by Peter Ponzo
Chapter 16
Professor Unger wasn't there when we arrived at his office. Unger's door was open so we walked in and made ourselves comfortable. I sat before the desk, waiting for the professor. Charles inspected the containers on the shelves. I started to hum.
Back home, I had gulped my Bloody Caesar, rested for perhaps fifteen minutes, to please Charles, then drove through the rain to the university. With some effort, I had managed to lower the cloth top to my Porsche. Charles had asked to accompany me and I had agreed. Josey was convinced that she should stay at the house, out of sight. She did just that. She was, after all, being hunted by the police in connection with Hans von Oerschott's murder—if that's what it was—and now I wasn't convinced that it was murder. In fact, I wasn't convinced that the body was stolen.
I was thinking, about foam, cellular regeneration, Pelvis. And where was she? I had completely forgotten that she had disappeared. But this was no time to worry about her. I had to think about the Dermafix problem, the metamorphosis caused by the weed …
"Mushrooms," Charles said.
If my suspicions were correct, then what about the partial autopsy that Barney had performed on Oerschott? He did say that, didn't he? A partial autopsy, a midtorso incision, inspection of some organs without their removal. Had Charlie said something?
"Mushrooms?" I asked.
I saw Charles staring into a glass container filled with moss and containing several small yellow mushrooms. "Yeah. Old man Unger loves fungi," I said. "It's a joke about campus. If you look at him closely, you can see a mushroom. He's got this huge bald head, like the cap of a field mushroom. His face is sort of grey with dark spots, like some mushrooms. He wears a scarf like the veiled stipe of certain fungi. He even wears a tight cap, bright red with white spots, like Amanita Muscaria. When it rains he brings this umbrella to class. It's looks exactly like—"
"Coprinus plicatilus."
Professor Unger was at the door, smiling, holding his umbrella aloft. Charles was impressed. The professor did look like a mushroom.
"Miz Feetsmith," Unger said, waddling to his desk, sitting and leaning his umbrella carefully against the wall. "How good of you to come so qvickly. I have some interesting observations on dee specimen."
"Eumycota," I said.
"Ya, sehr gut. So you haff not forgotten everyting from your mycology class. I am convinced dat dee foam is dee mycelium of a fungus of dee division Eumycota. But dee family, genus and species for dis fungus are not known to me. Ya, but it forms a symbiotic relationship mit living matter, as do many fungi which feed upon an organic host. Indeed, although I haff not completed my schtudies, I feel certain dat it is not particularly host-specific, such as Suillus pungens which grows on Monterey pine. However, I feel dat dee host must be mammalian, not vegetable."
Charles was fidgeting with his lapel. "May I interrupt?" he asked.
"Ya."
"Will any mammal suffice, as a host? Such as mice, or perhaps a human being?"
"Ya, dat is my thesis. I cannot be certain, off course, since—"
"And the fungus feeds on its host? In what way?" Charles asked. "Does it actually consume its host?"
"No, no." Professor Unger turned to Charles who was standing at the wall, by the book shelves. Unger seemed pleased to direct his lecture to a novice in mycology. "Perhaps 'feed' is a poor choice of vord. Parasitic fungi feed on living organisms, insects, larvae, other fungi. Dey may eventually kill dee host. Saphrophytic fungi live on decaying matter, wood, humus and dee like. Dey digest dis vegetable matter. Ah, but our specimen is Mycorrhizal, and dese fungi form a mutually beneficial relationship mit dee host. Dey may protect dee host from disease, supply nutrients. In some cases, dee host cannot long survive mitout dee associated fungus."
Professor pointed to a chair. Charles, fascinated, sat.
The Professor leaned toward Charles. "Mister?"
Charles stood at attention. "Charles Clayton Curran, sir." Then he sat again.
"Do you like pine nuts, Mr. Curry?"
"Uh, pine nuts ... why yes. Pasta al pesto. I actually use pine nuts—"
"Ya, ya. Vell, pine nuts may be harvested from dee Korean Pine, but to grow dis pine to maturity you need also a certain mycorrhizal fungus which grows in symbiosis mit dee pine." Unger paused. "And sex, Mr. Curry?"
"I beg your pardon?" Charles snapped his knees together.
"You see, Mr. Curry, mushrooms may lack dee sexual organs of plants and animals, but dey do reproduce, sexually." Charles looked embarassed. "Genes combine, much as dey do in humans, so dee offspring of mushrooms are not genetically identical to dee parents. In the basidium, deep inside dee mushroom, dee marriage ist consecrated. Two nuclei fuse, dee chromosone number doubles, cell division takes place, twice, dee resulting four nuclei migrate to dee tip of dee basidium, spores are produced and discharged—" Unger raised his hands, dramatically. "... and life begins anew." Unger looked pleased.
"Mycelium?" Charles asked.
"Ya?" Unger responded.
"You said the foam, Miss Fleetsmith's specimen, it was mycelium."
"Ach, ya, mycelium. Mushrooms dat you see growing on dee ground are not dee entire fungus, merely part of dee entire organism. You see merely dee reproductive schtructure. Dee fruit. Like dee apples on a tree, carrying dee seeds of reproduction. Ach, but beneath dee ground, in dee soil, a fuzzy, maybe foamy web of material, an intricate netvork of filaments: dee mycelium. It is dis mycelium whose enzymes digest food. Und from dis subterranean mycelium come buds, growing, bursting from dee soil, shedding its spores to dee vind so dat a new colony of mycelium may grow. And dese buds, dese fruit, Mr. Curry? Dey are called ...?"
Unger was giving a lecture. He was in his element.
"Mushrooms?" Charles said, hesitatingly.
"Ya, ya. Indeed." Unger's face beamed, pink and chubby.
I had been quiet. There was little new information here–except the fuzzy mycelium. The foam ... it rang a bell. I had seen it before, but couldn't remember. No matter.
"Professor Hunger?" Charles asked, "how does it differ from other such fungi? I presume there are many types of—"
"Ya, ya, but dis is qvite ...," Unger searched for the word, "possessive."
Charles looked at me. I was displaying little interest. I was preoccupied with something else. Charles waited for the professor to continue.
"If dee appropriate environment ist provided, dee mycelium expands to enclose its host," Unger said.
My preoccupation ended abruptly. "Appropriate environment?" I asked. "You mean you've actually observed this encasement of the host?" It was too good to believe. "Appropriate environment?" I repeated.
"Ya, ya. A veak saline solution promotes dis growth. Dee fungus encompasses dee host mit ein smooth membrane of hyphae, dee treads which make up dee mycelium. Having created dis fabric, dee fungus turns inward upon its host. Dere ist no attempt to produce dee fruiting bodies, dee 'mushrooms', if you vill. Dee fungus seems intent upon feeding its host, nurturing, renovating." Unger leaned back in his chair. "It is really qvite remarkable, ya?"
This was reminiscent of the experiments I had performed in my lab at Oerschott Medicals. I said, "And you've neither seen nor heard of such a fungus before? I mean the specimen I brought to you. It's something new?"
"Ya, it is true. I haff never seen such a fungus."
I got up to leave. There was much to do. I had confirmation of my experiments, the cocoon, the rehabilitating membrane. "Thank you professor Unger. You've been quite helpful."
"But I haff heard of such a fungus," Unger said.
I was stunned. I sat down, hard enough to hurt my ass. "You have?"
The professor heaved his short and stubby body from his chair and walked to a filing cabinet. "Somevhere ...," he mumbled. "I have searched my files before, but couldn't find dee reference. It am sure it vas a paper, written some years ago, published in an obscure journal." He turned to me. "I haff an excel
lent memory, yet I cannot lay my hand on dis paper ... and I keep everyting I read: research papers, journals, letters ..."
He suddenly stepped back from the filing cabinet. "Letters? Ya, ya—a letter. I learned of dis fungus from a letter." He closed the cabinet, smiled, looked about then slid a large cardboard box from a corner behind his desk, kicking it around the desk with his foot. "Ya, ya, a letter. " When he pulled open the top, I could see it contained hundreds of letters.
"Mmm, it seems unlikely that you'll find the letter in our lifetime," I suggested, peering into the box.
Charles bent over the box. "I am quite willing to search the contents, if that is your wish," he said. I wasn't listening. It wasn't clear that Charles was talking to me. "Miss Fleetsmith?" Charles queried, obviously asking my permission.
"Ya, ya, Feetsmith," Unger said, recognizing the name.
"I beg your pardon?" Charles said.
"Ya, it was Feetsmith … a letter from Feetsmith," Unger said. "Dat's dee one. I remember now. He wrote from somevhere in South America, about a fungus he discovered—"
I jumped to my feet. "What! You have a letter from my father?"
"Father?" Unger said.
"Dr. Lloyd Fleetsmith, my father?" I jumped to my feet.
Unger leaned backward into his chair. "Feetsmith. Ya, Feetsmith." He grinned as though he had just made the connection: father and daughter.
He was a wonderful man, pink and cuddly and chubby. I fell to my knees, shuffling through the box. Charles pulled a handful out of the box and began spreading them over the floor, glancing at the professor for signs of disapproval. There were none: Unger had opened his desk drawer, withdrawn a half-eaten candy bar and was snacking contentedly.
During the drive home, Charles kept repeating the mycology lesson, pronouncing the names, determined to buy fresh mushrooms that very day, with a fresh appreciation of their merit.
"I shall make an omelet of agaricus bisporus," he whispered almost reverently, "a fricassé of boletus edulis, a sauce of—"
"Charlie, turn it off. Little that Unger said helps us in the slightest. Just confirms my own findings. That's comforting, but not new. But Dad's letters, they may have some new information." I patted the pack of three letters on the seat beside me. Professor Unger had wrapped them and insisted that I take them with me ... then he pushed us out of his office. He had a class to prepare. Almost immediately he had forgotten that we were there. I read them quickly before we left the university. They were short, but I needed to read them again. Pop's letters were always short. He didn't waste words. He rarely wrote more than a handful of sentences, then signed off. Yet, there may be something there, between the lines.
"It's a mutant, this mycelium," I said. "Unger's never seen it before. He—"
"Miss Fleetsmith?" Charles was sitting straight up in his seat.
"What is it, Charlie?"
"The weed, the miracle weed, from the jungles of the Amazon. Your Dermafix is concocted from the juices of this weed." I was trying to concentrate on the traffic, heavy this time of day. The lake was just visible beneath the elevated highway. It would take some time to get out of the city, along Lakeshore, past—
. "Now just how do you think this mycelium is connected with this weed?" I could tell that Charlie was going into one of his lectures. He continued. "Why the weed?" Charles sounded remarkably like professor Unger. "Yes, yes. I now know the connection. Do you?" It was a rhetorical question. He looked at me. "Professor Hunger said this fungus lives in symbiotic relationship with a mammalian host. Aah, but the weed is vegetable. On the surface of the weed lies the fungus, living on the weed, finding its way into its juices, into your Dermafix salve made from the juices." He paused for effect. "Contrary to what the professor said, the host, I conjecture, is not necessarily mammal."
"So?"
"Don't you see, Miss Fleetsmith, Professor Hunger was wrong."
"Look, Charlie, it matters not one shit if he was right or wrong about the host. We know the fungus grows on humans and we knew that before we talked to Unger. We also know that it regenerates human cell structure, and we knew that too, before we talked to Unger. We're no farther ahead now than before our illustrious professor gave his lecture ... except that I didn't recognize the fuzz as mycelium. The only really new thing we have is a few letters from my father, three to be exact. Even if they contain no new information it will be a pleasure for me to read them ... they're his ... his words, in his writing." I choked, just a bit. God, how I miss that man. He was gentle and oh so smart and I never had the opportunity to tell him how much I respected him, loved him, adored him—
Charles was babbling. "But how does the fungus behave in relation to its human host, compared to its relation to its vegetable host?"
"Mmm?" I said in a whisper, wiping a tear from my cheek. I don’t cry, never, but I did love my father and—
"Have you, Miss Fleetsmith, experimented with plants? Or have you limited your experiments to animals: mice, dogs, humans? Perhaps it behaves differently. If the fungus can live on a variety of hosts, don't you think it is eminently worthwhile to identify some of these possible hosts? On humans, it eventually kills its host. On the Amazon weed, it does not. On cows, it may increase their milk production. On carrots, it may increase their size. On women it may increase their ... uh …"
"Women?" We eventually arrived in Burlington, entered the grounds and pulled into our driveway. A police car was parked next to the garage. "Looks like we have guests." I turned off the engine. "Charles, remind me of women, again. There's something ... I don't know, it rings a bell."
"Women?"
"Yes, just say 'women' and it'll jog my memory. It's important, but we can't discuss it now. Look who's coming."
PART FIVE