The Sun Chemist

by Lionel Davidson

  ‘Vava?’ The teeth vanished. ‘Vava was not engaged in these things. He was occupied with a different problem, protein. He came and went. It was a matter of weeks only. He was living with the Weizmanns at the time. Then Weizmann got him a job – through the good offices of Lord Melchett, as I remember, who was at that time the chairman of I.C.I.’

  ‘It’s strange that there’s no correspondence on file between Vava and Weizmann.’

  ‘As I have explained, they were living together at the time. Why should they correspond?’

  ‘Weizmann says he heard from him by every post.’

  ‘Well, I’m no expert on correspondence. However, when Bergmann received your letter he had the files searched. And it turned out from late material, which neither of us had looked at, that Weizmann did indeed recall the work with Vava.’

  He pressed a buzzer on his desk, and a secretary appeared.

  ‘Give me the late Weizmann material … You will see,’ he said to me, ‘it’s something in the nature of–meditations. It didn’t seem to us of the first importance. Of course, when the oil embargo blew up, Bergmann telephoned from America for the transcript. You will see the relevant papers. And inquiries were made there also. Commercial Solvents had a lot of his papers. Ah!’

  The girl had come back with the material. It was a collection of Xeroxes in a box file: typewritten notes and memos. They were all dated, some very fragmentary, a mere two or three sentences.

  ‘He was almost blind at this time, and very ill, of course,’ Weiss said.

  ‘Comatose, I’d heard.’

  ‘It wasn’t a coma. He simply stayed in bed. Sometimes he got up. I was not seeing him then, of course.’

  ‘No.’

  He looked at me, but didn’t say anything. I was glancing over the papers.

  ‘Towards the end it is quite mixed,’ he said.

  It was mixed. One short memorandum in 1952 contained three observations: one on the economy of Egypt, a suggested experiment with saline water, and a complaint about some roughness in one of his slippers.

  ‘A secretary took dictation when required.’ He saw me smiling slightly and said abruptly, ‘He was a great man.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A very great man.’ Again he opened his mouth and closed it.

  ‘Can I take this?’

  ‘Of course. It has been prepared for you.’ He paused, staring at me for a moment with a rather odd scowl (which only later struck me as embarrassment), and then took out of a drawer a copy of The Betrayed Decade, which he asked me to sign.

  What with this, and the fate of the world, and of the chaps in the starch belts, now in some way in my hands, I felt somewhat flummoxed on the way back to Rehovot.

  Chapter Four

  I read conscientiously through the memoranda in the afternoon. There was something rather strange in doing it in the room where it had been dictated twenty-odd years ago. The bed, where he had lain, was a couple of feet to my right. I was seated in the chair in which when ‘sometimes he got up’ he had sat. His grave was in easy eyeshot in the grass below. All this was disturbing. The notes themselves were disturbing, a fine mind become trivial, occasionally pettish; here and there a shaft of light, but not very often.

  It was a somewhat uneasy mixture of scientific thinking and rambling reflection. For one whole week, evidently, he had been much concerned with a famine in India: something every day about his protein process and a mode by which the waste from molasses could instantly be converted on a large scale to feed millions of the starving. There was a good deal of random invective about uncaring multinational companies, particularly oil companies. Inserted in all this was much bickering about the political direction of Israel, together with his own creature comforts. He seemed to have become very faddish about his food; every word taken down. I wondered where the original notebooks were that had contained this dictation and listened for Connie, but I couldn’t hear her.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Igor?’

  Nellie had come silently in, and I started. I had been gazing broodingly at the grave below.

  ‘I’d love one, Nellie.’

  ‘We’ll all be going in about half an hour. Of course, you can stay on if you want, but they shut the gate at the gatehouse, so you can’t get out that way.’

  ‘No, I’ll be ready when everyone is.’

  I got up and stretched my legs and walked about the room.It was an elegant room. Verochka had promised him somewhere in the correspondence how he’d find it. He’d found it complete, his pajamas ready for him under the coverlet, his first sight of it. He’d been terribly busy rushing about the world at the time, of course, so she had superintended the whole thing: stylish light stripy curtains, the same material on the bedcover and on the dressing-table stool. All chosen with much love and care and her madamish sense of the highest English style for her lord in this Levantine place. She hadn’t really much liked Palestine, still less Israel; had never learned Hebrew; couldn’t speak Yiddish. It was Chaimchik’s favorite language: all of his affectionate nature and warmth and humor came out in it. A strange partnership.

  Every item, she had chosen and placed. His bed against the wall, a most elegant bed, single; it was in some smooth light wood like pale ebony, head and foot ceremonially curved with a suggestion of Egypt and also Empire; Napoleon in Egypt. Beside the bed, a small commode with a silver candlesnuffer and a clock (stopped at 6 a.m., when he died), and also his prayer book, placed slightly askew as he had laid it down, yellowish pages open at the place.

  Next to the commode, and in the big semicircular bay where he had fed the birds, the large dark-oak refectory table at which I had been working. It was scattered with his knickknacks: photos, a barometer, a desk calendar, bits and pieces. Everything kept exactly as it was: his clothes in the cupboards, his soap and toothbrush in the adjoining bathroom basin (even his sleeping pills and stomach tablets in the cabinet) and a towel left ready for him on the towel-warmer in the small room off the bathroom.

  There was a door out to the landing, but because he hadn’t left the room for months it had been kept locked, and still was; one entered through Nellie’s room, which had been his nurse’s room. Nellie now entered through it, with a cup of tea, and I silently drank it.

  2

  For his sabbatical, Ham Wyke had swapped houses with a man across the courtyard from Meyer. They had made me welcome at Harvard, the Wykes. He was a large, almost elephantine man, surprisingly fast on his feet at ball games, and with a capacity for going still as a waxwork, mouth open, when working on a problem. Despite his eminence (the anticipated Prize was for his massive work on cancer research) he was a simple soul, with a taste for practical jokes. He was also the only scientist who’d ever been able to explain to me in simple terms what he was working at.

  A particular hazard in going to dinner with them was Marie-Louise’s tendency to buttonhole me on the state of her two stable worries: Ham’s ‘drink problem,’ and those connected with their dropout son Rod, now ‘into the drug scene.’ Fortunately, people were expected in for drinks later, which fussed her, so the expected consultation didn’t take place. I took the opportunity to have one with her husband instead.

  ‘Is there still anything in fermentation, Ham?’

  ‘Well, it’s old-fashioned, of course.’

  ‘But can it work?’

  ‘You can make anything work. The heat engine works. Do you realize our whole civilization still operates on the heat engine – since the day that Scotchman watched the kettle boil? It’s a kind of lunatic obsession. Every advance in science and technology has been ingeniously brought into line to improve the damned thing!’

  ‘You mean old-fashioned-superseded?’

  ‘Just old-fashioned. Known. All done. It wouldn’t excite anyone here.’

  ‘It doesn’t excite Finster.’

  ‘Exactly. It’s only fiddling now, getting your coordinates right, the optimum material, the optimum bug.’

  ‘It could
n’t be done on a computer these days?’

  ‘How? Too many variables.’

  ‘But if it’s a question of finding a lot of starch –’

  ‘Well, it isn’t. At least, I would think not. You’d need to find something with exactly the right qualities, then just the bug to turn it on. A number of things must be critically right.’

  ‘It would need an accident, you think?’

  ‘Probably. It’s like Ziegler – you know about him?’

  ‘No.’

  Recent history. He was working there in Germany. He was doing something with ethylene, in an autoclave. One day he suddenly found this filmy kind of scum building up; he couldn’t understand it. So he looked at it, and it occurred to him that the technicians hadn’t cleaned up properly from the last experiment, so he put up a notice in their place to find out who the hell was supposed to have. And naturally nobody showed up. They thought they’d get fired. So he offered a reward, something like that, and a guy came up finally and told him what the last experiment was, and that is the story of polyethylene. They gave him the Nobel Prize for it – Ziegler, not the technician.’

  ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Perfectly. That’s how it was. Of course, he had put in something like half a lifetime figuring what the hell to do with ethylene. But that’s how it happened. Accident.’

  ‘If this particular accident worked – the sweet potatoes – could it threaten the oil business?’

  ‘How would it? It is their business.’

  ‘They wouldn’t have an interest in suppressing it?’

  ‘How do you suppress knowledge of this sort? It’s general knowledge, surely.’

  I saw what Connie had meant about the unworldly scientist.

  ‘They might prefer the general knowledge to go no further?’

  He thought about it. ‘I don’t see that. They would surely want to get in on the act.’

  ‘Hello!’

  The first after-dinner guest had arrived. With a lowering of spirits I saw it was Dr Patel, my Indian admirer.

  ‘How terribly nice to see you. I won’t say it’s an accident,’ he said.

  ‘Ram has been wanting to meet you,’ Marie-Louise said. ‘I’ m not going to offer you a drink, Ram.’

  ‘You may do so, my dear. I will have a glass of orange juice. Fresh, mind. I’ll have none of your canned.’

  Close behind him came the Horowitzes, from practically next door – Professor Nathan Horowitz, Vice-President of the Institute – and after them the Selas, and further couples. Apart from Patel, they were all Israelis, and after a while as the place filled up I saw that Connie was there, too, and I moved over to her.

  ‘Igor, why do you run from Doctor Patel?’

  ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘That’s very unpleasant. He is a sweet person, apart from being brilliant and good. You won’t have such a fan. People are delighted to have him in Rehovot. Where is your Finnish friend?’

  ‘I don’t think they’ve invited her.’

  ‘Maybe they did, and she knew how unpleasant you were.’

  ‘Has she some other special friend since I was here?’

  ‘I don’t like these questions. Ask her yourself. Igor, you’ve been drinking. I don’t like you at all.’

  ‘You see, it’s a sad life, Connie. I sat in Chaimchik’s room and read over his last memoranda.’

  ‘In that case, you can have a drink. Life is sad,’ she said as we had one, ‘but – I have to say it – your reaction is childish. The Israelis here are putting on a show for you. Life at the present is not just sad but tragic, and I don’t even know how to explain it. How can a person like you not see this?’

  ‘Connie, have you been having one?’

  ‘Well, I did have one, but it isn’t that. People come here and they have only read about it in the newspaper. A most tremendous tragedy has happened here. Two and a half thousand young men were killed in a fortnight – can you imagine! And people try to carry on, and you tell me life is sad because you sat in Chaimchik’s room, an old man of seventy-eight, at the end of his life. And I know what you mean – but still. Oh, well, it’s sad,’ she said.

  ‘Did I give offense in some way?’

  ‘I am the one giving the offense. But at least – realize things are not normal. I should not be saying this. I want to say it to everybody, but it’s wrong. Really, I don’t know why I’m saying it to you.’

  I knew why she was saying it. The sense of enormity had hit me often enough. But with me, my family, these figures were so trivial, the disillusion so slight. I said, ‘Connie, it’s a world of terrible mistakes and accidents. I don’t know why you feel this way particularly, I mean just particularly tonight. But if you do, I’m sorry. And I’ll be terribly nice to Doctor Patel if it will help.’

  I was smiling at her, so she smiled back, and presently I did go and have a chat with Patel. It was a lengthy chat, I remember, but the strange thing was that I couldn’t recall any of it later, though I tried.

  *

  I had a further Scotch or two with Ham after the throng had gone, and woke with a headache.

  It was a day of headaches, anyway.

  3

  There was a very peculiar memo of Chaimchik’s that I pored over. He had evidently not been having a good day either. It was November 7, 1952, and the memo went on, with spaces, over several pages. It seemed to have started early, because there was something about his breakfast, and the next item was immediately about Vava.

  I particularly want those appointed to superintend the matter [next words missed] my absolute conviction that Kutcholsky’s contribution is a major break-through, the equal if not more [CLOSTRIDIA?]. My excuse must be that at the time we were not investigating such questions, and after much harassment I needed the rest, although I admit it to be no excuse and a demonstration of blindness. In which connection it is ironic that in my present blindness I am able …

  He appeared to have lost the track here, and he said his mouth was furred. There was some trouble with his teeth.

  After a space, Vava returned.

  As I have written [?] Kutcholsky with his large amounts of carotene and other substances [?] naturally several difficulties. But it is necessary to work with and not against nature, and in fact it gives us the key, even the trigger, to tremendously increased yields, which we have found in the work with Ketone Bill. We have produced a most elegant reaction, certainly with a very large conversion to methyl. He has the lab books himself. There can be no doubt that with the methyl already present together with the carotene that it is the answer to the problem.

  Such [catalysis?] taken with his halving of the time of fermentation will double the yield and provide a ketonic product of extreme concentration making immediately available to Israel a complete high-octane fuel.

  In this connection, the findings with the saline water are of the utmost significance. This drain [strain?] extensively in the Negev with minimum cultivation at no cost to us in potable water or otherwise cultivable land.

  The benefits only begin here. For half my life I have found all contests with the oil companies to have a predetermined end in the question of an alternative supply of raw materials. Here for the first time a determined attempt may be made, a working model for the world. Our teams of workers can make the poorest areas of Africa and Asia independent of oil wells.

  The next decade will show not only great increase in production from Arab oil-fields and those still to be found, but explosive advance in the field of petro-chemicals. It is possible to visualize a situation where the economies of even the developed countries may be dependent in a large degree on Arab oil, a situation with grave consequences for us. To my suggestion with regard to Egypt, I add …

  A page or two of political reflection followed, very disjointed, with some further trouble about his teeth, and then a single cryptic paragraph.

  I have been thinking. Perhaps the Bradford people will be able to let us know. I will think again later.
That German would make a cat laugh. Never mind, he will prove the best internationalist of us all. It’s a funny world. We will celebrate the holiness of the day.

  There was no more that day, except some tantrum to do with his food. He’d had a sudden desire for chutney, and then wouldn’t take it; his every remark by now was being noted, the end near. The following evening. November 8th, he went into a coma, and he died at six on the morning of the ninth. I could imagine the nurse, listening to his breathing, running in at the door. Nellie now trotted through it.

  ‘Mr Weisgal would like to talk to you, Igor. He is on the phone to Mr Meltzer now.’

  I went through to Julian’s room, and after a moment or two was handed the phone.

  ‘Igor? Weiss tells me he explained to you.’

  ‘Well, yes, he did. He explained a bit, Meyer.’ My head was throbbing evilly. ‘I am just going through some papers he gave me.’

  ‘He has a further point. He asks where Vava got these potatoes in the first place, how he even came to deal with such things. That’s very interesting, eh?’

  ‘Well, it is,’ I said, ‘I suppose, in a way.’

  ‘It raises the question of locating Vava’s other correspondence – not just with Weizmann. Weiss says he had many friends in London. What I am thinking, this Joe of yours there, he could initiate some work in that direction.’

  ‘He’s in hospital just now.’

  ‘So give him a call.’

  ‘Yes, all right, Meyer.’ Lying in bed, with his eyes crossing, would not, it suddenly occurred to me, greatly interfere with Meyer’s own telephone activity.

  ‘What is it? You have some problem?’

  ‘Weizmann’s last memo. It’s very fragmentary and complicated.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, that’s the problem. I’m thinking about it.’

  ‘Can I help?’

  ‘It’s the last week of his life. He is saying strange, disjointed things. I don’t understand them.’

  He was silent a moment. ‘So maybe I can. Come over here. That guy will bring you.’