An Imperfect Lens

by Anne Richardson Roiphe

  Louis himself had no desire to travel. He wanted simply to uncover the workings of fluids and microbes and chemicals, and there was enough to discover in one room for a man to satisfy his curiosity for a lifetime, maybe several lifetimes. “Travel can be dangerous,” he said.

  “Oh, I know,” said Este. “But staying home can be dangerous, too.”

  She was thinking of cholera. He knew she was thinking of cholera. Louis said to her, surprising himself with the force of his words, which seemed to come out without his permission, “You will be all right.”

  He looked down. He was afraid he had made her angry by asserting something he could not possibly know for certain.

  He had not, but she changed the subject quickly. “Tell me how the swine fever kills pigs.”

  “I will,” he said, and went over to the table and opened the small doors to the autoclave’s lower level, revealing the gas tubes that heated the shelves. She waited for him to return to her side.

  Another bat flew down above their heads. It spread its black wings, supported by their tiny bones, and moved its almost square head, with its yellow, flat eyes, from side to side. What role did bats play in the spread of cholera? They didn’t seem to sicken themselves, but perhaps they brought the disease to the streets in their droppings. Louis sent Marcus out to get a net. He wanted to catch a bat and open its brain. He wanted to find its droppings and put them under his microscope. Este had a sudden strong desire to see how the bat’s tongue was connected to the back of its throat. She was not thinking of Albert, his ring, or her wedding.

  THAT NIGHT MRS. Malina was undressing in the privacy of their bedroom. With the shuttered windows open and the stars outside sliding across the sky in orderly procession, the moonlight settling across the waters of Lake Mariout, and the sound of the sea pounding against the jetty on the Western Harbor, she said to her husband, “I think it would be wise to find out if Albert has any debts that might be dragging him down. I think you should make an effort to find out if the young man is a gambler or perhaps was already keeping a woman. It would be a tragedy for your daughter if he turned out to be less than we had hoped.”

  Dr. Malina was barely listening. He was thinking that it would be a good idea to send his wife and daughter out of Alexandria until the cholera had departed. He was thinking about asking his aunt to house them at the country place, away from the ports and the smells of the city. He was thinking about a woman he had seen in his service that very morning with a cyst in her breast that had broken through the skin and would surely kill her before the month was out, and he had nothing to give her that might save her life. He was thinking that if his own wife should die, he would mourn her so profoundly that he himself would die, which would be a relief, only of course he wouldn’t feel the relief because he would be dead.

  His wife went on talking about Albert and a possible connection to some theft or some disgrace or other. His mind was on his son. He would send more banknotes to Jerusalem as soon as he could arrange the funds. He had no sentimental attachment to Jerusalem. He was concerned about hostile natives. He was uneasy with the distance that separated him from his child. He had heard of the malaria that had appeared in the spring in the hills beyond Mount Scopus. He wanted his son to come home. But this was not yet possible. Lydia Malina was still talking about Albert when he returned his attention to the present. “Come to bed,” he said. He wanted to hold her, to feel her body press against his. What would happen after that was also a good thing.

  “What is the matter with you?” he said to his wife. “Why are you suddenly alarmed about Albert? We have known this family all our lives. The boy is hardworking, energetic, intelligent. We attended his mother’s funeral. We should be sending money to the poor in gratitude that our daughter has accepted his proposal. What if she were sullen or difficult or had in mind a penniless poet or, worse, a Muslim or a Greek? Why are you looking for trouble?”

  Lydia Malina began to weep. At first these were silent tears, but then they changed into little gasps, and the tears became sobs and the sobs racked her body.

  “For God’s sake,” said Dr. Malina, “what is the matter?”

  She hadn’t meant to tell him, wanting to be sure, wanting to think the matter through by herself before his voice reached into every corner of her mind. But she told him. “The ring Albert gave Este, that ring is not a good ring. It’s very flawed. He gave her a ring fit for the daughter of a furniture polisher, not for the daughter of the Malina household, not for your daughter.”

  What a fuss about nothing, thought Dr. Malina. “It’s just a ring,” he said. “It’s not a sign of his character or a sign that their life together will be impoverished. How can it be impoverished? He is a banker. His father is an architect. The family gives to the synagogue and to the hospital and every year to the fund for crippled children, and they support the burial society. Phoebe is our daughter’s best friend. What difference does the quality of the ring make?” Women, he thought, and not for the first time, were trapped in the surface of things, in the appearance of beauty and the appearance of morality. They reasoned like cats. One minute brushing against your thigh, the next preening in the sun, and after that running away. Women were unbearable burdens on a man’s existence. He turned his back and opened the doors to the terrace and went out. Lydia wept on. She followed him out on the terrace.

  “It’s a deceit,” she managed to say. “It’s a dishonesty. It’s a very bad sign.”

  From her bedroom, Este heard her mother’s voice. She knew that her mother was sobbing, even if she could not make out each sob. She heard the anger in her father’s voice, but was unable to make out the exact words. She rushed to her mirror and reassured herself that nothing had changed in her features. She was still herself. The room felt larger and she felt afraid, afraid in her own room. Afraid of what? Nothing, she told herself.

  In the early morning she had a dream that she forgot the instant her eyes opened. In her dream she roamed an empty laboratory, running her fingers over the tables, peering in the lens at small forms swimming in cultures. She heard the sound of a dog barking and the scuffling sounds of rabbits in their cages. She was calm.

  NOCARD WAS STILL asleep in his bed, Roux was writing a letter that he wanted to post early to Paris, informing Pasteur of their efforts, so far unsuccessful, when, at the breakfast table, Este noticed that her mother’s eyes were all swollen and her face looked bloated, the result of tears. But she also noticed that the argument was over. No one was angry. All was well. This was because Dr. Malina had agreed to discuss the matter with Albert’s father. He had agreed despite his fear that he would be seen as grasping for a higher-quality engagement ring for his daughter for his own mercenary purposes, but he knew that the matter had to be settled. If it was a mistake of some sort, it could be resolved easily. Women, he thought to himself as he looked at his wife and daughter. They needed his protection. Unreasonably, this thought gave him considerable pleasure, and he ran it through his mind again and again as he walked down the stairs and across the courtyard to his surgery.

  There an envelope awaited him, delivered by a messenger from the Committee of Public Safety, reporting an upswing in cholera deaths in the two preceding days. The numbers for the entire country were alarming. In all of Egypt there were now 58,000 dead from cholera since the beginning of the epidemic. Most of the deaths had been in Damietta and Cairo, but the weekly numbers in Alexandria were rising. The outbreak seemed most severe in the Râs el Tin neighborhood, where, centuries ago, the small village of Rakoutis had stood, its inhabitants living off the fruits of the sea and weaving grass for the roof of their huts. But some of the cholera deaths were in the Jewish neighborhood and some were in the houses along the lake where the British government officials themselves lived. The envelope was marked Private, and the instructions on the inner page included burning the message. The government did not want to cause panic, although it wasn’t the government causing alarm but rather the disease itself, a dist
inction governments never grasp.

  Louis was walking about in the first light of morning as the shops were pulling back their curtains and the newspaper was being delivered by bicycle to the cafés and the pale light of the day had not yet become heavy. The stones of the buildings were yellowed and their edges still soft, and the sounds of the muezzin echoed through all of Alexandria from the large mosque on Nebi Daniel, and the women of the city were throwing basins of dirty water in the streets, and the dogs were stirring themselves to begin their wanderings, and the destroyed Pharos, nothing left of its grandeur, was suffering the indignity of weeds springing to life among its fallen bricks. Three British soldiers were sitting at a table of a still unopened café. They had the morning papers in front of them. The wheels of the donkey carts began to roll over the stones and the drivers called out to their beasts and the fishmongers were down at the docks making their choices from among the day’s catch. The barrels of cotton waited on the dock for the porters to haul them aboard waiting ships. The schoolchildren in their uniforms walked down the stairs and out the doors of their houses and the bells of the churches rang and the seagulls cawed into the air and sat turning their heads from side to side along the jetty waiting for the sun to rise higher in the sky. Louis quickened his step. Had he seen Este rounding the corner? When he turned in to the next street, he could see that he had been mistaken. It was another young woman, pulling by the hand a child he hadn’t noticed. He was disappointed.

  Later that morning, Este was turning the microscope’s eyepiece around, trying to get a clearer view of the glass beneath. There was something moving there. As the focus came clear, she recognized the moving thing. It was not cholera. It was of no interest at all. She now knew the names of the living creatures that were harmless but nevertheless crawled about in the cultures they made, the brews they mixed.

  “Do you miss Paris?” she asked Louis as he filled his pipe, standing by the shelf on which the bottles of dye rested. She believed that Paris was the center of the universe, where everything worthwhile was born and flourished. “Here in Alexandria,” she said, “we’re so out of date.”

  “The Paris of fashionable people, I don’t live there,” Louis said, his voice curt, almost unfriendly.

  “Do you have a family in your country?” Este asked.

  Louis nodded.

  “Ah, families,” said Este, “they do have their opinions, opinions that quite limit what a person can do.”

  “On my last visit home, I didn’t tell my mother where I was going,” Louis said. “She would have been afraid for me.”

  “Naturally,” said Este. “I would be afraid for my son, too, if I had one who left for a far place to find a terrible disease that was waiting for him there.”

  “And if you were a scientist, what would you do?” asked Louis.

  Este didn’t pause. “Go, whatever anyone said,” she answered. “I would go to the very ends of the earth.” She laughed at herself.

  “Maybe I am not so brave as all that. But I would have gone with my brother to Palestine if they had let me. But they wouldn’t let me and I didn’t go, at least not yet.”

  “I’m not brave,” he said. “I have obligations that have nothing to do with bravery. Don’t think I am something I’m not.”

  “I hardly know you,” Este said, “but your work is important.”

  There was a silence between them. Anippe had fallen asleep in the far corner of the laboratory. She moaned without waking. Louis and Este walked to the window and spoke in low tones.

  “I wish I knew what you know,” Este said.

  “There are so many things I don’t understand yet, might not discover in my lifetime,” Louis answered. He said this so seriously that Este had to laugh.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I can breathe and eat and sleep and dress and go for a walk, all without knowing everything.”

  Louis knew he was being teased, and he liked it. What he wanted was right before him, but was not his. He wanted her. He did not have words for this wish. He had not expected it. He had never before experienced it. It was simultaneously awful and riveting. She was right in front of him, looking at him, but he still was racked by need, the need to look at her, the need to say the right thing, the need to keep her there. He took a pull on his pipe, too strong, and coughed.

  “Are you all right?” she asked as he struggled to breathe normally.

  “Yes,” he said finally.

  “Perhaps you should put down the pipe,” she said gently.

  “Yes,” he said, but he didn’t.

  “Shall I bring you the chloride now?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said, but he didn’t want her to move away. Este did move. She went to the shelf and pulled down the bottle they needed for the morning’s work. She could feel him staring at her back. Of course it was impossible. She knew what her father would say: he was not one of them. She knew her mother would begin to weep. She wondered if she was a bad person, an untrustworthy person.

  Louis said, “Come, we’ll see what our oven has produced.” He forced his limbs to move. His steps were stiff. He came close to the open fire. He stared at the flames for a long moment. She wanted to follow him, but she didn’t. His face was flushed from the heat. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead. Outside the window, a flock of small black birds had settled on the ledge. They ruffled their wings, they hopped about on their bent legs, legs that seemed too thin to support their bodies. They let out sharp cries, plaintive, unlovely. Louis went to the window and banged on the glass. Alarmed, the birds took flight. Este told Louis that she must go out for a walk. She woke Anippe and they left the laboratory.

  Why did she leave so suddenly? Louis was confused. She would return. She said she would return.

  But she didn’t come back. Sitting in her own drawing room hours later, she was thinking about the flawed diamond, and she knew she would not marry a man, the brother of her best friend or not, the object of her imaginings for years or not, if he was less than honorable, less than fine. She wanted, in fact a man, an unsuitable man, from a different place.

  That evening, Abraham Malina sat in his favorite chair reading a paper from the English Academy of Science.

  Whether it was 1865 or 1866 when cholera appeared in America is uncertain. Some say it came to America on the German steamer England. It is certain that cholera was rampant in New York during the summer of that year. The railways that had been extended from the coast into the interior carried the disease all the way to the frontier. A military camp in Newport, Kentucky, became a breeding ground from which the disease spread to the surrounding area, and New Orleans lost about 1,200 lives from the disease, which disembarked from returning troop ships. The entire number of deaths in America in this outbreak are estimated to be about 50,000, which is not so very many considering other waves of the epidemic worldwide, but on the other hand, consider the unbearable sorrow that followed when the young soldiers who had escaped the perils of the battlefield returned home to die of cholera.

  10

  THEN THEY FOUND IT. It was Louis who saw it first, a round form, a new form that his eye had never seen before. He called Roux to come and look. It took Roux a long time to locate it, but then he too saw it, pressed between the two pieces of glass, floating in a drop of blood from the stool of the child who had died of cholera. Nocard left the rabbit whose brain he was examining and came to the table. He jiggled the microscope with his large hand and then apologized again and again in case he had dislodged the microbe or ruined the slide. He hadn’t. When they took turns and looked again, there it was. When Este arrived, they were laughing and slapping each other on the back. “Be cautious,” Roux said, “we haven’t proved it, we haven’t tested it.” They knew that work would have to be done, hard work, experiments repeated over and over in order to demonstrate its existence without a doubt, to convince those who would challenge them. Este looked through the microscope. She saw it, too, a round little ball that seemed to move pu
rposefully in the blood fluid.

  Roux did send a telegram to Pasteur that they had found something promising, a strong possibility that it was the cholera microbe. They would test it carefully. Be of good cheer, the telegram said. Dr. Koch was waiting in the telegram office to send a request for more funds to the Berlin Institute. Roux said to him, “I think we’ve found it.”

  The German’s heart sank to his heels. He had worked in this hot, foreign place for nothing, if the French had found the object of their search. They would ridicule him in Berlin. They would forget his other accomplishments. They would remove him from his position. He would have to go back to being a country doctor, treating babies with rashes and women with boils. He offered his congratulations to Roux and asked if he might come visit the Frenchmen’s laboratory and see their discovery for himself. “Of course,” said Roux graciously. “We would welcome your advice on the next steps to take.” Roux was very pleased with himself, but remembered to be both polite and cautious.

  Este was excited. This would be the first really important thing that had happened in her life. She was flushed with excitement. She couldn’t wait to tell her father. He would be so pleased. An hour later Dr. Koch knocked on the door. He was brought in and given the stool by the microscope. He adjusted the lens. He stared at the round ball. He tried not to smile. He tried not to let his delight show. He did not want to be considered a man without morals or decency, but he was relieved, very relieved. The round ball the Frenchmen had found was only a blood platelet, necessary for clotting to take place. This he had discovered for himself a long time ago, when he was working in his makeshift laboratory in the back of his doctor’s office in Wollstein. He told Roux and Nocard and Thuillier what they had actually uncovered. He demonstrated to them that these round balls existed in everyone’s blood. He took a drop from Este’s finger, and there they were.

  Dr. Robert Koch went back to his own laboratory feeling quite content, but still sorry for the French, who had thought they had grasped the grand prize. As for the French mission, along with Este, they were too disappointed to do anything else that day. It was a hard day. Roux sent a telegram to Pasteur. Ignore previous telegram. Error found.