Acceptable Risk

by Robin Cook

  “Two birds of a feather,” Stanton said. “My gorgeous, talented, sexy cousin here said the same thing when she arrived five seconds ago.”

  Kim felt her face suffuse with color. It was going to be a long evening. Stanton could not help being himself.

  “Relax, Ed,” Stanton continued as he poured him some wine. “You’re not late. I said around seven. You’re perfect.”

  “I just meant that you were all here waiting,” Edward said. He smiled self-consciously and lifted his glass as if in toast.

  “Good idea,” Stanton said, taking the hint and snatching up his glass. “Let me propose a toast. First I’d like to toast my darling cousin, Kimberly Stewart. She’s the best surgical intensive-care nurse at the MGH bar none.” Stanton then looked directly at Edward while everyone held their glasses in abeyance. “If you have to have your prostate plumbing patched up, just pray that Kimberly is available. She’s legendary with a catheter!”

  “Stanton, please!” Kim protested.

  “OK, OK,” Stanton said, extending his left hand as if to quiet an audience. “Let me get back to my toast of Kimberly Stewart. I would be derelict in my duty if I didn’t bring it to the group’s attention that her sterling genealogy extends back just shy of the Mayflower. That’s paternally, of course. Maternally she only goes back to the Revolutionary War, which, I might add, is my, inferior, side of the family.”

  “Stanton, this is hardly necessary,” Kim said. She was already mortified.

  “But there’s more,” Stanton said with the relish of a practiced after-dinner speaker. “Kimberly’s first relative to graduate from dear old Harvard did so in 1671. That was Sir Ronald Stewart, founder of Maritime, Ltd., as well as the current Stewart dynasty. And perhaps most interesting of all, Kimberly’s great-grandmother times eight was hanged for witchcraft in Salem. Now if that is not Americana I don’t know what is.”

  “Stanton, you can be such a pain,” Kim said, her anger overcoming her embarrassment for the moment. “That’s not information meant for public disclosure.”

  “And why the hell not?” Stanton questioned with a laugh. Looking back at Edward he said, “The Stewarts have this ridiculous hangup that such ancient history is a blight on the family name.”

  “Whether you think it is ridiculous or not, people have a right to their feelings,” Kim said hotly. “Besides, my mother is the one who is most concerned about the issue, and she’s your aunt and a former Lewis. My father has never said one thing about it to me.”

  “Whatever,” Stanton said with a wave. “Personally I find the story fascinating. I should be so lucky; it’s like having had a relative on the Mayflower or in the boat when Washington crossed the Delaware.”

  “I think we should change the subject,” Kim said.

  “Agreed,” Stanton said equably. He was the only one still holding up his glass of wine. It was a long toast. “That brings me to Edward Armstrong. Here’s to the most exciting, productive, creative, and intelligent neurochemist in the world, no, in the universe! Here’s to a man who has come from the streets of Brooklyn, put himself through school, and is now at the pinnacle of his chosen career. Here’s to a man who should be already booking a flight to Stockholm for his Nobel Prize, which he is a shoo-in to win for his work with neurotransmitters, memory, and quantum mechanics.”

  Stanton extended his wineglass and everybody followed suit. They clinked glasses and drank. As Kim set her glass back on the table she glanced furtively at Edward. It was apparent to her that he was equally as abashed and self-conscious as she.

  Stanton thumped his now empty glass on the table and proceeded to refill it. He glanced around at the other glasses, then jammed the wine bottle into its ice bucket. “Now that you two have met,” he said, “I expect you to fall in love, get married, and have plenty of darling kids. All I ask for my part in bringing you together in this fruitful union is that Edward agrees to serve on the scientific advisory board of Genetrix.”

  Stanton laughed heartily even though he was the only one to do so. When he recovered he said, “Okay, where the hell is the waiter? Let’s eat!”

  Outside the restaurant the group paused.

  “We could walk around the corner and get ice cream at Herrell’s,” Stanton suggested.

  “I couldn’t eat another thing,” Kim said.

  “Me neither,” Edward said.

  “I never eat dessert,” Candice said.

  “Then who wants a lift home?” Stanton asked. “I’ve got my car right here in the Holyoke Center garage.”

  “I’m happy with MTA,” Kim said.

  “My apartment is just a short walk,” Edward said.

  “Then you two are on your own,” Stanton said. After promising Edward he’d be in touch, Stanton took Candice’s arm and headed for the garage.

  “Can I walk you to the subway?” Edward asked.

  “I’d appreciate that,” Kim said.

  They headed off together. As they walked, Kim could sense that Edward wanted to say something. Just before they got to the corner he spoke. “It’s such a pleasant evening,” he said, struggling a bit with the p. His mild stutter had returned. “How about a little walk in Harvard Square before you head home?”

  “That would be great,” Kim said. “I’d enjoy it.”

  Arm in arm they walked to that complicated collision of Massachusetts Avenue, the JFK Drive portion of Harvard Street, Mt. Auburn Street, and Brattle Street. Despite its name it was hardly a square but rather a series of curved façades and curiously shaped open areas. On summer nights the area metamorphoses into a spontaneous, medieval-like sidewalk circus of jugglers, musicians, poetry readers, magicians, and acrobats.

  It was a warm, silky, summer night with a few nighthawks chirping high in the dark sky. There were even a few stars despite the glow from the city lights. Kim and Edward strolled around the entire square, pausing briefly at the periphery of each performer’s audience. Despite their mutual misgivings about the evening, ultimately they were enjoying themselves.

  “I’m glad I came out tonight,” Kim said.

  “So am I,” Edward said.

  Finally they sat down on a low concrete wall. To their left was a woman singing a plaintive ballad. To their right was a group of energetic Peruvian Indians playing indigenous panpipes.

  “Stanton is truly a character,” Kim said.

  “I didn’t know who to be more embarrassed for,” Edward said. “Me or you with the way he was carrying on.”

  Kim laughed in agreement. She’d felt just as uncomfortable when Stanton was toasting Edward as when he’d toasted her.

  “What I find amazing about Stanton is that he can be so manipulative and charming at the same time,” Kim said.

  “It is curious what he can get away with,” Edward agreed. “I could never do it in a million years. In fact I’ve always felt I’ve been a foil for Stanton. I’ve envied him, wishing I could be half as assertive. I’ve always been socially self-conscious, even a little nerdy.”

  “My feelings exactly,” Kim admitted. “I’ve always wanted to be more confident socially. But it just has never worked. I’ve been timid since I’ve been a little girl. When I’m in social situations, I never can think of the appropriate thing to say on the spur of the moment. Five minutes later I can, but then it’s always too late.”

  “Two birds of a feather, just as Stanton described us,” Edward said. “The trouble is Stanton is aware of our weaknesses, and he sure knows how to make us squirm. I die a slow death every time he brings up that nonsense about my being a shoo-in for the Nobel Prize.”

  “I apologize on behalf of my family,” Kim said. “At least he isn’t mean-spirited.”

  “How are you related?” Edward asked.

  “We’re true cousins,” Kim said. “My mother is Stanton’s father’s sister.”

  “I should apologize as well,” Edward said. “I shouldn’t speak ill of Stanton. He and I were classmates in medical school. I helped him in the lab, and he helpe
d me at parties. We made a pretty good team. We’ve been friends ever since.”

  “How come you haven’t teamed up with him in one of his entrepreneurial ventures?” Kim asked.

  “I’ve just never been interested,” Edward said. “I like academia, where the quest is for knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Not that I’m against applied science. It’s just not as engaging. In some respects academia and industry are at odds with each other, especially in regard to industry’s imperative of secrecy. Free communication is the lifeblood of science; secrecy is its bane.”

  “Stanton says he could make you a millionaire,” Kim said.

  Edward laughed. “And how would that change my life? I’m already doing what I want to do: a combination of research and teaching. Injecting a million dollars into my life would just complicate things and create bias. I’m happy the way I am.”

  “I tried to suggest as much to Stanton,” Kim said. “But he wouldn’t listen. He’s so headstrong.”

  “But still charming and entertaining,” Edward said. “He was certainly exaggerating about me when he was giving that interminable toast. But how about you? Can your family truly be traced back to seventeenth-century America?”

  “That much was true,” Kim said.

  “That’s fascinating,” Edward said. “It’s also impressive. I’d be lucky to trace my family back two generations, and then it would probably be embarrassing.”

  “It’s even more impressive to put oneself through school and become eminently successful in a challenging career,” Kim said. “That’s on your own initiative. I was merely born a Stewart. It took no effort on my behalf.”

  “What about the Salem witchcraft story?” Edward asked. “Is that true as well?”

  “It is,” Kim admitted. “But it’s not something I’m comfortable talking about.”

  “I’m terribly sorry,” Edward said. His stutter reappeared. “Please forgive me. I don’t understand why it would make any difference, but I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Kim shook her head. “Now I’m sorry for making you feel uncomfortable,” she said. “I suppose my response to the Salem witchcraft episode is silly, and to tell you the truth, I don’t even know why I feel uncomfortable about it. It’s probably because of my mother. She drummed it into me that it was something I wasn’t supposed to talk about. I know she thinks of it as a family disgrace.”

  “But it was more than three hundred years ago,” Edward said.

  “You’re right,” Kim said with a shrug. “It doesn’t make much sense.”

  “Are you familiar with the episode?” Edward asked.

  “I know the basics, I suppose,” Kim said. “Like everyone else in America.”

  “Curiously enough, I know a little more than most people,” Edward said. “Harvard University Press published a book on the subject which was written by two gifted historians. It’s called Salem Possessed. One of my graduate students insisted I read it since it won some kind of history award. So I read it, and I was intrigued. Why don’t I loan it to you?”

  “That would be nice,” Kim said just to be polite.

  “I’m serious,” Edward said. “You’ll like it, and maybe it will change the way you think about the affair. The social/political/religious aspects are truly fascinating. I learned a lot more than I expected. For instance, did you know that within a few years of the trials some of the jurors and even some of the judges publicly recanted and asked for pardon because they realized innocent people had been executed?”

  “Really,” Kim said, still trying to be polite.

  “But the fact that innocent people got hanged wasn’t what really grabbed me,” Edward said. “You know how one book leads to another. Well, I read another book called Poisons of the Past that had the most interesting theory, especially for a neuroscientist like myself. It suggested that at least some of the young women of Salem who were suffering strange ‘fits’ and who were responsible for accusing people of witchcraft were actually poisoned. The suggested culprit was ergot, which comes from a mold called Claviceps purpurea. Claviceps is a fungus that tends to grow on grain, particularly rye.”

  Despite Kim’s conditioned disinterest in the subject, Edward had caught her attention. “Poisoned by ergot?” she questioned. “What would that do?”

  “Ooo-wee!” Edward rolled his eyes. “Remember that Beatles song, ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’? Well, it would have been something like that because ergot contains lysergic acid amide, which is the prime ingredient of LSD.”

  “You mean they would have experienced hallucinations and delusions?” Kim asked.

  “That’s the idea,” Edward said. “Ergotism either causes a gangrenous reaction, which can be rapidly fatal, or a convulsive, hallucinogenic reaction. In Salem it would have been the convulsive, hallucinogenic one, tending more on the hallucinogenic side.”

  “What an interesting theory,” Kim said. “It might even interest my mother. Maybe she’d feel differently about our ancestor if she knew of such an explanation. It would be hard to blame the individual under those circumstances.”

  “That was my thought,” Edward said. “But at the same time it can’t be the whole story. Ergot might have been the tinder that ignited the fire, but once it started it turned into a firestorm on its own accord. From the reading I’ve done I think people exploited the situation for economic and social reasons, although not necessarily on a conscious level.”

  “You’ve certainly piqued my curiosity,” Kim said. “Now I feel embarrassed I’ve never been curious enough to read anything about the Salem witch trials other than the little I did in high school. I should be particularly ashamed since my executed ancestor’s property is still in the family’s possession. In fact, due to a minor feud between my father and my late grandfather, my brother and I inherited it just this year.”

  “Good grief!” Edward said. “You mean to tell me your family has kept that land for three hundred years?”

  “Well, not the entire tract,” Kim said. “The original tract included land in what is now Beverly, Danvers, and Peabody, as well as Salem. Even the Salem part of the property is only a portion of what it had been. Yet it is still a sizable tract. I’m not sure how many acres, but quite a few.”

  “That’s still extraordinary,” Edward said. “The only thing I inherited was my father’s dentures and a few of his masonry tools. To think that you can walk on land where your seventeenth-century relatives trod blows my mind. I thought that kind of experience was reserved for European royalty.”

  “I can even do better than just walking on the land,” Kim said. “I can even go into the house. The old house still stands.”

  “Now you’re pulling my leg,” Edward said. “I’m not that gullible.”

  “I’m not fooling,” Kim said. “It’s not that unusual. There are a lot of seventeenth-century houses in the Salem area, including ones that belonged to other executed witches like Rebecca Nurse.”

  “I had no idea,” Edward said.

  “You ought to visit the Salem area sometime,” Kim said.

  “What shape is the house in?” Edward asked.

  “Pretty good, I guess,” Kim said. “I haven’t been in it for ages, not since I was a child. But it looks okay for a house built in 1670. It was bought by Ronald Stewart. It was his wife, Elizabeth, who was executed.”

  “I remember Ronald’s name from Stanton’s toast,” Edward said. “He was the first Harvard man in the Stewart clan.”

  “I wasn’t aware of that,” Kim said.

  “What are you and your brother going to do with the property?”

  “Nothing for the time being,” Kim said. “At least not until Brian gets back from England where he’s currently running the family shipping business. He’s supposed to be home in a year or so, and we’ll decide then. Unfortunately the property is a white elephant considering the taxes and upkeep.”

  “Did your grandfather live in the old house?” Edward asked.

  “Oh, goodne
ss no,” Kim said. “The old house hasn’t been lived in for years. Ronald Stewart bought a huge tract of land that abutted the original property and built a larger house, keeping the original house for tenants or servants. Over the years the larger house has been torn down and rebuilt many times. The last time was around the turn of the century. That was the house my grandfather lived in. Well, rattled around in would be a better term. It’s a huge, drafty old place.”

  “I bet that old house has historical value,” Edward said.

  “The Peabody-Essex Institute in Salem as well as the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities in Boston have both expressed interest in purchasing it,” Kim said. “But my mother is against the idea. I think she’s afraid of dredging up the witchcraft issue.”

  “That’s too bad,” Edward said. Once again his slight stutter returned.

  Kim looked at him. He seemed to be fidgeting while pretending to watch the Peruvians.

  “Is something wrong?” Kim asked. She could sense his unease.

  “No,” Edward said a little too forcefully. He pondered for a minute and then said, “I’m sorry, and I know I shouldn’t ask this, and you should just say no if it’s not convenient. I mean, I’d understand.”

  “What is it?” Kim asked. She was mildly apprehensive.

  “It’s just that I read those books I told you about,” Edward said. “What I mean to say is that I’d really like to see that old house. I know it is presumptuous of me to ask.”

  “I’d be happy to show it to you,” Kim said with relief. “I have Saturday off this week. We could drive up there then if it’s convenient for you. I can get the keys from the lawyers.”

  “It wouldn’t be too much of a bother?” Edward asked.

  “Not at all,” Kim said.

  “Saturday would be perfect,” Edward said. “In exchange perhaps you’d like to go to dinner Friday night?”

  Kim smiled. “I accept. But now I think I’d better be getting home. The seven-thirty shift at the hospital starts awfully early.”

  They slid off the concrete wall and strolled toward the subway entrance.