Visibility

by Boris Starling

“Yes.”

  “What an idiot,” she snapped. “Stupid, stupid fool. What a waste.”

  “What is that, anyway?” he said.

  “The X-shape?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s photo 51, a photograph I took last May.”

  Herbert must have looked surprised, for Rosalind smiled. “Not a photograph as the layman understands it; an X-ray photograph. What you see on the microdot was originally about three or four inches in diameter. Wait, I’ll show you.”

  She left the room again, and came back a minute or so later holding a metal contraption and a stoppered glass bottle with some white fibers sitting at the bottom.

  “This is a Phillips microcamera,” Rosalind said, setting the metal apparatus down on the table in front of Herbert.

  It looked like something from a science fiction movie; a more or less flat circle with a knurled edge, a pipe sticking diagonally out of its shoulder, and a lens in the middle, all supported vertically above a base plinth.

  “I use it for recording X-ray diffraction patterns,” Rosalind added.

  “What kind of patterns?”

  “Diffraction patterns. Imagine an object that’s invisible in every way. You can’t see it, smell it, hear it, touch it, or taste it. The only way to study this object is to shine light through it, or reflect light off it. By observing the patterns formed by the light, and matching them up with what you know of patterns caused by different kinds of diffraction gratings, you can get a great deal of information about the object’s structure.”

  She held up the glass bottle. “This is DNA, from a calf’s thymus. It’s dry now, but it photographs much better when it’s wet; it’s longer, thinner, and easier to see. As far as I know, we at King’s were the only ones to have realized this.”

  “Which means Max was selling the others something he knew they didn’t have.”

  No wonder Stensness had been trying to sell photo 51 when he had. The conference had brought together all the main players on each of the three teams hunting for the molecular structure. It was one of the few occasions—perhaps the only one for many moons—when everyone involved in the race would be in one place.

  Rosalind dropped her gaze, and Herbert realized that, for her, Max’s treachery bit deep. “Yes. Of course, the clearer the photograph, the easier it should be to discern the molecular structure. So … dry DNA, crystalline, we call the ‘A’ form; hydrated is the ‘B’ form, paracrystalline.

  “We smear some ‘B’ into fibers, like those in a spider’s web. We insert it in the camera here”—she indicated the rear—“in front of a piece of film. The X-rays come in through the pinhole here”—tapping the small lens—“and the pipe at the top right is to allow humidified gas to be passed through the camera to control the water content of the fiber. We concentrate on one strand of fiber, about a tenth of a millimeter across.”

  “And the X-rays bounce off that strand?”

  “They bounce off the atoms in that strand, because their own wavelengths are so short; and they leave a pattern on the film as they do so. The marks on the photographic plate are not those of the atoms themselves, therefore, but of the spots that the X-rays make when they’re scattered after hitting the atoms. Because the X-rays reinforce each other in some directions and cancel each other out, the spots vary in intensity. From this intensity and positioning, the atomic structure can be guessed at; that is, you can turn two-dimensional patterns into three-dimensional molecular structures. Clear so far?”

  “Just about.”

  “So you should be. I’ve already explained that bit to you twice.”

  She said it without malice, and Herbert realized that there could be few things more frustrating for a scientist than having to describe things to a layman, having to fill in the kind of background knowledge that a professional would take for granted, and at the same time simplify problems and procedures enough to make sense.

  He picked up the transcript of the decipher and read it again to refresh his memory.

  The X-shaped pattern is diffractionally characteristic of a helical structure. The diamond structure serves two functions. First, it indicates that the pattern repeats above and below the central X-shape, signaling the continuation of the helix. Second, it arises from a regular series, along the molecular axis, of the sugar phosphate groups that form the molecule’s backbone. The symmetrical patterns of the horizontal smears on the arms and legs of the “X” demonstrate that the helix makes a twist at regular intervals. The fourth layer-line on each limb is missing; this may hint at a double helix, with the missing layer-line representing the point at which the two strands cross each other.

  Rosalind had said the only thing known beyond doubt about the structure of DNA was the presence and relative quantities of the four nucleotides; yet here was Stensness strongly suggesting that DNA was not only a helix, but a double one at that.

  “You don’t think it’s a helix?” Herbert asked.

  “No,” Rosalind said. “The ‘A’ form is certainly not a helix. I proved that back in the summer.”

  She handed Herbert a three-by-six index card with a hand-drawn black border; it was half invitation, half death notice. He read it.

  “You wrote this?” Herbert asked.

  “Yes.”

  Herbert remembered the argument in the laboratory, and the hostility by the grave.

  “And Dr. Wilkins didn’t find it amusing?”

  “He might have done, if it hadn’t come from me.”

  “That bad?”

  “Why do you think I’ve got these machines at home? Sometimes I find Maurice so intolerable that I literally can’t bear to be in his company, so I have to come back here to work. I’m leaving for Birkbeck in March, almost exclusively to get away from him. We’re at loggerheads on—oh, just about everything, if you must know.”

  “Including the issue of whether DNA is a helix or not?”

  “Especially that. He accepted, with some reluctance, that the ‘A’ form was antihelical, but he’s absolutely adamant that the ‘B’ form is different.”

  “And Stensness shared his views?”

  Rosalind sighed. When she spoke, Herbert heard the slightest catch in her voice. “I had thought that Max agreed with me.” She flapped a hand toward the Coronation map. “Evidently not.”

  Herbert had assumed that science, besides being a male preserve, was also carried out in a vacuum, by people whose brilliant minds allowed them no scintilla of doubt, error, or human frailty, and that progress was consequently linear and inexorable.

  Now he saw that the opposite was true. Behind the baffling terminology, scientists were largely the same as the rest of humanity. They argued, they loved and hated, they were pliable and stubborn, and their flaws and follies informed their work just as much as the flaws and follies of laymen informed theirs.

  And it was such disputes that had prompted Max Stensness to see, or to think he saw, something in an X-ray photograph that his colleague Rosalind Franklin did not or would not or could not see.

  “Why do you think Max was wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s not so much that I think he was wrong; more that his conclusions were woefully premature. He’s inferred far too much from the data available. Listen to the words he used: ‘indicates,’ ‘demonstrates,’ ‘arises.’ But the evidence he quotes does nothing of the sort.”

  Rosalind put the viewer to her eye and looked at the microdot again. “For instance, I see double orientation here, which would refute his assumption of radial symmetry. The reflection is more intense in the left-hand quadrant than the right. That is asymmetrical, and a helix is symmetrical; therefore, this can’t be a helix.”

  “How can two of you see such different things in the same picture?”

  “We all see what we want to see, don’t we? Look, I’ve taken nearly a hundred of these photos; some have been atrocious, some all right, some pretty good. This one, photo 51, is just about the best of the bunch, but it’s still not perfect. If
it were perfect, the answer would be clear and we wouldn’t be arguing about it. It’s like the photo that makes you look more handsome than you are, because by a fluke it’s caught your features arranged more attractively than usual. It might show you at your best, but it doesn’t show you right.”

  Herbert nodded; he knew that feeling all too well.

  Rosalind continued. “Maybe the equipment’s slightly faulty, maybe I got the viewing angle slightly wrong. Maybe, maybe. They’re small things, yes, but we’re dealing with molecules here, so even a small thing can distort your results. Every scientist knows the position, because we’ve all been there. Sometimes there are several observations jostling for your attention, all apparently contradictory or discordant, and you don’t know which ones are the vital clues and which ones are irrelevant.

  “What I’m saying is that I need to do more experiments before I can be sure, one way or the other. Each successful experiment takes you closer to the truth, not just for what it proves but also for what it disproves, for the possibilities it eliminates. That’s the only way to do things.”

  “But others don’t think so?”

  “No. Some of them think I’m too … hidebound.”

  “Who thinks that?”

  “Watson and Crick, up in Cambridge. They think I need a collaborator, someone to break up the pattern of my thinking. They argue over everything, pushing their collaboration, and their friendship, to the limits, but they justify it by saying that they make each other think.”

  “And?”

  “Look what they’ve discovered. Nothing. They build models out of rods and metal plates and wires and plastic balls—childish, Tinkertoy stuff—then they test them, trying to make the facts fit the theory. Science isn’t a game. I set up my experiments carefully, and only when I’m happy that the results are sound do I move forward.”

  “And they think you plod away with your experiments?”

  “I do not plod. It takes imagination and intellect to know what experiments to do, to prepare the specimens and observe the results…” She paused, and laughed at herself, so quick to rise to slights. “But yes, you’re right, they do think that. Crick told me the other day that Nelson won the Battle of Copenhagen by putting the telescope to his blind eye so he didn’t see the order to stop fighting. He thinks scientists should adopt the same principle: let the experimental evidence go hang and allow our minds to wander.”

  Something Rosalind had said jarred in Herbert’s head, but he could not be sure what. He tried to catch it for a few moments, but it was no good; answers like that only came when one was least expecting them.

  * * *

  It was past two o’clock, and Rosalind had not yet had lunch. Would Herbert and Hannah, she asked, like to eat with her?

  Herbert called Tyce for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day, feeling like a persistent suitor. Still no word about de Vere Green, and Herbert shouldn’t hold his breath. The fog was causing intermittent havoc, so even the most straightforward tasks were taking much longer than usual.

  In that case, Herbert thought, he might as well eat now; not least because, if and when they found de Vere Green, the interrogation might go on for hours, and in that eventuality, who knew when his next meal would be?

  Rosalind was an excellent cook, which Herbert supposed was not surprising, since in many ways cooking was a branch of chemistry. Like Hannah, Rosalind used ingredients which seemed exotic in dreary old England—olive oil, garlic, parmesan, and basil. She and Hannah discussed with earnest animation the best way to cook pigeon, rabbit, and artichokes. They swapped techniques and shortcuts. Hannah said that the way to test the readiness of Camembert was to put one finger to the cheese and the other to a closed eyelid; if the consistency matched, the cheese was ready.

  New potatoes tasted better cooked without water, Rosalind replied. Put them in butter in a heavy pan, cover it, and let them cook in their own juices. She admitted putting garlic in everything, especially roast beef for her father, who always claimed that he hated garlic and who equally never noticed it in his own food.

  Hannah howled with laughter at this.

  When at last they drew breath, Herbert remarked on the preponderance of photographs of Paris in the flat. For a moment Rosalind’s eyes seemed to cloud over, as though at the memory of a lost love.

  “Oh, Paris,” she said, and her earthy practicality danced away. “I could have stayed in Paris forever. I should have stayed there forever. London is a man’s city, a place of furled umbrellas and bowler hats and gentlemen with their clubs and tailors. Paris is a woman. She does not tolerate stupid vacant faces and childish complacency. Why did I ever come back? To change the banks of the Seine for a cellar in the Strand seems more insane with every day.”

  “Insane.” Herbert laughed. “In Seine.”

  “Unintended, I assure you,” she said, and was on to the next sentence before Herbert could feel too gauche. “Paris was perfect for me. The French like intellectuals and women; the English can deal with neither. When I argued with my colleagues there, they weren’t taken aback, because that’s the way they do things. Here, I can hardly open my mouth without being shouted down. I always revel in the company of the French. The standard of conversation is vastly superior to that of any English gathering I’ve ever been in. The French are so much more quick-witted and alive.”

  Herbert had been right and wrong. There was a lost love in Paris, but it was the city herself; nothing so prosaic and corporeal as a man.

  After lunch, Rosalind brewed coffee in a laboratory flask and served it in evaporating dishes—one of the many legacies, she explained, of her time in Paris.

  She and Hannah began to discuss things: their mutual distrust of America’s materialism and prosperity; what it meant to be a Jew; the merits of Zionism. Hannah was pro-Israel, Rosalind was skeptical.

  “If you feel that strongly about it, why don’t you go and live there?” Rosalind said, once more with bluntness, once more without the slightest spleen.

  “Because in Belsen, British soldiers save my life,” Hannah replied simply.

  Rosalind asked what it was like to be blind, and Hannah replied with her curiously elegant form of halting English that once she had gone through the usual stages of reaction—shock, despair, anger, and acceptance—even her memories of the visual world had begun to become faint and fossilized, vanishing behind her as she advanced through the tunnel. There was no light at the end of this tunnel, no hope of emerging.

  At some point, so gradual that she had not consciously noticed it, she had reached a place where she could no longer summon up memories of faces or places, where she could not even remember whether letters faced left or right. This was the bend in the tunnel; beyond that was the deep, endless night of total blindness.

  Mengele had made her totally sightless. She could no longer tell day from night, or ascertain even the slightest flicker of sunshine. Not only had she no idea what people looked like, but she could not even begin to imagine. For her, people’s faces were the sources of their voices, nothing more. She looked in that direction when they were talking, but purely to show that she was listening. With most people, she would have been better off looking at their backsides; that was their chosen orifice of speech.

  Herbert was happy to sit in silence, watching and listening. He had never been in the company of someone like Rosalind, at least not for a sustained period, and to be honest he found the force of her intellect somewhat intimidating.

  Hannah, however, showed no such fear; she was, as ever, forcefully herself.

  Some people—Herbert wondered how often he had been guilty of this—changed with the situations they found themselves in, and could all too easily become reflections of those to whom they were talking.

  Hannah was the antithesis. She threw her personality down to Rosalind as a gauntlet, daring Rosalind to like her, in which case Hannah would have been pleased, or to find her too difficult, in which case Hannah would offer a sincere thanks fo
r lunch and be on her way.

  Hannah might have been less obviously cerebral than Rosalind, but she compensated with native intelligence and an unutterable belief in her right to an opinion. Perhaps, too, she knew instinctively that she was dealing with a kindred spirit, though Herbert felt it would have mattered little either way.

  Hannah and Rosalind were now discussing science, with even more animation than before. Rosalind was pointing out the ways in which popular consciousness was already moving away from tradition and church to secular rationalism; perhaps, she said, the fog would clear onto a new world, as the Flood had.

  “It’s dangerous,” Hannah said.

  “What is?”

  “To let science free like that, with no check on it. You know, I had a twin.”

  Rosalind made the same calculations as Herbert had done on Friday night, and came to the same conclusions, though hers were inevitably more specific.

  “Mengele?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Gentiles would never understand, Herbert thought, not really; not viscerally.

  “Thank you,” Hannah said. “But now you see why I think how I do. It gets out, no putting back; it like Pandora Box, never go in. If you discover the structure of DNA, then in the future, don’t know when, you have the tools for genetic engineering, maybe crude but still present, and then is no more than a tiny step to eugenics, and presto! Back come the Nazis, with their lives unworthy of life. Is all—ah, horrific.”

  “But Hannah, you can’t let the prospect of evil, no matter how dreadful, deter you from trying to do good, otherwise the world would just grind to a halt. There will be laws to stop things like eugenics and cloning.”

  “There laws to stop murder, too, Rosalind. People still do it.”

  “You think we should leave things to nature?”

  “Of course. Who know where it end? You make the test, so only elite, genetic elite, have power? You create race above all others, super-race? For humanity, evolution is millions of years, and now you want to change all that in one generation, two perhaps? We change nature, maybe we change the human race. Maybe something else come along in our place.”