You Must Be Very Intelligent

by Karin Bodewits

  “Just a sec,” says Felix while exchanging one tube for another and catching a transparent liquid. There is a large colourful column hanging on the stand above the tubes; chromatography, I think.

  “Yes,” he says looking at me only briefly so as not to lose visual contact with the dripping liquid.

  I put down the bottle with the amino acid and proudly announce, “We had it.”

  “Ah, cool,” he says, quickly reading the label and exchanging the filled tube with an empty one. “Do you have a minute so I can take out what I need?”

  “No worries. I have time, lots of it.”

  I sit on a stool and watch for a few minutes how skilfully he keeps on exchanging tubes, as if he has been doing it for years. It is quite dreamy in this lovely lab watching the mysterious liquid drip into tubes to a soundtrack from Opeth, Swedish heavy metalists.

  “You like the music?” he asks after a while.

  He must have seen me dreaming away at my mirror image in the fume hood window. “Not really, but it fits the scene nicely.”

  “What do you like?”

  “Rock, jazz, blues… depends…”

  He exchanges the tubes one more time and closes the valve above the column. “Finished.”

  He turns towards me and I see shiny blue eyes behind the safety specs, and a friendly, freckle-covered face. “You don’t have a fraction collector to automatise this process?” I ask, pointing at the 100 or so tubes of liquid he manually collected.

  He places a hand on my shoulder and grabs my under-arm as if we have known each other for years. He bends his knees, loosens his hand and makes a waving gesture towards the samples as if he is presenting them: “Why would we need that? There is ME…”

  He looks playful, entertained. He grabs the bottle with dried amino acid and I follow him to the scale on the other side of the lab. “I am a postdoc, much cheaper than a fraction collector,” he says, smiling. “In fact for my boss it’s free; I’m funded by a European scholarship to work here.”

  He takes a small piece of paper folded in the shape of a tray and carefully places it on the middle of the scale. With a spatula he takes a spoonful of amino acid and weighs it. “You mind if I take a bit more?” he asks.

  “Go ahead.”

  “You are an angel.”

  “You are the first person to tell me that.”

  I do not feel like an angel. I feel cruel and broken. He smiles again. He is a happy bunny, a person that lightens everyone’s mood.

  “Can I give you something in return?” he asks, while looking around the lab and, I guess, realising this is a rather stupid question.

  I could have suggested “a real and meaningful PhD experience in this nice lab,” but I don’t want to sound as desperate as I feel. “Like pipette tips?” I joke.

  “Yeah, you want?”

  “No, I don’t, but I wouldn’t mind a coffee from that amazing machine you’ve got in the office.”

  He looks slightly surprised. He has possibly never worked for a threadbare underpants-type of guy who does not have a coffee machine in the office next to his Nature cover pages. He possibly doesn’t know that the PhD world contains deserts next to verdant grasslands like his blessed lab.

  “Sure, come,” says he, steering me by the elbow towards the glass door.

  “Can we go through here?”

  “Of course, that’s what doors are made for.”

  “I got a bit scared of Homer Simpson just before, telling me off; he said not to walk in the office with chemicals.”

  “Homer Simpson?!” he repeats, obviously amused. “That’s the boss, Professor Walker… He’s not scary, just fat.”

  I look at him in disbelief. Is he really telling me that the Homer Simpson guy with a white, too short T-shirt, jeans displaying a builder’s bum and thick clumsy fingers shining with the sunflower oil of his crisps, is the same person featured on the cover of Nature and Science? Is Homer the person who has at least twenty-five PhD students and postdocs working for him?

  “You are joking,” I say, pausing in front of the glass door.

  “Nope,” says Felix, steering me by the arm again to make me move.

  We walk into the coffee corner but this time there is no sign of Homer. There are just a few people working at the desks facing the walls. They all look like they are engaged in serious work. If my screen were visible to everyone in the room, including Prof. Simpson, I would also refrain from opening social media on my desktop…

  “Shit, no water tank,” says Felix, placing the coffee mug on the roaster and checking the sink.

  “William’s got it again,” says a guy at one of the desks closest to the block.

  Felix smiles, sighs and shakes his head playfully. “Come.”

  We walk through the glass door back to the lab. Felix opens the door of an office cubicle separated by large windows from the lab space. It contains a very large U-shaped desk going around the office. It is separated into four generous work spaces. There are two caddies with golf clubs, a golf ball target under the far end of the desk and a few balls spread over the floor. Someone must be playing inside, wow! Sitting in front of one of the computers is none other than red-haired Pippi Longstocking-Heidi crossbreed, whistling the same tune she always whistles in the corridor. There are two other people in the office, both wearing headphones, possibly to block out her whistling.

  Felix rests his hand on the shoulder of a sporty, black-haired guy drawing complex chemical structures on his computer. He waits until the guy takes off his headphones. “William! You happen to have the water tank for the coffee machine?”

  His desk is tidy, everything perfectly aligned and placed just so. Age-wise, William is probably too old to be doing a PhD, a postdoc I suspect.

  “Yup,” says he, turning around in his office chair to face us. His demeanour is either cheerful or overly strict. For me as an outsider, it’s hard to tell, but quite amusing to watch.

  “This young lady dropped by to give me the amino acid we need to build the next station; I would like to give her a coffee in return.”

  William takes his keychain out of his jeans and uses it to open his desk drawers. I can see scientific papers in there, divided by splitters in alphabetical order. At the back of the drawer there is a large water tank, pushing all the papers to the front. He takes it out and hands it over to Felix.

  “Please return it when you’re finished,” says William.

  “Sure,” says Felix and slaps him on the shoulder in a friendly way.

  “Can I ask why you keep the water tank of a coffee machine in your drawer?” I ask.

  “Because the last person using it didn’t clean it; only this way do those guys learn,” says William in a very irked tone, as if dealing with a small child, and nodding in the direction of the lab. Control freak.

  Felix shuffles me out of the office. “William is loopy,” he says when we are out of earshot. “His research team is numbering the meetings World War I, World War II, World War III…”

  While filling up the tank, he adds, “He’s a good chemist though, great guy.”

  He hands me coffee smelling of freshly ground beans. “If you want another one, just help yourself,” he says, clearly not intending to return the water tank to William.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” I say, sort of hoping that I have finally found a free coffee supply but also wondering if maybe, just once in a while, academia still works and is a fine thing – bizarre boss, neurotic employee, sly banter, mad music and general eccentricity in a state-of-the-art happy lab resounding with intense industriousness. This is what I thought I was coming to Edinburgh for…

  “Any time, just join us,” says Felix.

  I wish I could. I really wish I could. “I will come back to return the mug,” I say.

  “Keep it for next time, it’s mine.”

  Out in the main corridor I hear the same yawning noise I regularly hear in the early evenings; one of the senior lectures practicing bagpipes in the large lectu
re theatre. Given my general bleakness about life passing by unremarkably, right now that bagpipe racket sounds like a marching dirge as I trudge from what-should-have-been to what-sadly-is.

  © Springer International Publishing AG 2017

  Karin BodewitsYou Must Be Very Intelligent10.1007/978-3-319-59321-0_21

  Chapter 21

  Karin Bodewits1

  (1)Munich, Germany

  Karin Bodewits

  Email: office@karinbodewits.com

  “You don’t eat?” Thomas asks with a worried look that make his brown eyes look even sexier than when he smiles.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  There is a full plate of beautifully decorated Spanish tapas in front of me that I would normally love to eat, but today it makes me feel sick. I haven’t eaten anything substantial since Daniel left. I get my calories from alcohol.

  We had finally parted, for good. It is a feeling of relief, like the one you might feel post cecum removal; the appendicitis has been alleviated but, at the same time, it hurts. What hurts me most is that I hurt him. The desperate messages he sent me during the last two weeks trying to win me back, begging to talk it all out and so on. The pain in his words and his trembling voice. All his emails and voicemails end with similar content; that he is not sure how it all happened but that I am definitely not the same person as I had been before the PhD. Three days ago, he said I should go and see a general practitioner to get checked, something must be wrong. Two days ago, he suggested I go and see an endocrinologist – clearly an imbalance of spooky female hormones has driven me to an irrational decision. Yesterday he proposed a psychologist. I’m half-curious what specialist he will suggest tonight. Lucy and I speculated a cardiologist, which wouldn’t make any logical sense, but it would fit the dramaturgy. Next week it might well be a brain tumour causing my foulness, though Daniel could just as well recommend a tarot reading. I feel sorry for him but I also know that his desperation will yield to anger, misunderstanding and years of throwing mud in my face. Such is life when you dump someone who does not want to be dumped. Sometimes I yearn for that mud in my face ASAP; it will be one step closer to the end of the end.

  I am too sober. Our story hangs over me like a cloud of gloom. Sexy, it is not. I can’t talk to Thomas about it anyway; I would bore myself as much as him. He knows it is over now, and despite the fact he never asked, he probably has an inkling that the dumping of Daniel so soon after the ceilidh is not entirely coincidental. Thomas gave me license and confidence to pull the trigger. He symbolised the fact that I could score better, or at least differently, or at least someone whose sloth doesn’t make me want to howl at the moon. True, Thomas is someone who makes my stomach heat up in a manner it has not done since my teen years, but he needn’t fear it; I’m not looking to pick out curtains with him. I just want to play while time passes.

  Today my stomach does not boil. I feel empty, exhausted and wonder if it would not have been better to go drinking yet again with Lucy. Thomas had phoned the very evening Daniel left. I had told him as serenely as I could – between stifled tears, and therefore probably not very serenely at all – that I just needed a bit of time, I’d get in touch soon. He has been a patient gentleman and so, after catching sight of him strolling on campus this afternoon, I dropped by his office and finally accepted his dinner invitation. And here we are, mostly just staring at each other and not knowing what to say.

  “Shall we have a coffee at my flat?” Thomas asks.

  Some mindless sex with Mr. Hotty? I’d be crazy to decline. I want to get out of this place with the Bueno Vista Social Club blasting through the stereo and only leaving me cold… But, er, coffee!?…

  “You have wine as well?”

  “Sure,” he says, smiling and showcasing perfectly aligned white teeth.

  He waves to the barman and pays the bill. He is just trying to be gentlemanly but I am transported. With Daniel I always paid the bills and it got my goat eventually.

  We still don’t talk much on the way to his apartment. It’s faintly awkward but it’s better than me prattling on like a misery guts about my big break-up. Lucy had warned me in the office today not to ask anything about the mysterious theoretical models he is working on. “Give them a finger, and they’ll take the whole hand: if you show interest in their matrices then next thing they are enthusiastically drawing formulas on the windows. And then you sit there, utterly bored and wondering if the Greek sigma symbol turns him on more than you do.”

  She had rolled her eyes in disbelief when I said that a Russell Crow-clone covering glass with complex algebra would turn me on, though I feared most physicists would use unromantic paper instead.

  “Totally agree with Ka… so hot,” Hanna had chipped in, raising her head from her lab book.

  “You both have strange sexual fetishes,” Lucy said.

  “What turns you on then? ‘Lucy…I have a première édition de ‘Batman the movie’ Tu veux le voir… together?’” I said with a low voice.

  All three of us laughed. Logan placed his hands over his ears. I added, “Give me a guy whispering complex formulas in my ear… that makes me much happier!”

  “It makes you feel stupid,” said Lucy.

  Hanna didn’t care, “You don’t have to follow it, do you? Just watch him passionately, but hopelessly, explaining something complex. And then you have awesome sex afterwards.”

  Logan left the office as soon as he heard the word “sex.” He is unnerved by three girls talking intimately and crudely. But maybe female scientists are weird? Maybe male scientists are weird? Most people do not want to be scientists, yet scientists cannot imagine wanting to be anything else. We possibly nurture each other’s weirdness. I don’t know any more; scientists are my world.

  We often talk about our sex lives as a fun game, sounding like wised-up students while we toil through our PhDs. Mostly it works, but later in the day, such as right now, it can feel remote because in truth we are older and life has gotten heavier – unbearable at times.

  Despite having sexual fantasies set in Oxford-like movie sets, tonight I would prefer a drink over algebra. I find myself hoping that Thomas doesn’t turn out to be an ultra-nerd. Suspicion is ignited when, at the last set of traffic lights by the Royal Botanic Garden, he watches me for a long time. It is definitely weird.

  “You feel like coming home with me?” he finally asks.

  “I guess I do… As long as you are not planning on watching Batman with me.”

  Thomas laughs in a charming way that relaxes me.

  “Why did you come up with that?”

  “Just a thought going through my head.”

  “Strange girl you are. Do you like it in Edinburgh?”

  “Yes, I do. I like the city, but I’m not sure if I like my PhD.”

  “Mark gives you a hard time, doesn’t he?”

  “He does.”

  I am shocked to feel tears welling up. I don’t know if it is because of the question he asked or because of the emotions of the last few days. I need a cigarette or a bottle of wine to suppress my feelings, but I don’t have either on me.

  During the last few hundred metres to Thomas’ flat, located in beautiful Stockbridge on the north side of town, neither of us speaks.

  “Here it is,” he finally mumbles.

  We climb the stairs to the top of a three-storey building, which is cold and reeks of detergent. Thomas sticks his key in the front door then turns around and softly touches my cheek with his hand. Tender or weird? Or both? And do I care? Hm… This is going well…

  I step into the flat behind him and see that I am already in the living room. The ceiling is high and decorated with angels, and the evening view from the windows, over the Firth of Forth is stunning; so different from Gorgie Road. Soft blues music sets the tone while two guys play chess at a large wooden table. Both lift their heads to greet us and I instantly recognise their faces; PhD students at the Chemistry Department, working in different sections from me. I see them
often enough playing cards or pool in KB House on Friday nights. Shit. You might just as well announce on the flat screen at the entrance hall of the School of Chemistry, “Person A has agreed to have intercourse with Person B.” Men might feel proud in such a situation and want the world to know they got laid. But women like to feel it’s special and nobody else’s damn business for now – bang goes that idea. Why did Thomas not mention he lives with these guys? And why on Earth did I not suggest we go to my flat instead? I’m really not on my game, so out of practice, is there a course on casual intercourse etiquette?…

  The guys look far too curious and stare at me for far too long. I feel my face getting red and am actively wishing I was not here.

  “Hey Karin, how you doing?” one says.

  He has red, curly hair and glasses which are much too large for his face. The other one has long black hair tied to a ponytail and a belly suggesting he appreciates McDonald’s cuisine. I have never talked to them, but they seem to know my name. Maybe Thomas mentioned me to his flatmates before? He did not mention them to me. Is that slick operating or lowdown games?…

  “Hi, I’m fine,” I say, probably sounding as insecure as I feel and look.

  Thomas senses my discomfort and steers me towards the kitchen.

  “White or red?” he asks

  “Red.”

  “This is a good one,” says he, taking a bottle with a bull on the label from the shelf above the fridge.

  I wouldn’t really care if it’s methylated spirit. I just want to get away from the here and now. He takes my hand softly and gently pulls me to the other side of the corridor. We enter the small room in which he has obviously been living for a while and sit on the bed side. There is a bit of space between us but when he moves, the hairs on his arms touch me. For the first time today my stomach seems to warm up. It doesn’t get super-hot as it did the evening he entered the lab but, hey-ho, it’s nice to feel something other than abject misery.