into the hall. Sarah answered with the gruff voice she used when she expected the hospital to be calling. In the background, Chopin nocturnes spun out of the phonograph.

  “I wanted to let you know I’m heading back to campus. Thatch and I have some work to finish up.”

  “For godsake, Kate. It’s nearly eleven. Can’t you do it in the morning?”

  “He’s going back to New York in the morning.”

  Sarah sighed.

  “What?” Kate said. She was aware of Whitaker standing nearby, fiddling with something on a shelf.

  “I’ve been waiting up for you.”

  Longing and irritation rose up together. “I’ll see you later,” she said. Then more softly, “Okay?”

  On the other end of the line, Sarah took a breath, let it out. “Wake me up if I’m sleeping,” she said.

  “You’re a considerate tenant, I must say,” Whitaker remarked when Kate set the receiver down.

  In the lab, Kate made coffee and brought Thatch a cup, and he drank it, ulcer or no ulcer. She got down the project notebook and the draft-in-progress of the paper on the bronze locus and began talking Thatch through it. Her words felt stiff at first, her head fuzzy from the wine and the residue of anger from dinner. But she wasn’t going to think about Paul now. She began to explain the work she had done, and Thatch listened, taking in every word.

  It was true that she had thought about changing the scope of the paper, and Thatch, as she’d hoped, had some good ideas about that. She found the tray of relevant slides, and they went through them one after another, looking for things Kate might have missed, for clues to what they might profitably do next. Toward dawn, Thatch leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes. “I know you can keep going indefinitely,” he said. “But I need to rest for ten minutes.”

  Kate washed the coffee cups, put away the slides, covered the microscope. She made a few notes, but the truth was that she was tired, too. She looked at Thatch, breathing deeply, but not, she thought, sleeping. If she was going to tell him about Zimmer’s offer—if she was going to ask his ad
vice—it was now or never. But when she opened her mouth, what she said was: “Paul should have put me on that paper.” Her heart began to pound as though she’d just run up the stairs.

  Thatch shook his head without opening his eyes. “Let it go, Kate,” he said. “People suggest things to other people all the time. They help out with technical stuff all the time.”

  “This wasn’t just anything,” Kate said. “He couldn’t have done the project without the cytology.”

  “Let it go.”

  “It’s so like Paul,” Kate said. “He doesn’t change! He barrels over people and takes what he wants from them.”

  Thatch opened his eyes. “Listen to me,” he said. “The work you’re doing is good. It’s more than good. Forget this bronze locus paper. That twin-sector stuff you’ve been working on, chromosome nine: it’s amazing! That’s what matters.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” she said, then felt a wash of shame.

  “I know it’s frustrating to still be here,” Thatch said. “I know Whitaker hasn’t done well by you.”

  “He certainly hasn’t.”

  “But,” he went on—and now his voice was different. Halting. “There’s more to life than just … science. I hope you get out of the lab once in a while, Kate. I do. I hope you meet people. Other kinds of people.”

  Her heart began to thud faster. “I see the Sonnenfelds,” she said. “I spend time with them. With Sarah.” She pronounced the name carefully, offering it up to him.

  Thatch looked at her sadly. “Spending time with a widow and a spinster is hardly going to help your prospects.” He could not have spoken more gently.

  Kate counted to ten before she let herself speak, but it didn’t make any difference. “Because your marriage has brought you so much joy,” she said, then watched her words turn his face to lead.

  CHAPTER 29

  Kate stayed at work a few more hours after Thatch had left to catch his train. Her mind felt sticky and overcrowded, teeming with unpleasant thoughts. She had intended to go out to the drying shed to look at her red kernel, but she was afraid her current state of mind would somehow contaminate it.