An Imperfect Lens

by Anne Richardson Roiphe

  What he didn’t know was that Phoebe and Este had long planned this match. It would be a way of altering their friendship into a sisterhood. Phoebe had sung the praises of her brother. Este had been thinking about him long before her body changed, long before she understood what she was thinking and that certain images that intruded on her thoughts had best be kept from her mother, and some even from her friend. “I am ready, Papa,” she said, “whenever you wish.”

  “Six months at least,” said her mother. “I need to prepare. She’s still so young, perhaps we could wait a year?”

  “Eight months,” said Dr. Malina. “I will talk to the rabbi.”

  That night, as she prepared for bed, Este became sad. It was surprising to be sad at such a moment. But there it was. She felt sorry for herself. Her story, her life’s story, the only one she would ever have, was reaching its climax. The plot was coming to a narrative peak. She would marry Albert and abandon childish games and turn to her husband for advice rather than to her mother or father, and she would do as her husband wished and serve the food he liked and do her best to please him, as was her obligation, and all this was fine, just as it should be. He did not seem to be a reader of poetry, but Phoebe said he had a poet’s soul, thinking deep thoughts and feeling everything with a full heart. Phoebe had said that Albert was the kindest boy in the world. Perhaps Albert had a poet’s soul that had not yet found a way to express itself. Perhaps he had an imagination that she would discover as they became closer. But perhaps not. It did make her sad, wasn’t it too soon for her to be married? Did it need to be right now? A deep anxiety touched her, one that was only evaded by sleep—dull, dreamless sleep.

  Through her open window the voice of the muezzin echoed. This call to prayer was not for her. The moon hung misshapen above the harbor, the ships docked there rocked gently back and forth, the tides moved as tides move, small black insects flew about Este’s sheets, a lost dog howled down the street, and at the club over by the lake, men still played their card games, still called for servants to bring them whiskey and tobacco for their pipes. As the dawn approached, the German scientist, Dr. Koch, sat at his desk, going over again his day’s notes. Down by the docks the sewage leaked into the gutters and someone cried out in pain as a stomach spasm returned, and then was silent and in the silence a life ended. A man vomited near a palm tree, and a blind man walked barefoot in the bile, leaving footsteps in the dust. The heat hung in the air.

  Where the great library of Alexandria had once stood, where the Temple of Apollo had once received worshipers, homes and businesses, courtyards and stables now rested, inside tiled entrances, up stone staircases, rugs lay across marble floors, maids swept, the smells of food rose toward the sky. The fires set by the Muslims so long ago no longer mattered. The burned books no longer mattered. Even last year’s long night of riots that came after the British shelled the city had left little trace behind. Este woke in the morning restored. Her mood had shifted. All she had needed was a good night’s sleep.

  WHICH IS WHY Este Malina was on the edge of being engaged when Louis Thuillier met her at dinner at the French consul’s home. She had not liked the French scientist particularly, and he had found her foolish. Which was fortunate because there could never be anything between them. It wasn’t just Este’s imminent engagement that stood between them, nor was it his own poverty. It was the matter of religion that barred his way. To Dr. Malina, to Dr. Malina’s wife, to the assembled relatives of the Malinas, the Jewish faith was more than a faith, more than a question of traveling to the Jewish quarter and entering the old synagogue at the right times of the year, more than a sentimental affection for the lost city of Jerusalem, where the Malina son was trying to make his way at the moment, more than a matter of solidarity against the viciousness of others. There was a cord that bound them, that nourished them, that kept them with their fellow Jews when they suffered and when they prospered. It was a matter so central to the heart that it could hardly be explained, but was felt. Like the noon heat it entered every organ, every orifice, colored what the eyes saw, pounded in the ears, was taken for granted and yet never taken for granted. Dr. Malina, whose patients came from all quarters of the city, who was a man with few prejudices, was not open on this subject.

  5

  ERIC FORTMAN NEEDED a berth on a steamer sailing for England. He needed funds to book his space, for food and drink and lodging, and he needed to send a telegram to the owners of the bottles full of whiskey he had been bringing to Alexandria, hoping to guide them through the customs office before the Muslim customs officers could confiscate them. He needed to send his company a telegram reporting the loss of their shipment. It was a mournful prospect. He would not be hailed as a hero in Liverpool, although the ship’s misfortune was none of his doing. What could he do? He could do accounts. He was a good salesman. He was a sturdy traveler. He enjoyed making a profit for his company. He could slip money into the right hands at the right time. It might be months before the company would wire him funds for a return passage, and in fact they might simply ignore him. He had heard that a man of even higher rank in the office had been taken by pirates and the ransom was never paid and the man’s left ear was sent to the office in a small wooden box, where it was immediately discarded with the rubbish.

  Walking through the market near Babel Gedid Station, Eric caught sight of himself in a shop window. He needed a shave, and his mustache was ragged, but his height was impressive. He could count on his face to win him friends, at least among women, and his teeth were still perfect and his body strong. His eyes were black. He smiled at his reflection in the window and it smiled back. He had a dimple in his chin. Women always exclaimed over his dimple. He was, in fact, very acceptable, although what good that would do him in this city at the end of the earth was hard to see. He was young, not so young as to be spindly or awkward, but young enough to expect large things from his single life. Now he was lost in thought, desperate thoughts that could make a man impervious to those in front of him, which was how he collided with Este Malina’s mother, Lydia, who, with her servant trailing behind, was selecting the ripest fruits, the softest dates, the fish most recently caught, for her dinner table. Her servant picked up a large bass caught that morning in Lake Mariout. “No,” said Lydia. “I’d rather have two smaller ones.” The large fish was thrown back on the pile. Alien microbes clung to drops of water under its left gill. Eric Fortman apologized and apologized again to the woman he had nearly knocked off her feet. He explained his absentmindedness, his rumpled appearance, his entire predicament to the most sympathetic lady he had ever seen, whose dark eyes were both maternal and alluring and seemed to him like a pair of lighthouses, directing the ship to its proper berth.

  “What a tragedy, what a catastrophe,” said Mrs. Malina, allowing her slight smile to show that she believed that all could be put right. Which was how Eric Fortman found himself walking along rue Memphis with the servant a few steps behind and telling his new friend all about the wonders of birds seen at sea who seem never to alight but always to float on drafts of air. “Ah,” said Mrs. Malina, “I wouldn’t mind being such a bird myself.” It was not surprising, then, that he found himself in a room in the Malina house, changing into borrowed clothes (a son departed for other parts) that did not quite fit, feeling, if not at ease, at least comforted. He was distressed that he did not have even one bottle of Glen MacAlan scotch to offer in return for his dinner.

  LOUIS THUILLIER WALKED down the street and nearly stepped on a small boy with flies stuck to his eyes, which seemed to be oozing a yellow pus. The child held out his hand and mumbled. Louis did not understand his words, but what was the need of that? He would have given the child a coin, but he didn’t want to step closer. Instead he hurried off, eager to forget the lines of dirt in the small extended hand. In the alley he saw the coconut shells and fish heads of a discarded meal and a brown fluid that smelled of human waste running like a slow stream across the cobblestones. He saw a woman with no tee
th and a bent back moving toward the corner, carrying a bundle of sticks. He saw a woman with a naked baby in her arms, with a scar across her cheek and a soiled apron. He had seen the men in Paris living beneath the bridges. He had seen the old crone in his hometown who hissed at the children and seemed to have a beard. He had seen misfortune and calamity, but never before had he been in a place where the air smelled so unclean and the dark looks and hollow eyes and scabby skins seemed so open, so insistent, so common. Someone, he thought, should be taking care of these people. Where were the street sweepers, the lamplighters, the Sisters of Mercy, the signs of compassion that keep most of the starving out of sight. Where were the hospitals and the doctors to aid the poor. Here was a city by the sea in which all was washed clean, from which Darwin had claimed life itself began, and here everything was soiled, things left where they were dropped. He stepped across a mound of feces left by a horse or a donkey. Wash yourself, he wanted to yell at a little girl who was sucking on her fingers. Ya, ya, came the call of a donkey boy urging his beast to move faster.

  WHEN HE RETURNED to the hotel, he joined Roux and Nocard at a table in the garden. Roux was holding his beard tightly, a sign of trouble. Nocard was trying to coax a starling from a nearby bush to come a little closer. Roux handed a telegram to Thuillier.

  KOCH HAS SENT WORD TO THE SCIENCE ACADEMY IN BERLIN THAT HE IS MAKING PROGRESS. ARE YOU ALSO? SPEED ESSENTIAL. PASTEUR.

  Louis read the telegram. He bit his lip. He refilled his pipe and cradled the bowl in his hands.

  Even under the central fan in the hotel lobby, he felt the Alexandrian summer heat. It was in his ears and made his mouth dry and his fingers stiff and his palms wet. His eyes were rimmed with dust, and his black hair was damp across his forehead. “This stupid country,” he said. “It’s filthy.”

  Nocard took one of his big hands and patted Louis on the shoulder. “There are worse,” he said.

  Louis puffed at his pipe. “I will never again leave France.”

  In the kitchen of the hotel, the fourth assistant to the cook was pouring scalding water over the silverware. She splashed a spoonful on her arm and put down her bucket to look at the small burn mark that appeared on her skin. Then she removed a knife and fork from the sink, thinking they had been washed along with the plate that accompanied them. In fact they had simply been cleaned almost to perfection by the person who had eaten his breakfast sausage hours earlier. The silverware was placed in a large drawer. The plate was stacked in a wire crib.

  ALBERT HAD NOT been invited, although this made no difference to Louis, who did not know that Albert existed and would not have cared that Albert hovered over the table, the way the future always inserts itself into the present, invisibly but insistently. Louis was seated next to Dr. Malina. The chairman of the committee, a Dr. Fochere, wanted reports of all deaths as soon as possible. But there was a certain lack of interest in the paperwork this involved, and sometimes the family of the deceased claimed the death was due to other causes, and the funeral homes could be persuaded, for a very small gratuity, to keep a secret. Therefore no accurate account of cholera in Alexandria was possible. Nevertheless, a chart that hung on the wall of the committee’s meeting room, which was at the rear of the Finance Ministry building, clearly showed a line moving upward on a graph, upward like a rearing snake.

  The doctor wanted to know what Louis thought about burning all the clothing and bedding of the infected. Would that perhaps confine the cholera, starve the cholera, send it out of Alexandria? They had tried this method of controlling the epidemic in New York, but no one was certain whether it had been effective. Louis had no idea, but didn’t want to say exactly that. “First,” he said, “we need to find the cholera. Then we will understand it better, learn its habits.”

  “Your method?” asked Dr. Malina.

  “We will inject substances of infected matter into our animals until one of them sickens with the disease.”

  “That will take a long time,” said Dr. Malina.

  Louis looked at Este, across the table. He noticed a mark on her left shoulder. It was a scar from a childhood fall off her brother’s shoulders. He noticed that her nose was not entirely straight, but that a slight rise in the bone gave it a very distinct slope.

  “Have you seen anyone die of cholera?” Dr. Malina asked.

  “No,” said Louis. “In Paris we have no cholera, and even so, I am rarely away from my workbench.”

  “Ah, then,” said Dr. Malina, “here you will see it without doubt.”

  “I would like to see the soul leave the body,” Este said. “Do you believe in the soul? Papa, have you seen the soul?”

  “That’s a large question,” he said. He had not seen the soul, but he had seen the body foul with disease, crippled with pain, bald where hair should be, hair where skin should be clean, with rashes and odors and bruises and blisters, gashed and gnawed, genitals mutilated, breasts erupting in stinking sores. He had long ago abandoned any interest in the soul, the thing that might float away, slide out of the throat, slip between the dry lips and emerge to dance in the clouds, or haunt the living, or find its just reward. He himself was uninterested in the soul, and thought it a woman’s invention.

  Este asked the same question of Louis.

  He shook his head. “I’ve never seen the soul,” he said.

  Este considered his words. The man is boring, she decided. Her first impression had been correct. He only believes in what he sees. How unlucky that such a dullard as this should arrive at her table from Paris, a city she imagined as burning brightly with wit as well as the latest fashion and the best theater, a city where great poets were sending loops of wondrous language across the tables of aristocrats. How disappointing it was to have Monsieur Thuillier as a dinner guest. She made one more try. “I am very fond of the poems of Monsieur Baudelaire. What do you think of them?”

  “I do not know them,” Louis said.

  “Pity,” said Este.

  A foolish young girl, Louis thought, pleasant enough to look at, but not intelligent.

  “What instruments will you use in your search?” Dr. Malina asked the young scientist by his side, as the fish was passed to him on a platter decorated with nuts and currants and smelling finely of cumin and coriander. Louis began to describe the autoclave and the filter Pasteur had especially designed. This did not interest Este.

  “Were you safe away in the countryside when the British shelled Alexandria?” Emile asked his host.

  “No,” said Dr. Malina. “We hid in our houses. We shuttered the windows.”

  Mrs. Malina added, “We put our hands over our ears. It was not happy, believe me. The riot afterward was worse.”

  Este said, “My brother went on a ship to Palestine before the British fleet appeared in the harbor. We were all very worried until we heard from him.”

  Eric Fortman said, “I hear Palestine is a swamp. In Amsterdam once I shared a table at dinner with a fellow whose ship was carrying dates from Palestine to Portugal. He said the place was hot as hell, the desert was ugly, the trees were scrawny, and the people, like their donkeys, were covered with dust.”

  Este laughed. “That’s probably true enough,” she said. “My brother wants us all to come and live there, and says that the land is the most beautiful in all the world, which in fact he has seen practically none of.”

  “Enough, Este,” said Mrs. Malina. No one understands how a mother feels when a son departs and and no longer sits at the table with his parents and no longer sings in the hallway, or teases the bird in his cage or calls for the servants to bring him a particular shirt. The way one misses a child cannot be spoken of, not whispered to the father in the night, not told to the cook in the kitchen, because the words fall so short of the feeling, the feeling of missing. Lydia Malina consoled herself with the thought that if she became a widow she would pack all her possessions and follow her son to Jerusalem, and would he want her then? It didn’t matter. She would go.

  Roux turned th
e subject back to the reason for the French mission’s presence in Alexandria. “Are you seeing more cholera in one part of the city than in others?” he asked Dr. Malina. There was a sudden silence at the table. Everyone wanted to hear the answer.

  “The deaths are concentrated in the area down by the docks, and there are many in the Arab town, but there are also cases in our section here, and in all the neighborhoods by the lake and down by the old fort.”

  “In other words,” said Lydia Malina, “we are not safe anywhere in this city.” She was startled by her own voice. A wave of fear washed over her.

  The same wave soaked all at the table. No one stirred. No one said anything. Everyone wanted to jump up from the table, to avoid the place where the fear had settled on them. Lydia Malina considered her own funeral. She heard her daughter sobbing above her coffin. She hoped she was wearing her purple gown. She hoped her daughter was sensible enough not to bury her with her ruby brooch. She saw her husband’s grieving face in her mind’s eye. It was hard, a very hard moment, although it occurred only in her imagination. Everyone sat perfectly still.

  “Papa,” said Este, “what can we do so we won’t get the sickness?”

  Another man might have said, Pray. Still another might have said, Take the boat to Istanbul. A third might have said that her fears were exaggerated, most everyone would be fine, but Dr. Malina said calmly, “This is the world we live in. We share it with cholera.”

  “That’s intolerable,” said Lydia.

  “Yes, it is,” said Dr. Malina. “But, my dear, don’t we have a dessert to serve with this meal?”