An Imperfect Lens

by Anne Richardson Roiphe

  Albert patted his father on the shoulder. “I’ve learned from you,” he said, “not to be so solemn. Nine commandments are more than enough.”

  Albert pocketed the funds and stored them in his shaving kit, where he assumed they would rest peacefully until needed.

  “YOU MUST COME downstairs to your father’s office right now,” said the Arab boy as he raced into the drawing room. “Your father wants you now.”

  Este was sitting at a small desk, about to write a letter to her brother, telling him of her engagement. She had never before been summoned to her father’s office. She followed the Arab boy down the stairs and through the back door to her father’s surgery. He led her into one of the small rooms. Dr. Malina was there, standing over a table on which lay a woman, an older Arab woman, the woman who had been Este’s nurse until just a few years ago. The woman was hardly recognizable, her features had sunk back in her head, her legs were stained with brown matter. Her gray hair was matted. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her hands were shaking. It was Noona. Este cried out.

  “Be calm.” Dr. Malina took his daughter’s hand in his own. “She asked for you. She wanted to see you. You must be brave.” He would have liked to protect his daughter from this grief, from the sight and the smell in the room. But he knew that the woman who had held his daughter in the night, who had been the first to teach her to say yes and no and thank you and please, this woman had a right to see the child who was no longer a child, who wasn’t her child but was her child. He had no choice but to call for Este. Noona had come to his office a few hours before. She had waited patiently in the waiting room, but then she had been in great pain and screamed, and the boy had taken her into this room and it was clear there was nothing he could do.

  “Papa,” said Este, in a voice so small that she might have been a tiny child again.

  “Nothing,” he said. He could see in her eyes her disappointment in him.

  “Noona,” said Este, “you’ll be all right, Papa will help.” Noona did not believe her. She stroked Este’s arm. “My darling,” she said. “My darling.”

  Este said, “Papa, call the boy, let’s clean the floor.”

  “Not yet,” said her father. “We will have more to clean before it’s over.”

  “Stay,” whispered Noona.

  Este had not thought of leaving. She thought of waiting at night in the dark for Noona’s footsteps to approach her bed. She thought of Noona tying her hair ribbon in the morning. She thought of Noona telling her stories from the village where she herself had grown up. Stories about cats that changed into girls, and fish that learned to talk. “Noona,” she said, “don’t die.”

  Dr. Malina put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder. He had to go back to his other patients. After he left, Este let her tears come. Also, she was angry.

  Later, when two boys came and took away the empty shell that had been Noona, and Este had recovered from her first shock, she opened the door to her father’s office. “What is it, what brought it, how is this possible?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  She ran into the street without her hat, although the sun was high in the sky. She went to the European Hospital, to the laboratory of the French scientists. She went alone, without a companion. She didn’t care if anyone saw her.

  In the laboratory, Nocard was mixing bowel matter with grain for dog food. Emile was boiling water he brought back in a jug from the café so they could safely drink. The heat in the room was oppressive. There was no point in starting a fire in the oven until it was needed. Louis bit down on his pipe stem. He tried to imagine his foe. It was tiny, of course, not visible to the naked eye, but it surely had a form, a mite’s form, an insect’s form, means of digesting something, means to divide itself, or mate with others of its kind. He stopped himself. He should not imagine his foe too closely or he would be looking for the wrong thing and miss it altogether. Nothing must be assumed until it was demonstrated. He knew that. If only the lens of his instrument were better, could enlarge one thousand times further, then no secrets could be kept from his peering eye. If only was not the way a scientist should think.

  Louis Thuillier knew that the space he walked in, the food he ate, the gums of his teeth, the bruise in the peach he had left in the bowl three days before, all were teeming with creatures that gnawed and consumed parts of things, other things, made yellow what was red, made pus where clear skin had been. What Louis knew was that no matter how benign the morning, sun shining on green leaves and blue water sparkling at the landscape’s edge, something unseen was killing something else unseen and using its body for fuel. It wasn’t just human beings that needed to eat, but all living creatures, those you saw and those you didn’t. A sailboat riding the ocean’s waves, a branch of a tree floating down a river, all looked peaceful to the poor, inept human eye, but underneath the water, on the ridge of the leaf, on the blade of grass, something was dying in the mouth of something else and all creation was consumed in a continual munching and destroying, eating and eliminating and eating again, and the eating was not harmless or sweet or ceremonial or symbolic, neither wholesome nor sanctified, but simply constant. One thing lived because another thing died. No wonder Pasteur rarely smiled.

  Microbes don’t think, have souls, fear death, or regret their past, so their fate doesn’t matter, shouldn’t concern the superior human mind at all. But as Louis considered the matter, he wondered if perhaps all living things didn’t have some pleasure in sliding along, in lifting wings, in guzzling dirt, in moving filaments, in letting rain and sun touch their skins. Was their death, the death of even invisible creatures, of no matter at all? These were thoughts no man should ever tell another man, for fear of ridicule. Louis ridiculed himself.

  These peculiar thoughts were taking him away from action, and what he needed to do was act. Emile was boiling beakers, pincers, slides, cups. Louis left the laboratory, walking down hospital corridors in which visitors leaned against walls, an Arab child was mopping the floor, and a small lizard hung from the doorframe of the stairwell entrance. Louis found his way out and went for a walk. Perhaps if his legs moved, his mind would clear.

  He walked from the promontory of Silsileh, where Cleopatra had killed herself in her barge when Antony returned after his defeat at sea. He walked past the docks where Pompey had disembarked, hoping for the friendship of the Ptolemy children, whose agent plunged a knife in his back as he stepped ashore. Louis walked past the corner where, in the time of the Ptolemies, the Mouseion had stood. Once, behind its walls, there had been a park and a zoo. All the knowledge of the ancient world had been stored inside its great library. In its study rooms were philosophers and scientists and astronomers and poets, albeit mostly bad poets, and it was there, in the third century B.C., that the scientist Eratosthenes had dissected a small desert rat. It was there that he’d almost uncovered the way blood circulates through the veins. He had measured the earth at the Mouseion observatory. He’d drawn almost accurate maps of the world. The scientists at the Mouseion knew that the world was round a thousand years before Columbus set sail. It was there that Euclid’s works were collected and preserved. There were the scrolls of Theocritus, Callimachus, Plotinus, and Hypatia. It was there that magic and superstition were held at bay by human minds eager to understand the curious circumstances of their earthbound lives.

  This did not help Louis at all. The spirit of Eratosthenes did not tap him on the shoulder and whisper in his ear. He was on his own.

  He saw an archway down at the end of a narrow street, so narrow the sun barely entered and the air was cooler. The street reminded him of the rue St.-Denis in Amiens, behind his lycée, where the boys would go to smoke before the bell. He turned into that street. Above his head a woman leaned out a window and threw the contents of her pail down below. The foul-smelling water splashed up at Louis but did not touch him. He went on.

  His step was fast. The warm wind from the ocean stroked his face and blew his hair about. He walked quickly past
the mosque at the corner and noticed the intricate iron vines that looped around the now-closed gate. How long it must have taken for someone to have made that gate. How many days or perhaps years it must have taken, and it was worth it, look at it. He almost paused but did not.

  Back in the laboratory he tapped his foot, he bit his lip. He waited for more ideas to come to him.

  There was a knocking at the metal door. Louis opened the door to find Este standing there, her shawl pulled over her shoulders as if she suffered from a chill. Her pale face looked up at him. “May I come in?” she asked in a small voice. He nodded. She walked over to the laboratory table. “Tell me about the cholera. How are you looking for it?” Her manner was neither polite nor rude, she was simply intent on answers. She had many questions. Why is the cholera in Alexandria? How did it get here? Why are you sure it is some living creature that is causing this? Can you prevent it? Can you cure it? When you find the small thing, will you know how to kill it?

  Louis answered her questions one after another. He was ashamed at how often he had no answer.

  “What is this?” she asked, pointing to the autoclave, and he explained it to her. “What is this, what are these?” she asked, and he explained the plates set out in a row, where he would try to grow something from the matter of cholera victims. “May I look?” she asked when he explained about the lens and the small size of the enemy and the need to distinguish its shape from all the other living shapes that moved across the lens. He brought over a high stool so that she could peer down and see the glass he prepared for her, just water with something swimming in it, moving back and forth across the surface. He had placed his hands on her waist, naturally, to help her climb on the stool, so intent was he in helping her to see. But then an instant later he was embarrassed. This was not right. He felt her ribs through the material of her dress. He blushed. She was not thinking about his hands. Este had trouble with the microscope. She saw her own eyelashes, dark and long, flickering in the reflection. Louis leaned over her shoulder, inhaled a smell of coconut and sesame oil, and adjusted the lens for her. He slipped another slide under the lens. At last she saw the living thing crawling across the lens. She turned toward him, amazed. “How wonderful, Monsieur Thuillier!” she said. Este put her hand on his shoulder. “You are a real adventurer,” she said. Louis blushed to the tips of his ears. Este saw his blush and knew exactly what it meant.

  Roux took Este to the back of the laboratory and showed her the animals in their cages. “Oh, the poor puppies,” said Este.

  “We must defend our species,” he said.

  Este was not entirely convinced. Louis had little patience with people who shed tears over the lives of beasts. Este heard his unspoken criticism.

  “You have to sacrifice them, I understand,” said Este. “I want to see more,” she said to Louis. “Please, I want to see more.”

  “I have to work,” he said. The words were short, but his voice was kind.

  “Let me stay and help,” she said.

  “There is nothing you can do,” he said.

  “I’ll watch you,” she said. “I’ll learn.”

  Louis hesitated.

  “Of course she can stay,” Roux called out from across the room. “Just don’t touch anything without asking, and stop talking so we can think.”

  Este nodded. Louis looked at her across the table. He sighed. Would she interrupt his train of thought? Would she make ignorant comments and drive him mad with constant questions? Why had Roux been so agreeable? Louis looked at her black hair, a strand now loose and falling over her eyes, eyes still red-rimmed from tears. “I thought,” said Louis, “you were interested in poetry, not chemistry.”

  That was then, this is now, Este thought. She said nothing.

  Nocard staggered through the small door holding two large cages, in one of which ten rats had been placed. It had cost something to pay the little boys down on the docks to capture the rats alive, as Nocard had insisted. He had to go first to the consul, wait for two hours for the secretary to see him, and then wait while an allowance of funds was produced from the account that the ministry had set up for its scientists. In the other cage was a kitten curled in a ball, barely alive.

  “You remember Este Malina,” said Roux. “She wants to watch us awhile.”

  Nocard nodded, put out his hand to shake Este’s, decided that might not be right, patted her on the shoulder instead, grinned at her. He hoped he hadn’t made a fool of himself. He assumed Roux had agreed to the girl’s presence to enhance the mission’s friendship with necessary and useful friends. Nocard left.

  An hour later, there was a banging of metal against the wall, a low howling, and Nocard reappeared in the doorway pulling a wooden cart with wheels. On the cart was a large cage in which a brown dog was snarling and whining and drooling. The dog was frightened, as well he might have been. Nocard was pleased with his find. “A stray down by the lake, some boys were throwing stones at him. He was hungry. I gave him some of my bread. I caught him with a rope. Look at him,” he said. “Strong muscles, good coat, not sick. He will serve us well.” Emile came over to look at him. Louis turned his head away. He did not like to see the panting and the heaving of the chest. He did not like to see the dog’s eyes searching the room with terror. He did not like the smell of the dog, which had soiled its cage. But he accepted the dog as a necessity. They would, as soon as they were able, give the animal cholera, and when the dog sickened they would have material to work with.

  Emile bent down to the cage. “What is this lump behind his ear?” he asked Nocard.

  Nocard bent over too. “It could be a healed bite, from another stray,” said Nocard. “It could be an additional bone in the skull.”

  “Is it a wound?” asked Emile. “I think I see some blood beneath the fur. Is it infected? We need to know.”

  “I’m not sure,” said Edmond.

  The animal was pacing back and forth. He was whining a low, terrified whine and occasionally opened his mouth and cried. He barked and snarled and backed away as far as he could when Edmond tried to put his hand into the cage to feel the lump. “We have to take him out,” he said.

  Emile opened the door of the cage, and Nocard was putting the rope on the dog’s neck when he leapt forward, knocking Nocard down. His glasses fell on the cement and broke into three pieces. The rope lay on the floor, useless. Este backed up against the wall. She did not scream or call out. The dog was larger than he had seemed in the cage. He snarled. He stood there. Edmond, blinded without his glasses, started to rise from the floor. The dog stood over him, growling a long, low growl. Emile rushed to the oven to get the iron shovel. The dog lunged at Edmond, who threw his hands up to protect his face. Louis bent over and forcefully pushed Nocard out of the way. Louis stood before the dog, which now rushed at him, sinking his teeth into his knee. Nocard stumbled to his feet. Louis knocked the brass gas lamp off the table and it fell in front of the dog, which, startled, paused a second, releasing Louis’s flesh. In that second Louis moved behind the table. Edmond recovered his rope. The dog, confused, stood still and Emile had no need to use his shovel. Este saw that Louis was a brave man. She said nothing. She had not uttered a sound, for which all the men were grateful.

  Back in the cage, the dog settled down. He drank some water and curled up in a far corner and went to sleep. “This is not a rabid dog,” said Edmond, who had left his spare glasses in his bedroom, but couldn’t remember exactly where. “The dog,” he said, “was just alarmed.”

  “Reasonably so,” said Louis.

  “Let’s pour some alcohol on that wound,” said Emile. Louis boiled some water and, although it was still hot, swabbed his wound.

  Nocard put alcohol on the bite marks, which were not very deep, hardly a scratch. He said, “This will heal quickly.”

  “Thank you,” said Edmond to Louis. “You saved my handsome face.” Despite the sharp stinging in his knee from the antiseptic, Louis smiled.

  Edmond went to the b
ack of the laboratory to see his other animals. Este went with him, and was asked to tilt the small cage of a rat downward. The rat clawed at the bottom of its cage and slipped and slid into the bars while Edmond poured the urine that then collected in the corner into a container.

  8

  ERIC FORTMAN CLIMBED down the carriage steps, paid the driver, and decided to walk the rest of the way to the Malinas’ home, where he was headed.

  He had just been employed by the Marbourg & Sons importing firm, run by Lydia’s cousin Rudolph. There was no question he would be an asset to the firm. He was on his way to report the good news to Lydia Malina and thank her for her kindness in making it possible for a stranger to begin a new life in a foreign land. He had taken lodgings near his place of work, and now he was certain good fortune was smiling on him once more. He was hoping that when he was ushered into Lydia’s drawing room, her lovely daughter would be there. He had almost taken a wife in Liverpool, but then had decided against the lady in question, who had acne scars across her cheeks that were visible in bright sunlight, and he had thought that in time he might do better and anyway his ship was soon due to embark. This Malina girl was perfectly complex-ioned. He understood she was almost engaged. But engagements could be broken.

  DR. MALINA TRIED to finish with his last patient a little early. In fact he finished rather late. Albert was coming to dinner, along with his father and his sister Phoebe. Albert’s father had sent Dr. Malina a note informing him that Albert had purchased a ring and wished to give it to his intended as soon as possible. The news had made Lydia’s head swim. She had to lie down immediately. This was pleasant news, of course, but it brought home the reality of her daughter’s fate, and actually she had preferred her daydreams to any reality at all. There was no hiding from the passage of time and its necessities, but she was certain that when her daughter left her house she would be doubly bereft.