Dragonfly Girl

by Marti Leimbach

  “Really?”

  He winks. “Really,” he says.

  He tells me that the Stockholm metro is called the longest art museum in the world. It’s 110 kilometers. I want to see it all, but we don’t have time.

  “We have work to do,” he says. “You need to prepare your statement for the committee.”

  “My statement?” I say. I don’t want to think about the committee, about the SFOF award, about rules and qualifications.

  He nods.

  “I can’t write a statement. I can’t write anything, really. I’m failing English. Or maybe not failing entirely, but close.”

  “High school English?” he says incredulously.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we’ll begin writing the essay in hell,” he laughs, and we board another train.

  By “hell” he means Solna station, where a jagged rock rises darkly against a black base and looks like a comfortable cavern from the underworld. In the craggy red, we could be standing in the middle of Earth’s core. Rik gets out his phone and opens up a word processing app.

  “We have an hour,” he says.

  “But the rules . . .” I begin.

  “You’re assuming that the committee chose their words precisely. But people aren’t precise. Numbers are precise. Elements are precise. But people are like time; they bend. Wouldn’t you say that what matters in science is the quality of the research? And not the educational background of the researcher?”

  I nod. “The book of nature is written in the language of mathematics.”

  “That’s rather beautiful. Why don’t you start by saying that?”

  “Because Galileo already said it,” I tell him.

  We ride the metro. I type a sentence into his phone. He types another.

  “See, it’s not so hard,” he says.

  “I feel like we are rejecting what is given in a mathematical proof. As in, ‘Given that entrants to the prize have a PhD . . .’”

  A look of worry flashes on his face. “Please don’t mention that to the committee,” he says.

  Back at Gamla Stan, we make our way through the medieval alleyways as the snow gathers, crossing the bridge toward the hotel. I see a boat just like the one on which we’d had the party and danced. But the person who danced with Rik is not the girl crossing the bridge in jeans and sneakers now. Then, I’d been a scientist among scientists, a grown woman in an evening gown. Now things are different. I’ve already noticed the shift in Rik’s attention. He walks with greater distance from me, nothing noticeable, just a few important inches. And he finds no excuse to touch me, not even when we sat together on the metro seats, poring over my statement for the committee. His leg had not touched my leg. His fingertips had not brushed my hand.

  Rik had been interested in an invented person who doesn’t exist. I’m back to being Kira Adams.

  We cross the length of the bridge and approach the hotel. He says, “When we get back—”

  “You’ll have things to do,” I say, finishing his sentence. I don’t want to hear him say it.

  “I was going to say, you might want to change your shoes.”

  “Oh!” I look down. My shoes were ridiculous, totally unsuitable. Red canvas sneakers with a hole in the toe.

  “It’s just that they’re wet.”

  And freezing. But I already knew that.

  Rik says, “I don’t want anyone to see I’ve returned you to the hotel with wet feet.”

  “Anyone,” I repeat. A thought suddenly occurs to me. “Rik, did someone send you to find me?”

  His face darkens as though I’ve just discovered something he’d hoped would stay secret. “I wanted to find you,” he says.

  “But someone did send you, didn’t they?” I say, more of a statement than a question. “Munn sent you.”

  This is so obvious to me now. It was only my vanity that made me imagine Rik had sought me out on his own. It’s Munn who holds his allegiance. If Rik left the conference to come find me, it was because Munn sent him.

  He keeps his eyes forward in the direction in which we are walking. As we climb the steps to the entrance of the hotel, he says, “Munn did send me, but—”

  It sounds like the apology that it is.

  “Of course,” I say, interrupting him. I wish that it had been his idea. That he cared that much. I don’t want him to see that it bothers me to know that he’d only been responding to his boss’s orders. I concentrate on the hotel’s icy steps, the doorman who draws open the wide door and welcomes us in. Suddenly, I can’t bear to walk with Rik, who apparently fetched me out of obligation, not sentiment.

  “Let me explain—” he begins.

  But he doesn’t get the chance. Standing in the lobby of the hotel as though he’s been waiting all this time, is Dr. Munn.

  “So you found her,” he says to Rik. To me, he says, “This way, Kira.”

  9

  A DOZEN COMMITTEE members sit in heavy leather chairs around a long table. Some of them served as judges, others as advisors. It’s obvious they’ve been here for a while: empty coffee cups, balled napkins, crumbs from the many pastries laid out on a sideboard. Apparently, long discussions have taken place this morning over the question of whether I must be disqualified.

  Some of the committee members glance sharply at me as I enter. Others regard me with weary compassion. I’ve brought them a troubling situation, that’s for sure.

  I’m given a seat next to Dr. Biruk, who chairs the meeting from one end of the table. I’d love a glass of water but I don’t dare ask for one. My right leg shakes with nerves. My heart bangs loudly in my chest. Meanwhile, my cold feet ache in the warmth of the room. My head begins hurting so badly I can barely focus my eyes as I listen to what is being said around me. Dr. Biruk is explaining the rules of the award and how my paper somehow “slipped through the cracks.”

  The faces around the table look uneasy.

  “We don’t want to chastise you unduly,” comes a woman’s voice from the other end of the table, a committee member by the name of Professor Mavis Fogg. She wears her tortoiseshell glasses at the end of her nose and a gray suit jacket and a dress shirt with a ruffled collar that does little to soften her appearance. “But we do need to get to the bottom of this.”

  A small man with a freckled, bare scalp presses his thumb and forefinger into the space between his eyebrows as though all this pains him, then says, “We’ve checked again to see if your paper is original, and indeed it appears to be the case. We are relieved that you cannot be accused of plagiarism.”

  Someone sniffs as though she’s not entirely convinced of this. I hear a remark being made and then the whispered response to it: “Yes, but we’re not here to debate the merits of the paper—”

  The room grows heavy with a verdict. I can’t decide if they pity me or despise me or both.

  A man’s voice emerges. “We do acknowledge that we have some responsibility, as we ought to have been more careful,” he says.

  I look up and see the man, his lips drawn together tightly, his white beard floating above a brick-red bow tie. “We should have been meticulous in establishing the extent of your academic . . . er . . . career. Such as it is.”

  He is interrupted by someone delivering copies of my statement. Rik must have printed it out for them. I sit through an excruciating five minutes as the committee reads it.

  “Well, thank you, Miss Adams,” says Dr. Biruk, then puts my statement aside. He is so polite, so respectful, that it makes me feel even worse.

  I wish they’d just cut to the chase. I already know the answer. It’s obvious all this is a buildup to telling me that I’m disqualified. I want to leave. I would leave, too, if only they’d give me back Lauren’s suitcase, which is now parked at the other end of the room by the door. I glance over to it and see, beside the suitcase, Dr. Munn leaning against the wall, his long legs crossed at the ankles, looking straight at me. If I want to escape, I’ll have to get past Munn, too.

  “I want
to make it clear that we do not consider you wholly to blame,” says Dr. Biruk. He takes in a long breath as though readying himself for something unpleasant.

  Here it comes.

  “We do have one question, first,” interjects Professor Fogg, patting my statement as she speaks. “Were you aware when you applied for the award that you did not qualify, strictly speaking?”

  It is perhaps the worst thing they could ask me. Nothing that I concocted this morning on the metro with Rik provides a satisfactory answer. The statement we wrote only argued that the quality of the work should be the deciding factor, not whether I have a particular degree. But the committee is asking something else entirely, making it a matter of ethics. Was I aware that the award was for those with doctorates? Yes, I was. I recall only too well saying as much to Lauren when she arrived at my house with all her beautiful clothes.

  “I knew,” I say. “The rules state that a PhD cannot have been awarded more than a year ago.”

  “I see,” says Professor Fogg, her words ringing with disappointment.

  “Regrettably, this is what we speculated was the case,” says the man with the freckled scalp.

  “Well then,” sighs Dr. Biruk, stroking his goatee.

  Dr. Munn coughs, then steps forward and pours a glass of water from a jug on the table. Remarkably, he seems to know how thirsty I am and hands me the water.

  “So, you knew that your PhD could not have been awarded more than a year ago?” he says.

  Before this week, nothing could have made me happier than the thought of being in the same place as Dr. Munn, or any number of the other judges and committee members gathered. But now all I feel is shame.

  “I didn’t hear your answer,” says Munn.

  I think of the people outside the room: reporters, radio journalists, a small camera crew. I saw them all as I was hurried inside. Also, Carlos and Helmi, who stood helplessly as I was brought through the crowd. Will, too, who didn’t look as smug as I thought he would. Rik had been with me at the start, of course. But he peeled off at some point, or was directed away. I try not to think of him now.

  “Yes, sir,” I say. “That’s correct.”

  He pauses. I can feel him looking at me, feel the whole of the room staring. It seems so unnecessary. They should have let me leave. If I’d been able to say goodbye to Rik and get on a train, I’d be at the airport by now. I try to sip the water, but my hands shake too much.

  Munn breaks the silence. “And was your PhD awarded more than a year ago?” he asks.

  I wonder if he is being purposely cruel. I feel my tongue like a dry log in my mouth. Someone is going to notice my legs shaking.

  “No,” I say.

  “When might it be awarded?”

  My college applications sit unmarked in my bedroom at home. Even if I were able to pay the tuition, which I can’t, even if I could leave my mother, which I can’t, I’d need many years to work my way up to the PhD level. “I don’t know,” I say, staring down at the conference table.

  “Well, why don’t you guess?”

  “If I only have to work part-time while studying, maybe seven years from now.”

  “But in any case, not more than a year ago, correct?”

  Again, the room is silent, awaiting my answer. But this time, it’s different. I’m not worried. I am stunned because now I see what Munn is doing. He’s making a mathematical formula. My PhD is not in the set that includes those PhDs acquired more than a year ago. Very simple, easily proven, an elegant way to say I haven’t cheated. I unfasten my gaze from the table and meet his eyes.

  “You are correct, sir.”

  Munn addresses the others in the room now. “I’d like to remind the committee that unlike many other disciplines, science has an open and democratic character. Legend has it that a sign hung above the entrance to Plato’s Academy. It read, ‘Let no one who is ignorant of mathematics enter here.’ It did not say, ‘Let no one without an advanced degree enter here.’ Mathematics is the barrier through which all great scientists must travel. Miss Adams has certainly crossed that barrier.”

  He pauses now, observing the committee members thoughtfully. “Even with the most pedantic reading of the rules, Miss Adams qualifies,” he says. “That is, if what qualifies someone to enter this prize is that they haven’t completed a PhD more than a year ago as stated by the rules. And Miss Adams has certainly not completed a PhD more than a year ago. We all agree on that, do we not?”

  Again, he pauses, allowing those around the table to take in his argument.

  He walks a few steps, then folds his arms across his chest and says, “So, as long as the committee still agrees that her paper is otherwise the winner, a conclusion is easily drawn. Dr. Biruk, do the judges still agree that Miss Adams’s paper is the best among the applicants in that category?”

  Dr. Biruk looks around the table, apparently reading the faces of the other committee members. “The judges do agree, yes,” he says, then blinks several times. “Perhaps another vote is in order?”

  Munn nods. “I, for one, am willing to extend an invitation to Miss Adams to work at the Mellin Institute. There’s my vote, if you’re asking for it. But I’ll leave it to the committee to make their final judgment,” he says. And with that, he slips out of the room.

  I look at the faces of the committee members. They all appear a bit chastened.

  “Miss Adams, you will be attending college, we hope,” says Dr. Biruk.

  “Yes, sir, as soon as I can, that is,” I say. I don’t say when. I don’t know when. Anyway, I can barely think straight. Did Dr. Munn just announce he was willing to hire me?

  Another of the committee members, a professor from the Karolinska Institute, addresses me. “Have a kanelbulle,” he says, and passes the plate. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “This is cold; let me order some hot coffee,” says Professor Fogg. She’s transformed from the cross-looking, affronted committee member of only a few minutes ago into an almost motherly figure, asking if I need anything more. “Sugar? Cream?”

  “Your parents,” begins a German scientist, “they do know you’re here, correct?”

  I nod.

  “Good,” he says, and grunts. “Very good.”

  And in this manner, with no great fuss, it is decided. An announcement is made. At last, the doors to the conference room are opened and I see Helmi and Carlos standing outside. Someone whispers to them, and I watch as their faces light up. They come rushing toward me. There will be no more accusations, no worries about the prize. The committee members, too, seem relieved that the burden of a decision is over. They hadn’t even found it necessary to disgrace anyone. They are out of their seats in seconds, exiting the room like horses running to pasture. Suddenly, it’s only me and Carlos and Helmi at the long wooden table. I slip off my wet shoes, pull my feet up under me in the chair, and accept a kiss on the head from Carlos, a hug from Helmi.

  I think, not for the first time, that there is something magical about Stockholm, about the Grand Hôtel, about the lore of Nobel. All the inhospitable hours that scientists give the work they love, the vast brain power, the sheer effort of the laureates who have graced these same rooms, bring extra oxygen to the air. I tell Helmi it’s okay now, not to worry. I hand Carlos a kanelbulle, then bite into one of my own. I feel for the first time the true elation of a prizewinner. I am with friends; these are my people, my tribe. The kanelbulle is as delicious as I remember from the first time I had one. As is the coffee, when it arrives.

  Part Two

  Lab Rat

  If we knew what we were doing it would not be called research, would it?

  —ALBERT EINSTEIN

  10

  THE PRIZE MONEY covers our debt to Biba. We even have enough left over to pay the notices that are coming in the mail with “Urgent” stamped in red ink.

  But without a regular income, the prize money can only go so far. I know our debts will eventually mount up again. Biba knows this, too. He ri
des up on his motorcycle as I’m leaving, blocking my car so I can’t pull out of the space.

  “We’re okay for money right now,” I say through my open car window. I hate that I have to be civil to this jerk.

  He pays no attention, sauntering over with a look of weary resentment on his face. “For your own good I’m telling you this,” he begins. “Don’t work for that Munn.”

  What man? I think. Then I realize he means Dr. Munn.

  “People I know will not like it,” he continues.

  I want to ask him what people. Ever since the red-haired man I’ve felt uneasy. And how does he even know about Munn’s job offer? It was made only once, in front of the committee members back in Stockholm, and I haven’t heard anything since.

  “But . . . why not?” I say.

  “You won’t understand.”

  I might tell him I understand all sorts of things, but the truth is, I don’t want to prolong any conversation. The guy is dangerous. I wish he’d just go away and leave us alone. But I know that won’t happen. He’ll be around again, offering my mother another of his overpriced loans.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t lend my mother any more money,” I say. He raises an eyebrow as though he finds my intrusion into his business with my mother both amusing and stupid. “I mean, I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Now I take orders from you?” he says, disgusted. “You are completely ignorant.”

  So are you, I think as he returns to his motorcycle. You don’t even wear a helmet.

  He climbs aboard, keeping his eyes hard upon me. He makes a little kiss shape with his lips as he starts the engine.

  “No job with Munn,” he says, revving up the engine so that it sends fumes into my face. Then he speeds away.

  Lauren calls. She says there’s a documentary about to start. An “absolute must-see!” she says. It’s about a type of bird that cunningly deceives other birds into feeding and caring for its growing babies and that we have to watch it.

  “Edge-of-seat stuff,” she says, which I’m not entirely sure I believe. But I tell my mother, and she flicks to the channel.