The Rest is Silence

by Scott Fotheringham

  When I ask, she won’t tell me whether they are having sex. She says I’m being possessive.

  “If you want to know for a good reason,” she says calmly, “then I’ll tell you.”

  “Are you doing this because I didn’t say yes to you?”

  “I’m doing it because I need more than to live here alone with you.”

  When she is at Forest Garden I can pretend that nothing has changed. We cut firewood and garden together. We sit by the fire at night together. We continue to sleep together and sometimes have sex. When she isn’t here, though, and even sometimes when she is, I miss her.

  One late summer day she comes to the pine grove with me. I’m frisky and hope we will have sex. It’s warm enough in the sun that I can take off my shirt and place it on the pine needles as a blanket. She lies on it and I kiss her and scratch her scalp. I can tell she’s distracted. I put my hand under her T-shirt and stroke her belly, then move up to her breast. She nudges my hand away and makes an irritated sound.

  “They’re sore,” she says. “I think I must be getting my period.”

  I pull my hand out and lie on the needles beside her, looking up at the branches of the pines mingling in the sky. She snuggles up to me, putting her head on my shoulder.

  “I can see having my home base here. With you. I can go off and travel and do the things I need to do and come back to you each fall to overwinter.”

  She makes it sound like she’s a Canada goose, waiting to fly south to Georgia. She’s with me now, however, and it seems we might work something out.

  Less than a month later and she’s changed her mind again. We are sitting in the dark by the fire. It is late September and we woke this morning to the first frost. We should get a few weeks of warm days and crisp, clear nights. She sits in front of me on the dry ground, my arms wrapped around her.

  “Let’s drift apart slowly like Morocco did from Nova Scotia,” I whisper in her ear as she leans against my chest.

  The firelight reflects orange off her face. Something in the look she gives me offers little warmth. I know I am alone now, that the best I can hope for is pity, and pity is worse than nothing at all.

  “Charles is going to take me to see my gran and to visit Georgian Bay,” she says. “He wants to go on a road trip to the West Coast and spend the winter out there. Then, next summer, we’ll drive up to the Yukon for the Solstice.”

  All the places we have talked of going together. I ask her when she’s leaving.

  “Sometime in October.”

  So much for Forest Garden and me as her home base. I could have said yes when she asked me to marry her and she might have stayed, but that would be like clipping a hen’s wings. Thousands of tiny lights ray down above the horizon of treetops that encircles us. In the years to come I intend to thin these woods with a handsaw and a felling axe, buck my firewood by hand, split it with a sharp maul and axe. And then, five hundred years from now, a mature forest will stand here, oblivious to the pain of loving and losing that came so long before. Sooner than all that, sooner than the sawing and felling, and a lot sooner than the white pines growing to their full height, I’ll be alone again. She is Morocco, drifting with her half of our shared geology. One day soon, once she’s gone, if you look down from where those stars are shining you’ll be able to see, despite the expanse of sea between us, that we once fit together. That our edges would still mesh like two pieces of a puzzle.

  27

  New York City

  Benny’s run, after walking three miles home from Rachel’s, made her tired. She was still recovering from the marathon. She slept in the next morning and was late getting to the lab. She hung her jacket on one of the hooks on the wall by her desk and sat down in the chair. It was 10:45. Underneath the clock Leach had hung a quote from Einstein:

  Perfection of means and confusion of goals seem to characterize our age.

  She pulled a notebook down and opened it to the previous day’s entry. This one was written in cursive, from right to left and in a private shorthand only she could decipher. She was left-handed and her handwriting was elegant only when she wrote backwards. It wasn’t often that she associated that adjective with herself. Pushing her hand across the page the way she was told to since grade school felt like shovelling gravel. Her everyday handwriting looked like it had been scratched by an eight-year-old. It did not bring her joy to look at her experimental results because her research had not been going well. The past two weeks had been full of setbacks. First her bacterial cultures had been contaminated. Then, once she’d solved that problem, the bacteria wouldn’t take up the recombinant plasmid DNA she had engineered containing the estA gene. She was at a standstill.

  She pushed the book away. Somnolence tussled with the exhilaration of being in love. But she was exhausted from getting little sleep the night before. The fluorescent lights settled the match and she laid her head on her folded arms and dozed. She chose an awkward position, knowing that her body wouldn’t let her sleep for long in discomfort. It was delicious to give in and float away from the lab.

  “Good morning.”

  The voice came to her as if through fog. She raised her head and rubbed her hand across her mouth, afraid she had drooled on her chin. Her hair was damp with sweat and both her shoulders and upper arms tingled, half asleep.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Leach said, looking like a cat with the flutter of wings in its mouth. “If you’re not too busy, I’d like to speak to you in my office.”

  The open notebook glared accusingly at her from the desk. She closed it and returned it to the shelf above her desk.

  Leach was moving a stack of copies of Molecular and Cellular Biology and Applied Microbiology journals from the couch when she entered. A beige filing cabinet stood against the wall behind the door. She walked over to the lone window. Grime-encrusted, it faced into a shaft that was bordered on four sides by offices like this one. That space, no more than six feet square, was designed by an architect — either a hopeless optimist or a fool — to allow light into the rooms from the roof three floors above. It was dark, even in daytime, and it was a trap for any bird that made the mistake of dropping into the space. Leach told her to sit on the couch. Three storeys below lay the carcasses of half a dozen birds. She turned away from the window and sat down. Above his desk were two framed magazine covers. One was a framed cover of Time, showing Leach with lips pursed and his eyebrows drawn down, both fists on the bench in front of him, staring out at America in his impeccable white lab coat. At the bottom, in bold orange letters: Is this the scientist who will save us from Superbugs — and ourselves? Underneath it was the cover of the latest SI swimsuit issue, with a woman with lush blond hair, plenty of flesh hanging out of her yellow bikini, and a sultry pout.

  Leach leaned back in his chair to reach a bowl of mints he kept on a shelf behind his desk. He threw her a mint and unwrapped one for himself.

  “I heard about our little marathon disappointment.” He smiled and appeared to be offering sympathy. “Shot your wad too quickly, huh?”

  Benny gaped. The smile drained from his lips, leaving traces only around the eyes.

  “Ahem.” He made a throat-clearing attempt that rattled convincingly. “Anyways. Be that as it may, I’m concerned about the status of your research. You’ve been here almost three years. By this time you should be thinking about how to wrap up your story. Your experiments should be directed toward the apex, reaching a point that will culminate in a body of work that is unique.” She knew this. PhD candidates ate, drank, and slept with these things on their minds. “Beginning, middle, end. That sort of thing. Your beginning here was full of promise. You found those mutants that had adapted to metabolize polystyrene and nylon. Good work. You isolated the plasmid-borne genes that were responsible. Good work. And then pfft. You stalled. Nothing has happened since when, last year?”

  “I’ve been having trouble getting the plasmid to be stable in Pseudomonas.”

  “I kno
w, I know,” he continued in a paternalistic tone. “But we’ve got to move quicker on this project.”

  “Why can’t we publish my results about the enzyme?”

  “Are you nuts? We’re not publishing anything until we have a strain that eats plastic, and eats it like a fat man at an all-you-can-chow Chinese buffet.” Leach laughed. “A really fat guy who whimpers at the sight of moo shu pork.”

  “It’s going to take more time. It’d be faster to publish what we have and team up with other labs.”

  “You don’t get it, do you? There’s something I need to explain to you. Again. BioGreen Enterprises will buy anything we have that is capable of digesting plastic. Every municipal and state government will want it for their waste disposal programs. BioGreen knows this. They will pay us money for it. Lots of money. Well, not us, me. But it will benefit you, trust me. You will be the lead author. I have the patent application here, in this pile, completely filled out except for one thing. It’s waiting for the details of the strain that you are going to create. Not data on an enzyme. Not preliminary findings about how, with a few more modifications, you might come up with a strain that eats plastic. I need the strain.”

  He told her that if she couldn’t get results soon he’d have to bring someone else on board to lend a hand. He was thinking of what was best for her. If she’d reached a dead end it was important to realize that as quickly as possible. They could find a simpler project for her to complete. He wondered if she’d be interested in pursuing a more theoretical angle, to look into the evolutionary aspects of the mutants she’d found.

  “Are you trying to force me out of your lab?” Her voice squeaked.

  “Don’t get all hysterical on me. This isn’t about your abilities as a graduate student. It’s about getting these products onto the market as quickly as possible. I’ll need some real progress by the end of the year.”

  Less than two months. He was giving her an impossible task so he could justify taking her work from her.

  “When I first met you,” she said, “you led me to believe it was the environment you were doing this for.”

  “You misunderstand me. I know you think I’m in this just to make a buck. It’s not true. But, hey, what if it was? If what I’m doing helps the environment, why shouldn’t I be rewarded for it? But you’ve got to remember that the competition is stiff out there, Ben. Stiffer than a sixteen-year-old in a harem.”

  “I have no idea how to respond to that.” She got up to leave. At the door she turned to him. “I’ll have results by Christmas.”

  “Good girl.”

  Benny left Leach’s office and went up to the roof to think. It didn’t help. Back at the lab, she paced the floor with her head down. Leroy came to her lab to weigh out some acrylamide.

  “You O.K.?”

  She shook her head. Then she nodded. He laughed, put down the spatula, and screwed the lid back on the jar. “What’s up?”

  “Two things. One you know. Leach is up in my face for results that I don’t have.”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve fallen for Rachel.”

  “Oh.”

  “I didn’t mean to. I mean, I didn’t see it coming.”

  “At least not for another five years.” He picked up the jar of acrylamide and the paper on which he’d weighed out what he needed, and left.

  “Shit,” she said.

  She went home at lunch. She needed a nap.

  28

  Forest Garden

  I lie awake in the night with Lina breathing lightly beside me. There’s no moon and no light and it’s quiet. When I couldn’t sleep in the city I could turn on a light and read or watch a movie. There is no light switch here, no humming fridge to derail my thoughts from their anxious track. Lina’s sleeping face is relaxed. She was my touchstone, allowing me to be deceived into believing I wasn’t alone. I try to rouse her by nibbling her ear and rubbing her belly, but she murmurs something that sounds nothing like encouragement and turns away. I get up and go outside.

  The night air coming up the mountain from the bay is thick and damp. I feel the fog settling on my hands and hair. I find the path to the road and walk in the dark. It reminds me of being with Dad and playing the World Without game. Given the news these days I have an easier time imagining the world without plastic. He and I had worked on that one for a week-full of walks. Plastic utensils and tools would disappear. Cutlery, shopping bags, garbage bags. Cars, computers. Prostheses, pacemakers, condoms, contact lenses. The machines that make all these things. Parts of rifles, Kevlar, and cruise missiles. Septic tanks, water cisterns. Food packaging, refrigerators, and freezers. The polystyrene components of phones, computers, radios, and TVs. The logical end to all this would be industrial collapse.

  I am out until the sky begins lightening in the east and I am sleepy. As I get near home there is movement in the ditch. It’s a fawn with a speckled coat, trembling by itself on splayed front legs. It looks at me directly with its immense brown eyes. I glance behind it for its mother but she may be hiding in the woods. It must have been born late to have those spots visible in October. It will be hard-pressed to survive the winter. I want to pick it up and save it, but I have to let it fend for itself against coyotes, hunters, and the probability of starvation. A crow somewhere nearby calls.

  Lina is still asleep when I return to the cabin. I take off all my clothes and climb in behind her. She mutters about my cold skin and pulls my arm around to her chest. Soon enough her warmth against my front lulls me down wispier mental pathways and I fly along them from branch to branch until I escape.

  She is at the foot of the bed stretching when I wake. Thunder weaves between her legs as Lina rises in downward dog. I call the cat and she looks quickly at me and jumps onto the bed. She purrs as I scratch her ear. Lina smiles at me.

  “Were you up last night?”

  I nod. I want her to care where I’ve been. Otherwise how will I know she cares for me?

  She continues her yoga. I nudge the cat aside, climb down from the bunk, and step outside. Yet another blue sky. A few leaves falling in the breeze. The colours have peaked. I am torn by the last gasp of warm sunshine, by the Michaelmas daisies that have struggled past the two frosts of the past week, and by a junco eating garden seeds on a stalk not a body’s length from me. A turkey vulture soars low over the treetops. One after another, members of its flock come into view until there are seven of them, looking for something dead to pull apart. Their wing tips curl up as they brush the spruce tops.

  Lina comes outside and stands beside me.

  “Eagle?”

  I could never confuse the two when they’re in the air. As soon as I see their outline I know what it is. I am proud of my hawkish eyesight and my ability to discern shapes and sounds that birds make. It’s not an innate characteristic, though one could be fooled to believe so. It’s like learning to ride a bike; once you know how, you can’t forget.

  “Turkey vultures.”

  But she doesn’t really care. Her mind is elsewhere.

  “Hey,” she says softly. “There’s something . . .”

  “What?”

  “I’m pregnant.”

  Silence.

  “Since when?”

  “I think about eight weeks.”

  I am dizzy. I sit on the ground.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “About what exactly?”

  “That things didn’t work out for us.”

  That was fast.

  29

  New York City

  Patience was not one of Benny’s virtues. She found it trying to work with Pseudomonas because it was a slow-growing bacterium. Cells plated on a petri dish took seven or eight days to form minute colonies. She stood at the incubator outside Leach’s office and for the umpteenth time she looked inside at the petri plates. The 30oC air was moist and smelled sweet, like the soil of a flower garden.

  She picked up the stack of petri dishes and held the uppermost one to the fluorescent l
ight above her. No colonies. She’d have to wait another day. Leach called to her from his office.

  “Ben, is that you?”

  “Yeah,” she said absentmindedly.

  “Can you come here?”

  She moved to the doorway.

  “Come in, come in,” he said from his desk, ushering her with his hand to sit as he continued to write a note. “Shut the door behind you.” He looked up. “I told you in November that your pace wasn’t quick enough to get this job done. It’s March. I’ve given you all this extra time.”

  “I’m getting close.”

  “I asked Jon to fiddle with one of your plasmid constructs to see if he could get it to work more efficiently.”

  “Jon works with staph. Antibiotic resistance. What does he know about Pseudomonas and plastics?”

  “It’s his versatility I appreciate,” he said. “Jonathan’s capable of moving in more than one direction at a time.”

  “So are slime moulds.”

  “Ben, Ben, Ben,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I’ve asked you a hundred times not to call me Ben.”

  “All right, calm down. We’ll get these products out more quickly and you’ll still be the lead author on whatever we publish. Here, have a mint.”

  She waved her hand and shook her head. He popped a mint in his mouth before continuing.

  “He’s had some success getting the plasmid to be expressed. You should welcome —”

  “Interference?”

  Leach lost his smile. “The other thing I appreciate is teamwork. We’re all part of Team Leach, pulling together for the good of the lab. We’re like a braided rope, stronger together than as separate strings. It takes a village, Ben, a whole stinking village to raise one kid. I’ve applied that principle here to my work. To our work. These recombinant bacteria are my children and you’re all my village. Now is the time for you to be part of the village. Part of Team Leach. We have potential products that are worth a lot of cash. Dilly-dallying won’t get them to market.”