An Imperfect Lens

by Anne Richardson Roiphe

  At noon, a plain zinc coffin was brought to the apartment. An embalmer was called. He did his work. The coffin was closed. Within the hour, Dr. Koch arrived, bearing two funeral wreaths. Koch insisted on nailing the wreaths to the coffin himself. “These are modest,” said Koch, “but made of laurel, awarded to the glorious ones.” Dr. Koch picked up one corner of the coffin and, led by Roux and Nocard, there was a funeral procession down the rue Sultan through the Grand Square to the French cemetery. The coffin was followed by all of the members of the Committee of Public Safety except Dr. Malina. The street was filled with the diplomats and their assistants and their families from all the embassies. The doctors from the hospital walked behind the coffin, too. Many of the Alexandrians who had known of the mission joined the procession. The priest attached to the French consulate led the way. Bells were rung from the Catholic church.

  Le Figaro sent a journalist who spoke to Roux, who was brusque in his grief and gave no information on the progress or lack of it the group had made in finding the cholera microbe. “Have you considered that there may be no microbe?” said the journalist.

  Roux turned quickly away, without answering the question. People along the route leaned over their terraces to see the coffin. There was a respectful silence as the procession passed. The vendors stopped selling. The children stopped running. The donkeys were waiting by the side of the street, their long ears twitching, flies gathering about their moist eyes. The carriages pulled over and waited for the funeral to pass.

  At four o’clock on the same day he died, Louis Thuillier was buried in the French cemetery. The coffin was placed in a shallow uncovered grave, because arrangements had been made to send the body back to France. The laws of Egypt required a year’s wait for the export of a body. Emile Roux filled out the necessary papers. The French consul told Roux that the French colony would like to erect a monument in Alexandria dedicated to Louis Thuillier. This was his wife’s idea, but he thought it a good one. It was important under the circumstances that France publicly respect their dead.

  There had been no cases of cholera in Alexandria for the last twelve days. Louis Thuillier must have been the last to die in this epidemic. Roux wrote a long letter to Louis Pasteur describing Thuillier’s death in exacting detail. He said in his letter, “Thuillier was the most cautious of all of us. He was most careful.” The letter was carried by the next ship leaving for Italy and arrived in Paris only two weeks after the initial telegram. By the time it arrived, Nocard and Roux were themselves on their return journey.

  IT WAS NOT a sign of soullessness on Este’s part, but rather an inevitable assertion of the will to survive, when, just hours before they were to arrive in Trieste, she admitted to herself that her life was not entirely ruined. She was hungry for the first time in days. She pulled her hairbrush from her bag and brushed vigorously until her black curls renewed their shine. She was curious about Trieste, although they would remain there only six hours. She had brought in her bag a small German dictionary. She took it out and began to improve her German vocabulary. A person, she told herself sternly, cannot live in the past.

  The Romulus finally docked, and as the Malinas waited for the Arab boys to bring down their bags, their entire worldly possessions, a French soldier came running toward them. He was out of breath when he reached their side. He had a message from the Alexandrian consul’s wife for a Dr. Malina and family. Abraham Malina opened the folded paper. “My God,” he said, “what bad news.”

  Lydia Malina was afraid the message was about her son. A wave of bile rose in her throat. She clasped her daughter’s arm.

  “Say it,” she said to her husband. “Say it quickly.”

  “Our friend from the French mission, Louis Thuillier, died from the cholera the very day we sailed for Trieste.”

  Lydia breathed a deep sigh of relief. “How sad,” she said, and she really was sorry for the young man and his family. “He had a mother and father at home, I believe. How awful for them.”

  Este had stepped away from her parents and turned her back on them. She was silent. She thought she might never find her tongue again.

  “It’s a setback for science,” said her father, “to lose such a dedicated and talented young man.”

  Este turned back to her family. She nodded in agreement. She felt glad that she had not been betrayed. On the other hand, the news of his death ended any secret hopes of reconciliation, of re-discovery, of forgiveness, hopes she was not even aware she held. His death meant that they would never have what seemed to have been promised them, a love that would never die. But she understood that she was only a minor player in this tragedy and the loss was his, a life gone when it had just barely begun. Now she felt no anger, but only regret. She said nothing to her parents. There was no need. A few hours later they climbed aboard the train that would carry them north to Germany.

  15

  IN FRANCE, THE newspapers all reported the unexpected end to the French mission’s attempt to identify the microbe. They praised Louis Thuillier as a scientist of courage and brilliance. A street was named for him in Amiens. His brother, who worked in the Ministry of Finance in Amiens, was given a promotion as a gift to the Thuillier family. Pasteur himself grieved deeply over the loss of his young scientist. A fog fell over him, leaving him staring into space in his armchair. But then he recovered and resumed his investigation of bovine plague and developed the vaccine that could save those who had been bitten by a rabid dog.

  Dr. Koch left Alexandria within two weeks. He sailed on a ship for Hanover. From there he made his way to Berlin. His wife had barely time to sing to him after dinner his favorite lieder. He left several weeks later for India. There he found more examples from infected bodies and was able to confirm what he had suspected in his laboratory in Alexandria. He found the same microbe, whose shape he had first sketched out in Alexandria, in all cholera-infected tissue. He did not find it in tissue from any healthy body. He was able to outline its shape in blue dye. He was able to culture it in his beef broth and gelatine dish. He was able to rule out other causes. He was able to demonstrate that wherever he found the microbe, there cholera appeared. He was able to identify it for the Academy of Science in London and then in Paris, where he presented his evidence and his drawings the following March. It was Vibrio comma, the creature with the small tail that steered through waters, swimming long distances, surviving most happily in the human gut, where it spewed its toxins, draining the host of necessary fluids. What an artful creature it was, its tail propelling it through water to another host. A microbe that could surely be called a scourge now had a name and a shape. This was the first step toward rendering it harmless.

  The Malinas arrived at Lydia’s cousin’s home in Freiburg. Several weeks later their son Jacob appeared. He’d sold his business to his partner. He had not felt as comfortable in the Holy Land as he had expected. He missed his family. He was ready to study medicine. He enrolled at the university. This pleased his father. Dr. Malina began to work at the Jewish Hospital, where he developed a fine reputation and soon had a private clinic very much like the one he had left in Alexandria. Este and Lydia mastered German. At a dinner given by an in-law of Lydia’s cousin to welcome the strangers from abroad, Este met a young man who had trained in Doctor Koch’s laboratory in Heidelberg. He himself was interested in the diseases of childhood. He, too, believed that everything would be discovered with the microscope. Este amazed him with her questions about his work. She was genuinely interested in his experiments and accepted eagerly his invitation to visit him in his laboratory.

  Within a short time she made herself his assistant. She learned quickly. She had good, careful hands. She became a familiar figure in the back of the chemistry classroom at the university. She took notes in a black book that she carried with her everywhere. The Jewish community of Freiburg did not entirely approve of this unmarried woman spending so much time in the laboratory of an eligible man. There was some unpleasant talk. The young scientist, who knew
, without knowing all the details, that fate had brought him a wonderful gift, proposed. The marriage pleased both families, and the wedding was held in the cousin’s garden the following spring. Her name does not appear on her husband’s scientific papers, but his career was distinguished and he traveled all over the continent and to London and Boston to deliver his papers to this scientific society and that faculty of medicine. He told everyone who would listen that the best ideas he ever had came from his wife. Without her patience and assistance he would have accomplished nothing. She smiled when he said that, in such a way that no one was sure whether this was true or simply a pleasantry between the spouses. She had three children who filled her life with all the usual anguish and joy that accompanies the project of raising the next generation. She never went back to Alexandria.

  EPILOGUE

  SOON AFTER ROBERT KOCH discovered the cholera microbe on the heels of his discovery of the invisible cause of tuberculosis, all the civilized world believed in germs, and the night air was no longer thought of as suspect in the murder of men but was returned to its condition of mere air, air in the dark, cool and refreshing, air that circulated under the stars evening after evening.

  Now we know these amoral specks are responsible for more human death than all the spears and arrows, all the bombs and explosives tossed tribe to tribe, nation to nation, from time immemorial to the present. This has been the way of the world since man dropped down from the trees, providing through his own body excellent food for the microbes that lived in the swamps and the grasses and the river waters.

  Louis Thuillier was a fallen hero. He was not a king or a general, or a prime minister, nor a man of wealth. He found no new path to God. He was not a saint. He was a scientist working in the trenches, and he died there at age twenty-seven.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  THIS BOOK BEGAN with a sentence read many years ago in The Microbe Hunters, a book by Paul de Kruif published in 1926 and still in bookstores across America. In the chapter on Louis Pasteur, the author reports that an outbreak of cholera had occurred in Alexandria in 1883, and a French mission was sent to the city to find the responsible microbe. Pasteur’s young assistant, Louis Thuillier, died of cholera on those foreign shores. I wanted to write a book about a hero who died because of his work on the frontiers of scientific discovery. My brother, a hematologist and a laboratory scientist, had recently died of AIDS and I hoped to honor him. I remembered the death of Louis Thuillier a century earlier.

  The cholera epidemic in Alexandria is part of the historic record, as is the famous German microbiologist Dr. Robert Koch’s appearance in Alexandria, which led to his ultimate discovery of the microbe. The mission sent by Louis Pasteur included members of his laboratory team, including Nocard, Roux, Thuillier, and Straus. I added Marcus and I deleted Straus for storytelling reasons. I invented the Malina family and the love story attached because that is what novelists do. I took some liberties with chronology and character because a novel is not a record of reality but a comment on it.

  The description of Louis Thuillier’s death was taken from a letter to Pasteur from Emile Roux informing him of the tragedy. The instructions that Pasteur gave to his mission were taken from a letter from Pasteur. The descriptions of Alexandria came from a variety of sources, including a report from William Makepeace Thackeray on his journey to Egypt, E. M. Forster’s Alexandria—A History and a Guide, and numerous accounts of Egyptian history and politics. Also useful were Lawrence Durrell’s The Alexandria Quartet and the poems of C. P. Cavafy, as well as André Aciman’s Out of Egypt. The scientific facts are based on research and source materials provided by the Pasteur Institute in Paris, as well as Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill, Viruses, Plagues, and History by Michael B. A. Oldstone, and Man and Microbes: Disease and Plagues in History and Modern Times by Arno Karlen. The emotional details rose from my brain, as they tend to do when telling a story.

  Shaye Areheart has been enormously helpful in transforming this book from a wild beast into a presentable novel. I thank Sally Kim for her patience and friendship through the publishing process.

  I want to thank my daughter, Katie, who read this book more than once, and her suggestions vastly improved the manuscript. I am grateful as always to my agent, Lisa Bankoff, who supports me even when I lose faith in my own project. I want to thank Jeffery Leininger, whose research I used and used. Also, Ina Caro for her support and friendship.

  I hoped to express in this book my awe and admiration for those who spend their lives bending over microscopes measuring, repeating, imagining, watching. Without them we would be farther away from understanding, farther away from healing. Like most people, I owe my life to them, and my children’s lives.

  If any reader suspects that I would rather have been a scientist than a writer, I would immediately confess my preference for truth over fiction.

  AN IMPERFECT LENS

  BY ANNE ROIPHE

  READING GROUP GUIDE

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Alexandria in the 1880s is bustling with commerce, teeming with busy residents, and plagued by a swift and gruesome killer: cholera. As the microbes that carry the disease swim and swarm through the city, a team of French scientists enters the danger zone in order to seek out the organism that is killing thousands. If only they can identify the microbe, science can learn to treat and prevent future outbreaks. The clock ticks against them as the disease rages on, but Louis Thuillier, a young member of the French team, can find no explanations. What he does discover is an unexpected and thrilling bond with the daughter of a local doctor, an unlikely attraction that turns the threatening Egyptian city into a new world of hope. But even this new love may not survive old prejudices as virulent as the sickness that threatens them all.

  The questions below are designed to help direct and inspire your discussion of An Imperfect Lens.

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  With regular references to Alexandria’s lighthouse, library, and historical residents, the location of the story seems critically important to the author. Why do you think she chose Alexandria as her setting?

  Discuss Este’s relationship to her physical appearance. Why does she seem to derive comfort from seeing her own face in the mirror? What is reassuring to her about seeing her reflection? Do you notice this preoccupation change during the course of the book?

  Dr. Malina from time to time reflects on empirical experience as a somewhat unreliable guide—for instance, when he realizes that Este will not protest her engagement to Albert, despite what he expects (“only” because of “experience”). However, it doesn’t seem that Este has given him cause to expect otherwise. What experience is he referring to? Do you think he is in touch with who his daughter really is?

  Marcus seems to become unreliable quickly in Alexandria, his loyalty and value as an assistant questionable at best. Why do you think Pasteur thought highly enough of him to insist that he accompany the mission? Do you think Marcus behaved differently in Paris? Why or why not?

  Why does Ahmed swindle Albert even as he acknowledges the value of having a bank employee in his debt? Do you think this is a deliberate decision, or the result of greed overruling judgment?

  Why do Marcus and Eric find friendship with each other so quickly? Do you think their business partnership will be a success? Why or why not?

  Eric Fortman has been employed as an overseer for the transport of Scotch, an inspector for an Alexandrian importer, and a spy for the British authorities—and doesn’t show a particular talent for any of the above. Still, he clearly thinks of himself as a clever salesman and an asset to his employers. How does he justify this high opinion of himself? Do you think it is warranted?

  What do you think of Este’s friend Phoebe? Do you think she deliberately misguides Este toward marrying Albert, or is she innocently optimistic and simply foolish in her judgment? Why do you think she disappears from the story after Este and Albert’s engagement is broken off?

&nbs
p; Discuss the characters’ relationship with material things—from the loss of cargo at the beginning of the book, to the servants’ decisions to leave or take the Malinas’ treasures, to Este’s final packing priorities at her Alexandria home. How does each character’s relationship to worldly goods help define him or her?

  How do you think Este and Louis’s story would have ended had he remained healthy and joined her on the Romulus? Would Dr. Malina have accepted him under the family’s new circumstances?

  The cholera microbe is referred to numerous times as “amoral.” Why does the author choose to use and repeat this word? What is the role of morality in the book in general?

  Do you think the story has a moral? If so, how would you describe it?

  Discuss Pasteur’s role in the story. How important is he as a character, or figurehead, or even a kind of stand-in deity for the French scientists? What does his distant presence in the book add to the story, if anything?

  ALSO BY ANNE ROIPHE

  FICTION

  Secrets of the City

  Digging Out

  Up the Sandbox

  Long Division

  Torch Song

  Lovingkindness

  The Pursuit of Happiness

  If You Knew Me

  NONFICTION

  Generation Without Memory

  A Jewish Journey Through Christian America

  Your Child’s Mind (with Dr. Herman Roiphe)