‘Should we go in, or would you rather we get drenched first?’
I apologize and press the buzzer above the label marked ‘Unit 42’. A sputter, then the door opens.
‘Come in,’ Paul de Kermeur calls out from his microscope. ‘Let me just finish this observation and I’ll be right with you.’
He doesn’t look at all like what I’d imagined. I’d pictured a mandarin embittered by persecutions, crew cut, stiff as a board, square glasses. Instead, he’s an anxious little man with a gray ponytail, wearing a sailor’s sweater and hip-hop pants.
‘Why did Harris tell me it was Gorytini if it’s Thynnidae?’
I swallow my answer. Muriel told me to go slow.
‘I had them shipped all the way from Australia!’ he says with audible annoyance.
I confirm that it’s the Thynnidae that pollinate the Drakea. He detaches a red-ringed eye from his microscope.
‘Drakea? I thought it was the hammer orchid!’
‘It’s the same plant. It was named after Miss Drake, the English botanist who wondered how it managed to reproduce when its pollen didn’t attract any insects.’
‘Did she think it was the wind, like Darwin?’
‘That’s not entirely wrong, insofar as the wind helps it spread the pheromones of female Thynnidae.’
‘But it could also attract the Gorytini.’
‘No, Paul. Mimetic labelli only attract males of like species. That monogamy explains why the hammer orchid never makes any hybrids.’
I meet Muriel’s gaze as she watches us in turn, squinting and biting her lips. Her jubilation at realizing she was right to trust me takes years off her face.
‘Don’t translate, whatever you do,’ she whispers in my ear. ‘I love it.’
‘Just a moment, let me check the reactions and then I’m all yours,’ my colleague says, burying his face in the microscope once more. ‘Have a seat.’
I pull Muriel across a jumble of file folders, electrical cables, insect cages, and plant samples crammed between the mattresses and metal cabinets. I clear off part of a chair for her and sit down on a stack of books.
‘So Thynnidae and Gorytini are what, some kind of wasp?’ Muriel summarizes.
I tell her to forget about Gorytini: I spent six months in the Australian bush proving that Miss Drake had been mistaken.
‘And what do Thynnidae look like?’
‘Like ants. They feed on beetle larvae that live parasitically on the roots. This means they have to live underground, and because of that they’ve lost their wings, which couldn’t help them dig subterranean tunnels. They only come out when it’s time to reproduce, to attract a mate by climbing onto a flower.’
‘The hammer orchid.’
‘No. Only the male Thynnidae interests the orchid, because he’s kept his wings. So to attract him, the orchid has devised an ingenious stratagem: it recreates the odor of the female, before she has even come out from underground. Her imitated sexual pheromones imbibe the pollen stem; the male dives in to copulate, wriggles about in vain, and leaves frustrated when he realizes he’s been had. Frustrated but covered in pollen, which he transports to other flowers – and the trick has been successful.’
‘That orchid’s a real cow.’
‘Just survival instinct.’
‘And that took you six months to figure out.’
‘It lasts less than a second. False copulation. No one had ever observed it or captured it on film. What Paul’s trying to do is recreate the process in the laboratory on a genetically modified Drakea, to measure the influence of the mutation on the Thynnidae’s behavior.’
‘So the guy who’s claiming to be you got the wrong wasp.’
‘That proves one thing: he’s read the latest issue of Nature. I was looking at it on the plane. A researcher at Oxford wrote up my discovery without citing me, on top of which she confused Gorytini with Thynnidae.’
‘Everyone’s ripping you off, in other words.’
I grab her wrist in a rush of nerves.
‘Do you believe me, Muriel?’
She replies with a vague gesture.
‘I never finished high school, the farthest I’ve ever traveled is Corsica, and I’m allergic to bee stings. So you could tell me anything …’
She raises a hand so that I’ll let her finish.
‘… but I find all this amusing, and interesting, and it rings true. There you go. You’re a scientist, that much is obvious. I don’t know if you’re who you say, but at least you’re that.’
I swallow my saliva and tell her thank you.
‘You do me more good than you know, Muriel. You can only be called a liar so many times before you start doubting the truth … I didn’t think it was possible.’
‘Tell me about it. My ex made up so many stories about me during the divorce, it took me months to repair the damage. The more I tried to explain to my kids, the less they believed me. In the end I was forced to lie just to sound credible. When I got my daughter back, she was practically suicidal. Don’t think I’ve become involved in your problems just because I drove you into the Seine.’
I lower my eyes and nod.
‘So, you’re a friend of Martin’s,’ says Paul de Kermeur, walking toward us.
Re-energized by Muriel’s words, I leap to my feet and say, ‘No.’ She grabs my left hand and squeezes my fingers so that I’ll take it easy.
‘It’s fascinating working with him,’ he continues, ignoring my answer.
‘Have you been working together long?’
‘Six days. And even then, he’s only come here once, he’s been sick. A sore throat he picked up on the flight over.’
‘Of course,’ I say, with a knowing look toward Muriel. ‘He can’t talk, so he won’t give himself away.’
‘Give himself away?’
I stare him in the face with the friendliest look I can muster, rest my hands on his shoulders, and recite to him the last email I sent him from Yale. He interrupts, pointing at me.
‘You’re Rodney, his assistant.’
‘No, I’m him. Or rather, he’s trying to pass himself off as me.’
‘What?’
Muriel takes over, tells him about the accident, my awakening in the hospital, my discovery of a stranger wearing my pajamas. He listens to all this with raised eyebrows, forehead in ripples, then turns toward me.
‘Is this your wife?’
‘No, my wife is with him.’
His ponytail comes undone. He quickly gathers his hair in his fist, twists it, and ties it back up.
‘I’ve seen Mrs Harris!’
‘When you handed her the keys to the apartment at the Café des Galeries,’ I quickly add, so as not to give him time to doubt me. ‘The day we arrived. I’d just hopped into this woman’s cab to return to the airport, because I’d left my computer … By the way, Paul, when you saw him, was he carrying a PowerBook?’
‘Huh? Uh, yes, I think so … Wait a minute. Are you saying that I’ve been working with an impostor?’
‘Would you agree to tell that to the police?’
‘Why not to the newspapers, while we’re at it! Sure! I waste the taxpayers’ money by involving the INRA in a series of joint experiments with an impostor!’
He drops onto a crate, deflated.
‘Who would do such a thing to me? It couldn’t be Topik, could it?’
‘Topik who?’
‘The Nobel winner. He accused me of fraud in Le Monde, when I demonstrated that genetic modifications in corn mess up the DNA Supra-code and can lead to the generation of new viruses. We’re government employees, here at the INRA; that means he’s implicating me in abuse of funds. I slapped him with a libel suit, so he’s been trying to discredit me any way he can … But even so …’ He resumes three seconds later, his voice lower: ‘Your story doesn’t hold water.’
I point out that it’s his story. He stands up vehemently.
‘But still, you can’t just pass yourself off as someone else tha
t easily! There are identity papers, fingerprints … No? What? What did I say?’
‘Thank you. I hadn’t thought about fingerprints.’
I whisper to Muriel that I’ll go get them at the consulate, so they can be compared. Surely they must be on file somewhere in the States.
‘And besides,’ Kermeur says suddenly, grabbing my sleeve. ‘What if it’s you who’s trying to con me, and you’re the one passing himself off as Martin Harris?’
Muriel breaks in to certify that the other one started it, and then she turns toward me, her mouth crooked. No doubt she’s just realized that all she knows about my confrontations with him is what I’ve told her. Seeing the two of them staring at me like fish waiting for food behind the glass is enough to give me a stroke.
‘Listen, there’s no point in arguing about it. Call that man, Paul, and make him come here, sore throat or not – anyway, I saw him not an hour ago and his voice was fine, he was perfectly healthy! Tell him something important has come up, and whatever you do, don’t mention me or he’ll get suspicious.’
‘Wait a minute, wait a minute … How do I know you’re not a spy for Monsanto?’
I stare at him open-mouthed. Muriel asks who that is.
‘A multinational that’s marketing GMOs – that’s genetically modified foods to you – supposedly to combat world hunger, but really to control the worldwide market with grains that have to be bought again every year!’
He stabs his finger at me and explains to her, getting more and more heated with every sentence, that I could have been sent by Monsanto to learn how far he and Martin have gotten in their experiments on the dangers of GMOs.
‘You don’t really think we’re going to reveal all that to you, do you?’ he continues, advancing toward me. ‘That would be too easy! Your bosses will have to come up with another plan to find out what’s in store for them!’
‘Cut it out, Paul. I know everything, okay? I know everything because it’s me. If anyone is working for Monsanto, it’s the guy who’s trying to take my place, and maybe you’re right, maybe that’s it …’
‘I refuse to take that risk! Get out of here!’
‘No, listen, you’re the one in control, you’re the one who’ll decide! You’ll have us both right in front of you and you can square us off against each other. You know most of my work – you’ll be able to tell who’s the genuine article.’
‘This is insane,’ he sighs, wiping his forehead on the back of his sleeve. ‘I’ve got to finish my presentation to the Medical Academy. I don’t have time for …’ He stops, looks me in the eye, and says slowly, ‘How did I first hear about your work?’
‘It was during a murder trial in Wisconsin, when the judge ruled to allow plants as witnesses. You read my testimony on the internet, how I was able to determine the guilty party, and you contacted me.’
He folds his arms, raises his right hand, and bites his fingernail, never taking his eyes off me.
‘Keep going.’
I search for the one detail that will bring him definitively to my side, but I realize that with the Net, anyone can gain access to anything. Even so, the reporters covering the case must have left out certain details that only I could know.
‘There had been a crime in a greenhouse. No witnesses, three possible suspects. I suggested to the judge that we attach my electrodes to the hydrangeas, and we paraded twelve people in front of them, one after another, including the three suspects. Suddenly the needle on the galvanometer started going crazy in front of the victim’s brother. It wasn’t that the plants had sent out an electric signal to help bring him to justice – they couldn’t care less. But he and the victim had grappled in the greenhouse, there had been some broken stems, and the aggressor revived the trauma, triggering a system of electrochemical alert from one hydrangea to the other. Under the shock, the killer confessed.’
I stare into Muriel’s eyes as I finish my story.
‘That’s unbelievable,’ she murmurs.
Kermeur signals impatiently for her to be quiet and snaps at me, ‘What do I expect to get out of working with you?’
‘Proof of double contamination. You believe that genetically modified plants would accelerate their mutations and communicate them to the normal plants around them, which would then defend themselves with a gaseous signal, and that signal in turn would further increase the speed of incoherent mutations in GMOs.’
‘What am I basing that on?’
‘My experiments on heightened tannin levels in acacia leaves in response to antelope attacks.’
‘Where do we differ?’
‘The only mutations I’ve observed are responses to external stimuli. But so far nothing has led me to conclude that the insertion of a gene to ward off meal moths is dangerous enough to modify the DNA. On the other hand, I proved that it was totally useless: corn can already protect itself by creating a gaseous message that attracts predators of the meal moth, but pesticides prevent this message from spreading. If we do away with genetic modifications and pesticides, corn will again be able to protect itself, at no cost and no risk.’
‘What’s my nephew’s name?’
I look at him, at a loss. I rack my brain, run through lists of names. The suspense in Muriel’s eyes and the ticking of the wall clock give off the pathetic atmosphere of a television game show.
‘Well?’ he says impatiently.
‘Hold on,’ Muriel protests. ‘He got all your experiments point for point …’
‘That doesn’t prove anything – he could have hacked into our emails and memorized them. It’s the intimate details that tell the story, the ones no one thinks are important. So what’s my nephew’s name?’
‘I’m thinking …’
‘And yet, I talked about him all the time,’ he insists, his face contorted.
‘Yes, I know … He’s thirteen, you’ve raised him since his parents’ accident, he doesn’t get along with your new wife, he’s no good in math but terrific in Spanish, he’s going out with a girl called Charlotte …’
‘You remember all that?’ says Kermeur, surprised.
The new sympathy with which he listens to me raises my nervous tension by a notch.
‘… one of his three hamsters is sick and he’s treating it with antibiotics. He himself refuses to take anything homeopathic, just to stick it to you – those were your words. Right now he’s at camp in the Haute-Savoie, he writes to say that he’s stuffing his face with GMOs at every meal, but when it comes to his name, I’m sorry, I’m drawing a blank … So what’s your conclusion? That I’m an agent for Monsanto? All I can come up with is a bogus first name.’
He picks up the phone and dials a number taped to the wall. I walk closer. The impostor’s cell phone has the same prefix as the one I lost in the Seine. Liz bought him a prepaid.
‘Martin Harris? Hello, it’s Kermeur. I hope you’re feeling better. Listen, I need to see you right away, there’s an administrative inspection by the INRA head office. They need your signature on the project authorization and a letter of intent for information exchange with Yale. I’ll be waiting.’ Then, to me: ‘He’s coming,’ he says, hanging up. His voice is very neutral. Then he looks at Muriel and continues in a sad, small voice, ‘Aurelien. A lovely name, don’t you think? My sister came up with it.’
Half an hour has gone by. Sitting in a corner of the lab with food trays, we listen to Paul de Kermeur’s woes while munching on cafeteria chicken. I’ve tried my best to bring the conversation back to me, but he’s avoiding the subject, saying he doesn’t want me to influence him: he has to maintain his impartiality to catch me out. The phrase sticks in my throat. Like many unhappy souls, Kermeur has an unrepentant egotism, a sincere lack of interest in other people’s problems, and not the slightest conscience about boring his listeners to tears. He has pummeled us successively with his sister’s death agony, the insecurities of schoolboys, the effect of antibiotics on puberty, and the disarray of the Socialist Party, in which he’s been campaign
ing in vain for the past twenty years for an increase in research credits. Passing from resigned desolation to bilious revolt, he moves from topic to topic with the apparent aim of not letting me get a word in, and of not having to think. No doubt this is his concept of impartiality.
‘Ah, there he is!’ he cries out, hearing the electric bell.
He leaps to his short legs, runs to push the lock release, pulls up his baggy pants, and reties his ponytail, as if he were the one about to stand trial. I exchange a worried glance with Muriel, seek out her hand under the table. I meet only her knee, which she moves away. I don’t take my eyes off her. She stares at the tall blond who has just come in and barely hides her surprise – not to say her preference. I know the comparison isn’t in my favor: he is as brilliant as I am dull. Impeccably dressed, elegant, tanned, a precise robot giving off all the self-confidence that I lack. I seem like such a rough draft next to him … Following Muriel’s reactions out of the corner of my eye, I can feel how much better he plays the part of me than I do. He doesn’t need to open his mouth in order to be convincing: he looks like a Martin Harris.
‘So,’ the biogeneticist begins calmly, ‘you’ve got a double?’
The other man freezes in the middle of the cages, looks at me and grinds his teeth. I slowly stand up. I wipe my mouth with the paper napkin, very calm, settled, master of the situation. He turns wholly toward Kermeur: ‘Now I understand why you called. Ms Pontaut didn’t know anything about an inspection.’
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