An Imperfect Lens

by Anne Richardson Roiphe

  Lydia moved about her house, the house she was about to leave behind forever, with determination, with speed. She packed a small drawing of her mother in a jade frame. She left the frame behind. She packed the necessities for Abraham, his favorite tie, his best shirt, the jacket with the ivory buttons. She packed Jacob’s letters. She packed his commendation from school for excellent work in Greek. She would wear her pearls and her earrings, and she hid her gold bracelet in a handkerchief. “What will become of you in Freiburg?” she said, looking at her daughter.

  “Don’t worry, mother,” said Este. “I will be fine, wherever we are.”

  “We will need coats in Freiburg,” said Lydia. “Heavy wool coats with fur collars.”

  “I have always wanted to see snow,” said Este.

  “How lucky, then,” said Lydia, “that we are going north.”

  “I can’t wait to see Paris,” said Este.

  “Maybe if we are settled, we can take a trip to Paris in the spring,” said Lydia.

  “Sooner, I think,” said Este. But Lydia was not paying attention.

  Later, Lydia sat down on her bed. Exhaustion had come over her. “I need to say good-bye to my sister. She will tell my friends so they do not think we left without a thought of them,” she said. She rushed to her table to find her stationery to write to her oldest friend. In her mind she made a list of those they would be leaving. The list was long. She couldn’t find writing paper in the disorder of the room. It was still light outside. This day seemed endless and yet too short. “Este, maybe the soldiers will let you out. Go to the neighbors, tell them we are leaving. Tell them we have done no wrong. Go to my sister now, and tell her we sail the day after tomorrow and will go to Freiburg.”

  Este hugged her mother, who felt frail in her arms. She had dark circles under her eyes. She was not crying, but Este could feel that the tears would come soon.

  She did not tell her mother that she had already sent the maid to her aunt’s. She had to tell Louis where to find her. She went downstairs with her shawl on, ready to leave for the hospital. The two Egyptian policemen at the door stopped her. “Mademoiselle, you cannot go out,” one said. The other put his hand on her arm in a way that was not polite, had in it a hint of contempt. His hand rubbed her arm in a way that alarmed her.

  “Go back upstairs,” said the first officer.

  “This is my house,” said Este. “You are my guests.” This made the second soldier laugh, a not very pleasant laugh.

  Este retreated back up the stairs. How was she going to tell Louis that they were going to board a ship and leave Alexandria so suddenly? Would he come to the house? Would he try to find her tonight or tomorrow while she was still there? Why were the soldiers holding her and her mother in their own house? What were they afraid might happen? What nonsense. As she returned to her mother in the drawing room, she stepped into her father’s study. She picked several of his medical books and carried them to her bag. She unpacked her clothes and replaced them with his books. She made several trips up and down the stairs until she was satisfied that almost everything her father would want was in her bags. She sat down and opened a book. She stared at the drawings of the human body that were marked with Latin names.

  AS THE DUSK settled in, the lamps of the cafés were lit, and the tide was high. On the promenade you could hear the waves as they splashed across the jetty. Louis, who had waited impatiently to hear from Este, walked to the Malina house. The door was now shut. There was a dim light in the drawing room. The curtains were still down, casting a strange shadow across the window frame. A man’s figure came to the terrace and then retreated. Louis knocked on the door. It was pulled open suddenly by a British soldier. Behind him stood two men from the Egyptian police force. “I am here to see Dr. Malina,” Louis said.

  The men did not open the door wider or invite him in. A British soldier appeared suddenly. He spoke to him in English. “Go away. You cannot enter.”

  Louis understood. “I need to see Madame Malina, important business from the French mission,” he said in French.

  The soldier shook his head. He didn’t speak or want to speak this language. Between the men’s shoulders, Louis saw that papers, pictures, and lamps remained in disarray on the floor. “Whatever you are looking for,” he said, “you will not find.” The soldier looked blank. “I must insist you let me in. I will return with the French consul if you refuse me.”

  The Egyptian policeman translated for the soldier. “He wants to come in.”

  “Can’t,” came the reply.

  “This is not possible,” said Louis, who then shouted up the staircase, “Este, Este, come down.”

  She heard him and came to the top of the stairs. Another policeman pulled her roughly back into the drawing room. The door closed. Louis pounded on it again and again. At last the Egyptian soldier who spoke French opened the door. “Monsieur,” he said, “you are not able to see anyone in this house. Go home before you, too, are arrested.”

  There was no possibility of telling Dr. Malina of his desire to marry his daughter if they wouldn’t let him into the house. He went back to the laboratory and reported his failure to his friends. Roux suggested that they do indeed go immediately to the French consul. Edmond changed his shirt to a clean one he kept hanging in the back of the laboratory. “We are Pasteur’s representatives,” he said. “The ambassador will call for help. We’ll force the door open. How dare they treat French citizens this way? They’ll regret it.”

  Louis was silent. How could this be, and what was it that had happened? How could an innocent man be taken away, suddenly, in the middle of the day? He knew that Dr. Malina was innocent because Este was innocent, and he knew that as strongly as he knew anything in the world, the names of the known chemicals, the reactions of hydrogen to oxygen, the earth moving around the sun. As they stood in the street waiting for a cab, the smell of hashish floated by, hung for a moment, a heavy perfume in the air. Roux put his arm around Louis as if to steady his friend, who was not so much unsteady as stunned. This was a puzzle that he could not begin to unravel.

  The French consul was dining out, the Frenchmen were informed. His wife was at home, but would not see visitors. Where was the consul dining? “I cannot say,” said a servant.

  “You must not say,” said a man who suddenly appeared at the doorway and introduced himself as the consul’s secretary. “Make an appointment,” the man added in a less-than-friendly tone.

  Roux explained that the three were the scientists with the French mission and needed to speak to the consul urgently.

  “Nothing is urgent at this time of night,” said the secretary. “A consul is not a doctor,” he added.

  Edmond pushed his way into the rotunda and sat down in a chair that was clearly too delicate for his large frame. “We are not leaving until you tell us where we can find the consul.”

  “Really?” said the secretary. “Who do you think you are?”

  Just then the wife of the consul appeared in the hall. “I assume,” she said to Nocard, “this visit has nothing to do with my cat. Let them come in.” She waved the secretary away. “These are very important scientists,” she said to his stiff and retreating back. The men followed her up the stairs and into the drawing room. Madame Cecile offered them coffee, but they refused. Nocard told her the entire reason for their visit. The Malinas were in trouble. The door to their house was closed by Egyptian police and British soldiers. Something terrible had happened, and it had to do with the British authorities.

  “He’s my doctor and my friend,” said Madame Cecile. “How terrible.”

  Roux explained that his young colleague was about to ask Dr. Malina for his daughter’s hand in marriage, but had not been permitted in the house.

  Madame Cecile pointed out that perhaps under the circumstances Dr. Malina would not wish to consider such a proposal. “Young man,” she said, “the timing does not seem right.”

  Her words, perfectly sensible as they were, made Louis mi
serable. “What can I do? What can I do?”

  His obvious grief, his young face looking at her as if she held the key to his future, determined her next words. “I’ll go to the house and find out myself what’s going on. The consul is dining in an unknown place in the manner of men of this world, and we cannot disturb him this evening. But I will go with you and we’ll see what is happening in that house.”

  The wife of the consul was not intimidated by the Egyptian police or the British soldier at the door of the Malina house. She demanded entrance, and the British officer was afraid both to let her in and not to let her in. In the end he admitted her. What harm, after all, could she do? The French scientists he kept waiting outside. Lydia Malina apologized for the chaos everywhere, and Este apologized for their personal disarray. In a tumble of words the situation was explained, or at least that part of it which Lydia and Este understood. Dr. Malina was being kept under tight supervision in the back of the British barracks. They were all to leave for Trieste the day after next. The first thing in the morning they would board the ship and the family would be reunited. The consul’s wife said nothing about Louis waiting below. She had developed a professional sense of discretion. She said that she had heard of their difficulty from the three French scientists who had tried to visit them but were stopped. Este’s eyes shone at these words, but she asked no questions. Perhaps, said the consul’s wife, when my husband returns we can see if our country can be of service to your family. Lydia thanked her. Este got up and offered to go to the door with her. The policeman did not want to stop the young lady from going down the stairs in front of the consul’s wife. Once out in the hall, Este said, “Could you send a message to Louis Thuillier?”

  “I’ll deliver your words in person,” said the consul’s wife.

  “Tell him what has happened,” said Este. “Tell him that I will expect him on the deck of the Romulus, the Italian Line, the morning after next. Tell him we are going to Freiburg.”

  “I’m sure, my dear,” said the wife of the consul, “that he will come to the ship.” The two women clasped hands and the consul’s wife went out the door, which the policeman shut with a loud slam behind her. She explained everything to the Frenchmen.

  “This makes no sense. They are crazy, these British,” said Nocard.

  “It’s political,” the consul’s wife said. “In politics there is no room for reason.”

  When the consul did arrive at his own residence in the early hours of the morning, his wife was waiting for him in his bedroom. She told him the entire story. He was eager to lie down in his own bed. He had consumed many glasses of wine and smoked several pipes about whose contents he never inquired. He had enjoyed himself enormously, and his body was now ready for its rest. He had little interest in the tale she told.

  “Nothing,” he said, “nothing we can do about it. This is a matter for the British. They can do as they please. We can’t help your scientists. We are not here to solve everyone’s little difficulty.”

  “This is not a little difficulty,” his wife said.

  “We will find you another doctor, perhaps from the French community,” he said. “These Jews are always traveling from one country to another. They can’t seem to set down roots. Those scientists,” he added, “what use have they been? They’ve brought no honor to France despite all the fine letters recommending them to my good graces. I hear they’re going to leave Alexandria soon.” With that he put on his nightshirt and rolled over in bed, his back to his wife.

  LOUIS KNEW THAT he would not be able to see Este the next day. There was no point in trying. He would come to the Malina family on the deck of the Romulus the following morning. He planned to speak to Dr. Malina right there in the harbor, before the ship departed. This was not the best moment to convince the father of the suitor’s worthiness, the consul’s wife was correct, but it would be his last chance for a long while. He couldn’t wait months. He couldn’t stand the uncertainty. He was sure that now that the doctor was beginning his own life again, he would want whatever security he, Louis Thuillier, assistant to Pasteur, could offer to his daughter. His own passage was booked to Marseille. As soon as the mission returned to France, he would take a train to Germany. He would be there soon after she arrived. The French mission was scheduled to leave in eight days. His disappointment over their inability to identify the cholera microbe saddened him, but he consoled himself that the trip that would not bring him honor had instead brought him something of far more worth, the woman with whom he would spend the rest of his days, in a life of complete joy.

  In the laboratory, Edmond and Emile were looking at slides of cow blood that they had collected from the slaughterhouse. They were hoping to find something of importance for Pasteur’s investigations in Paris on bovine plague. Emile was preoccupied now, ready to go home to his family. Nocard was bored. Louis paced up and down. He could talk only of his plans to go to Germany. He demanded reassurance over and over again from his friends that Dr. Malina would indeed accept him as a son-in-law. When Edmond said that the Malinas were Jews and that might give Dr. Malina pause, Louis insisted that all these distinctions between human beings would soon be viewed as mere superstitions and disappear in the light of human cooperation and understanding. Nocard did not believe this, but he didn’t want to dampen his young colleague’s hopes. Emile didn’t believe it either. But it seemed the wrong time, at the edge of a young man’s hopeful engagement, to insist on the perfidy of human society. All he said was “We were thrown out of Eden. I doubt if we’re going back so soon.” Louis ignored him.

  They were accomplishing nothing in the laboratory and decided to leave the work and go for a swim in the ocean. The three went down to the sea, rented a cabana, changed into bathing attire, and went for a swim. Of the three, Louis was the strongest swimmer. The waves were not wild. The sun was strong. The men swam back and forth, exercising their limbs, giving their brains a chance to rest. Louis lost himself in the rhythmic rise and fall of his arms, the splash of his kick, the sounds of the birds above their heads. Back on the beach he pulled the long blue-and-white-striped towel he had rented around his shoulders and dried himself. The muscles in his arms baked in the sun. He was a young man who didn’t think about standing and running and lifting, but moved easily, effortlessly, unself-consciously. He went for a walk along the shore. He walked too fast for Nocard, who turned back. He walked too far for Roux, who had enough after a quarter of a mile.

  In the evening they were about to go out for dinner when Marcus appeared at the apartment door. They were not entirely delighted to see him. They waited for an explanation of his absence. “Come,” he said to them. “I will take you for a ride about town in a carriage.”

  “You will pay for the carriage?” asked Emile, with a sarcasm that was rather unkind.

  “Yes, I will,” said Marcus. “I am in business now, the business of treasures, and I can afford a carriage.” He told them all about his plans to buy and sell antiquities with Eric Fortman.

  “An Englishman,” snorted Nocard. “He’ll probably cheat you.”

  “Not me, he won’t,” said Marcus.

  The men climbed into the carriage. It sped off quickly down the rue Sultan, around the Râs el Tin. Marcus shouted in his loudest Arabic at a man who was crossing the street. He called in Greek to a man who was selling dates from a basket at his feet. He waved at some Arab girls walking along with their heads covered. They collapsed in giggles.

  Louis was thinking about riding in a carriage with Este down the Champs Élysées. He imagined himself at her side. Nocard was leaning out of the carriage. I may never return here, he said to himself. It had been an adventure, after all, even if the journey had not ended in the hoped-for triumph. Marcus told the driver when to turn and where to go. He enjoyed giving directions. He enjoyed taking his former employers out for a spin around the city. He liked his own generosity. His mood was infectious. Before the end of the ride, all the occupants in the carriage felt a lifting of spirit
s, a hope for the future that was strong, even though it was based on nothing in particular.

  “I prefer Alexandria to Paris,” Marcus said. “Here a man is whatever he can make of himself. In Paris I am just the boy in Pasteur’s lab, good for cleaning the glasses and feeding the animals. Here I am Apollo himself.”

  Roux smiled. “You have grown up these past months, but I’m not so sure you are Apollo.”

  “We’ll see,” said Marcus. “Soon I will be worth far more than the master himself.”

  Roux said, “Good for you.”

  “Where did you get the money to go into business?” asked Louis.

  Marcus gave his former employer a wink. “Here and there,” he said. “Odd jobs.” He said nothing more.

  “Here I stay,” said Marcus as the carriage came to a final stop.

  “I am never going back to Paris. Tell the master adieu from me.”

  The three friends went out for dinner. Louis was in particularly good spirits. He kept the Ganesh in his pocket and caressed its head with his forefinger. He tapped his pipe with his hand. With his fingers he removed a spot of tobacco that had fallen on his lip. He ate a good dinner, but did not have the raw fruit that was presented to the table on a platter because they had all agreed to keep the precautions in place until they had returned to Paris.