Lethal Discoveries

by Erica Pensini

  “Maybe you guys should just spend the night here and head back tomorrow morning”, he said.

  Jack turned around and I smiled, trying to look very much awake. He shook his head laughing and said we would probably accept the offer.

  When we got home Fred’s wife was there, and the house was filled with a smell of roasted mushrooms that made me salivate as soon as we opened the door.

  “Ah, it was about time!”, she yelled from the kitchen when she heard the door open.

  She hugged Jack and then studied me briefly, before tending me her chubby hand and smiling maternally.

  “You must be hungry”, she told us and was pleased by my answer when I replied I was starving.

  She let us wash rapidly before hurrying us to the table, which she had set up so that it was a pleasure to the eye, with the food beautifully arranged, the flowery tablecloth and the artsy dishes. The shower and the food did me good, and brushed off the weariness of the day. Anita was a small, rounded lady, whose chatter compensated the minimalistic style of the conversation her husband, Jack and I used to have when she was not around. She was younger than Fred and was still working as a Spanish and French teacher, as she told me, before asking me what I was doing in life. I intended my answer to be brief, but ended up going into much detail. For some reason Fred was intrigued by what I did, and started asking questions when his wife’s attention had begun sliding away.

  Jack listened without speaking, but at the end he said, “So, this is what you do”.

  I had never told him much about it because I didn’t believe it mattered to him. When I said so he asked why, looking hurt.

  After dinner we sat in the living room, chatting for a while longer, while the cats cuddled one on Anita’s lap, the other on the back of the easy chair where she was sitting. But soon I begun feeling dizzy, and I was relieved when Fred said that he would call it a day and head to bed. There was only one guest room in the house and I shared the bed with Jack. We had never shared a bed before, but that night I was too tired to wonder if it was a strange thing to do so.

  Before falling asleep I asked, “Why were you offended before?”

  “Offended?”.

  “Offended that I said I didn’t think you cared to know the details about my job”, I explained, although I was sure he knew what I was referring to.

  “Fred was my PhD advisor, you know? But why don’t we just go to sleep now, it’s been a long day”, he said.

  I was suddenly awake, but I knew that Jack needed time before he could tell me more.

  “Good night Jack”, I told him, and fell asleep shortly after, feeling so very happy to be there.

  Chapter 6

  When I opened my eyes Jack was looking outside, leaning on the windowsill. I observed him for a moment, still not fully awake from my dreamlessly placid night, and then I pulled myself halfway up, resting on my elbows. Jack turned around and we smiled at each other for a moment.

  “Slept well?”, he asked me.

  So well, I replied, that I had no clue of what time it was. Jack found his watch on the drawer, it was almost 7. I wondered if Fred and his wife were up already and if we should start getting ready or if we should stay in the room a bit longer, waiting for them to start their daily routine before moving around the house and making noises. I had a habit of waking up early and never lingering in bed, but at that moment there was a peace within me that I hadn’t felt in a long time, and I was reluctant to leave the room.

  Jack turned to the window again. I was resting my head on the pillow and I had closed my eyes, when Jack began talking.

  “I had just graduated but I was still working with Fred. We were collecting sediment samples for Lisa’s thesis. She was in her third year, and I was helping out with her project. She was Fred’s student too. Fred used to laugh about how his lab was better at producing couples than research, and how this would happen over and again to his students. Getting together like Lisa and myself, I mean. I didn’t notice there was something wrong at first, we were browsing different areas of the seabed. And when I did notice, it was too late. The oxygen cylinder was faulty, she started swimming back up too fast”.

  He said all this talking slowly but continuously, with a controlled voice.

  “How was she like?”, I asked.

  I know there is a comfort in recounting memories, in the possibility of having someone you’ve loved relive through a shared recollection.

  “She was like you, as I first saw you the first time I met you. After knowing you better I learned that there is a melancholic side to you that she did not have”, Jack said.

  I understood then what had driven Jack’s initial closeness to me, before knowing anything about me. It is strange how whatever one loved or hated first ends up by marking that person’s life so deeply, leading to new relationships that are somehow linked to the past. Nobody can ever escape the past, we carry it within us no matter how hard we try to leave it behind.

  “What about the boat?”, I asked.

  “Fred had been there on the boat waiting for us to come back with the samples, and he had tried to intervene when he realized what was happening…but when they pulled her up it was too late.

  Jack had spoken giving me the back, but now he rubbed a hand across his face, turned around and said, “There goes Fred watering the lawn”.

  He walked around the bed and gave me the hand.

  “What about leaving the bed?”, he said with a smile shaded by sadness, pulling me up.

  Chapter 7

  When I walked to the kitchen Jack was already sitting at the table, chatting with Fred, and Anita was fixing our breakfast. Jam was on the table, and the room was filled with the smell of coffee and toasted bread. I thought that it must feel good to live this way, waking up every morning on a shared breakfast in a paid-off house just minutes away from the beach. My life seemed miles away from those standards, and I wondered what it would become many years from now, when I reached Anita’s age.

  Anita saw me standing on the corner, and invited me to the table. “Did you sleep well?”, she asked.

  When I told her I found the atmosphere of their place soothing Fred smiled, “I’ll have to go check few things in the lab, but if you guys are willing to stay a bit longer we can bring the boat for a stroll”, he proposed.

  I would have wanted to accept the invitation, but Jack spoke before I did.

  “Maybe another time, I think we should be heading back after breakfast”, he said. He looked down for a moment before adding, “We’ll be back”, and I was surprised that he had counted me in as if it was natural that when he was to come back I would be there too.

  When we hit the road I felt the lightness that takes over after a long holiday, when one is hung up in between realities, suspended between the usual routine and the atmosphere of the vacation. The perception of my body was odd too, as if I was thin and floating. I let Jack drive and I indulged myself in the blurred lines of my sensations, watching the landscape race by.

  By the time we reached my house I had fallen in a state in between wake and sleep, and I was surprised when the car came to a halt. When Jack turned around and thanked me I felt there was something else he wanted to add, and we stood there lingering in the moment a while longer. But then he just thanked me again and I walked to my door, waving at him before disappearing into my old house.

  Chapter 8

  I was sitting on the porch with a lemonade and a book when the phone rang. I reluctantly got up to my feet to answer it and when I picked up the receiver I heard Christine’s voice on the other end. She was one of the few friends I had made in New York, where she still lived when she was not roaming somewhere around the world. I had met Christine in high school. She had then become a journalist working her way up from small magazines all the way to the Times. She aimed high and she got it, being good at what she did, but her 13 hours working days and he continuous travels had made her personal life a mess. In spite of the dist
ance I think I was one of the major certainties in Christine’s life, the same way she was in mine, which was, in a different way, just as messy as Christine’s. It was good to hear her voice. She asked me how I was and asked me to go see her. Then she spoke about her next trip. But all along I felt that she had something in store and from her tone I anticipated what she was up.

  When I told her she laughed. “I am so much in love. But this time I really want to be careful, I want to understand if we are really meant for each other. Experiences teach, right?”.

  I had heard this before and couldn’t help smiling, “I wouldn’t love you so much if you weren’t crazy”, I told her.

  We spoke for a long while about this new man, who was supposedly wonderful and different from all the others.

  The phone call changed my mood, and by the time I hang up I was itching for some movement. I would have wanted to go for a swim or a walk, but for some reason my body felt weak. I realized I was very hungry although it was only 5 pm and my lunch had been quite abundant. I made myself a sandwich and nibbled it while playing with Wooster, who had come to greet me carrying a ball in his mouth after coming back from a walk with the Wheeler’s kids.

  My thoughts were as remote as they could be from FoodTech labs when the phone rang again. This time it was Brad. Could we go to work earlier than usual the next day, he asked, and I said yes.

  “I want to pin this polymer business down”, he told me.

  The week-end had brushed away the frustration, and the idea of trying something new, first thing in morning, energized me. My hopes were high again, and I fell into sleep planning the next day and rolling ideas in my mind.

  Chapter 9

  On Monday morning the highway was almost empty and the drive felt good. The building in which Foodtech labs were encased sparkled in the morning sun, the blue of the glass bright against the cloudless summer sky.

  We scanned our passes at the entrance and signed in. We scanned our passes to use the elevator and then again, before entering the labs.

  “I want to test something else. I’ve come up with few thoughts yesterday night, but I am not sure how to put them in practice”, I said. “What about we try them together?”, I proposed.

  “Sure, I have some ideas too and I have the same problem”, said Brad. We were a good team.

  Alice showed up early too that morning. “What are you guys doing here at 7 am”, she teased, leaning on Brad shoulders and mine.

  “We couldn’t wait to see you and we got up before sunrise”, Brad replied, winking.

  “Oh yeah, you bet!”, Alice laughed.

  “Are you up for lunch?”, I asked her.

  “I thought the boss would order pizza for everyone today, no?”, Alice wondered.

  “True true…I almost forgot”, I said remembering the boss had decided to organize a “pizza social”, as she called it.

  “See you guys then”, said Alice, squeezing our shoulders, “I don’t feel like working but I suppose I should. My cell cultures are waiting for me”.

  “So, what’s next?”, asked Brad after Alice had left.

  “Let’s go get the precursors and then I’ll tell you”, I said, walking to the fridge.

  Something had leaked out. “What is this?”, I said, opening the door and turning speechless.

  “Holy smokes!”, Brad almost yelled, “Are these your samples from Friday?”.

  The volume of the puddings in which I had added the polymer had swollen by at least ten times, popping the caps open and melting in a multi-coloured foam, which now slowly poured from the bottom shelf.

  “It worked!”, I yelled in reply, incredulous. “What do you think the pudding will taste like now?”, I asked.

  “No clue…”, he replied.

  We looked at each other for a moment. “Ok, it’s against the rules, but…”, I said, taking my gloves off. Brad took his gloves off too. There were cameras everywhere, but not in this room. I dipped my finger in the vanilla pudding, while Brad went for the chocolate pudding. The pudding had a vague acidic back taste, but that was no matter – in this industry adding more sugar is never a big deal if you can save on all the rest.

  “Why don’t we use the confocal microscope to look at the 3D structure”, Brad suggested.

  “That’s what I was thinking too”, I said, taking the vanilla pudding and wiping off the jar the foam around it.

  I spread a thin layer of vanilla pudding in the microscope cell and waited for the computer to start. When the software finally opened and we could get an image what we saw was stunning. There were spherical shapes all over, which had not been there earlier. And there were holes, arranged to form identical patterns at different scales.

  “Fractal structures. I never saw anything like this”, said Brad, eyes fixed on the screen. Then he looked at the image more closely. “But look, even where there are no voids the material seems changed”, he told me.

  I approached my face to the screen. “Yeah…you are right”, I whispered.

  “Let’s increase the magnification”, Brad said, as he operated the microscope.

  There were tiny dots, we couldn’t really tell what we were looking at but we knew for sure that those dots weren’t there before.

  “Something is telling me that these polymers are doing something more than repelling the pudding around them”, said Brad. “You think they have changed the bonds between the pudding molecules?”, I asked.

  “I can’t tell yet, we have to do some infrared spectroscopy to know”, Brad replied, “But hey Iris, you are a genius!”.

  “I am! But I am a genius with no idea of what is happening”, I laughed.

  Chapter 10

  The infrared spectroscope was in another part of the building, connected to our department through a glass corridor from which we could see the parking lot. Dr. Mc Murrich was stepping out of her car just then. High heels, black suit, died hair tied back tight, she was impeccable as usual. Mc Murrich was the director of our research division at FoodTech labs. She was the one who would buy us pizza today, for the social lunch. She had been a top notch researcher back then, before becoming a manager. She didn’t have the appearance of a researcher anymore, but that is perhaps inevitable if you climb up the food chain. Mc Murrich was good at doing what she did, we could tell because we always had money to play our games in the lab. We produced the work and she sold it for big bucks to international brands in the food industry, so that they could make even bigger bucks. We all had our share of joy. You’d call this a win-win deal. Wouldn’t you?

  “She’ll be excited, what do you say?”, I said.

  “You bet she will, this is the breakthrough of the century”, Brad replied.

  Brad had a large lanky frame, longish hair and big black-rimmed glasses screening his blue gaze, usually somewhat absent. But now his eyes were electrified as he looked at the jars. We began scanning a sample of pudding with no polymer in it and the spectrum appeared on the screen, with peaks and valleys, each one the signature for a chemical bond. All expected bonds were there.

  “Ok, no surprises so far”, I said, “and now let’s have a look at what Mr. Polymer did to the pudding”.

  Brad and I sat close to the screen as the spectrum appeared.

  “What are these peak here?”, I said.

  “I don’t know”, Brad replied. “And look, the peak that was here before is gone now”, he said pointing at the screen, “It’s amazing that the polymer could break chemical bonds and form new ones”.

  “Well, we should use some other techniques here. There’s too much guessing involved in reading this spectrum”, I said.

  “We should try to get Mike to have a look at this first”, Brad told me.

  Rough manners, long nails and beard, same thick sweater and spectacles worn year-round, strong body smell: that was Mike, the spectroscopy guru. Mike was the most senior member in our team, and we all liked him. Mike’s shell was ugly, but he knew his business and he’
d share his knowledge generously if you brushed him the right way.

  When we knocked on Mike’s door it took him a few minutes to answer. “Yes”, we heard at last.

  “Mike, it’s Iris and Brad, do you have a moment?”, I said through the door.

  No reply for a minute. Then the door opened, and Mike’s displeased face appeared. He walked back to his desk and brought his face close to the screen, without saying anything. Brad and I looked at each other. Not a good day, we thought.

  “Mike”, I began, “we saw something very interesting today. I mean, very interesting”.

  Mike turned around slowly.

  “Iris added a polymer to the pudding and it swelled by at least ten times”, explained Brad. “The structure we saw under the microscopy was completely different from the original one. We went to look at the infrared spectrum of the pudding and it’s not the same anymore, the chemical bonding seems to be affected by the polymer”.

  “Changes in the chemical bonding don’t happen just because you add a polymer in the food”, Mike said drily.

  “That’s what we think too, but we cannot understand the spectrum”, I said, in an attempt to get around Mike’s bad temper.

  “I can have a look at the spectrum”, Mike conceded at last “but I am swamped. Mc Murrich asked me to summarize the work we have done in the lab in the last ten years, so she can talk about it in one of her conferences”.

  So that was it. Mike hated the industrial conferences where Mc Murrich advertised the golden standards of our labs.

  “The empty nonsense of industrial politics”, Mike grumbled angrily between his teeth, walking with Brad and me to the infrared spectroscopy room.

  He dragged a chair close to the computer. The spectra were on the screen, one beside the other. Mike looked at them in silence, rubbing his chin. We stood still behind him, waiting for his oracle.

  “I don’t understand this”, Mike said after a long while.

  Brad and I looked at each other in disbelief. If Mike didn’t know, nobody else would.

  Mike kept looking at the screen, and now his nose was almost touching it. “The bonds between the carbon atoms have changed”, he started, “But something happened to the nitrogen too. Based on this spectrum one would say that the proteins in the pudding aren’t the same anymore, as if they have been broken down in some way”.