An Imperfect Lens (24 page)

JACOB WAS FOLLOWED wherever he went. Several Englishmen were at the corner when he emerged from his quarters in the morning. Several others stood outside his warehouse all through the day, leaning against the wall, reading their newspapers, smoking their cigarettes, wiping their brows in the heat, swatting at flies. When he went to dinner with his friend, they were there in the small restaurant at a nearby table. What had he done? What did they suspect him of, and how could he show them that he was a person of a law-abiding nature, that he had no opinion about politics? He did not care if England or France or Germany or the Ottomans or the Egyptians or the Indians took the taxes from the country in which he was living. He only wanted his small chance at finding a place of comfort for himself and the wife he would one day have and the children he intended to father. What were the British waiting for him to do? The fever he thought he had beaten back forever returned and he had to stay in bed for several days until it subsided again. He did not want to die in Jerusalem, so far from his family. He was not a young man given to self-pity, but under these circumstances, when there was no one to pity him, he sometimes succumbed. What an absurd thing to do, to write an article, to be proud of one’s words in print, and to think you could change the real world by what you said about it.

LYDIA WAITED FOR the mail to arrive. Each day she was at home an hour before the time it usually appeared. She was concerned because it had been some time since she had heard from Jacob. It was time for another letter to arrive. Day after day, no letter arrived. She was also uneasy about her daughter. Perhaps Este was only enjoying her work in the laboratory. She seemed to be learning so much, but the child had a new secretiveness, a veiled glance, as if she were holding something back. She could hardly look at her mother, not directly. Lydia knew that her daughter had taken a step away from her, but she had no idea why. She looked through Este’s dresser and vanity, and found nothing that would explain her remote manner. Perhaps she was imagining it. Perhaps everything was fine. She did not believe everything was fine. When she spoke to her husband, he ignored her. “Please,” he said, not in his kindest voice, “you are merely having an attack of nerves.” She felt it, however, the wrongness of things.

ALBERT’S FATHER HAD instructed him to visit the Malinas. There were matters of public gossip that needed to be put to rest, and if Abraham Malina could find his way to forgive Albert for his loss of temper and understand that the young man had changed his ways and regretted his impulsive act and was in fact the very person that Este should marry, as everyone had known all along, that indeed would be a very good thing.

Albert sent a long, apologetic note to Este. He explained that Achmed had cheated him, but said he should never have fought with him. He was ashamed of his actions. He was in mourning over the loss of her affections. He wanted only to repair the breach between them. He would do anything she asked, he would give her anything she wanted, if only she would see him and give him some reason to hope. She read the note carefully and then gave it to her mother. Este said, “I have other possibilities.”

Lydia paid no attention to her daughter. She gave the note to her husband, who said, “I’m not in favor of this marriage, and a fawning note will not change my mind.”

Albert’s father came to Dr. Malina in his office and was greeted cordially but with reserve. He said that his son was truly penitent and had promised to behave himself in the future. He said that he had always admired Este and would wish their families to be united through marriage. Abraham was touched by the kind words. He saw that the man was sincere, but he also thought he knew human nature, and he would prefer a different husband for his child, one without a history of violence and whatever sleight of hand was involved in the business with the ring. “Let us give it a little time,” he said. “Este needs to recover from her disappointment.” He knew this was not true, even as he said it, but there was no sense in offending his visitor.

THE WAR, THE endless war between man and bacteria, is never won entirely, by one side or the other. Truces are declared, time and again. Truces are broken, time and again. When all the vulnerable have been infected, when the rains and the rivers rise to dilute the concentration of swarming infestation, when the majority of human beings who remain were always protected against this particular enemy and many of those who remain have survived an attack and their bodies are armed and now impenetrable, then the enemy dies instead of kills. Then the enemy becomes weaker and weaker, fewer and fewer in number, until it disappears for a while, beaten back to another shore. It needs a large enough pool of fresh bodies to infect. It must move rapidly from the human it killed an hour ago to the human it will kill within hours. When it waits in vain for another opportunity, it withers, it dries, it disappears into that swirl of matter, organic and inorganic, that has no pity and is unimpressed with former glories. The cholera microbe becomes like a toothless lion, hiding in the brush, awaiting the hunter. The community breathes a sigh of relief. The religious thank their God, the superstitious credit their copper bracelets, their amulets, their burning of incense. The scientists know that the enemy has overreached as it always does, like Napoleon in the snows of Russia.

The number of cases starts to decrease rapidly, as if, numerically speaking, graphically speaking, it had fallen off a high cliff. So it was that the reported deaths from cholera in Alexandria plunged downward and the Committee of Public Safety was enormously pleased. Some thought that their efforts at sanitation had defeated the enemy. Some thought it was their prayers that were at last being heard. Dr. Malina felt as if a burden had been lifted from his already burdened shoulders. Cholera was departing, back on the ships it arrived on, or back to the dust that had given it birth, back to the muddy rivers and the seas in which it bred. He had no illusions. This was not the last of it. It would not remain curled in sleep, innocent as a newborn suckling at its mother’s breast, it would not be dormant ever after. But for now, in Alexandria, the tide had turned and the disease would disappear within weeks. Alexandria outlasted the invaders as it had other conquerors, Alexander himself, Brutus and Antony, Amr and Muhammad, pashas good and bad, the French and soon the British.

This dismayed Dr. Koch, who needed fresh cholera tissue to examine to confirm his suspicions. Meanwhile, he walked about like a woman in the early months of pregnancy, a great secret hidden within. He asked everywhere for bowel and bladder tissue of cholera victims. He obtained a small amount. Cholera still existed in Alexandria, but each day it retreated. There was now a paucity of cholera-contaminated tissue.

THAT CHOLERA WAS leaving Alexandria was clear also to the members of the French mission. They, too, had trouble finding fresh material. They, too, had exhausted the samples of cholera victims, guts, eyes, legs, bowels, stomachs, that a few weeks before had been so easy to obtain. “Marcus,” Emile said, “take a carriage to the countryside. See if the villages have any new cases of cholera.”

It took Marcus a day to reach a village along the Nile in which cholera had claimed a victim just the night before. And the family accepted his considerable offer of financial reward for their participation in modern science. It took him another day to return to the laboratory with the tissues already decaying and the smell from his box so odious that the carriage driver threatened to leave him on the road hours out of the city.

Several cases of cholera appeared around the train station among the vendors of nuts, and in a newspaper boy. All the victims died. When word came to the French mission of the newsboy’s death, Nocard and Louis rushed to his home only to find that Dr. Koch had just left, having harvested all the critical organs.

Emile Roux sent a telegram to Pasteur, saying,
We will pack up
and book passage back to France as soon as possible.
Robert Koch had in his hands a telegram from the Academy of Medicine in Berlin. There was a report of an outbreak of cholera in Calcutta. The numbers were still small, but each day they increased. There the disease was growing in strength even as it was fading in Alexandria. He sat at his favorite table in his favorite café on the Grand Square and made a list of his options. Return to Berlin and wait for the cholera to come closer to him so he could conclude his work, or persuade the Academy to finance his voyage to Calcutta. He could also stay in Alexandria and hope that in the waning days of the disease he could find enough tissue samples to test his observations. Days had gone by and he had not found it again, this
vibrio,
a swimming monster. When he closed his eyes he could see it racing across the darkness of his eyelid. He drank a beer. He brushed the crumbs from a cake off his pants. He made a decision. He would go to India. The cholera he was so sure he had seen must not be allowed to get away.

Emile and Paul and Louis sat at a sidewalk café in the early evening and decided to book their passage back to France. They agreed that they would use their remaining days in Alexandria to continue their work on swine fever. This had occupied Pasteur for the preceding year. Louis had himself gone to Hungary to vaccinate pigs at the Animal Institute there. Perhaps the pigs in Egypt would reveal some aspect of the disease that might be helpful. They had not said it aloud, but they each knew it and they each felt it deeply. They had failed to find the cholera microbe, and in failing they had disappointed Pasteur and in failing they had disappointed France and in addition had spent large sums of money to no purpose. They would not be hailed in Paris as heroes. They were not heroes. Was there something else that they should have tried, was there some other path they should have taken? Emile had dark circles under his eyes. He was not sleeping. The three men shared a common shame.

Nevertheless, the following evening they arrived promptly at the Academy’s reception. Emile wore his red tie and his striped waistcoat. Louis had on a blue jacket that Marcus had insisted he have made for him by one of Alexandria’s more famous tailors. Edmond was wearing a somewhat wrinkled green jacket he had saved for just such an occasion, but that did not button over his vest. He did not like dressing up, or so he said, and repeated all the way to the large, white-columned building in which the academy had its home.

“Don’t drink the water,” Emile reminded Louis as they walked up the stairs. “It’s still dangerous to drink the water,” he added as Louis looked at him irritated. Louis knew as well as he did to continue to be cautious. There were butlers serving champagne. There was a table of fresh meats and fruits and little plates at the side. The room was lit with gas lamps with golden tassels attached to their bases. The women were dressed in their best laces and silks. The curtains were pulled back and the warm Alexandrian air entered the room. In the corner a violinist and a cellist played, although no one was listening. The president of the Alexandrian Academy of Scientists embraced each of the three members of the French mission in turn. Dr. Koch entered, accompanied by his assistant Gaffkey. Several young men from the university pressed around him, asking questions about anthrax. Word of his success on anthrax had electrified the community the year before. Dr. Koch peered around his admirers and signaled greetings to Nocard and Roux. Emile was captured by the wife of a diplomat who was hoping to be stationed soon in Paris. “We want to return to our home,” said the wife. “Perhaps if you meet someone in the Foreign Ministry, you will speak for us, I will give you our card.” Emile made a promise he did not expect to keep. He did not dine with members of the Foreign Ministry. The mirrors on the walls of the room reflected the red threads woven into the carpets, the shine of the men’s buttons, the ribbons and the gold and silver medals on the chests of many of the men. Only the servants brought in the native air with their tunics and their slippers and their dark skins.

The French consul general was there and greeted Edmond warmly. He said nothing about government funds wasted. His wife immediately pulled Edmond aside to talk about the stomach problems of her cat, with whom Nocard was acquainted. This was a good conversation. The kittens had been born. Madame Cecile described each, the color, the disposition, the size of their paws. The smallest one had died. Edmond explained to her why this was not as sad as it seemed. She put her arm on his sleeve and thanked him for putting an end to her not insignificant grief for this unfortunate newborn. The two stayed close together, discussing the habits of cats and the ways to increase their life span.

Louis hung back along the far side of the room, against the wall, until he saw Este arrive with her parents. He waited a few moments as she spoke with an older man and kissed him on the cheek. She accepted the offer of a glass of champagne. She left her mother’s side to talk with a young woman who whispered something in her ear. Louis walked over to her. “I hoped you’d be here,” she said, softly. Her friend drifted off after a brief introduction. “Papa hates these affairs and didn’t want to come, but Mother convinced him it is good for me to be seen in company.”

“I would have been disappointed if you had not come,” said Louis, then was embarrassed by his words. He was afraid to look at her face. But she was smiling at him. The crowd grew. He walked with her to one side of the large room, catching Emile’s eye as he moved behind a pillar. He missed Emile’s encouraging wave, so intent was he on Este’s shoulders moving under her lace mantel, her black hair, his beating heart. Louis was not a man who easily found his tongue. But now he knew he had to speak.

“Este,” he said, “I have grown accustomed to your presence in our laboratory.” She smiled at him and waited. “I am not a man of words,” he said.

“I know that,” she said, and there was silence between them.