“Did you know those men?” Amanda asked.
“No,” Antonescu replied. “I’ve lead an essentially anonymous life until now. But given the slovenly state of history these days, and the careful reading I’ve had time to do on so many subjects, I probably could have fooled you into thinking I did personally know those two.”
“Well, thank you for your honesty.”
I picked up another piece of paper.
Antonescu bowed slightly. “You see, there is no absolute proof I could provide about my age. Even my genes would likely look not much different from yours. They’re self-repairing, to a limited extent—or, a longer extent than yours—but at any given time, when they’re in a state of repair, they look no different than other human genes. You would have to watch them for decades to begin to see the differences.”
“You consider yourself, Neanderthals, part of the human race? Forgive me, I intended no—”
“I’m not insulted,” Antonescu said. “Of course I, Neanderthals, all beings your current science pleases itself to classify as Homo are part of the human race. Others as well. It’s only the most recent member of our Homo clan—Homo sapiens sapiens, your Cro-Magnon—that saw fit, still sees fit, to make such distinctions.”
“I guess making distinctions—hot versus cold, man versus woman, dark versus light—is basic to human cognition,” Amanda said. “Claude Lévi-Strauss called that the human imposition of bi-polar opposites on a continuous reality. We did a BBC special on his theories more than a decade ago—I was just an intern then. Do you know his work?”
I had to give her credit—this woman was well researched. And highly intelligent.
“Yes, I was thinking of Lévi-Strauss just last night,” Antonescu replied, “as I was dining on sweet and sour pork in the Canton Garden. He’s right about the human penchant for distinctions—I make them too. The problem arises in what people do about the distinctions.”
“What did the Cro-Magnon do about the distinctions they made?” Amanda asked.
“You know the answer,” Antonescu replied. “They tried to distinguish us into extinction. But we devised remedies.”
I FLEW TO England three days later, and sandwiched in a quick trip to Bath by train. It contained some information that I thought might be useful…
Emma Roberts lived at 19 Marlboro Lane, half way up Sion Hill. I enjoyed the hike—it was a cool day for August in England—and also the way the town looked as I gazed back down at its bright beds of flowers and chalk-orange chimneys. Hard to believe that Roman soldiers had once tramped in the mud down there, had sought to cleanse their souls in the ablution of the public pools for which Bath was named. But the Romans were known for their superb plumbing, some of which had remained unequalled until well into the nineteenth century. They weren’t much in the way of sailing across the sea, those Romans, but they knew how to move water to people—just as we do these days with information.
Sometimes, though, you had to go physically to the source, or as close as possible.
I knocked on the door.
It opened.
“I’m Phil D’Amato,” I said, and extended my hand. “Professor Roberts?”
“Yes. Come in, please.” She had light brown frizzy hair, and eyes that flared with her smile. I could see the resemblance immediately.
She was actually a Lecturer, not Professor, of Art History at Bath Spa University further up the hill. But “Lecturer Roberts” sounded awkward to my ears, and besides, her academic post and art history had nothing to do with my reason for being here.
“Would you like a nice cup of tea?” she asked.
“Yes, I’d love one—if it’s no bother.”
“It isn’t, I have a pot all ready,” she said, and disappeared into what I assumed was her kitchen.
The room I was seated in was simple but striking—sunlight refracted through a dozen pieces of blue Bristol glass that must have been a century old.
“Here we are.” She returned with a whole setup.
“Just a splash of milk for me, please,” I said.
She gave me a porcelain cup on a saucer, both of which felt weightless. The cup felt just right to my lips—warm, not hot, not cold—sipping hot tea from a cold cup spoils half the pleasure.
“So,” she said, “what can I tell you about Amanda?”
I CAUGHT THE evening train to London.
Amanda Leonard’s sister had given me the information I’d wanted. Actually, nothing that she’d said, but I had what I’d come for anyway. In my left vest pocket. A sample of Emma’s DNA.
I was beginning to feel like a DNA pick-pocket already, but that’s what this business was coming to.
I’d grabbed a gammon-steak sandwich before boarding—British for ham of some kind—and a splendid old vase of some indeterminate Victorian sort made of Bristol glass for Jenna. I’d gotten the idea, of course, at Emma’s…
The trees rushed by, the sandwich tasted good. I wouldn’t be seeing Emma again—first and last time. Too dangerous for me to be paying anyone too much attention in this mess. I didn’t want another homicide.
But I had her DNA. I’d tried to get a swatch of Amanda’s when she was in New York, but to no avail. She was off to see John Lapp in Lititz—after my insistent prodding of him through Amos—and I had a plane to catch to England. But at least I had her sister’s—the second best way of doing my kind of in-depth “interview,” my kind of deep background investigation, of Amanda. It used to be you subpoenaed someone’s records, or got an order for a wiretap, or even hired a hacker to break into the requisite computer when you wanted information that could be crucial to a case. But the information I was looking for didn’t require a subpoena or a hacker—it was there for the taking, if you found the right person with the right genes. Times were changing. DNA was the ultimate dossier.
Not that I knew exactly what I was looking for. A touch of Bombyx mori, a missing Bombycidae sequence, a profile closer to Paabo’s Neanderthal on that position scale—I didn’t know. Amanda and her sister certainly looked the complete antithesis of Neanderthal. But there was something in her expression when she was talking to Stefan—something in the way she tilted her head—and the way he looked at her, that made me feel like… I don’t know, like they belonged together.
I’d send the DNA along to some friends at MIT—better to keep this out of New York, and its possible leakage to London—and see what they came up with. I wondered what Mallory really knew about her…
I finished the last of my sandwich, and settled in for a nap.
I had a call to put in to Amos tonight about Amanda’s interview, and then off tomorrow morning to the big meeting with Mallory and his man heading the Tocharian translation team.
I GOT AMOS in his phone shack—1:00 A.M. my time, 8:00 P.M. his.
“So how did it go?” I asked.
“She’s very beautiful,” he replied.
“I know,” I said. “Too bad you didn’t have a video camera running on batteries. She didn’t spot the little audio cassette recorder?”
“I don’t think so,” Amos said.
“OK, good. Let’s hear it. And feel free to stop and jump in with any explanation if the tape is unclear about who is talking.”
“OK,” Amos said. “Here it is.”
I heard a click, and then—
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice—”
“That’s Amanda Leonard talking,” Amos said, and stopped the tape.
“I know,” I said. “I probably can recognize her voice, and John’s, and yours on the tape. Just stop it only if something’s unclear.”
“OK,” Amos said. “Should I rewind it and start again?”
“No, not necess—all right, sure, go ahead.”
I heard a split-second squeal of rewind.
“OK, here we go again,” Amos said.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Amanda said.
“Please, have a seat,” John Lapp replied.
<
br /> “Thank you,” Amanda said.
“Are you hungry?” Lapp inquired.
“Actually, I’m famished,” Amanda replied. “I missed breakfast.”
“The chicken salad is delicious,” Lapp said.
“Sounds lovely. A chicken salad sandwich, please—”
Amos stopped the tape. “That’s Amanda talking to me. I came as the waiter to take her order.”
“Understood,” I said. “Let’s continue.”
“I’ve already eaten,” Lapp said. “I understand you’re gathering information. We usually want nothing to do with reporters.”
“I know,” Amanda said, “and I greatly appreciate your making an exception for me. Stefan Antonescu spoke very highly of your people—”
Hmmm… Not that I recalled, when I was there…
Amanda continued, “Are you and he good friends?”
“I wouldn’t know him if he walked right into this restaurant,” Lapp said. “Let us just say that our two groups go back a long way.”
“And what group precisely are you? Please don’t take offense at my asking,” Amanda said.
“No offense taken,” Lapp said. “But before I give an answer, I would ask you, on your honor, not to tape record this conversation—not even to take notes. Nothing I tell you can be quoted.”
Amos stopped the tape. “John didn’t know this was being tape recorded. Only you know and I know.”
“OK, understood,” I said. “I appreciate your doing this.”
“I feel it was right. Should I continue the tape?”
“Yes, please.”
“I understand,” Amanda said. “No tape recorder, no need for notes. I have a pretty good memory.”
“If you report any of what I tell you in exact detail, I’ll deny that our conversation ever took place,” Lapp said, sternly. “This is what they call…plausible deniability? Background briefing in your business?”
“Understood,” Amanda said.
“I won’t answer any questions about who I am,” Lapp said. “That’s not what this conversation will be about. I’ll talk to you only about the silk cure—that is what Dr. D’Amato pleaded that I talk to you about. He thinks it might save some lives.”
“Dr. D’Amato pleaded with you to see me?”
“He thought it was important to the world that some information about this become public now,” Lapp said. “And after all, however much we may hold ourselves separate from it, my group lives on this world along with yours and the many others. Diseases rarely respect such separations—they roam and ravage the world freely. We’re not dealing with your AIDS here, which, horrible as it is, can be protected against by self-restraint and separation.”
“Tell me about the illness, then,” Amanda said, “and the cure.”
Dishes or something clanked on the table.
“I’m arriving with the sandwich,” Amos said.
“OK,” I said.
“The cure treats an illness caused not by living organisms, but something below them on the tree of life,” Lapp said.
“A virus?” Amanda asked.
“I’m not sure I know what a virus is—” Lapp said.
“Well, it’s—” Amanda interrupted.
“No, I know what your science says it is,” Lapp interrupted back. “I’m saying I don’t know if I entirely agree with that—I don’t know if your science completely agrees with what it says a virus is. It’s really a marker for something no one completely understands. We just say, in the teachings that have come down to us, that, well, a building block of life causes this illness—not something living in itself.”
“How does it cause the illness?”
“We’re not completely sure about that either. We think it puts the wrong building block into the process—a wrong ingredient in the recipe. Or perhaps it neutralizes an important building block, a building block that restrains.”
“And the result?” Amanda asked.
“It causes the building blocks to work too fast…”
“Which causes?”
“Which causes the building to collapse,” Lapp said. “The bad block does its damage silently, until the unnatural speed reaches a certain level. And then the infected person dies a very sudden death. Had Dr. D’Amato been delayed even a few hours on the road that day…”
“How did the cure work?”
“The silk worm is made of different building blocks,” Lapp said. “You see, in our view of life, all life is made of different, yet sometimes interchangeable, building blocks. It’s all a question of getting the right set of blocks. The Master Builder saw to most of that.”
“You mean, God?”
Silence.
Then—“Yes,” Lapp said.
“What did you mean by ‘most of that,’” Amanda asked, “‘saw to most of that’?”
“Well, some arrogant members of our species believe they can take it upon themselves to do the Builder’s work. You see, we proceed very carefully, respecting the integrity of each block. But when you cut the blocks…”
Sounds of one hand smacking another…
“…when you splice, try to interfere with the workings within the blocks, then the trouble can start,” Lapp said.
“Gene splicing,” Amanda said.
“Yes,” Lapp said.
“But your people respect the blocks, and the silk cure works in that, well, in that way?”
“Yes,” Lapp said. “The blocks in the silk stop the bad blocks from having their effect. The unholy speed is slowed, and the building can survive the quake.”
“I see,” Amanda said. “It works almost like an antibody…”
“No, not really,” Lapp replied. “Antibodies lock on to invaders and destroy them. Our healing blocks just stop the blocks that cause damage—create a shield around the rest of the living building, around each of its tiniest blocks, so it can function as intended. Nothing is destroyed.”
“How exactly is the cure—the healing block—administered? You don’t believe in injection, right?”
“Some of us do, my particular group does not—why breach the outer shell of the building, even for a good purpose? No, better to introduce the blocks in a natural way…”
“That being?” Amanda asked.
“Could be from a drink, though the mouth,” Lapp said. “Could be from a vapor, inhaled through the nose. Could be from a medical garment upon the skin, with the correcting blocks entering through the pores. Could be even from making love… Our tradition and study has disclosed many ways. Some operate more quickly than others. Some are preventions rather than cures. The people in our group all have taken preventions—not only for this illness, but for many other insults to the body, man-made as well as natural—in homemade candy we consume as children, or as adults if the prevention is new. That’s why we can survive as well as you, without your hospital machines and your MDs… Dr. D’Amato of course arrived here far too late for any prevention. He was in grave condition, and needed the cure.”
“I know you prefer not to talk about viruses,” Amanda said. “But does your cure contain a virus—a retro-virus—that transfers elements from the silkworm DNA into the genome of the human under treatment? Is that how this works?”
“Blocks of different species—what you call DNA sequences—are sometimes interchangeable between species,” Lapp replied. “That is all we need to know. Viruses are just today’s scientific wording for yesterday’s evil spirits.”
“OK,” Amanda said. “And you’ve known about this illness, and this cure, for how long now? Centuries?”
“More than centuries,” Lapp replied. “The special qualities of silk have been known for millennia. Tea has some good properties like this too. Both were prized in China, and for very good reason. And even before China…”
“Tea and silk,” Amanda said. “Are their effects cumulative?”
“Sometimes,” Lapp said.
“Could you tell me more about the prevention part,” Amanda asked. “Wha
t happens if someone takes the silk cure who is not already ill? What impact does that have on the…building?”
The phone went dead.
“Amos? Amos? God damn!”
I dialed the London operator and asked her to reconnect me.
Five minutes later an American operator got on the phone. “I’m getting a ‘circuits busy’, but I’m sure that’s not the case,” she said. “They’re putting in ISDNs all over the country, and sometimes that interrupts the service—”
“Well, what the hell should I do?”
“Try again in fifteen minutes. It may be OK, then.”
I reached Amos an hour later—past two in the morning, his time. Insanely late for anyone Amish.
“Should I start from the top and play it again?” he asked.
I HURRIED UP to the British Museum on Great Russell Square early next morning. A Beatles song was playing on the radio out of someone’s car—made me feel like I was back in Columbus High School in the Bronx again. “‘You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away’ on BBC1,” the announcer said. “John Lennon wrote it for The Silkie…”
Mallory was at the doorway of the appointed room. He ushered me in, and introduced me to the man at the table. “Dr. Phil D’Amato, Dr. Pedro Sanches da Silva.” Pedro was short, bald, and bearded, with bright lively eyes. He half rose from his seat, and took my hand in a firm grip.
“I’m pleased to meet you, Dr. D’Amato—”
“Call me Phil—”
“I’ve heard of your exploits among the Amish,” Pedro concluded, in a perfect and crisp British accent.
“You’re British,” I said, stupidly. “I mean—”
“Yes, quite British,” Pedro said. “Although my name obviously bears the stamp of my family’s passage up the Iberian way—we were thrown out during the Inquisition.”
“You’re Jewish?”
“Yes,” Pedro replied.
I smiled. “So am I.”
“Really? D’Amato?”
“Yep,” I said. “Marrano.”
“Ah yes,” Pedro said. “The Spanish name for ‘pigs’—the Catholics suspected some of you of not being sincere in your conversion, and that’s how they showed it. My hat’s off to you—I always thought your approach far more ingenious than just leaving as my ancestors did.”
The Silk Code Page 23