“Is he working well at least?” I ask, thinking he might be a classic eccentric scientist.
Vlad laughs as if I just asked if Katie Price won the Pulitzer.
“He can’t use a pipette. I need to show him everything ten times, and he simply does not get it.”
“But he must have a degree, right?”
“Yes. He has a bachelor’s. God knows where from, somewhere in England, maybe he stole it.”
Daniel presses “7” and I wonder why we don’t just walk down one flight. When we get out, Stacey says, “I just need to check on Sneezy, I’ll join you after.”
She presses the “0” and the elevator doors close behind me. Did she say “Sneezy”?
Edward explains, “Sneezy is the aggressive rabbit. It’s in the car.”
“In the car?”
“Yeah, it can’t be home alone so she brings it to work every day.”
“It stays in the car?”
“Yes.” Slightly worried, he adds. “Don’t give her the idea to bring it to the office. It’s aggressive and it stinks.” She could entertain bringing a rabbit into the office?! This is all so sweet I want to weep for us in Lab 262.
Lucy is waiting for us at a table near the back of the canteen. We don’t need long to decide what to eat as the canteen choices are paltry in that Spartan way beloved of academia. I take a salad with fries and pay for myself and Daniel.
“You are not much of a gentleman, are you?” Vlad comments from behind us in the queue.
“I don’t get paid, she does.”
“Oh, come on. Get a weekend job at Sainsbury’s.”
Good man! Well said!
“I am not going to work at Sainsbury’s.”
“Then you will be a loser without money.”
I’m really starting to respect Vlad’s blunt, rude, over-assertive, inappropriate and painfully true interventions…
Lucy greets us all with her minimalist smile. It’s all you need when you are divinely beautiful. In fact it was probably more than was advisable with Vlad. He pushes Daniel to the side so he can take the seat opposite Lucy. He looks at her as if he has just found a diamond in a dung-heap. Instead of a handshake, he almost kisses the back of her hand but pulls back in the face of her unwelcoming expression. He is watching her like a starving pig staring at a mountain of fresh slop; in that unsexy way which is the speciality of goggle-eyed, spotty adolescents and – sadly – some academics.
“Hello,” he says, in a dreamy voice that affects everyone; it is as well that we have not yet eaten.
“Hi,” Lucy replies drily.
Her tone really does make it plain that this woman’s juices are not flowing, but Vlad the lad will not be deterred, “You have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“You want to go on a date?”
It’s impressively direct. I’m worried Lucy finds it disarming. I’m not sure gorgeous creatures like Lucy belong in academia. I don’t know where they belong – her beauty sheers her off from everything around her – but it’s certainly not in Vlad’s bed. Then I think about the weirdo from the Chemistry department she went to the cinema with, 24/7 veggie boy. This Vlad is at least as strange, but less attractive.
Lucy and I exchange a short glance which confirms she knows Vlad is not a person any self-respecting girl will waste her time on. She answers with Vlad-like, dry directness, “No.”
A very serious, almost caring expression emerges on Vlad’s face and I just know he has a priceless line for such situations. True to form, it’s a cracker, “You know, you are actually too old already. You won’t have much chance anymore. I can take you. I will buy you nice presents.”
Lucy laughs, and the whole table convulses.
“I am not interested, thanks.”
“Okay, but I will keep trying. I promise.”
We were all taught to be honest, to say what we mean and mean what we say. Perhaps Vlad’s parents pushed that lesson a tad too hard. He could get done for harassment in the office and punched in the pub for being a pest. But we academics are too anaemic for either. Is our studious world a refuge for lads like Vlad?
Perhaps strangely, I like Vlad. He is entertaining but, also, his unsparing thoughts and harsh judgements chime with my new thinking in Edinburgh: I fear the only thing blossoming in my life as a PhD student is cynicism.
© Springer International Publishing AG 2017
Karin BodewitsYou Must Be Very Intelligent10.1007/978-3-319-59321-0_11
Chapter 11
Karin Bodewits1
(1)Munich, Germany
Karin Bodewits
Email: [email protected]
Through the cracks round the door I see it is still dark in Lab 262. This is a little eerie because I am not early today. I went to the pub with Lucy yesterday evening, after an eight-mile run round Arthur’s Seat, so my legs were doubly reluctant to leave the bed this morning. Still, it’s good to get a quiet start. I switch on all the lights, drop off my backpack and turn on the radio to dispel the unexpected silence; Metallica with One, a heavy guitar riff to kick off the day – perfect. I drop off my coat and inspect my lab book to remind myself of the exact PCR methods I used during the preceding four days, none of which yielded anything. The PCR product I am looking for is not worth looking for; it could be purchased custom-made. But a few months of my life are far less valuable than a few hundred pounds, in Mark’s world anyway. A couple of degrees up at this temperature cycle, an elongation step that is just a few seconds longer, down a bit there… it is as intellectually stimulating as optimising the boiling time for an egg. The difference is that a boiled egg is usable. Dutifully, I come up with three new PCR cycles to try.
“Today I will get the fucker,” I mumble with my lips closed.
I take the Burkholderia DNA out of the freezer, three sets of different primers, two buffers produced by different suppliers and a small tube with polymerase enzyme. Not much enzyme left I note with a nervous glance at our shopping list, but hopefully sufficient for my three PCRs.
I place the tubes in the machine and turn it on. It is 9:00 a.m. when I enter the office so Hanna should walk in any moment. She is very predictable; she works from nine to five – not longer, not shorter, not by a minute. This morning, ‘clockwork Hanna’ she is unaccountably absent. I start eating the bread roll I bought on the way here and look lazily at a scientific paper lying on the desk in front of me. Shortly after finishing half of the bread and having absorbed about three words, I look at the clock, almost 9:15 a.m. I am still alone. Strange. Did I forget something? Is there a meeting or something?
Slightly nervous I go to the common computer and open my student email account. One new message, from Beverley Alexander, entitled: “Disclosure Scotland”. I scroll through the old emails, but there is nothing to suggest I might be missing something important. Also, Lucy did not mention anything about a meeting yesterday evening. I decide this emptiness is down to coincidence and open the single new email.
From the administration office of the School of Chemistry: Dear Karin,
I have not received your filled-out Disclosure Scotland form for your teaching duties at the university yet. As your classes start this week I urgently need it.
Don’t hesitate to drop by my office if you require any assistance.
Best wishes,
Beverley Alexander
What is she writing about? I must have missed it.
It is nearly 10:00 a.m. when I amble along the large hallway to the front of the building, to see that the small lecture theatre is empty and the larger one is slowly filling with undergraduates. They all look as if this is much too early for their biorhythms. I spot none of my colleagues and decide to check the small hidden room behind one of the theatres, where we had a lab meeting the other day. The door is locked. Where the hell is everyone?
The door of the administration office is wide open. I knock softly on the doorframe before entering. When both ladies behind their computers look up I st
ep closer to their desks, and catch a pleasant whiff of Chanel perfume. I speak with fake insecurity:
“Hi.”
“Hi, how can I help?”
The short, blond-haired woman has a friendly voice and a nice smile.
“Well, you just sent me an email about this Disclosure Scotland thing I need to fill out…” I say, trying to sound like I care deeply about whatever bureaucratic pedantry I have not tended to. She nods, indicating she wants me to continue talking.
“I am not sure I know what it is about. I don’t think I received anything.”
“Oh, didn’t you?” she asks, still friendly but a little edge creeping into her voice now.
She gets a folder from one of the shelves and presents me with a green and white paper. “There it is.”
It looks like a very standard official document, the sort that gets filed away and never looked at because it served no real purpose in the first place except as part of an employment scheme for those weird, mentally ill people whose hearts don’t sink when they hear the words “rules and regulations.”
“What’s it for?”
“Everyone teaching at the university needs to fill it out. It is a standard check, to see if you have been convicted of paedophilia for example.”
“Paedophilia? Why would that be relevant for my teaching?”
Before she can answer I add, “I am not teaching at primary school.”
“No, but some of the students you will be teaching are still seventeen.”
What? You cannot be serious? Are you mad? Are you so under-employed you have time to contemplate the ridiculous notion that a seventeen year old who has recently escaped from under his mummy’s protective wing and is now partying like crazy would see reason to press charges if a twenty-four year old graced his spunk-encrusted duvet cover with her body?
“Do you think a seventeen year old would mind?”
She looks at me surprised. In all fairness, she is clearly trying to suppress a smile and she barely manages – she is not lost to the devouring paranoia of bureaucratic process just yet – it usually takes a few years for the soul to atrophy completely.
“It is illegal in the UK.”
I smile politely, “Oh, okay, I will check their ID first before taking them home.”
She smiles and chews her under lip, almost commenting but just not comfortable enough with bureaucratic heresy.
“I’ll fill it out and bring it back,” I say after a few seconds of silence.
“That’s great!”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Sure.”
“There is no one in my lab today, which seems strange to me. Do you have an idea where they could be? Did I miss something of utmost importance?”
“I can have a look?”
She opens a different window on her modern flat screen computer, which means she has better equipment for protecting 17 year old males from having sex with 24 year old females than Lab 262 has for fighting cystic fibrosis. She shakes her head. “No, there is nothing special in the calendar.”
“Strange.”
“Maybe a lab meeting?” she suggests.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
She presses her lips together and lifts her shoulders.
“Well… I’m sorry I can’t help.”
“No worries. Thanks anyway.”
I stride to the lab, this time taking the shortest route. I walk from the front to the back of the building through the long corridor on the second floor which, in the middle, everyone regrets taking. It’s the only hallway in the department with a thick brown carpet. The floor beneath is flay, crumbling and just plain not here. It has holes and ridges everywhere. It squeaks like crazy and sometimes springs a little. I speed up to reach a safe base before the whole construct collapses and everything falls down one storey. I open the door of the lab and turn the volume up on the radio, put on gloves and carefully apply masking tape to close the ends of the plastic form we use to make DNA gels. The music makes me happy and I am hopeful that the PCR method I tried this morning will work. Just when I add a few microliters of the poisonous Ethidium Bromide to the hot liquid in the Erlenmeyer flask, I hear a loud sigh behind me. In shock I very nearly drop the hot glass flask but manage to get my shaking fingers under control. I turn around and see Mark stretching up above the refrigerator to switch off the radio.
“You did not hear me entering,” he states, looking very annoyed about me being so engaged in my work.
“Eh, no, I didn’t.”
“No wonder, if you have that so loud! No one can work with that noise.”
“Yeah, I was alone, so I thought…”
“Where is everyone?” he is positively barking now.
“I don’t know.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t know.”
He repeats this as if I am at fault for not knowing the whereabouts of these other adults who I don’t live with. His keys tick on my lab bench. He regards me as if I might have killed the other students and hidden their bodies in the cold-room. Or maybe he looks at me as if he wants to kill me. I don’t know. For sure, behind those slightly bulging eyes there lies barely contained fury.
He peers at me for a few seconds then takes a few steps.
“Don’t you think you should tidy this up?”
He points at the sink, in which there is half a dozen plastic bottles, some filled with old broth and lumps of pink disinfectant powder, alongside loose props of cottonwood and aluminium foil which we use to close the flasks. Next to the sink there are two Styrofoam ice buckets in which a few, hopefully empty, Eppendorfs float. There are gel-smeared plates everywhere. And there are used paper towels, a bottle of chloroform and dirtied metal spoons. It is, as Mark observed, a mess. But why on Earth is he pretending it is my mess?
“Sure, but it is not really mine,” I dare to say.
“No, it’s never anyone’s!”
He has a point there, though only in a literal, meaningless sense. It is never anyone’s mess. In our lab it is almost impossible to find your own mess amid other people’s mess because it is a small, congested, demoralised lab – one homogenous mess. However, passive-aggressive has long been Mark’s metier with the others, and I suppose I should be grateful this is only the second time he has been openly hostile to me. But it’s a surprise attack, I feel ambushed and dazed – better martial my defences… Breath in, breath out…
“I guess the bottles are left there to let the disinfectant do its work before we flush it in the sink,” I say, knowing that I can’t explain the other mess that way.
Again he shakes his head, puts his keys in his pocket and starts cleaning the bottles himself. I start to clean the glass plates and empty the ice buckets. From the corner of my eye I see the Erlenmeyer flask standing with the hot liquid.
“I really need to pour that gel before it settles.”
Mark doesn’t comment. Just as I hold the Erlenmeyer at a 45 degree angle to start pouring, Marks asks: “How far are you with LpxA?”
He uses a gruff, demanding tone of voice that seems more befitting of a Kremlin big-wig addressing a lackey than academics working together on scientific research in Scotland’s capital city.
Breathe, breathe, bloody breathe! Don’t shout back at him. You are above all that and it will get you nowhere.
“I am working on WaaA and LpxC,” I reply, fearing this will confirm I am a bad person.
He scowls. “Have you ordered the primers for LpxA yet?”
“No,” I say, ever so softly, head bowed.
My knees are getting weak, my heart starts beating at high speed and I want to sink into the ground. I am sure we agreed I should work on WaaA and LpxC. Why does he suddenly bring up LpxA? Did I misunderstand? No, I didn’t!…
“I want you to work on that now,” he snarls.
“Okay,” I say like an errant three-year-old who has been caught cutting electric cables.
I’m thinking it would be fitting to clip the
heels of my boots together, place two fingers under my nose and extend my right arm at an acute angle, but I’m too scared to wear an expression let alone make a sarcastic gesture.
When the sink looks sort of tidy Mark walks to the cold room. Briefly he glares inside the eight square metres and closes the door again. Without saying a word he swings open the door and storms out of the lab. I sit down and take long, controlled breaths. That arsehole! Did I do something wrong? No, I bloody didn’t. I feel emotional, about to cry. Maybe I am crying. Or maybe I am just angry. I don’t even know. I fetch a pack of Marlboro from my backpack in the office and walk downstairs. I smoke one, then another. Slowly I get myself together. Don’t get angry. There a plenty of people who envy you for having this position. He is just moody, that’s all…
I walk back upstairs and try to concentrate on my PCR sample that now needs to be pipetted into one of the tiny slots of the DNA gel lying in a buffer. Just when I pull the pipette tip out of the slot, with hands that are either trembling from nicotine overload or nerves, my telephone vibrates. A text message from Daniel; Do you want to go for lunch?
He really thinks I will buy him another lunch?
I would love to talk to someone about what just happened with Mark, but Daniel probably doesn’t have sympathetic ears for me. Ever more we meet each other at awkward angles.
“No,” I reply.
I close the box and turn on the power, little bubbles form in the buffer indicating that there is an electric field and the gel is running. Once more I check that I have the cables connected on the right side. It would not be the first time that I have the anode on the wrong end of the gel. I realise I am still a bag of nerves.
I would love to turn the music back on, but I don’t dare. What if he comes in a second time? Instead, I walk to the office and open the full genome sequence of Burkholderia on one of the shared computers, all of which are badly scuffed. I go to the search engine and type “LpxA.” No hit, I need to search for it myself, I feel ridiculously harassed. Quinn comes in, says “Hi” and plops himself on one of the chairs. As on most days, the smell of perspiring feet wafts in with him. He takes care of himself in general but, alas, seems to possess only one pair of socks.
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